Questões de Língua Inglesa do ano 0000

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)

In recent weeks, critics from the right and from the left have launched strident attacks on International Monetary Fund efforts to stem the financial crisis that has swept through Asia like a typhoon. Critics on the right oppose using taxpayers'money to prop up foreign economies that compete with the U.S. They believe that government intervention will mess up the workings of the global financial markets ( although the Asian experience reveals that private actors can create quite a mess themselves). Critics on the left see the IMF as the agent of international capitalists, seeking protection from heavy losses caused by their greed and stupidity. They are also outraged by assistance to governments that violate the U.S. norms of human rights.

These questions will be hotly debated as Congress considers the Clinton Administration's request for $18 billion in additional resources for the IMF. But as usual, the political debate threatens to shed more heat than light on the real policy issues. Although the IMF has made mistakes as it struggles with a crisis whose causes and remedies are not fully understood by anyone, it has played a responsible role in bringing Asia, and the world, back from the brink of a full-fledged financial collapse.

According to the text, the IMF efforts to restrain the Asian financial crisis

Which of the following statements does not reflect the content of the text?

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO)

Following World War II, the major economic powers of the world negotiated a set of rules for reducing and limiting trade barriers and for settling trade disputes. These rules were called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Headquarters to oversee the administration of the GATT were established in Geneva, Switzerland. Periodically, rounds of multilateral trade negotiations under the GATT were carried out. The 8th round begun in 1986 in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and dubbed the Uruguay Round, was concluded on Dec. 15, 1993, when 117 countries completed a new trade-liberalization agreement. The name for the GATT was changed to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which officially came into being Jan.1, 1995.

According to the text, the former GATT comprised

Read the text below in order to answer questions 14 to 15.

Software

A substantial proportion of information can be digitized. It seems likely that soon, for example, any type of information that can be perceived, i.e. seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted, will be reducible to a collection of bits. Once in digital form, the information in question can be stored, processed and displayed by a computer. Furthermore, it can readily and rapidly be transmitted from one computer to any other computer regardless of distance, political frontiers, and physical obstacles. From a digital point of view, there is absolutely no distinction between text, sounds, graphics, photographs, music, animations, videos and…software. To include software in our list, however, may seem rather odd. Why this is so? Computer programs are, after all, only digitized information like the other examples. However, there is one vital difference between software and the rest. While text, sounds, graphics, as well as the other examples given above, are generally passive in nature, software, by contrast, is essentially active. It is information with attitude! As Hart reminds us, "Computer programs are not only texts: they also behave". Software is both form and substance, both symbolic and functional, it both "is" and "does". For this reason, software is conceptually very challenging.

According to the author, distance, political frontiers, and physical obstacles

Read the text below in order to answer questions 14 to 15.

Software

A substantial proportion of information can be digitized. It seems likely that soon, for example, any type of information that can be perceived, i.e. seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted, will be reducible to a collection of bits. Once in digital form, the information in question can be stored, processed and displayed by a computer. Furthermore, it can readily and rapidly be transmitted from one computer to any other computer regardless of distance, political frontiers, and physical obstacles. From a digital point of view, there is absolutely no distinction between text, sounds, graphics, photographs, music, animations, videos and…software. To include software in our list, however, may seem rather odd. Why this is so? Computer programs are, after all, only digitized information like the other examples. However, there is one vital difference between software and the rest. While text, sounds, graphics, as well as the other examples given above, are generally passive in nature, software, by contrast, is essentially active. It is information with attitude! As Hart reminds us, "Computer programs are not only texts: they also behave". Software is both form and substance, both symbolic and functional, it both "is" and "does". For this reason, software is conceptually very challenging.