Pular para o conteúdo
English for ALL
← Todas as questões

O que é um “industrial graveyard” — Fuvest 2000

The Sydney Olympics – billed as the Green Games – open in exactly 64 weeks, on 15 September 2000. In bidding for the Games, the Sydney delegates promised that theirs would be the most environmentally-friendly Games ever. But there are growing doubts that Sydney will deliver on its promises, even though Australia holds a commanding lead in the race to develop key environmentally-friendly technologies. The biggest single obstacle to the Green Games is the site itself. The land around Homebush Bay, in western Sydney, was an industrial graveyard previously used by chemical giants such as ICI and Union Carbide – infamous for the Bhopal plant leak on 3 December 1984 that poisoned thousands in India. Their legacy was toxic waste in unmarked sites. The bodies associated with the bid knew about this, and saw the Games as a way to clean up the mess and create a new community. Thus Sydney’s bid document featured a glorious artist’s impression of a ceremonial entrance on the waterfront, where, beneath fluttering bunting, Olympic athletes and grandees arrive from downtown on eco-friendly water taxis. It was, says Murray Hogarth, environmental correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, “an absolutely key facet of the bid”.

THE FRIDAY REVIEW The Independent 25 June 1999

Fonte: The Independent, 25 June 1999.

Which of the following would hardly be found at an industrial graveyard (line 13)?

  1. A) polluted soil.
  2. B) reusable waste.
  3. C) poisoned bodies.
  4. D) toxic deposits.
  5. E) hazardous waste.
Ver gabarito comentado

Resposta correta: C

O texto define o termo no próprio contexto: a área de Homebush Bay “was an industrial graveyard previously used by chemical giants”, e o que ficou ali foi “toxic waste in unmarked sites”. Graveyard está em sentido figurado — é o cemitério da atividade industrial, um terreno arruinado por resíduos, não um cemitério de gente. Por isso A, D e E (solo poluído, depósitos tóxicos, resíduo perigoso) são apenas reformulações do que o texto diz haver no local, e a resposta é C, que só faz sentido se você ler graveyard ao pé da letra. Repare que o envenenamento de milhares de pessoas mencionado no texto aconteceu em Bhopal, na Índia, e não em Homebush Bay. B é o segundo mais tentador porque reusable waste não é citado, mas material reaproveitável é perfeitamente compatível com um terreno industrial abandonado, e a pergunta quer o item incompatível.

Questões relacionadas

Ver todas →

C1 Vocabulário Artigo de divulgação científica

O sentido de "dwindles" — Fuvest 2023
The expression "dark doldrums" chills the hearts of renewable-energy engineers, who use it to refer to the lulls when solar panels and wind turbines are thwarted by clouds, night, or still air. On a bright, cloudless day, a solar farm can generate prodigious a…

Na frase "But typical models exhaust their stored energy after only three or four hours of maximum output, and—as every smartphone owner knows—their capacity dwindles with each recharge." (2º parágrafo), "dwindles" poderia ser substituído, sem prejuízo de sentido, por

Resolver questão

C1 Vocabulário Artigo de divulgação científica

O que são os "dark doldrums" — Fuvest 2023
The expression "dark doldrums" chills the hearts of renewable-energy engineers, who use it to refer to the lulls when solar panels and wind turbines are thwarted by clouds, night, or still air. On a bright, cloudless day, a solar farm can generate prodigious a…

No texto, a expressão "dark doldrums" descreve

Resolver questão

C1 Vocabulário Reportagem

"A twinge of fear": ambientalistas apreensivos (Fuvest 2006)
"CHINA has begun to enter the age of mass car consumption. This is a great and historic advance." So proclaimed the state-run news agency, Xinhua, last year. Environmentalists may feel a twinge of fear at this burgeoning romance with motoring. But a rapid soci…

The passage suggests that China's embrace of the car is likely to make environmentalists

Resolver questão