UFRGS EXAM
Amanda Ritter, Helena Maestri, Kelin Agnes – 3C
                           
Exam Info:
UFRGS entrance exam happens in January from day 10 to 13, in the cities of Porto Alegre, Bento Gonçalves, Imbé and Tramandaí. There are 9 subjects with 25 objective questions each, plus an essay. The subjects include Portuguese, Foreign Language, Literature, Mathematics, Biology, History, Geography, Physics and Chemistry. The subscription was from September 18th to October 19th. There are 4.017 spots in 91 graduation courses. The offer corresponds to 70% of the entrance vacancies. 30% are designed to Sistema Unificado de Seleção Universitária (SiSU/MEC).  

          Reading Comprehension:  
The mostly common texts are articles and poems. They are usually about humanity, including the culture diversity, problems and history facts. All questions are related to the texts. Interpretation, vocabulary and grammar questions comes from the context of the articles or poems. Questions to replace expressions and the title without altering the meaning and to give the significance of expressions are very common. Some questions are in Portuguese and others in English.  
To master the questions you should get used to read English texts. Vocabulary is very important to understand the context of each text. As there is a pattern of the texts topics, is good to be previously informed about those themes.  
       
       Grammar:
The grammar questions in the tests usually ask for: similar sentence structures, words formed by the same rule, grammatically correct sentences, word function and subject-verb agreement. 
For those who study english, most of the grammar questions may be very easy to solve, because they are basic and essential on the study of the language. These kinds of questions make up about one third of the test, so if you want to do well, you should take a further look at some of the main grammar topics, such as suffixation, verbal tenses, word classes, modal verbs, passive voice, etc. 

        Vocabulary: 
The vocabulary questions are usually related to the text just provided. The most common ways it is asked are: using blank spaces in the middle of the text so you'll have to fill it in; choosing a word and asking you to replace it, maintaining the meaning and the correct grammar; asking for the translation of a word in the text; or simply asking for a word's meaning. For a person who is not fluent in english, some of these questions are very hard, as they usually ask for very especific words, which sometimes are not very commonly used nowadays. Translation questions can be very confusing since the words might have multiple meanings. 
If you choose not to read the text to save time, make sure to, even when you think you know the meaning or the translation, check the context the word is in, because, just as it happens in Portuguese, in English words can and usually do have more than one meaning. Before the test, read and/or watch movies and do your best to understand as much vocabulary as you can.  
 
  QUESTIONS
Atacama Desert Blooms Pink After Historic Rainfall
The Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, is experiencing a riot of color as a rare springtime bloom of flowers covers every hillside.
The explosion of color is the result of rains that swept through the region earlier this year, watering seeds that had lain dormant in the ground for years.
The Atacama Desert typically gets just 0.6 inches (15 millimeters) a year in rainfall, though some places in the region, such as Arica, receive even less, experiencing between 0.04 and 0.12 inches (1 and 3 mm) of rain a year. 
Most of the time, the desert is an otherworldly, forbidding landscape of steep, rocky hillsides, salt lakes and old lava flows. However, this year, the heaviest rains in two decades hit the region, causing mudslides and overflowing rivers that killed 28 people. In one day in March alone, the town of Antofagasta, Chile was battered with 0.9 inches (23 mm) of rain, the equivalent of seven years of precipitation, turning the entire town into a river of mud, according to The Weather Channel.
Those rare winter rains also watered the parched landscape, nourishing flower seeds that had been buried in the ground for years. The result? A dazzling carpet of pinks, oranges, yellows and purples as far as the eye can see.
        Tia Ghose, Senior Writer 
 October 29, 2015
  http://www.livescience.com/52632-atacama-desert-flowers-bloom.html

1.Assinale a alternativa que apresenta uma expressão de sentido equivalente ao da palavra "bloom", conforme empregada no texto. 
(A) bouquet.
(B) efflorescence.
(C) explosion.
(D) exploration.
(E) elegance

2.Na frase “If you had watched him the whole time, his feet could have been fine by now”, qual é a função da palavra “could”?
(a) Alternância
(b) Possibilidade
(c) Finalidade
(d) Consequência
(e) Condição