Instrução: A questão estão relacionada ao texto abaixo.
If I had to sum up, in one word, the singular
talents of our species, I would answer with
“learning.” We are not simply Homo sapiens,
but Homo docens—the species that teaches
[5] itself. Most of what we know about the world
was not given to us by our genes: we had to
learn it from our environment or from those
around us. No other animal has managed to
change its ecological niche so radically, moving
[10] from the African savanna to deserts, mountains,
islands, polar ice caps, cave dwellings, cities,
and even outer space, all within a few thousand
years. Learning has fueled it all. From making
fire and designing stone tools to agriculture,
[15] exploration, and atomic fission, the story of
humanity is one of constant self-reinvention. At
the root of all these accomplishments lies one
secret: the extraordinary ability of our brain to
formulate hypotheses and select those that fit
[20] with our environment.
Learning is the triumph of our species. In our
brain, billions of parameters are free to adapt to
our environment, our language, our culture, our
parents, or our food. These parameters are
[25] carefully chosen: over the course of evolution,
the Darwinian algorithm carefully delineated
which brain circuits should be pre-wired and
which should be left open to the environment.
In our species, the contribution of learning is
[30] particularly large ........ our childhood extends
over many more years than it does for other
mammals. And because we possess a unique
knack for language and mathematics, our
learning device is able to navigate vast spaces
[35] of hypotheses that recombine into potentially
infinite sets—even if they are always grounded
in fixed and invariable foundations inherited
from our evolution.
More recently, humanity discovered that it could
[40] increase this remarkable ability even further
with the help of an institution: the classroom.
Pedagogy is an exclusive privilege of our
species: no other animal actively teaches its
offspring by setting aside specific time to
[45] monitor their progress, difficulties, and errors.
The invention of the school, an institution which
systematizes the informal education present in
all human societies, has vastly increased our
brain potential. We have discovered that we can
[50] take advantage of the exuberant plasticity of the
child brain to instill in it a maximum amount of
information and talent. Over centuries, our
school system has continued to improve in
efficiency, starting earlier and earlier in
[55] childhood and now lasting for fifteen years or
more. Increasing numbers of brains benefit
from higher education. Universities are neural
refineries where our brain circuits acquire their
best talents.
[60] Education is the main accelerator of our brain.
It is not difficult to justify its presence in the top
spots in government spending: without it, our
cortical circuits would remain diamonds in the
rough. The number of syllables a literate person
[65] can repeat is almost double that of an adult who
never attended school and remained illiterate.
And one's IQ increases by several points for
each additional year of education and literacy.
The complexity of our society owes its existence
[70] to the multiple improvements that education
brings to our cortex: reading, writing,
calculation, algebra, music, a sense of time and
space, a refinement of memory.
Adapted from: DEHAENE, Stanislas. How we learn: Why brains learn better than any machine… for now. New York: Viking Press, 2020.
Select the alternative that offers adequate synonyms to the words dwellings (l. 11) – knack (l. 33) – offspring (l. 44).
