(ITA - 1996)
Up until now, Gates has largely controlled the unfolding of his remarkable story. At 39, he seems to have achieved the information age's equivalent of the American Dream. Through intelligence, ruthlessness and hard work he dominates a technology so central to modern life that it touches nearly every office, school and desktop. 1He is very, very rich and so powerful that even his enemies are eager to cut deals with him. Now he wants more, a piece of all the action - the bills people pay, the phone calls they make, the news they read, the TV they watch. But he may have reached that point in the arc of success where the very qualities that raised him high could start to drag him down.
If Gates is feeling a little cranky these days, he has good reason. The U.S. Justice Department derailed his $2 billion bid to acquire Intuit and its popular Quicken electronic check book program, a deal that ___(I)____ realize Microsoft's ambition to make money from almost every commercial transaction in cyberspace. Another team of U.S. government lawyers is snooping around asking questions about Microsoft Network, the new on-line service he plans to launch in August. And an antitrust suit that has been hanging over his head for nearly five years - and which he thought lie had settled last year - is in legal limbo, held hostage by an ornery federal judge.
Despite the company's reputation as a juggernaut, Microsoft is running into some unexpected snags in the marketplace as well. Gates wants desperately to seize control of the so-called local area networks, where more and more corporate business is done. But ___(II)___ company is having trouble developing ___(III)___ product that can compete with Lotus Notes, which dominates the market for "groupware" (the software that helps people brainstorm over these networks) ___(IV)___ Novell's NetWare still controls two-thirds of the market for the software that runs the office systems, despite Microsoft's best efforts with Windows NT. And Microsoft's SQL Server is still struggling to win customers from Oracle, which owns almost half the market for ___(V)___ critical database software that stores the corporate word's most important information.
As lacunas II, III, IV e V devem ser preenchidas, quando necessário, pelos artigos:
the; a; the; the
the; a; a; a
a; the; the; a
the; the
the; a; the
Gabarito:
the; a; the
O artigo definido the é utilizado quando se quer especificar algo; os artigos indefinidos a e an quando se quer generalizar algo, o a é utilizado antes de palavras que se iniciam com sons consonantais e o an antes de palavras que se iniciam com sons vocálicos. O zero article, a não utilização do artigo ocorre quando se quer generalizar muito algo.
II. But ___(II)___ company ⇒ o artigo the deve ser empregado, pois a empresa está sendo especificada, o texto está se referindo a uma empresa específica.
III. developing ___(III)___ product that can compete with Lotus Notes ⇒ o artigo a deve ser empregado, uma vez que não é um produto específico e a palavra que o segue (product) começa com um som consonantal.
IV. ___(IV)___ Novell's NetWare still ⇒ não deve ser utilizado artigo aqui, já que não há necessidade de especificar de nenhuma forma Novell's NetWare
V. which owns almost half the market for ___(V)___ critical database software ⇒ deve ser utilizado the, uma vez que está sendo especificado exatamente qual tipo de software.
Alternativa correta: [E]