Questões de Concurso

Like many homeless people in America, Derek Forter’s story is not one of crime or bad choices. Instead, he was a casualty of the economic recession.

"One day my company laid off half its employees. Soon I was behind on my rent, and before I knew it I’d lost my apartment.”

Imagem: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/

To make matters worse, Derek could not secure employment and thinks he knows why.

“I would show up in my cleanest pants and shirt, but I knew I didn’t represent myself well – the other applicants all looked so much more professional. It really affected my self-esteem.”

Luckily, through a local agency, Derek got in touch with Look the Part, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping homeless people join the workforce. Their motto: Look the part.

“They were phenomenal, giving me a complete makeover inside and out. Not only did they get me a haircut too. Then, they helped with my resume, and we practiced mock interviews. I was more confident than ever, and I nailed my next interview. I’ve been working ever since, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

Unfortunately, the demand for services like those provided by Look the Part far outweighs their current capabilities. And even though there are other similar organizations, like JobReady and First Impressions, there are many people still struggling to find employment.

In: American Inside Out Evolution. Student’s book Advanced B. KAY, Sue et all. Macmillan Publishers, São Paulo: 2028. Adaptado

TEXT 1

Why is music good for the brain?

October 7,2020

By Andrew E. Budson, MD, Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

1. Can music really affect your well-being, learning, cognitive function, quality of life, and even happiness? Hand in a recent survey on music and brain health conducted by AARP revealed some interesting findings about the impact of music on cognitive and emotional well-being: music listeners had higher scores for mental well-being and slightly reduced levels of anxiety and depression compared to people overall.

2. Of survey respondents who currently go to musical performances,69% rated their brain health as “excellent” or “very good, ” compared to 58% for those who went in the past and 52% for those who never attended. Of those who reported often being exposed to music as a child,68% rated their ability to learn new things as “excellent” or “very good, ” compared to 50% of those who were not exposed to music.

3. Active musical engagement, including those over age 50, was associated with higher rates of happiness and good cognitive function. Adults with no early music exposure but who currently engage in some music appreciation show above average mental well-being scores. Those are pretty impressive results, to be sure. However, this 20-minute online survey has some limitations. For one, it included 3,185 US adults ages 18 and older; that is a small number if you are extrapolating to 328 million people across the country. For another, it is really a survey of people’s opinions. For example, although people might report their brain health as “excellent, ” there was no objective measure of brain health such as an MRI scan, or even a test to measure their cognition.

4. Lastly, even if the ratings were true, the findings are only correlations. They do not prove that, for example, it was the exposure to music as a child that led to one’s improved ability to learn new things. It may be equally likely that those children brought up in more affluent households were both more likely to be exposed to music and to be given a good education that led to their being able to easily learn new things later in life.

5. Music has been shown to activate some of the broadest and most diverse networks of the brain. Of course, music activates the auditory cortex in the temporal lobes close to your ears, but that’s just the beginning. The parts of the brain involved in emotion are not only activated during emotional music, they are also synchronized. Music also activates a variety of memory regions. And, interestingly, music activates the motor system. In fact, it has been theorized that it is the activation of the brain’s motor system that allows us to pick out the beat of the music even before we start tapping our foot to it!

6. Okay, get along! so music activates just about all of the brain. Why is that so important? Well, have you ever heard the expression, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”? It turns out this is actually true in the brain. Brain pathways — and even whole networks — are strengthened when they are used and are weakened when they are not used. The reason is that the brain is efficient; it isn’t going to bother keeping a brain pathway strong when it hasn’t been used in many years. The brain will use the neurons in that pathway for something else. These types of changes should be intuitively obvious to you — that’s why it is harder to speak that foreign language if you haven’t used it in 20 years; many of the old pathways have degraded and the neurons are being used for other purposes.

BUDSON, Andrew E. Why is music good for the brain? Harvard Health Publishing,7 out.2020. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 12 maio 2024