Winter entrance exam: Ukraine and Yanomami must appear – 05/19/2023 – Education

Students who are going to take winter entrance exams must be aware of the unfolding war in Ukraine, relations involving China and the public health crisis of the Yanomami.

That’s what they told Sheet three professors of pre-college preparatory courses on current issues that may appear in mid-year exams in São Paulo.

Private colleges —the majority of those starting courses in the second semester—generally formulate more factual questions, says the coordinator of human sciences at the Cursinho da Poli, Rui Calaresi, who has been working in the area for 26 years. The idea, according to him, is to measure whether the candidate has minimal access to information.

The first major issue that college students can expect to encounter is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The approach in examinations must go beyond the origin of the war and explore the political, social and economic consequences.

The sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia, for example, and their impact on the supply of natural gas and oil in Europe can raise questions about the use of fossil fuels and the process of globalization.

This is precisely one of the bets of Ana Beatriz Marques, 18, a student at the CPV Cursinho. “What implications did Lula’s speech on the accountability of the two countries [pela guerra]? What are the consequences of this for Brazil? Maybe questions like that will come up”, says she, who wants to study cinema at ESPM.

Although she already got a place in the 2022 selection process, Ana will take the test for the second time, on June 25, to try to improve her placement and apply for a scholarship.

“My greatest difficulty [na prova do ano passado] it was the current affairs part, because I didn’t have many spaces to talk about what was happening in the world during high school”, she says. Now, in the prep course, she has a fortnightly class dedicated exclusively to hot topics.

There have also been discussions about China. “It’s the subject with the greatest diversity of current aspects to be covered”, says Vera Lúcia Antunes, a geography teacher at the Objective course for over 50 years.

“We have seen a lot in the classes about the New Silk Road — a Chinese investment project in infrastructure — and how China mediated the rapprochement of countries marked by conflicts with each other”, says Gabriel Mota, 17, a third-year student at Escola Móbile , in Sao Paulo.

The student is referring to Iran and Saudi Arabia, which resumed their diplomatic relations after seven years.

Gabriel wants to study economics at Insper and will take the test, scheduled for June 12, as a trainer.

In terms of Brazil, the hunch of teachers and students converges on the public health crisis of the Yanomami, revealed in January of this year.

“The indigenous question often influences college entrance exams”, says Thomas Wisiak, history coordinator at the preparatory stage. “And the mining problem is not new. It is deepening and getting worse, but these are old issues.”

In the professor’s opinion, the exams may not require specific information about the health crisis in Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve, but rather the various interests at stake.

Student Ana agrees. “It’s the first entrance exam after all this came to light, so it wouldn’t be something repetitive. If I put together an entrance exam, I would put it”, she says, “because, as a Brazilian, it’s very important to be aware of what’s happening.”

For newsrooms, a good example of a topic that stimulates candidates’ analytical and argumentative capacity is the discussion around the power of big techs and the evolution of artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, became popular due to its ability to understand human language and generate equivalent responses.

“It’s a topic that can be approached because it is very controversial. We are still in its infancy in understanding how artificial intelligence will impact the production of knowledge”, says Calaresi, professor at the Poli course.