Questões

Instruction: Answer questions 41 to 53 based on the following text.

Why Learning Is A New Procrastination

1. The tremendous world of online courses, blogs, social media, free eBooks, podcasts, and
2. webinars provides the best ever opportunity to broaden your knowledge in almost every sphere
3. you can imagine. Thanks to technological advancement and the instant access to the internet,
4. everyone can now study from home. It seems like it would be foolishly not to seize this
5. opportunity and improve your skills and knowledge. Moreover, you are kind of forced to do so
6. since the contemporary world has raised the bar higher than ever before. It literally invited you
7. to gather the pace and ___________ even more.
8. It is not surprising that, ultimately, you try to be everywhere and do everything. No doubt,
9. you do your best to constantly gather tiny bits of information from as many channels as
10. possible, because you are afraid that you will fall behind if you stop. After all, you enter a
11. learning crunch mode. You do not afford to miss anything and try to read every book you could
12. get your hands on. You listen to every single podcast your smartphone could download and take
13. every online course your paycheck would allow to take.
14. All in all, you learn. As much as possible. As intense as you manage to. You learn how to
15. write and publish a new book. You learn how to launch a successful blog. You learn how to hit
16. your goal on Kickstarter. You learn how to build the next “unicorn”. You learn how to land a job
17. of your dream. You learn how to successfully sell thousands of items on Amazon. You learn how
18. to make millions of dollars in passive income.
19. However, the problem is that you do everything except taking action. All those activities do
20. not take you closer to the things you want to accomplish. Better knowledge does not make you
21. more influential, powerful, and successful unless you apply it. The key secret to success is not
22. ________ expertise, but the ability to use it.
23. Knowledge is worthless unless it is applied. Needless to say that studying is crucial.
24. However, the thing is that it should take the entirely new form now. You should stop learning
25. from someone else’s experiences, knowledge, failures, and wins and start learning from your
26. own mistakes, adventures, ___________, and bold actions.
27. Learning has become a major trend of the 21st century. Sadly, it has also become a new
28. form of procrastination. You consciously postpone the first step justifying this by your eagerness
29. to broaden the knowledge and learn new things. You put the start date off justifying this by
30. your desire to pick up new skills that would help you succeed faster. You procrastinate over
31. chasing your own aspirations because doing the things on your own and creating your own story
32. of success is far more complicated than reading about someone else’s one. Meanwhile, no one
33. would really reproach you for wasting your time. Also, you feel comfortable about staying within
34. this zone of ease and convenience forever.
35. However, the point is that you already have and know everything you need to start off. In
36. fact, there is nothing more you need to learn in order to take the first step. Embrace the truth.
37. No matter how good your theoretical knowledge is, you will face a lot of obstacles while
38. applying it. You will have to deal with issues that have never been described or covered in any
39. book. You will have to look for the solutions and make the spontaneous decisions that no one
40. probably has ever thought of. You will have to design your own road to success.
41. Transform your learning process from the continuous the procrastination into an
42. unstoppable process of absorbing invaluable expertise based on your own experience. It might
43. seem counterintuitive, but the old-fashioned way of learning is what holds you back. This is
44. what makes your triumphs suck.
45. Constant learning, evaluating of ideas, thinking, and visualizing your journey towards your
46. major aspirations will not take you far from the place you are now. Actions will. You can sit and
47. research, and research, and research, while someone else is already reaping huge rewards for
48. his or her fruitful and hard work. Stop learning now. Become bold enough to take the first step
49. and start learning from your own experience.

Source: https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/why-learning-is-a-new-procrastination-104b53107e8b

Read Text II and answer question 

University Degree Sill Best Way into Good Job 

How do you get a good job? It might literally be a milliondollar question. And researchers from Georgetown University in the US have an answer: the best way is still to get a college education, even if you're a little late. That's their simple answer – one they came up with after looking at US government data for more than 8,000 Americans who were born in the early 1980s. They found that getting a bachelor's degree by the age of 26 gave people a 56% chance of getting a good job by the age of 30. For their study, the researchers defined a "good job" as one paying at least $ 38,000 for workers under the age of 45.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the research didn't focus on people who went straight to college after finishing high school because they already have a high chance of getting a good job. Instead, it looked at different pathways that people who didn't go straight to college after high school could take to increase their chances of getting a good job. For example, even just beginning a bachelor's degree by age 22 increased the likelihood of getting a good job by 16 percentage points, according to the report. But despite this evidence, according to a separate Wall Street Journal survey, more than half of people don't feel that doing a four-year degree is worth the cost, because students may finish without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt.

According to US News, in the academic year that ended in the summer of 2023, the average cost of going to an American university for a year started at about $ 10,000 for a public university, and went as high as almost $ 40,000 for a private school. And Zach Mabel, one of the authors of the Georgetown report, admits that although a university education is likely to be beneficial, for financial reasons "the risk of pursuing higher education is higher than it's ever been."

Source: https://engoo.com.br/app/daily-news/article/study-university-degree-stillbest-way-into-good-job/crbIxBR3Ee6ComdOtgdXYw

Text IV

                       Identity and Interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach

      Different research traditions within sociocultural linguistics have particular strengths in analyzing the varied dimensions of identity outlined in this article. The method of analysis selected by the researcher makes salient which aspect of identity comes into view, and such 'partial accounts' contribute to the broader understanding of identity that we advocate here. Although these lines of research have often remained separate from one another, the combination of their diverse theoretical and methodological strengths  ‒  including the microanalysis of conversation, the macroanalysis of ideological processes, the quantitative and qualitative analysis of linguistic structures, and the ethnographic focus on local cultural practices and social groupings  ‒  calls attention to the fact that identity in all its complexity can never be contained within a single analysis. For this reason, it is necessary to conceive of sociocultural linguistics broadly and inclusively. The five principles proposed here  ‒  Emergence, Positionality, Indexicality, Relationality, and Partialness  ‒ represent the varied ways in which different kinds of scholars currently approach the question of identity. Even researchers whose primary goals lie elsewhere can contribute to this project by providing sophisticated conceptualizations of how human dynamics unfold in discourse, along with rigorous analytic tools for discovering how such processes work. While identity has been a widely circulating notion in sociocultural linguistic research for some time, few scholars have explicitly theorized the concept. The present article offers one way of understanding this body of work by anchoring identity in interaction. By positing, in keeping with recent scholarship, that identity is emergent in discourse and does not precede it, we are able to locate identity as an intersubjectively achieved social and cultural phenomenon. This discursive approach further allows us to incorporate within identity not only the broad sociological categories most commonly associated with the concept, but also more local positionings, both ethnographic and interactional. The linguistic resources that indexically produce identity at all these levels are therefore necessarily broad and flexible, including labels, implicatures, stances, styles, and entire languages and varieties. Because these tools are put to use in interaction, the process of identity construction does not reside within the individual but in intersubjective relations of sameness and difference, realness and fakeness, power and disempowerment. Finally, by theorizing agency as a broader phenomenon than simply individualistic and deliberate action, we are able to call attention to the myriad ways that identity comes into being, from habitual practice to interactional negotiation to representations and ideologies.

      It is no overstatement to assert that the age of identity is upon us, not only in sociocultural linguistics but also in the human and social sciences more generally. Scholars of language use are particularly well equipped to provide an empirically viable account of the complexities of identity as a social, cultural, and ‒ most fundamentally ‒ interactional phenomenon. The recognition of the loose coalition of approaches that we call sociocultural linguistics is a necessary step in advancing this goal, for it is only by understanding our diverse theories and methods as complementary, not competing, that we can meaningfully interpret this crucial dimension of contemporary social life.

(BUCHOLTZ, M.; HALL, K. Identity and interaction: a sociocultural approach. In: Discourse Studies, vol 7 (4‐5). London: SAGE, 2005. pp. 585‐614.)

INSTRUCTION: Read the following text to answer question. 

When life feels chaotic, less is more

    When the feeling of pandemonium takes over, our instinct is often to try to regain control through sweeping personal change. We’ll jump in with grand plans to overhaul our routines, transform our homes, or tackle every to-do we’ve neglected. But inevitably, when the enthusiasm fades, anxiety spirals further, or real life gets in the way, our plans fall apart.

    This cycle of starting big and stalling out leaves people feeling more discouraged than before. When we’re overwhelmed, our mental bandwidth is limited, and ambitious plans become just one more thing to manage. That’s where the magic of micro wins comes in. They might not look impressive or overtly ambitious, but they provide a sense of accomplishment, momentum (even pride?), and gradually shift our environment and mindset, especially during times of mass madness.

Source: https://time.com/7172611/little-winsbenefits-essay/

Accessed on November 13, 2024. [Adapted fragment]

READ TEXT I AND ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT FOLLOWS IT:

TEXT I 

Decolonizing English Language Teaching for Brazilian Indigenous Peoples 

In an era of increasing contact between citizens of the diverse nations of the world, the far-reaching impacts of globalization are often linked to the propagation of English as a language for international communication in a variety of settings, including international trade, academic and scientific discourses, and diplomacy, among others. Given its status as an international language, English is also a highly-valued foreign language in Brazil, and its influence represents, at least symbolically, greater access to both national and global markets. As such, federal curricular standards require all students in Brazilian public schools to study English as a foreign language from middle to high school.

These standards also apply to the indigenous populations of Brazil. However, additional federal legislation regulates the ways that English and other subjects must be taught in indigenous communities. The Brazilian Constitution, ratified in 1988, represents a significant landmark in this respect, providing for the inclusion of 'specific, bilingual, differentiated, and intercultural' educational practices within indigenous school settings, thus guaranteeing each indigenous group the right to integrate their traditional knowledge, cultures, and languages into primary and secondary education curricula (Brazil, 1988). 

As such, the question of how to teach English in indigenous settings in a way that values traditional cultures and knowledge in accordance with the specific, differentiated, and intercultural approach mandated by federal legislation must be addressed. The status of English as the language of globalization, along with its long history as an instrument of colonial imperialism, poses an ethical dilemma in the Brazilian indigenous educational context, given that its inclusion in indigenous school curricula presents an implicit risk of recreating and reinforcing neocolonial hierarchies of knowledge production that favor Western perspectives over traditional indigenous systems of knowledge.

In an effort to adapt English language teaching to the needs and demands of indigenous communities, contributions from the fields of postcolonial theory, English language teaching, and sociocultural approaches to language teaching will be connected to current Brazilian laws governing indigenous education. The aim is to investigate the possibilities for the teaching of a decolonized, local English that values traditional indigenous knowledge systems over neocolonial global influences which are often associated with English.

Adapted from: https://www.scielo.br/j/edreal/a/43bj8bSQDpQYPjQTX9jK9jb/

Brit dad is the first person to take

a holiday in the ruins of failed state ISIS

in Northern Iraq

Dad-of-four Andy Drury, 53, had no visas and was in danger of kidnapping from militia d uring his £4,000 three-day break in Mosul, Northern Iraq. But he has _______ back stunning photos of t he former IS stronghold.

Building firm owner Andy, of Guildford, Surrey, has spent the last 20 years touring areas of the planet most people do not dare to go and first visited this a rea in 2016.

He said of one visit to a dangerous area near Mosul : “I was nervous, my heart was in my mouth for 20 minutes.

“We had been turned away by Iraqi forces. If caught , we could have been jailed for spying.”

Andy added: “I must be the first person to be have been a tourist in the ruins of Islamic State.

“My fixer Ammar (not his real name) was right on th e front line for the taking back of Mosul, taking repor ters in there.

“But he said he is more scared with me, with the ne ws reporters he was in an armoured car, but with m e on the front line a couple of years ago, he said I di dn’t wear a vest or helmet or nothing, he said that w as scarier.”

Andy said he doesn’t wear protective clothing beca use he tries to stumble on as little front line fighting as possible.

The businessman is meticulous in the planning of hi s trips and so far has holidayed in no-goareas like Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan, as well as spending time with the Klu Klux Klan.

Andy said:

“Driving in from Iraq and Kurdistan, all the buildings were beautiful, and then it changes, and I’ve never seen nothing like it, it was like an apocalyptic film.

Fonte: https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/10087541/br it-dad-holiday-isis-iraq/ Acesso em: 09/Out/2019

Read Text | and answer questions 05 to 13.

Netflix is trying to prove to the world that it's all grown up

Netflix is trying to persuade Wall Street that it is now all grown up. After squeezing out millions of additional subscribers via its password sharing crackdown and through the introduction of cheaper advertiser-supported plans, the streamer knows that its growth spurts are coming to an end — and now it wants investors to stop obsessing over those pesky membership numbers and instead focus on other metrics.

"In our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential. But now we're generating very substantial profit and free cash flow. We are also developing new revenue streams like advertising and our extra member feature, so memberships are just one component of our growth", Netflix told shareholders as it reported quarterly earnings.

To that end, Netflix said that it will no longer report quarterly subscriber numbers, starting in 2025. Alas, the metric that Wall Street has forever judged Netflix on — the metric that prompted legacy media companies to burn endless piles of cash in their bids to compete with the streamer — will be retired. The decision to shut off transparency on the metric represents a significant turning point in the streaming revolution. For years, Netflix has prided itself on being extraordinarily transparent. Now it is aiming to hold its cards closer to its chest. And given that streaming giant is the trendsetter in the space, one could expect that other media companies will be inspired by the company's move and also opt to cease reporting such data.

To be fair, what Netflix is saying isn't necessarily off base either. As the company shifts its business model away from subscriptions and toward advertising and other revenue streams, it makes sense to consider how much time users are spending on the service. The more content a user consumes on Netflix, the more likely they are to continue paying for the service, and the more money Netflix then makes from that single subscriber. "We're focused on revenue and operating margin as our primary financial metrics — and engagement (i.e. time spent) as our best proxy for customer satisfaction,” Netflix underscored in its letter to shareholders.

Regardless, less transparency in an already opaque industry is not ideal. The walled garden of streaming already lacks the same detailed viewership data that Nielsen collects on linear television broadcasters. Now, visibility into the streaming world will get even dimmer.

The announcement from Netflix managed to overshadow its otherwise stellar quarter. The company handily beat expectations and added a staggering 9.3 million subscribers, meaning it now boasts nearly 270 million in total. Netflix also beat analyst expectations on both earnings and revenue. However, it wasn't all good news. Netflix forecasted its subscriber growth to be lower in quarter two, chalking it up to “typical seasonality.” That led the stock to slide nearly 5% in after-hours trading.

Whether "typical seasonality” is solely to blame, or whether the streamer is simply starting to hit a ceiling, is hard to tell. Perhaps it is a mix of both. Whatever the cause, the stock sliding on the less-than-ideal outlook is a prime example of why Netflix wants Wall Street to stop focusing on its subscriber numbers. And, in one year's time, investors won't have a choice.

Adapted from: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/19/media/netflix-subscription-numbers/index.html