Questões de Concurso

Read the text on climate change and answer question

According to all measurements, climate change is happening. But scientists appears to be split on what to do about it. Unfortunately, scientists do not all agree about the causes of global warming. In a recent book, two scientists – Fred Singer, a climate physicist, and Dennis Avery, a biologist – argue that the warming currently observed around the world is part of a 1,500-year cycle in solar energy. Singer, an outspoken critic of the idea that humans are warming the planet, and Avery, believe that a well established,1,500 year cycle in the Earth’s climate can explain most of the global warming that has taken place in the last 100 years. We are currently in an upswing, getting back on the downswing, and getting colder again. They say that efforts to slow down the current warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases are at best pointless, or at worst economically damaging. This, of course, is not what the fourth assessment report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a few weeks ago. That report from UN climate science working group has concluded that it is likely that rising greenhouse gas concentrations have caused most recent warming and that, depending on our actions now to slow he growth of emissions, warming by 2100 will probably be between about 1.5ºC and 6º C. So, which scientists tell us the truth?

From: VINCE, Michael. Macmillan English Grammar in context. Oxford: Macmillan,2008. p 30.

Read the text about a tribute to Franz Kafka for the question

Google Doodle celebrates Franz Kafka’s 130th birthday with ‘The Metamorphosis’ tribute Google has created a ‘doodle’ in tribute to Franz Kafka on the 130th anniversary of the Germanlanguage novelist’s birth.

The doodle is based on Kafka’s 1915 novella ‘The Metamorphosis’ – considered by many to be one of the most important works of fiction of the 20th Century – and shows the character Gregor Samsa walking into a room in the guise of a large insect.

In the much-celebrated work, Samsa is a travelling salesman who transforms into an insect overnight. The rest of novella focuses on his struggle to come to terms with his new existence and the burden it places on his family.

Kafka was born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family on 3 July 1883 in Prague, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He originally trained as a lawyer but began writing short stories in his spare time - eventually coming to consider it his calling – despite only a handful of his works being published during his lifetime.

Regarded as one of the 20th Century’s most influential authors, Kafka’s works are dominated by unreliable narrators who often tell dark tales of existentialist difficulties.

Kafka’s notoriously difficult relationship with his father Hermann is believed to have strongly influenced his work – with The Metamorphosis itself thought to be based upon Kafka’s own fears of insignificance and repulsiveness to his own family.

From: HALL, John. Available at:<http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-doodlecelebrates-franz-kafkas-130th-birthday-with-the-metamorphosis-tribute-8685557.html>.