Questões sobre Interpretação de texto | Reading comprehension

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    Practice often receives an unfair treatment in the field of applied linguistics. Most laypeople simply assume that practice is a necessary condition for language learning without giving the concept much further thought, but many applied linguists deliberately avoid the term practice. For some, the word conjures up images of repetitive drills in the factories of foreign language learning, while for others it means fun and games to entertain students on Friday afternoons.

    Practice is by no means a dirty word in other domains of human endeavor, however. Parents dutifully take their kids to soccer practice, and professional athletes dutifully show up for team practice, sometimes even with recent injuries. Parents make their kids practice their piano skills at home, and the world’s most famous performers of classical music often practice for many hours a day, even if it makes their fingers hurt. If even idolized, spoiled, and highly paid celebrities are willing to put up with practice, why not language learners, teachers, or researchers?

(DEKEYSER, Robert. Practice in a second language. Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. Cambridge, 2007. Adaptado)

        Land degradation is a systemic global problem, but the scale of the problem is disputed, with global estimates of degraded areas ranging from <10 to >60 million km2 . Changes in vegetation in drylands are predominantly caused by two factors: (i) anthropogenic climate change, which includes both changes in water availability driven by trends in precipitation and increases in temperature, as well as increased water use efficiency (carbon gain per unit of water lost) in response to rising atmospheric CO2; and (ii) land use practices, including grazing, cropping and deforestation. Unsustainable land use is considered the primary negative driver of dryland degradation. The impact of climate change on drylands is also generally thought to be negative, with some studies suggesting that anthropogenic forcing has already increased arid areas.

         Despite evidence for land use-induced degradation and the studies that find increased aridification over drylands, satellite estimates of vegetation greenness show a significant global increase since 1980. The key drivers of this global increase in apparent vegetation productivity are the vegetation’s response to rising CO2, increases in rainfall and temperature and land use. Model simulations which prescribe land use, attribute almost all of the trend in satellite-derived greening to CO2 fertilization, while satellite-derived models that do not account for CO2, explicitly find either climate or land use as the dominate factor. Neither approach explicitly accounts for rapid ecosystem change in their proportioning of the relative contributions of each driver. This can lead them to miss or underestimate rapid changes driven by processes like extreme fires, deforestation, reforestation, changes in agricultural policy, etc. Disentangling the roles of climate (temperature and precipitation), CO2 and land use thus remains a key challenge.

A.L. Burrell; J.P. Evans; M.G. De Kauwe. Anthropogenic climate change has driven over 5 million km2 of drylands towards desertification. Internet:<www.sciencedirect.com>  (adapted)

        Land degradation is a systemic global problem, but the scale of the problem is disputed, with global estimates of degraded areas ranging from <10 to >60 million km2 . Changes in vegetation in drylands are predominantly caused by two factors: (i) anthropogenic climate change, which includes both changes in water availability driven by trends in precipitation and increases in temperature, as well as increased water use efficiency (carbon gain per unit of water lost) in response to rising atmospheric CO2; and (ii) land use practices, including grazing, cropping and deforestation. Unsustainable land use is considered the primary negative driver of dryland degradation. The impact of climate change on drylands is also generally thought to be negative, with some studies suggesting that anthropogenic forcing has already increased arid areas.

         Despite evidence for land use-induced degradation and the studies that find increased aridification over drylands, satellite estimates of vegetation greenness show a significant global increase since 1980. The key drivers of this global increase in apparent vegetation productivity are the vegetation’s response to rising CO2, increases in rainfall and temperature and land use. Model simulations which prescribe land use, attribute almost all of the trend in satellite-derived greening to CO2 fertilization, while satellite-derived models that do not account for CO2, explicitly find either climate or land use as the dominate factor. Neither approach explicitly accounts for rapid ecosystem change in their proportioning of the relative contributions of each driver. This can lead them to miss or underestimate rapid changes driven by processes like extreme fires, deforestation, reforestation, changes in agricultural policy, etc. Disentangling the roles of climate (temperature and precipitation), CO2 and land use thus remains a key challenge.

A.L. Burrell; J.P. Evans; M.G. De Kauwe. Anthropogenic climate change has driven over 5 million km2 of drylands towards desertification. Internet:<www.sciencedirect.com>  (adapted)

Hanji

    Hanji is the name of the handmade paper produced in ancient Korea from the 1st century BCE. Made from mulberry trees, its exceptional quality made it a successful export, and it was widely used not only for writing but also for interior walls and everyday objects, such as fans and umbrellas. Hanji, famed throughout Asia for its whiteness, texture, and strength, is still made today in specialized Korean workshops.

   Initially Korean paper was made using hemp fiber, but the highest quality hanji was, for many centuries, made only from the pith of mulberry trees (tak in Korean, Latin: Broussonetia papyrifera). The toughness of hanji meant that it was ideally suited for use in printing presses that used blocks made from magnolia wood, which had been soaked and boiled in saltwater and then dried for several years before use. Each block was 24x4x64cm and carried 23 lines of vertical text on each side. These were then covered in ink and paper was pressed against them. The resilience of hanji was especially useful from the 12th century CE when printing was done using heavier moveable metal type made of bronze, a Korean invention.

    In the Joseon Period (from the 15th century CE), such was the demand for hanji, that Sejong the Great (r. 1418 - 1450 CE) permitted other plant materials to be used in its manufacture, especially bamboo. The paper was made in specialized workshops in the capital and the five provincial capitals. The hanji which was produced for state use was supervised by a government agency, the Chonjo-chang.