It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.
1 Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began. 2 The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. 3 The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts. 4 So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse? 5 To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus. 6 Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth. 7 If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.
🔗 Texto adaptado de:
🔗 Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023.
In the sentence “I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content” (Text I, paragraph 7), the expression pretty content can be rewritten, with no change in meaning, by
very discouraged
really satisfied
beautifully betrayed
poorly valued
slightly strong
Questão 11 • Gabarito: (B)
A banca destaca a expressão lexical “pretty content” e pergunta qual alternativa poderia substituí-la “with no change in meaning”.
Portanto, novamente estamos diante da operação: EXPRESSÃO LEXICAL → EQUIVALENTE SEMÂNTICO. Não é necessário interpretar o texto globalmente; é necessário preservar o sentido da expressão dentro do contexto.
content → satisfied
↓
pretty content
=
really satisfied
Aqui está uma das principais armadilhas da questão: pretty não significa “bonito”.
Antes de content, a palavra funciona como intensificador, aproximando-se de quite, rather, fairly ou really.
A alternativa preserva os dois componentes semânticos da expressão: o intensificador pretty e o estado de satisfação expresso por content.
Porque a banca não apresenta uma proposição inteira para ser reconstruída. O objeto de análise é uma expressão lexical curta: pretty content → really satisfied. Portanto, a classificação permanece em 03. Synonyms in Context.
❤️ Contextual Synonymy
O candidato deve reconhecer a equivalência semântica da expressão completa, considerando o valor intensificador de pretty e o sentido de content como “satisfied”.
❌ 11. Distorção de Sentido
Discouraged significa desanimado ou desencorajado, produzindo sentido oposto ao de content, que expressa satisfação.
✅ CORRETA — 03. Synonyms in Context
Content equivale a satisfied, enquanto pretty, nesse contexto, funciona como intensificador, aproximando-se de really. A expressão preserva o sentido original.
❌ 11. Distorção de Sentido
O distrator explora o significado mais conhecido de pretty (“bonito”), mas altera completamente o sentido da expressão. Betrayed ainda introduz a ideia de traição, inexistente no trecho.
❌ 11. Distorção de Sentido
A alternativa desloca o sentido para a ideia de algo mal valorizado. O texto, porém, fala sobre o estado de satisfação do público, não sobre sua valorização.
❌ 11. Distorção de Sentido
A expressão não preserva nenhum dos dois componentes semânticos de pretty content. Além disso, slightly indica pequena intensidade, enquanto pretty funciona aqui como intensificador.
A grande armadilha está em interpretar pretty isoladamente. Em inglês, pretty pode significar “bonito”, mas também pode funcionar como advérbio intensificador.
Em pretty content, portanto, o sentido é bastante satisfeito, e não “bonito satisfeito”. A banca explora justamente essa mudança de função lexical.
content → satisfeito → satisfied
pretty content → really satisfied
thematic: Lexical Context
theme: 03. Synonyms in Context
contentTopic: 14. Economy, Inflation & Fiscal Policy
subtheme: Economy, Inflation, Fiscal Policy, Public Spending
Peça Operativa Principal: ❤️ Contextual Synonymy
A questão avalia 03. Synonyms in Context, tendo como Peça Operativa Cognitiva Principal Contextual Synonymy. A expressão pretty content significa que o público estaria bastante satisfeito, sendo corretamente reformulada por really satisfied. No contexto, content equivale a satisfied, enquanto pretty funciona como intensificador. A alternativa (B) preserva, portanto, o sentido essencial da expressão original.
EXPRESSÃO LEXICAL → equivalente semântico → 03
TRECHO / PROPOSIÇÃO → paráfrase → 31
MÚLTIPLOS BLOCOS TEXTUAIS → síntese → 40