Questões de Inglês

Darkness and light
Caravaggio’s art is made from darkness and light. His
pictures present spotlit moments of extreme and often agonized
human experience. A man is decapitated in his bedchamber,
blood spurting from a deep gash in his neck. A woman is shot
in the stomach with a bow and arrow at point-blank range.
Caravaggio’s images freeze time but also seem to hover on the
brink of their own disappearance. Faces are brightly
illuminated. Details emerge from darkness with such uncanny
clarity that they might be hallucinations. Yet always the
shadows encroach, the pools of blackness that threaten to
obliterate all. Looking at his pictures is like looking at the
world of flashes of lightning.
Caravaggio’s life is like his art, a series of lightning
flashes in the darkness of nights. He is a man who can never be
known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought
is lost in the irrecoverable past. He was one of the most
electrifying original artists ever to have lived, yet we have only
one solitary sentence from him on the subject of painting —
the sincerity of which is, in any case, questionable, since it was
elicited from him when he was under interrogation for the
capital crime of libel.
When Caravaggio emerges from the obscurity of the
past he does so, like the characters in his own paintings, as a
man in extremis. He lived much of his life as a fugitive, and
that is how he is preserved in history — a man on the run,
heading for the hills, keeping to the shadows. But he is caught,
now and again, by the sweeping beam of a searchlight. Each
glimpse is different. He appears in many guises and moods.
Caravaggio throws stones at the house of his landlady and
sings ribald songs outside her window. He has a fight with a
waiter about the dressing on a plate of artichokes. His life is a
series of intriguing and vivid tableaux — scenes that abruptly
switch from low farce to high drama.
Andrew Graham-Dixon. Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane. New York – London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (adapted).


Based on the text, judge if the following items are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

The author provides the opening paragraph with a cinematic quality for he attempts to create dynamic scenes.

A resposta correta é:

Armenia : prisoner of history


ARMENIA tends to feature in the news because of its problems (history, geography, demography and economics to name but a few). But a new report says not all is doom and gloom. The parliamentary elections in May showed significant improvement. Media coverage was more balanced, and the authorities permitted greater freedom of assembly, expression and movement than in previous years. That bodes well for the future.
The economy is still recovering from the global financial crisis, which saw GDP contract by 14.2% in 2009. In the same period, the construction sector contracted by more than 40%. Remittances from the diaspora dropped by 30%. That led Forbes magazine to label Armenia the world"s second worst performing economy in 2011. Over one-third of the country lives below the poverty line. Complaints of corruption are widespread, and inflation is high.
Low rates of tax collection-19.3% of GDP, compared with a 40% average in EU countries–limit the government"s reach. Cracking down on tax evasion could increase government revenue by over $400 million, says the World Bank. A few, high-profile businessmen dominate the economy. Their monopolies and oligopolies put a significant brake on business development. Their influence also weakens political will for the kind of reforms that the country sorely needs.

[From The Economist print edition June 24, 012]



According to the World Bank, the government could raise money by

a) taking steps to repress tax dodging.
b) joining the European Union soon.
c) making the rich pay more for business.
d) raising tax rates for high-profile businessmen.
e) introducing reforms in all sectors.

A resposta correta é:

Darkness and light


Caravaggio’s art is made from darkness and light. His
pictures present spotlit moments of extreme and often agonized
human experience. A man is decapitated in his bedchamber,
blood spurting from a deep gash in his neck. A woman is shot
in the stomach with a bow and arrow at point-blank range.
Caravaggio’s images freeze time but also seem to hover on the
brink of their own disappearance. Faces are brightly
illuminated. Details emerge from darkness with such uncanny
clarity that they might be hallucinations. Yet always the
shadows encroach, the pools of blackness that threaten to
obliterate all. Looking at his pictures is like looking at the
world of flashes of lightning.
Caravaggio’s life is like his art, a series of lightning
flashes in the darkness of nights. He is a man who can never be
known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought
is lost in the irrecoverable past. He was one of the most
electrifying original artists ever to have lived, yet we have only
one solitary sentence from him on the subject of painting —
the sincerity of which is, in any case, questionable, since it was
elicited from him when he was under interrogation for the
capital crime of libel.
When Caravaggio emerges from the obscurity of the
past he does so, like the characters in his own paintings, as a
man in extremis. He lived much of his life as a fugitive, and
that is how he is preserved in history — a man on the run,
heading for the hills, keeping to the shadows. But he is caught,
now and again, by the sweeping beam of a searchlight. Each
glimpse is different. He appears in many guises and moods.
Caravaggio throws stones at the house of his landlady and
sings ribald songs outside her window. He has a fight with a
waiter about the dressing on a plate of artichokes. His life is a
series of intriguing and vivid tableaux — scenes that abruptly
switch from low farce to high drama.

Andrew Graham-Dixon. Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane. New York – London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (adapted).



In the last paragraph of the text, the cause for Caravaggio"s disagreement with the waiter was

a) the sauce served with the artichokes.
b) the inartistic appearance of the food.
c) the unaffordable price of the plate.
d) the frugality of the dish.
e) the lack of freshness of the artichokes.

A resposta correta é:

Darkness and light
Caravaggio’s art is made from darkness and light. His
pictures present spotlit moments of extreme and often agonized
human experience. A man is decapitated in his bedchamber,
blood spurting from a deep gash in his neck. A woman is shot
in the stomach with a bow and arrow at point-blank range.
Caravaggio’s images freeze time but also seem to hover on the
brink of their own disappearance. Faces are brightly
illuminated. Details emerge from darkness with such uncanny
clarity that they might be hallucinations. Yet always the
shadows encroach, the pools of blackness that threaten to
obliterate all. Looking at his pictures is like looking at the
world of flashes of lightning.
Caravaggio’s life is like his art, a series of lightning
flashes in the darkness of nights. He is a man who can never be
known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought
is lost in the irrecoverable past. He was one of the most
electrifying original artists ever to have lived, yet we have only
one solitary sentence from him on the subject of painting —
the sincerity of which is, in any case, questionable, since it was
elicited from him when he was under interrogation for the
capital crime of libel.
When Caravaggio emerges from the obscurity of the
past he does so, like the characters in his own paintings, as a
man in extremis. He lived much of his life as a fugitive, and
that is how he is preserved in history — a man on the run,
heading for the hills, keeping to the shadows. But he is caught,
now and again, by the sweeping beam of a searchlight. Each
glimpse is different. He appears in many guises and moods.
Caravaggio throws stones at the house of his landlady and
sings ribald songs outside her window. He has a fight with a
waiter about the dressing on a plate of artichokes. His life is a
series of intriguing and vivid tableaux — scenes that abruptly
switch from low farce to high drama.
Andrew Graham-Dixon. Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane. New York – London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (adapted).


Based on the text, judge if the following items are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

From the passage "He is a man who can never be known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought is lost in the irrecoverable past." (L.14-16) it can be correctly inferred that the author is of the opinion that the study of history is a futile attempt to reconstruct events from the past.

A resposta correta é:

Gothenburg, Sweden


The industrial port city of Gothenburg, on Sweden’s west coast, has little of the glamour that graces the country’s capital, Stockholm. But this once resolutely working-class city is nevertheless making a name for itself as a new hive of the creative arts, with its homegrown fashion labels and upstart indie bands, its jovial craft beer bars and alternative arts scene. Gothenburg (Goteborg in Swedish) is also the fitting host to Scandinavia’s leading film festival and hugely popular music festivals. These days, the cool cultural revival happening in Sweden’s second-largest city appears well under way.
Those who like coffee cannot miss Bar Centro, a small coffee shop where the espresso is made to high Italian standards and patrons often linger on the stoop and curb outside. Then there are the charming cobblestone streets of the historic Haga neighborhood, which is peppered with classic Swedish cafes that sell absurdly oversize kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) known as Hagabullar.

Internet: (adapted).



Based on the text above, judge the items below.

The position of Gothenburg as a cultural center seems to be fairly consolidated.

A resposta correta é:

While on their way, the slaves selected to go to the
great House farm would make the dense old woods, for miles
around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the
highest joy and the deepest sadness. (...) They would sing, as
a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning
jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to
themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of
those songs would do more to impress some minds with the
horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole
volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning
of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself
within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those
without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was
then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were
tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to
God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild
notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable
sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing
them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts
me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling
has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I
trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing
character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.
Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery,
and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any
one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of
slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there
let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through
the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will
only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Charleston (SC): Forgotten Books, 2008, p. 26-7 (adapted).



Regarding the text, judge if the items below are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

The fragment "quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds" (L.28) means that the narrator is fast when it comes to forging emotional and spiritual bonds with his own real family through music.

A resposta correta é:

Gothenburg, Sweden


The industrial port city of Gothenburg, on Sweden’s west coast, has little of the glamour that graces the country’s capital, Stockholm. But this once resolutely working-class city is nevertheless making a name for itself as a new hive of the creative arts, with its homegrown fashion labels and upstart indie bands, its jovial craft beer bars and alternative arts scene. Gothenburg (Goteborg in Swedish) is also the fitting host to Scandinavia’s leading film festival and hugely popular music festivals. These days, the cool cultural revival happening in Sweden’s second-largest city appears well under way.
Those who like coffee cannot miss Bar Centro, a small coffee shop where the espresso is made to high Italian standards and patrons often linger on the stoop and curb outside. Then there are the charming cobblestone streets of the historic Haga neighborhood, which is peppered with classic Swedish cafes that sell absurdly oversize kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) known as Hagabullar.

Internet: (adapted).



Based on the text above, judge the items below.

Swedish classic coffees are served with pepper.

A resposta correta é:

While on their way, the slaves selected to go to the
great House farm would make the dense old woods, for miles
around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the
highest joy and the deepest sadness. (...) They would sing, as
a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning
jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to
themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of
those songs would do more to impress some minds with the
horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole
volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning
of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself
within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those
without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was
then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were
tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to
God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild
notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable
sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing
them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts
me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling
has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I
trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing
character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.
Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery,
and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any
one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of
slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there
let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through
the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will
only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Charleston (SC): Forgotten Books, 2008, p. 26-7 (adapted).



Regarding the text, judge if the items below are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

In "than the reading of whole volumes" (L.9-10), the omission of the definite article would not interfere with the grammar correction of the sentence.

A resposta correta é:

Gothenburg, Sweden


The industrial port city of Gothenburg, on Sweden’s west coast, has little of the glamour that graces the country’s capital, Stockholm. But this once resolutely working-class city is nevertheless making a name for itself as a new hive of the creative arts, with its homegrown fashion labels and upstart indie bands, its jovial craft beer bars and alternative arts scene. Gothenburg (Goteborg in Swedish) is also the fitting host to Scandinavia’s leading film festival and hugely popular music festivals. These days, the cool cultural revival happening in Sweden’s second-largest city appears well under way.
Those who like coffee cannot miss Bar Centro, a small coffee shop where the espresso is made to high Italian standards and patrons often linger on the stoop and curb outside. Then there are the charming cobblestone streets of the historic Haga neighborhood, which is peppered with classic Swedish cafes that sell absurdly oversize kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) known as Hagabullar.

Internet: (adapted).



Based on the text above, judge the items below.

Gothenburg used to be a working-class city.

A resposta correta é:

While on their way, the slaves selected to go to the
great House farm would make the dense old woods, for miles
around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the
highest joy and the deepest sadness. (...) They would sing, as
a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning
jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to
themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of
those songs would do more to impress some minds with the
horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole
volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning
of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself
within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those
without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was
then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were
tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to
God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild
notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable
sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing
them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts
me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling
has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I
trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing
character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception.
Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery,
and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any
one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of
slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there
let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through
the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will
only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Charleston (SC): Forgotten Books, 2008, p. 26-7 (adapted).



Regarding the text, judge if the items below are right ( C ) or wrong ( E ).

The relationship the word "within" (L.13) bears with "without" (L.14) is one of opposition.

A resposta correta é: