AULA 2 – LÍNGUA INGLESA

INVERSION
We use inversions to emphasize an idea, to make questions, to make something seems
more dramatic and when there are negative expressions such as “under no circumstances”, “no
sooner… than…”.
Examples:
a)By the doorstep stood a letter. (verb + subject)
b)When do you arrive? (auxiliary + subject)

Attention:
The answers are in bold and the explanation will be in blue right below the question.

PART 1. GRAMMAR
For questions 1 to 12, choose the right answer.
QUESTION 1. _________ should he become the Prime Minister of this country.
A. Under no circumstances
B. In no time
C. Barely
D. Hardly
Negative expression.

QUESTION 2. “When our economics editor invented the Big Mac index in 1986 as a light-hearted1
introduction to exchange-rate theory, _________ that 20 years later she would still be munching
her way, a little less sylph-like2, around the world.” [The Economist, 23/01/2015]
A. never she thought
B. little she thought
C. little did she think
D. only did she think
Negative idea.

QUESTION 3. “’The group would like to reassure Mr de Margerie of its solidarity. Total confirms
that _________ did the group circumvent3 the United Nations embargo against Iraq and strictly
adhered to the rules of the oil-for-food programme,’ the company said on Friday.” [Financial
Times, 20/10/2006]
A. ever
B. at no time
C. in no time
D. some time ago
At no time means never; in no time means very quickly.

QUESTION 4. “_________ had France set about stopping jihadists from taking over4 Mali,
_________ their sympathisers in Algeria perpetrated another outrage 5 to display their regional
reach”. [The Economist, 19/01/2013]
A. hardly/that
B. barely/then
C. no sooner/than
D. no sooner/that
1 Easy-going
2 Graceful and thin
3 To find a way around
4 Taking control
5 Atentado
With scarcely, hardly and barely, we should use when not that.

QUESTION 5. “If you meet a bear in the woods, try not to panic or scream; _________ should
you turn your back and run. As markets around the world have turned grizzly6 over the past two
weeks, some investors seem to have forgotten the old hikers' maxim” [The Economist,
25/05/2006]
A. no way
B. on no account
C. under any circumstance
D. in no time
“No way” is informal, the formal form is “in no way”.

QUESTION 6. “_________ the mood of optimism that Mr Obama was prematurely awarded the
Nobel peace prize.” [The Economist, 02/04/2016]
A. It was such
B. So was
C. Such strong
D. Such was

QUESTION 7. ____________ unaware of the impacts of his speech on the latest polls, but he
also failed to acknowledge the potential derailment of his campaign.
A. Not only was the candidate
B. Not only the candidate was
C. In no way the candidate was
D. The candidate not only was

QUESTION 8. “‘____________,’ said Luis de Guindos, Spain's economy minister, while

announcing that a deal to rescue Spain's banks had been done in a two-and-a-half-hour
conference call…” [The Economist, 10/06/2012]
A. This is no way a rescue
B. No way is this a rescue
C. In no way is this a rescue
D. In no way this is a rescue

QUESTION 9. “Man's habitat at the outset was dominated by the need to find food, and hunting
and foraging were rural pursuits. Not until the end of the last ice age, around 11,000 years ago,
______________________________ anything that might be called a village, and by that time
man had been around for about 120,000 years.” [The Economist, 03/05/2007]
A. he has started to build
B. he started building
C. has he started building
D. did he start building

QUESTION 10. “Mr Obama seeks to ‘degrade and ultimately destroy’ IS, but his military
campaign has been half-hearted and is fatally flawed by the lack of a plan for Syria. (…) Now the
White House says, in effect, that arming Syrian rebels was an idea foisted7 on Mr Obama, who
never believed in it. Rarely ___________________________________________________ his
global responsibility.” [The Economist, 26/09/2015]
A. an American president has abandoned so abjectly

6 Deep and scarly crisis

7 Imposed
B. has an American president abandoned so abjectly
C. has an American president so abjectly abandoned
D. an American president has so abjectly abandoned
Adverbs between the auxiliary and the verb to emphasize.

QUESTION 11. “For starters, the international community needs to redouble efforts to fight this
preventable and curable disease. In 2012, the United Nations set out to rid Haiti and its neighbor
the Dominican Republic of cholera, by expanding access to clean water and improving Haiti’s
beleaguered health care system. The initiative has been inadequate and underfunded, and
cholera continues to sicken people. Beyond that, the United Nations must acknowledge its role
in the epidemic. Only by doing that _______________________ stronger safeguards for future
peacekeeping operations.” [NYT, 06/07/2016]
A. will it be able to establish
B. it will be able to establish
We use inversion with expressions such as “only when”, “only if”, “only after”...

QUESTION 12. “Mr. Lyndon Johnson's speech was an attempt to articulate a vision while warning
of coming troubles8. The vision was great; the warning was true.
____________________________________________________ the urban crisis of the 1960's
broke in full force. Many liberals were dazed.” [NYT, 28/05/1976]
A. The speech was just delivered when
B. Scarcely had the speech been delivered when
C. It was only a few minutes after the speech was delivered when
D. Scarcely the speech had been delivered when

PART 2. USE OF ENGLISH.

For questions 13 to 20, complete the second excerpt so it has a similar meaning to the first
excerpt, using the word given in bold. Do not change the word given. You must use between
three and eight words, including the word given.
Example:
Wealthy foodies don’t mind paying more for ultra-local, organic vegetables.
OBJECT
Wealthy foodies DON’T OBJECT TO PAYING more for ultra-local, organic vegetables.
[Adapted from http://cpestuff.blogspot.com]

QUESTION 13.
No government is threatening that freedom in the South China Sea, a vital artery for maritime
trade. But America has been alarmed by China’s building spree9, seeing the artificial islands as
military bases in the making. Before this incident, China seemed to have decided that the United
States was all talk and no action over this issue.
BITE -> IDIOM
Answer: all bark and no bite.

QUESTION 14.
Bliss was it in that pre-Lehman dawn to be alive. But to be European was very heaven. Before
the world economy turned upside down in 2008, the European Union presented an attractive
face to the world.
TURTLE -> IDIOM
Answer: turned turtle.

8 Problemas vindouros.
9 Onda
QUESTION 15.
[A]lthough government action has stabilised the global economy, a large number of questions
remains unanswered.
RAFT -> IDIOM
Answer: a whole raft of.

QUESTION 16.
“And yet America is not doing half as well as it should be. The annual Pew survey of global
attitudes this week reports yet another fall in its standing almost everywhere. Why? In part,
because what someone does is more important than what someone says, and America
sometimes betrays its own values.”
ACTIONS -> PROVERB
Answer: actions speak louder than words.

QUESTION 17.
“It is surely time for the analyst community to give the matter more thought. It may partly be
the media's fault, which has two modes of news analysis; swine flu is a plague that will destroy
western civilisation (think Stephen King's The Stand) or it is much less impressive than expected
(bird flu, the millennium bug).”
SQUIB10 -> IDIOM
Answer: damp squib.

QUESTION 18.
“Countries develop through a mixture of the right policies and the right institutions. Whatever
their past achievements, the populists are leading Latin America to a dead end.”
ALLEY -> IDIOM
Answer: a blind alley.

QUESTION 19.
“As for Iran, Mr van Creveld thinks Mr Obama and David Cameron have agreed on an
international regime of tightened sanctions and containment, and now view their main
challenge as trying to isolate and contain Binyamin Netanyahu, who keeps trying to spoil their
plans.”
APPLECART -> IDIOM
Answer: upset the applecart.

QUESTION 20.
“Only a few days ago, the ruling family and their allies in Switzerland were full of bluster about
how they were being bullied by Germany over banking secrecy. It was, they said to everyone,
outrageous that German intelligence agents had paid a former bank employee for secret data
on wealthy foreigners with foundations in Liechtenstein, designed to allow them to hide their
money from the taxman back home.”
SUNDRY -> IDIOM
Answer: all and sundry.

10 a kind of firework
PART 3. READING COMPREHENSION
TOPIC: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
TEXT 1: Read the following text and do the comprehension questions.
Membership Dues – Vocabulary
Destitute (l.1): desprovido
Underpublicized (l.4): subdivulgado
Turmoil (l.7): tumulto
Airtight (l.11): impermeável
Oft(l.11): abbreviation for often
Overthrow (l.15): derrubada
Proxy (l.17): substituto
Eschewed (l.20): evitar
Sway (l.21): controle
Pledges (l.24): promessa
To fob off (l.32): deceive someone to get rid of him
Stalemate (l.36): impasse
Swarmed (l.37): enxamear
Grievance (l.39): queixa
Parlay (l.40): use something in one’s favor
Derided (l.43): zombar
Predicament (l.47): a troublesome situation
Usher (l.58): to conduct
Reckonings (l.60): cálculos

QUESTION 21. According to the text,

A. (W ) The rules for admission of a country to the UN are not exactly transparent, and even
well-known countries such as Kosovo and Taiwan are targets of subjective criteria when applying
to become UN members. We can’t infer it.
B. ( W) Mahmoud Abbas is interested in getting an elevated observer status for Palestine, so as
to pave the way for it to be recognized as a formal U.N member. L.7-10
C. (R ) The Palestinian Authority’s security forces still commit violations now and then. L.23-25
D. (W) Many Palestinian leaders have concluded that Netanyahu’s sole intention with his
potential support to the recognition of a Palestinian state is to deceive them while he identifies
ways to bankroll the expansion of the West Bank settlements. L.30-33

QUESTION 22.
Considering the grammatical and semantic aspects of the text, decide whether the following
items are right (R) or wrong (W).
A. (W ) In l. 1, the adjective “destitute” is synonymous with “abandoned”.
B. (R ) In lines 36-37, the idiom “cut (…) some slack” emphasizes the willingness of some Arab
states to provide the United States and Israel with some degree of flexibility regarding their
resistance to the recognition of a Palestinian state.
C. (R ) In line 40, the verb “parlay”, which refers to using something to achieve a great gain,
emphasizes the noun “advantage”.
D. (W )In line 58, the verb “usher” could be perfectly replaced by “marshal” without loss in
meaning and grammar correction.

QUESTION 23. According to the text,

A. ( R) The jury is still out whether the different Palestine leaderships will manage to act as one
single entity. L.13-16
B. (R ) Instead of coming up with a creative plan to cater to Barack Obama’s goals regarding
Palestine, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made only empty threats. L.53-54
C. (W ) Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is prone to criticizing Israel for its
proximity to the West. L.41-43
D. (W ) Only recently the Obama Administration has started to show eagerness to develop a
compromise formula for the Palestinian question.

TEXT 2. Read the following text and do the comprehension questions:

Diplomat Calls for End to Drunkenness During U.N. Negotiations – Vocabulary
Protracted (l.7): lasting longer than the expected
Snickering (l.12): laughing in a disrespectful way
Puffed away (l.16): baforavam
Wreckage (l.19): destroços

QUESTION 24. According to the text,

A. ( W) The diplomat Joseph M. Torsella has suggested that diplomats quit drinking in the United
Nations, as they have already done with smoking. L.8
B. (W ) Diplomats are famous for being drunkards. L.24
C. (W ) The debate regarding alcohol consumption at the United Nations is one way through
which the animosity between the more powerful and the less powerful member states becomes
public.
D. (R ) It is not clear whether a particular incident motivated Mr. Torsella to make his opinion
heard. L.46-47

QUESTION 25. Considering the grammatical and semantic aspects of text II, decide whether the
following items are right (R)
or wrong (W).
A. ( W) The adjective “storied” [l. 2], used for places having many stories (or floors), refers to the
location of the Delegate’s Lounge on the top of the high-rise United Nations building in New
York.
B. (R ) In line 4, the noun “outpost” uses military language to allude to the search of a new bar
to replace the original Delegate’s Lounge.
C. (R ) In line 29, the noun “fealty” is an old word that carries the meaning of allegiance and
fidelity.
D. (R ) In line 30, the noun “plea” could be perfectly replaced by “appeal” without loss in meaning
and grammar correction.