Prova de Inglês UECE 2021.1 (2ª Fase) com Gabarito The World Might Be Running Low on Americans The world has been stricken by scarcity. Our ...
Prova de Inglês UECE 2021.1 (2ª Fase) com Gabarito
The World Might Be Running Low on Americans
The world has been stricken by scarcity. Our post-pandemic pantry has run bare of gasoline, lumber, microchips, chicken wings, ketchup packets, cat food, used cars and Chickfil-A sauce. Like the Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020, though, many of these shortages are the consequence of near-term, Covid-related disruptions. Soon enough there will again be a chicken wing in every pot and more than enough condiments to go with it.
But there is one recently announced potential shortage that should give Americans great reason for concern. It is a shortfall that the nation has rarely had to face, and nobody quite knows how things will work when we begin to run out.
I speak, of course, of all of us: The world may be running low on Americans — most crucially, tomorrow’s working-age, childbearing, idea-generating, community-building young Americans. Late last month, the Census Bureau released the first results from its 2020 count, and the numbers confirmed what demographers have been warning of for years: The United States is undergoing “demographic stagnation,”transitioning from a relatively fast-growing country of young people to a slow-growing, older nation.
Many Americans might consider slow growth a blessing. Your city could already be packed to the gills, the roads clogged with traffic and housing prices shooting through the roof. Why do we need more folks? And, anyway, aren’t we supposed to be conserving resources on a planet whose climate is changing? Yet demographic stagnation could bring its own high costs, among them a steady reduction in dynamism, productivity and a slowdown in national and individual prosperity, even a diminishment of global power.
And there is no real reason we have to endure such a transition, not even an environmental one. Even if your own city is packed like tinned fish, the U.S. overall can accommodate millions more people. Most of the counties in the U.S. are losing working-age adults; if these declines persist, local economies will falter, tax bases will dry up, and local governments will struggle to maintain services. Growth is not just an option but a necessity — it’s not just that we can afford to have more people, it may be that we can’t afford not to.
But how does a country get more people? There are two ways: Make them, and invite them in. Increasing the first is relatively difficult —birthrates are declining across the world, and while family-friendly policies may be beneficial for many reasons, they seem to do little to get people to have more babies. On the second method, though, the United States enjoys a significant advantage — people around the globe have long been clamoring to live here, notwithstanding our government’s recent hostility to foreigners. This fact presents a relatively simple policy solution to a vexing long-term issue: America needs more people, and the world has people to send us. All we have to do is let more of them in.
For decades, the United States has enjoyed a significant economic advantage over other industrialized nations — our population was growing faster, which suggested a more youthful and more prosperous future. But in the last decade, American fertility has gone down. At the same time, there has been a slowdown in immigration.
The Census Bureau’s latest numbers show that these trends are catching up with us. As of April 1, it reports that there were 331,449,281 residents in the United States, an increase of just 7.4 percent since 2010 — the second-smallest decade-long growth rate ever recorded, only slightly ahead of the 7.3 percent growth during the Depression-struck 1930s.
The bureau projects that sometime next decade — that is, in the 2030s — Americans over 65 will outnumber Americans younger than 18 for the first time in our history. The nation will cross the 400-million population mark sometime in the late 2050s, but by then we’ll be quite long in the tooth — about half of Americans will be over 45, and one fifth will be older than 85.
The idea that more people will lead to greater prosperity may sound counterintuitive —wouldn’t more people just consume more of our scarce resources? Human history generally refutes this simple intuition. Because more people usually make for more workers, more companies, and most fundamentally, more new ideas for pushing humanity forward, economic studies suggest that population growth is often an important catalyst of economic growth.
A declining global population might be beneficial in some ways; fewer people would most likely mean less carbon emission, for example —though less than you might think, since leading climate models already assume slowing population growth over the coming century. And a declining population could be catastrophic in other ways. In a recent paper, Chad Jones, an economist at Stanford, argues that a global population decline could reduce the fundamental innovativeness of humankind. The theory is simple: Without enough people, the font of new ideas dries up, Jones argues; without new ideas, progress could be imperiled.
There are more direct ways that slow growth can hurt us. As a country’s population grows heavy with retiring older people and light with working younger people, you get a problem of too many eaters and too few cooks. Programs for seniors like Social Security and Medicare may suffer as they become dependent on ever-fewer working taxpayers for funding. Another problem is the lack of people to do all the work. For instance, experts predict a major shortage of health care workers, especially home care workers, who will be needed to help the aging nation.
In a recent report, Ali Noorani, the chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration-advocacy group, and a co-author, Danilo Zak, say that increasing legal immigration by slightly more than a third each year would keep America’s ratio of working young people to retired old people stable over the next four decades.
As an immigrant myself, I have to confess I find much of the demographic argument in favor of greater immigration quite a bit too anodyne. Immigrants bring a lot more to the United States than simply working-age bodies for toiling in pursuit of greater economic growth. I also believe that the United States’ founding idea of universal equality will never be fully realized until we recognize that people outside our borders are as worthy of our ideals as those here through an accident of birth.
Q U E S T I O N S
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 01
As the text mentions, “running low on Americans” changes the country into a nation that will be
A) younger.
B) older.
C) richer.
D) fast-growing.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 02
The declining of birthrates is a phenomenon that is happening
A) only in the United States.
B) only in the Americas.
C) in the world.
D) mostly in Europe.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 03
The American demographic stagnation may bring some high costs, such as
A) the end of some programs for seniors.
B) a constant reduction in productivity.
C) many roads clogged with heavy traffic.
D) housing prices will soar through the roof.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 04
Among the possible solutions for the demographic stagnation that has happened in the United States in recent years, the text mentions
A) allowing the world to send people in.
B) implementing long term fertility programs.
C) motivating immigrants to have more children.
D) investing more money in the health system.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 05
According to the article, a relevant catalyst for economic growth is/are
A) programs for senior citizens.
B) preservation of tropical forests.
C) birth control methods.
D) population growth.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 06
A positive aspect of a declining world population is that
A) resources will no longer be scarce.
B) more health care workers will be available.
C) there will not be as much carbon emission.
D) universal equality will be easier to achieve.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 07
One of the ways slow growth can cause problems is that
A) it might bring a slowdown in immigration.
B) there will be more hostility to foreigners.
C) citizens over 65 will not be able to retire.
D) there are lots of people to eat and very few to cook.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 08
The author, an immigrant himself, believes that immigrants
A) cannot bring new ideas to America.
B) are also worthy of American ideals.
C) can help the aging population.
D) should be kept outside American borders.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 09
The sentence “The Census Bureau’s latest numbers show that these trends are catching up with us” contains a/an
A) subject noun clause.
B) object noun clause.
C) direct object.
D) indirect object.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 10
The sentence “For decades, the United States has enjoyed a significant economic advantage over other industrialized nations” contains a/an
A) subject complement.
B) object complement.
C) indirect object.
D) direct object.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 11
In “For instance, experts predict a major shortage of health care workers, especially home care workers, who will be needed to help the aging nation.” there is a/an
A) relative clause.
B) object noun clause.
C) adverb clause.
D) subject noun clause.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 12
In “… if these declines persist, local economies will falter, tax bases will dry up, and local governments will struggle to maintain services.” there is a/an
A) adjective clause.
B) noun clause.
C) conditional clause.
D) contrast clause.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 13
The passage “In a recent report, Ali Noorani, the chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration-advocacy group, and a coauthor, Danilo Zak, say that increasing legal immigration by slightly more than a third each year would keep America’s ratio of working young people to retired old people stable over the next four decades.” contains an example of
A) reported speech.
B) direct speech.
C) adverb clause of place.
D) adverb clause of time.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 14
The sentence “As a country’s population grows heavy with retiring older people and light with working younger people, you get a problem of too many eaters and too few cooks.” contains a/an
A) adjective clause.
B) adverb clause.
C) subject noun clause.
D) object noun clause.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 15
The sentence “America needs more people, and the world has people to send us.” is correctly classified as
A) simple.
B) compound.
C) complex.
D) compound-complex.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 16
The sentence “Yet demographic stagnation could bring its own high costs, among them a steady reduction in dynamism, productivity and a slowdown in national and individual prosperity, even a diminishment of global power.” is correctly classified as
A) complex.
B) compound.
C) compound-complex.
D) simple.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 17
“Many Americans might consider slow growth a blessing” is an example of
A) complex sentence.
B) adverb clause.
C) simple sentence.
D) noun clause.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 18
In the sentence “The bureau projects that sometime next decade — that is, in the 2030s —Americans over 65 will outnumber Americans younger than 18 for the first time in our history.” the verb tenses are, respectively,
A) simple past and simple present.
B) simple present and simple future.
C) present perfect and past perfect.
D) simple present and future perfect.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 19
The verb tenses in "...our population was growing faster, which suggested a more youthful and prosperous future..." are, respectively,
A) simple present and present perfect.
B) past continuous and simple past.
C) present perfect and simple present.
D) past perfect and simple past.
UECE 2021.1 - QUESTÃO 20
In “Another problem is the lack of people to do all the work” there is an example of
A) adjective clause.
B) participle phrase.
C) adverb clause.
D) infinitive phrase.
COMENTÁRIOS