(EsPCEx - 2015)
We’re so well educated – but we’re useless
Record numbers of students have entered higher education in the past 10 years, but despite being the most educated generation in history, it seems that we’ve grown increasingly ignorant when it comes to basic life skills.
Looking back on my first weeks living in student halls, I consider myself lucky to still be alive. I have survived a couple of serious boiling egg incidents and numerous cases of food-poisoning, probably from dirty kitchen counters. Although some of my clothes have fallen victim to ironing experimentation, I think I have now finally acquired all the domestic skills I missed out in my modern education.
Educationist Sir Ken Robinson says that our current education system dislocates people from their natural talents and deprives us of what used to be passed from generation to generation – a working knowledge of basic life skills. Today’s graduates may have earned themselves distinctions in history, law or economics, but when it comes to simple things like putting up a shelf to hold all their academic books, or fixing a hole in their on-trend clothes, they have to call for help from a professional handyman or tailor.
Besides what we need to know for our own jobs, we must have practical skills. We don’t grow our own crops, build our own houses, or make our own clothes anymore; we simply buy these things. Unable to create anything ourselves, what we have mastered instead is consumption.
Sociologist Saskia Sassen argues that the modern liberal state has created a middle class that isn’t able to “make” anymore. I suggest that we start with the immediate reintroduction of some of the most vital aspects of “domestic science” education. Instead of only maths, language and history, we should create an interactive learning environment in schools where craftsmanship and problem-solving are valued as highly as the ability to absorb and regurgitate information. We need to develop children into people that not only think for themselves, but are also able to act for themselves.
Adapted from http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2013/feb/25/well-educated-but-useless
In the sentence “I think I have now finally acquired all the domestic skills I missed out in my modern education.” (paragraph 2), the words missed out mean
didn’t miss.
didn’t want.
didn’t have.
didn’t like.
didn’t need.
Gabarito:
didn’t have.
A) INCORRECT: pois "missed out" é um termo que se difere do verbo "miss", uma vez que o verbo sozinho significa "sentir a falta de" (o que junto com o didn't forma o 'não sentir a falta de'), enquanto "miss out" significa não poder participar de algo.
B) INCORRECT: pois "want" e "missed out" são verbos que expressam coisas totalmente diferentes, visto que o primeiro expressa um desejo, enquanto o segundo fala de uma incapacidade de fazer algo.
C) CORRECT: O phrasal verb to miss out significa "ser incapaz ou não poder participar de algo". Assim, o trecho pode ser entendido como: "eu acho que eu finalmente adquiri todas as habilidades domésticas que eu não pude ter na minha educação moderna". Então a alternativa correta é a que associa o verbo to miss out a "não ter".
D) INCORRECT: pois dizer "didn't like", que significa dizer que não gostou, é diferente de dizer "missed out", que significa ser incapaz de fazer algo, o que impede a pssibilidade de realizar essa substituição.
E) INCORRECT: pois o termo "didn't need" indica algo que não precisava ser feito, o que vai na contramão do phrasal verb "missed out", que indica algo que é incapaz de ser feito.