(SOMATÓRIA)
THE MAGIC OF PAPER
Ever since the Cro-Magnons began painting bison and mammoths on the walls of caves, humans have been searching for the ideal surface on which to record ideas. The ancient Chinese carved pictographs in bone. Greeks scribbled on parchment made from animal skin. The Maya painted hieroglyphs on beaten mulberry bark.
The ancient Egyptians made papyrus, the writing material that one day would lend paper its name, by pressing together wet layers of that Nile sedge. But real paper proved cheaper than parchment to make and could be produced in great quantities. And paper was better than papyrus or tree bark for printing.
Words on paper changed the way people thought. Martin Luther went so far as to call printing “God’s highest and extremest act of grace.” If every man could own a Bible, Luther reasoned, he would no longer need a priest to interpret God’s word. Paper and printing guided Europe out of the Dark Ages. Just fifty years after Johannes Gutenberg invented his printing press in the mid-fifteenth century, more than six million books had been published on law and science, politics and religion, exploration and poetry.
Adaptado de: THE MAGIC OF PAPER Jon R. Luoma. National Geographic March 1997.
Vocabulário: mammoth = mamute; parchment = pergaminho; bark = casca de árvore; Dark Ages = Era das Trevas, Idade Média
Em relação aos termos cheaper e better (segundo parágrafo) e highest e extremest (terceiro parágrafo), assinale o que for correto.
01) Trata-se de quatro adjetivos.
02) Os dois primeiros estão no grau comparativo e os dois últimos no grau superlativo.
04) Os dois primeiros são adjetivos e os dois últimos são advérbios.
08) Trata-se de quatro adjetivos no grau normal.