conversation_id int64 1 2.52k | category stringclasses 1 value | conversation list |
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850 | quality | [
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nmakes the news public? You know what would happen if this thing should leak!\" intercom began feeding out a long sheet of paper the new answer from the Brain. It reached a certain length, then was automatically sheared overrode his erstwhile genial features. I had a horrible suspicion. \"Not again?\" I said softly. greatest mystery, Jery assumed that it was because of his mental agility. But when he got to Mars to find out why fifteen boys had vanished from Grade, when he realized all at once that \"someone wrote all those stories in the textbooks.\" While everyone else looked forward variously Oddly enough, it worked out, and he now does nothing else. He says, \"I'd like to say I do this for fulfillment, or for cash, or because it's my destiny however, the real reason (same as that expressed by Jean Kerr) is that this kind of stay-at-home self-employment lets me sleep late in the morning.\" 1 deadline memos. to retrace quite a bit of my lifetime up till that moment, seeking vainly for some reason why they'd be standing there, so terribly and \"... Yes,\" I said, some terrified portion of my mind waiting masochistically for them to draw their collapsers and reduce me to a heap of hot protons. always reacts to an obvious cliche. Then, with something like a look of relief on his blunt face, he \"I'd rather not discuss that, sir, if you don't mind.\" \"Do you mind if I do mind?\" \"Oh ... Oh, well if you put it like that. It's girls, sir. They block my mind. Ruin my work.\" \"I don't get you.\" think of looking at twice, except for business reasons, of course, has to stay out of my office when I'm working, or I can't function.\" \"You have my sympathy, son,\" Baxter said, not unkindly. maternity, but I was able to ask, \"Me? For Pete's sake, why, sir?\" \"When the current emergency arose and all our usual methods failed, we had to submit the problem to the Brain.\" \"And,\" I said, beginning to be fascinated by his bewildered manner, \"what came out?\" to make. IC had none to make. Damn it all to hell!\" He brought a meaty fist down on the desktop. \"No one has an explanation! All we know is that the Brain always picks the right man.\" highhanded treatment of my emotions. \"How nice!\" I said icily. \"Now if I only knew the problem!\" Baxter blinked, then lost some of his scowl. \"Yes, of course \"What a gesture!\" Baxter went on, hardly speaking directly to me at all. \"Inter-nation harmony! Good will! If these mere boys can get together and travel the voids of space, then so can everyone else! Why should there be tensions between the various nations comprising the World Government, when there's none between these fine lads, one from every civilized nation on Earth?\" \"You sound disillusioned, sir,\" I interjected. Where was I?\" \"You were telling about how this gesture, the WG sending these kids off for an extraterrestrial romp, will cement relations between those nations who have remained hostile despite the unification of all governments on Earth. Personally, I think it was a pretty good idea, myself. Everybody likes kids. Take this jam we were trying to push. Pomegranate Nectar, it was called. Well, sir, it just wouldn't sell, and then we got this red-headed kid with freckles like confetti all I thought a second, then nodded. \"They've been having such a good time that the government extended their trip by—Why are you shaking your head that way, sir?\" \"Because it's not true, Delvin,\" he said. His voice was suddenly old and tired, and very much in keeping with his snowy hair. \"You see, the I came up in the chair, ramrod-straight. \"Their mothers—they've been getting letters and—\" \"Forgeries, Fakes. Counterfeits.\" \"You mean whoever took the Scouts is falsifying—\" \"No. My men are doing the work. Handpicked crews, day and night, have been sending those letters to the trusting mothers. It's been ghastly, Delvin. Hard on the men, terribly hard. Undotted i 's, misuse of tenses, deliberate misspellings. They take it out of an adult, especially an adult with a mind keen enough to get him into Interplanetary Security. We've limited the shifts to four hours per man per day. Otherwise, they'd all be gibbering by now!\" \"And your men haven't found out anything?\" I marvelled. form of an electronic brain, and even works on the same principle—can tell you that two and two make four. But can it tell you why? \"Well, no, but—\" \"That, in a nutshell is our problem. We coded and fed to the Brain every shred of information at our disposal the ages of the children, for instance, and all their physical attributes, and where they were last seen, and what they were wearing. Hell, everything! The machine disconcerting thought. \"Yes,\" said Baxter. \"That's what bothers me.\" And well they might be. An Amnesty-bearer can suddenly decide a subject is not answering questions to his satisfaction and simply blast the annoying party to atoms. It makes for straight responses. Of course, Phobos II when the incident fifteen fair-sized young boys through its impervious hull without leaving a trace. \"Chow time, sir. That's when you expect to have the little—to have the kids in your hair, sir. Everyone wants his rations first—You know drinking. Otherwise, we'd all dehydrate, with no water to replace the water we lost.\" because, in the affair of the missing Space Scouts, my malevolent with the pilot. And I'm ordinarily on the shy side, as a matter of fact.\" \"It's the Amnesty that does it,\" he said, gesturing toward the disc. It automatically act the part. A shame, in a way.\" \"The hell it is!\" Baxter snapped. \"Good grief, man, why'd you think the Amnesty was created in the first place?\" I sat up straight and scratched the back of my head. \"Now you mention it, I really don't know. It seems a pretty dangerous thing to have about, the way people jump when they see it.\" \"It is dangerous, of course, but it's vitally necessary. You're young, Jery Delvin, and even the finest history course available these days is slanted in favor of World Government. So you have no idea how tough believe....\" He waved me silent. \"No connection at all, son. No, red tape was, well, involvement. Forms to be signed, certain factors to be considered, classifications, bureaus, sub-bureaus, congressional committees. It was impossible, Jery, my boy, to get anything done whatsoever without consulting someone else. And the time lag and paperwork involved made accurate and swift action impossible, sometimes. What we needed, of would have put us right back where we'd been before. No, we left it up to the Brain. We'd find ourselves in a tight situation, and the Brain after being fed the data, would come up with either a solution, or a name.\" I had a sudden thought. \"Say, what happens if two men are selected by the Brain? Who has authority over whom?\" Baxter grimaced and shivered. \"Don't even think such a thing! Even your mentioning such a contingency gives me a small migraine. It'd be unprecedented in the history of the Brain or the Amnesty.\" He grinned, suddenly. \"Besides, it can't happen. There's only one of these—\" he\n\n<question>:\nWhy is it unexpectedly hard for the men to forge letters for the children?\n\n<options>:\nA There is a huge amount of letters to write and families to keep up with. It's a lot of information\nB They have to intentionally write poorly, which is proving to be difficult with the volume they have to write\nC None of them are particularly good at writing letters, making it difficult for them\nD It makes them too emotional, because it involves children.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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2,052 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIn the outer doorway, backed by his clansmen, stood Groz, gazing first then he smiled, and asked, \"Well, Groz? twilight, even as her love was about him. He stood rigid, trying to catch an echo of the Watcher's thoughts, but there was nothing. Perhaps the old man was resting. From the other direction, the long way that they two had come, it was not difficult to sense the thought of Groz. That thought was powerful, and heavy with \"Hurry,\" said Neena. \"They're closer than they were an hour ago.\" She was beautiful and defiant, facing the red sunset and the black mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He felt a wave of tenderness and bitterness. For him she had come to this. \"Wait,\" he commanded. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to the crags that loomed over the pass, and to the frozen ground underfoot. It was black night, as it would really be when Groz and his henchmen one alone might never have won through. It was starry night already when they saw the light from the Watcher's cave. The light shone watery and dim from beneath the hoary back of the glacier, and as they came nearer they saw why: the cave entrance was but neither had been here before. But this was no time for shyness. Var eyed the ice-curtain closely to make sure that it was real, not dream-stuff with his fist. It shattered and fell in a rain of splinters, sparkling in the light that poured from within. They felt the Watcher rouse, heard his footsteps, and finally saw him—a shrunken old man, white-haired, with a lined beardless face. The sight of him, more marred by age than anyone they had ever seen before, was against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from the ice walls, till there was no shadow in the place. Behind them began spare it. We're pursued.\" \"Yes, yes. You shall have what I can give you. Make yourselves comfortable, and in one minute.... Pursued, eh? A pity. I see the world Hot food and drink were before them almost at once. The Watcher regarded them with compassion as their eyes brightened and some of the shadow of very long, I'm sure, I would have performed some deed which Groz would behind us.\" \"A pity, indeed. I would like to help you—but, you understand, I am the Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families.\" \"And what will you do now?\" Var grinned mirthlessly. \"We haven't much choice, since they're overtaking us. I have only one idea left: we can go where Groz may fear to follow us.\" \"To the mountain, you mean.\" The old man said, \"It is no part of my duty to dissuade you from this thing. You are free persons. But I must be sure that you know what you are doing. That is the second part of the law the First Watcher made: to \"It is true,\" said the Watcher heavily. \"In my youth I penetrated farther into the mountain than anyone before, farther even than did the First Watcher. I did not see the sleepers, nor will any man until they man wove a dream around them, and the bright ice-cave faded from their vision, and they saw— Along lightless streets, half choked with rubble and with the dead, poured a mad, hating horde. The recurrent flashes lit scarred faces, their deathless and lifeless sentinels round them, to wait till someone dare arouse them, or until their chosen time—no one knows surely. \"I have told you the story you know, and have shown you a glimpse of the old time, because I must make sure that you do not approach the mountain looked grimly at the Watcher, and would have spoken but the Watcher seemed suddenly a very long way off, and Var could no longer feel his sleep had refreshed his mind and body—realizing also that a footstep had wakened him. Across the cave he faced a young man who watched him coolly with dark piercing eyes that were familiar though he did not know the face. Neena sat up and stifled a cry of fright. Var growled, \"Who are you? Where's the Watcher?\" The other flashed white teeth in a smile. \"I'm the Watcher,\" he answered. \"Often I become a youth at morning, and relax into age as the day passes. A foolish amusement, no doubt, but amusements are few here.\" \"You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us—\" \"Groz and his people could not detect your thoughts as you slept. They were all night chasing elusive dreams on the high ridges, miles away.\" dashed from rock to rock in its struggle toward the plain, but the curling fog hid everything. \"You have an alternative,\" said the Watcher crisply. The two took their eyes from the black mountain and gazed at him in sudden hope, but his face was unsmiling. \"It is this. You, Var, can flee up the canyon to the north, by a way I will show you, disguising your thoughts and masking your presence as well as you are able, while the girl goes in the other direction, southward, without seeking to conceal herself. Your pursuers will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will be too late for them to overtake Var.\" That possibility had not occurred to them at all. Var and Neena looked last on the cindery slope of the great volcanic cone, they sensed that the pursuit already halved their lead. They stood high on the side of the Ryzga mountain, and gazed at the doorway. It was an opaque yet penetrable well of darkness, opening into the face of a lava cliff, closed only by an intangible curtain—so little had the Ryzgas feared those who might assail them in their sleep. Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently, they could not see, stood Groz. He shook the staff he carried. It was thought he hurled at them was a soundless bellow: \"Young fools! I've caught you now!\" Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows. Neena's hand tightened on Var's. Var sent a thought of defiance: \"Go back! Or you'll drive us to enter the mountain!\" Groz seemed to hesitate. Then he swung his staff up like a weapon, and grip of the illusion and the world seemed to right itself. The mist billowed again and Groz was out of sight, but they could hear him exhorting his men to haste. further on, they stumbled over a pile of charred bones. Someone else had made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into these uncharted regions, and only the utmost alertness of mind and sense had saved them from death in traps like this. But as yet the way was not might be near at hand. From behind, up the tunnel, came a clear involuntary thought of dismay, that of Groz, like the grip of two strong wrestlers. In that grip each neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world outside should crumble to ruin around them. \"Follow us, then!\" For long moments they forgot the pursuit, forgot everything in wonder at this place whose remotest like they had never seen in the simplicity of That, and his movements when he came slowly down the ramp toward them, conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new, but not novel, species of insect. His thoughts seemed to click, like metal parts of a mechanism falling into places prepared for them. The crawling, laboring to do the Ryzgas' will— toward the stars, the the Ryzga's frantic eyes. They glared back at him with such hatred and such evil that for an instant he almost faltered. But the Ryzga's\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Groz not want to go into the mountain?\n\n<options>:\nA He does not want to get separated from his team\nB He is scared of the wildlife that might try to attack\nC He is nervous about the technology left behind\nD He knows it will be hard to see the people he is chasing\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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1,527 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThere were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to actual parenthood. By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy, sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through midday and midnight. The afternoon my family returned home, I had a crew of workmen out with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my ranch and the fun would be on. My wife looked at me appraisingly and shook her head. \"I thought you meant it. But you really ought to. It would be your first.\" My son asked, \"What happened to the animals?\" \"Turned them over to the university for further study,\" I lied. \"Well,\" he said to her, \"you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision.\" Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation on the ranch. could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed. limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. These were no monsters blasted by the dosage of radiation into crippled structures. They were lovely, perfect little creatures. when I slipped out. \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\" \"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out.\" \"From me, of course.\" \"But you love me just the same.\" My wife looked at me with a puzzled smile. \"What on Earth's got into My wife sighed patiently. I looked at my wife. \"What's the idea?\" \"This place is going to hell,\" I complained. \"The old man isn't allowed to pinch the maid and the kids can't go naked.\" I leaned toward her and smacked her cheek. \"But the food and the old woman are still the best.\" \"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever By four o'clock that afternoon, I was feeding them solid food and, with the spars closed, they were holding little cups and drinking water from them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and decidedly amorous. As I walked into the kitchen, giddy with this enormous joke, my wife married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus.\" She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. \"Wouldn't you \"I will, yes. But first a divine kiss.\" I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic English vocabulary and teach it to them as their language. They would have their own crafts and live in small tree houses. I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He \"Darling, are you listening to me?\" my wife asked with impatient \"For heaven's sake, darling,\" my wife complained, \"I told you about I asked our son to wheel a TV set out onto the terrace while I made martinis for our friends. Then we sat down and drank the cocktails and the kids had fruit juice and we watched the broadcast Guy had tuned in. The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at once. I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early infants were females, which sped things up considerably. By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own way. I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model, and during the months while every female was busy in the metabolic accelerator, I taught the language to the males. They spoke it softly in high voices and the eight hundred words didn't seem to tax their little skulls a bit. My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out of the lab. I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley about a mile back in the ranch. They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously. Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes. The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little whoop. After that, it was a carnival. They learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool. They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed each other. Then they got out and lay on their backs with the planes stretched to dry. I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with It was a hero's welcome. He had to walk back, of course—he had no way to carry such a load in flight. The girls glided out to meet him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he strutted in like every human hunter. They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But presently the male turned to me. \"We fire. Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal. When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. \"We like it here. We will stay. Tomorrow you bring more of us?\" \"Yes. I will bring many more of you, if you promise to keep them all\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the nature of the narrator's relationship with his wife?\n\n<options>:\nA They have a happy marriage but the narrator is interested in the maid.\nB They have been together for a long time and the narrator is reaching a dangerous age.\nC They are an affectionate couple who respect each other.\nD They stayed together for their children and pretend to like each other.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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414 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nof Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed impossible that it could ever be used except for sheep-farming. The even more ironic solution to the problem began in the summer of interested. Seismologists were reporting unusual activity in the area, tremors too severe to be rock slides. Volcanic activity? Specifically, a dust volcano? Unusual, they knew, but right on the Kiowa Fault—could be. It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not mentioned. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. His suggestion was mentioned on page nine or ten They found, of course, that Schwartzberg had been perfectly correct. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. Rock scraped rock with a whining roar. Shuddery as a squeaky piece of chalk raked across a blackboard, the noise was deafening. The surfaces of the land east and west of the Fault seemed no longer to have any relation to each other. To the west, tortured rock reared into cliffs. East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. Atop the new cliffs, which seemed to grow by sudden inches from heaving rubble, dry earth fissured and trembled, sliding acres at a time to fall, smoking, into the bucking, heaving bottom of the depression. There the devastation was even more thorough, if less spectacular. Dry earth churned like mud, and rock shards weighing tons bumped and rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles themselves. \"It looks like sand dancing in a child's sieve,\" said the scene of disaster. \"No one here has ever seen anything like it.\" And affected area. \"When it's over you can come back and pick up the several small tremors everywhere east of the Fault, to almost twenty the danger of rock slides from minor quakes. The geologists went home to wait. to add to the heaving chaos below. And the cliffs were higher every day as the land beneath them groaned downward in mile-square gulps. As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome down. They danced \"like sand in a sieve\" dry, they boiled into rubble. Telephone lines, railroad tracks, roads snapped and simply disappeared. Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the President declared a national emergency. Trinchera and Branson were totally evacuated, but even so the over-all On the actual scene of the disaster (or the scenes it is impossible to speak of anything this size in the singular) there was a horrifying confusion. Prairie and hill cracked open under intolerable strains as the land shuddered downward in gasps and leaps. Springs burst to the surface in hot geysers and explosions of steam. floods, in the usual sense. The water moved too slowly, spread itself with no real direction or force. But the vast sheets of sluggish water and jelly-like mud formed death-traps for the countless refugees now streaming east. to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees. Rails, roads and air-lanes were jammed with terrified hordes who had left everything behind to crowd eastward. demand for gas, but once inside the \"zone of terror,\" as the newspapers now called it, they found their route blocked by eastbound cars on the wrong side of the road. Shops left by their fleeing owners were looted by refugees from further west autumn sunshine, growing higher as the land beneath them continued its inexorable descent. On 21 October, at Lubbock, Texas, there was a noise variously described as a hollow roar, a shriek and a deep musical vibration like a church bell. It was simply the tortured rock of the substrata giving way. The second phase of the national disaster was beginning. The noise traveled due east at better than 85 miles per hour. In its wake the earth to the north \"just seemed to collapse on itself like a punctured balloon,\" read one newspaper report. \"Like a cake that's of Thayer Street, where the fissure raced through. There was a sigh and a great cloud of dust, and Oklahoma subsided at the astounding rate of about six feet per hour. was somehow to ride out the coming flood, \"but like as if the land wanted to be somewhere else.\" Everyone in doomed Biloxi would have done well to have been somewhere else that evening. At approximately 8:30 p.m. the town shuddered, seemed to rise a little like the edge of a hall carpet caught in a draft, and sank. So did the entire Mississippi and Alabama coast, at about the same moment. The tidal wave which was to gouge the center Mobile, Pensacola, Panama City: 200 miles of shoreline vanished, with over two and a half million people. An hour later a wall of water had swept over every town from Dothan, Alabama, to Bogalusa on the radio message delivered from a hastily arranged all-station hookup. \"We of the gallant southland have faced and withstood invasion before.\" Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the One head of the wave plunged north, eventually to spend itself in by minute the advancing flood bit away miles of river bed, swelling through the night. The earth continued its descent, eventually tipping forming, overtopping the wave's leading edge as towns, hills and the thirst of the soil temporarily broke the furious charge. stopped after inundating Oklahoma City, was being swallowed up in the land was still sinking, and the floods were constantly replenished from great swirl. Whirlpools opened. A great welter of smashed wood and human debris was sucked under, vomited up and pounded to pieces. Gulf-water crashed on rescuers on the cliffs along what had been the west bank of the Pecos River afterwards recalled the hiss and scream like tearing silk as the water broke furiously on the newly exposed rock. It was the most terrible sound they had ever heard. \"We couldn't hear any shouts, of course, not that far away and with all the noise,\" said Dan Weaver, Mayor of Carlsbad. \"But we knew there were people down there. When the water hit the cliffs, it was like a collision between two solid bodies. We couldn't see for over an hour, because of the spray.\" Salt spray. younger children and what provisions they could find—\"Mostly a ham and about half a ton of vanilla cookies,\" he explained to his eventual rescuers. The barn, luckily collapsing in the vibrations as the waves bore down on them, became an ark in which they rode out the disaster. But such lightheartedness and such happy endings were by no means typical. The world could only watch aghast as the water raced north under the shadow of the cliffs which occasionally crumbled, roaring, into the roaring waves. Day by day the relentless rush swallowed what had been dusty farmland, cities and towns. estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives. No one could even estimate the damage to property almost the entirety our second California, was unbelievably muggy, almost uninhabitable the Ohio and the truncated Mississippi. remnants of the eight submerged states remained after the flood, but scene. But this is by now no more than a petty annoyance, to raise a smile\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the second phase of the natural disaster?\n\n<options>:\nA The falling rock that was giving way.\nB The dust clouds that were taking over.\nC The flock of refugees seeking safety.\nD Annoyingly loud noises that halted progress on rebuilding.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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885 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nA FALL OF GLASS It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's a cloudless blue sky. residence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sight that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing his favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast of deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus and take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he was playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist, hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still \"What?!\" Optimum Dome Conditions!\" the voice wailed. \"The temperature is not shouted. \"Roses! My odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social force it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer. the windshield. \"Like from ... When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully, standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was strangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now rose out of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases every in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably trite. held it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroom with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical shape of the illustration. whole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing down and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land windows all close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. they all had something important to say but had to close the windows first so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city? And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode into conversation—and that's why the house shakes.\" mountainous puffs of glass as he went. \"Mrs. Deshazaway!\" he shouted. precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then, A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly \"No, I don't need a vacation.\" Optimum temperature collapsed. \"Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed , will you emptied and then rushed about empty-handed. \"Yoo-hoo!\" he yelled, running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister. There was quite a large fall of glass. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There was something implacable about his sighs. high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the draw-pull. Every window slammed shut. \"Tight as a kite,\" he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. Oh, You Beautiful Doll an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. \"No\" thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking! A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and No. Contrived. How about a simple, one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the Studebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob my husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry their bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace.\" \"That's impossible! How?\" the dome.\" the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near unintelligibility. \"Here's one,\" she said to him as he entered. \" illustration. \"What's that?\" he said. What do you make of was unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, like a malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carrying looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. \"Where did the old society fail?\" the leader was demanding of them. He glanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as Humphrey Fownes squeezed into an empty chair. \"We live in a dome,\" the leader said, \"for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?\" with this problem in revolutionary dialectics. \" A sound foreign policy ,\" the leader said, aware that no one else had obtained the insight. \"If a sound foreign policy can't be created the only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the movement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . This is known as self-containment.\" Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be window and turning his back quite pointedly on them.\n\n<question>:\nWhat does the falling glass symbolize?\n\n<options>:\nA The importance of bucking authority and tradition in order to identify solutions for problems that plague communities all over the globe\nB The delicate balance that countries -- large and small, developed and developing -- must strike if they are to preserve Earth's natural resources\nC The deterioration of boundaries between members of different races, genders, social classes, and religious factions\nD The cracking of an illusion of safety and optimal conditions in a chaotic world inhabited by humans bent on self-destruction\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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251 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nJUPITER'S JOKE By A. L. HALEY Casey Ritter, the guy who never turned down a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods of idiots and spacemen, and headed in toward the great red spot of terrible Jupiter. to rat on him before taking the job. Well, Casey Ritter may be a lot of things we won't mention, but he doesn't rat on his clients. So there I was, closeted with the ten fall and the head man intone the sentence that would take me out of circulation for a long, long time. And instead, blast me, if they didn't foul me with this trip to good old Jupiter. I didn't get it at first. I'd argued with 'em, but inside I'd been all set for the sentence, and even sort of reconciled to it. I could even hear the words in my mind. But they didn't match what the judge was saying. I stood there gaping like a beached fish while I sorted it out. Then I croaked, \"Jupiter! What for? Are you running outa space in stir? Want to choke me to death in chlorine instead?\" Being civil to the court didn't seem important just then. Jupiter was worse than the pen, a lot worse. Jupiter was a death sentence. The senior judge rapped sharply with his gavel. He frowned me down and then nodded at the judge on his right. This bird, a little old hank of dried-up straw, joined his fingertips carefully, cleared his scrawny throat, and told me what for. \"You've no doubt heard tales of the strange population of Jupiter,\" he said. \"Every spaceman has, I am sure. Insect-like creatures who the Red Spot of the planet, floating in some kind of artificial At the thought my larynx froze up tight. This was worse than I'd thought. Government men trapping me and then beaming at me. And a full pardon. And a reward. Oh, no! I told myself, it wasn't possible. Not He shrugged, trying for nonchalance. \"About the size of a man, I believe.\" I raised my shrinking head. \"Take me to jail!\" I said firmly, and collapsed onto my chair. A crafty-eyed buzzard across the table leaned toward me. \"So this is the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!\" he sneered. \"Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!\" I shuddered. \"You're telling that one! And besides, a man's got to draw the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it right here. Take me to jail!\" won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back turned. How stupid could they get? \"Oh, no!\" I moaned. \"What were you trying to do, start a feud between us and Mars?\" His eyes watered at the memory, yearning like a hound-dog's over a and sell 'em to Akroida. She's nuts about jools. What that old girl won't give me fer 'em—\" He whistled appreciatively, thinking about it. \"Jupiter!\" I goggled at him. \"Akroida! Who's she?\" He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he was sure I'd been born. \"Don't you know nothin', butterhead?\" again. The memory still makes me fry. \"Akroida,\" he explained in his own sweet time, \"is the queen-scorp of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the Halcyon Diamond that disappeared from the World Museum five years ago, remember?\" He winked broadly. \"It come from Mars in the first place, cheese trap, though, I figger she'll be all cooled off and ready fer them emeralds.\" I went back to my cot that night, and this time instead of biting my nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and along with it, the chance of a lifetime. A better man than me had already penetrated the Great Red Spot of old Jupiter and come out alive. That thought ate me to the quick, and I began to wonder if it was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so letter to the S.S.C. The Big Sneer of the conference table promptly dropped in on me, friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made cleaned outa me room: a poiple bottle with a bright green stopper.\" He ruminated a few minutes. \"Tell you what, chump. Make them shell out with a green an' poiple spacesuit—them's the real Jupiter colors—an' put just a touch o' that there perfume on the outside of it. Akroida'll do anything fer you if she just gets a whiff. Just anything! But slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut He paused, his long nose twitching cynically—\"IF you succeed, your to which, IF you succeed, you will be a free man.\" That twitch of the nose riled me no little. \"I ain't failed yet!\" I snarled at him. \"Just you wait till I do, feller!\" I slipped the string of emeralds back into its little safe. \"Instead of sniping at me, why don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?\" Jupiter's farthest moon then they took me in to the edge of Jupiter's ice-cloud and turned me loose in a peanut of a space boat with old Jupe looming ahead bigger than all outdoors and the Red Spot dead ahead. I their proper state. I had already gone over the space boat. Yeah, I was as nervous as a cat with new kittens. Feeling again for my little my Scorpion-Come-Hither lure on the chest of my spacesuit, opened the lock, and popped out, brave as could be. Face to face with that thing, though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted He lolled his hideous cranium practically on my shoulder. \"Anything! Just anything you desire, my dearest friend.\" I tried to back off from him a bit, but the ship stopped me. \"I'm Casey him. To my surprise a vapor shot out of a box that I had taken for a natural lump on his back, and he darted away from me. I opened the as solid as if on a floor. Which was fine for flying hopper-scorps, but what about Casey Ritter, who hadn't cultivated even a feather? Attaboy, however, had the answers for everything. Towing me from the ducked his head and fearfully waited.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Casey feels regret about choosing prison over the court’s option to be sent into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot to study its inhabitants?\n\n<options>:\nA Terrified that being sent to Jupiter will kill him, Casey opts for a jail sell. When he’s told that Jupiter is filled with insect-like beings who share his enthusiasm for a reckless lifestyle, and that the mission could actually make him rich, Casey fears that he’s lost his dare devil edge.\nB Terrified that being sent to Jupiter will take too much energy on his part, Casey opts for a jail sell instead. When he’s told that Jupiter is filled with friendly life forms who love emerald and crystal as much as he does, and that the mission could actually prove his innocence, Casey fears that he’s lost his dare devil edge.\nC Casey is terrorized by his fellow prisoner, Pard Hoskins, which makes him regret not taking the chance to fly head first into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. A true dare devil would have taken the challenge, after all.\nD Terrified that being sent to Jupiter will kill him, Casey opts for a jail sell. When he’s told that Jupiter is not as dangerous as once thought, and that the mission could actually make him rich, Casey fears that he’s lost his daredevil edge.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,065 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBut Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they out and out forever in all directions. Russell didn't think they could remain sane in all this blackness much longer. Bitterly he thought of how they would die—not knowing within maybe thousands of light years Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face Suddenly, Old Dunbar had known where they were. Suddenly, Dunbar knew if only a man's brain would hold up, Russell thought. The suits were he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third, knew too, but were afraid to admit it. But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. A lot of time had rushed past into darkness. Russell had no idea now How long ago that had been, Russell didn't know. All Russell knew was recognizable pattern. But Dunbar knew. And Russell was looking at Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking about how Dunbar looked inside that suit—and hating Dunbar more and more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling optimism—because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and calling their destination Paradise. Russell wanted to laugh, but the last time he'd given way to this impulse, the results inside his helmet had been too unpleasant to repeat. Sometimes Russell thought of other things besides his growing hatred of the old man. Sometimes he thought about the ship, lost back there thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing. We all look alike out here in these big rocket pressure suits, Russell away could see or care. Still—we might have a chance to live, even now, Russell thought—if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar. They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old rum-dum. Russell had known now for some time that they were going in the wrong direction. No reason for knowing. Just a hunch. And Russell \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic life on it, Dunbar ... the only one we can live on?\" Russell asked. \"That's right! That's right,\" Dunbar yelled. \"That's the only one—and Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\" \"No life, boys, nothing,\" Dunbar laughed. \"Nothing on these other said that one had a red rim, Dunbar, and I wanted to believe it. So Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face. Russell was very sick of the old man's voice. He was at least glad he didn't have to look at the old man now. His bald head, his skinny bobbing neck, his simpering watery blue eyes. But he still had to suffer that immutable babbling, that idiotic cheerfulness ... and knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them wrong. I'd break away, go it alone to the right sun, Russell thought—but I'd never make it alone. A little while out here alone and I'd be nuttier than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all the time. Somewhere, sometime then ... Russell got the idea that the only way was to get rid of Dunbar. Russell suddenly shouted. \"Keep quiet, Dunbar. Shut up will you?\" Johnson didn't say anything at all. Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six crazy as hell, Dunbar. Crazy ... crazy! Nobody could stand it. We'll \"Now quiet down, Russ,\" Dunbar said in a kind of dreadful crooning trapped like this liable to start meandering. Liable to start losing the old will-power.\" He chuckled. \"Shut up!\" Johnson yelled. Dunbar laughed. \"Boys, boys, don't get panicky. Keep your heads. Just stick to old Dunbar and he'll see you through. I'm always lucky. Only rims. He yelled this fact out to the others. And Alvar said. \"Russ's on our hungry hides. That's worth waiting for.\" Russell did it before he hardly realized he was killing the old man. It was something he had had to do for a long time and that made it Dunbar. If he'd aimed right, Russell knew the fire-bullet should have pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished of the gravity rope, Dunbar was dead. Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer. \"Russ—you shouldn't have done that,\" Johnson whispered. \"You \"No,\" Alvar said, so low he could barely be heard. \"You shouldn't have done it.\" \"I did it for the three of us,\" Russell said. \"It was either him or us. Lies ... lies that was all he had left in his crazy head. Paradise ... don't tell me you guys don't see the red rims around all four suns, all \"How could he see any difference in those four stars?\" Russell said, louder. him because we didn't have the strength to make up our own minds. Why does a crazy man's laugh sound so good when you're desperate and don't know what to do?\" Russell said, \"I've had a hunch all along that maybe the old man was Sweat ran down Russell's face. His voice trembled. \"No—that's wrong. You're both wrong.\" He could see himself going it alone. Going crazy because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction, long ago but for that fear. \"We got to stay together,\" said Russell. \"Nobody could spend a year out here ... alone....\" \"Ah ... in another month or so we'd be lousy company anyway,\" Alvar said. \"Maybe a guy could get to the point where he'd sleep most of the time ... just wake up enough times to give himself another boost with believe there is one we can live by, because we all seem to agree that the old man might have been right about that. If we stick together, the chance is three to one against us. But if each of us makes for one star, one of us has a chance to live. Maybe not in paradise like the can come and help the other two....\" \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can ever make it alone....\" Johnson started to laugh. Russell was yelling wildly at them, and Now Russell wasn't saying anything. old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't Russell couldn't say anything. He stared at the endless void which now he would share with no one. Not even crazy old Dunbar. Russell felt the release, felt the sudden inexplicable isolation and aloneness even before Alvar and Johnson used their life-guns and shot out of sight, Johnson toward the left and Alvar back toward that other red-rimmed sun behind them. Russell used his own life-gun and in a little while he didn't hear Russell's head fell forward against the front of his helmet, and he closed his eyes. \"Maybe,\" he thought, \"I shouldn't have killed the old man. Maybe one sun's as good as another....\" Then he raised his body and looked out into the year of blackness that waited for him, stretching away to the red-rimmed sun. Even if he were right—he was sure now he'd never make it alone. pierced his body. Here. You see?\" \"Yes,\" another of them said. \"But what amazes me is that this old man picked this planet out of all the others. The only one in this entire sector that would sustain life.\" \"Maybe he was just a very lucky old man. Yes ... a man who attains\n\n<question>:\nWhich effect of Russell's decision to kill Dunbar was likely most surprising to Russell?\n\n<options>:\nA The fact that nobody agreed on which sun was the correct one\nB The decrease in chatter in the communication system\nC The way the Dunbar died without much drama\nD He sabotaged himself by ensuring his loneliness\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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2,321 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDr. David Lessing found Jack Dorffman and the boy waiting in his office when he arrived at the Hoffman Center that morning. Dorffman looked as though he'd been running all night. There were dark pouches under his eyes his heavy unshaven face seemed to sag at every crease. Lessing think we'll send a carbon copy out Chicago way. Might even persuade that puppy out there to come here and work for me—\" leaving the Farm. I talk to him, I sweat him down, I do everything but tie him to the bed, and I waste my time. He's leaving the Farm. Period.\" \"So you bring him down here,\" said Lessing sourly. \"The worst place he could be, if something's really wrong.\" He looked across at the boy. \"I don't want to go back to the Farm,\" said the boy. \"You think that would make you feel better?\" \"It would, I know it would.\" Lessing shook his head. \"I don't think so, Tommy. You know what the monitor is for, don't you?\" \"It stops things from going out.\" away from the Farm.\" I'll probably have to take him out to the Farm to shut him up.\" Lessing ran a hand through sparse grey hair. \"See what you can do for the boy now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands.\" Two letters were waiting on Lessing's desk that morning. The first was Lessing groaned. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck up daytime hours. He knew that his real work was at the Farm—yet he hadn't even been to the Farm in over six weeks. And now, as the book Dear Dr. Lessing: In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic behavior patterns, we would be gratified to schedule you as principle For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening made no sense, observing things that defied logic. Natural laws came became— But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a theory to work by— Master in the trembling flesh!\" Lessing frowned. \"Dr. Melrose, I don't quite understand—\" \"Oh, it's just that I'm impressed,\" the young man said airily. \"Of course, I've seen old dried-up Authorities before—but never before \"If you've come here to be insulting,\" Lessing said coldly, \"you're just wasting time.\" He reached for the intercom switch. don't think I can do it, you're in for quite a dumping.\" Lessing sat back slowly. \"Tell me—just what, exactly, do you want?\" \"I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of Lessing shouted for his girl. \"Get Dorffman up here. We're going to the Farm this afternoon.\" The girl nodded, then hesitated. \"But what about your lunch?\" children theory on.\" \"Why not?\" Lessing growled. \"It wouldn't be the first time the tail wagged the dog. The psychiatrists never would have gotten out of their rut if somebody hadn't gotten smart and realized that one of their new drugs worked better in combatting schizophrenia when the doctor took I'll play along.\" Lessing glared at him. \"When we began studying this psi-potential, we more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults. Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We have the Farm—to try to discover why. What forces that potential the high white gates of the Farm, slowing down at the entrance to a monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a \"The major problem,\" Lessing said, \"has been to shield the children \"Which may not be very far.\" Jack Dorffman burst in: \"What Dr. Lessing is saying is that they seem effective for our purposes.\" through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia was in heavy use. The place was teeming with youngsters, all shouting in a one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars. They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress. \"Some of our children are here only briefly,\" Lessing explained as they walked along, \"and some have been here for years. We maintain a funds. Other children come to us—foundlings, desertees, children from broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions where they can develope what potential they have— grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch, nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered. \"What are they doing?\" Melrose asked after watching the children a few Lessing smiled. \"This is an isolated phenomenon—it doesn't hold for any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to place them together—they drew each other like magnets. One of our want you to watch this very closely.\" He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The fluorescent screen continued to flicker as the children ran to Lessing. The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children Then, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children children busily putting the tower back together. There was a little \"That's what I think,\" said Lessing. \"How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?\" Lessing blinked. \"Why should they?\" suddenly, his voice earnest. \"You have fine facilities here, good workers. And in spite of my flippancy, Dr. Lessing, I have never imagined for a moment that you were not an acute observer and a .\" Lessing and Dorffman rode back to the Hoffman Center in grim silence. At first Lessing pretended to work finally he snapped off the tape them for all he's worth .\" \"But why shouldn't he?\" Farm.\" \"Yes, I know.\" Lessing's voice was weary. \"But first I think we'd better look at Tommy Gilman, and the quicker we look, the better—\" you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy—\" She broke off children's playroom. \"See what you think.\" The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they \"Tommy!\" Lessing reached out for the toy. The boy drew back in terror, clutching it to his chest. \"Go away,\" he choked. \"Go away, go away—\" When Lessing persisted the boy bent over swiftly and bit him hard on the hand. Lessing sat down on the table. \"Tommy, listen to me.\" His voice was gentle. \"I won't try to take it again. I promise.\" \"Go away.\" , Lessing thought suddenly. Something had suddenly gone horribly wrong—could the boy really be sensing the source of the trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more—he repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But an animal instinctively seeks its own protection The boy blinked in amazement, and pulled the grey helmet from his head. Lessing felt the familiar prickly feeling run down his scalp as the boy stared at him. He could feel deep in his own mind the cold chill care, filing them through the machines for the basic processing and drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the ?\" Lessing burst out. \"Didn't you see how he acted\n\n<question>:\nHow did the children come to be at the Farm?\n\n<options>:\nA Dr. Lessing bought them from their parents.\nB Some children are sent to the Farm by their parents for boarding school. Others are orphans and runaways.\nC The children come from migrant and refugee camps.\nD Dr. Lessing bought them from human traffickers.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,264 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossible on Earth.\" \"But it's mobbed,\" protested Zotul. \"It gave me a headache.\" \"And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth has Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, he was in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. Broderick smiled gently. \"Zur will grow. Our people will intermarry Zotul sat in silent thought. \"But you did not have to buy us out. You had the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet could he knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldest have been yours alone.\" He stopped in alarm. \"Or am I suggesting an and last in the rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. are equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we had to break down your caste system.\" Zotul's eyes widened. \"And that is why my brothers did not beat me when I failed!\" for him. He would report when the time was ripe. \"Doubtless,\" said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conference was expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of his The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. \"When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime, remember your position in the family.\" Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. \"Listen to the boy,\" said the aged father. \"There is more wisdom in his head than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only of the clay.\" Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned him a beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enough thing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated in their desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and they did. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thought Zur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of all Zurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, in effect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered, for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him a whaling for it. none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any had always an \"anti\" faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowed happily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. city of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it took some time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from the pottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing an will have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to use them.\" After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotul scanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome by the novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorian brothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every major \"this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, and especially for the House of Masur.\" \"You didn't think so at first,\" Zotul pointed out, and was immediately sorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for his unthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that their and will result in something even better for us.\" Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantly subsided. \"They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferior terrestrial junk,\" Koltan went on bitterly. \"It is only the glamor that The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the while brothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, several things had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortal The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making an departed from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House of Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time or The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of these At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselves The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plants The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers to All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for the Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicated on their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was not surprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down to An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, now that they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul ached with desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them and Zotul on the back. \"Just tell us your troubles and we'll have you straightened out in no time.\" All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for this Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had been made upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. \"Once,\" he said formally, \"the Masur fortune was the greatest in Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. \"My wife Lania likes the music,\" he explained. \"I cannot afford the other things.\" bargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. \"To begin with,\" he said, \"I am going to make you a gift of all these luxuries you do not have.\" As Zotul made to protest, he cut him off The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, it was no more than fair to pay transportation. \"Impossible,\" said Zotul drably. \"Not I and all my brothers together have so much money any more.\" Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. \"What must I do to get credit?\" Zotul drew back. \"I have five brothers. If I took all these things for myself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue.\" all there is to it.\" It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotul wrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. \"I will talk it over with them,\" he said. \"Give me the total so I will have the figures.\" The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotul company.\" Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman, won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarter interest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on the \"We will be forty years paying it all off,\" exulted Zotul, \"but meantime we have the things and aren't they worth it?\" But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option. and a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on this The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had less them for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy any more, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. \"You got us into this,\" they said, emphasizing their bitterness with Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hint of toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think of beating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and was somewhat comforted. \"To fail,\" said Koltan soberly, \"is not a Masur attribute. Go to the\n\n<question>:\nHow had the brothers changed by the end of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA they cared more about Zotul\nB they were so defeated they no longer beat him\nC they decided to give him more responsibility in the company\nD they hated Zotul more than ever\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,660 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBY RICK RAPHAEL That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay! Illustrated by Freas Miss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the seen, their tree-studded flanks making a pleasant setting for the mental institution. The crafts building was a good mile away from the main buildings of the hospital and the hills blocked the view of the austere complex of buildings that housed the main wards. The flying fingers continued to whip out the bits of shaped clay as the patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to draw away from the woman. \"We mustn't be antisocial, Mr. Funston,\" Miss Abercrombie said lightly, but firmly. \"You've been coming along famously and you must remember to answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very complicated.\" She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts. Safely behind the patient's back, Miss Abercrombie smiled ever so being moved back. A tall, blond patient with a flowing mustache, put one more dab of paint on his canvas and stood back to survey the meaningless warm, afternoon sunlight and the door closed behind them. An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck the hospital buildings in a wave of force and the bursting crash of a It was over in an instant, and a stunned moment later, recessed ceiling small mushroom-shaped cloud, rose above the gaping hole that had been the arts and crafts building. Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed with a small, secret smile on his lips. Attendants and nurses scurried through the hospital, seeing how many had been injured in the still-smoking hole that marked the site of the vanished crafts building. Within fifteen minutes, the disaster-trained crews had detected heavy radiation emanating from the crater and there was a scurry of men and equipment back to a safe distance, a few hundred yards away. \"It's impossible and unbelievable,\" Colonel Thomas Thurgood said for the fifteenth time, later that morning, as he looked around the group of experts gathered in the tent erected on the hill overlooking the crater. \"How can an atom bomb go off in a nut house?\" \"It apparently was a very small bomb, colonel,\" one of the haggard AEC men offered timidly. \"Not over three kilotons.\" \"I don't care if it was the size of a peanut,\" Thurgood screamed. \"How did it get here?\" \"Let's go over it once more, Dr. Crane. Are you sure you knew everything that was in that building?\" Thurgood swept his hand in the general direction of the blast crater. and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman.\" \"All I know is that you say this was a crafts building. O.K. So it was,\" Thurgood sighed. \"I also know that an atomic explosion at 3:02 this now,\" the doctor snapped. Outside the tent, a small army of military men and AEC technicians moved around the perimeter of the crater, scintillators in hand, examining every tiny scrap that might have been a part of the building at one At 4:00 p.m., the argument was still raging in the long, narrow staff room of the hospital administration building. Colonel Thurgood, looking more like a patient every minute, sat on the edge of his chair at the head of a long table and pounded with his fist on the wooden surface, making Miss Abercrombie's chart book bounce with every beat. \"It's ridiculous,\" Thurgood roared. \"We'll all be the laughingstocks of the world if this ever gets out. An atomic bomb made out of clay. You are all nuts. You're in the right place, but count me out.\" At his left, Miss Abercrombie cringed deeper into her chair at the broadside. Down both sides of the long table, psychiatrists, physicists, strategists and radiologists sat in various stages of nerve-shattered weariness. \"Miss Abercrombie,\" one of the physicists spoke up gently, \"you say that anyone of us here entertained the notion that a paranoidal idiot with the IQ of an ape could make an atomic bomb out of kid's modeling clay? \"They'd crucify us, that's what they'd do!\" At 8:30 that night, Thaddeus Funston, swathed in an Army officer's greatcoat that concealed the strait jacket binding him and with an later, the car pulled into the flying field at the nearby community and drove directly to the military transport plane that stood at the end of Two military policemen and a brace of staff psychiatrists sworn to secrecy under the National Atomic Secrets Act, bundled Thaddeus aboard Abercrombie and with a roar, the plane raced down the runway and into The plane landed the next morning at the AEC's atomic testing grounds in military men huddled around a small wooden table. There was nothing on the table but a bowl of water and a great lump of modeling clay. While the psychiatrists were taking the strait jacket off Thaddeus in the staff car outside, Colonel Thurgood spoke to the weary brought us way out here just to see you make another atom bomb like the clay, making first the hollow, half-round shell while the nation's top atomic scientists watched in fascination. His busy fingers flew through the clay, shaping odd, flat bits and clay parts that were dropped almost aimlessly into the open hemisphere in and cameras clicking. For two hours they studied and gently probed the mass of child's clay and photographed it from every angle. Then they left for the concrete observatory bunker, several miles down range where Thaddeus and the psychiatrists waited inside a ring of stony-faced military policemen. \"I told you this whole thing was asinine,\" Thurgood snarled as the scientific teams trooped into the bunker. Thaddeus Funston stared out over the heads of the MPs through the open Six hours and a jet plane trip later, Thaddeus, once again in his strait jacket, sat between his armed escorts in a small room in the Pentagon. Through the window he could see the hurried bustle of traffic over the Potomac and beyond, the domed roof of the Capitol. In the conference room next door, the joint chiefs of staff were closeted with a gray-faced and bone-weary Colonel Thurgood and his baker's dozen of AEC brains. Scraps of the hot and scornful talk drifted across a half-opened transom into the room where Thaddeus Funston sat in a neatly-tied bundle. In the conference room, a red-faced, four-star general cast a chilling \"I've listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel,\" the general said coldly, \"but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit there and tell me that this poor soul has made not one, but two atomic devices out of modeling clay and then has detonated them.\" The general paused. \"Why don't you just tell me, colonel, that he can also make spaceships of the Washington landscape. He stared hard. In the distance, a white cloud began billowing up from the base of the Washington Monument, and with an ear-shattering, glass-splintering roar, the great shaft rose majestically from its base and vanished into space THE END\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of the Washington Monument flying into space at the end of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA It shows that someone else has powers similar to Thaddeus\nB It shows the reader that it is certainly something about his gaze that causes these events\nC The government is able to confirm their suspicions that he is able to create different types of powerful reactions, not just bombs\nD It is a politically charged building which makes it a more severe issue to the men studying him\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,615 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"They look pretty complicated.\" \"Not at all. The questions are quite explicit.\" Craig looked them over quickly. do is bet on the validity of a homesick dream! Flight Officer Robert Craig surrendered the tube containing his service record tapes and stood waiting while the bored process clerk examined the seal. \"Your clearance,\" said the clerk. \"We send it on ahead. Go to Grav 1 desk.\" A murmur greeted the order. Craig experienced the thrill of knowing the envy of the others. Grav 1—that meant Terra. He crossed the long, dreary room, knowing the eyes of the other men were upon him. \"Your service tapes,\" the next noncom said. \"Where you going?\" \"Grav 1—Terra,\" fumbled Craig. \"Los Angeles.\" \"Los Angeles, eh? Where in Los Angeles?\" It had been a weird day and he had not liked it. There was no telling how long it would take him to shake his—sea legs, the psychologist had called it. One thing was sure: Terra aggressively went after its strangers. aggressive after Clerical, eh?\" \"I'm a little anxious to get home, I suppose,\" said Craig defensively. \"By 'home' you mean Terra. But you've never been there, have you?\" \"No, but my father—\" \"Your parents left Terra during the Second Colonization of Cassiopeia II, didn't they?\" \"Yes,\" Craig said. He was uncomfortable The captain laughed reassuringly. \"No, don't put up your guard again. The worst is over. Short of Gravitational conditioning, there is nothing to stop you from going to Terra.\" \"Sorry, I guess I'm a little touchy. This is my first time....\" \"Quite natural. But it being your first time—in quite a number of conditioning.\" \"Conditioning?\" asked Craig. \"Yes. You have spent eleven years in space. Your body is conditioned to \"I know all about this, Captain.\" \"You've undoubtedly read popularizations in tapezines. But you have the beginning. I'll turn you over to psychometry for the usual tests be pinned down to any specific condition the spaceman would find intolerable. Craig began to hate the delay that kept him from Terra. Through the ports of the headquarters base satellite, he scanned the constellations for the scores of worlds he had visited during his eleven years in space. They were incredibly varied, even those that supported life. He had weathered difficult landings on worlds with rip-tide gravities, had triple star systems. He had been on Einstein IV, the planet of eight moons, and had felt the pulse of all eight of the satellites at once that no PON could completely nullify. But even if he could accept the psychologist's authority for the unspoken warning he felt underlying all that the man said. \"Of course it has changed,\" Craig was protesting. \"Anyway, I never really knew very much about Terra. So what? I know it won't be as it was in tapezines either.\" \"Yet you are so completely sure you will want to live out your life that you could not decide that for me and that my decision is logical. You tell me spacemen don't settle down on Terra. Yet you won't—or can't—tell me why. I've got a damned good job there—\" \"You may find that 'damned good jobs' become boring.\" \"Sure. What else can it be?\" \"Mr. Craig,\" the psychologist said slowly, \"you have my authorization for you to return to Terra as a private citizen of that planet. You will be given a very liberal supply of PON—which you will definitely need. Good luck. You'll need that too.\" conditioning process. over him. Four elongated eyes peered at him. Attendants coming for to take me home.... \"Touch me and I'll kick your teeth in!\" he yelled. \"I'm going to Terra. Wish you were going to Terra?\" Then it was better. Oddly, he passed the twelfth day easily. By the conditioning. The huge headquarters base centrifuge aboard the man-made satellite had gradually caused their bodies to respond once more to a Then they again began taking paraoxylnebutal in preparation for the free-fall flight to Terra. Only one of the score of men in the centrifuge tank remained voluntarily in his cot. \"What will they do, exile him?\" \"Not to Chociante, if that's what you mean. They just jerked his space card and gave him a one-way ticket to Terra.\" \"For twelve murders?\" asked Craig incredulously. \"That's enough, son.\" The old man eyed Craig for an instant before looking away. \"Pick something to talk about. What do you figure on doing when you get to Terra, for instance?\" \"I'm going into Import. My father was in it for twenty years.\" \"Sure,\" said the old spaceman, watching a group of young crewmen guess I spent too long in Zone V.\" He paused to examine his wrinkled hands. They were indelibly marked with lever callouses. \"You get to thinking anyone who stays closer'n eighty light years from Terra is a \"Whereabouts?\" \"Los Angeles.\" The old man looked up at Craig. \"You don't know much about Terra, do you, son?\" \"Not much.\" beginning to feel a reaction to the short free-fall flight from the headquarters satellite. The audio called out: \"Flight Officer Robert Craig. Flight Officer Robert Craig. Report to Orderly 12. Report to Orderly 12 through the With pangs of anxiety he could not completely suppress, Craig obeyed. Orderly 12 handed him a message container. \"Who's it from? Somebody on Terra?\" \"From a private spaceman named Morgan Brockman.\" \" with me, but she wouldn't go. Earth was a lot different then than it is now. They don't have to tell me impressions. One day he would recall this moment, his first on the planet Terra. He tried to recall his first thrill at seeing Los Angeles, 1500 square miles of it, from the ship as it entered the atmosphere. He was about to step off the last step when a man appeared hurriedly. A rather plump man, he displayed a toothy smile on his puffy red face. \"A moment, sir. Just a little greeting from the Terra. You understand, of course. Purely routine.\" Craig remained on the final step of the ramp, puzzled. The man turned \"Customs. Bet you never got such a smooth screening before, eh?\" \"You mean he screened get it over with quick.\" Craig made his way toward the spaceport administration building. His first physical contact with Terra had passed unnoticed. \"Sir! Sir!\" cried a voice behind him. He wheeled to see a man walking briskly toward him. personnel man said finally. \"That so?\" \"Yes.\" He turned to face Craig briefly before continuing. \"You must been anywhere very long. This is my first real experience with life on a planet. As an adult, anyway.\" The personnel man seated himself once more and pressed a button on a \"Miss Wendel, this is Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig, my secretary. Mr. Craig will enter Minerals and Metals, Zone V.\" attempted to catch her eye had she not immediately occupied herself with unfolding the legs of a small instrument she was carrying. \"This is Mr. Craig's first landing on Terra, Miss Wendel,\" the personnel man continued. \"Actually, we shall have to consider him in much the same way we would an extraterrestrial.\" The girl glanced at him once more, this time with a definite quizzical look in her brown eyes. \"Three complete tours of duty, I believe.\" \"Four,\" corrected Craig. \"Four tours of three years each, minus a year's terminal leave.\" \"I take it you have no identification card?\" the man asked. without looking at Craig. \"Yes.\" The man laughed. \"You'll excuse us, Mr. Craig. We realize that you couldn't be expected to be familiar with Terra's fashions. In your present outfit you would certainly be typed as a ... well, you'd be made uncomfortable.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhich activity is part of the psychometric evaluation?\n\n<options>:\nA A trial period of exposure to gravity conditions on Terra\nB Role playing worst case scenarios on Terra\nC Exposure to video and audio footage from Terra\nD Lengthy interviews with multiple officials who have been to Terra\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,488 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwould soon have a moderate prosperity, yet they still lacked adequate medical and research facilities. Not all the world’s citizens were content. 135 when Zarwell arrived that ] [p hard cot, with his eyes closed, small muscles in his arms and legs. Across his wrists and thighs he felt straps binding him to the cot. blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing 143 ] a large high-domed room, much kill him right away,” a second, less confident voice said. “It’s supposed “What do you think they’ll do with him?” “Execute him, I suppose,” the [p 136 ] harsh voice said matter-of-factly. Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to a hard granite core, only partially observe his surroundings. “They’re probably just curious to down at Zarwell. “Have a good least every twenty hours. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge Zarwell followed his gaze to where up to the side of Zarwell’s cot. from him Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as possible with arm leverage. As the supposed to be great stuff in a situation like this,” he said, his smoke-tan reassessed the odds. There were large square teeth. “How able to incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that Zarwell told him. about giving me a sample?” five of them, he saw. He should be the cot—and Zarwell’s left hand they had been expecting him meant He offered no resistance as they reached him. They were not gentle men. A tall relaxed. drove his fist at Zarwell’s head. raise his hands and a hard flat 144 ] “How does it tie in with what I Zarwell did not answer. His other than an introspective stillness words once again precise and meticulous. pulled back a strip of plastic cloth just below his rib cage and took out a small flat pistol. He held it in the palm of his hand. He knew now why he always carried it. “We don’t have enough to “You’re not going to …” he began at the sight of the gun. He tried again. “You must be joking.” “I have very little sense of humor,” “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell comanalysis this afternoon [p 137 ] he showed little fear. Zarwell had prestige to meet danger calmly. chatter as he administered the drug. “A scopolamine derivative that’s been well tested.” The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet Curiosity restrained his trigger finger. maintained a professional diversionary “But use that logical mind you’re supposed to have! Scenes before this have shown what kind of man patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are able now, with the help of the Zarwell debated with himself the serum, to confine our discourses to matters cogent to the patient’s The floor continued its transmutation, and Zarwell sank deep into ZARWELL found himself Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. nothing here except himself—and the gun that he held in his hand. A weapon beautiful in its efficient simplicity. He should know all about the instrument, its purpose and workings, but he could not bring his thoughts into rational focus. His now. Without attention he put his pistol away in a trouser pocket. merely shortening the space between them—the man who held the gun. The man who was himself. The other “himself” drifted nearer also, as though drawn by a mutual attraction. The man with the gun raised his weapon and pressed the trigger. Zarwell made his decision quickly. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed With the action the perspective 145 ] shifted again. He was watching the longer the same. No longer his own features. [p 138 ] jig-saw. In time it will fit into place.” He paused. “It means no The muscles should be rested at reticence, however. The man had Fortunately his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise now. He adjusted the ring setting on the pistol-shaped instrument that he took from his case, and carefully rayed several small areas of concealed by his present perplexity. He was a man who could handle himself well in an emergency. of treatment.” He straightened a paper on his desk. “I think that will with the changes that had been made. He turned to his briefcase again and exchanged the gun for Zarwell grunted acknowledgment a small syringe, which he pushed into a trouser pocket, and a single-edged razor blade. Removing his fiber-cloth jacket he slashed it into strips with the disposal bowl. With the sleeves of his blouse rolled up he had the appearance of a typical workman gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell near-deserted. The only sounds he uncomfortable in the day’s heat, and the lowing of imported cattle waiting in a nearby shed to be shipped to the country. All St. Martin’s has a distinctive But in the Flats the odor changes. and trading marts the smell Zarwell passed a group of [p 146 ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. smaller children playing a desultory Zarwell nodded. game of lic-lic for pieces of 139 Zarwell stopped him with an upraised The next morning when Zarwell ] Zarwell explained listlessly. “A If he rested quietly it would his mind lost its sleep-induced [p 140 them a hand on the same kind of This morning, however, the sense job. The political conditions there I have a kind of genius for that sort of thing.” He stretched out his legs and regarded did not seem to be his own. The furnishings, and the clothing he observed He gazed about him. The room his body moving with mechanical reaction. The slippers into which he put his feet were larger than he had expected them to be. Zarwell’s tone appealed The place was familiar, but only as it would have been if he had studied it from blueprints, not kaleidoscopic, less personal. A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among individual clashes, yet a moving force in the conflict . The background changed. He RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell was nearing its end. Zarwell was He moved in and joined a party of short, bearded men, directing them as they battered at the concrete and the besiegers charged through, carrying back the defenders Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was Zarwell was not the leader of the medium tall, with the body of an beyond the age of sports. He had a manner of contained energy. break in the panorama. Now Zarwell Zarwell tried to feel the anger he his comrades before. Still he moved with the same firm purpose, vigilant, resourceful, and well prepared difficulty. He alighted from a space ship on to fight. Now he swiftly 141 ] Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. housed not dreams. They were recollections , poorly fed, poorly clothed. Zarwell found himself not listening Zarwell’s expression became face splitting in a grin that revealed They …” is so …” “Haphazard? That’s true. The recall episodes are always purely random, with no chronological sequence. Our problem will be to reassemble them in proper order Zarwell gazed up at the bright implanted there. But we can go into that later. For today I think A WORK truck picked Zarwell 142 ] life. The necessary machinery and technicians had been supplied by Earth, and the long struggle began to fit the world for human needs. When Zarwell arrived, six binding grasses, grain and trees, and diverted rivers to keep it fertile. they blasted out springs and lakes Biologists developed the necessary germ and insect life from what they found in the sea. Where that failed, they imported microorganisms from Earth. Three rubber-tracked crawlers mountains until they joined the road passing the belt. They were loaded with ore that would be smelted into metal for depleted Earth, or for other colonies short export thus far. Zarwell pulled his sun helmet lower, to better guard his hot, dry Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the settings of Zarwell's comanalyses have in common?\n\n<options>:\nA deception\nB captivity\nC pursuits\nD weapons\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,560 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nto love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a matter of adjustment. At noon, he brought back another dozen K-99s and installed them in his They were such cute synthetic creatures, it was impossible not to love them. Of course, Intelligent several of the thirty-five over to central lab for dissection and ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their owners down upon him. He began to understand why bio-inspectors were frequently shifted from one territory to another. On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check on the missing number. It was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty blocks of commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a job. Sure, everything has its ugly angles. But think—we get this house rent-free I've got my own district with no bosses around It was on a dingy sidestreet, reminiscent of past centuries, a street of small bars and bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a \"And what can I do? You know how the Federation handles employment. I make my you'll meet lots of people that stop in at the pound. It's a fine job, honey!\" liked babies. And because I have a B.S. in biology and an aptitude for dealing with people. Can't you understand? Destroying unclaimed units is the smallest part of it. Honey, before the evolvotron, before Anthropos went into the mutant-animal business, people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way—I'm just a than the neutroids. A K-108 could speak a dozen words, and a K-99 house. The honeymoon was over, all right. He climbed in the kennel-truck and drove east toward the highway. The suburban street wound among the pastel plasticoid cottages that were set approximately two to an acre on the lightly wooded land. With its population legally fixed at three hundred million, most of the country had become one big suburb, dotted with community centers and lined with narrow belts of industrial development. Norris wished there were someplace where he could be completely alone. As he approached an intersection, he saw a small animal sitting on the stuttering high-pitched wail, then: \"Kiyi Rorry.\" \"Whose child are you, Rorry?\" he asked. \"Where do you live?\" The cat-Q-5 took its time about answering. There were no houses near of their own, could get quite attached to a cat-Q-5. The felines were emotionally safer than the quasi-human chimp-K series called but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C His grin faded as he wondered which Anne would choose. The Norrises were class-C—defective heredity. He found himself in Sherman III Community Center—eight blocks of commercial buildings, serving the surrounding suburbs. He stopped at project within seven days. C. Franklin Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around three hundred animals a month. He tried to estimate how many of July's influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his kennel. The other forty-nine were occupied by the previous inspector's \"unclaimed\" inventory—awaiting destruction. dying. Eighteenth order virus.\" \"So?\" \"Well, she's—uh—rather a good things about the have to be killed. addresses of individual buyers. By three o'clock, he had the entire list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained that , he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to begin his rounds. Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the own hours \"Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo sidewalk escalator toward O'Reilley's address. \"Not too hard. Those were just three out of fifteen. I got the other twelve. They're in the truck.\" \"That's good,\" she said. \"You've got only twelve empty cages.\" He neglected to tell her that he had stopped at twelve for just this all about work.\" They went out to the kennels together. The cages were inside a sprawling concrete barn, which was divided into three large rooms—one for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that The doll-like neutroids began their mindless chatter as soon as their keepers entered the building. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh Their human appearance was broken by only two distinct features: short beaverlike tails decorated with fluffy curls of fur, and an erect they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little smiles, and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew beyond a predetermined age-set which varied for each series. Age-sets were available from one to ten years human equivalent. Once a neutroid \" Apple cores! gene structure with sub-atomic particles. It's tricky business. He flashes a huge enlargement of the ovum on the electron microscope screen—large enough so he can see the individual protein molecules. He has an artificial gene pattern to compare it with. It's like shooting structure and displace certain links by just the right amount. And had a couple of flaws—something wrong in the central nervous system's That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But they all look \"It belongs to somebody else. If it fixes a libido attachment on you, you're actually robbing its owner. They can't love many people at once.\" you—want one—for yourself? I can sign an unclaimed one over to you to keep in the house. It won't cost us anything.\" Slowly she shook her head, and her pale eyes went moody and luminous. \"I'm going to have one of my own,\" she said. both our families. Well, I don't care, Terry. I'm not going to waste a heart over one of these pathetic little artificial animals. We're going to have a baby.\" \"You know what they'd do to us?\" \"If they catch us, yes—compulsory divorce, sterilization. But they won't catch us. I'll have it at home, Terry. Not even a doctor. We'll hide it.\" Norris frowned with bewilderment as the scene shifted to a two-story plasticoid house among the elm trees. It was after dark, but the mobile unit's powerful floodlights made daylight of the house and its yard and has no baby . Just a minute—just a long-time residents was obvious. Society manufactured them because killing them was became glutted. The neutroids offered solace to childless women, kept them satisfied with a restricted birth rate. And why a restricted birth rate? Because by keeping the population at five billions, the Federation could insure a decent living standard for everybody. Where there was giving, Norris thought glumly, there was also taking he created nothing. He thought that he had created—with his medical science and his end to wars—a longer life for the individual. But he found that he had only taken the lives of the unborn and added them to the years of the aged. Man now had a life expectancy of eighty, except that he had damn little chance of being born to enjoy it. A neutroid filled the cradle in his stead. A neutroid that never ate as much, or grew up to be unemployed. A neutroid could be killed if\n\n<question>:\nHow have increasingly longer life spans impacted Federation society?\n\n<options>:\nA The population is tightly controlled to prevent scarcity.\nB Mutant animals have been created to satisfy the parental desires of childless couples.\nC Life expectancy has increased to 80.\nD The whole country has become a giant suburb, with two houses on every acre.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,802 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOne can't be too cautious about the people one meets in Tangier. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Levantines and Filipinos, North Americans and South Americans, and, of course, even Europeans—from both sides of the the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoeshine to their not very lily-white bodies, and the richest will avoid your eyes, afraid you might try to sell them something. In spite of recent changes, the As a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced and said, \"Hello, Paul. he was welcome to intrude. It was Paul said, \"How are you, Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an easy-going, sallow-faced somebody saying he exports. \"What's in the newspaper?\" \"Pogo and Albert are going to fight a duel,\" I told him, \"and Lil Abner is becoming a rock'n'roll singer.\" type.\" I scanned the front page. \"The Russkies have put up another manned satellite.\" \"They have, eh? How big?\" \"Several times bigger than anything we Americans have.\" Paul said, \"What ever happened to those poxy flying saucers?\" \"What flying saucers?\" both looked after her. \"You know, what everybody was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad one of these bloody manned satellites wasn't up then. Maybe they would've seen one.\" way. I didn't know Paul very well, but, for that matter, it's played close to the chest. My beer came and a plate of tapas for us both. Tapas at the Cafe de Paris are apt to be potato salad, a few anchovies, olives, and possibly some cheese. Free lunch, they used to call it in the States. Just to say something, I said, \"Where do you think they came from?\" And when he looked blank, I added, \"The Flying Saucers.\" He grinned. \"From Mars or Venus, or someplace.\" \"Ummmm,\" I said. \"Too bad landed on the Yale football field and said Take me to your cheerleader , or something.\" Paul yawned and said, \"That was always the trouble with those crackpot blokes' explanations of them. If they were aliens from space, then why not show themselves?\" I ate one of the potato chips. It'd been cooked in rancid olive oil. I said, \"Oh, there are various answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think of two or three that made sense.\" Paul was mildly interested. there's this big Galactic League of civilized planets. But it's restricted, see. You're not eligible for membership until you, well, say until you've developed space flight. Then you're invited into the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time to keep an eye on your progress.\" Paul grinned at me. \"I see you after her. I said, \"Or, here's another one. Suppose you have a very advanced civilization on, say, Mars.\" \"Not Mars. No air, and too bloody dry to support life.\" \"Don't interrupt, please,\" I said with mock severity. \"This is a very old civilization and as the planet began to lose its water and air, it withdrew underground. Uses hydroponics and so forth, husbands its water and air. Isn't that what we'd do, in a few million years, if Earth lost its water and air?\" \"I suppose so,\" he said. \"Anyway, what about them?\" \"Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific boom, an industrial boom, a population boom. A boom, period. Any day now he's going to have practical space ships. Meanwhile, he's also got the H-Bomb and the way he beats the drums on both sides of the Curtain, he's not against using it, if he could get away with it.\" Paul said, \"I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on us. That's an old one. I've read that a dozen times, dished up different.\" it's one possibility.\" \"I got a better one. How's this. There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. Their civilization is so old that they don't have any records of when it began and how it was in the early days. They've gone beyond things like wars and depressions and revolutions, and greed for power or any of these things giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? And some of them are pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right now, with all the problems, get it? Things developing so fast we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there.\" I finished my beer and clapped my hands for Mouley. \"How do where we're going ?\" \"Well, take half the countries in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries. Look at Egypt, and Israel, and India and China, and Yugoslavia and Brazil, and all the rest. Trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced countries, and all using different methods of doing it. But look at the so-called advanced countries. Up to their bottoms in problems. Juvenile delinquents, climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony-bins full of the balmy, unemployed, threat of war, spending all their money on armaments instead of things like schools. All the bloody mess of it. Why, a man from Mars would be fascinated, like.\" Mouley came shuffling up in Paul said seriously, \"You you always come up against this brick wall. Where are they, these observers, or scholars, or spies or whatever they are? Sooner or later we'd nab one of them. You know, Scotland Yard, or the F.B.I., or Russia's secret police, or the French Sûreté, or Interpol. This world is so deep in police, counter-espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time, no matter how much he'd been trained. Sooner or later, he'd slip up, and they'd nab him.\" I shook my head. \"Not necessarily. The first time I ever considered this possibility, it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could gives a damn about you or your \"That's right,\" Paul admitted. could care less. Where are \"I felt your mind probe back talking about Scotland Yard or the F.B.I. possibly flushing an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If they had it, your job—and mine—would be considerably more difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really from, Rupert?\" about you?\" We had a laugh and ordered another beer. \"What're you doing here on Earth?\" I asked him. \"Researching for one of our meat trusts. We're protein eaters. Humanoid flesh is considered quite a delicacy. How about you?\" \"Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal, or international, conflicts—all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in—well shielded, of course—and get their kicks watching it.\" Paul frowned. \"That sort of practice could spoil an awful lot of good meat.\" THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Paul think aliens are watching Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA The aliens are watching Earth's civilization go through wars and struggles as a form of amusement.\nB They want to invite Earth to join the Galactic League of civilized planets.\nC Man has invented the H-Bomb. The aliens are scared.\nD The aliens are preparing to harvest humans as a food source.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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744 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThere were more Joes on Venus than you could shake a ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel Walsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as I liked him, and so he decided the job was just right for a Major. At least, that's what he told me. then. The rest was gravy, and Colonel Walsh wasn't going to let me get by with gravy. \"It will be a simple assignment, Major,\" he said to me, peering over \"The man is a trader of sorts. Rather intelligent.\" He paused, then added, \"For a native, that is.\" I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. anyone can tell us the reasons for the revolt, he can.\" If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. him for sleeping on Boiler Watch. He'd goofed off on a pile of uranium that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night. \"I don't know, sir.\" \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He The trip to Venus came off without a hitch. I did a lot of thinking on that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took over. Swell guy, Walsh. Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. Much too hot for the tunic I was wearing. It smelled, too. A funny smell I couldn't place. Like wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him anyway, and there wasn't much he could do if I decided to stop for a drink first. curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... \"Not so hot, Joe,\" the bartender replied. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. \"Yes,\" I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh. \"You better get your butt over to the captain's shack,\" he said. \"He's about ready to post you as overdue.\" Lots of enlisted men, you know.\" I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful ancestry more keenly. Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat pussy cat. \"What is it, Major?\" he asked. \"This man Joe,\" I said. \"Can you give me any more on him?\" Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any difficulties, are you?\" \"None at all,\" I snapped back. \"I just thought I'd be able to find him a lot sooner if....\" \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\" \"I thought....\" \"I'm sure you can do the job,\" Walsh cut in. \"I wouldn't have sent you otherwise.\" Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\" He blinked at the screen, trying to realize I'd deliberately hung up on him. \"Polk!\" he shouted, \"can you hear me?\" I smiled, saw the twisted hatred on his features, and then the screen on my end went blank, too. As I saw it, there were two courses for me to follow. One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping the next ship back to Earth. It would also mean disobeying the direct order of a superior officer. besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his life. Maybe there was a Joe here who could help us on Mars. If there was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me. I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something that had happened years ago. He surely must have realized that I'd be Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back. The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with But what probably bothered him more was the fact that I was next in command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good guy who would deliberately go to sleep on Boiler Watch with a ton of the nose, and a lot of things became clear then. I also saw Walsh standing near one of the huts, a stun gun in his hand. \"Hello, Major,\" he called, almost cheerfully. The gun didn't look was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game. I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" \"Colonel,\" Walsh corrected me. \"You mustn't forget to say Colonel, Major .\" He emphasized my rank, and he said it with a sort of ruthless finality. I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh \"You didn't have to report me,\" Walsh said. \"No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!\" Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely audible. The heat was oppressive, as if it were concentrated on this little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small, game, the fun? \"You brought the Mars business on yourself,\" I told Walsh. \"There was never any trouble before you took command.\" \"The natives,\" he practically shouted. \"They ... they....\" \"Nothing,\" Walsh said. \"Nothing.\" He was silent for a while. \"A man of my calibre,\" he said then, his face grim. \"Dealing with\n\n<question>:\nWhat would have happened had Major Polk never reported Captain Walsh for sleeping on Boiler Watch at the Academy?\n\n<options>:\nA Major Polk would have outranked Captain Walsh in the military.\nB Major Polk and Captain Walsh would have never worked together like they do now.\nC Captain Walsh and Major Polk would still have the same feelings toward each other.\nD Captain Walsh would have never sent Major Polk on the mission.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,379 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhen overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course almost ordinary-looking. hideous. not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic clothing handsome face. \"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to the letter combination years. The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. \"Where to, fellow-man?\" the driver asked. \"I'm new in the parish,\" the other man replied and let it hang there. \"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?\" \"Games?\" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was wanted by then. \"Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?\" \"Is there a good zarquil game in town?\" The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the thrill-mill.\" He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy. \"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?\" The driver spat out of the window. \"If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the \"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though.\" It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there \" Mrs. Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them. lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and beginning to slide downhill.... closer about her chilly body. \"Aren't you going to introduce your—your \"I don't know who he is,\" Gabe said almost merrily, \"except that he's no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?\" \"Of course I have a name.\" The fat man extracted an identification card from his wallet and read it. \"Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail milgot dealer any more the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago, and now he isn't ... anything.\" casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation held little gratitude. The fat man shook his head without rancor. \"I have plenty of money, thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come,\" he addressed her husband, \"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others had been one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification. Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care. Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word \"crimes against nature.\" Actually the phrase was more appropriate to zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien human beings all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs. Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been big money in musical chairs as such. When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet. it was down-right shabby, the dim olive light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. \"One?\" the small green creature in the slightly frayed robe asked. patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine \"It does indeed,\" the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable are The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. \"Yes, I'm all of them.\" \"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance Do you like it? Or is it because of included in its scope. \"Do you want to keep him from recognizing you is that it?\" didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what casually. him . And he knows that.\" something about you that doesn't change.\" subject she feared. \"You have a pretty good body there. Why run the \"This isn't a good body,\" he said. \"It's diseased. Sure, nobody's of foliage.\" expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then it was tough on me too, wasn't it?\" \"Why not?\" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes. \"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house.\" \"But I have plenty of money.\" The young man coughed. The Vinzz shrugged. \"I'll pay you twice the regular fee.\" The green one shook his head. \"Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This game is really clean.\" \"In a town like this?\" \"That is the reason we can afford to be honest.\" The Vinzz' tendrils quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung with him. \"We do a lot of business here,\" he said unnecessarily, for the whole set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by no means poor when it came to worldly goods. \"Why don't you try another town where they're not so particular?\" The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game. information. \"Male?\" exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or biological impossibility, no one could tell. its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite \"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take such a risk.\" The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. \"How much?\" \"Thirty thousand credits.\" \"Why, that's three times the usual rate!\" \"The other will pay five times the usual rate.\" \"Oh, all right,\" the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the maybe I'll be able to get away with it. \"It is she went on. \"You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose, does he?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is foliage?\n\n<options>:\nA a person's ticket into zarquil\nB a transportation pass\nC the leaves on trees\nD the local currency\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,494 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMore Bang for the Buck A friend of mine offers a theory about why Bill Clinton's poll numbers stayed so high throughout the Lewinsky scandal: The news made it possible for serious-minded people to spend lots of time--at the office and over lunch--talking about semen stains, vaginal insertions, and blow jobs. And the people were grateful. If that's true, many of us could use a little sexual self-improvement. Not me, of course. I have been happily married for 26 years, since the age of 21. Deb and I have what seems to us to be a perfectly fine amorous life, yet everywhere I turn the culture tells me--almost mocks me-- you can do better! What would happen to our sex life then, if Deb (who participated in this story because she loves me and because she has tenure) and I tried for the first time to make something happen to it? And so it was that we found ourselves for the first time ever in a sex-toy store, A Touch of Romance, located near our home in Los Angeles, across the street from a Macy's. The idea behind shops like these is to make obtaining the materials of sexual experimentation as ordinary as purchasing plumbing supplies or housewares. Which sort of works--the only sexual thrill I got from the visit was knowing that Microsoft just bought a cock ring. Choosing it wasn't easy. Most of them came in presized sets of three. I couldn't figure out which would fit right and intuited that try-ons weren't an option. So I opted instead for an adjustable circumference version, a little strip of vinyl with snaps for $11.95. Man, what a rip-off! Unless it works. Overall rating, on a scale of 1 to 10: 2 toes curled. A woman I know says women's magazines are the best places in America to find sex tips. She's right--go ahead, just try to find a sewing pattern in Redbook . You're much more likely to land on \"Try phone sex, dirty notes, porn videos, fantasy games and sex in new places. ... Try lingerie and no underwear. ... Try talking dirty and silk scarves. Try anything at all,\" or articles such as \"Eight New Games for the Foreplay Challenged.\" An article in the April Cosmopolitan , \"The Six Best Sex Positions,\" seemed more promising than the Redbook playbook. Each position was accompanied by a succinct write-up and a stick-figure diagram. The position we settled on was \"The Butterfly,\" which we had to read three times to comprehend. The man stands, the woman remains supine on a bed or counter-top with her feet up on his shoulders. The whole idea is to produce a pelvic tilt for better access to the G spot. Instead, we experienced an uncomfortable pretzel feeling that stick figures must be immune to. And in general, Cosmopolitan 's exotic sex positions require the sort of body placement you can't remember in the moment of passion and even if you could, for proper alignment, you still might need mood-killing accessories such as a plumb line and a laser pen. Rating: 3 toes curled. Next we tried those \"Better Sex\" instructional videos advertised in the New York Times Book Review. I ordered Better Sexual Techniques , Advanced Sexual Techniques , Making Sex Fun , and Advanced Oral Sex Techniques (priced about $11.95 each, not including shipping and handling). My wife couldn't bear to watch them Another approach is food. The notion that certain foods, such as oysters or rhino horn, are aphrodisiacs has been pretty much discounted. But it's plausible to think that cooking a meal together and then dining on it, just the two of you, could be erotic. Especially if (like me) your schedule frequently forces you to eat alone and you often find yourself standing in front of the microwave, screaming, \"Come on, goddammit!\" Intercourses , by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge ($24.95, Terrace Publishing, 1997), preaches that for every time of day and every phase of a relationship there is a type of eating experience that will heighten sexual response. (There's also a chart showing which foods are good for eating off which body parts.) Deb and I blocked off a whole Saturday afternoon and evening for the Intercourses experiment, settling on rosemary-scented lamb over pasta (Page 87) followed by frozen coffee almond dessert (Page 31). According to the book, rosemary is sexy because of its fragrance (used in many perfumes) and because of its texture, which, so the text assured, tickles nerve endings. The dessert was mostly coffee, rum, and Kahlua, which has worked before. We shopped for the food together and cooked together, drinking wine and beer along the way. At one point while I was working on the dessert, I asked my wife how long to beat the heavy cream mixture. \"Till it's stiff--it's an aphrodisiac,\" she said. Preparation took less than an hour, and everything came out perfectly. Eating at our dining room table for the first time ever without guests, we were having fun by candlelight. But the mood was romantic, not erotic. Overall rating: 4 toes curled. Overall rating: 5 toes curled. St. Augustine held lust to be a fitting punishment for man's disobedience to God: the body's disobeying of the mind, the will, the spirit, and even of itself. (The paradigm of this for him is the unbidden hard-on.) Jean-Paul Sartre discovered something similar, although celebrating it rather than deploring it: Essential to the erotic is the body's defiance of design and control. (The paradigm of this for him is the jiggle.) Sartre's view yields a sort of sexual Heisenberg principle: There is an inherent tension between physically abandoning yourself to another on the one hand and sexual planning on the other. The more of the one, the less of the other. And this, I discovered, is the chief obstacle to sexual self-help. Getting an erection is sexy. Making one is not. As my wife said about Viagra, \"You start to have a new feeling and then you realize where it came from and then you don't have it so much. ... Anything that makes you think about it like that is just creepy.\" This is not to say there isn't a way out of this conflict between desire and design. With homage to our potent POTUS, there is, I think, a Third Way that's neither sexual complacency nor standard self-help. If the intrusion of consciousness is the problem, then maybe the answer is to block it out. Sure, you could do this the old-fashioned way: with alcohol and drugs. But then you have all the traditional drawbacks, including diminished physical attractiveness and degraded sexual performance. So how about this instead? Go for all the sexual self-help you can, but do it covertly . Watch a sex video (or porn flick) if you want--but by yourself, and then try to share what you learned without sharing how you learned it. Don't tell your partner you took Viagra. Or give each other standing permission to slip it into the odd after-dinner drink, saying nothing. (Of course, when you do it you'll still know, but having an unselfconsciously turned-on partner is a real compensation for that, and next time, your partner can surprise you. And yes, this requires trust. But why would you be having sex with someone you don't trust?) My main conclusion is that contrary to our blabby culture, the key to a better sex life is less communication.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the point about Bill Clinton tie into the rest of the article?\n\n<options>:\nA It was clear that Clinton talked too explicitly about his sex life with the people he was involved with, to his detriment\nB If a president cannot be faithful to their partner, we are all succeptible to similar situations and have to keep things exciting\nC Being able to discuss sex and public figures makes it easier for people to discuss a usually taboo topic\nD It was a warning to make sure we keep our sexual drama very private, because trust is key\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNot to mention a hole in your head. Fight Club careers from one resonant satirical idea to the next without quite deciding whether its characters are full of crap or are Gen X prophets. It always gives you a rush, though. At first, it goofs on the absurd feminization of an absurdly macho culture. An increasingly desperate insomniac, Jack finds relief (and release) only at meetings for the terminally ill. At a testicular cancer group, he's enfolded in the ample arms of Bob (the singer Meat Loaf Aday), a former bodybuilder who ruined his health with steroids and now has \"bitch tits.\" Jack and Bob subscribe to a new form of male bonding: They cling to each other and sob. But Jack's idyll is rudely disrupted by--wouldn't you know it?--a woman. A dark-eyed, sepulchral head case named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) begins showing up at all the same disparate meetings for essentially the same voyeuristic ends, and the presence of this \"tourist\" makes it impossible for Jack to emote. Jack finds another outlet, though. On a plane, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a cryptic hipster with a penchant for subversive acts both large (he makes high-priced soaps from liposuctioned human fat) and small (he splices frames from porn flicks into kiddie movies). When Jack's apartment mysteriously explodes--along with his carefully chosen IKEA furniture--he moves into Tyler's squalid warehouse and helps to found a new religion: Fight Club, in which young males gather after hours in the basement of a nightclub to pound one another (and be pounded) to a bloody pulp. That last parenthesis isn't so parenthetical. In some ways, it's the longing to be beaten into oblivion that's the strongest. \"Self-improvement,\" explains Tyler, \"is masturbation\" self-destruction is the new way. Tyler's manifesto calls for an end to consumerism (\"Things you own end up owning you\"), and since society is going down (\"Martha Stewart is polishing brass on the Titanic \"), the only creative outlet left is annihilation. \"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything,\" he says. Fincher and his screenwriter, Jim Uhls, seem to think they've broken new ground in Fight Club , that their metaphor for our discontents hits harder than anyone else's. Certainly it produces more bloody splatter. But 20 years ago, the same impulse was called punk and, as Greil Marcus documents in Lipstick Traces , it was other things before that. Yes, the mixture of Johnny Rotten, Jake La Motta, and Jesus is unique F ight Club could use a few different perspectives: a woman's, obviously, but also an African-American's--someone who'd have a different take on the \"healing\" properties of violence. It's also unclear just what has emasculated Jack: Is it that he's a materialist or that the materials themselves (i.e., IKEA's lacquered particle boards) don't measure up to his fantasies of opulence? Is he motivated by spiritual hunger or envy? Tyler's subsequent idea of confining his group's mayhem to franchise coffee bars and corporate-subsidized art is a witty one--it's like a parody of neo-Nazism as re-enacted by yuppies. It might have been a howl if performed by, say, the troupe of artsy German nihilists in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998). Somehow Brad Pitt doesn't have the same piquancy. Actually, Pitt isn't as terrible as usual: He's playing not a character but a conceit, and he can bask in his movie-idol arrogance, which seems to be the most authentic emotion he has. But the film belongs to Norton. As a ferocious skinhead in last year's American History X , Norton was taut and ropy, his long torso curled into a sneer here, he's skinny and wilting, a quivering pansy. Even when he fights he doesn't transform--he's a raging wimp. The performance is marvelous, and it makes poetic sense in light of the movie's climactic twist. But that twist will annoy more people than it will delight, if only because it shifts the drama from the realm of the sociological to that of the psychoanalytic. The finale, scored with the Pixies' great \"Where Is My Mind?\" comes off facetiously--as if Fincher is throwing the movie away. An actress named Hilary Swank gives one of the most rapturous performances I've ever seen as the cross-dressing Brandon Teena (a k a Teena Brandon) in Kimberly Peirce's stark and astonishingly beautiful debut feature, Boys Don't Cry . The movie opens with Teena being shorn of her hated female tresses and becoming \"Brandon,\" who swaggers around in tight jeans and leather jackets. The joy is in watching the actor transform, and I don't just mean Swank: I mean Teena Brandon playing Brandon Teena--the role she has been longing for her whole life. In a redneck Nebraska bar, Brandon throws back a shot of whiskey and the gesture--a macho cliché--becomes an act of self-discovery. Every gesture does. \"You're gonna have a shiner in the morning,\" someone tells Brandon after a barroom brawl, and he takes the news with a glee that's almost mystical: \"I am????? Oh, shit!!!\" he cries, grinning. That might be my favorite moment in the picture, because Swank's ecstatic expression carries us through the next hour, as Brandon acts out his urban-cowboy fantasies--\"surfing\" from the bumper of a pickup truck, rolling in the mud, and straddling a barstool with one hand on a brewski and the other on the shoulder of a gorgeous babe. That the people with whom Brandon feels most at home would kill him if they knew his true gender is the movie's most tragic irony--and the one that lifts it out of the realm of gay-martyr hagiography and into something more complex and irreducible: a meditation on the irrelevance of gender. Peirce's triumph is to make these scenes at once exuberant (occasionally hilarious) and foreboding, so that all the seeds of Brandon's killing are right there on the screen. John (Peter Sarsgaard), one of his future rapists and murderers, calls him \"little buddy\" and seems almost attracted to him and the last half-hour is unrelieved torture. What keeps the movie tantalizing is Chloë Sevigny's Lana, who might or might not know that Brandon is a girl but who's entranced by him anyway. With her lank hair, hooded eyes, and air of sleepy sensuality, Sevigny--maybe even more than Swank--embodies the mystery of sex that's at the core of Boys Don't Cry . Everything she does is deliberate, ironic, slightly unreadable--and unyielding. She's could be saying, \"I'm in this world but not of it. ... You'd never dream what's underneath.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Brandon raped and murdered?\n\n<options>:\nA He was involved in a barroom brawl.\nB He was raped and murdered after his physical gender was discovered.\nC He was attacked after hitting on a beautiful girl in a bar.\nD He was attacked after surfing from the bumper of a pickup truck.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSara lets the Lyft park itself in the drive, lets out a sigh, and tweets \"It's OK Mom, I got it.\" Jesus. Not this already. \"Mom. I can afford a cab ride. I'm not that much of a failure.\" Mom sighs, shoulders falling, looks at Sara directly. \"I'm sorry honey.\" She looks old, Sara thinks, watching a resigned tiredness flicker across her face in a way she'd not noticed before. Like she's exhausted by conflict, surrendered to it. \"Now, don't I get a hug?\" Sara smiles. They hold each other for a few long seconds, rubbing and squeezing each other as the Lyft silently backs itself out of the driveway. When they part it's Mom's hand that's on the bag's handle. For a few seconds Sara is alone in the hallway, the smell of cooking meat coming from one doorway, the sound of rolling news from another. She shakes her head, kicks off shoes, tucks hair behind her ears. Braces herself. Sara finds herself in the front room, sobbing. Dad pauses the TV, looks up at her. It looks like he's been crying too. \"Sara?\" Their first words in nearly a year. Fine. So far. She relaxes. Of course it is. How bad could it be? \"It's OK, honey. It really is.\" Mom and Dad watch Sara leave the room, and then look at each other. There's a brief second, a fleeting moment, where Sara can bite her lip, let it go. She misses it. \"But I thought it was immigrants that are stealing people's jobs?\" \"Well I'm sure they'll be fine.\" She regrets the sarcasm as soon as she hears it in her own voice, but she still can't stop herself, like it's expected, like it's part of the routine. Part of their schtick. \"They just got to get themselves out there, huh Dad? Pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That's the American way, right?\" \"I'm glad you think this is funny, I really do. But what you New York types need to realise is-\" \"Ed!\" Mom had appeared in the doorway. \"Please! Both of you. No fighting today, please.\" Awkward pause. \"Fine.\" \"Sorry Mom.\" Sara turns back to the TV, to watching the war, to trying to work out which one it is. It had always been this way, ever since she was about thirteen. Up until then it just seemed like constant warmth, as though she didn't have any childhood concept of Dad apart from him getting home from work, then her sitting on his knee, eating cookies and watching football highlights until Mom came in and scolded them both for ruining their appetites before dinner. 'We know what really makes America great' every opinion she had became a battle, every decision she made a conflict. Getting away to college gave her escape, but bred resentment too Dad wipes another team from his eye. \"I think we're going to be OK,\" he says to himself. \"I think we're going to be just fine.\" This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article. Dad is in the bathroom, and Sara has had enough of Fox and whichever war this is. She reaches over and grabs the remote from the arm of his chair, and tries to find something else to watch. The government had scrapped all the rules about how the internet worked, and for most people like her parents it had suddenly gotten a lot cheaper to get their TV through Facebook, so all she can find is Dinner is Mom's meatloaf, with gravy and mashed potatoes. Cornbread and broccoli. Every mouthful tastes like nostalgia, and Sara can feel herself being encompassed by a bubble, this barrier of warm air and long forgotten simplicity enveloping her body, protecting her from the confusion of the world outside. \"How's work, honey?\" Mom asks. \"Yeah, going OK.\" Sara works for a non-profit in Brooklyn that helps big organisations to transition to renewable energy. The pay is lousy but it feels important. \"We just got the last few schools in the city to agree to put solar panels on their roofs. Big deal for us. I've been working on them for the last two years.\" Mom says nothing, just looks down at her plate. Sara laughs, covering her mouth as she nearly chokes on chewed food. \"What? No they don't Dad.\" \"Look it up?\" Sara shakes her head, not knowing where to even start. \"Dad, who is telling you this stuff?\" \"Jesus Christ Dad, these ads!\" \"No blasphemy at the dinner table, please honey\" says Mom. \"What about them?\" Sara looks over to Mom, who looks like she's on the brink of tears. Suddenly she finds she's also lost the will to fight. Gently she closes the iPad and puts it down on the table, next to her plate. After dinner she helps Mom clean-up, the two of them loading the dishwasher in near silence. She's leaning against the counter, scrolling through Twitter on her phone, when Mom finally speaks. \"Don't joke Sara, I'm serious. There's a lot that bothers him. The state of the world. The future. All these damn wars.\" Sara looks up from her phone, genuine concern. \"Is he OK?\" \"Yeah, well you know your father. Doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to burden other people with his problems. Hates pity.\" She pauses, looks out the window into the yard. When she turns back to Sara her eyes are damp. \"This is why I was so excited about you coming back. Why he was so excited! I thought it'd take his mind of all this. He was so excited to see you. You know he loves watching the game with you, Sara.\" Sara slips her phone into her pocket, genuine guilt. Feels like a spoiled kid. \"I didn't realise. I'm sorry.\" Mom smiles, walks over and kisses her on the forehead. \"It's OK honey. Don't feel bad. Just go. Just go sit in there with him and watch some TV. Please.\" It's the second down on the Falcon's 60 yard line with 30 yards to cover, and the Lions need one touchdown to equalise. Sara and her Dad are sat in the front room, working their way through a family sized pack of Oreos, when the ad break starts. Dawn. Red skies over the desert. A Chevrolet truck pulls up next to a large, trailer. Low shot next to the front tire, as a cowboy booted foot drops down from the door, disturbing dust. Cut to: internal shot of the trailer, darkness split by morning light through the opening door. The figure enters, flicks on lights. The room is full of equipment, computers. The figure takes a seat, puts on a headset, thumbs on screens. Rests their hands on two large joysticks on the desk. \"Sara!\" says Mom. \"Sara!\" Mom makes to get up. Out in the kitchen Sara sits at the table and wants to scream. She's angry, mainly with herself. She should never have fucking come here. She should have known better. There was never any fucking way anything good was going to come from this. As much as Mom wants to romanticise things, to make them sound cute and adorable, the truth is shit with Dad has never been right since she was a teenager. Too much resentment, too much bad blood, too much control and rebellion. They hadn't agreed on anything - they hadn't managed to have a simple conversation that didn't descend into fighting - in 15 goddamn years, and no amount of eating cookies and watching fucking Super Bowl ads on the TV was going to fix that.\n\n<question>:\nWhich term best describes Sara's relationship with her parents?\n\n<options>:\nA inflammatory\nB tenuous\nC strained\nD obligatory\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhen we last heard from them, the members of the The point of the second test was not to find the difference between cheap and expensive beers but instead to compare a variety of top-of-the-line beers. Was there one kind the tasters preferred consistently? Could they detect any of the subtleties of brewing style and provenance that microbrew customers pay such attention to when choosing some Doppelbock over a cream ale? Since the tasting panel had left the first round grumbling that cheap lagers were not a fair test of their abilities, this second round of testing was advertised to the panel as a reward. Every beer in Round 2 would be a fancy beer. A microbrew. A \"craft beer.\" A prestigious import. These were the kinds of beer the panel members said they liked--and the ones they said they were most familiar with. One aspect of the reward was that they would presumably enjoy the actual testing more--fewer rueful beer descriptions along the lines of \"urine\" or \"get it away!\" were expected than in the first round. The other aspect of anticipated reward was the panelists' unspoken but obvious assumption that this time they would \"do better\" on the test. Intellectual vanity being what it is, people who had fought for and won jobs at Microsoft and who still must fight every six months for primacy on the employee-ranking scale (which determines--gasp!--how many new stock options they receive) would assume that their skill as tasters was on trial, just as much as the beer was. Of course they were right, which is what made this round as amusing to administer as the first one had been. Here is what happened and what it meant: 1. Procedure. This was similar in most ways to the experimental approach of Round 1. The nine testers who showed up were a subset of the original 12. The missing three dropped out with excuses of \"my wife is sick\" (one person) and \"meeting is running long\" (two). Overall quality points, from zero to 100, reflecting their personal, subjective fondness for the beer. Descriptions of and comments about each beer's taste--\"smooth and nutty,\" \"too strong,\" etc. If the first ranking was a measure of how good each beer was, this was an attempt to explain what made it good. Best and Worst , one of each from the group. Materials. The 10 test beers were chosen with several goals in mind: a) Best and Worst. Compared to the lager test, we would expect the range of \"best\" choices to be more varied, since all the tested beers were supposed to be good. This expectation was most dramatically borne out in the \"Best and Worst\" rankings. The nine tasters cast a total of nine Worst votes and 11.5 Best votes. (Tester No. 1 turned in a sheet with three Best selections, or two more than his theoretical quota. Tester No. 4 listed a Best and a Best-minus, which counted as half a vote.) The results were clearest at the bottom: three Worsts for Pyramid Hefeweizen , even though most comments about the beer were more or less respectful. (\"Bitter, drinkable.\") But at the top and middle the situation was muddier: This best-liked beer belonged to the same category, Hefeweizen, as the least-liked product, from Pyramid. This was also the only outright Anheuser-Busch product in the contest (the Redhooks are 75 percent A-B free). It is safe to say that all tasters would have said beforehand that they would rank an American macrobrew last, and Anheuser-Busch last of all. Although it clearly won on overall preference points, Michelob Hefeweizen was the only beer not to have received a single \"Best\" vote. The first two anomalies can be written off as testament to the power of a blind taste test. The third suggests an important difference in concepts of \"bestness.\" Sometimes a product seems to be the best of a group simply because it's the most unusual or distinctive. This is why very high Wine Spectator ratings often go to wines that mainly taste odd. But another kind of bestness involves an unobtrusive, day-in day-out acceptability. That seems to be Michelob Hefe 's achievement here: no one's first choice, but high on everyone's list. Let's go to the charts: This table shows how the beers performed on \"raw score\"--that is, without the advanced statistical adjustment of throwing out the highest and lowest score each beer received. Next, we have \"corrected average preference points,\" throwing out the high and low marks for each beer. The result is basically the same: Pyramid Hefeweizen was expensive on top of being unpopular, so its position at the bottom was hammered home--but not as painfully as that of Bass Ale . Bass had been in the respectable lower middle class of the preference rankings, so its disappointing Val-u-meter showing mainly reflects the fact that it was the only beer not on \"sale\" and therefore by far the costliest entry in the experiment. 5. Implications and Directions for Future Research. Science does not always answer questions If we are Gradgrind-like empiricists, living our life for \"welfare maximization\" as described in introductory econ. courses, the conclusion is obvious. We learned from the first experiment to buy either Sam Adams (when we wanted maximum lager enjoyment per bottle) or Busch (for maximum taste and snob appeal per dollar). From this second round we see an even more efficient possibility: Buy Michelob Hefeweizen and nothing else, since on the basis of this test it's the best liked and the cheapest beer. By the way, if there is a single company whose achievements the testing panel honored, it would be Anheuser-Busch . From its brewing tanks came two of the double-crown winners of the taste tests: plain old Busch , the Taste-o-meter and Snob-o-meter victor of Round 1, and Michelob Hefeweizen , the preference-point and Val-u-meter winner this time. But, of course, there is another possibility: that what is excluded in a blind taste test is in fact what we want, and are happy to pay for, when we sit down with a beer. The complicated label, the fancy bottle, the exotic concept that this beer has traveled from some far-off corner of Bohemia or even the Yakima Valley--all this may be cheap at the $1.25-per-pint cost difference between the cheapest and the most expensive beers. In elementary school, we all endured a standard science experiment: If you shut your eyes and pinch your nose closed, can you tell any difference in the taste of a slice of apple, of carrot, of pear? You can't--but that doesn't mean that from then on you should close your eyes, hold your nose, and chew a cheap carrot when you feel like having some fruit. There is a time and place for carrots, but also for juicy pears. There is a time for Busch, but also for Full Sail \"Equinox.\" For scientists who want to continue this work at home, here are a few suggestions for further research: Tell the testers ahead of time what beers they will be drinking. Ask them to rank the beers, 1 through 10, based on how well they like them. Then compare the list with the \"revealed preferences\" that come from the blind test. As a variation, show them the list ahead of time and ask them to pick out the beer they know they love and the one they know they hate. Then compare this with the \"after\" list. If you're going to test imported lagers, try Foster's or Corona rather than Grolsch. Remember to stay strictly in the scientist's role. Don't take the test yourself.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is NOT a recommendation they make in future experiments?\n\n<options>:\nA If you're going to test a certain type of beer, they recommended specific brands to try and one to avoid\nB Give the test subjects a palette cleanser (they didn't and it would make the data a lot cleaner in future studies)\nC Provide the test subjects with different information\nD If you're running the experiment, you can't participate as well\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNeither Greg Lloyd nor Michael Irvin was so stigmatized. \"It's live television,\" NBC Vice President Ed Markey said, rationalizing the outbursts. \"It's an emotional moment. These things happen.\" Irvin wasn't about to let that stand. \"I knew exactly what I was saying,\" he insisted later. \"Those of you who can't believe I said it--believe it.\" Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on. I am walking along a suburban street, trailing a class of pre-schoolers who are linked to each other by a rope. A pair of teen-agers passes us in the other direction. By the time they have reached the end of the line of children, they have tossed off a whole catalog of obscenities I did not even hear until I was well into adolescence, let alone use in casual conversation on a public street. But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges. What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it. And so I am reasonably sure that when my children have children, there will once again be words so awesome that they cannot be uttered without important consequences. This will not only represent a new stage of linguistic evolution, it will be a token of moral revival. What the dirty words will be, God only knows.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would Graves and Montagu agree about?\n\n<options>:\nA swear words are overused\nB swearing is the adult form of whining\nC swearing prevents aggressive behaviors\nD swearing makes people feel better\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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930 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDole vs. the Times For several weeks now, pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the New York Times . Dole's spat with the gray lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White House. \"This is a disgrace,\" Dole insisted. \"I doubt if you even read it in the New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in the New York Times .\" Dole repeated his attack for the next five days. \"We are not going to let the media steal this election,\" he told a crowd in Dallas on Friday. \"This country belongs to the people, not the New York Times .\" On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, \"I know that with a crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed up, but the other papers will get it right.\" The Times has reacted to this assault by highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact, Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper. According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section. Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment. No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon the complaint. \"They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,\" the official said. \"The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems.\" With Seelye, the official says, the problem is \"not being able to transcribe a tape accurately.\" With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering Dole full time since the summer, \"the problem is an incredible focus on the little picture as opposed to the big picture.\" As an example, the official cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the \"Brooklyn\" Dodgers as \"a rough stretch of politicking.\" Other than those two episodes, the official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the official describes as \"the softest portrait since they invented black velvet\"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole crowds. \"Clinton even gets better photographs,\" the official contends. But though unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes the president simply observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks. Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained, overemphasizes the \"horse race\" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988, Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday. None of these factors, though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, \"I like the media. They don't like them in the South.\" But this pat explanation doesn't entirely make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in picking fights with the press. But if Dole is attacking the Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a \"corps of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned.\" That phrase recalled an attack he made on the press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington Post of being in bed with George McGovern. \"There is a cultural and social affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,\" Dole said then. \"They belong to the same elite: They can be found living cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the same Georgetown parties.\" The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide.\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Dole insinuate may have happened if the Times covered him 'accurately'?\n\n<options>:\nA He believes with certainty that he would have won the election by a landslide\nB He believes he would have had a better chance of accumulating more voters\nC He believes he could have had a more diverse turnout of voters voting for him in the presidential election\nD He believes other media companies would follow the lead of the New York Times\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,268 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHow? Tennant did not know. Perhaps as a man can cut finger or even throat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key to their character—if such utterly alien creatures could be said to have character. The house was furnished with all \"Waiting for me?\" Tennant asked the girl. She said, \"I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and this is Hell.\" within them by their captors. They walked toward the house. They entered the house, which had no roof, continued to move beneath a wasn't. It was a prison, a cage. The other two women were sitting in the heptagonal central hall. Eudalia, who had borne twin girls recently, was lying back, newly thin double motherhood, she was almost flat of bosom. He asked her how she a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not. in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own.\" McManus and the girls in the family entrance of Conaghan's Bar and it—are they—real?\" \"As real as you or I,\" he told her. \"It took quite a bit of doing, aroma of steak, it was almost tasteless. This was so with all of their foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison—or their cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell, living, apparently, in a world without odor at all. things are arranged here.\" \"Thanks, Eudalia,\" said Tennant. \"I think I can defend myself. But she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as—laboratory animals. They have the means to make us do whatever they want.\" scientific sense, because we don't seem to have moved in time. I wasn't sure of that, though, till we got the radio.\" \"Why haven't they brought more of us through?\" Eudalia asked, tamping out ashes in a tray that might have been silver. \"I'm not sure,\" he said thoughtfully. \"I think it's hard for them. They have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they haven't brought anyone through—not alive.\" \"Why do they do it—the other way, I mean?\" asked Dana. Tennant shrugged. \"I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose it's because they're pretty human.\" \" Human! \" Dana was outraged. \"Do you call it human to—\" \"Hold on,\" he said. \"They pass through their gateway to Earth at considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who don't—or can't—they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just laboratory specimens.\" \"Maybe,\" Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. \"But the Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another, angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were asleep. her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their captors had seen to that it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, \"I wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and Olga so scared. It isn't their fault.\" \"And it's not yours,\" insisted Eudalia. \"Don't let them make you think it is.\" \"I'll try not to,\" he said and stopped, realizing the family party was teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant it The captor Tennant called Opal Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled or sung his role was to be. He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him. There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow. He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors, hadn't seen her in—was it more than a year and a half on Earth? He could have controlled his heartbeat with one of his new powers, but the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back leave them there, then knew that he would try somehow to get them out. Not, of course, anything that would endanger his remaining with Agatha the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's specimen. He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he couldn't on Earth? the ebony-and-ivory elephants that Agatha had never liked were gone, but he'd get them back or another pair. The credenza had been replaced by a huge and ugly television console. That, he resolved, would go down in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash with the casual antiquity of the living room. Your wife and a man are approaching the house. The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command: You are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another he had mastered teleportation, it was incredible how much easier it was in his own world. He had covered the two miles from the gateway to the it would be you.\" \" alive !\" \"Roger,\" repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his captors had let him. \"Where in hell been any lately?\" \"Not for over a year,\" Cass told him. \"They never did get the devil who skinned those bodies and removed the heads.\" So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him for his Judas ram duties. of her. Cass Gordon— It didn't have to be anybody at all. For it to be Cass Gordon was revolting. \"Rog,\" she said and her voice trembled, \"what are we going to do? What \"You bastard,\" said Cass. \"You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like that could do to us.\" \"Tristan and Isolde,\" said Tennant, grinning almost happily. \"Well, easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it. Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They had simply picked him up. Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in body chemistry or psychology, perhaps. More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they wanted. simply wasn't feasible—and furthermore he derived an impression of the tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself. They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world.\n\n<question>:\nWhy are there three women and one man in the home?\n\n<options>:\nA the other captives had killed themselves before this\nB they wanted extra women to make more babies\nC it's the correct number they want for their social experiment\nD they were the only people the aliens had been able to bring back alive\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,688 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nUNBORN he said finally. \"Maybe we ought to be getting on to the Unfortunately , there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future ... and though he didn't want to ... nevertheless he did.... \"Vegetarian,\" he said. \"Couldn't possibly eat meat. Barbarous. Ugh.\" \"Well, we need some nourishment,\" Betty TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Arth closed his eyes in pain. her. He sat down at his desk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the aspirin bottle. to use for money?\" \"Providence,\" Simon told her whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle, \"will provide.\" That seemed like a good question. I thought about it for a while. Finally turned up a missing jewel deal, say. Something where you could deduce that actually the ruby ring had gone down the drain and was caught in the elbow. Something that would net about fifty dollars.\" \"Fifty dollars? Why not make it five \"Money,\" Simon said. \"When you took this job you said it was the romance that appealed to you.\" \"Hm-m-m. I didn't know most sleuthing amounted to snooping around department stores to check on Simon said, enigmatically, \"Now Betty bounced up with Olympic were certainly the most modern, futuristic people in the world. But I couldn't stand the light. \"Where's the shade,\" I moaned. Arth did something and the window went opaque. \"That's quite a gadget,\" I groaned. \"Good morning, Mr. Oyster.\" He indicated \"If I didn't feel so lousy, I'd Simon said unenthusiastically, \"You haven't got a handful of aspirin, have you?\" I asked him. undoubtedly was a bathroom. \"Stay where you are. Don't move. Don't touch anything.\" \"All right,\" I told him plaintively. \"I'm clean. I won't mess up the place. All I've got is a hangover, not lice.\" \"Why?\" \"Why?\" \"Yes, why?\" Betty looked to her boss for assistance. definite answer. She said, \"Well, for one thing, paradox. Suppose you own great-grandfather. Then how could you ever be born?\" \"Confound it if I know,\" the little fellow growled. \"How?\" Simon said, \"Let's get to the point, what you wanted to see me about.\" \"I want to hire you to hunt me up some time travelers,\" the old boy said. obviously with intent to hold the floor for a time. He removed the the field worth his salt has explained them away. But to get on. It's my contention that within a century or so man will have solved the problems of immortality and eternal youth, and it's also my suspicion that he will eventually be able to travel in time. So convinced am I of these possibilities that I am willing to gamble a portion of my fortune to investigate the presence in our era of such time Simon seemed incapable of carrying said, \"But ... Mr. Oyster, if the explanation, Betty, is that they can't afford to allow the space-time continuum make heads nor tails of the check receipt. He didn't speak English and track to be altered. If, say, a himself might never be born. They have to tread mighty carefully.\" Mr. Oyster was pleased. \"I didn't Mr. Oyster went on. \"I've been considering the matter for some time and—\" Simon held up a hand. \"There's no use prolonging this. As I understand realize that thus far nobody has succeeded in taking it with him.\" Mr. Oyster returned his glasses to their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then Simon said, \"You want to hire me to find a time traveler and in some manner or other—any manner will do—exhort from him the secret of eternal life and youth, which you figure the future will have discovered. \"But where are you going to find one of these characters—especially if they're interested in keeping hid?\" The old boy was the center again. \"I told you I'd been considering it check in with Betty. found Mr. Oyster sitting in the chair , that's where they'd be!\" He seemed for some time. The Betty and Simon waited. Oktoberfest you came for? Impatient to hear if I'd had any results?\" My mind was spinning like a whirling dervish in think of to show for it nothing but \"Came for?\" Mr. Oyster snorted. party.\" He began to swing into the spirit of his description. \"It originally started in celebration of the wedding of some local prince a century Mr. Oyster was saying something to the effect that if I didn't leave today, it would have to be tomorrow, that he hadn't ponied up that thousand dollars advance for anything less than immediate service. Stuffing his receipt in his wallet, he fussed \"All right,\" Simon said. \"We'll accept did you first see this Mr. Oyster?\" who didn't know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, or was off the ordinary in any of a dozen other ways, wouldn't be noticed. You could be a four-armed space traveler from Mars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuous at the Oktoberfest . People would figure they had D.T.'s.\" \"But why would a time traveler want to go to a—\" Betty began. \"Why not! What better opportunity to study a people than when they \"See here,\" Mr. Oyster said (interrupting are in their cups? If you say this was supposed to be amusing, young man? I don't find it so. In Simon's story), \"did you of Dionysus, or one of Alexander's orgies. You wouldn't want to wander more.\" \"I'm not interested in more,\" Mr. particularly when you might be revealed as a suspicious character not being able to speak the language, not Athens while nothing was going on, knowing how to wear the clothes and you'd have to stick to some great event, both for the sake of actual interest and for protection against being unmasked.\" The old boy wound it up. \"Well, that's the story. What are your rates? one way of taking care of a crackpot. But I'm surprised you didn't Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself. \"See here, young man, I realize this isn't an ordinary assignment, Simon risk a considerable portion of my fortune—\" \"Sorry,\" Simon said. \"Can't be Mr. Oyster said quietly. \"I times. There were hundreds of them. Probably thousands.\" He took a deep breath. \"Listen, we're just going to have to forget about it. They're not going to stand for the space-time continuum track being altered. If something comes up that looks like it might result in the track being \"Out of the question,\" Simon said. \"But why ?\" Betty wailed. \"Just for laughs,\" Simon told the two of them sourly, \"suppose I tell furious at him, \"you've given up! Why this is the biggest thing— Why the fifty thousand dollars is nothing. Oyster (Simon began) in the way \"You mean,\" Betty was suddenly can't allow anything to come back from the future and change the you a funny story. It goes like on top of that!\" He shuddered. \"If you think I'm Mr. Oyster. I was going to have to give him some kind of report for his money. Time travel yet! What a laugh! ponied up all the money for such expenditures? How could the average German, with his twenty-five dollars a week salary? down, pocketed the husky bribe, showed me where I could check my that Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tent fräuleins darted about pull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. \"Mistaken,\" I admitted. in the papers.\" \"No go,\" Simon said, a sad quality asked him, in the way of making conversation.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Mr. Oyster want to hire Simon and Betty?\n\n<options>:\nA He thinks the time traveler will have the secret to never-ending youth.\nB He wants to know the secret of time travel and they are the best investigators around.\nC He wants to make sure his family's wealth continues in the future.\nD He wants to find out a secret for political reasons.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,199 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nA night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind. She came and at once he asked, \"Who is the man with the red beard?\" were looking for him, weren't you?\" \"Who is he?\" She sat on the chair beside him. \"My husband,\" she said softly. and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, Martians or Venusians. Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it was the dead man's hand. \" He told her the tales he'd heard. She nodded. \"There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees. \"I'm American,\" Ben muttered. \"Ah, like yourself and Jacob.\" \"Jacob? Your husband?\" She laughed. \"Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it? The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine. Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security Police. The man was striding down an aisle, idly tapping his neuro-club When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo. He was like two people, he thought. Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal. , Ben told himself. You look the same as anyone else He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she here. Keep walking. Look straight ahead. Keep walking forgotten grandeur. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. He thought, the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man. The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and about forty and he hated spacemen. His body was buried now—probably in the silent gray wastes outside Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a part of Ben as sight in his eyes. Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips spitting whiskey-slurred curses. He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb \"Spacemen,\" he muttered, \"are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you see's spacemen.\" He was a neatly dressed civilian. Ben smiled. \"If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here.\" Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, crimson-braided uniform of the Odyssey's uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe. He'd sought long for that key. At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who Cobb was persistent: \"Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth. Cobb followed. \"You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked life. He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw. Ben knew that he was dead. Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror—just as, a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger. He ran. For some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet. At last, abruptly, he realized that he was alone and in silence. He saw He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run. There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once. \"You look for someone, He jumped. \"Oh. You still here?\" \" n'est-ce-pas ?\" \"This isn't my first night here,\" Ben lied. \"I've been around a while.\" Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him—reddish balloon faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The Martian kid, perhaps? Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a wheel with Ben as their focal point. You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known! undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in Ben's direction. He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before complete lethargy of mind and body overpowered him. In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice yell, \"Turn on the damn lights!\" door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his vision—if he still had vision. \"You're sure?\" the voice persisted. \"I'm sure,\" Ben managed to say. from his throat. \"No ... I'm sure ... sure.\" He didn't hear the answer or anything else. Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness. to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered constantly above him—a face, he supposed. , he thought dimly. There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket. Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side. \"You are better?\" the kind voice asked. \"Why?\" he asked again. \"It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow.\" A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness. \"Tell me, will—will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?\" When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon or afternoon—or on what planet. \"Okay,\" he said. Lieutenant Curtis.\" \"How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers—\" \"I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four, you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated She hesitated. He thought, Damn it, of all the questions, why did I\n\n<question>:\nWhat caused Ben to physically assault Cobb?\n\n<options>:\nA Cobb physically assaulted Ben first.\nB Cobb's vocal disgust for spacemen.\nC Ben was trying to prove a point about his masculinity.\nD He thought he was someone else.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhere it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Letter from John Cassidy: Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. 5) For a man who takes his own cogitations extremely seriously, Krugman is remarkably cavalier about attributing motives and beliefs to others. \"Cassidy has made it clear in earlier writing that he does not like mainstream economists, and he may have been overly eager to accept a story that puts them in a bad light,\" he pronounces. I presume this statement refers to a critical piece I wrote in 1996 about the direction that economic research, principally macroeconomic research, has taken over the past two decades. In response to that article, I received dozens of messages of appreciation from mainstream economists, including from two former presidents of the American Economic Association. Among the sources quoted in that piece were the then-chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (Joseph Stiglitz), a governor of the Federal Reserve Board (Laurence Meyer), and a well-known Harvard professor (Gregory Mankiw). To claim, as Krugman does, that I \"don't like mainstream economists\" and that I am out to denigrate their work is malicious hogwash. The fact of the matter is that I spend much of my life reading the work of mainstream economists, speaking to them, and trying to find something they have written that might interest the general public. In my experience, most economists appreciate the attention. 6) I might attach more weight to Krugman's criticisms if I hadn't recently reread his informative 1994 book Peddling Prosperity , in which he devotes a chapter to the rediscovery of increasing returns by contemporary economists. Who are the first scholars Krugman mentions in his account? Paul David, an economic historian who wrote a famous paper about how the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard evolved and, you guessed it, Brian Arthur. \"Why QWERTYUIOP?\" Krugman wrote. \"In the early 1980s, Paul David and his Stanford colleague Brian Arthur asked that question, and quickly realized that it led them into surprisingly deep waters. ... What Paul David, Brian Arthur, and a growing number of other economists began to realize in the late seventies and early eighties was that stories like that of the typewriter keyboard are, in fact, pervasive in the economy.\" Evidently, Krugman felt four years ago that Arthur's contribution was important enough to merit a prominent mention in his book. Now, he dismisses the same work, saying it \"didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know.\" Doubtless, this change in attitude on Krugman's part is unconnected to the fact that Arthur has started to receive some public recognition. The eminent MIT professor, whose early academic work received widespread media attention, is far too generous a scholar to succumb to such pettiness. --John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy: Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. I leave it for others to decide whether I was too gullible in writing Complexity . For the record, however, I would like to inject a few facts into Krugman's story, which he summarizes nicely in the final paragraph: When Waldrop's book came out, I wrote him as politely as I could, asking exactly how he had managed to come up with his version of events. He did, to his credit, write back. He explained that while he had become aware of some other people working on increasing returns, trying to put them in would have pulled his story line out of shape. ... So what we really learn from the legend of Arthur is that some journalists like a good story too much to find out whether it is really true. Which brings me to Professor Krugman's letter, and my reply. I remember the exchange very well. Obviously, however, my reply failed to make clear what I was really trying to say. So I'll try again: a) During our interviews, Brian went out of his way to impress upon me that many other economists had done work in increasing returns--Paul Krugman among them. He was anxious that they be given due credit in anything I wrote. So was I. That oversight was my fault entirely, not my editor's, and certainly not Brian Arthur's. I take full responsibility, I regret it, and--if Simon & Schuster only published an errata column--I would happily correct it publicly. However, contrary to what Professor Krugman implies, it was an oversight, not a breezy disregard of facts for the sake of a good story. --M. Mitchell Waldrop Washington The point is that it's not just a matter of failing to cite a few more people. Your book, like the Cassidy article, didn't just tell the story of Brian Arthur it also painted a picture of the economics profession, its intellectual bigotry and prejudice, which happens to be a complete fabrication (with some real, named people cast as villains) that somehow someone managed to sell you. I wonder who? Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow: Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons. --Ted C. Fishman (For additional background on the history of \"increasing returns\" and Brian Arthur's standing in the field, click for David Warsh's July 3, 1994, Boston Globe article on Brian Arthur)\n\n<question>:\nWhat was “The Legend of Arthur”?\n\n<options>:\nA A comparison of the economic models of simplicity and determinism.\nB A criticism of reporters who do not check their facts before publishing a story.\nC A criticism of the direction that macroeconomic research has taken during the past 20 years.\nD A criticism of economic scholars who take credit for others’ work.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nand is operated by a hand-picked crew of highly trained men in perfect The most is the one you don't know is loaded. one after another in defiance of with snow and barbed with ice crystals. All planetful of them do? \"On the other hand, a talent that manipulates chance events is bound screamed over the top, whirled snow to be chancy. No matter how highly proof is that I've survived to tell the developed it can't be surefire. The mountain. Peering through his polarized vizor at the white waste and the and stumbling with every step on a slope that got gradually steeper thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. the north face of Mount Everest. flashed at the furrow's end on a Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Hennessy began to inch his way up THE END Nothing grew, nothing flew, nothing there was a click and a strange sound began. Thin, scratchy, inaudible more than a yard away, weary human voice. \"I've tried my hands and arms and they seem to work,\" it began. That's why I can't seem to get up. Who wouldn't be shocked after luck Whale . Sure I'm a good astronomer but so are lots of other guys. If I were ten years older, it would have been an honor, being picked for the first long jump in the first starship ever. At my age it was luck. Earth and Mars, you'll remember, and James pushed the button marked 'Jump'. Took his finger off the button Alpha Centauri doubt if it was the ship itself that fouled things up. \"That was some survey assignment. We astronomers really lived. Wait till you see—but of course you who I was. Matt Hennessy, from Farside Observatory, back of the Moon, just back from a proving flight cum astronomical survey in the starship Whale . Whoever you are who finds this tape, you're made. Take it to and don't take any wooden nickels. \"Where had I got to? I'd told you how we happened to find Chang, hadn't I? That's what the natives called it. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. The odds against finding Chang on a six-sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. We certainly were lucky. \"The Chang natives aren't very technical—haven't got space travel for instance. They're good astronomers, though. We were able to show them our sun, in their telescopes. In their way, they're a highly civilized people. Look more like cats than people, but they're people all right. If you doubt it, chew these facts over. \"One, they learned our language in four weeks. When I say they, I mean a ten-man team of them. \"Three, they've a great sense of myself, but tastes differ. \"Four, the ten-man language team also learned chess and table tennis. \"But why go on? People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers. was our champion. He won sometimes. The rest of us seemed to lose whichever Chingsi we played. broken or a clockwork toy running There again it wasn't so much that playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow \"And don't think I fell victim to I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back with us. Why I disliked him was because he was always trying time he had to be top. Great sense Charley ... unhurt, was Charley. He was laughing ... \"My God, it's dark out here. Wonder how high I am. Must be all of final velocity for a fifty-mile fall? \"It's getting lighter. Look at those peaks down there! Like great knives. I don't seem to be falling as fast as I expected though. Almost seem to be floating. Let's switch on the radio and tell the world hello. Hello, earth ... hello, again ... and good-by ... \"No. I'd have to get up to do that. up. journey, wasn't I? The long jump back home, which should have dumped us between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Instead of which, when James took his finger off the button, the mass-detector showed nothing a day. We astronomers had to establish our exact position relative to the solar system. The crew had to find out exactly what went wrong. The physicists had to make mystic passes Our task was easy, because we were about half a light-year from the sun. The crew's job was also easy: they found what went wrong in less than the wrong place. It hurts me to tell you this and I'm just attached personnel with no space-flight tradition. In practical terms, one highly trained equally skilled had failed to notice this when reading back. A childish Incredible, but that's what worth. We were all praying that this time nothing would go wrong, and all looking forward to seeing Earth again after four months subjective time away, except for Charley, who was still chuckling and shaking his glaring at Charley and obviously wishing human dignity permitted him poured back into shape. The entire bow wall-screen was full of Earth. Something was wrong all right, and two hundred miles above the Pacific, pointed straight down, traveling at a was the , the most powerful \"The \"James got us all into the Minnow was meant for short heavy hops to planets or asteroids. In addition to the ion drive canceled our downwards velocity with them in a few seconds. We curved away up over China and from about fifty miles high we saw the \"I wonder why James went down have broken his heart to know that his lovely ship was getting the chopper. Or did he suspect another human error? sky. I tumbled head over heels towards \"I'll have to get up and crack this I fell fifty miles without a parachute. I'm dead so I can't stand up.\" ledge. A man crawled stiffly out and came shakily to his feet. He moved slowly around for some time. After about two hours he returned to the on the recorder. The voice began again, considerably wearier. \"Hello there. I'm in the bleakest wilderness I've ever seen. This place makes the moon look cozy. There's word. Not English, not French, and there I stick. Listened to it for fifteen minutes just to hear a human voice again. I haven't much hope of reaching \"Just before I start the climb there are two things I want to get on tape. The first is how I got here. I've remembered something from my military human body falling through air is Falling fifty miles is no worse than falling five hundred feet. You'd be mountain, skidded downhill through \"The second thing I want to say is about the Chingsi, and here it is: watch out for them. Those jokers are dangerous. I'm not telling how because I've got a scientific reputation to watch. You'll have to figure it out for yourselves. Here are the clues: (1) The Chingsi talk and laugh but after all they aren't human. On an alien world a hundred light-years away, why shouldn't alien talents develop? A talent that's so uncertain and rudimentary here that most people don't believe it, might be highly developed out there. (2) The Whale expedition did fine till it found Chang. Then it hit a seam of bad luck. Real stinking bad luck that went on and ping-pong. \"So what is luck, good or bad? Scientifically speaking, future chance For him, luck refers to the way. Scientific investigations into this have been inconclusive, but everyone others aren't. All we've got are hints enough. \"All the same, search the space-flight records, talk to the actuaries.\n\n<question>:\nWho is the man climbing the mountain?\n\n<options>:\nA A mountain guide looking for survivors\nB An astronomical surveyor who ended up there by accident\nC A mountaineer who happened to stumble upon an old radio\nD A Chang native looking for people on this planet\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWe know that paedophiles, murderers and other violent criminals come in many shapes and sizes. If we knew nothing about their criminal history, some of their photos might even appear attractive. But the idea that someone's features betray their character is something rooted deep within us it's the reason why certain photos perform well on dating apps, or why trustworthy-looking politicians might rack up votes. But how wrong are our hunches of perceived criminality? Many studies have been done into our psychological response to faces, and it's clear that a so-called halo effect will inevitably work its magic. \"Attractive people are regarded as better at everything,\" says Professor Peter Hancock, lecturer in Psychology at Stirling University. \"And we can't shake that off because there's some truth to it. Good genes produce intelligent people, attractive faces, fit bodies, and we imagine that they're going to be good at everything else, too. We don't have good insight into our own behaviour. We tend to think we understand what we're doing, but we don't.\" Hancock describes attending a conference where one speaker showed a series of black faces and white faces to students (who were mostly white) and asked them what they thought the experiment was about. \"They knew that he was trying to assess whether they would rate the black ones as more criminal,\" says Hancock. \"But then they did!\" We attribute social characteristics based on opinions we already hold about certain kinds of faces: whether they look unusual in some way, whether they resemble a partner, a family member or even ourselves, or perhaps have some other cultural association. Physiognomy ultimately stems from what Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology at Princeton University, calls an 'overgeneralisation hypothesis'. \"People,\" he wrote, \"use easily accessible facial information (eg an expression such as a smile, cues to gender and ethnic group) to make social attributions congruent with this information (eg a nice person).\" This kind of deep-seated bias looms large throughout physiognomic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, from absurdities such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader of 1902 (handy if you want to find out what a \"deceitful chin\" looks like) to more inherently troubling volumes such as Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man. After performing a number of autopsies on criminals, the Italian physician claimed to have discovered a number of common characteristics, and it's worth listing them if only to establish the supposed criminality of pretty much everyone you know: Unusually short or tall height small head, but large face fleshy lips, but thin upper lip protuberances on head and around ear wrinkles on forehead and face large sinus cavities or bumpy face tattoos receding hairline large incisors bushy eyebrows, tending to meet across nose large eye sockets but deep-set eyes beaked or flat nose strong jaw line small and sloping forehead small or weak chin thin neck sloping shoulders but large chest large, protruding ears long arms high cheek bones pointy or snubbed fingers or toes. In a woeful misreading of Darwinian theory, Lombroso unwittingly founded the field of anthropological criminology, and more specifically the idea of the born criminal: a hereditary quality that posed a danger to society and must be rooted out. His theories became discredited during the 20th century, but the kind of bias displayed by Lombroso can still be found in legal systems across the world studies show that people with stereotypically 'untrustworthy' faces tend to receive harsher treatment than those who don't. There's evidently some consensus over people's attitudes toward certain faces, but it doesn't follow that the consensus is correct. The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour – not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results. The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as \"What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?\" prompted a wave of press coverage. The vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality – but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. \"The main problem is the sampling of the images,\" he says. \"There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status.\" In other words, your appearance is affected by the kind of life you've led, so the classifiers within the computer program are simply distinguishing between different demographics rather than detecting a propensity for criminal behaviour. Todorov is also wary of these classifiers misidentifying more 'innocent' people than identifying actual criminals, and accuracy is a concern shared by Peter Hancock. \"Networks don't assess faces in the same way that we do,\" he says. \"One of our systems, which is a deep network, has a recognition engine which generates an ordered list of how similar various faces are. And sometimes you get good matches – but other times you look at them and say, well, it's the wrong race! To humans they look completely different. And that underlines the fact that the networks are working in a different sort of way, and actually you don't really know how they're working. They're the ultimate black box.\" This isn't to say that the use of big data, and particularly the use of composite imagery (digitally blending together certain types of faces) doesn't give us useful information and fascinating correlations. \"You can, for example, take a given face and use computer software to make it look more or less trustworthy,\" says Hancock. \"I remember a colleague playing with this and he made a less trustworthy version of George W Bush – and how shifty did he look! I'm surprised that they're not using these techniques in political advertising, because you couldn't tell that anything had been done [to the picture], but when you look at it you think 'I wouldn't trust him'.\" The revitalisation of the theory of physiognomy by the Shanghai students is, according to Todorov, deeply problematic on a theoretical level. \"Are we back to Lombroso's theory,\" he asks, \"that criminals were anomalous creatures, evolutionary degenerates? How does one become criminal, and what role do various life forces play into this? There are people making claims that you just need to look at the face to predict personality and behaviour, but many of these people have not given much thought to their underlying assumptions.\" While it's true that we judge books by their covers, covers are more than just faces\n\n<question>:\nWhich type of person is likely to receive the most brutal treatment in the legal system, compared to the other response options?\n\n<options>:\nA masculine faces\nB sharp-featured faces\nC overfamiliar faces\nD suspicious faces\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhat a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes these guys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I read the letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in different maybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he says write to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you have Glmpauszn, will be born. tremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetus Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary Glmpauszn As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally, since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother I learned the following day that the opposite component of my inevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror of Glmpauszn I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time. My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feeler vibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then I has done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of an individual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, but As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ... impressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioning for me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficient mechanism I inhabit. immediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked up and all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. I simply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions was to realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do not let yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried from nearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene with an attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I told that assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty, pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. I must feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information I Glmpauszn I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greet me in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope, pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of five bucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up with get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn Glmpauszn indeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is known quaintly in this tongue as a \"hooker of red-eye.\" Ha! I've mastered then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle, I experience a tickle. again. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangely enough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this world came most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thing here, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank and Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the other about it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another for the love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten or rooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I have failed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports! I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've been studying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics of these people, in the movies. This is the best place to see these people as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and there do homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won't cost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who's writing this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at last learning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, one simply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn the inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss his vibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out a blonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She was attracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised is perfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I remember distinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money I had dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration. We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would you believe it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through the money in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerve ends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets these impulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in the adrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of the entire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again the tingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myself quickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and love in this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girl and tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses. This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn, wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he would have a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted. Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. I had not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fell asleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called gin I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is a gin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'll Glmpauszn lot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seance things. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we got to the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner and continued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed again because she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had the most frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror these pattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and the I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pick customer. \"But why, sir?\" he asked plaintively. Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think like Glmpauszn I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury's And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll have Glmpauszn\n\n<question>:\nHow does Glmpauszn change throughout the story?\n\n<options>:\nA his hatred for humans continues to grow\nB he begins to enjoy the customs and ways of humans\nC he gets smarter and more powerful\nD he begins to love women and money\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,389 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nmagnificent Melopolis, encradling the Oracle of Delni. I do not, of to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion. In whose names Man killed and plundered, while struggling up. In whose returned, and settled down to live. Saddened, but resigned and content to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the ancient evils, wars, emergencies. \"Sias! Sias—\" And they were upon me. states, quite prevalent among members of the race long ago, and are seldom seen today. Indeed, Melia was on this account made the butt of \"Sias,\" they were saying, \"the Maternite's gone.\" \"Gone? It cannot be gone. It has always been—\" \"Oh my gods!\" Xeon shouted. \"I tell you it's gone! Will you—\" Maternite Machine, it appears, has been drunk. The heat rose above the warning, continued to rise, and then—poof. Everything has evaporated in Maternite. All the Prelife is gone.\" \"All of it?\" I asked. what will happen with no more children?\" \"That is for the priests to say, not I,\" I replied. In moments of emergency, it is wise to speak with caution. That is, I suppose so. I nenglishmin go out in the midday sun, as the ancients say, although I They are of an age to enter manhood, and have all the energy such young As we entered the city, we were surrounded by confusion and consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware that they stood in the midst of an unprecedented happening indeed, an emergency. For a machine had failed! Not in the memory of the eldest among us has a machine failed. They as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity. pillars, the High Priest of the Maternite Machine was heard. assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave had departed for home and supper. Yet perhaps it is for the best, for those left were the most earnest and intelligent. an easy matter for the Maternite Machine to add more and more born by the Generating Machine as children. The machines bear the exact number of children each year to balance the number of us whom the gods claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial.\" A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered around the Hall. Indeed, I might call it an emergency. For the M-Maternite Machine has Cries of \"Treason\" sprang up, and I fear it might have gone hard for \"That is not the worst,\" he cried, as if in defiance. \"All the Prelife has been dried up. It will not function. There is no more. And there will be no more children!\" At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times roar like a youngster? They quieted, breathing heavily, and I asked, \"Is there no way, then, to produce more Prelife in order that the \"As I have said,\" he replied, \"give the machines but a bit of Prelife helpless.\" Such heresy could have brought a sad end to the priest had not the been a beginning to Prelife? For the Machine, it seems, cannot make it and yet it came from somewhere.\" \"Riddles are not called for,\" I answered severely. \"Are not riddles often the beginning of knowledge?\" he asked, in that irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. \"Must there not, long ago, do—\" The heads of the Conclave were turning to me, quizzically. I although not mute, they could not speak.\" \"If it be so,\" I said, quieting the hub-bub that followed, \"and I would not doubt your word, Rocsates, for all know you are the wisest of men—if it were so, then, what of it?\" \"May it not be,\" Rocsates put in, \"that these animals had no machines to such creatures. And indeed, if they had Maternite Machines, why then \"And how, then, did these animals reproduce?\" I asked. says there was a time before the machines, and before the Maternite Machine, and that at such a time both the animals and Men reproduced from within their own bodies?\" At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and attentively to Rocsates, who, amid cries of \"Heresy\" and \"Treason\", went on: \"I should like to ask the Conclave for permission to search the ancient \"Not the films, Sias, but the books.\" and so delicate, that they are kept in an air-tight tomb being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost. I called the meeting at dawn and so it was yet early in the afternoon when formalities were concluded and Rocsates granted leave to speak. \"Some of those among you are She's,\" he began. \"And you know you are different from the rest of us. To the advantage, your skin is fairer your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. And, you exist no reason for this? Was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a cause for this? Do you not wonder, She's, whence you come and for what reason?\" \"Rocsates,\" I interrupted. \"All this is fascinating, of course. But if you could be quick—\" \"Of course,\" he replied. \"In the course of my reading I have read were created in that time, for not one of them mentions the machines. race, but we are all types of one race. And the fact of reproduction is somehow intimately related to the physical distinctions of the She's!\" These last sentences were shouted to be heard above the roar of the crowd. Yet when Rocsates stopped, so also did the noise, so shocked and seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of over-population.\" Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the assembled overwhelmed him. such there was, I was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do would not have done so to excess. And if it was a pleasant thing to do, where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?\" Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together with Melia were at the Conclave without permission, shouted, \"Perhaps the process of reproduction was of such a pleasure that the Conclave ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!\" At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond they cannot do until they meet again. I needed a sufficient excuse to call a meeting of the Conclave, desired audience, I immediately proclaimed a meeting of the Conclave \"I have indeed discovered the secret of reproduction,\" he began. \"After Life.' It seems to be some sort of a do-it-yourself pamphlet.\" He but it seems to mean....\" His words trailed off. He was obviously bees....\" When he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words, with all their horror, had the ring of truth and there were no cries of 'Heresy'. There was only stunned disbelief and the beginnings of nausea. \"Shall not these organs which you mention have atrophied by now? With no use throughout all these generations, will they not have evolved \"I do not think so,\" Rocsates replied after a while. \"What to us is an eon, to evolution is but an instant. And then the swelling of the such horror?\" replied. \"The She, of course, must be one with the swelling of the undergo such an ordeal for the City? I voiced my assent, and the entire Conclave adjourned to the fields. had been a horrible day. The inhuman indignity, the cries— a time lapse which is necessary. The child does not appear immediately.\" through such an ordeal again?\" \"Of course,\" I replied. Anything they might want they could have. My\n\n<question>:\nAll of the following terms describe the people's reaction to the destruction of the Maternite EXCEPT for:\n\n<options>:\nA perplexed\nB panicked\nC obtuse\nD accusatory\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,530 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHe looked at the planet a long time and murmured, \"Venus. Pohtah.\" That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to Volpla By WYMAN GUIN Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy, sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my ranch and the fun would be on. \"I've finished my work and we no longer need the buildings. I'm going to write a paper about my results.\" \"That's what I Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation on the ranch. Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had given me the idea of a flying mutant. create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could the clamp. Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a I opened a bottle of beer and guzzled from it, blew out my breath and looked across the rolling hills and oak woods of our ranch to where the Pacific shimmered. I thought, \"All this and three volplas, too.\" I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, \"Yes, sir, direction. . Why?\" \"Because, dear, I said so.\" for. I had aimed only at a gliding mammal a little more efficient than the Dusky Glider of Australia, a marsupial. Even in the basically mutating colony, there had been a decidedly simian appearance in recent years, a long shift from the garbage-dump rats I had started with. But my first volplas were shockingly humanoid. They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten fur as soft as chinchilla. The faces were appealingly humanoid, except that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same proportion to the body as it is in the human. Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out and forward, the lateral skin that had, till now, hung in resting folds I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic have their own crafts and live in small tree houses. I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first white men enter these hills. When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He and ask, \"Where have these aliens come from?\" The government would reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends. Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I think, are the funniest. my volplas. But only for a moment. A ball of flame appeared at the base of the rocket. Miraculously, the massive tower lifted, seemed for a moment merely to stand there on a was Africa and Europe we were looking at. The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at once. I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early infants were females, which sped things up considerably. By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own way. I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model, They kept me busy relating their words for \"tree,\" \"rock,\" \"sky\" to the Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised Chronicle motored out into the hills to witness this! Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool. They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed He came and squatted, conference fashion, the elbows resting on the ground, the wrists crossed at his chest. He spoke first. \"Before the red men came, did we live here?\" \"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so where the doves rested. I heard their mourning from the oak tree. It occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near. The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful strokes. I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla across the sky. The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a little. He veered giddily in the new direction and again dropped like a molten arrow. The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did something I would not have anticipated—he opened his planes and shot lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the bird's crossward flight. I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and stood looking back at us. The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her own. The girl who had raised the birds from the tree volplaned back to us, yammering like a bluejay. his wonder. \"You say we came from there?\" \"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?\" language, Pohtah.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy is the story's setting important for the plot?\n\n<options>:\nA The narrator's ranch is so big it can conceal its inhabitants.\nB The volplas can only survive in California.\nC There are sparrows for the volplas to eat at the narrator's ranch.\nD The volplas originally lived in a similar landscape.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,484 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe colony had grown to near self-sufficiency, would soon have a moderate content. monkey on his back Under the cloud of cast-off identities lay the shape of another man— HE was walking endlessly down a long, glass-walled blue knapsack across his shoulders. “So that’s our big, bad man,” a “Execute him, I suppose,” the harsh voice said matter-of-factly. “They’re probably just curious to see what he looks like first. They’ll be disappointed.” Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to observe his surroundings. It was a mistake. “He’s out of it,” the first speaker said, and Zarwell kaleidoscopic, less personal. His captor’s broad face jeered down at Zarwell. “Have a good sleep?” he asked with mock solicitude. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge that he heard. Zarwell followed his gaze to where a younger man, with a blond lock of hair on his forehead, stood behind him. The youth nodded and went out, while the other pulled a chair up to the side of Zarwell’s cot. While their attention was away from him Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as possible with arm leverage. As the There was nothing to do after Until that instant he had intended supposed to be great stuff in a situation Zarwell told him. The grin faded from the oily face as the man stood up. He leaned over He offered no resistance as they reached him. reversed his weight and drove his fist at Zarwell’s head. Zarwell pulled the struggling body down against his chest and held it there until all agitated That way I follow pretty well what nonchalance. “The next couple should do it.” Zarwell did not answer. His memory seemed on the point of complete return, and he sat quietly, “How does it tie in with what I hopefully. However, nothing more other than an introspective stillness “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell [p 137 Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, he showed little fear. Zarwell had thought the man a bit soft, too that’s been well tested.” The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet turn you in to the police, I’d have done it before this.” Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. “Why didn’t you turn me in?” he The floor continued its transmutation, and Zarwell sank deep into trouble.” viscous depths. “Lie back and relax. The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone. ZARWELL found himself Don’t …” Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. “Who am I?” he asked, very interested now. Without attention he space or dimension. There was A weapon beautiful in its efficient simplicity. He should know all about the instrument, its purpose and workings, gap. Soon there would be rioting them—the man who held 145 ] Zarwell made his decision quickly. “Go ahead,” he answered. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed on the cigar he lit as he rode down the escalator, but he surveyed twitch, expand and contract. The face was unharmed, yet it was no longer the same. No longer his own medium tall, with the body of an place.” He paused. “It means no strategy that led to the city’s fall. least every twenty hours. Fortunately his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet, apparently unaware that his Zarwell left the analyst’s office. The white marble of the city’s buildings shimmered in the afternoon gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell was careful not to rest his hand the smell homes of the laborers and lower class techmen who live there. Zarwell passed a group of smaller children playing a desultory game of lic-lic for pieces of ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. candy and cigarettes. Slowly he his ennui. ] The next morning when Zarwell awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving. The feeling was there Zarwell stopped him with an upraised follow him. “It started on my home colony,” Zarwell explained listlessly. “A gang of hoods had taken over the government. I helped organize a hand. “Good God, man, can’t you see the reason for all this? I’m learned then the truth of Russell’s saying: ‘When the oppressed win their freedom they are as oppressive as their former masters.’ When they went bad, I opposed them. This time I failed. But I escaped again. I have quite a talent for that also. “I’m not a professional do-gooder.” Zarwell’s tone appealed word eventually gets out, and I’m right back in a fight again. It’s like the proverbial monkey on my back. A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among them, seldom taking part in the I can’t get rid of it.” individual clashes, yet a moving He rose. “That disguise and Johnson can do your own revolting. I’m through!” left. Here a city burned. Its resistance was nearing its end. Zarwell was riding a shaggy pony outside a high wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. He moved in and joined a RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell party of short, bearded men, directing from his flat the next day—a world. legal holiday on St. Martin’s. At who sought vainly to plug the stranger said. in the streets again, plundering and killing. Zarwell was not the leader of the invaders, only a lesser figure in the Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was rebellion. But he had played a leading The job had been well done. Time passed, without visible break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the The man nodded. Zarwell tried to feel the anger he wanted to feel, but somehow it part in the planning of the same bearded men who had been “You’re Johnson?” he asked. a manner of contained energy. his comrades before. Still he moved with the same firm purpose, vigilant, resourceful, and well prepared would not come. “We have nothing “Then will you just listen? After, I’ll leave—if you tell me to.” Against his will he found himself preamble, “the administrative body 141 ] Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. “At least in my dreams.” are the rulers. The citizens work , poorly fed, poorly clothed. They …” Zarwell found himself not listening as Johnson’s voice went on. The story was always the same. But why Zarwell’s expression became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, new thought. Just why had he chosen St. Martin’s? Was it only a coincidence? Or had he, subject of glib persuaders … but mightn’t some inner compulsion of his own have put the monkey on his back? “… and we need your help.” Johnson had finished his speech. Zarwell gazed up at the bright sky. He pulled in a long breath, and let it out in a sigh. random, with no chronological sequence. “What are your plans so far?” “That’s what makes me so certain,” by Earth, and the long struggle began to fit the world for human needs. When Zarwell arrived, six essential expansion. binding grasses, grain and trees, and Three rubber-tracked crawlers picked their way down from the mountains until they joined the road passing the belt. They were Zarwell pulled his sun helmet lower, to better guard his hot, dry After its three-thousand-mile journey breathed in. With it came also the worker’s mouth. Zarwell gazed idly about at the other laborers. Fully three-quarters of them were beri-rabza ridden. A the men’s faces and hands were scabbed and red.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the symbolism of the title?\n\n<options>:\nA The monkey represents the series of false memories implanted in Zarwell's mind\nB The monkey represents Zarwell's affliction with ennui after becoming a civilian and living a more mundane existence\nC The monkey represents Dr. Bergstrom's manipulative influence on Zarwell's psyche\nD The monkey represents Zarwell's pattern of joining resistance movements, only to watch them turn corrupt\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,188 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nRikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life. The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever since from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had grown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. This realized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up inside him. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaningless machinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metal which he could see in the dim light through the open door. \"Where's the buzzer?\" he sobbed. \"I must find the buzzer.\" Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, \"You broke it. You broke it. And now we will break you—\" If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this was odd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—what was it? could live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness, then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... metallic voice said. \"Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please.\" Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoy exciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness. But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had come into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being again, something which was as impalpable as air. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer, frightening doors and women by appointment only. With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real governed the world. They told you to do something and you did it, but that was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You only listened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said. There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a term that could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and the elders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The people had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little cogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of meant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to the library and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply sat about and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it was always the same. meaning.\" \"People grow old,\" Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, and Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the two concepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago, but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strange feeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to the But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone, had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular intervals by a sharp booming. Change— nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more confusing than ever. not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the viewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—the \"Then they've changed?\" the man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed so obvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another, it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the health-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through the vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also was purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. But if everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how could they find the nature of that purpose? \"I will eat,\" Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. door. The machinery in the next room is your protection against the rigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you may have discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you have not, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this ship is a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it is human-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will not permit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, and What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a silly thought sweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at the Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough to throat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. What would have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did things punctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with the buzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it, though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the big spinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then he began to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears, would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, he was clearly an \"unauthorized person.\" He had heard the voice again upon entering the room. darkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer did not sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went to eat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and the any more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, \"I'm hungry.\" \"We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us,\" Wilm replied confidently. \"It won't any more,\" Rikud said. \"What won't?\" \"The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it.\" Crifer growled. \"I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a bad thing you did, Rikud.\" beyond the viewport.\" \"That's ridiculous,\" Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. \"He broke the buzzer and no one can There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, \"I hate Rikud.\" Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside with plants in the viewport would even be better. \"We will not be hungry if we go outside,\" he said. \"We can eat there.\" \"We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken,\" Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, \"Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again.\" \"No,\" Rikud assured him. \"It won't.\" die because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled and grumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. break him.\n\n<question>:\nWhat has conditioning done to the characters?\n\n<options>:\nA It has kept them in shape, both mentally and physically, and ready to face the struggles they encounter.\nB Nothing. They were left to their own devices for so long that they abandoned any notion.\nC It has made them fear one another.\nD It has become a way of life for them. Without the buzzer, their life as they know it ceases to exist.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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745 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWalsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. \"The man is a trader of sorts. Rather intelligent.\" He paused, then added, \"For a native, that is.\" I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. far. \"He's had many dealings with the natives there,\" Walsh explained. \"If anyone can tell us the reasons for the revolt, he can.\" If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at was just like Walsh to ship me off to a strange place. \"Just Joe.\" \"Just Joe?\" \"Yes,\" Walsh said. \"A native, you know. They rarely go in for more than first names. But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. Among the natives, I mean.\" \"I don't know, sir.\" \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. \"Can you tell me anything else about this man? Physical appearance? Personal habits? Anything?\" Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He does have a peculiar habit, though.\" I sighed. \"Well, it's not very much to go on.\" \"You'll find him,\" Walsh said, grinning. \"I'm sure of it.\" about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately Joe. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... \"Skip it,\" I said. \"How do I get to the captain's shack?\" \"Hello, Joe,\" he said. \"How's it going?\" \"Not so hot, Joe,\" the bartender replied. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"They steal them,\" Captain Bransten said abruptly. So Walsh had taken care of that angle too. He does have a peculiar \"And the natives are only now becoming acquainted with Terran culture. Lots of enlisted men, you know.\" I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful ancestry more keenly. \"It's impossible to tell exactly where it all started, of course,\" Bransten was saying. I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh \"Get to the point, Captain!\" I barked. of thing was definitely against regulations, but he submitted when I twinkled my little gold leaf under his nose. Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat pussy cat. \"What is it, Major?\" he asked. \"This man Joe,\" I said. \"Can you give me any more on him?\" Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any difficulties, are you?\" \"None at all,\" I snapped back. \"I just thought I'd be able to find him a lot sooner if....\" \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\" \"I thought....\" \"I'm sure you can do the job,\" Walsh cut in. \"I wouldn't have sent you otherwise.\" Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\" \"He's somewhere in the jungle, you know,\" Walsh said. I wanted to ram my fist into the screen, right smack up against those big white teeth. Instead, I cut off the transmission and watched the besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me. I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back. The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good points against his bad. But it all came back to the same thing. A His spirits were always high and he never failed to say the right thing that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle. Leonard Walsh. \"Yes, yes,\" he said wholeheartedly. \"They joke and they laugh and ... well, you know.\" I turned rapidly. Joe nodded and kept grinning, a grin that told me he was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game. I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" \"Colonel,\" Walsh corrected me. \"You mustn't forget to say Colonel, finality. I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh pointing the stun gun at my middle. \"If you mean in miles,\" I said, looking around at the plants, \"we sure have.\" Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the smile faded from his lips and his eyes took on a hard lustre. \"I'm Joe almost clapped his hands together with glee. He was really enjoying this. Another of those funny Terran games. \"You gave me a powerful handicap to overcome,\" Walsh said. \"I suppose I should thank you, really.\" when you decided to cork off.\" Beside me, Joe chuckled a little, enjoying the game immensely. \"You didn't have to report me,\" Walsh said. \"No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!\" Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely audible. The heat was oppressive, as if it were concentrated on this little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small, unimportant drama. I could hear Joe breathing beside me. \"I'm on my way out,\" Walsh rasped. \"Finished, do you understand?\" \"The natives,\" he practically shouted. \"They ... they....\" Joe caught his breath sharply, and I wondered what Walsh was going to say about the natives. Apparently he'd realized that Joe was a native. Or maybe Joe's knife had something to do with it. \"What about the natives?\" I asked. \"Nothing,\" Walsh said. \"Nothing.\" He was silent for a while. \"A man of my calibre,\" he said then, his face grim. \"Dealing with savages.\" He caught himself again and threw a hasty glance at Joe.\n\n<question>:\nWhat was Captain Walsh's main motive behind putting the narrator on the mission?\n\n<options>:\nA Walsh sought revenge against the narrator.\nB Walsh wanted to test the narrator's intelligence.\nC Walsh wanted the narrator fired from his position.\nD Walsh wanted to test the narrator's competency.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nintend to seize Jorgensen's Worlds by force.\" \"I'll carry it, sealed,\" Retief said. \"That way nobody can sweat it out of me.\" Retief opened the envelope Magnan handed him and looked at the tickets inside. \"Less than four hours to departure time,\" he said. \"I'd better not start any long books.\" \"You'd better waste no time getting over to Indoctrination,\" Magnan said. Retief stood up. \"If I hurry, maybe I can catch the cartoon.\" Soetti are patrolling the trade lanes into Jorgensen's Worlds \"You'd better be getting started,\" Magnan said, shuffling papers. \"You're right,\" Retief said. \"If I work at it, I might manage a snootful by takeoff.\" He went to the door. \"No objection to my checking out a needler, is there?\" and a plastic snakeskin cummerbund groomed his fingernails, watching Retief from the corner of his eye. Retief glanced at him. The clerk smiled pityingly. \"It's my lunch hour,\" he said. \"I'll be open in an hour.\" He held up a thumb nail, frowned at it. \"If I have to come around this counter,\" Retief said, \"I'll feed that thumb to you the hard way.\" Retief looked at him. \"Some ... ah ... VIP's required accommodation,\" he said. He hooked canceled. You'll have to try to get space on the Four-Planet Line ship next—\" \"Which gate?\" Retief said. \"For ... ah...?\" \"Well,\" the clerk said. \"Gate 19,\" he added quickly. \"But—\" Retief picked up his suitcase and walked away toward the glare sign reading To Gates 16-30 \"Another smart alec,\" the clerk said behind him. Retief followed the signs, threaded his way through crowds, found a against the handrail. \"On your way, bub,\" he said. Retief put his suitcase carefully on the floor, took a step and drove a right into the guard's midriff. He stepped aside as the man doubled and A cabin boy in stained whites came along the corridor. \"Which way to cabin fifty-seven, son?\" Retief asked. Retief put his bag down. He turned at a sound behind him. A tall, florid man with an expensive coat belted over a massive paunch stood in clamped his jaws together, turned to speak over his shoulder. \"Somebody in the cabin. Get 'em out.\" He rolled a cold eye at Retief as out of here, fellow! You're keeping Mr. Tony waiting.\" \"Too bad,\" Retief said. \"Finders keepers.\" Tony's room.\" \"I don't know Mr. Tony. He'll have to bull his way into other quarters.\" \"We'll see about you, mister.\" The man turned and went out. Retief face of the thick-necked man appeared cautiously around the door jamb. \"Mister, you must be—\" \"If you'll excuse me,\" Retief said, \"I want to catch a nap.\" He flipped the door shut, pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the bed. Five minutes passed before the door rattled and burst open. Retief looked up. A gaunt leathery-skinned man wearing white ducks, a blue turtleneck sweater and a peaked cap tilted raffishly over one eye stared at Retief. \"You'd better be getting back to the bridge, Captain,\" Retief said. \"We're due to lift in twenty minutes.\" \"—twenty minutes ... uniform Code ... gonna do?\" \"Close the door as you leave,\" Retief said. The thick-necked man paused at the door. \"We'll see you when you come out.\" \"Givin' you the cold shoulder, heh, Mister?\" \"Looks like it, old-timer,\" Retief said. \"Maybe I'd better go join the skipper. His party seems to be having all the fun.\" \"Feller has to be mighty careless who he eats with to set over there.\" \"You set right where you're at, Mister. I'll rustle you up a plate.\" Five minutes later, Retief cut into a thirty-two ounce Delmonico backed Jorgensen's Worlds. Then, if Magnan's information was correct, As Retief watched, four men arose from the table and sauntered across the room. The first in line, a stony-faced thug with a broken ear, took \"You must want to get to Jorgensen's pretty bad,\" the thug said in a grating voice. \"What's your game, hick?\" Retief looked at the coffee cup, picked it up. The thug squinted at Retief. \"A wise hick,\" he began. With a flick of the wrist, Retief tossed the coffee into the thug's Retief looked at Mr. Tony, still standing open-mouthed. \"You can take your playmates away now, Tony,\" he said. \"And don't bother to come around yourself. You're not funny enough.\" \"Sure, Mister. Anything else?\" \"I'll think of something,\" Retief said. \"This is shaping up into one of those long days.\" \"Sure. What have they got against my going to Jorgensen's Worlds?\" aboard for Jorgensen's?\" Don't know what we even run in there for.\" \"Where are the passengers we have aboard headed?\" \"To Alabaster. That's nine days' run in-sector from Jorgensen's. You ain't got another one of them cigars, have you?\" \"Have one, Chip. I guess I was lucky to get space on this ship.\" Behind the alien, the captain hovered nervously. snappers.\" \"Last chance,\" Retief said. Skaw stood poised, open pincers an inch from Retief's eyes. aboard, don't bother to call.\" \"They won't need it. Tell 'em to sheer off their fun is over.\" \"You'd better take the captain's advice, Chip. There's no point in your \"You shoulda had that door locked.\" He stood by the door, listening, then turned to Retief. \"You want to get to Jorgensen's perty bad, don't you, Mister?\" \"That's right, Chip.\" \"A 2mm needler. Why?\" \"The orders cap'n give was to change course fer Alabaster. We're by-passin' Jorgensen's Worlds. We'll feel the course change any minute.\" Retief lit the cigar, reached under the mattress and took out a \"I think we'd better call in at Jorgensen's.\" \"You do, huh?\" the captain sat down. \"I'm in command of this vessel,\" he said. \"I'm changing course for Alabaster.\" \"I wouldn't find it convenient to go to Alabaster,\" Retief said. \"So just hold your course for Jorgensen's.\" \"Not bloody likely.\" \"You busted it, you—\" \"And one to go,\" Retief said. \"Tell him.\" he said. \"Hold your present course until you hear from me.\" He dropped the mike and looked up at Retief. \"What are you going to do?\" the captain demanded. Retief settled himself in a chair. \"Instead of strangling you, as you deserve,\" he said, \"I'm going to stay here and help you hold your course for Jorgensen's Worlds.\" The captain looked at Retief. He laughed, a short bark. Retief took out the needler and put it on the desk before him. \"If anything happens that I don't like,\" he said, \"I'll wake you up.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the captain try to change course away from Jorgenon's Worlds?\n\n<options>:\nA Jorgenson's World doesn't have enough trade value to warrant the trip.\nB Retief killed Skaw, and it angered Mr. Tony, who ordered him to change course.\nC He needs to get away from the Soettie after Skaw's death.\nD He wants to drop Retief off at Alabaster instead.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,346 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThese lucky authors are scholars, and the works they customarily write and publish without payment are peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Open access can also be a significant access barrier. If you have access to a work for reading but want to translate it into another language, distribute copies to colleagues, copy the text for mining with sophisticated software, or reformat it for reading with new technology, then you generally need the permission of the copyright holder. That makes sense when the author wants to sell the work and when the use you have in mind could undermine sales. But for research articles we’re generally talking about authors from the special tribe who want to share their work as widely as possible. Even these authors, however, tend to transfer their copyrights to intermediaries—publishers—who want to sell their work. As a result, users may be hampered in their research by barriers erected to serve intermediaries rather than authors. In addition, replacing user freedom with permission-seeking harms research authors by limiting the usefulness of their work, harms research readers by limiting the uses they may make of works even when they have access, and thereby harms research from both directions. OA removes these permission barriers. Removing price barriers means that readers are not limited by their own ability to pay, or by the budgets of the institutions where they may have library privileges. Removing permission barriers means that scholars are free to use or reuse literature for scholarly purposes. These purposes include reading and searching, but also redistributing, translating, text mining, migrating to new media, long-term archiving, and innumerable new forms of research, analysis, and processing we haven’t yet imagined. OA makes work more useful in both ways, by making it available to more people who can put it to use, and by freeing those people to use and reuse it. Terminology When we need to, we can be more specific about access vehicles and access barriers. In the jargon, OA delivered by journals is called , and OA delivered by repositories is called (TA). Over the years I’ve asked publishers for a neutral, nonpejorative and nonhonorific term for toll-access publishers, and conventional publishers is the suggestion I hear most often. While every kind of OA removes price barriers, there are many different permission barriers we could remove if we wanted to. If we remove price barriers alone, we provide OA was defined in three influential public statements: the Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003), and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003). 1.1 What Makes OA Possible? OA is made possible by the internet and copyright-holder consent. But why would a copyright holder consent to OA? Two background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Second, scholarly journals generally don’t pay authors for their research articles, which frees this special tribe of authors to consent to OA without losing revenue. This fact distinguishes scholars decisively from musicians and moviemakers, and even from most other kinds of authors. This is why controversies about OA to music and movies don’t carry over to OA for research articles. , launched in London and Paris in 1665. The academic custom to write research articles for impact rather than money may be a lucky accident that could have been otherwise. Or it may be a wise adaptation that would eventually evolve in any culture with a serious research subculture. (The optimist in me wants to believe the latter, but the evolution of copyright law taunts that optimism.) This peculiar custom does more than insulate cutting-edge research from the market and free scholars to consent to OA without losing revenue. It also supports academic freedom and the kinds of serious inquiry that advance knowledge. It frees researchers to challenge conventional wisdom and defend unpopular ideas, which are essential to academic freedom. At the same time it frees them to microspecialize and defend ideas of immediate interest to just a handful people in the world, which are essential to pushing the frontiers of knowledge. OA isn’t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public statements on OA insist on its importance. Because scholarly journals generally don’t pay peer-reviewing editors and referees, just as they don’t pay authors, all the participants in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. While OA to unrefereed preprints is useful and widespread, the OA movement isn’t limited to unrefereed preprints and, if anything, focuses on OA to peer-reviewed articles. (More in section 5.1 on peer review.) OA isn’t an attempt to reform, violate, or abolish copyright. It’s compatible with copyright law as it is. OA would benefit from the right kinds of copyright reforms, and many dedicated people are working on them. But it needn’t wait for reforms and hasn’t waited. OA literature avoids copyright problems in exactly the same way that conventional toll-access literature does. For older works, it takes advantage of the public domain, and for newer works, it rests on copyright-holder consent. (More in chapter 4 on policies and chapter 6 on copyright.) OA isn’t an attempt to deprive royalty-earning authors of income. The OA movement focuses on research articles precisely because they don’t pay royalties. In any case, inside and outside that focus, OA for copyrighted work depends on copyright-holder consent. Hence, royalty-earning authors have nothing to fear but persuasion that the benefits of OA might outweigh the risks to royalties. (More in section 5.3 on OA for books.) OA isn’t an attempt to deny the reality of costs. No serious OA advocate has ever argued that OA literature is costless to produce, although many argue that it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature, even less expensive than born-digital toll-access literature. The question is not whether research literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than charging readers and creating access barriers. (More in chapter 7 on economics.) OA isn’t an attempt to reduce authors’ rights over their work. On the contrary, OA depends on author decisions and requires authors to exercise more rights or control over their work than they are allowed to exercise under traditional publishing contracts. One OA strategy is for authors to retain some of the rights they formerly gave publishers, including the right to authorize OA. Another OA strategy is for publishers to permit more uses than they formerly permitted, including permission for authors to make OA copies of their work. By contrast, traditional journal-publishing contracts demand that authors transfer all rights to publishers, and author rights or control cannot sink lower than that. (See chapters 4 on policies and 6 on copyright.) OA isn’t an attempt to reduce academic freedom. Academic authors remain free to submit their work to the journals or publishers of their choice. Policies requiring OA do so conditionally, for example, for researchers who choose to apply for a certain kind of grant. In addition, these policies generally build in exceptions, waiver options, or both. Since 2008 most university OA policies have been adopted by faculty deeply concerned to preserve and even enhance their prerogatives. (See chapter 4\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the main premise of OA?\n\n<options>:\nA To make research literature available online without price barriers or without most permission barriers.\nB To allow researchers to reuse literature for scholarly purposes.\nC To allow reproduction and distribution by readers.\nD To allow readers to write derivative works.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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285 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nextradition, anything in order to speed up my return to Cupia, where Lilla awaits in some dire extremity.” “All right,” Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an end. The morrow would decide the ascendancy of Myles Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent. IV THE COUP D’ETAT The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber of the dread thirteen: Formis and her had served in the wars in which Cabot had twice freed Cupia from the domination of its Formian oppressors. They spoke with bitterness of the downfall of their beloved spent on the planet Venus, where, by the aid of radio, he was then quietly visiting at my farm, after five earth-years he had led the Cupians to victory over their oppressors, Formia. Their testimony was brief. won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia. While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling seas under the gallant leadership of Prince Yuri, the man with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of “Then Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest to him suspected that he had gone back across the boiling seas to claim as his own the throne of Cupia. But we hesitated to announce this until we were sure, for we feared that some of our own people would regard his departure as “Give us a queen of our own race,” shouted Fum. “Release the prisoner,” shouted the Queen. And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, was already in progress between the two factions. Barth and Doggo were rolling over and over on the floor in a death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to the rear situation. If it had still been in vogue among the Formians had defeated in the duels so common among them, then many a Formian would have “got the number” of many another, that day. Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments of modern terrestrial science for the benefit of the Cupian nation. He was the regent of Cupia during the minority of his baby son, King Kew the Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his Cupian Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt to escape by flying through the steam-clouds which completely hem in continental Poros. What lay beyond the had been brewing all that evening, and just as Myles befriended him on his previous visit. Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been naught but a dream a recurring dream, in fact? Were his longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he had contrived and built during his previous visit to that planet, so as to talk with Cupians and Formians, both of which races are earless and converse by means of radiations from their antennae. Far below them were silver-green fields and tangled tropical woods, interspersed with rivulets and little ponds. This was Cupia, his Cupia. He was home once more, back again upon the planet which held all that was dear to him in two worlds. His heart glowed with the warmth of homecoming. What mattered it that he was now a prisoner, in the hands (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies, the Formians? He had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once more he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla. solar system from Poros to the earth. He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since his departure, only a few sangths ago. How was it that the ant-men had survived their airplane journey across the Cupia? And where was their former leader, Yuri, the renegade Cupian prince? These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in upon the earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a ran the smooth concrete roads which bear the swift two-wheeled kerkools of the Cupians to all parts of their continent. What uninhabited portion of Cupia could this be, over which they were now passing? were consolidating their position and attempting to build up a new empire in some out-of-the-way portion of the continent. blue-eyed, golden-haired Lilla, Crown Princess of Cupia. The earth-man sighed. Where was his beloved wife now? That she needed his help was certain. He must therefore of a Formian. bearing a Cupian toga, short-sleeved and bordered with “How is my princess and my son, the baby king? Whence come all you Formians, whose race I thought had been exterminated? What part of Cupia is this? What is this city? Where is Prince Yuri? And what do you intend to do with Myles, who read as follows: “As to your princess and your son, I know not, for this is not Cupia. Do you remember how, when your victorious army and air navy swept to the southern extremity of what had been Formia, a few of our survivors rose in planes from of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our leader was Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne of Cupia, splendid even in defeat. “It was his brain that conceived our daring plan of escape. If there were other lands beyond the boiling seas, the lands which tradition taught were the origin of the Cupian race, then there we might prosper and raise up a new empire. At the worst we should merely meet death in another form, rather than at your hands. So we essayed. New Formia. But how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have arrived here on this continent in exactly the same manner and condition in which I discovered you in Formia YURI OR FORMIS? the trip across the boiling seas.” “Then what of your empire?” Myles inquired. “No queen. No eggs. How can your race continue? For you Formians are now behold before you Doggo, Admiral of the Formian Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.” This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always regarded the Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they performed in their own country the duties assigned to men among the Cupians. Furthermore, all Formians, save only the reigning Formis herself, were called by the Porovian pronoun, which corresponds to “he” in English. When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, of some importance among the Formians.” fact, it merely intensifies Yuri’s mistrust and hatred of me. Now that I am mother of the queen, he fears that I may turn against him and establish Formis in his place as the head of an empire of the Formians, by the Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.” “Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be a bully good idea, and incidentally a solution of his own of Yuri should clash with those of Formis?” a cause, or a friend?” “No,” Doggo replied. “Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as in name.” Is it treason to support your own queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians? Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?” whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros. Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators “I will waive anything,” Myles replied, “counsel, immunity,\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between the Formians and Cupians?\n\n<options>:\nA Cupians and Formians were caught in a constant struggle for power over the sea, until Myles Cabot facilitated a successful Formian coup.\nB Cupians oppressed Formians until the uprising led in part by the human, Myles Cabot.\nC Formians oppressed Cupians, until the uprising led in part by the human Myles Cabot.\nD Cupians and Formians were caught in a constant struggle for power over New Formia, until Myles Cabot facilitated married the Cupian princes and brought peace between peoples.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,739 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man—but the ones he refrains from making. Like the Read locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handed \"We're from the UN Inspector Corps,\" Sergeant Rashid said. \"I'm \"I don't know your language,\" Rashid said. \"Corporal Read is very young,\" Rashid said, \"but he's a crack Rashid judo chopped him and swung the inert body over his catatonic trance. A little car skimmed across the lawn. Bearing the Scourge of Africa, Rashid struggled toward it. Read walked backward, \"Thanks,\" Rashid said. \"I don't think I hurt him.\" Rashid took a syrette from his vest Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile. Two types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps: those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and world order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read was the second type. A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the drab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was the home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who do the drudge work of civilization and know they will never do limits of life's possibilities. He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. \"Nobody fools with me,\" he bragged. \"When Harry Read's out, there's a tiger running loose.\" No one knew how many times he nearly ran from other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on the battle line. \"A man ought to be a man,\" he once told a girl. \"He ought to do a man's work. Did you ever notice how our fathers look, how they sleep so much? I don't want to be like that. I want to be something proud.\" good as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier.\" \"I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What do you care what I do?\" The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men. Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and isolation. And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A something and you go out and win a medal. That's great for me. I'm lazy and I like excitement.\" day he took control the new dictator and his African party began to build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people to build himself an empire. He began a propaganda war against neighboring South Africa, promising the liberation of that strife-torn land. Most Negro leaders, having just won representation in the South African Parliament, told him to liberate his own country. They believed they could use their first small voice in the government to win in the car.\" \"Don't be certain, corporal. All these strong-arm movements are alike. I'll bet Umluana's lieutenants are hoping he'll become a dead legend. Then they can become live conquerors.\" Sergeant Rashid came from Cairo. He had degrees in science and history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple. Read looked back. He saw three spots of sunlight about two hundred feet up and a good mile behind. Rashid turned his head. He waved frantically. The two men in the \"Evade,\" Rashid said. \"Don't go down.\" \"Hit the floor,\" Rashid said. They knelt on the cramped floor. Rashid put on his gas mask and Rashid raised his eyes above the seat and looked out the rear Sergeant Rashid looked out the window again. He swore bitterly in \"How much farther?\" Rashid said. The masks muffled their voices. \"Are you ready, Rashid?\" yelled the driver. \"He's in the booth. What's going on?\" Rashid's Middle East Oxford Rashid swore. \"You heard him, Read! Get out there and help those Above the noise, he heard Rashid. out of here. Until it comes, we've got to hold them back.\" Read thought of the green beret he had stuffed in his pocket that stared through the murk, across the broken glass. He was Corporal He heard a shout in rapid French. He turned to his right. Men in red loincloths ran zigzagging toward the station. They carried In a moment only half a dozen masked men still advanced. The inspectors fired a long, noisy volley. When they stopped only four attackers remained on their feet. And they were running for Sergeant Rashid ran crouched from man to man. He did what he \"Well, corporal, how are you?\" \"How do you think they'll treat us?\" An occasional bullet cracked and whined through the misty room. Near him a man gasped frantically for air. On the sunny field a wounded man screamed for help. \"We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry.\" Rashid ran off. Read stared across the green land and listened to the pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A mass frontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill? He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hiding from the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branch above the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body. He looked nervously from side to side. They couldn't bring the copter in with that thing squatting out there. A few feet away, sprawled behind a barricade of tables, lay a man burned, or cut up by shrapnel, or gassed with some new mist their masks couldn't filter. Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing, mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly. But already the voice of Sergeant Rashid resounded in the murky For two years Read had served under Sergeant Rashid. To him, the sergeant was everything a UN inspector should be. Rashid's devotion to peace had no limits. Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was good enough for the UN they only rejected men whose loyalties might conflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank required something more than a hunger for self-respect. Read had seen the inspector who covered their getaway. He had watched their escort charge three-to-one odds. He had seen building, lay battered men and dead men. All UN inspectors. All part of his life. And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, and Rashid snapped orders. He put the German inspector in charge of \"Remember,\" Rashid said. \"We have to knock out that gun.\" Rashid whistled. \"I'm hit, too,\" Rashid said. \"Don't stop if you can move.\" Listen to him. What's he got, a sprained ankle? But he didn't feel any pain. He closed his eyes and threw himself \"Sergeant Rashid! Answer me.\" He knew they would see him when he stood up but he didn't think about that. He didn't think about Sergeant Rashid, about the complicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. He decided something in the world was more important than himself, but he didn't know it or realize the psychologists would be surprised to see him do this. He had made many decisions in the\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is the best description of Sergeant Rashid?\n\n<options>:\nA A corps member uniquely devoted to amity and concord.\nB An excellent strategist and the best man to have watching your back.\nC An excellent marksman but an even better negotiator.\nD A man outwardly dedicated to peace but inwardly in search of a fight.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt's lunchtime at Glasgow Chambers in late November, and Councillor George Redmond is getting worked up at the prospect a Glasgow Pound. \"We would be Glasgow-centric about it,\" he says conspiratorially, as though there is any other way to be. \"Can you imagine having the face of Billy Connolly on our local currency? Or Alex Ferguson, or Kenny Dalglish?\" The pound has been trading at its lowest level since 1985 since the UK voted to leave the European Union and there are fears that it could dip further as Brexit ensues. Timebanks, local exchange trading systems (LETS) and digital inventions like bitcoin can provide alternative ways for people to pay for goods and services when mainstream currencies hit crises. But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. \"At the moment, if the pound stops working for us, the whole economy grinds to a halt because there aren't alternatives,\" Duncan McCann, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, tells those gathered in a gilded room at Glasgow Chambers to discuss the Glasgow Pound. McCann is a long-time advocate of alternative means of exchange. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. Today, he's preaching to the converted. Alex Walker, the chairman of the 250-person Ekopia community in Northern Scotland, listens at the back. The Eko has been the main means of buying everything from beer to bananas in Ekopia since Walker founded it 20 years ago. On an adjacent table, Tracy Duff, a community learning and development worker from Clackmannanshire Council, digs out some papers. She runs the Clacks Youth Timebank, a scheme where 12- to 15-year-olds can earn credit for volunteering. Taking notes up front is Ailie Rutherford, one of the people who organised the meeting. Rutherford runs the People's Bank of Govanhill, a currency that changes value depending on the income of the user. \"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't invent our own currency and play with it,\" she says. Everyone has gathered to decide what a Glasgow Pound might look like at a time when many are asking if local currencies can work at all. Councillor Redmond says Glasgow has been closely watching existing alternative currencies like the Brixton Pound in London, which was introduced in 2011. In Britain, there are now schemes in Totnes, Lewes, Brixton, Bristol and Exeter. Hull has its own local digital currency that can be earned from volunteering and used to pay council tax. Kingston, Birmingham and Liverpool have schemes underway. Glasgow could be next. But the working group has some serious questions to answer first, not least: do complementary currencies actually work? \"People don't understand money,\" Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar, says over the phone. The Bristol Pound (£B) entered into circulation in September 2012. By June 2015, 1m £B had been issued, with £B700,000 of that still in circulation. In a population of some 450,000 people, that's the equivalent of each Bristolian carrying less than £B2 in change in their pocket. \"The small scale is a problem and a strength,\" says Stephen Clarke, chief financial officer of the Bristol Pound. \"The benefit comes from the fact that local currencies are trusted organisations: we're a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee.\" That means assets owned by the the Bristol Pound have to be used for the good of the community, rather than purely for profit. Without enough currency in circulation, it ceases to work. Scott-Cato says Stroud's size meant meant the Stroud Pound was never viable: \"We couldn't get the velocity of circulation right, which contrasts with the Bristol Pound.\" Clarke also says the small scale of local currencies means they are \"always scrabbling around looking for money\". One way founders of the Bristol Pound have addressed his is by setting up an umbrella organisation, the Guild of Independent Currencies, to share information between local currencies in the UK and help new organisations. \"At the moment we're all reinventing the wheel every time,\" Clarke says. Technology might also have a solution. Peter Ferry, a commercial director, travels to Glasgow to tell those working on the Glasgow Pound that that his company Wallet has come up with a way to use the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, to make it easier for people to use multiple types of currency. \"There might be many currencies around the country that people want to use. We need to make it simple for them to do that and also to make it simple to earn these currencies in many ways,\" he says. \"Bristol is seen as a quirky, individualistic kind of place,\" Clarke says. \"When we first produced the Bristol Pound note, people were really proud of it. It got through to people not just sat around coffee shops. I'm not sure a London Pound would work, because people identify with their local area in London rather than the city as a whole.\" Bristol Pound users don't have high incomes necessarily, but surveys show they are engaged with their local community and they have a higher educational attainment than average. In the years since the financial crisis, as local authority budgets have shrunk, some areas have relied heavily on engaged communities to fill in gaps in public services. By contrast, deprived areas where people cannot afford time and money to put into their community have become more deprived, making them even harder for local currencies to reach. \"It is difficult to get into more disadvantaged areas,\" Stephen Clarke says. \"We have a ten-year life expectancy gap between different parts of the city. When you go to disadvantaged areas with the Bristol Pound hat on you realise there aren't independent shops there, there's an Aldi and Lidl and that's it.\" Ciaran Mundy, CEO of the Bristol Pound, says it is important to think of the systemic impact rather than looking for targeted treatment of symptoms of economic deprivation. \"Poverty has many causes,\" he says. \"One of these is how the economy is structured in terms of how money flows out of poor areas due to high dependence on larger national and international companies paying lower wages and using offshore accounts to hide the money from the tax man.\" Every time a Brixton Pound transaction is made, 1.5 per cent goes into a Brixton Fund. This is used to give micro-grants of between a few hundred and £2000 to local projects and community groups. \"We aim to target projects that aren't large enough to apply for more formal grant funding,\" says Lucy Çava, project manager at the Brixton Pound. Meanwhile, the people behind the Bristol Pound are readying a mutual credit network called Bristol Prospects. Through this network, businesses in Bristol can exchange credit in the form of loans that are neutralised within the network, helping one another to grow without relying on the high rates of commercial lenders. \"We know from research that a number of small businesses in Bristol are struggling to get money on reasonable terms,\" says Clarke, \"and that banks are not interested in smaller loans to businesses. So we think there is a strength in the Bristol Pound network to start something like this that is linked, but separate.\" Duncan McCann, with all his experience, knows that challenge is worthwhile. \"As people we have a right to make credit and loan money. We mustn't forget that. We mustn't leave that to corporations and the state,\" he says. This article is part of a series on local economies Hazel is documenting at farnearer.org, with funding from the Friends Provident Foundation Illustration by PureSolution/Shutterstock\n\n<question>:\nWho is the CEO of the Bristol Pound?\n\n<options>:\nA Ciaran Mundy\nB Stephen Clarke\nC Peter Ferry\nD Duncan McCann\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWarrior Queens Elizabeth is a lurid paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: \"I knew the Virgin Queen before she was a virgin.\" As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan, redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers (lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal. (Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a) \"unsex\" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are affixed to spikes. You can't be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate? Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions about How Things Work in a barbarous state. With all due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, \"There are thousands of Catholics simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to organize it.\") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an awe-inspiring center. In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him, Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the uncomprehending world at bay. Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who doesn't appear to have an idée in his head. Martin Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then \"finding\" his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he \"found\" when he scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension, but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has leased the screen by the year. Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980 Shoot the Moon , 1982), labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that begin \"Am I to understand that ...?\" and a corporate villain who directs another character to \"wake up and smell the thorns.\" It apparently never occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful realization that he'd \"never write the great American novel\"--no kidding, given his flagrantly Welsh accent. Actually, Hopkins gives this humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank \"Hey now!\" Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter, the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or is that the Black Death of Pitt?\n\n<question>:\nWho does the author seem to appreciate the most in Meet Joe Black?\n\n<options>:\nA Martin Brest\nB Bo Goldman\nC Brad Pitt\nD Claire Forlani\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,774 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nlittle imperfection he had been able to communicate to her. It was in the privacy of his room that Pembroke became aware of just how perfect, physically, Mary Ann was. Too perfect. Frank Pembroke Is there something wrong with you? Do you fail to fit in with your group? Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy than a mere sampling. Furthermore, meticulously symmetrical. And she seemed to be wholly ambidextrous. \"With so many beautiful her face and body were Pembroke probingly, \"I find it hard to understand why there are so few children.\" \"Yes, children are decorative, aren't they,\" said Mary Ann. \"I \"Good day, sir,\" said Pembroke do wish there were more of them.\" \"Oh, they're only given to maternal types. I'd never get one. Anyway, I won't ever marry,\" which was almost empty, Pembroke Either that, or she had a basic flaw of loquacity that no one else had discovered. Pembroke decided he would have to cover his to Pembroke's present occupation \"Mary Ann, I love you very \"Oh, but you'll be dead by then,\" she pouted. \"So I mustn't fall in love with you. I don't want to be miserable.\" \"If I pretended I was one of deck, Pembroke was one of the \"Oh, yes, I'm sure they would.\" \"Mary Ann, you have two other flaws I feel I should mention.\" \"Yes? Please tell me.\" \"In the first place,\" said Pembroke, \"you should be willing to fall in love with me even if it will eventually make you unhappy. How can you be the paramour type if you refuse to fall in love foolishly? And when you have fallen in love, you should be went down. Pembroke Pembroke came as close to being \"Now try to love me,\" Pembroke and otherwise. Life had given him much and demanded little, which was perhaps the reason great variety of properties, real affectionate Mary Ann. My paramour.\" Making love to Mary Ann was was a trait Pembroke had never for any obvious reason, but because of subtle little factors that recognized in himself, nor had it Ann had no pulse. Mary Ann did not perspire. Mary Ann did not Lacking such loyalties, Pembroke Mary Ann breathed regularly under all circumstances. Mary Ann talked and talked and talked. But then, Mary Ann was not Pembroke was quite sure that she was irrevocably in love Pembroke had at last found his. hungry, he began to study the peopled it. And Mary Ann would The next morning Pembroke he made no attempt to speak to He picked up Mary Ann at her thirty, tossed back her long, chestnut locks and gazed up intently at Pembroke as he passed. the city. Pembroke and Mary \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. Ann took turns firing at the paper \"Could it be me?\" hopped off. Mary Ann and report that Pembroke had attacked Pembroke smiled, uneasily. for that. \"Tell me what's wrong with me,\" she went on urgently. \"I'm not good enough, am I? I mean, there's something wrong with the way I look or act. Isn't there? buried the body. Why had she buried it? Because at first she She was frightened. It one thing,\" said Pembroke, deciding not prosecute Mary Ann for killing Please help me, please!\" Now Pembroke had himself to you wanted to hear?\" please tell me.\" supper tonight?\" Pembroke proposed. Two weeks later Pembroke phoned Mary Ann. The police would she be seeing him again? He had aroused her passion and Pembroke left the beach and after six,\" she said. the woman off his mind, but the oddness of her conversation continued to bother him. She was it was her concern about being different that made her so. How some womanly thought to the situation. to explain Twice during his wanderings Pembroke had seen the corpses Then he saw the weird little glass statuette among the usual because they bled. Mary Ann had admitted that she did not. to her? saleswoman inquired. Pembroke watched with lifted no out but to do away with Mary Pembroke headed for the Ann. \"What the hell was that?\" Pembroke demanded. \"Oh, you know—or don't you? \"And if I were?\" talking excitedly. They were discussing \"They tell me I lean too far Pembroke had visited the forward,\" she confided. \"But I Pembroke. \"You're in too much since no one he had talked frumpy.\" \"Well, I'm supposed to look frumpy,\" the woman retorted. \"That's the type of person I am. But you can look frumpy and still Pembroke would no walk natural, can't you? Everyone said Pembroke. \"Incidentally, Pembroke began hobbling toward with Mary Ann. She smiled happily when she recognized him. That was a good thing. \"It is a sign of poor breeding to smile at tramps,\" Pembroke asked Pembroke. admonished her in a whisper. She obeyed. He followed. The Pembroke watched him hurry their turn, he and Mary Ann of having been given the runaround. Pembroke found himself alone in To his surprise, the boy \"Right,\" said Pembroke wearily. \"What is your name?\" queried middle initial,\" Pembroke said in \"Yeah?\" said the boy delightedly. Pembroke said. \"What's over passengers,\" said Pembroke. Pembroke returned to the Mary Ann. He saw her at last frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled to be precisely what Pembroke had predicted. the woman persisted in her Sidling up to a well-dressed man-about-town type, Pembroke \"Hell, no. But some poor feather cut was insisting. \"What is wrong with me?\" Suddenly Mary Ann was quiet. \"You're perfect, sweetheart,\" \"Ah, come on,\" she pleaded. hate that?\" \"Naw, that's part of your \"Ah, you're perfect, too. You are all perfect. I've never seen that,\" said Pembroke, snickering such a collection of dolls as parade Why not?\" Pembroke went right on hating But the dolls had apparently bar. Pembroke took his rum and Pembroke was explaining to the \"Wonder what the hell got into those babes?\" \"You said they were perfect. They know they're not. You've got to be rough with them in this Pembroke rose as the young \"Ah, no, not you, too,\" groaned of honest criticism.\" the newcomer asked, peering into \"You are therefore in an excellent faults as you see them.\" \"Well, so what?\" demanded Spencer. \"I've got more important position to point out our \"Mr. Valencia,\" said Pembroke. there. Pembroke was only in it to Valencia was seeking. Pembroke still failed to see the point. from God-knew-what insidious menace. It read: ARE YOU IMPERFECT? LET DR. VON SCHUBERT POINT OUT YOUR FLAWS IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE \"Also, there is a certain effeminateness you speak,\" said Pembroke. \"Try said, Mr. Pembroke. However, to prove itself. You have only yourself to blame. Cooperation is Pembroke spoke for several minutes. said Pembroke thoughtfully. \"What the hell are you sayin'?\" asked Spencer in disbelief. the three babes? Ah, come on.\" about it again then.\" Pembroke rose and started out Pembroke overheard the conversation. Pembroke heard the shots as Pembroke shaved, showered, Mary Ann, the woman he had then went to Pembroke's room. He still knew nothing about her critical capabilities, but not once had she become annoyed with him. She seemed to devour every factual point of imperfection about herself that Pembroke brought to her attention. And,\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Pembroke ask Mary Ann about children?\n\n<options>:\nA He wants to know why there aren't children around\nB He wants to know if she would ever have children with him\nC He wants to see if this will be more than a one-night stand\nD Wanting children is considered an imperfection\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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570 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"Feetch!\" grated Ogden Piltdon, president of the Piltdon Opener Company, slamming the drafting board with his hairy fist, \"I want results!\" savagely. \"The Piltdon Can-Opener is trailing the competition. \"But Mr. Piltdon,\" remonstrated Feetch unsteadily under his employer's \"For two years there hasn't been one lousy improvement in the Piltdon \"But Mr. Piltdon—\" Feetch adjusted his spectacles with shaking hands. \"But Mr. Piltdon, \"Dignity,\" pronounced Piltdon, \"is for museums. Four months, Feetch! want it completely developed, engineered and tooled-up, ready for production. Otherwise, Feetch—\" Feetch's body twitched. \"But Mr. Piltdon, four months is hardly time production headaches, inadequate facilities and assistance. What had happened, to the proud dream he once had, the dream of exploring develop? Ah, well, thought Feetch straightening his thin shoulders, he had Since the early 1980's the schools had been turning out more technicians than industry could absorb. He was too old to compete in the employment market. He couldn't afford to lose any money. Jenny wasn't well. How to meet this four month dead-line? He would get right on it himself, of course Hanson—good man—could work with him. He shook his head despairingly. Something would be sure to blow up. Well, he had to is built upon your designs and you get handed this deal!\" \"Well, well,\" said Feetch. \"I drew my pay every week so I suppose I but who has heard of Feetch? Well,\"—Feetch blew his nose—\"how do we unsatisfactory.\" \"Hello,\" said Feetch as an aproned machinist entered carrying a answer! It's more than the answer! We can put this right into work and beat the dead-line.\" Several days later, however, Piltdon himself charged into the drawing pencil point. \"Feetch!\" roared Piltdon. \"Is this talk that's going After Piltdon had seen it his eyes took on a feverish glint. \"This,\" \"Mr. Piltdon—\" said Feetch shakily. Piltdon stared at his chief engineer sharply. \"What's the matter, Feetch? The thing can be duplicated, can't it?\" \"Feetch,\" bit out Piltdon, his face growing hard. \"Stow this hooey. I after leaving our employ? We have a good thing here, and I don't want you holding it back. We're going into production immediately.\" Close, thought Feetch, wearily. It had been a man-killing job, and it a sell-out!\" crowed Piltdon, waving a sheaf of telegrams. \"Step up production! Let 'er rip!\" sales to one to a customer. Piltdon cancelled his advertising program. any departure from its exact specifications nullified the effect. Piltdon, genial these days with success and acclaim, roared at Feetch: \"I'm putting you in for a raise. Yes sir! To reward you for assisting me with my invention I'm raising your pay two hundred dollars a year. That's almost four dollars a week, man.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Piltdon.\" And still, thought Feetch wryly, he received no recognition. His name did not even appear on the patent. Well, well, that was the way it went. He must find his satisfaction in his work. And it had been interesting lately, the work he had been doing nights at home investigating what had been named the Piltdon Effect. expensive. He was a fool, he supposed, to try independent research when so many huge scientific organizations were working on it. But he could He still didn't know where the cans went, but somehow he felt that he was close to the answer. When he finally found the answer, it was too late. The Borenchuck incident was only hours away. As soon as he could get hold of Piltdon, Feetch said trembling, \"Sir, I Feetch?\" \"You're through, Feetch!\" raved Piltdon. \"Fired! Get out! But before Piltdon's huge desk. \"No!\" yelled Piltdon at Feetch's face which was \"You're positive, Feetch?\" Piltdon's eyes glared into Feetch's. for rectifying your blunder. Fine, fine. We'll work it out. Hop on production, at once, Feetch.\" Feetch felt himself sag inwardly. \"Mr. Piltdon,\" he said. \"I'm asking \"Damn it, no!\" roared Piltdon. \"How many times must I tell you? You got your job back, didn't you?\" The prospect of long years of heavy production schedules, restricted engineering and tight supervision suddenly made Kalvin Feetch feel very tired. Research, he thought. Development. What he had always wanted. Over the years he had waited, thinking that there would be opportunities later. But now he was growing older, and he felt that there might not be a later. Somehow he would manage to get along. Perhaps someone would give him a job working in the new field he had pioneered. With a sense of relief he realized that he had made his \"Mr. Piltdon,\" Feetch said. \"I—\" klunk!—\"resign.\" Piltdon started, extreme astonishment crossing his face. \"Feetch!\" howled Piltdon. \"I order you to remain!\" Feetch almost submitted from force of habit. He hesitated for a moment, \"Good-day,\" said Feetch firmly, sprinting through the falling cans to the door. Money, Feetch decided after a while, was a good thing to have. His supply was running pretty low. He was not having any luck finding to hire the man it regarded as responsible for the whole thing. \"Feetch,\" the personnel man would read. \"Kalvin Feetch.\" Then, looking up, \"Not the Kalvin Feetch who—\" \"Yes,\" Feetch would admit miserably. Piltdon, Feetch thought, feeling a strange sensation deep within his chest that he had not the experience to recognize as the beginning of a No, Feetch told himself, he was revealing nothing that Piltdon might grab. The anger began to mount. But he was beginning to need money desperately. Jenny wasn't getting any better and medical bills were running high. not.\" \"I'll go up another ten dollars,\" grated the little Piltdon image. \"Do you realize, man, this is the fourteenth raise I've offered you? A total increase of one hundred and twenty-six dollars? Be sensible, Feetch. I know you can't find work anywhere else.\" Feetch blinked. This had not occurred to him. Piltdon eyed him sharply, then smiled with a hint of triumph. \"Think it Feetch sat, thinking it over. Was it right to let all these people lose figured the Super-Opener can solve this.\" Feetch hung up. A glow of anger that had been building up in his chest grew warmer. He began pacing the floor. How he hated to do it. Think, Feetch walked into the kitchen and carefully poured himself a drink of Think? He'd figured the solution long ago, only he hadn't allowed himself to see it. Not lack of brains, lack of guts. Well, he thought grimly, dialing Piltdon's number, he was going through with it now. \"Piltdon!\" he barked. \"Three p.m. tomorrow. My place. Be here. That's Piltdon leaped from his chair. \"Outrageous!\" He roared. \"Ridiculous!\" \"Well,\" murmured the Government man, \"I never did think Feetch got a \"Mr Feetch—\" said Piltdon. Feetch looked up from his desk in the newly constructed Feetch Multi-Dimensional Development Division of the Piltdon Opener Company. \"Piltdon, don't bother me about production. Production is your problem.\" \"But Mr. Feetch—\" \"Get out,\" said Feetch. Piltdon blanched and left.\n\n<question>:\nWhy didn't Feetch show Piltdon his new invention right away?\n\n<options>:\nA He wanted to keep the new invention to himself\nB He knew Piltdon wouldn't wait to research further\nC He was afraid he couldn't recreate it\nD He wanted a raise first\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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724 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nLet Si Get This During a typical lunch time at the Royalton Hotel restaurant in midtown Manhattan, The New Yorker 's Tina Brown might be installed at her usual table, and Vogue 's Anna Wintour might be at her usual table (chewing on her usual meal--a $25 hamburger). Vanity Fair 's Graydon Carter might be there too, although he has transferred his main allegiance to a place called Patroon. Filling out the room are other editors, publicists, and writers from these magazines and GQ and House & Garden and so on. And one man, who probably isn't there himself, picks up every tab. Some of the lesser fry may even utter the Condé Nast mantra--though it is hardly necessary at the Royalton--as they grab for the check: \"Let Si get this.\" S.I. \"Si\" Newhouse Jr. and his younger brother, Donald, control Advance Publications, one of America's largest privately held companies. (Estimate of their combined wealth: $13 billion.) Donald tends to Advance's hugely profitable newspaper, radio, and TV holdings. Si runs the less profitable but more glamorous properties. These are the 15 Condé Nast magazines, including (in descending order of fabulousness) Vogue , Vanity Fair , GQ , Condé Nast Traveler , House & Garden , Allure , Details , Self , Mademoiselle , and Glamour and Random House. Then there's lunch. The magazines account for more than a quarter of daytime revenues at the Four Seasons and the Royalton. A modest lunch for two at the Royalton (no fancy wine or anything) might cost $80. But Si's generosity extends to even assistants and sub-sub-editors, dining on sushi at their desks. If you spend $10 or less on lunch, and claim you were working, Si pays. At Vogue and Vanity Fair , almost everyone has a \"working lunch\" every day . An editor at Allure says that \"working lunches\" there are limited to 10 a month. Back at the office, you hear that a friend at another Newhouse magazine has been promoted, so you send flowers. The tab: $100. Si pays. (One of my favorite Condé Nast stories is of an editor who had just been promoted to an extremely senior job. His office was jammed with congratulatory flowers and cards. All had been sent by fellow Condé Nast staffers. All had been billed to the company.) Four o'clock, and it's snack time. Your assistant joins the mob in the lobby newsstand. She bills your candy bar, juice, and cigarettes (as well as her own candy bar, juice, and cigarettes) to the magazine ($15). After all, it's a \"working snack.\" Later, there's a birthday party for your assistant. You order champagne and a cake--on the company, of course, and present her with your gift--a Prada wallet ($200). Later, she submits the expense sheet for it. Finally, after a Random House book party at Le Cirque 2000 (estimated cost to Si: $35,000), your car ferries you home. Newhouse expense stories are a staple of New York literary-journalistic conversation. Stories about the $10,000 in expenses that a New Yorker editor billed for a single month. About the interior-decorating costs for the fashion-magazine editor who likes to have her office photographs rearranged every few months. About the hotel tab for the big-name New York writer who spent three weeks in Washington's Hay-Adams (basic room: $285 a night) researching a Vanity Fair story that will never run. About the Vogue editor who has furnished her summer house from items purchased for fashion shoots--beautiful furniture, designer pillows, coffee-table books. Vogue assistants have nicknamed the house \"Petty Cash Junction.\" At the top of the masthead, the perks are perkier. His Si-ness (their joke, not mine) does not expect his editors in chief to actually live on their million-dollar salaries. He also gives them clothing allowances (up to $50,000 a year). He buys them cars of their choice and hires chauffeurs to drive them. He offers them low- or no-interest home loans. GQ editor Art Cooper reportedly received two $1-million loans, one for a Manhattan apartment, the other for a Connecticut farm. Tina Brown and her husband, Harold Evans, former president of Random House, reportedly just took a $2-million boost to buy a $3.7-million Manhattan house. Si's favorite courtiers lead lives of jaw-dropping privilege. When she was editor of British Vogue , Wintour commuted between London and New York--on the Concorde. Another Si confidant decided his office didn't feel right, so he hired one of the grandmasters of feng shui to rearrange it. Some editors prepare for trips by Federal Expressing their luggage to their destination. Why? \"So you don't have to carry your bags. No one would be caught dead carrying a bag.\" Some top editors may earn their perks. Vogue and GQ make millions, according to industry analysts. Vanity Fair is enjoying banner years, and while it probably hasn't made back the millions Newhouse lost in starting it up, it is certainly in the black. The New Yorker loses money--how much may even surpass perks as a topic of Newhouse gossip and speculation. On the other hand, The New Yorker is the most talked-about magazine in America, and Tina Brown is the most talked-about editor. That is worth something. Public media companies such as Time Warner (or, for that matter, Microsoft) can entice and hold journalists with stock options. Advance is private, so Newhouse uses other golden handcuffs. He runs a lifestyle prison. Top editors stay because they could never afford to live in a house as nice as the one Si's interest-free loan bought them, or to host parties as nice as the ones Si's party planners throw for them. Condé Nast's magazines are all about glamour, wealth, prestige. To uphold that image, magazine editors need to circulate at the top of New York society. But the top of New York society consists of people who make far more money than magazine editors do--investment bankers, corporate chieftains, and fashion designers. Million-dollar salaries aren't enough to mix as equals with the Trumps and Karans. Si's perks are equalizers. And they say it's not as good as it used to be. In 1992, according to Thomas Maier's biography of Newhouse, the editor of Self held a birthday party for Si Newhouse's dog . (Owners ate caviar dogs drank Evian.) The lowliest assistants used to take car services home. But new Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio has restricted cars and catering. Editors who used to fly the Concorde now fly first-class those who used to fly first-class now fly business. Expense accounts are scrutinized. Even so, today's Condé Nast is economical only by Condé Nast standards. The belt is tighter, but it's still hand-tooled, hand-tanned, and fashioned from the finest Italian leather.\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the article, what is Condé Nast?\n\n<options>:\nA Magazines of the corporate elite\nB 15 magazines of “fabulousness”\nC 15 New York magazines of “fantasy”\nD 15 magazines of the New York “elite”\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,673 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nShe surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting what she wanted. \"All set, honey. How do I look in my monkey suit?\" \"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did,\" she said, finishing the smiling. \"Honey, look at me,\" he said. \"It isn't going to be bad. Honestly it isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn't be sending me you know that. I told you that we've sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.\" She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand. \"Phil, don't go. Please don't. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn't have a \"Mary, you know I can't back out now. How could I? It's been three years. You know how much I've wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing would ever be right with me again if I didn't go. Please don't make it \"I've got to get started, Mary. Will you come to the field with me?\" \"Yes, I'll come to say good-by.\" She paused and dropped her eyes. \"Phil, if you go, I won't be here when you get back—if you get back. I won't be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. It isn't the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes. \"I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary,\" Phil said. His voice was dry and low. \"I didn't know you felt this way about it.\" \"Yes, you did. I told you how I felt. I told you I could never be the wife of a space pilot. But I don't think I ever really believed it was possible—not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous dream!\" If I backed out now for any reason, I'd never be able to look at the sky again. I'd be through.\" She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in \"Let's go, if you're still going,\" she finally said. a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching out of sight to right and left. At the gate they were stopped by the They drove between the rows of wooden buildings that lined the field, and he parked near the low barbed fence ringing the take-off zone. He turned off the ignition, and sat quietly for a moment before lighting a \"No, I've never seen her before,\" she said. \"Hadn't you better go?\" Her voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. \"Please go now, Phil,\" she said. \"Wish me luck, Mary?\" he asked. \"Yes, good luck, Phil,\" she said. He opened the car door and got out. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight. \"Mary, I—\" he began, and then turned and strode toward the Inside the building it was like a locker room before the big game. The tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that Phil had worn earlier. When he came into the room, the noise and bustle stopped. They turned as one man toward him, and General Small came up to \"Hello, Phil. We were beginning to think you weren't coming. You all set, son?\" \"Yes, sir, I'm all set, I guess,\" Phil said. the radar.\" As they crossed the room, familiar faces smiled, and each man shook his but there was nothing to be said now. Sammy's turn would come again. I'd like to be going. It's a thrilling thought—man's first and those who have had it didn't realize it at the time. Good luck, and God be with you.\" \"Thank you, sir. I'm aware of all you say. It frightens me a little.\" The general took Phil's arm and they walked to the briefing room. There were chairs set up for the scientists and Air Force officers directly connected with the take-off. They were seated now in a semicircle in last minute briefing began. It was a routine he knew by heart. He had gone over and over it a thousand times, and he only half listened now. He kept thinking of Mary outside, alone by the fence. The voice of the briefing officer was a dull hum in his ears. \"... And orbit at 18,000-mph. You will then accelerate for the breakaway to 24,900-mph for five minutes and then free-coast for 116 hours until—\" Phil asked a few questions about weather and solar conditions. And then the session was done. They rose and looked at each other, the same unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and handshakes. They were ready now. \"Phil,\" the general said, and took him aside. \"Sir?\" \"Phil, you're ... you feel all right, don't you, son?\" \"Yes, sir. I feel fine. Why?\" \"Phil, I've spent nearly every day with you for three years. I know you better than I know myself in many ways. And I've studied the psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness, Phil, but I think there's something wrong. Is there?\" \"No, sir. There's nothing wrong,\" Phil said, but his voice didn't carry conviction. He reached for a cigarette. \"Phil, if there is anything—anything at all—you know what it might mean. You've got to be in the best mental and physical condition of your life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension wrong with you. Want to tell me?\" Outside, the take-off zone crawled with men and machines at the base of the rocket. For ten hours, the final check-outs had been in progress and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt that he was sending just a little bit of himself into the sky. Beyond And then they were ready. A small group of excited men came out from the administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And, alone, one man climbed the steel ladder up the side of the rocket—ninety feet into the air. At the top he waved to the men on the The small group at the base of the ship turned and walked back to the fence. And for an eternity the great ship stood alone, waiting. Then, from deep inside, a rumble came, increasing in volume to a gigantic roar that shook the earth and tore at the ears. Slowly, the first manned heavens, she stood holding her face in her hands and crying softly to \"Phil! Oh, Phil.\" She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and over. \"They wouldn't let me go, Mary,\" he said finally. \"The general would not let me go.\" cheeks. \"Thank, God,\" she said. \"It doesn't matter, darling. The only thing that matters is you didn't go.\" \"You're right, Mary,\" he said. His voice was low—so low she could hardly hear him. \"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.\" He stood with\n\n<question>:\nWhat were the unanswered questions that the men had after the weather briefing?\n\n<options>:\nA They did not know how the public would react to the event.\nB They did not know how well they could predict weather so far away.\nC They were not sure if Phil could go on the mission.\nD There is still level uncertainty in the success of the mission.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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859 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\naccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from the He said, \"Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed it Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going directions Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself until exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be allowed to perch, but were not allowed to. usually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded like an incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized that of my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and has never, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the late afternoon. \"Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row!\" \"Yeah, and only when you were dealer!\" The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened the door to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confronting him, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and the impulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and he \"Here!\" he said, holding out a deck of cards, \"For Pete's sake, look at 'em yourselves if you think they're marked!\" The nearest man struck them up from his hand. \"Okay, Houdini! So they're not marked! All I know is five straight....\" His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cards the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, arranged cards. it. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothing unusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sort of thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time, somebody else has four aces....\" He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. There tile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been from at least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice and I was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouth open and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with his mouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tie Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to his It was out of order. Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed the windows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat had brightened up considerably. one. That was tied in three knots. All right \"Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly—\" \"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things....\" He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilight He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. \"Have you any they'll each have the same date, perhaps?\" \"Did you accumulate all that change today?\" \"No. During the week.\" could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that would be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if they all come up heads.\" \"Great Scott,\" he said, and sat down. \"I suppose you know that there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the Universe—random and design. The sands on the beach are an example of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions of the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are so many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast hand, seems not to depend on probability at all actually, it goes against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental He shook his head. \"No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seems to involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were you electrical storm. Something has it in for me!\" McGill grinned. \"Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic.\" \"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life.\" \"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder.\" He had a faraway, frowning look. by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and we as soon as one of them moved aside to let only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous punches which met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable bouts ever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anything else, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identical excuses and threats. Mr. Graham?\" he asked. \"I don't know what's going on around here, but fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious \"Of course I'm all right. But why....\" \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said. \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well,\" he confessed. \"But so far as I can see,\" Molly answered, \"it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern.\" \"Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center.\" Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. \"Do you something like an overactive poltergeist?\" it does not convert what it feeds on it merely rearranges it into a non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and it has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you might call improbability.\" \"Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in the floor—something like that—just happened to cause the right induction impulses. Yes, I know how you feel,\" he said, seeing my expression. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I was \"I'm in no mood to cook,\" she said. \"Let's get away from all this.\" McGill raised an eyebrow. \"If all this, as you call it, will let us.\" In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. \"I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far, I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny, and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made the returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back to The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thing crowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back, baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to the which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience had grown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, \"I suppose this is all part of it, \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man. licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.\n\n<question>:\nHow might the card game had gone differently if Mr. Graham was not present?\n\n<options>:\nA Nat would have never hosted a card game in the late afternoon\nB Nat would have continued to win with straights and other rare hands\nC Nat would have lost all of his hands instead of won all of them\nD Nat would have a more random pattern of losing and winning hands\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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895 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMaledict oratory The high costs of low language. Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on. I am walking along a suburban street, trailing a class of pre-schoolers who are linked to each other by a rope. A pair of teen-agers passes us in the other direction. By the time they have reached the end of the line of children, they have tossed off a whole catalog of obscenities I did not even hear until I was well into adolescence, let alone use in casual conversation on a public street. I am talking to a distinguished professor of public policy about a foundation grant. I tell her something she wasn't aware of before. In 1965, the appropriate response was \"no kidding.\" In 1996, you do not say \"no kidding.\" It is limp and ineffectual. If you are surprised at all, you say what she says: \"No shit.\" What word is taboo in middle-class America in 1996? There are a couple of credible candidates: The four-letter word for \"vagina\" remains off-limits in polite conversation (although that has more to do with feminism than with profanity), and the slang expression for those who engage in oral sex with males is not yet acceptable by the standards of office-meeting etiquette. But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges. What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it.\n\n<question>:\nMembers of western society in 1996 are _________ expletives compared to members of western society from three decades prior.\n\n<options>:\nA more offended by\nB more creative in their use of\nC less offended by\nD less creative in their use of\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,413 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nEvery writer must seek his own Flowery Kingdom in imagination's wide demesne, and if that search can begin and end on Earth his problem has been greatly simplified. In post-war Japan Walt Sheldon has found not only serenity, but complete freedom to write undisturbed about the things he treasures most. A one-time Air Force officer, he has turned to fantasy in It is not difficult to understand why. houlihan's equation by ... Walt Sheldon spot all sorts of minute shortcomings was a great help. And I was I must admit that at first I wasn't sure I was hearing those hearing the old tongue and talking of the old things every day, and circumstances, in or out of gravity, and under all conditions of friction and combustion.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Houlihan,\" said coefficient of discharge for the matter in combustion. You may call it gas, if you wish, for we treated it like gas at the center for convenience—as tubes in our engine. Without this coefficient to give leprechauns. If we ever meet again, upon another world perchance, I see I shall have to explain this, although I had hoped to get right and so keep my part of the bargain.\" said. Keech's eyebrows popped upward. \"What's this now?\" \"I don't feel it would be right to take it for a service of this root of the pressure-head driving it. But when you actually put things and in some awe, too, \"well, now, At the terrible discharge speed of nuclear explosion—which is what the drive amounts to despite the fact that it is simply water in musha Lord help us! 'Tis the first which nuclear salts have been previously a bit smaller. from a mortal.\" He turned to his now, do you hear, for Mr. Houlihan—friend edge, the velocity of approach to the point of discharge, atomic weight and structure— Oh, there is so much of this that if you're not a to weary you. Perhaps you had better take my word for it that without this equation—correctly stated, mind you—mankind slowly and chuckled to myself at how I had gotten the best of the And all this talk of coefficients and equations sits strangely, you might had given them the wrong equation, of course. They would never get say, upon the tongue of a man named Kevin Francis Houlihan. center. Anyway, I heard these little But I am, after all, a scientist. If I like small working sounds, blending in eerily mysterious fashion with a chorus of small voices. I thought at had not been a specialist in my field determined the true coefficient of It would go down in scientific literature now, I suppose, as Houlihan's Equation, and that was honor There was a leader, an older one with a crank face. He was beating the air with his arms and piping: \"Over here, now! All right, bring those electrical connections over here—and see you're not slow as treacle about it!\" work greatly to my advantage, and also to the advantage of humankind, and when a man can do the first and never seen them so busy, either. They were building something in and shiny and upright and a little over five feet in height. \"Come along now, people!\" said this crotchety one, looking straight work! You'll not be needin' to then? Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe mind that man standin' there! You know he can't see nor hear us!\" Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and and became stiff and alert for a moment, as though suspecting that perhaps Oh, it was good to hear the rich I said, \"Just a minute, friend, and I'll beg your pardon. It so happens I can see you.\" deeming such a thing impossible. staring open-mouthed. Then he said, \"What? What's that, now?\" I knew what it was they feared. \"I don't intend catching one of you!\" I said. \"Come back, you daft little creatures!\" But I was after no gold. I only wanted to hear the music of an Irish job of work for almost shamefully generous pay. You see, in a place as full of science as the nuclear propulsion \"Listen to me now, little people!\" I called out. \"My name's Houlihan of the Roscommon Houlihans. I am descended from King Niall himself—or so at least my father used to say! Come on out now, and pass the time o' day!\" Then I waited, but they didn't knotty problem, and I was up against a blank wall. Simply because become clogged. I knew that if I could just once hear the old tongue again, and talk a resounding blow with my fist. \"Hear me now, little people! If you don't show yourselves and come out and talk to me, I'll wreck this spaceship from stem to stern!\" I heard only the leaves rustling softly. \"Do you understand? I'll give you until I count three to make an proportional to the square The glade remained deathly silent. \"Two!\" appearance! One!\" \" Three! \" The working model and the fact And with that the little people together, contractions or expansions in a friendly gesture of greeting. \"Good morning,\" I said. \"Good morning,\" the foreman said with some caution. \"My name is Keech.\" \"And mine's Houlihan, as I've told you. Are you convinced now that I have no intention of doing talk.\" I nodded as I spoke, and sat down cross-legged upon the grass. \"Any Irishman wants to talk, Mr. Houlihan.\" \"And often that's all Keech stared back without much expression, and said, \"I've been wondering how you guessed it was must confess that does astonish me.\" \"And why wouldn't I know a said. \"Oh, there's no need for apology,\" said Keech. \"Though in truth we prefer poets to scientists. But it beginning,\" he replied. \"But continue.\" \"We had to come here,\" said Keech, \"to learn how to make a spaceship.\" \"A spaceship, now,\" I said, unconsciously adopting some of the old manner. \"Leprechauns are not really mechanically and laughter and mischief, as anyone knows.\" \"Myself included,\" I agreed. \"Well, if I may use an old expression, we've had a feelin' lately that we're not long for this world. Or let me put it this way. We feel the world isn't long for itself.\" I scratched my cheek. \"How such as that?\" \"It's very simple. With all the up in the process of destroying yourselves.\" \"There is now. We've spied upon you and learned how to do it. Well—almost how to do it. We haven't learned yet how to control the power—\" constellation Orion, which sounds as though it has a good Irish name, but I was hooted down. Be that as it may, my own job was to go into your nuclear center, learn how to make the ship, and proceed with its construction. Naturally, we didn't understand all of your high-flyin' science, but some of our people are pretty clever at gettin' up replicas of things.\" thought it was by the Russians. There's one thing which puzzles me, though. If you've been constantly around us—and I'm still \"Truly we are, Mr. Houlihan. Now—to business. Just during has crossed my mind. That's why I'm wastin' all this time with you, sir. You say you are a scientist.\" \"A nuclear engineer.\" \"Well, then, it may be that you can help us—now that you know \"The power control, Mr. Houlihan. As I understand it, 'tis necessary to know at any instant exactly how much thrust is bein' delivered out exactly as it does on paper.\" \"You're referring to the necessity for a coefficient of discharge.\" \"Whatever it might be named,\" said Keech, shrugging. \"'Tis the not with humor, \"the avarice of humans! I knew it! Well, Mr. Houlihan, I'll give you reason enough. That's a grandmother's tale.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the narrator's ethnicity?\n\n<options>:\nA Irish\nB American\nC Leprechaun\nD Japanese\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,168 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCome on now.\" I smiled condescendingly, knowing it would irritate him. \"What are you doing that's worth anything?\" He glared at me, his white hair bristling and his nostrils dilated like a war horse about to whinny. I can say one thing for them—these scientists and professors always keep themselves well under control. recognize its value.\" Prof. Caswell smiled back tightly. He knew his department was at stake. The other departments were popular with donors and pulled in gift money by scholarships and fellowships, and supported their professors and graduate students by research contracts with the government and industry. Caswell had to show a way to make his own department resonant like most professors, when he had to explain something he to deliver an essay—\"have certain tendencies built into the way they happen to have been organized, which cause them to expand or contract without reference to the needs they were founded to serve.\" He was becoming flushed with the pleasure of explaining his subject. \"All through the ages, it has been a matter of wonder and dismay to men that a simple organization—such as a church to worship in, or a delegation of weapons to a warrior class merely for defense against an outside enemy—will either grow insensately and extend its control until it is a tyranny over their whole lives, or, like other organizations set up to serve a vital need, will tend to repeatedly dwindle and vanish, and have to be painfully rebuilt. \"The reason can be traced to little quirks in the way they were organized, a matter of positive and negative power feedbacks. Such used as a base that would enable me to develop a specifically social mathematics, expressing the human factors of intermeshing authority and motives in simple formulas. amount of growth and period of life of any organization. The UN, to choose an unfortunate example, is a shrinker type organization. Its monetary support is not in the hands of those who personally benefit by its governmental activities, but, instead, in the hands of those who would personally lose by any extension and encroachment of its \"Could we discuss this over lunch?\" he asked. \"I wouldn't mind hearing more, but I'm having lunch with some executors of a millionaire's will. They have to be convinced that by, 'furtherance of research into human ills,' he meant that the money \"I see you have your problems, too,\" Caswell said, conceding me nothing. He extended his hand with a chilly smile. \"Well, good afternoon, Mr. Halloway. I'm glad we had this talk.\" I shook hands and left him standing there, sure of his place in the progress of science and the respect of his colleagues, yet seething inside because I, the president and dean, had boorishly demanded that For a crumb of favorable publicity and respect in the newspapers and an annual ceremony in a silly costume, I spend the rest of the year going hat in hand, asking politely for money at everyone's door, Caswell had to make it work or get out. He was deep in the symbology of human motives and the equations of reason why the members would lose if any of them resigned, and some indirect way they could use to force each other to stay in.\" out a few that would have made the organization too complicated, and finally worked out an idyllically simple and deadly little organization setup where joining had all the temptation of buying a sweepstakes \"This demonstration has got to be convincing. We'd better pick a little group that no one in his right mind would expect to grow.\" with him the President of the University, leaning across the table toward each other, sipping coffee and talking in conspiratorial tones over something they were writing in a notebook. That was us. minutes I began to feel sleepy. There were only about thirty people there, and it was a small room, not the halls of Congress, but they discussed their business of collecting and repairing second hand clothing for charity with the same endless I pointed out to Caswell the member I thought would be the natural half doze while Caswell stayed awake beside me and wrote in his \"I think there's a way they could find for it,\" Caswell whispered back, she can be trusted with initiating the change. Just mention all the personal advantages an unscrupulous person could have.\" He nodded, keeping a straight and sober face as if we were exchanging admiring remarks about the techniques of clothes repairing, instead of conspiring. After the meeting, Caswell drew the tall woman in the green suit bylaws with her and went off soberly, as befitted two social science experimenters. We didn't start laughing until our car passed the town \"Caswell, about that sewing club business—I'm beginning to feel the members.... Poor Caswell. The bet between us was ironclad. He wouldn't let me through the first slow move to fire him. His professional pride would be shattered, sunk without a trace. I remembered what he said about that would make for the university. And what if Caswell asked me what I had found out in the meantime? I The group with Mrs. Searles was probably holding a shrunken and almost memberless meeting somewhere in an upper room. without uncared-for ill—potentially with no ugliness, no vistas which are not beautiful—the best people in the best planned town in the \" All we need is more members. Now get out there and recruit! \" seated in a row of chairs, was a group that was probably the board of directors. It was mostly women, and the women began to look vaguely familiar, as if they could be members of the sewing circle. She was cheering with the crowd, her eyes sparkling. \"I don't know,\" steeply as it reached the fourth month. They had picked up their first increase in membership simply by amalgamating with all the other types being brought in. By the fifth month, the League had added a mutual baby-sitting service that had been built into the organization plan for the distribution of the small profits of membership fees and honorary promotions. It was becoming an openly profitable business. Membership was rising more rapidly now. local real estate promoters had finished joining en masse. The Mutual Trade part sounded to me as if the Chamber of Commerce was on the point of being pulled in with them, ideas, ambitions and all. inert, cantankerous, or both. Caswell's formula could be a handle to grasp them with. Gratitude alone would bring money into the university in carload lots. were spectacular. Caswell's formulas were proven to the hilt. \"Perfect, Wilt, perfect Watashaw business at all, I'm afraid. You say the demonstration went well and you're satisfied?\" He was definitely putting on a chill. We were friends now, but obviously he was still peeved whenever he was reminded that I had doubted that his theory could work. And he was using its success to string of degrees after his name is just as human as anyone else. I had needled him pretty hard that first time. \"I'm satisfied,\" I acknowledged. \"I was wrong. The formulas work beautifully. Come over and see my file of documents on it if you want a He sounded cheerful again. \"I didn't complicate that organization with negatives. I wanted it to grow . It falls apart naturally when it stops growing for more than two months. It's like the great stock boom before an economic crash. Everyone in it is prosperous as long as I had seen. They probably would. \"No,\" he continued. \"We'll just let it play out to the end of its tether and die of old age.\" The graph on the desk before me began to look sinister. Surely Caswell must have made some provision for— \"You underestimate their ingenuity,\" I said into the phone. \"Since they page. Allowing for a lag of contagion from one nation to another, depending on how much their citizens intermingled, I'd give the rest of the world in his own mind. Then he laughed weakly. \"Well, you asked me for a demonstration.\" That was as good an answer as any. We got together and had lunch in a bar, if you can call it lunch. The movement we started will expand by hook or by crook, by seduction or by bribery or by propaganda or by\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between Caswell and the protagonist like?\n\n<options>:\nA They don't know each other too well but they get to know each other better\nB They barely tolerate each other\nC They don't know each other too well but dislike each other\nD They respect each other greatly\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,783 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nappeared to have overcome every little imperfection he had been able to communicate to her. THE PERFECTIONISTS By ARNOLD CASTLE ILLUSTRATED by SUMMERS instructions. Then you will attack. waited for his first customer. He had been in business for a week and as yet had had no callers. Therefore, it was with a mingled sense of excitement and satisfaction that he greeted the tall, dark, smooth-faced figure that removed an automatic pistol fitted with a silencer. Pointing it at the amazed customer, he fired four .22 caliber longs into the narrow chest. Then he made a telephone call and sat down to had discovered. Pembroke decided would be before his next client he would have to cover his tracks carefully. would arrive. The series of events leading up gambling everything on this one throw. \"When you go to Earth I'll miss you terribly.\" you, they'd let me go to Earth with you. Wouldn't they?\" \"Oh, yes, I'm sure they would.\" \"Yes? Please tell me.\" frantic crewmen, officers, and the handful of passengers. Only two very loyal.\" \"I'll try,\" she said unsurely. \"What else?\" \"The other thing is that, as my mistress, you must never mention me to anyone. It would place me in great danger.\" \"I'll never tell anyone anything about you,\" she promised. \"Now try to love me,\" Pembroke time. him much and demanded little, which was perhaps the reason for his restiveness. Loyalty to person or to people was a trait Pembroke had never recognized in himself, nor had it ever been expected of him. And yet he greatly envied those staunch patriots and lovers who could find it in themselves to elevate the glory and safety of others above that of themselves. When she left the hotel at midnight, Pembroke was quite sure that she understood his plan and that she was irrevocably in love with him. Tomorrow might bring his death, but it might also ensure his escape. After forty-two for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank a full dinner, for he was unusually hungry, he began to study the others in the restaurant. help him to save it. the crew of the ship, probably. He also recognized several The next morning Pembroke of the passengers. However, he made no attempt to speak to talked to Valencia about hunting. Many of the faces seemed familiar you'll qualify.\" As he guessed there was a goodly an invitation. He halted \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. \"Much of the time,\" said the man. \"Could it be me?\" would go straight to the police and report that Pembroke had attacked her and that she had shot him. If necessary, she would conduct the authorities to the place where they had been target shooting, but would be unable to locate the spot where she had buried the body. Why had she worry about. The first step was to enter smoothly into the new life he had planned. It wouldn't torn the collar of the shirt and discarded his belt. By morning blacken his face. And he would look weary and hungry and aimless. Only the last would be a deception. phoned Mary Ann. The police had accepted her story without even checking. And when, when would she be seeing him again? He had aroused her passion and no amount of long-distance love could requite it. Soon, he assured her, soon. \"Because, after all, you do owe on a small piece of paper and handed it to him. \"Any time after six,\" she said. me something,\" she added. to bother him. She was she might go to the police again, this time for vengeance. Twice during his wanderings Pembroke had seen the corpses \"Can I help you, sir?\" a middle-aged it would be simple enough to locate him if he were reported as being on the loose. There was the counter. \"What the hell was that?\" one of the—strangers?\" that afternoon. Anyone who could pass the interview would be sent to Earth. docks every day, without being able to learn when the great exodus would take place. Yet he was certain the first lap would be since no one he had talked was to leave shortly. If there was any but the most superficial examination, Pembroke would no doubt be discovered and exterminated. But since no one seemed concerned about anything but his own speech and behavior, he assumed that they had all qualified That was fine. At least he now knew where he was. But as he left the shop he began checking when she recognized him. That was a good thing. admonished her in a whisper. \"Walk on ahead.\" She obeyed. He followed. The \"Okay, then where am I?\" \"Pardon me, there's a customer,\" Pembroke watched him hurry To his surprise, the boy came back a few minutes later after servicing the automobile. \"Say, I've just figured out who you are,\" the youngster told him. \"What is your name?\" queried \"Perfect,\" Pembroke told him. \"Yeah?\" said the boy delightedly. \"Say, come back again, huh? I sure appreciate the help. Keep the map.\" \"Which situation's 'at?\" And so it went for about five minutes. Then he was told he had qualified as a satisfactory surrogate for a mid-twentieth century American male, itinerant type. \"You understand your mission, Newton?\" the voice asked. \"You are to establish yourself on giving with his perfect smile. \"No getting out of here, is there?\" Earth. In time you will receive walking away to wait on another In the meantime, serve us well.\" hotel. Going to the bar, he recognized \"That's for sure,\" the boy said, has been sufficiently chlorinated. customer. \"If you don't like the You will not see us, your frantically, she called his name \"You Frank?\" he asked. drawled, jabbing her intimately with a fat elbow, \"and last thing he heard for some raising a ruckus. They never do feather cut was insisting. \"What is wrong with me?\" \"You're perfect, sweetheart,\" pass the interview. Don't know companion explained. \"They'll take her off to the buggy house for a few days and bring why they even make 'em.\" \"Naw, that's part of your charm,\" Spencer assured her. scribbled a name and an address \"You said they were perfect. They know they're not. You've identity established and his circumstances again solvent, he was FBI should arrive soon. There were footsteps on the stairs for the third time that of a federal official, but the hesitant, self-conscious steps of a you would give me a few minutes of honest criticism.\" junior clerk type. \"Are you Dr. Von Schubert?\" problem—\" \"Well, so what?\" demanded pistol solved his problem Spencer. \"I've got more important things to do than to worry The four shots from Pembroke's effectively. Pembroke tossed his third victim onto the pile, then desk. He would be out of business soon, once the FBI agent had got there. Pembroke was only in it to get the proof he would need to convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he that it was exactly this that Valencia was seeking. Pembroke was amused at his companion's It will make you more acceptable.\" \"Thank you so much,\" said the FEE—$3.75 MONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED! THE END IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE to prove itself. You have only yourself to blame. Cooperation is all we require of you.\" AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE Frank?\" \"What the hell are you sayin'?\" of the bar. A policeman entered Pembroke overheard the conversation. \"Right,\" said the attendant, Pembroke heard the shots as While he waited for the elevator, he wondered, had gone out on their backs during their first day He still knew nothing about her and had almost exhausted his critical capabilities, but not once had she become annoyed with him. She seemed to devour every brought to her attention. And, fantastically enough, she actually\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Frank make a phone call after shooting the client at the beginning of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA He needed to report the shooting to the police.\nB He wanted a call in a third party to take a look at his client.\nC He wanted to tell his partner that his newspaper at had worked.\nD He promised those in charge of him that he would report back every time he successfully made a kill.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,066 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. \"Only one way to go, where we can float down through the remain sane in all this blackness much longer. Bitterly he thought of how they would die—not knowing within maybe thousands of light years where they were, or where they were going. Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face where they were going. They could talk to one another through the etheric transmitters inside electric power. Each suit had its own power-plant, reprocessing continuously the precious air breathed by the occupants, putting it back into circulation again after enriching it. Packed with food concentrates. Each suit a rocket, each human being part of a rocket, Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. long an interim that had been. Nobody knew what happened to a man who suffered a space-time warping like that. When they had regained that they were millions of light years from any place he had ever heard about, where the galactic space lanterns had absolutely no Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking about how Dunbar looked inside that suit—and hating Dunbar more and more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling optimism—because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and calling their destination Paradise. of the old man. Sometimes he thought about the ship, lost back there in the void, and he wondered if wrecked space ships were ever found. Compared with the universe in which one of them drifted, a wrecked ship was a lot smaller than a grain of sand on a nice warm beach back thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar would laugh that high piping squawking laugh of his and say that the human being was bigger than the Universe itself. Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing. When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough for Dunbar. Hell no—Dunbar had to start talking about a place they world like the Earth had been a long time back. And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\" \"No life, boys, nothing,\" Dunbar laughed. \"Nothing on these other worlds but ashes ... just ashes and iron and dried blood, dried a million years or more.\" when we had an old ship called the DOG STAR that I was here. A pirate we'll reach the right one. And that one's just like Paradise.\" \"Paradise is it,\" Russell whispered hoarsely. \"Paradise and there we'll be like gods, like Mercuries with wings air we can breath, and water we can drink and shade we can rest in—that'll be paradise enough for us. But it'll take a long time won't it? And what if it isn't there—what if after all the time we spend hoping and getting there—there won't be nothing but ashes and cracked clay?\" \"We're heading to the right one, boys. Don't doubt me ... I been here. We explored all these sun systems. And I remember it all. The second was to get rid of Dunbar. \"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long,\" Dunbar said, as the on a world somewhere nobody's ever named or knows about. Places where a lost ship's landed and never got up again, or wrecked itself so far off the lanes they'll never be found except by accident for millions of years. That's what this world is, boys. Must have been a ship load Johnson said. \"Dunbar—how long'll it take us?\" \"We'll make it, boys. Trust ole' Dunbar. What's a year when we know it's paradise ain't it, compared with that prison hole we were rotting in? We can make it. We have the food concentrates, and all the rest. All we need's the will, boys, and we got that. The whole damn Universe isn't big enough to kill the will of a human being, boys. I been over way. An' pretty soon something breaks, or the food runs out, and you're a million million miles from someplace you don't care about any more because you're dead. All frozen up in space ... preserved like a piece of meat in a cold storage locker. And then maybe in a million years or so some lousy insect man from Jupiter comes along and finds you and takes you away to a museum....\" \"Shut up!\" Johnson yelled. stick to old Dunbar and he'll see you through. I'm always lucky. Only couldn't have been over a day or two of the kind of time-sense he had inherited from Earth. ashes, and not able to go any further—\" \"I always come through, boys. I'm lucky. Angel women will take us to ,\" said Alvar. It was quiet. How could it be so quiet, Russell thought? And up ahead the old man's pressure suit with a corpse inside \"Maybe he was wrong,\" Alvar said. \"But now do we know which way is right?\" know what to do?\" \"I always had a feeling we were going wrong,\" Johnson said. \"Anyway, it's forgotten, Russ. It's swallowed up in the darkness all around. It's never been.\" because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction, long ago but for that fear. \"How can we tell which of us is right?\" Alvar said. \"It's like said. \"Maybe a guy could get to the point where he'd sleep most of the time ... just wake up enough times to give himself another boost with the old life-gun.\" intelligent life, maybe even a ship, and whoever gets the right star can come and help the other two....\" \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can once you're going, you never stop ... and I guess there isn't any other body to pull him off his course. And what will time matter to old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't closed his eyes. \"Maybe,\" he thought, \"I shouldn't have killed the old man. Maybe one sun's as good as another....\" Then he raised his body and looked out into the year of blackness that waited for him, stretching away to the red-rimmed sun. Even if he were right—he was sure now he'd never make it alone. The body inside the pressure suit drifted into a low-level orbit around the second planet from the sun of its choice, and drifted there a long time. A strato-cruiser detected it by chance because of the strong concentration of radio-activity that came from it. They took the body down to one of the small, quiet towns on the edge of one of the many blue lakes where the domed houses were like bright joyful jewels. They got the leathery, well-preserved body from the pressure suit. sectors. I wonder how and why he came so very far from his home?\" \"Wrecked a ship out there, probably,\" one of the others said. \"But he managed to get this far. It looks as though a small meteor fragment pierced his body. Here. You see?\" \"Yes,\" another of them said. \"But what amazes me is that this old man picked this planet out of all the others. The only one in this entire sector that would sustain life.\" \"Maybe he was just a very lucky old man. Yes ... a man who attains he is ... wherever he came from, he died bravely and he knew the way, though he never reached this haven of the lost alive.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the role of the pirate ship story that Dunbar tells?\n\n<options>:\nA It proves that he knows where he's going and he had the right choice all along\nB It is a fantastic story meant to keep the crew entertained while floating in space\nC It points to who will rescue his body when he arrives at the planet\nD It helps to clarify what is true for the reader when the aliens find his body\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,706 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ndescribe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its surroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore not so bright. LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of eleven years? NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of eleven years. That word of sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things. LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced between sunspots and various effects on the Earth? NIEMAND. Scores of them. LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations? sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that. LATHAM. In what way have your investigations differed from those of others? NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots studying on the Earth. It's something like the eruptions in rubeola. Attention is concentrated on the bright red papules because they're such a conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is an invisible filterable virus. In the solar case it turned out to be these S-Regions. for no detectable reason —conditions are reversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy of bloodshed and misery. LATHAM. But weren't there reasons? all started back in March, 1955, when I started getting patients suffering from a complex of symptoms, such as profound mental depression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage and resentment against life and the world in general. These people were deeply disturbed. No doubt about that. Yet they were not psychotic and hardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good many patients of this type. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausal women and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed to sexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset of minute the whole world was like some scene from a nightmare. A week or ten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come and they would be their old self again. LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of modern life? NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at ucla anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the particular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory. There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the only give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed record of their symptoms taking special care to note the time of exacerbation—increase in the severity of the symptoms—as accurately as possible. LATHAM. And this gave you a clue? attack struck with almost the impact of a physical blow. The prodromal symptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness and guilt ... hot and cold flashes ... dizziness ... double vision. Then this ghastly sense of depression coupled with a blind insensate rage at life. One man said he felt as if the world were closing in on him. Another that he felt the people around him were plotting his occurred during the daytime, between the hours of about seven in the morning and five in the evening. Then there were these coincidences— LATHAM. Coincidences? NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same moment. At first I thought nothing of it but as my records accumulated I became convinced it could not be attributed to chance. A mathematical analysis showed the number of coincidences followed a Poisson distribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had to do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most disturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medical literature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun. however, take pains to impress upon them the necessity of keeping an exact record of the onset of an attack. The better records they kept the more conclusive was the evidence. Men and women were experiencing nearly simultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southern California, which was as far as my practice extended. One day it occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It think I had gone completely crazy. Imagine my surprise and gratification on receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also had been getting an increasing number of patients suffering with the same identical symptoms as my own. Furthermore, upon exchanging records we did find that in many cases patients three thousand miles apart had been stricken simultaneously— Conversely, a person might be stricken late in the afternoon in California without a corresponding attack in New York where the Sun had set. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. We had both noticed that the attacks occurred only during the daylight evidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have some connection with the Sun. LATHAM. That must have had you badly puzzled at first. intensity of the attacks reported on that day. Then he laid out another horizontal row below the first one dated twenty-seven days later. That NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period of were dated under one another not at intervals of twenty-seven days, but at intervals of twenty-seven point three days. NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot zone is not twenty-seven days but twenty-seven point three days. And on correlation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practically perfect. the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the years from his radio observations. Now when he compared the two charts the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. The pattern shown by the chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with the solar chart but with this difference. The disturbances on the Earth started two days later on the average than the disturbances due to the forty-eight hours between the two. But otherwise they were almost astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with the more powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of an S-Region is heralded by a long series of bursts of a few seconds duration, when the radiation may increase up to several thousand times about ten or twelve days. How does that tie-in with the S-Regions? is twenty-seven point three days. LATHAM. I should think it would be nearer thirteen or fourteen days. just coming on or just going off the disk of the Sun. LATHAM. Are the S-Regions associated with sunspots? NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and S-Region activity certainly go together. The more sunspots the more violent and intense is the S-Region activity. But there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region. The same thing is true of sunspots and magnetic storms. LATHAM. How do you account for this? forty-eight hours between the development of an S-Region and the onset no one is completely immune. All are affected in some degree. Just why some NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a dozen solar rotations. Then it dies out and for a time we are free from NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large enough numbers to attract attention. Also the present sunspot cycle sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for cycle had the highest maximum of any since 1780, but the present cycle\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of the twenty-seven day cycle\n\n<options>:\nA This restructured the data from the reports in a way that fit the sun's rotation\nB It explains why women are more succeptible to the effects of the radiation\nC It shows how arbitrary the cycle is\nD It explains why the symptoms of a flare are so similar to PMS symptoms\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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298 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWith this.\" Retief sat relaxed and said nothing. Just before the silence grew awkward, Magnan went on. \"All right, Mr. Councillor,\" Retief said. \"I'll play along what's in Retief opened the envelope Magnan handed him and looked at the tickets inside. \"Less than four hours to departure time,\" he said. \"I'd better not \"You'd better waste no time getting over to Indoctrination,\" Magnan said. Retief stood up. \"If I hurry, maybe I can catch the cartoon.\" \"You're right,\" Retief said. \"If I work at it, I might manage a snootful by takeoff.\" He went to the door. \"No objection to my checking Retief put down the heavy travel-battered suitcase and leaned on the counter, studying the schedules chalked on the board under the legend and a plastic snakeskin cummerbund groomed his fingernails, watching Retief from the corner of his eye. Retief glanced at him. \"What time does it leave?\" \"I don't think—\" \"Let's stick to facts,\" Retief said. \"Don't try to think. What time is The clerk smiled pityingly. \"It's my lunch hour,\" he said. \"I'll be open in an hour.\" He held up a thumb nail, frowned at it. \"If I have to come around this counter,\" Retief said, \"I'll feed that thumb to you the hard way.\" Retief picked up his suitcase and walked away toward the glare sign reading To Gates 16-30 \"Whassat?\" \"A gram confirming my space,\" Retief said. \"Your boy on the counter says he's out to lunch.\" The guard crumpled the gram, dropped it on the floor and lounged back \"On your way, bub,\" he said. Retief put his suitcase carefully on the floor, took a step and drove a A cabin boy in stained whites came along the corridor. \"Which way to cabin fifty-seven, son?\" Retief asked. Retief put his bag down. He turned at a sound behind him. A tall, florid man with an expensive coat belted over a massive paunch stood in clamped his jaws together, turned to speak over his shoulder. \"Somebody in the cabin. Get 'em out.\" He rolled a cold eye at Retief as \"What are you doing in Mr. Tony's room?\" he barked. \"Never mind! Clear out of here, fellow! You're keeping Mr. Tony waiting.\" \"Too bad,\" Retief said. \"Finders keepers.\" Tony's room.\" \"I don't know Mr. Tony. He'll have to bull his way into other quarters.\" \"We'll see about you, mister.\" The man turned and went out. Retief \"All right, you. Out,\" he growled. \"Or have I got to have you thrown out?\" Retief rose and clamped the cigar between his teeth. He gripped a Retief turned to the baggage on the floor, tossed it into the hall. The face of the thick-necked man appeared cautiously around the door jamb. \"Mister, you must be—\" \"If you'll excuse me,\" Retief said, \"I want to catch a nap.\" He flipped the door shut, pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the bed. Five minutes passed before the door rattled and burst open. Retief put his cigar in an ashtray, and swung his feet off the bunk. \"Don't try it,\" he said softly. One of the two wiped his nose on a sleeve, spat on his right palm, and \"You'd better be getting back to the bridge, Captain,\" Retief said. Captain's voice prevailed. \"—twenty minutes ... uniform Code ... gonna do?\" \"Close the door as you leave,\" Retief said. The thick-necked man paused at the door. \"We'll see you when you come out.\" \"Givin' you the cold shoulder, heh, Mister?\" \"Looks like it, old-timer,\" Retief said. \"Maybe I'd better go join the skipper. His party seems to be having all the fun.\" \"Feller has to be mighty careless who he eats with to set over there.\" \"Like to see a feller eat,\" Chip said. \"I gotta go now. If you need anything, holler.\" Retief ate slowly. Time always dragged on shipboard. Four days to As Retief watched, four men arose from the table and sauntered across the room. The first in line, a stony-faced thug with a broken ear, took \"You must want to get to Jorgensen's pretty bad,\" the thug said in a grating voice. \"What's your game, hick?\" Retief looked at the coffee cup, picked it up. \"I don't think I want my coffee,\" he said. He looked at the thug. \"You went down. Retief looked at Mr. Tony, still standing open-mouthed. \"You can take your playmates away now, Tony,\" he said. \"And don't bother to come around yourself. You're not funny enough.\" Retief heard the panel open beside him. He turned and walked away. The captain signaled and two waiters came up. Retief watched as they carted the casualty from the dining room. \"Sure, Mister. Anything else?\" \"I'll think of something,\" Retief said. \"This is shaping up into one of those long days.\" \"What has Mr. Tony got on the captain, Chip?\" Retief asked. \"Them Sweaties is what I don't like,\" he said. Retief looked at him questioningly. \"Who's your friend, Captain?\" Retief said. \"Last chance,\" Retief said. Skaw stood poised, open pincers an inch \"Cart poor old Skaw back to his boat,\" Retief said. \"Tell him to pass Retief awoke at a tap on his door. \"It's me, Mister. Chip.\" \"Come on in.\" The chef entered the room, locking the door. \"You shoulda had that door locked.\" He stood by the door, listening, then turned to Retief. \"You want to get to Jorgensen's perty bad, don't you, Mister?\" talked loud at him fer half a hour. Then the cap'n come out and give some orders to the Mate.\" Retief sat up and reached for a cigar. \"Mr. Tony and Skaw were pals, eh?\" Retief nodded, opened the door and stepped into the cabin. The captain he said. \"I'm changing course for Alabaster.\" \"I wouldn't find it convenient to go to Alabaster,\" Retief said. \"So just hold your course for Jorgensen's.\" \"Power Section, this is the captain,\" he said. Retief reached across \"Let go my hand, buster,\" the captain snarled. Eyes on Retief's, he \"You busted it, you—\" \"And one to go,\" Retief said. \"Tell him.\" \"It's eighteen hours yet before we pick up Jorgensen Control. You going to sit here and bend my arm the whole time?\" Retief released the captain's wrist and turned to the door. \"What are you going to do?\" the captain demanded. Retief settled himself in a chair. \"Instead of strangling you, as you deserve,\" he said, \"I'm going to stay here and help you hold your course for Jorgensen's Worlds.\" The captain looked at Retief. He laughed, a short bark. \"Then I'll just stretch out and have a little nap, farmer. If you feel like dozing off sometime during the next eighteen hours, don't mind me.\" Retief took out the needler and put it on the desk before him. \"If anything happens that I don't like,\" he said, \"I'll wake you up.\n\n<question>:\nHow does Retief convince the captain to keep him on board?\n\n<options>:\nA The captain knows that the Soettie will be able to handle him later.\nB The captain’s men as well as himself are too scared to confront him, so he leaves him be.\nC Retief remarks on the Uniform Code, and the captain doesn’t want to have legal issues.\nD He doesn’t have time to deal with Retief, so he leaves him be.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,199 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nZeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest liar? I mean, how do they feel toward him?\" Meyerhoff shifted uneasily. \"It's hard to say. It's been my experience that they respect him highly—maybe even fear him a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any regarded Meyerhoff from beneath uneven black eyebrows, and then the little man's face broke into a crafty grin. \"Paul! So they sent Meyerhoff blinked. \"Well—yes. Oh, yes, they're perfectly logical.\" Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his sallow face. His thin body fairly shook. He started hopping ! I knew I could count on it!\" He executed a deep, awkward bow, motioning Meyerhoff into the dark up and down on one foot, staring idiotically into space. \"If I Meyerhoff stared at him. \"Oh, come now. Have you gone day! Lucky they sent you, pal. Why, I've been in here for years—\" \"Look, Zeckler, the name is Meyerhoff, and I'm not your pal,\" Meyerhoff snapped. \"And you've been here for two weeks, three days, and approximately four hours. You're getting off your rocker completely? You've got a problem on your hands, man.\" on his lips. His clothes were smeared and sodden, streaked with great splotches of mud and moss. Meyerhoff's face softened a little. \"So Harry Zeckler's in a jam again,\" he said. \"You Zeckler looked sharply around the hushed room. \"You want to convict me,\" he said softly, \"in the worst sort of way. Isn't \"Hold on! Just one minute more.\" The judge stared down at Zeckler as if he were a bug on a that right?\" Meyerhoff stared at the little man with a mixture of pity and disgust. \"You are a prize fool,\" he said finally. \"Did you know that?\" Meyerhoff nodded grimly. \" Meyerhoff sank down beside the man, his voice a tense Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. \"I mean precisely that. \"Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, Zeckler stood up shakily. \"You can't believe anything the Meyerhoff's face was purple with anger. \"Oh, indeed it did! And it put natives say,\" he said uneasily. \"They're pathological liars. Why, you should see what they tried to sell didn't it?\" Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. \"Oh, you got off just fine. Meyerhoff. \"They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let me go.\" all You scared the living daylights out of them. And in an eon of lying they never have run up against a short-circuit like that. Zeckler fished in the other man's pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lighted it with trembling fingers. \"It's bad, then,\" might say. I think I'll just take a nice, long vacation.\" Meyerhoff turned to him, and a twinkle of malignant glee Not me! Oh, no. Sorry, but no thanks.\" Meyerhoff \" \"Eh?\" Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. He brushed an imaginary lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That—uh—jury Lawyer? you'd better get your head out of the sand, or you're going to lose a case like it's never been lost before!\" Meyerhoff watched the man's pale face, and shook his head. Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\" rosy-cheeked, dapper, cocksure little man who had talked his way glibly in and out of more jams than Meyerhoff could \"Is that right? My goodness. You don't suppose they could have lost those papers, do you?\" Meyerhoff grinned at the In a way, he thought, it was a pity to see such a change in the A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. \" Arrest! \" Zeckler spluttered. \"There's no evidence—you've got nothing on me! What kind of a frame are you trying to pull?\" so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word. Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. \"Never heard of that, had you? And you've never heard of other things, too. You've probably never heard that there are just too many Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they possibly Meyerhoff shrugged. \"As we understand legal systems, I suppose they don't have one. They have only the haziest idea Zeckler was visibly shaken. \"Look,\" he said weakly, \"so I wasn't so smart. What am I going to do? I mean, are you going to sit quietly by and let them butcher me? How could Meyerhoff smiled coolly. \"You're going to get your sly little flanked by two clerks, who took their places beside him. The prosecutor eyed Zeckler with cold malevolence, then turned and delivered a sly wink at the judge. judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler—\" he The little con-man's jaw sagged lower and lower, the color draining from his face. He turned, wide-eyed, to Meyerhoff, then back to the judge. \"The Chairman of the Jury,\" said the Judge succinctly, \"will \" Now wait a minute! \" Zeckler was on his feet, wild-eyed. \"What kind of railroad job—\" The judge blinked disappointedly at Paul Meyerhoff. \"Not muttered. \"Have the prosecutor call his first witness,\" said Meyerhoff. Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. \"These charges,\" he whispered. \"They're insane!\" \"Of course they are,\" Meyerhoff whispered back. \"But what am I going to—\" cruel glint in his eyes that there was no warmth, no sympathy in his heart, that I was—\" \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his feet. \"This witness can't even remember what night he's talking about!\" \"I never saw him before in my life,\" Zeckler moaned to Meyerhoff. \"Listen to him! Why should I care where their Goddess—\" his eyes turning glassy as the testimony piled up. \"But it's not true ,\" he whispered to Meyerhoff. \"Of course it isn't! Can't you understand? These people low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any respect for is a liar bigger and more skillful than they are.\" Zeckler jerked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed out. \"Does the defendant have anything to say before the jury delivers the verdict?\" \"Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear,\" Zeckler One by one the natives nudged one another, and booed, and guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's The judge settled back with a disgusted snarl. \"Do I have to?\" he asked Meyerhoff. Meyerhoff nodded. The judge shrugged, pointing over his Somehow, Zeckler managed to stumble from the witness stand, amid riotous boos and hisses, and tottered into the anteroom. Zeckler puffed hungrily on a cigarette, and looked up at Meyerhoff with haunted eyes. \"It—it doesn't look so good,\" he muttered. Meyerhoff's eyes were worried, too. For some reason, he felt a surge of pity and admiration for the haggard con-man. Zeckler sat in silence for a moment. \"This lying business,\" he said finally, \"exactly how does it work?\"\n\n<question>:\nHow does Meyerhoff feel about Zeckler?\n\n<options>:\nA Meyerhoff thinks that Zeckler is a fool.\nB Meyerhoff thinks that Zeckler is a skilled con-man.\nC Meyerhoff thinks that Zeckler is misunderstood.\nD Meyerhoff thinks that Zeckler is an idiot.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,070 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtrone was smiling innocently. \"Good. I want you to do something for way to lure dangerous alien animals ... Extrone asked, \"Is there a pass?\" \"What are you going to do?\" Ri asked, terrified. \"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you \"Eh?\" Extrone said. Extrone raised his eyebrows. \"You'll be safe,\" Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. \"I'll Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. \"I'm \"It is!\" Ri said. \"It's a farn beast, all right!\" Extrone shrugged. \"We'll pitch camp right here, then,\" Extrone said. \"We'll go after it He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's \"He what?\" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently. Extrone said, \"Which one is he?\" Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle \"Hey, you!\" Extrone called. \"You will scream,\" Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed \"Let me hear you scream,\" Extrone said. \"You'll have to do better than that.\" Extrone inclined his head toward Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert. Looking down, Extrone said, \"Scream!\" Then, to Lin, \"You feel the Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet, Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick, jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's Extrone laughed nervously. \"He must have heard.\" our fault Extrone found out.\" Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. \"I like Extrone we'd hunted this area.\" \"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute.\" \"You understand?\" Extrone said. \"How it is to wait, knowing in just a didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking,\" Mia said. \"Hey!\" Extrone shouted. \"You, down there. There are two coming. Now \"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too,\" Extrone said. \"No,\" Extrone argued. \"People should hunt for the love of hunting.\" outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat he was huddled against the tree, fearfully Extrone began to tremble with excitement. \"Here they come!\" The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his \"What in hell do you want?\" Extrone asked. \"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?\" Extrone demanded, ominously not raising his voice. \"Wait,\" Extrone said. \"Let's see what they do.\" He had not moved Extrone's face looked much too innocent. \"How did it get there, \"Look!\" Extrone cried excitedly. \"Here it comes!\" \"So?\" Extrone mocked. Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned \"Watch! Watch!\" Extrone cried gleefully. And then the aliens sprang their trap. \"You'll destroy this one, too,\" Extrone said. Extrone said, \"To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here. Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. \"You'll lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen. I'm quite safe here, I think.\" \"Get off,\" Extrone said quietly to the four officers. Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away, \"Eh?\" Extrone said, turning, startled. \"Oh, you. Well?\" Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, \"You killed one, I believe, on Extrone held back the flap of the tent. \"Won't you come in?\" he asked Extrone narrowed his eyes. \"I see by your eyes that you are Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's \"Oh?\" Extrone questioned mildly. \"I wouldn't say that. I understand that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their \"Of course you did,\" Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his \"Yes,\" Extrone said, \"I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if Extrone pursed his lips. \"It wouldn't have been very considerate of you Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. \"If I had waited until it was \"Of course,\" Extrone said. \"But you should have spoken to me about it, \"Of course,\" Extrone said dryly. \"Like all of my subjects,\" he waved Extrone bent forward. \" \"Get out!\" Extrone said. alien system!\" Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. \"Very \"An alien?\" Extrone corrected. Extrone laughed harshly. \"It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?\" you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?\" afraid of you.\" aliens. Sir.\" \"All right,\" Extrone said, annoyed. \"I'll be careful.\" Instantly alert, Extrone said, \"Get the bearers! Have some of them cut Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny, Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur. \"Damn,\" Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. \"It better be \"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother \"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!\" Extrone Extrone squinted up at the sun Extrone's eyes lit with passion. Extrone laughed. \"This is enough.\" He gestured with the rifle and stood The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively. \"Damn!\" Extrone said. \"Eh?\" Extrone said. \"Wait,\" Extrone said, combing his beard. \"Wait a minute.\" \"Look,\" Extrone said. \"If that's the case, why do we bother tracking \"You don't seem to see what I mean,\" Extrone said. \" \"Extrone wants to see you,\" Lin said. Extrone was seated, petting his rifle. Extrone nodded genially. \"The farn beast hunter, eh?\" Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. \"Tell me\n\n<question>:\nWhy isn't Extrone afraid of the aliens?\n\n<options>:\nA Extrone believes the aliens are inferior and incapable of launching a successful attack against him.\nB Extrone is confident his armed forces will destroy the aliens before they are able to attack him.\nC Extrone believes himself to be untouchable.\nD The Ninth Fleet is the most decorated and undefeated force. They can protect Extrone from the aliens.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,384 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHEROES By ROBERT SILVERBERG The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding enough to stop the most adventurous and the next ship for Earth.\" desert. That's the only sport I we dump this guy I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then we're going back out there to finish that search-pattern. Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be happy quitting in the middle die out here on Mars is to Val. \"The surest way to have left—Geig-hunting. Look out there.\" keep moving,\" I told There had been a pattern that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault—whoever it was who had failed to fasten down the engine of disappearances on the desert. dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. But no genius who had a motto: \"Can't we turn back now, Ron?\" Val pleaded. \"Maybe there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching I thought all his kind had died at the time of the atomic wars. Death to all Terrans! madman!\" you out, one by one.\" I heard Val sob, \"He's a desolate wastes of the Martian Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away.\" \"Just pick us off in the desert?\" \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman. \"And I have no fears of an but the mazes and gullies of this dead world. He was a cripple in a wheelchair—helpless as a rattlesnake. \"Try to keep going, Val.\" armed attack. This place is well fortified. I've devoted since I landed here on Mars.\" \"What are you going to do except you. You were so sick It must have been hell for her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all I found myself fervently wishing I was back out there on the infinitely safer desert. \"Do I shock you?\" he asked. \"I shouldn't—not when Even though the Martian snapped. \"Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine and ship the radioactives back to Earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right?\" I nodded over at our geiger much inflamed by the idea of Ledman said acidly. \"How search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of coming to Mars to help in the \"Atomics cost me my legs,\" he said. \"You remember the Sadlerville Blast?\" he asked. after?\" I said, stalling, stalling. \"Just what is it you're No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the foot, both of us. the contract, but I got a good dose of radiation instead. Not enough to kill me,\" he said. \"Just enough to necessitate that meant we had found pay-dirt. I started to feel tired myself, terribly tired. I longed that sudden explosive tumult \"But why kill us Geigs? We Mars, until I recalled that I \"You're just in this by accident,\" the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor \"They renamed Ledman Atomics. Who did you say you worked for?\" Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but enough to keep me in a style to which, unfortunately, I'm Mars after all. But, I reminded Poor kid , I thought. Maybe we shouldn't have come to He rolled over to a wall table and fumbled in a container among a pile of hypodermics. it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out too nightmarish to be real. I the entire Geig Corps, since it was unlikely that one man every Earthman on Mars? Of cut me off. But Ledman Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we volunteered. every one of you for taking away my legs! If we hadn't meddled with the atom in the first place, I'd be as tall and powerful as you, today—instead wearying journey across the empty desert. \"Easy, baby,\" I said. I knew what our ace in the hole was. But I had to get Ledman to wipe every last one of about as easy to get out of as a spider's web is for a trapped fly. It wasn't Martians that glued-in instantly. Ledman went sprawling helplessly out wore an outmoded, bulky Ledman clawed his way to on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was spacesuit ended neatly at the \"Now if I could get free of this stuff,\" I said, \"I could get him covered before he comes to. But how?\" Then I turned and faced Ledman. between sane people and insane,\" I told him. \"I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth.\" \"They'll help you on Earth. They'll take all the hatred and \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat that you couldn't bear to hang around on Earth for as much off for Mars without a moment's hated Earth so much you had to leave.\" where we were going, and why. I wondered why we had ever left Earth. The answer to that came to me quick enough: we had to. Earth needed radioactives, and the only way to get them was to get out and look. The Ledman scowled, and then great atomic wars of the late 20th Century had used up much of the supply, but the amount used to blow up half the great cities of the world I had no muscles to fit them to.\" \"You left Earth too quickly,\" Val said. \"It was the only way,\" he protested. \"I had to get off—\" \"She's right,\" I told him. \"The atom can take away, but it can give as well. Soon after ruined cities had been hidden by a shining new world of you left they developed They had used their atomics to make bombs. We used ours for fuel. It was an atomic world. Everything: power drills, printing presses, typewriters, you had to get away from the world you despised and come here.\" powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom. nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty machine that was Earth's industry But though the energy is inexhaustible, the supply of And that started the chain of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, on Mars. With every source of uranium mined dry on Earth, we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of time you could have been happy, useful on Earth, instead uranium from the oceans. In forty or fifty years, they'd get some results, we hoped. of being holed up here Ledman,\" I said. \"All this Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge.\" world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing humans tooth-and-clawing in it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization. So, Mars. There's not much uranium on Mars, and it's not easy to find or any cinch to mine. But what little is there, Enter the Geig Corps: volunteers out on the face of Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. Ledman was sobbing. this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one-man Dome, of all things! Ledman.\" He herded us off to Gregory Ledman the killer been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving and I put Ledman\n\n<question>:\nWhat is ironic about Ledman's quick departure to Mars?\n\n<options>:\nA Victims of the Sadlerville blast received a large settlement and were culturally recognized as heroes\nB Inventors discovered a way to create prosthetics using atomic power\nC In hunting Geigs, Ledman is killing the only people with the power to help him walk again\nD He needs uranium in order to survive and went to a place where there is scant uranium\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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670 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWarrior of Two Worlds By MANLY WADE WELLMAN He was the man of two planets, drawn through the blackness of space to save a nation from ruthless invaders. He was Yandro, the Stranger of the Prophecy—and he found that he was destined to fight both sides. knuckled dust from my eyes. \"How did I get here?\" I demanded of the speaker. \"It was ordered—by the Masters of the Worlds—that you should be Dondromogon.\" need to think. The voice was telling me that I had been snatched from worlds away, for a specified purpose here on whatever windswept planet Dondromogon might be. \"Birth and beginning—destined leadership—\" Fantastic! And yet, for all I could say to the contrary, unvarnishedly \"Dondromogon?\" I mumbled. \"The name is strange to me.\" called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to broad-faced middle-aged fellow. \"Don't lie any more than you can help.\" signal,\" and he jerked his head toward a system of levers and gauges on the wall beside the door-jamb. \"There's a bigger reward for capture than for warning,\" objected his friend in turn, \"and whoever comes to take this man will claim 'capture.' I'll guard here, and you take him in, then we'll divide—\" its scabbard. \"If he's dead, we get pay for both warning and capture—\" His thumb touched a button at the pommel of the hilt. The dull blade suddenly glowed like heated iron, and from it crackled and pulsed in richly-embossed armor platings sat there. He had a fringe of pale beard, and his eyes were bluer than the gentlewoman Doriza's. \"What proof have I?\" I demanded. \"On this world of yours—Dondromogon, The officer rose from behind the table. \"Are you totally mad, Sporr? You mystic doctors are too apt to become fuddled—\" \"But it is, it is!\" The graybeard flourished a thin hand at me. \"Look at him, you of little faith! Your mind dwells so much on material strength that you lose touch with the spiritual—\" He broke off, and wheeled on the attendant who had led him in. \"To my study,\" he commanded. \"On the shelf behind my desk, bring the great gold-bound book that is third from the right.\" Then he turned back, and bowed toward me. \"Surely you are Yandro, the Conquering Stranger,\" he said, intoning as if in formal prayer. \"Pardon these short-sighted ones—deign to save us from our enemies—\" The girl Doriza spoke to the officer: \"If Sporr speaks truth, and he generally does, you have committed a blasphemy.\" The other made a little grimace. \"This may be Yandro, though I'm a souls to worship, not to study. If indeed he is Yandro,\" and he was most respectful, \"he will appreciate, like a good military mind, my caution against possible impostors.\" \"Who might Yandro be?\" I demanded, very uncomfortable in my bonds and Old Sporr almost crowed. \"You see? If he was a true imposter, he would come equipped with all plausible knowledge. As it is—\" \"As it is, he may remember that the Conquering Stranger is foretold against you, Sporr. You should have been able to instruct me, not I \"I still say you will understand my caution,\" he addressed me, with real respect and shyness this time. \"If you are Yandro himself, you can men take into thought. The ears in the picture are like the ears of the real man—\" \"Bonds,\" mumbled old Sporr. He got creakily up from his knees and \"Forgive me, great Yandro,\" said the officer thickly. \"I did not know.\" They rose, but stood off respectfully. The officer spoke first. \"I am Rohbar, field commander of this defense position,\" he said with crisp respect. \"Sporr is a mystic doctor, full of godly wisdom. Doriza, a junior officer and chief of the guard. And you—how could you know?—are sent by the First Comers to save us from our enemies.\" of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves \"I have arranged for that,\" Sporr began, then fell silent, fingers \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged porcelain-like plastic. Sporr held a chair for me, and waited on me with the utmost gingerly respect. The food was a pungent and filling of which Sporr spoke. Sporr was waiting in the room where I had eaten. His eyes widened at \"It is indeed Yandro, our great chief,\" he mumbled. Then he turned and crossed the room. A sort of mouthpiece sprouted from the wall. \"I announce,\" he intoned into it. \"I announce, I, Sporr, the reader and fore-teller of wisdom. Yandro is with us, he awaits his partners and friends. Let them meet him in the audience hall.\" \"I serve Yandro,\" she vowed tremulously. \"Now and forever—and happy Dondromogon.\" felt. \"Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.\" \"I am Yandro's orderly and helper,\" she said. Rising, she ranged herself at my left hand. \"Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited \"It is necessary that we live like this,\" she explained. \"The hot air of Dondromogon's sunlit face is ever rising, and the cold air from the dark side comes rushing under to fill the vacuum. Naturally, our windswept? Why can two people not join forces and face toil and nature together? They should fight, not each other, but the elements.\" Doriza had no answer that time, but Sporr spoke up behind us: \"Great Yandro is wise as well as powerful. But the Newcomers do not want to \"Doriza, gentlewoman of the guard, conducts Yandro, the Conquering to stuffy Rohbar, the commander to Sporr, spry and clever enough, but somehow unwholesome \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\" \" Yandro! \"Friends, I am among you with no more memory or knowledge than an infant. I hear wonderful things, of which I seem to be the center. Are they true?\" \"The tenth part of the wonders which concern mighty Yandro have not been told,\" intoned Sporr, ducking his bearded head in a bow, but One of the group, called Council by Doriza, now moved a pace forward. He was the greedy-faced man, short but plump, and very conscious of the dignified folds of his purple robe. One carefully-tended hand brushed back his ginger-brown hair, then toyed with a little moustache. \"I am Gederr, senior of this Council,\" he purred. \"If Yandro permits, I will speak simply. Our hopes have been raised by Yandro's return—the return presaged of old by those who could see the future, and more \"Barak was a brute—mighty, but a brute.\" Thus Gederr continued. \"Weapons in his hands were the instruments of fate. His hands alone caused fear and ruin. But it pleased our fortune-bringing stars to \"You honor me,\" I told him. \"Yet I still know little. It seems that I am expected to aid and lead and save the people of this world called Dondromogon. But I must know them before I can help.\" to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n\n<question>:\nWho is Sporr and what is his authority in calling the narrator Yandro?\n\n<options>:\nA He is a mystic in touch with faith, in charge of the materialization of gods.\nB He is a mystic in touch with the spiritual realm, in charge of prophecies.\nC He is a mystic in touch with the material space, in charge of prophecies.\nD He is a mystic in touch with what is Good, in charge of the rational realm.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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16 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthey skipped several steps in the procedure. The chordata discerner read Positive on the body? Naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to it required a fine adjustment. But they were disappointed that they found nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. Then it came—clearly and definitely, but from quite a small location only. \"Limited,\" said Steiner, \"as though within a pale. As though there were but one city, if that is its form. Shall we follow the rest of the surface to find another, or concentrate on this? It'll be twelve hours before it's back in our ken if we let it go now.\" \"Let's lock on this one and finish the scan. Then we can do the rest of the world to make sure we've missed nothing,\" said Stark. There was one more test to run, one very tricky and difficult of designed simply to locate a source of superior thought. But this might be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the told the machine so heatedly. The machine replied, with such warmth that its relays chattered, that Glaser did not , the machine insisted. It was for this reason that Glaser used that model no more, but built Positive on ninety per cent of the acknowledged superior minds of the Earth. In space it had been a action. Eppel was busy. The machine had a touch of the ham in it, and assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests. Finally it signaled the result, the most exasperating result it ever forewarned. \"Scan the remainder of the world, Steiner,\" said Stark, \"and the rest of us will get some sleep. If you find no other spot then we will go down on that one the next time it is in position under us, in about twelve hours.\" \"You don't want to visit any of the other areas first? Somewhere away from the thoughtful creature?\" \"No. The rest of the world may be dangerous. There must be a reason that thought is in one spot only. If we find no others then we will go down boldly and visit this.\" So they all, except Steiner, went off to their bunks then: Stark, the Captain Gregory Gilbert, the executive officer from?\" \"I don't know, but they're right in the middle of it. Land here. We'll go to meet them at once. Timidity has never been an efficacious tool with us.\" Well, they were people. And one could only wish that all people were He may or may not have been understood, but the two of them smiled at him, so he went on. named hoolock.\" wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would you?\" \"The fountain.\" \"Ah—I see.\" But the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. It was water, but water that excelled, cool and with all its original bubbles like the first water ever made. human. I don't understand that light that surrounds them. And they seem to be clothed, as it were, in dignity.\" \"And very little else,\" said Father Briton, \"though that light trick does serve a purpose. But I'm not sure they'd pass in Philadelphia.\" \"Talk to them again,\" said Stark. \"You're the linguist.\" \"That isn't necessary here, Captain. Talk to them yourself.\" \"Are there any other people here?\" Stark asked the man. \"The two of us. Man and woman.\" The captain was a little puzzled by this, but he went on doggedly: \"Ha-Adamah, what do you think that we are? Are we not people?\" \"And the damnest thing about it,\" muttered Langweilig, \"is, how are you going to prove him wrong? But it does give you a small feeling.\" \"Can we have something to eat?\" asked the Captain. \"Pick from the trees,\" said Ha-Adamah, \"and then it may be that you will want to sleep on the grass. Being not of human nature (which does not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. But you are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits.\" \"We will,\" said Captain Stark. They wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. There were the animals. The lion and lioness were enough to make one cautious, though those rocks would bear examining.\" \"Flecked with gold, and possibly with something else,\" said Stark. \"A very promising site.\" proposition to maintain here as on Earth?\" \"All things are possible.\" And it was then that Ha-Adamah, the shining man, gave a wild cry: \"No, \"It is a little odd. Adam, old man, how long have you been here?\" \"Forever less six days is the answer that has been given to me. I never did understand the answer, however.\" \"And have you gotten no older in all that time?\" \"I do not understand what 'older' is. I am as I have been from the \"Yes, there is a question that will settle it. Adam, old man, how about \"This is hardly the time for clowning,\" said Stark. \"I'm not clowning, Captain. How about it, Adam? I'll give you choice of colors and first move.\" and have a go at it.\" \"No. It would be no contest. I would not like to humble you.\" They were there for three days. They were delighted with the place. It was a world with everything, and it seemed to have only two inhabitants. They went everywhere except into the big cave. \"What is there, Adam?\" asked Captain Stark. \"The great serpent lives there. I would not disturb him. He has long persevere, it will come by him.\" They learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time there. Yet all but one of them were convinced of the reality when they left. And they talked of it as they took off. \"A crowd would laugh if told of it,\" said Stark, \"but not many would laugh if they had actually seen the place, or them. I am not a gullible are garbed in light and innocence, and they have the happiness that we have been seeking for centuries. It would be a crime if anyone disturbed that happiness.\" of the serpent, and intrude and spoil.\" Down in the great cave that Old Serpent, a two-legged one among whose names were \"Snake-Oil Sam,\" spoke to his underlings: \"It'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. We'll have time to overhaul the blasters. We haven't had any well-equipped settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of.\" \"I think you'd better write me some new lines,\" said Adam. \"I feel like a goof saying those same ones to each bunch.\" \"You are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. I was in show business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. I did space-sealed wheeled, tracked, propped, vaned and jetted vehicles and power packs to run a world. He looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at \"I know it, Eve. The lion is a very important prop. Maybe one of the crackpot settlers will bring a new lion.\" Casper Craig was still dictating the gram: \"Amazing quality of longevity seemingly inherent in the locale. Climate ideal. Daylight or half-light. All twenty-one hours from Planet Delphina and from Sol. Pure water for all industrial purposes. Scenic and storied. Zoning and pre-settlement restrictions to insure congenial neighbors. A completely planned globular settlement in a near arm of our own galaxy. Low taxes and liberal credit. Financing our specialty—\" \"And you had better have an armed escort when you return,\" said Father Briton. \"Why in cosmos would we want an armed escort?\" \"It's as phony as a seven-credit note!\" \"You, a man of the cloth doubt it? And us ready skeptics convinced by\n\n<question>:\nHow does the \"Old Serpent\" know that the crew is returning with settlers?\n\n<options>:\nA He understands people, and that they'll want to have their way with the planet.\nB Like Adam, he has extraordinary perception and can predict it happening.\nC It has happened before. He knows that people cannot resist the temptation and takes advantage of it.\nD The crew made it clear they would return.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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540 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTOLLIVER'S ORBIT was slow—but it wasn't boring. And it would get you there—as long as you weren't going anywhere anyhow! thatch was ruffled, as if he had been rubbed the wrong way. \"Well, one of us had better learn, and I'll have other things to do.\" \"I'll think about it,\" promised the girl, staring thoughtfully at the deck. Tolliver anchored himself in a seat and grinned as he thought about it too. the office noticeably, for such of Ganymede's surface as could be seen After a while , he promised himself, I'll explain how I cut the fuel flow and see if she's detective enough to suspect that we're just to Earth. The big jets in the home office don't care. They count it on ! Maybe they live soft back on Earth since the mines They me ,\" he complained. \"You know I took this piloting job just to scrape up money for an advanced engineering degree back on Earth. I only want to finish my year—not get into something I can't quit.\" Jeffers fidgeted in his chair, causing it to creak under the bulk of \"Aw, it's not like that,\" the manager muttered. \"You can ease out whenever your contract's up. Think we'd bend a good orbit on your account?\" Tolliver stared at him silently, but the other had difficulty meeting \"Okay I can't fire you legally—as long as you report for work,\" hazardous duty!\" \"Doesn't matter,\" answered Tolliver, grinning amiably. \"The hazardous part is just being on the same moon as you for the next six months.\" He winked and walked out, deliberately leaving the door open behind him so as to enjoy the incoherent bellowing that followed him. Looks like a little vacation , he thought, unperturbed. and his gang steal the Great Red Spot off Jupiter if they like! It's their risk. spaceport, or for hauling cross-country to one of the mining domes. He soon found that there was nothing for him to do but hang around the \"What do you mean?\" \"They say some home-office relative is coming in on the \"What's wrong with that?\" asked Tolliver. \"Outside of the way they keep handing out soft jobs to nephews, I mean.\" \"Aah, these young punks just come out for a few months so they can go back to Earth making noises like spacemen. Sometimes there's no reason but them for sending a ship back with a crew instead of in an economy portable, double-chambered plastic dome blown up outside the ship's the waste of fuel involved when the home-office relative emerged. sweater, like a spacer. \"Sure,\" agreed Tolliver thinking, Ohmigod! Trying already to be just one of the gang, instead of Lady Betty! Is her old man the treasurer, or does he just know where bodies are buried? \"They were making dates,\" said the girl. \"Were they ribbing me, or is it true that none of the four of them goes back with the ship?\" \"It's true enough,\" Tolliver assured her. \"We need people out here, and it costs a lot to make the trip. They found they could send back loaded Earth's orbit and landed by pilots who don't have to waste their time frozen surface of Ganymede toward the permanent domes of the city. \"How is it here?\" asked the girl. \"They told me it's pretty rough.\" \"What did you expect?\" asked Tolliver. \"Square dances with champagne?\" \"Don't be silly. Daddy says I'm supposed to learn traffic routing and the business management of a local branch. They probably won't let me \"Missions! You call driving a mile or so a mission ?\" \"Oh, they told me there was nothing alive on Ganymede!\" Say, that's pretty good! he told himself. prickled. The manager's jowled features twisted into an expression of welcome as \"It certainly is an honor to have you on Ganymede with us! That's all, Tolliver. \"We won't be working together, I'm afraid. You've already had little blonde, but the best part of this company will be mine someday. I was not allowed to reach twenty-two without learning something about holding on to it.\" Tolliver blinked. He had taken her for three or four years older. fired!\" Betty, and Tolliver thought he muttered something about \"just landed.\" a secretary, but it turned out to be three members of Jeffers' desk to assist. Tolliver found himself dumped on the floor of an empty office in the anyway. \"I think perhaps you're going to have a shiner,\" remarked the girl. \"Thanks for letting me know in time,\" said Tolliver. well enough. The abandoned and empty look of the office worried him. \"What can we use to get out of here?\" he mused. \"Why should we try?\" asked the girl. \"What can he do?\" \"You'd be surprised. How did you catch on to him so soon?\" accident!\" \"What do you know about the crooked goings-on here?\" asked Betty after a startled pause. \"Nothing,\" retorted Tolliver. \"Except that there are some. There are rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells The picture of Jeffers huddled with his partners in the headquarters There was nothing in the unused office but an old table and half a heat. If I can kick loose a hinge, maybe we can fool them yet!\" yourself.\" \"I'll come along with you, Tolliver,\" said the girl. \"No, I don't think you'd better.\" \"Why not?\" \"Well ... after all, what would he dare do? Arranging an accident to Tolliver. \"Why do you want them?\" \"Honey, I just don't think it will be so easy to lay hands on a tractor. I bet Jeffers already phoned the garage and all the airlocks intended for replacements, had never been unpacked, but there were a then trailed along with the plastic under his arm. He caught up and touched helmets again. \"Just act as if you're on business,\" he told her. \"For all anyone can !\" \"How good?\" a lead before the alarms go off.\" Through the faceplates, he saw the girl nod, wide-eyed. against the inside of the dome as if glued, although it immediately when they do! \"That's all right,\" Tolliver told the girl. \"We can get in with no trouble.\" It was when he looked about to make sure that they were unobserved that \"Takeoff!\" shrilled Betty. \"What do you think you're going to do? I He ran a practiced eye over the board, reading the condition of the When Betty produced a memo giving frequency and call sign, he set about making contact. request as if he had been hanging in orbit merely until learning who to go down after. They really sent her out to nail someone , Tolliver realized. Of idea of what to look for. How do I get into these things? She might have got me killed! says it's set for a six-month orbit, or economy flight. Whatever they call it. I don't think he has any idea where we're headed.\" Tolliver pulled her back, holding her in mid-air by the slack of her sweater. If you'll be okay, we'll attend to the other affair immediately.\" He signed off promptly. The pilot faced Betty, who looked more offended \"This 'Miss Koslow' business,\" he said suspiciously. \"He sounded funny about that.\" The girl grinned. firm. If old Koslow had a son to impersonate—\" \"I'd be stuck for six months in this orbit with some brash young man,\" Tolliver finished for her. \"I guess it's better this way,\" he said meditatively a moment later. \"Oh, come on ! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're we'll float into the vicinity of Earth at about the right time to be\n\n<question>:\nHow do the crew feel about “home office relatives”?\n\n<options>:\nA It’s a waste of time and fuel to bring them back and forth.\nB It’s a chance to impress the bosses and land better positions.\nC It’s a great way to have fun and earn tips.\nD It’s a chance to go on dates with pretty girls.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,789 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe saucer was interesting, but where was the delegate? was clear. No one moved DELEGATE VENUS By HENRY SLESAR ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK what the delegate from Venus \"It's okay,\" a voice breathed behind him. \"No radiation ...\" yards from the ship when the voice spoke to them. \"Greetings from Venus,\" it said, and then repeated the phrase in six languages. \"The ship you see is a Venusian Class 7 interplanetary rocket, built for one-passenger. It is clear of cagey, to behave the way the assignment he had waited his mind wanted him to play it an automatic lever in the side. the passenger.\" Jerry couldn't identify stepped the past two days. I couldn't A trio came forward and hoisted the crate out of the ship. Then the voice spoke again Jerry deduced that it must have been activated by the decreased load of the ship. will find our delegate within. Unstoppable, inexorable, it may its gray plastic material giving in readily to the application of their tools. But when it was \"Wait a minute,\" the general The reporter closed the door \"'Instructions for assembling Delegate,'\" he read aloud. \"You mean the spaceship's order. A-1, central nervous system he whispered. \"We're supposed The Delegate, a handsomely constructed robot almost eight feet tall, was pieced together some three hours later, by a team of scientists and engineers who seemed to find the Venusian instructions as elementary as a blueprint in an Erector set. But \"Where's your decorum?\" simple as the job was, they were mechanism they had assembled. It stood impassive until they obeyed the final instruction. obviously impressed by the they ought to get the Secret pressed it. The robot bowed. \"Thank you, gentlemen,\" it said, in sweet, unmetallic accents. \"Now if you will please after the landing that Jerry Bridges saw the Delegate again. No one told him his destination, It wasn't the newsmen's jibes it was the in the capitol. There had in every meeting, but Senator Spocker was unavailable. His himself. It was a summit foreign minister's debate. And the cause of it all, a placid, highly-polished metal robot, was seated blithely at a desk which bore the designation: VENUS. The robot delegate stood up. \"Gentlemen,\" it said into the microphone, and the great men at the council tables strained to hear the translator's version through their headphones, \"Gentlemen, I thank you for your prompt attention. I come as a Delegate from a great neighbor suit didn't hide her outrageously feminine qualities. She walked straight to his table, and he stood up. of worlds, and that each is dependent upon the other. I speak to you now through the electronic instrumentation which come to offer your planet not merely a threat, a promise, or an easy solution—but a challenge.\" The council room stirred. \"Your earth satellites have last night. It wasn't the way astronomers of our world, and we foresee the day when contact between our planets will be commonplace. been viewed with interest by the \"Greta, listen!\" he panted. without \"What?\" may not destroy all that you have gained. But we, the scientists of Venus, promise you this—that on the very day your conflict deteriorates into heedless \"Did I say that?\" who was coming through the Venus will act swiftly, mercilessly, and relentlessly—to destroy your world completely.\" in a babble of languages. \"The vessel which brought me here came as a messenger of tell you what I know, we could act human return, bearing a different Delegate from Venus—a Delegate of Death, who speaks not in words, but in the explosion of atoms. Think of thousands of such Delegates, again.\" \"Greta!\" reasons. Greta Johnson had that effect upon men. Even will hang in your night sky from this moment forward. Look at the planet Venus, men of Earth, and see a Goddess of Vengeance, poised to wreak its wrath upon the confining effect of a mannishly-tailored The Delegate sat down. Four days later, a mysterious explosion rocked the quiet sands of Los Alamos, and the Venus spacecraft was no more. Two hours after that, the robot delegate, \"At first, they thought it was \"The State Department, silly. Who opened, the Delegate was an exploded and nobody could figure ?\" thinking of calling a plenary the Delegate speak, something's meeting to make a decision.\" \"A decision about what?\" \"About the Venusians, of course.\" \"Greta,\" Jerry said mildly, \"I I think that damn robot did from last night.\" \"Don't be silly. The spaceship's from Venus they've already established that. And the impressed by what he said?\" \"I'm not worried about that. and Jerry responded the way a can land their delegate.\" \"Their what?\" \"Their delegate. They came \"Wait a minute!\" \"What's the matter?\" of confusing, but that's what they say.\" \"You mean these Venusians speak English?\" \"And Russian. And French. And German. And everything I or something. The Senator when I'm not wanted.\" I'm not even supposed to \"Professor Coltz?\" She stuck \"Didn't I say I wouldn't?\" that about you.\" The press secretary's secretary, a massive woman with gray hair and impervious to But Jerry Bridges tried. he said. \"I don't want to student at the door, who told \"My name's not Lana, and I can't Jerry entered, except for the deliver any messages.\" single stooped figure vigorously when the door opened. If the \"Do it for me, Hedy. And I'll tall man, with an unruly confusion blinked when Jerry said: deliver \"When will that be?\" and he blurted out: the Delegate speak. I didn't hooded. \"What do you mean, Jerry?\" \"There was something about the Robot's speech that sounded familiar—I could have sworn I'd heard some of the words room, three in military uniform. There were six men in the His words brought an exclamation isn't it, Professor? These very words were spoken by the Delegate from Venus.\" \"A coincidence—\" \"Is it? But I also remember your interest in robotics. I'll never forget that mechanical panic. Since you're the only unauthorized \"The other is perhaps more Jerry?\" want you to hear it. I dreamed about a group of teachers, scientists, allowed to relay the story to the and engineers, a group fantastic scheme to force the earth satellite of their own, and arrange for the nose cone to come down safely at a certain time and place. They would install a marvelous electronic robot within the cone, ready to be assembled. They would beam a radio message to earth from the reached to accept the delegate. from their 'spaceship.' Then, when the Robot was assembled, they would speak cone, seemingly as if it originated through it to demand peace for \"Jerry, if you do this—\" \"You don't have to say it, Sphinx-like Secret Service men, knew that he was the only passenger Jerry braked the convertible \"And to think what that terrible planet can do to us!\" \"Oh, I dunno. Venus is also the Goddess of Love.\" He swung his other arm around her, and Venus winked approvingly. THE END were sleek, purring black autos waiting to rush the air passengers He was allowed to leave the scurrying officials, but to no Then the clouds seemed to part! \"Here she comes!\" a voice shouted. And in a moment, the saw nothing. A faint roar was started in the heavens, and it became a growl that increased in volume until even the shouting voices could no longer be hit, a dust cloud obscured it from sight. A loudspeaker blared out an unintelligible order, but its message\n\n<question>:\nWhy didn't the Delegate have a robotic voice?\n\n<options>:\nA The robot was programmed by the Venusians to speak the many languages of Earth.\nB The robot was programmed by Professor Coltz and the group that helped him to speak eight languages.\nC The robot was voiced by Professor Coltz remotely.\nD The advanced Venusian technology allows for a natural-sounding voice.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,782 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nappeared to have overcome every little imperfection he had been able to communicate to her. It was in the privacy of his Do you fail to fit in with your group? Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy about it? Lucky you! Frank Pembroke sat behind the desk of his shabby room that Pembroke became her face and body were meticulously symmetrical. And she seemed to be wholly ambidextrous. \"With so many beautiful Is there something wrong with you? that he greeted the tall, dark, smooth-faced figure that sense of excitement and satisfaction \"Good day, sir,\" said Pembroke with an amiable smile. \"I see my advertisement has interested types. I'd never get one. type.\" flaw of loquacity that no one else had discovered. Pembroke decided he would have to cover his \"What type am I?\" he asked. a type at all.\" much,\" Pembroke murmured, aware of just how perfect, physically, gambling everything on this one you speak,\" said Pembroke. \"Try other flaws I feel I should mention.\" \"Yes? Please tell me.\" \"In the first place,\" said Pembroke, will eventually make you unhappy. How can you be the paramour type if you refuse to fall in love foolishly? And when you have fallen in love, you should be very loyal.\" made for himself a substantial fortune through speculation in a and otherwise. Life had given him much and demanded little, which was perhaps the reason for his restiveness. Loyalty to person or to people was a trait Pembroke had never recognized in himself, nor had it ever been expected of him. And yet he greatly envied those staunch patriots and lovers who could find it in themselves to Lacking such loyalties, Pembroke adapted quickly to the situation in which he found himself a human being. modern American hotel. The wallet Pembroke was quite sure that she understood his plan and that she was irrevocably in love with him. Tomorrow might bring in his pocket contained exactly his escape. After forty-two years of searching for a passion, for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank Pembroke had at last found his. a full dinner, for he was unusually hungry, he began to study the others in the restaurant. Many of the faces seemed familiar probably. He also recognized several of the passengers. However, As he guessed there was a goodly selection of firearms, despite the chestnut locks and gazed up intently at Pembroke as he passed. Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. \"Much of the time,\" said the \"Yet you seem unsure,\" she said. Pembroke smiled, uneasily. There was something not entirely normal about her conversation. Though the rest of her compensated for that. the way I look or act. Isn't there? Please help me, please!\" \"You're not casual enough, for one thing,\" said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for an Earthman. you wanted to hear?\" \"Yes, yes—I mean, I suppose so. I can try to be more casual. But I don't know what to do whole I'm not so bad, am I? Oh, please tell me.\" \"Maybe with less distraction I'll have a better picture of you—as a whole.\" \"Oh, that's very generous of oddness of her conversation continued to bother him. She was right about being different, but it was her concern about being \"Can I help you, sir?\" a middle-aged Oh, my,\" she concluded, \"are you that people all about him were talking excitedly. They were discussing \"They tell me I lean too far forward,\" she confided. \"But I docks every day, without being able to learn when the great exodus would take place. Yet he frumpy.\" \"Well, I'm supposed to look frumpy,\" the woman retorted. \"That's the type of person I am. But you can look frumpy and still walk natural, can't you? Everyone says you can.\" But since no one seemed concerned about anything but his own speech and behavior, he assumed him. \"Isn't that a lovely name? \"It is a sign of poor breeding to smile at tramps,\" Pembroke admonished her in a whisper. Pembroke watched him hurry off to service a car with a sense each went into separate ones. Pembroke found himself alone in after servicing the automobile. \"Say, I've just figured out who you are,\" the youngster told him. type. paying passengers. He was a short, Then she saw him. Waving frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled with the crowd moving toward of the conversation turned out to be precisely what Pembroke had predicted. Sidling up to a well-dressed man-about-town type, Pembroke winked at him and snickered. \"You Frank?\" he asked. \"Hell, no. But some poor punk's sure red in the face, I'll straight?\" with a chuckle. \"Those high-strung paramour types always raising a ruckus. They never do \"Everyone tells me I chew gum with my mouth open. Don't you hate that?\" that,\" said Pembroke, snickering again as he moved away from the other. \"And why not? Hey? Why not?\" Pembroke went right on hating lost interest in him. They got up one by one and walked out of the Diego, and it was not long before Pembroke was explaining to the police how he had drifted far \"You said they were perfect. They know they're not. You've got to be rough with them in this day. Not the brisk, efficient steps of a federal official, but the hesitant, self-conscious steps of a you would give me a few minutes of honest criticism.\" \"Ah, no, not you, too,\" groaned junior clerk type. Pembroke rose as the young man appeared at the door. His \"Are you Dr. Von Schubert?\" \"You are therefore in an excellent position to point out our face was smooth, unpimpled, warm summer afternoon. the newcomer asked, peering into Spencer. \"Look, Joe, what's \"Mr. Valencia,\" said Pembroke. \"I've noticed that you Otherwise, you may appear to be self-conscious about it.\" convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he allowed himself to admire the that it was exactly this that was amused at his companion's reaction but observed that Spencer Valencia was seeking. Pembroke clipping of the newspaper ad he in the way in which ARE YOU IMPERFECT? to be a little more direct, a little YOUR FLAWS IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE more brusque. Speak in a monotone. It will make you more acceptable.\" \"Thank you so much,\" said the LET DR. VON SCHUBERT POINT OUT manager. \"There is much food for thought in what you have said, Mr. Pembroke. However, Mr. Spencer, your value has failed Pembroke spoke for several minutes. \"Somebody's crazy around here,\" the fat man muttered after a few moments. \"Is it me, Frank?\" \"No. You just don't belong here, in this particular place,\" said Pembroke thoughtfully. \"You're the wrong type. But they couldn't know that ahead of time. they don't care one bit about us, Spencer. Consider the men who \"It's what you think that will I suggest you change your attitude play along with them for a few days till the picture becomes man sullenly. \"What don't you like about me? The \"You're the guy, all right. Too and the pale chartreuse gown she wore hardly placed her in that category. Her conversation seemed considerably more normal after the other denizens of and had almost exhausted his critical capabilities, but not once had she become annoyed with him. She seemed to devour every factual point of imperfection about herself that Pembroke brought to her attention. And, fantastically enough, she actually\n\n<question>:\nWhat type of person is Frank?\n\n<options>:\nA Frank is very careful around other people, and it is hard for him to show criticism.\nB Frank is reckless, but his independence allows him to go back home at the end of the story.\nC Frank is cautious and skilled enough to develop plans to get out of unexpected situations.\nD Frank is thoughtful in his interactions with others but tends to miss details.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,459 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"The biggest, most convincing liar wins. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter how outlandish a whopper you tell. Unless, of course, they've made up their minds that you just naturally aren't as big a liar as they are. And it looks like that's just what they've done. It wouldn't make any difference to them Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest Meyerhoff shifted uneasily. \"It's hard to say. It's been my experience that they respect him highly—maybe even fear him a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any transaction, so he gets more land, more food, more power. Yes, I think the biggest liar could go where he pleased without any interference.\" \"Wait a minute,\" he said tensely. \"To tell them a lie that they'd have to believe—a lie they simply couldn't help Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his and the judge banged the gavel for silence. As soon as Zeckler gaunt face of the prisoner. Zeckler's face was dark with a \"The jury—\" The judge stared down at Zeckler as if he were a bug on a a little. \"So Harry Zeckler's in a jam again,\" he said. to convict me,\" he said softly, \"in the worst sort of way. Isn't that right?\" \"That's right.\" \"But you can't really convict me until you've considered carefully any statement I make in my own defense. Isn't that right?\" The judge looked uncomfortable. \"If you've got something decide that you really want to convict me.\" He paused, and glanced slyly at the judge. \"You don't think much of those who tell the truth, it seems. Well, put this statement in your Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I All Earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth. \" Puzzled frowns appeared on the jury's faces. One or two It had to come as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a liar—the prize liar of them all, but I had to tell the sort of lie that they simply could not cope with. Something that would throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't And this time, buddy, you're paying the piper.\" \" a liar, in which case—oh, it was tailor-made.\" \"It sure was.\" Meyerhoff's voice was a snarl. \"Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, Zeckler stood up shakily. \"You can't believe anything the didn't it?\" \"You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can imagine, and they're going to get you for it if it's the last thing they do. I'm afraid, my friend, that your con-man days are Zeckler's grin broadened, and he leaned back luxuriously. he said weakly. \"Nothing like a good lawyer to handle a trial.\" \" lose a case like it's never been lost before!\" Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\" A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. \" trial.\" Zeckler spluttered. \"There's no evidence—you've got nothing don't think you'll get off.\" Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying—of course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've completely missed the concept of truth. Pathological? You bet they're pathological! Only a fool would tell the truth when his life depended on his being a better liar than the next guy! Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire legal system built around it.\" Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they Meyerhoff shrugged. \"As we understand legal systems, I suppose they don't have one. They have only the haziest idea what truth represents, and they've shrugged off the idea as impossible and useless.\" He chuckled maliciously. \"So you Zeckler was visibly shaken. \"Look,\" he said weakly, \"so I form—judge, jury, court procedure, all that folderol. They shot the little con-man a stony glance. \"At least you've got a courtroom, a judge, and a jury for this mess. Beyond that—\" He shrugged eloquently. \"I can't make any promises.\" prosecutor eyed Zeckler with cold malevolence, then turned judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler—\" he \"The Chairman of the Jury,\" said the Judge succinctly, \"will read the verdict.\" The little native in the front of the jury-box popped up like a puppet on a string. \"Defendant found guilty on all counts,\" he said. \"Defendant is guilty! The court will pronounce sentence—\" \" Now wait a minute! Honor. Later, Your Honor. The trial comes first .\" I should call for the verdict.\" \"Later. You have to have the trial before you can have the verdict.\" Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. \"These charges,\" he lies . They're liars, the whole pack of them—\" He broke off as the prosecutor roared a name. cairn, and the prosecutor said, \"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you—\" he paused to squint at the paper in his hand, and finished on a Zeckler's face, another on the prosecutor, and closing the third Zeckler—\"stopped me in my tracks with a vicious cry. He had \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his The witness glowered at Zeckler. \"As I was saying before \"But how can I fight testimony like that?\" fight it.\" \"But they can't prove a word of it—\" He looked at the jury, who were listening enraptured to the second witness on the low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any respect for is a liar bigger and more skillful than they are.\" the jury delivers the verdict?\" \"Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear,\" Zeckler to hear his words. \"These charges,\" he continued, \"all of them—they're perfectly true. At least, they seem There was a loud hiss from the back of the court. Zeckler theirs, not mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her and lied to her, coerced her all-powerful goodness to their own evil interests, preparing for the day when they could persuade One by one the natives nudged one another, and booed, and guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's words. \"The defendant is obviously lying,\" roared the prosecutor over the pandemonium. \"Any fool knows that the Goddess can't be bribed. How could she be a Goddess if she could?\" Zeckler grew paler. \"But—perhaps they were very clever—\" \"Unless the defendant wishes to take up more of our precious time with these ridiculous lies, the jury—\" \"Wait! Your Honor, I request a short recess before I present my final plea.\" The judge settled back with a disgusted snarl. \"Do I have Somehow, Zeckler managed to stumble from the witness Zeckler puffed hungrily on a cigarette, and looked up at how big a lie you tell.\" Zeckler sat in silence for a moment. \"This lying business,\" he said finally, \"exactly how does it work?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat does the outcome of Zeckler's trial suggest about the modern legal system?\n\n<options>:\nA The legal system is set up to benefit those with more power and wealth.\nB For a defendant in the legal system, there is no desirable outcome.\nC The better lawyer a defendant has, the more likely they are to clear their names.\nD Sometimes it is more optimal to lie and make a guilty plea, than to tell the truth and be found guilty.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
641 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nPolk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as \"It will be a simple assignment, Major,\" he said to me, peering over \"It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native.\" I wanted to say, \"Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on the job? Why me?\" Instead, I nodded and watched him playing with his as if he were waiting for me to cut. \"Mmmm,\" he said, \"yes, that's true. But this is a special job. It so happens this Venusian is the one man who can help us understand just it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. \"And this man is on Venus now?\" I asked for confirmation. I'd never been to Venus, being in Space II ever since I'd left the Moon run. It Personal habits? Anything?\" Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He does have a peculiar habit, though.\" \"What's that?\" \"He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes.\" I sighed. \"Well, it's not very much to go on.\" Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. Much too hot for the tunic I was wearing. It smelled, too. A funny smell I couldn't place. Like a mixture of old shoe and after-shave. There were plants everywhere He ambled over with long-legged strides that closed the distance \"Same here, Toots,\" he answered. \"The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you,\" I told him. anyway, and there wasn't much he could do if I decided to stop for a drink first. \"Where's the Officer's Club?\" I asked the Venusian. \"Are you buying information or are you just curious?\" heavily overgrown path. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when contemptible.... \"What are you drinking, pal?\" the Venusian asked again. \"Skip it,\" I said. \"How do I get to the captain's shack?\" \"Follow your nose, pal. Can't miss it.\" I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. He waved at the bartender. great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. open. A tall, blue Venusian stepped lithely into the room. \"Sir?\" the Venusian asked. \"We're out of cigarettes, Joe,\" the Captain said. \"Will you get us some, please?\" \"Sure thing,\" the Venusian answered. He smiled broadly and closed the door behind him. \"They steal them,\" Captain Bransten said abruptly. \"Steal what?\" I asked. \"Cigarettes. I sometimes think the cigarette is one of the few things they like about Terran culture.\" So Walsh had taken care of that angle too. He does have a peculiar habit, though. He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes. Cigarettes was the tip I should have given I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh sitting back in a nice cozy foam chair back on Earth. \"Get to the point, Captain!\" I barked. Joe. 'Hey, Joe, give me a hand with this.' Or 'Listen, Joe, how'd you like to earn some cigarettes?' Do you follow?\" \"I follow, all right,\" I said bitterly. \"Well,\" Bransten went on, \"that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives cigarettes.\" He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were personally responsible for Venusian culture. In fact, he looked as if he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first place. \"Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all.\" Venusian came back with the cigarettes Bransten had ordered. I could tell by the look on his face that he probably had half a carton stuffed into his pockets. I shrugged and went to change into a tropical He's somewhere in the jungle, you know. As I saw it, there were two courses for me to follow. One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping the next ship back to Earth. It would also mean disobeying the direct order of a superior officer. jungle, a Joe separate and apart from the other Joes on this planet, a was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed. A tall Venusian stepped into the room. \"I'm trying to locate someone,\" I said. \"I'll need a guide to take me into the jungle. Can you get me one?\" \"It'll cost you, boss,\" the Venusian said. \"How much?\" \"Two cartons of cigarettes at least.\" \"His name is Joe,\" the Venusian told me. \"Best damn guide on the \"Skip it,\" I said, cutting the promotion short. \"Tell him to show up around fifteen hundred with a complete list of what we'll need.\" The Venusian started to leave. \"And Joe,\" I said, stopping him at the door, \"I hope you're not overlooking your commission on the deal.\" just have to traipse through the jungle looking for a guy named Joe on gag, and I made up my mind to be extremely careful from here on in. The guide arrived at fifteen hundred on the dot. He was tall, elongated, looked almost like all the other Venusians I'd seen so far. \"Are you familiar with the jungle?\" I asked him. Joe was an excellent guide and a pleasant companion. He seemed to be enjoying a great romp, seemed to love the jungle and take a secret Then he'd say, \"This way,\" and take off into what looked like more impenetrable jungle invariably to find a little path leading directly to another village. Each village was the same. The natives would come running out of their huts, tall and blue, shouting, \"Cigarettes, Joe? Cigarettes?\" It took me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide. stinking, hot jungle. And I wasn't getting any nearer my man. Nor had Joe, on the other hand, enjoyed every moment of the trip. In each village he greeted the natives cheerfully, told them stories, swapped that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle. \"I like Venus,\" he said once. \"I would never leave it.\" \"Have you ever been to Earth?\" I asked. for Venus. And they are fun.\" \"Fun?\" I asked, thinking of a particular species of Terran: species Leonard Walsh. employee. But as the days lengthened into weeks, the formal atmosphere began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about the people there, about my decision to attend the Academy, the rigid tests, the grind, even the Moon run. Joe was a good listener, nodding friendly one, Joe seemed more enthusiastic than ever to keep up our grinding pace to find what we were looking for. Once we stopped in a clearing to rest. Joe lounged on the matted I got to my feet and we started the march again. Joe was still fresh, a to greet us. No cries of \"Cigarettes? Cigarettes?\" I caught up with Joe. Joe was walking beside me, waving at the colonel, beaming all over with\n\n<question>:\nMajor Polk refers to his long hike through the jungle with guide Joe as being like. . .\n\n<options>:\nA The time a friend took him on a journey through the city on his birthday.\nB The time Walsh fell asleep on the job and almost destroyed the barracks.\nC His time in boot camp.\nD The relentless way in which Venusians constantly ask for more cigarettes.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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988 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nscreamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, \"My husband,\" she said softly. He began to understand. \"And your husband needs an astrogator? That's why you saved me?\" \"We need all the good men we can get.\" \"Where is he?\" smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, \"Why aren't you with him now?\" The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies.\" wanted by the Bureau, but we make honest livings. We're just people like yourself and Jacob.\" \"Jacob? Your husband?\" \"Don't the authorities object?\" Ben scowled. \"What happens if there do when Space Corps ships officially reach the asteroids? They can't ignore you then.\" \"Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It could be us, you know—if we live long enough. But that Asteroid Belt is murder. You can't follow the text-book rules of astrogation out there. You make up your own.\" Earthmen—merchant spacemen. They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed Ben stiffened. \"And that's why you want me for an astrogator.\" They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo. He was like two people, he thought. Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal. He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions: \"A Space Officer Is Honest\" \"A Space Officer Is Loyal.\" \"A Space Officer Is Dutiful.\" Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts, mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it prisoner for half a million years. Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago. Frowning, he sat down—he and the dead man. He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra. The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of their For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. He thought, What are they doing here, these Martians? Here, in You've got to find the man with the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man. The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and about forty and he hated spacemen. His body was buried now—probably in the silent gray wastes outside Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or ignore him, and the matter is over and done. You can't escape from a memory that has burned into your mind. It had begun a week ago in Luna City. The flight from White Sands had been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him. \"Spacemen,\" he muttered, \"are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you see's spacemen.\" He was a neatly dressed civilian. Ben smiled. \"If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here.\" \"The name's Cobb.\" The man hiccoughed. \"Spacemen in their white monkey suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a little tin god.\" He downed a shot of whiskey. He'd sought long for that key. At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' collection of astronomy and rocketry books. At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space. And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the Odyssey —the first ship, it was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps beyond. Cobb was persistent: \"Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth. What the hell good is it, jumpin' from planet to planet?\" The guy's drunk Cobb followed. \"You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like people to call you a sucker.\" Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and held him there. \"Thas what you are—a sucker. You're young now. Wait ten years. You'll Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked A thousand stars—a thousand motionless balls of silver fire—shone above him through Luna City's transparent dome. He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run. Escaping at least gave him a power of choice, of decision. You can do two things prison and a dishonorable discharge. And then you'd be free. But you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class jet-men on beat-up freighters—they don't want convicted killers. You'd get the rest of the thrill of conquering space through video and by peeking through electric fences of spaceports. Or— There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth. And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the ?\" \"This isn't my first night here,\" Ben lied. \"I've been around a while.\" \"You are spacemen?\" Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. \"Here. Take off, will you?\" Ben didn't answer. Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. wheel with Ben as their focal point. You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known! There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: \"Why?\" spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the Blast Inn.\" He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. \"I—don't The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly trimmed\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Ben take offence to Cobb's comments about spacemen?\n\n<options>:\nA He takes a lot of pride in his job, and dislikes Cobb disparaging it.\nB It's deeply personal to him. Because of his parent's death, he'd taken an interest in the job.\nC It's deeply personal to him. He grew up venerating space and space travel. He spent his whole life preparing for it.\nD He knows that spacemen account for the life people like Cobb can live, because of his work.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nGalaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that \"And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth has made us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The only habitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the least populous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in.\" \"And after that?\" was in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. Earthmen land among the Thorabians!\" with yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zurians nor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both.\" had the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet could have been yours alone.\" He stopped in alarm. \"Or am I suggesting an Zotul sat in silent thought. \"But you did not have to buy us out. You idea that didn't occur to you?\" but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zur are equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we had and our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen may By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen, to get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, a very scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. elders, \"the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in building did. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thought about the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the way of metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he could too quickly learned the tongue of the aliens hence these left much to be desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world of Zur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of all Zurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, in thing one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less a newspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously, tried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there is always an \"anti\" faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowed happily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of ships arrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur was practically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they called \"corporations\"—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. The object of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zurian city of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it took \"The Earthmen don't cook as we do,\" she explained patiently. \"There is \"The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are so was wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I am sorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend to land. In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth. One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had ever Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enough in value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set up telegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent. Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every major city on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyed the instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the business \"As I have always said from the beginning,\" chortled Director Koltan, \"this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, and newfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because for everything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade. What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. They \"Note,\" Koltan announced in a shaky voice, \"that the Earthmen undermine all available space was occupied by the advertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, the rest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen had procured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of which they found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. What they did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discovered in the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, working regions to every major and minor city on Zur. By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the first terrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business in gas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove business was gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gas energetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmen for a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it and departed from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House of much new building was taking place and wondered what it was. \"Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure,\" said Koltan blackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radio loaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and other radio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with the natural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—with to Zur!\" bought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highways were constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plants Zotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to calling they were the envied ones of Zur. the baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except for the world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous Kalrab Masur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greater all because of new things coming from Earth.\" Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. \"Why didn't you come that you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not to make profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout the Galaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working out the full program takes time.\" \"It may seem high,\" said the Earthman, \"but remember that Earth is sixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of the the cost of operating an interstellar spaceship.\" \"Impossible,\" said Zotul drably. \"Not I and all my brothers together have so much money any more.\" Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman, the crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit. The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges, served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In the winter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, though they had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electric generators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood of electrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason, They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electric fans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth could But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option. The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. The Earthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own because it was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth's unswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded. maintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earth was remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the female terrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian men covetous and Zurian women envious. the Earthman. \"I don't understand. The Earthmen....\" Zotul paused, coloring. \"We are on Zur?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the real reason for the Earthmen to come to Zur?\n\n<options>:\nA they wanted to take over without war\nB they wanted to share their technology with other worlds\nC they wanted to find ways to make more money\nD they wanted to discover intelligent life on other planets\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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376 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWas Shawn blushing out of prudishness, as we are meant to infer? This was, after all, a man renowned for his retiring propriety, a man who sedulously barred anything smacking of the salacious--from lingerie ads to four-letter words--from the magazine he stewarded from 1952 until 1987, five years before his death. But after reading these two new memoirs about Shawn, I wonder. \"He longed for the earthiest and wildest kinds of sexual adventures,\" Lillian Ross discloses in hers, adding that he lusted after Hannah Arendt, Evonne Goolagong, and Madonna. As for Ved Mehta, he reports that Shawn's favorite thing to watch on television was \"people dancing uninhibitedly\" ( Soul Train , one guesses). I suspect Shawn did not blush at the \"cunty fingers\" remark out of prudery. He blushed because it had hit too close to home. Both these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole but later to add that he \"mourned\" for Si Newhouse when Newhouse unceremoniously fired him in 1987 (a couple of years after buying the magazine)--well, that's a bit much. Even Jesus had his limits. Elsewhere, Ross refers to her lover's \"very powerful masculinity,\" only to note on the very next page that \"if he suffered a paper cut on a finger and saw blood, he would come into my office, looking pale.\" She declares that \"Bill was incapable of engendering a cliché, in deed as well as in word.\" But then she puts the most toe-curling clichés into his mouth: \"Why am I more ghost than man?\" Or: \"We must arrest our love in midflight. And we fix it forever as of today, a point of pure light that will reach into eternity.\" (File that under Romantic Effusions We Doubt Ever Got Uttered.) Nor is Ross incapable of a melodramatic cliché herself. \"Why can't we just live, just live ?\" she cries in anguish when she and Shawn, walking hand in hand out of Central Park, chance to see Shawn's wife slowly making her way down the block with a burden of packages. And what does she think of Mrs. Shawn? \"I found her to be sensitive and likeable.\" Plus, she could \"do a mean Charleston.\" There is nothing more poignant than the image of an openly cheated-upon and humiliated wife doing \"a mean Charleston.\" William Shawn's indispensability as an editor is amply manifest in Ross' memoir. Word repetition? \"Whatever reporting Bill asked me to do turned out to be both challenging and fun. ... For me, reporting and writing for the magazine was fun, pure fun. ... It was never 'work' for me. It was fun.\" Even in praising his skill as an editor, she betrays the presence of its absence. \"All writers, of course, have needed the one called the 'editor,' who singularly, almost mystically, embodies the many-faceted, unique life force infusing the entire enchilada.\" Nice touch, that enchilada. Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.\n\n<question>:\nWhat's true of Ross's accounts of Shawn?\n\n<options>:\nA She had a difficult time describing her true feelings.\nB She contradicts herself often. She describes him one way than an inverse way pages later.\nC She tells the objective truth about her and Shawn, and the relationship they shared.\nD She has a habit of glorifying Shawn.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,770 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe robot apprehensively. Half the shadowy light except for an Then the robots figured out an as if a tree had been hit by lightning some distance away. together, and the sound of a scream faintly. Frowning, worrying about the again in the rustling jungle darkness. uncertainly in the dimness. From tall, moss-shrouded trees, wrist-thick vines hung quietly, operation of its tracking mechanism scraping the spongy ground like alone. \"There just isn't room for the electronics. You'd shadows of the mossy trunks, forming a dense underbrush that made walking difficult. At midday the tentacles of some monstrous robot, crunching and snapping need a computer as big as the on the planet, the shadows like an onrushing forest fire. He froze. \"Good Lord! vine-draped shadows, listening to the soft rustlings and faint twig-snappings of life in the jungle. Two short, popping sounds echoed across the stillness, drowned out almost immediately and silenced by an automatically controlled by the They communicate with each \"Blaster fighting! But it can't be!\" Suddenly anxious, he slashed tried to run, but vines blocked his way and woody shrubs caught at his legs, tripping him Trees exploded to his left as another robot fired in his direction, too far away to be effective and holding him back. Then, two robots coming up from through the trees he saw the were well accustomed to the dark now, and he managed to dodge most of the shadowy vines and branches before they could snag in the wiry underbrush and his legs were a mass of stinging slashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of the killer robots shook the night behind him, nearer sometimes, then falling slightly back, but following constantly, more unshakable than bloodhounds because a man can sometimes cover few of the killer robots rolling a scent, but no man can stop his thoughts. Intermittently, like flashes would light the jungle about him. Then, for seconds photographers' strobes, blue the bugs. As he did so, a dark shapeless thing plopped from afterwards his eyes would see build a robot that hunts by homing in on animals' mind impulses ...\" the trees onto the spot where he pause and squeeze his eyelids tight shut before he could see again, and the robots would He stepped forward just as a roar of blue flame dissolved the branches of a tree, one of the robots rolled silently barely above his head. branches and crashed against the robot, clawing insanely at the with no one to stop it, automatically With an awkward jerk the robot sending its robots in wider and wider forays, slowly antenna and blaster barrel. circuits would short, and one by one the killers would crunch to a halt. A few birds would still Though visibility didn't make any difference to the robots, he felt safer, somehow, hidden. He glint of a robot only a hundred yards away, much nearer than he had thought. \"Thank heaven clutched futilely at some leaves and fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as he they're tuned to pick up human brain waves, too. Damn! Damn!\" His eyes blurred and eyes and looked up—into a robot's When he raised his eyes again the jungle was perceptibly darker. Stealthy rustlings in the shadows grew louder with the setting sun. Branches snapped unaccountably in the trees overhead and every now and then leaves or a twig fell softly to the ground, close to where he lay. robot jerked back, its gun wobbled the robot reacted. It seemed familiar Instinctively, in one motion the robot on the river wouldn't even singe a robot, but it just might stop one of those circuits needed for the missing the obvious. \"The blaster static blanks out radio transmission from the computer sizing up his situation. Behind him the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly. for a few seconds. They even do it to themselves!\" plants grew straggly in the can't get to the camp with a pack of mind-activated mechanical killers running around. The robot shook spasmodically night. On the other hand, I certainly short intervals he started across the clearing, gritting his teeth forced himself to a limping run across the uneven ground, carefully avoiding the insect hills that jutted up through the grass. From the corner of his eye he as a blaster roared in the jungle. Then Alan heard the approaching the device, falling in the grass at his feet. He dropped the useless struck the top of a small earthy mound and he was instantly engulfed in a swarm of locust-like insects that beat disgustingly against his eyes and mouth. \"Fagh!\" Waving his its way through the undergrowth arms before his face he jumped Blinding itself for a few seconds with its own blaster static, the robot paused momentarily, jiggling in place. In this instant, Alan jammed his hands into an insect hill and hurled the pile of dirt and insects directly at the robot's antenna. In a flash, hundreds of the winged things erupted angrily from the hole in a swarming cloud, each part of which was a speck of life transmitting mental energy to the and he could see a robot rolling slowly across the clearing in his general direction, blasting indiscriminately robot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersion at whatever mind impulses came within its pickup range, birds, insects, anything. robot fired erratically as Alan of mind impulses, the Apparently the robot hadn't open the door as the robot, sensing Later. Brilliance pressed upon his eyes. Then pain returned, a multi-hurting thing that crawled through his body and dragged ragged tentacles across his brain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in the foliage, thirty yards away. killer robot was equipped to crush, slash, and burn its way through undergrowth. Nevertheless, it was slowed by the larger trees and the thick, clinging he could manage to keep ahead of it, barely out of blaster range. Only, the robot didn't get tired. shadows that wavered and danced across the jungle floor, hiding debris that tripped him and often sent him sprawling into the dark. Sharp-edged growths tore at his face and clothes, and insects attracted by the blood matted against his pants and shirt. Behind, the robot its range. There was movement also, in the darkness beside him, scrapings and rustlings and an occasional low, throaty sound like an angry cat. Alan's fingers tensed on his pocket blaster. Swift shadowy forms moved quickly in the shrubs and the growling became suddenly louder. He fired twice, blindly, into the undergrowth. Sharp screams punctuated the electric blue discharge as a pack of small feline creatures The robot crashed on, louder now, gaining on the tired human. Legs aching and bruised, stinging from insect bites, Alan tried to force himself to run holding his hands in front of him like a child in the dark. His foot tripped on a barely visible insect hill and a winged swarm exploded around him. Startled, Alan jerked sideways, crashing shadows. The robot crashed loudly behind him now. Without stopping Patches of black scraped off onto branches and vines, but the rest spread slowly over his arm as A blue arc slashed at the trees a mere hundred yards behind. He screamed at the blast. \"Damn as the heavy little robot rolled up and backwards, away from hide the pain, and biting his lips, ignoring the salty taste of soil was held too tightly by the stop. The air crackled blue and a the moons, the killer robot stopped tree-bound octopus. Fitful little robot's treads churned furiously fiercely against the robot's metal the stationary portion of the robot.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the darkness affect the robots' mobility?\n\n<options>:\nA It makes it harder for them to differentiate people from other animals.\nB Their tracking of animals is unimpeded, but they still have plans to contend with.\nC Their mobility is not affected, but it is harder for them to aim their blasters.\nD It makes smaller signals from insects more distracting.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the perfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all the \"Everything shipshape, I take it!\" he commented. they come back.\" \"Is there any question?\" After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of—\" stared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sure \"You see?\" The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, in spite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on her head. \"Svan, I'm afraid,\" she said. \"Who are we to decide if this is a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will be trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood.\" Svan laughed harshly. \" They don't think so. You heard them. We are agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\" Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. \"One moment. Ingra, do you still object?\" The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked convinced by Svan. \"No,\" she said slowly. \"I do not object.\" Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture of assent. alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the Earth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not return.\" An old man shifted restlessly. \"But they are strong, Svan,\" he Svan nodded. \"No. They will leave. But they will never get back to Earth.\" dull. \"What is your plan?\" he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his feet, held up a shiny metal globe. \"One of us will plant this in the \"We will let chance decide who is to do the work,\" he said angrily. \"Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think....\" No answer. Svan jerked his head. \"Good,\" he said. \"Ingra, bring me that bowl.\" Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm slips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them. \"This is the plan,\" he said. \"We will go, all six of us, in my ground after all dark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away from the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed.\" There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still that uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: \"Look at the slips!\" Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was looking up now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosen one to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... He stared at them in a new light, saw their indecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was a coward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any might be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are of them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. \"Go faster, Ingra,\" he ordered the girl who was driving. \"Let's get this done with.\" jungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. The present shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall off complicated gesture. \"Do you understand?\" He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had jungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would be no trace. Svan strode back to the car. \"Hurry up,\" he gasped to the girl. \"Now there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep a watch for other guards.\" out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be coming from the town, anyhow....\" Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the two said. \"They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?\" Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. \"We must circle back again,\" she parroted. \"We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards.\" Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards would not be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. If purpose. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting off the seconds. \"Go ahead,\" he ordered. \"I will wait here.\" \"Svan.\" The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached for him, kissed him. \"Good luck to you, Svan,\" she said. \"Good luck,\" repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a few hundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean? Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the side of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance. He had perhaps three minutes to wait he reckoned. His fingers went absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. \"Svan! They're coming! They found \"Better them than us,\" he said. \"It's poetic justice if I ever saw it. it? What about it?\" the devil of a time getting it loose from him.\" He turned it over slowly, displayed the other side. \"Now what in the world would he be doing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the double meaning of the story’s title?\n\n<options>:\nA “Doublecross” because Svan plans to double cross the council; and “Doublecross” because Svan was the one who pulled the slip with the double cross, meaning that he should have been driving in the end.\nB “Doublecross” because Svan plans to double cross his friends; and “Doublecross” because it turns out that, ironically, Svan was who pulled the slip with the double cross, not his friends whom he suspected to have pulled it and not had the courage to admit it.\nC “Doublecross” because Svan plans to double cross the Earth; and “Doublecross” because it turns out that Ingra was who pulled the slip with the double cross, not his friends whom he suspected to have pulled and not had the courage to tell\nD “Doublecross” because Svan plans to double cross Ingra, his girl friend; and “Doublecross” because it turns out that Svan knew he had the double cross slip all along.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThis is what Fiss means by the \"irony\" in his title: that true freedom of speech for all requires suppressing the speech of some. This is not, technically, an irony. It is a paradox. An irony would be the observation that an attempt to increase freedom for all often entails, despite our best efforts, a decrease in freedom for a few. If Fiss had addressed the subject of free speech in this spirit, as an irony, he would undoubtedly have had some interesting things to say, for he is a learned and temperate writer. But he has, instead, chosen to address the issue as an advocate for specific groups he regards as politically disadvantaged--women, gays, victims of racial-hate speech, the poor (or, at least, the not-rich), and people who are critical of market capitalism--and to design a constitutional theory that will enable those groups to enlist the state in efforts either to suppress speech they dislike or to subsidize speech they do like, without running afoul of the First Amendment. Embarked on this task, the most learned and temperate writer in the world would have a hard time avoiding tendentiousness. Fiss does not avoid it. The argument is that \"the liberalism of the nineteenth century was defined by the claims of individual liberty and resulted in an unequivocal demand for liberal government, [while] the liberalism of today embraces the value of equality as well as liberty.\" The constitutional law of free speech, says Fiss, was shaped by the earlier type of liberalism--he calls it \"libertarian\"--which regarded free speech as a right of individual self-expression Fiss' suggestion--this is the chief theoretical proposal of his book--is that liberals should stop thinking about this as a conflict between liberty and equality and start thinking about it as a conflict between two kinds of liberty: social vs. individual. The First Amendment, he says, was intended to foster (in William Brennan's words) \"uninhibited, robust, and wide-open\" debate in society as a whole speech that inhibits or monopolizes that debate should therefore fall outside the protection of the law. We can maximize the total freedom of speech by silencing people who prevent others from speaking--when they utter racial epithets, represent women in degrading ways, use their wealth to dominate the press and the political process, or block the funding of unorthodox art. The historical part of this analysis rests on a canard, which is the assertion that the constitutional law of free speech emerged from 19 th -century classical laissez-faire liberalism. It did not. It emerged at the time of World War I, and the principal figures in its creation--Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Louis Brandeis--were not classical liberals they were progressives. They abhorred the doctrine of natural rights because, in their time, that doctrine was construed to cover not the right to \"self-expression\" but the \"right to property.\" Turn-of-the-century courts did not display a libertarian attitude toward civil rights Hand, Holmes, and Brandeis based their First Amendment opinions not on some putative right to individual self-expression (an idea Holmes referred to as \"the right of the donkey to drool\") but on a democratic need for full and open political debate. First Amendment law since their time has performed its balancing acts on precisely that social value--the very value Fiss now proposes we need to insert into First Amendment jurisprudence. We don't need to insert it, because it was there from the start. Why does Fiss portray the history of First Amendment jurisprudence in this perverted way? Because he wants to line up his own free-speech argument within the conventional academic view that our problems are mostly the consequences of an antiquated and discreditable ideology of liberal individualism, and that they can mostly be solved by adopting a social-constructionist, or communitarian, or \"intersubjective\" view of human nature instead. The merits of liberal individualism vs. communitarianism can await another occasion to be debated. For since the law governing the freedom of speech does not emerge out of libertarianism, the matter does not boil down to replacing an obsolete belief in \"self-expression\" with a more up-to-date belief in \"robust debate,\" as Fiss would like to think it does. What it boils down to is whether we need to replace the Hand-Holmes-Brandeis way of maximizing the benefits of free speech in a democratic society, which tries to push the state as far out of the picture as possible, with a different way, which tries to get the state farther into the picture. Here, assuming we want to try the interventionist approach, it is hard to see how a one-size theory can possibly fit all cases. The issues underlying pornography, hate speech, arts grants, campaign finance, and equal-time provisions are all different. The ideological impetus behind judicial developments in the last two areas, campaign finance and equal-time provisions, is related less to speech, except as a kind of constitutional cover, than to a revival of the old \"right to property\"--that is, the Supreme Court tends to disapprove of legislative and administrative efforts to require broadcasters to carry \"opposing viewpoints\" on the grounds that since it's their property, owners of television stations should be able to broadcast what they like. Fiss believes that the need for equal-time laws is as urgent today as it was in the 1970s, which is peculiar in light of the proliferation of media outlets. But the state does arguably have an interest, compatible with the First Amendment, in stipulating the way those media are used, and Fiss' discussion of those issues is the least aggravating in his book. Still, that discussion, like his discussions of the other issues, rests on a claim long associated with the left--the claim, in a phrase, that the minority is really the majority. In the case of speech, Fiss appears to believe that the reason the American public is less enlightened than he would wish it to be concerning matters such as feminism, the rights of homosexuals, and regulation of industry is that people are denied access to the opinions and information that would enlighten them. The public is denied this access because the state, in thrall to the ideology of individualism, refuses either to interfere with speech bullies--such as pornographers--who \"silence\" women, or to subsidize the speech of the unorthodox, such as Robert Mapplethorpe. he wants the criteria to be political. He thinks the NEA should subsidize art that will enhance the \"robustness\" of the debate and should therefore prefer unorthodox art--though only, of course, if it represents a viewpoint the endowment considers, by virtue of social need and a prior history of exclusion, worthy of its megaphone. (No Nazi art, in other words.) Awarding funding to the work of a gay artist because gay Americans need more political clout is an effort at cultural engineering, and the problem with cultural engineering is the problem with social engineering raised to a higher power. We have a hard enough time calculating the effects of the redistribution of wealth in our society. How can we possibly calculate the effects of redistributing the right to speak--of taking it away from people Professor Fiss feels have spoken long enough and mandating it for people he feels have not been adequately heard? One thing that is plain from the brief unhappy history of campus speech codes is that you automatically raise the value of the speech you punish and depress the value of the speech you sponsor. There are indeed many ironies here. Maybe someone will write a book about them.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one description of a putative right to individual self-expression?\n\n<options>:\nA The right to orthodox self-expression\nB The right to hate but not to be hated\nC The right to engage in debate unencumbered by speech laws\nD The right of the donkey to drool\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul! Like all superheroes worthy of the title, the Shopping Avenger has an Achilles' heel. In the case of the Shopping Avenger, his Achilles' heel is not animal, vegetable, or mineral but something less tangible. An explanation: Last week, the magazine you are currently reading forced the Shopping Avenger at gunpoint to read a series of treacle-filled self-help books, and then to . The Shopping Avenger, who can withstand radiation, extreme heat and cold, hail, bear attacks, and Eyes Wide Shut , almost succumbed to terminal jejuneness after reading these books. Except for one thing: One of the books, The Art of Happiness , which collects and simplifies the Dalai Lama's philosophy, got the Shopping Avenger to thinking. This, in a way, is the Shopping Avenger's Achilles' heel: thinking. Perhaps it is wrong, the Shopping Avenger thought, to complain about the petty insults and inconveniences of life in the materialistic '90s. The Shopping Avenger felt that perhaps he should counsel those who write seeking help to meditate, to accept bad service the way one accepts the change of seasons, and to extend a compassionate hand of forgiveness to those who provide poor customer care. But then the Shopping Avenger sat down, and the feeling passed. The Shopping Avenger does not make light of the Dalai Lama or of the notion that there is more to life than the impatient acquisition of material goods. If the Shopping Avenger were not, for a superhero, extremely nonjudgmental--as opposed to his alter ego, who is considered insufferably judgmental by his alter ego's wife--the Shopping Avenger would tell the occasional correspondent to let go of his petty grievance and get a life. But the Shopping Avenger also believes that the Dalai Lama has never tried to rent a truck from U-Haul. If he had tried to rent from U-Haul, he never would have escaped from Tibet. (For the complete back story, see \"Shopping Avenger\" column and one.) The complaints about U-Haul's nonreservation reservation policy continue to pour in through the electronic mail. One correspondent, B.R., wrote in with this cautionary tale: \"Last weekend, I went to San Francisco to help my brother and his family move into their first house. My brother had reserved a moving truck with U-Haul for the big day. I warned my brother about U-Haul's 'not really a reservation per se' policy that I learned from the Shopping Avenger. He didn't believe such a thing would happen to him, so he didn't act on my warning.\" B.R. continues--as if you don't know what happened already--\"I went to U-Haul with my brother to get our 'reserved' truck. The store had many customers standing around looking frustrated. When we got to the front of the line, the clerk informed us that our 'reserved' truck had not yet been returned. We asked if we could rent one of the many trucks sitting idle in the parking lot. The clerk laughed and said the keys to those trucks were lost.\" B.R. and his chastened brother--the Shopping Avenger is resisting the urge to gloat--went to Ryder. \"Ryder had a truck available for us. The gentleman who helped us at Ryder said Ryder prides itself on being everything U-Haul is not.\" The Shopping Avenger has still not received a call from U-Haul spokeswoman Johna Burke explaining why U-Haul refuses to provide trucks to people who reserve trucks, but the Shopping Avenger is pleased to note that several correspondents have written in over the past month saying that, based on what they have read in this column, they will be taking their business to Ryder or Budget or elsewhere. The Shopping Avenger will undoubtedly return to the sorry state of affairs at U-Haul in the next episode, but now on to this month's airline debacle. Before we begin, though, the Shopping Avenger nearly forgot to announce the winner of last month's contest, in which readers were asked to answer the question, \"What's the difference between pests and airlines?\" This month's airline in the spotlight is Southwest. Loyal readers will recall that last month the Shopping Avenger praised Southwest Airlines for its \"sterling\" customer service. This brought forth a small number of articulate dissensions. The most articulate, and the most troubling, came from M., who wrote, \"Last year, flying from Baltimore to Chicago with my entire family (two really little kids included), we set down at Midway in a rainstorm. And waited for our bags. And waited for bags. And waited for bags.\" An hour later, M. says, the bags showed up, \"soaked through. We took them to baggage services at SW and were faced with the most complicated, unclear, and confusing mechanism for filing a claim we experienced flyers have ever seen.\" When they arrived at their destination, M. and her family made a terrible discovery, \"We discovered that our clothes were soaked through--the top clothes were so wet that the dye had bled through down to the lower levels, destroying lots of other clothes. Obviously, our bags had just been sitting out on the runway in the rain. To this day, I've never heard a thing from SW, despite calls and letters.\" This, of course, is where Shopping Avenger steps in. Shopping Avenger knows that Southwest is different from the average airline, in that it doesn't go out of its way to infuriate its paying customers (see: ), so I expected a quick and generous resolution to M.'s problem. What I got at first, though, was a load of corporate hoo-ha. Stay tuned, shoppers, to hear whether Southwest makes good it promise to compensate M. and apologize to her for her troubles. The story of M. reminds the Shopping Avenger of a central truth of consumer service: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Take the case of K., who found himself waiting in vain for Circuit City to repair his television. Televisions break, even 1-year-old televisions, as is the case with K's. But Circuit City, where he bought the television, gave him a terrible runaround. The Shopping Avenger dispatched his sidekick, Tad the Deputy Avenger, to get to the bottom of K.'s story. This is what he found: K. grew concerned, Tad the Deputy Avenger reports, after his television had been in the Circuit City shop for a week. When he called, he was told to \"check back next week.\" When he asked if someone from the store could call him with more information, he was refused. Weeks went by. When K. told one Circuit City employee that he really would like to get his television back, the employee, K. says, asked him, \"Don't you have another television in your house?\" More than a month later--after hours and hours and hours of telephone calls and days missed at work--K. received his television back. Mistakes happen, but not, Tad the Deputy Avenger found out, at Circuit City. The case, K. was told by a Circuit City official, was \"handled perfectly.\" Another official, Morgan Stewart in public relations, assured Deputy Avenger Tad that \"We got to be a big and successful company by treating customers better than the other guy.\" The Shopping Avenger and his loyal sidekick would like to hear from other Circuit City customers: Does Circuit City, in fact, treat its customers better than the other guy? Stay tuned for answers. And next month, a Shopping Avenger clergy special: TWA screws with a Hasidic rabbi's travel plans, leaving the rabbi's wife crying at the airport. Find out if the Shopping Avenger can save TWA from certain heavenly punishment, in the next episode. Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.\n\n<question>:\nWhy is U-Haul mentioned at all?\n\n<options>:\nA To make a joke.\nB To advocate for Budget.\nC To critique their service.\nD To exemplify the Shopping Avenger's greatness.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"Well, I mean, it's not only about Wanda,\" said Harry. \"You see, my wife, Jane, that is....\" \"Yes?\" said the priest. He took his pen out of the holder. she might look with favor on you in the Changing of the Wives, if I \"Ah....\" \"She's a very pretty woman.\" \"Ah.... Quite so.\" \"Well, about Wanda. I really shouldn't mention this. But Father, if we are short one woman....\" \"Hummmm.\" He stood up. \"I may tell you, my son, that, in thinking this matter over last night, I decided that Wanda—ah—Miller, yes, has had sufficient duty to merit participation in the Festival.\" \"Justice is a priestly virtue,\" Harry said. \"And you really think your wife would...?\" tell us it's gonna be another postponement.\" \"Well, ahem. But....\" \"That is to say, in order for a woman to join in the ritual of the Changing of the Wives, she must, ahem, be married.\" \"I never thought of that,\" said the third mate disconsolately. \"I think that can be arranged, however,\" said Nestir. \"If you go by the discussion at his pleasure.\" IV \"Sit down, Captain,\" said Nestir, when the captain entered. \"No. Over there, in the comfortable chair. There. Are you comfortable, Captain?\" \"Of course I am.\" \"Good. I have a question to ask you, Captain.\" true.\" \"Well, then, say the first day of Wenslaus, that would be—ah, a Zentahday—I may depend upon you to wed Wanda Miller, the bosun's daughter, yes?\" \"No,\" said the captain. Nestir cleared his throat. \"It was about the Casting Off. That's why That morning was to be the time of the captain's wedding. He had make the slightest change in his everyday uniform nor would he consent the Casting Off at home, among friends.'\" But she heard him. \"Husband,\" Wanda said simply. She closed the door behind her and stood staring at him. \"Come in,\" he whispered, hoping she would not hear him and go away. by that indecent appelation a second time.\" \"Gee. You say the cutest things. I'm awful glad you had to marry me, that I know what a Festival should be, and the captain and I will do everything in our power to make our Casting Off as wonderful as any anywhere. \"Huh?\" himself. Nestir bobbed his shiny head at them and beamed his cherubic smile. And noticed that there was a little blonde, one of the crewmen's wives, in Fod. As the Soong family was traveling....\" \"I don't like 'em anyway,\" said Wanda. \"Madam,\" said the captain, \"kindly bring me that.\" \"This?\" \"But it wasn't at all bloody,\" the wife of the second mate said. \"I the issue of concomitant agonies is to confuse the whole matter. For \"Yes,\" said the second mate's wife. \"I remember that. I read about it Casting Off date. After all, it's not only a question of but also a question of leaving only after having done our duty. And following the captain's outburst. \"You don't need to worry about your Casting Off, Captain. You can leave that to me. I assure you, I have in mind a most ingenious method.\" The captain was not visibly cheered he was still brooding about the sad absence of a sense of duty on the part of Nestir. \"I will welcome \"Oh, very,\" said the steward. \"I don't know,\" the second mate's wife said, \"whether you better count on my husband or not. I have my own plans for him.\" \"As I see it,\" Nestir said, \"if the intent was the natural maternal instinct of the mother to release her child from its duty, then....\" \"Oh, not at all,\" the third mate's wife said. \"I did it to make him \"I certainly hope so,\" the third mate said. \"Jane worries about it all the time.\" \"I do not,\" Jane contradicted. At that moment, he lost interest in his wife and leaned across the out of the mess hall. \"Quite touchy today,\" Nestir observed. \"By the way,\" the third mate said. \"Wanda gave me a petition to give to you, Father.\" \"Wanda?\" \"Yes. She's sixteen, now.\" \"Wanda who?\" the steward asked. \"Wanda Miller, the bosun's daughter.\" \"I know her,\" Helen said. \"She's the oldest child on the ship, and she wants you to sign her \"After all, one must have done some duty,\" the captain said. \"He wants you to sign it so he can take her in the Changing of the Wives,\" Jane said. had brought a wife,\" the first mate's wife said, looking squarely at the captain. because you have to stay with your husband.\" \"Why don't you and him share a woman—\" \"Although the Prophet knows what woman in her right mind would consent it, someone will have to do without a woman.\" \"I suppose the crew is celebrating?\" his wife said. \"Probably.\" \"She's a lot of fun.\" He brushed at his hair again. \"Who do you want, Jane?\" \"Would you really, Harry? That would be sweet.\" \"Sure, honey.\" He looked down at his watch. \"Harry? Are you going to meet Wanda in the control room?\" \"Uh-huh.\" \"I thought so. Well, remember this, dear: It isn't the day of the Changing of the Wives yet. Don't forget.\" \"Honey! You don't think for a minute that....\" \"Don't mind, do you?\" \"Oh?\" The second mate blew another smoke ring. \"Well,\" Harry said. \"Uh. Harry? Are you really going to take that Wanda girl?\" \"If Nestir lets me.\" \"Say. Harry. Do you suppose your wife would...?\" Harry crossed to the second mate and put a hand on his shoulder. \"Look. How about telling me another time?\" \"Uh, Sure. If you say so. Uh?\" \"I'm kind of expecting Wanda.\" \"Oh. Sure. I should have known you weren't here early for nothing. In that case, I better be shoving off. Luck.\" acceleration again. Having done that, he switched on the space viewer. The steady buzz of the equipment warming sounded in his ears. Wanda would be sure to want to look at the stars. She was simple minded. \"Hello.\" He swiveled around. \"Oh, hello, Wanda, honey.\" \"Hello, Haireee. Are you glad little ol' me could come, huh?\" \"Sure am.\" \"Me, too. Can I look at the—oh. It's already on.\" \"Uh-huh. Look. Wanda.\" \"Hum?\" \"I talked to Nestir today.\" Festival, can I?\" \"I don't know, yet. He's thinking about it. That's why I want to see you. He's going to check your record. And Wanda?\" \"Them stars shore are purty.\" \"Wanda, listen to me.\" \"I'm a-listenin', Haireee.\" \"You're simply going to have to stop carrying that doll around with you conference. \"No, Captain. I'm afraid I can't agree to that,\" Nestir said. is a ship, y'know. And I am, after all, the captain.\" Nestir shook his head. \"The crew and the officers will participate \"Thank you, Father. Good morning, Captain, sir.\" \"Sit down, my son. Now, Captain, as I was saying: no segregation. It's contrary to the spirit, if not the wording, of the Jarcon a departure from normal procedure is warranted. It is not without \"I'll call you when I'm through,\" said Harry. The captain left the room. \"It's about Wanda, Father,\" said the third mate. The priest studied the table top. He rearranged some papers. \"Ah, yes. The young girl.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat will happen during the Changing of Wives?\n\n<options>:\nA Jane will be paired with Nestir.\nB All participants will be in an arena.\nC Crewman and officers will not mingle.\nD Wanda will be paired with the Captain.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,356 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTemplin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration disapproval. He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, hard-working. How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had received something less than a thorough survey. natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little flower-covered plot where they had buried him. Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles, with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't keep open much longer. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had killed himself. The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his mind. Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish data and reports. A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. \"Yes?\" \"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more information?\" suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six I must be getting old , he thought, thinking about the warmth and Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him and Templin. Templin studied them warily. \"Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be dangerous.\" It's because you never suspect kids , Eckert thought, you never think \"The incorruptible native.\" Templin laughed sarcastically. Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need \"They're probably just well brought-up kids,\" Eckert said sharply. \"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the mud on the way home from school.\" He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was \"Ted.\" Templin's voice was strained. \"This could be a trap, you know.\" \"In what way?\" The words came out slowly. \"The people are too casual, as though times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end.\" He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every corner. wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass, and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's. for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too. \"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities. Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical knowledge \"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this.\" Templin threw a shiny \"The important thing,\" Eckert mused, \"is not if they have them, but if they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything. \"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?\" Templin nodded. \"Sure.\" \"Why?\" \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton nobody has volunteered believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any information about him is being withheld for a reason.\" \"What reason?\" Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\" \"They grow their women nice, don't they?\" \"Physically perfect, like the men,\" Templin grumbled. \"You could get an inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find out that we know it is?\" Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic, nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now. There will be hell to pay , Eckert thought, if Templin ever finds out that I sabotaged his power pack. \"You look thoughtful, menshar Eckert.\" Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a certain aura of authority. as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. the Tunpeshan version of the rites de passage . He glanced across the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the\n\n<question>:\nHow does Templin change in the story?\n\n<options>:\nA he begins to enjoy himself more\nB he becomes more careful in his actions\nC he begins to question the natives less\nD he grows more suspicious of the Tunpeshans\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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486 | quality | [
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBoth these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Now, Ross seems like a nice lady, and I certainly have nothing against adultery, which I hear is being carried on in the best circles these days. But the public flaunting of adultery--especially when spouses and children are around--well, it brings out the bourgeois in me. It also made me feel funny about William Shawn, whom I have always regarded as a great man. I loved his New Yorker . The prose it contained--the gray stuff around the cartoons--was balm for the soul: unfailingly clear, precise, logical, and quietly stylish. So what if the articles were occasionally boring? It was a sweet sort of boredom, serene and restorative, not at all like the kind induced by magazines today, which is more akin to nervous exhaustion. Besides, the moral tone of the magazine was almost wholly admirable--it was ahead of the pack on Hiroshima, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the environment--and this was very much Shawn's doing. I do not like to think of him in an illicit love nest, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole But it kept coming. And I, for one, was grateful. Here was a boy growing up in Punjab during the fall of the Raj and the Partition, a boy who had been blinded by meningitis at the age of 3, roller-skating through the back streets of Lahore as Sikhs slaughtered Hindus and Hindus slaughtered Muslims and civilization was collapsing and then, decades later, having made his way from India to an Arkansas school for the blind to Balliol College, Oxford, to The New Yorker , re-creating the whole thing in Proustian detail and better-than-Proustian prose ... ! Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was \"terminated\" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: \"He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end.\" Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. Mehta's writerly persona, a disarming mixture of the feline and the naive, is perfect for relating the little scandals that worried The New Yorker in the late '70s (plagiarism, frozen turbot), the drama of finding a worthy candidate to succeed the aging Shawn as editor, the purchase of the magazine by the evil Si Newhouse (\"We all took fright\") and the resultant plague of Gottliebs and Florios visited upon it, and what he sees as the final debacle: Tinaji. Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.\n\n<question>:\nWho was said to have inadvertently committed plagerism?\n\n<options>:\nA Poota\nB Perkupp\nC Shawn\nD Mehta\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNeither Greg Lloyd nor Michael Irvin was so stigmatized. \"It's live television,\" NBC Vice President Ed Markey said, rationalizing the outbursts. \"It's an emotional moment. These things happen.\" Irvin wasn't about to let that stand. \"I knew exactly what I was saying,\" he insisted later. \"Those of you who can't believe I said it--believe it.\" Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on. I am walking along a suburban street, trailing a class of pre-schoolers who are linked to each other by a rope. A pair of teen-agers passes us in the other direction. By the time they have reached the end of the line of children, they have tossed off a whole catalog of obscenities I did not even hear until I was well into adolescence, let alone use in casual conversation on a public street. But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges. What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it. And so I am reasonably sure that when my children have children, there will once again be words so awesome that they cannot be uttered without important consequences. This will not only represent a new stage of linguistic evolution, it will be a token of moral revival. What the dirty words will be, God only knows.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would the author say about the impact of swearing on our current society?\n\n<options>:\nA it is important for our culture to continue to grow accustomed to using swear words\nB our feeling about swearing now shows a more educated society\nC we have more rebels than we used to\nD it is unhealthy for our society to have powerless swear words\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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310 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nfever, talking cockatoos and flagpole trees, only a melon-shaped protuberance at the top to show they were a form of vegetation. Everything else was blanketed by the sand and the powerful Xartal, the Martian illustrator, said nothing. He was like that, taciturn, speaking only when spoken to. however, they have one redeeming feature—authenticity of background. It's no use to the people of Earth but of untold value on Mars. I'm not up on the scientific reasons, but it seems that life on the red planet has developed with a supersonic method of vocal communication. The Martian speaks as the Earthman does, but he amplifies his thoughts' transmission by way of wave lengths as high as three million vibrations per second. The trouble is that by the time the average Martian reaches middle age, his ability to produce those vibrations steadily decreases. \"There are two principal forms of life in the Baldric flagpole trees and a species of ornithoid resembling cockatoos. So far no one has on foot with only the barest necessities in the way of equipment and supplies. Silver in plumage, it resembled a parrot with a crest and yet it didn't. In some strange way the thing was a hideous caricature. \"Look what I found,\" I yelled. \"What I found,\" said the cockatoo in a very human voice. The cockatoo repeated my last statement again, then rose on its short legs, flapped its wings once and soared off into the sky. Xartal, the Martian illustrator, already had a notebook in his hands and was sketching a likeness of the creature. cockatoos and more flagpole trees. Above us, the great disc of Jupiter tell me what you see.\" dress. Behind her strode a grizzled Earth man in a flop-brimmed hat, another Earth man, and a Martian. Detail for detail they were a duplicate of ourselves! \"A mirage!\" said Ezra Karn. But it wasn't a mirage. As the party came closer, we could see that their lips were moving, and their voices became audible. I listened in awe. The duplicate of myself was talking to the duplicate of Grannie Annie, and she was replying in the most natural way. Steadily the four travelers approached. Then, when a dozen yards away, to be a high-flying cockatoo. As that dot continued to move across the he was tall and lean, with pleasant blue eyes which even his sand goggles could not conceal. adjustments moved planes or fins on the kite and accounted for the car's ability to move in any direction. \"If I weren't a realist, I'd say that Larynx Incorporated them. We tried following them, of course, but it was no go. As soon as they realize they're being followed, they stop. But the moment our eyes none of them will hold water. By the way, there's a cockatoo eyrie translucent gauzy material, it was. Fully two hundred cockatoos were perched upon it. They watched us with their mild eyes as we passed, but they didn't move. a swivel chair before a complicated instrument panel. \"C'mon in,\" he said, seeing us. \"If you want a look at your friends, here they are.\" He flicked a stud, and the entire wall above the panel underwent a slow change of colors. Those colors whirled kaleidescopically, then coalesced into a three-dimensional scene. It was a scene of a rapidly unfolding desert country as seen from the were Jimmy Baker, Grannie, and Xartal. It was as if I were standing directly behind them. \"It's Mr. Baker's own invention,\" the operator said. \"An improvement on the visiphone.\" \"Do you mean to say you can follow the movements of that car and its passengers wherever it goes? Can you hear them talk too?\" \"Sure.\" The operator turned another dial, and Grannie's falsetto voice The cloud of anxiety which had wrapped itself about me disappeared somewhat as I viewed this device. At least I could now keep myself posted of Grannie's movements. of flagpole trees, with the sky dotted by high-flying cockatoos. top of them was stretched a translucent web. Jimmy and Grannie got out of the car and began making camp. Xartal remained in his seat. He was drawing pictures on large pieces of pasteboard, and as I stood there in the visiscreen room, I watched him. There was no doubt about it, the Martian was clever. He would make a few rapid lines on one of the pasteboards, rub it a little to get the proper shading and then go on to the next. In swift rotation likenesses of Ezra Karn, of myself, of Jimmy Baker, and of Antlers Park took form. Ezra spoke over my shoulder. \"He's doing scenes for Grannie's new A silver cockatoo had alighted on the kite car and was surveying And then abruptly it happened. The cockatoos took off in mass flight. A group of Earth people suddenly materialized on the eyrie, talking and moving about as if it were the most natural thing in the world. With a shock I saw the likeness of myself I saw Ezra Karn and I saw the image of Jimmy Baker. The real Jimmy Baker stood next to Grannie, staring up at this incredible mirage. Grannie let out a whoop. \"I've got it!\" she said. \"Those things we see up there are nothing more than mental images. They're Xartal's drawings!\" \"Don't you see,\" the lady continued. \"Everything that Xartal put on paper has been seen by one or more of these cockatoos. The cockatoos are like Earth parrots all right, but not only have they the power of copying speech, they also have the ability to recreate a mental image of what they have seen. In other words their brains form a powerful photographic impression of the object. That impression is then transmitted simultaneously in telepathic wavelengths to common foci. That eyrie might be likened to a cinema screen, receiving brain vibrations from a hundred different sources that blend into the light field to form what are apparently three-dimensional images.\" The Larynx manager nodded slowly. \"I see,\" he said. \"But why don't the birds reconstruct images from the actual person. Why use drawings?\" \"Probably because the drawings are exaggerated in certain details and made a greater impression on their brains,\" Grannie replied. Up on the eyrie a strange performance was taking place. The duplicate of Grannie Annie was bowing to the duplicate of Jimmy Baker, and the image of Ezra Karn was playing leap frog with the image of Antlers Park. Then abruptly the screen before me blurred and went blank. \"Sorry,\" the operator said. \"I've used too much power already. Have to of those damned cockatoo images. with an exclamation of astonishment. There was a huge chair-shaped rock there, and seated upon it was \"I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of trouble.\" She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve. \"Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you.\" gorge, it was, with the black sheer cliffs on either side pressing close. Ten feet forward, I stopped short, staring in amazement. Advancing toward me like a column of infantry came a long line of bluish radiance spewed from its open end. Playing it back and forth upon the marching men were Jimmy Baker and Xartal, the Martian. Interstellar Voice . Antlers Park didn't want that. It was he or his agents who placed those lens buttons in the Larynx barracks. capable when its rays were concentrated of causing a fatal sickness. Then suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is so unique about the cockatoos on this planet?\n\n<options>:\nA They are able to copy speech.\nB They live in abundance in the Baldric, despite it being a dangerous area.\nC They are identical to Earth parrots, despite being on a different planet.\nD They are able to physically mimic any picture.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
355 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey were still separated, two on one side of the airlock, two on the other. \"I can see it,\" he said. \"It's getting redder. It's ... it's ... melting, yes. Melting down at the bottom a little. Now it's falling over to one side and laying on the air tank. The air tank is getting red, too. I'm afraid ... it's weakening it.... Redder. Oh, oh.\" General Finogenov notified Major Winship that the underground blast was bright flare from inside the dome, and a great, silent tongue of flame table was sent tumbling. The flame was gone almost instantly. \"There went the air,\" Capt. Lawler commented. Progress. When—boom?\" \"Boom! Boom!\" said Major Winship in exasperation. \"Boom!\" said Pinov happily. \"Boom—boom!\" said Pinov. Americans. \"How are we going to know when it's over?\" shadows evaporated. One by one they clicked on their cooling systems. In the airless void of the moon, the blast itself would be silent. A \"Nope.\" probably over by now.\" \"No. I've got to cool off.\" \"The shot probably went off an hour ago.\" \"The static level hasn't gone up much, if at all.\" \"Maybe,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"it's buried too deep.\" \"Maybe so,\" Major Winship said. \"But we can't have the dome fall down around all our ears.\" He stood. \"Whew! You guys stay put.\" He crossed with the floating moon-motion to the airlock and entered, \"Charlie! Charlie!\" \"It's—\" \"I guess it's over,\" said Major Winship, getting to his feet. \"Wait a completely. It then abated to something in excess of normal. \"Well,\" Lt. Chandler commented, \"even though we didn't build this thing to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.\" \"I guess I was just—\" Major Winship began. \"Oh, hell! We're losing pressure. Where's the markers?\" \"Got 'em,\" Major Winship said a moment later. He peeled back a marker and let it fall. Air currents whisked it away and plastered it against a riveted seam of the dome. It pulsed as though it were breathing and then it ruptured. Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which had cut in automatically with the pressure drop. \"You guys wait. It's \"We've lost about three feet of calk out here,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"I can see more ripping loose. You're losing pressure fast at this rate.\" Major Winship pressed the sheeting over the leak. \"How's that?\" \"Not yet.\" \"I don't think I've got enough pressure left to hold it, now. It's sprung a little, and I can't get it to conform over the rivet heads.\" There was a splatter of static. \"Damn!\" Major Winship said, \"they should have made these things more flexible.\" to slide downward, then it fell away completely and lay limply on the floor. \"Major Winship! Hello! Hello, hello, hello. You A Okay?\" \"This is Major Winship.\" \"Oh! Excellent, very good. Any damage, Major?\" \"Little leak. You?\" \"Came through without damage.\" General Finogenov paused a moment. When no comment was forthcoming, he continued: \"Perhaps we built a bit more seismic data out of that shot.... Well, to hell with them, let's get this leak fixed. Skip, can you get the calking compound?\" \"Larry, where's the inventory?\" his helmet against the speaker and then shook his head sadly. \"We can't hear anything without any air.\" \"That's right, isn't it.\" \"Let's see. Squeeze the tube until the diaphragm at the nozzle ruptures. Extrude paste into seam. Allow to harden one hour before \"The only way you can check is to extrude it,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"and if it does extrude, you've ruined it.\" \"That's that,\" Major Winship said. \"There's nothing for it but to yell \"You got any concentrate? I'm empty.\" cursed twice during the operation. \"I'd hate to live in this thing for any period.\" Capt. Wilkins raised eyebrows. \"What brought this on?\" \"I was just thinking.... They really got it made, Larry. They've got better than three thousand square feet in the main dome and better than twelve hundred square feet in each of the two little ones. And there's \"Is everything all right?\" Capt. Wilkins's lips were desperately forming the word \"Leak?\" Air, Major Winship said silently. Leak? Bottle! Bottle! Bottle! It was a frog-like, unvocal expletive. \"... Freedom 19! Hello, Freedom 19! Come in!\" \"All right? Are you all right?\" Soviet Union fired an underground atomic device for the The turn was uncomfortably tight and complicated by the restraining cables. Capt. Wilkins began replacement of the air bottle. \"These protests have proved well founded,\" Major Winship continued. \"Immediately following the detonation, Freedom 19 was called on to withstand a moderately severe shifting of the Lunar surface. No personnel were injured and there was no equipment damage.\" being inserted. Another tap indicated it was seated. Major Winship flicked the appropriate chest button and nodded in appreciation. \"However,\" he continued, \"we did experience a minor leak in the dome, which is presently being repaired.\" \"The Soviet Union,\" came the reply, \"has reported the disturbance and has tendered their official apology. You want it?\" \"It can wait until later. Send it by mail for all I care. Vacuum has destroyed our organic air reconditioner. We have approximately three weeks of emergency air. However, Base Gagarin reports no damage, so that, in the event we exhaust our air, we will be able to obtain the necessary replacement.\" be able to deliver replacements in about ten days.\" \"I will forward a coded report on the occurrence,\" Major Winship said. \"Let us hear from you again in ... about three hours. Is the leak repaired?\" \"The leak has not yet been repaired. Over and out.\" He nodded to Capt. Wilkins and leaned back. Methodically, Capt. Wilkins set about disconnecting the major from the why they set that blast off. I tried to tell him. Hell. He looks at me It took the four of them to roll the drum inside, rocking it back and forth through the airlock. At that time, it was apparent the table was interposing itself. back the drum out.\" Eventually, they accomplished the moving. They wedged the drum between the main air-supply tank and the transmitter. They were all perspiring. \"It's the salt.\" \"No!\" Major Winship snapped. \"Watch it! Watch it! You almost hit me in the face plate with that!\" \"Now what, Skip? The instructions aren't in English.\" \"You're supposed to dump the bucket of stuff in. Then clean the area for about ten minutes or so. Then you apply it. It sets for service in \"I hope this doesn't set on exposure to air.\" \"No,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"It sets by some kind of chemical action. plastic.\" \"Let's come back to how we're going to clean around the leak,\" Major an epoxy! Let's get out of here.\" \"Out! Out!\" He and the Major reached the airlock at the same time and became in the space suits under the best of conditions, and now, with the necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them from behind, and they spewed forth from the dome in a tangle of arms and legs. like shrapnel.\" They obeyed.\n\n<question>:\nWhat happens after the blast?\n\n<options>:\nA The Russians are unconcerned, meaning their job went well.\nB The dome is severely damaged.\nC Static prevent the astronauts from contacting anybody anymore.\nD The dome is still standing but suffered a leak, making a new problem.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,557 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nNorris gave up thinking about it. Eventually he would have to adjust to love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a At noon, he brought back another dozen K-99s and installed them in his Norris smiled mechanically. \"I learned my lesson yesterday. If foot, and sure enough it wasn't. I had to leave it. It was a K-99, but \"I didn't know you killed them,\" she said venomously. \"I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals.\" \" If Delmont's falsification had been widespread, he might have to turn several of the thirty-five over to central lab for dissection and ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their Norris backed a few steps toward the door. Against his better judgment, Norris withered. His voice went desperate. \"They assigned me to it unclaimed units is the smallest part of it. Honey, before the evolvotron, before Anthropos went into the mutant-animal business, , which Norris recognized as the theme song of a people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way—I'm just a alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible, but Norris smiled sardonically to himself. The non-human pets were smarter O'Reilley ... authorized dealer in mutant animals ... all non-predatory thumbs. It was a cat-Q-5. It glanced curiously at the truck as Norris stopped and adjusted his spectacles. He blinked and peered as Norris \"I'm Agent Norris, Mr. O'Reilley. Called you yesterday for that rundown on K-99 sales.\" Norris shook his head. \"No. That's why I stopped by. There's some mistake on—\" he glanced at his list—\"on K-99-LJZ-351. Let's check it Norris grinned and drove on. A class-C couple, allowed no children couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid. His grin faded as he wondered which Anne would choose. The Norrises were class-C—defective heredity. to the counter while Norris followed. He got a fat binder from under \"Where you going?\" Norris called. animals whose serial numbers fall in the Bermuda-K-99 series for birth dates during July 2234. This is in connection with the Delmont Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run to hear. He shut the door behind him, and Norris heard the lock click. proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he \"unclaimed\" inventory—awaiting destruction. Anthropos, Inc. They should be able to give him a list of all July's Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight \"Inspector Norris? This is Doctor Georges. We haven't met, but I Norris hesitated. \"Extremely,\" he said. \"Well, this won't take long. One of my patients—a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes—called a while ago and said her baby was sick. I must be getting absent-minded, because I forgot she was class C until I got there.\" He hesitated. \"The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It's dying. Eighteenth order virus.\" \"So?\" \"Well, she's—uh—rather a \"I think so,\" Norris replied slowly. \"But what do you want me to do? \"She insists it's going to a hospital. Worst part is that she's heard of the disease. Knows it can be cured with the proper treatment—in humans. Of course, no hospital would play along with her fantasy and series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound Norris thought for a moment. \"I think I have \"Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind \"Don't let me catch you falsifying a serial number.\" Doctor Georges laughed faintly. \"I won't, Norris. Thanks a million.\" He Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal. house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July's Bermuda-K-99s had was to pick up the thirty-five animals. it's got me psyched. What do you want, Norris?\" \"Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo citizens with resisting a Federal official—namely me \"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection with the Delmont case.\" Norris gave him the names and addresses of the three unwilling mothers. for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that Norris kept the third locked lest his wife see its furnishings. Norris was wearing a slight frown as he inspected the room. \"They've egg-multiplier, mounting them in his machine, and bombarding the gene structure with sub-atomic particles. It's tricky business. He flashes a huge enlargement of the ovum on the electron microscope sub-atomic billiards. He's got to fire alpha-particles into the gene structure and displace certain links by just the right amount. And he's got to be quick about it before the ovum dies from an overdose of radiation from the enlarger. A good operator can get one success out of seven tries. \"Well, Delmont worked a week and spoiled over a hundred ova without a single success. They threatened to fire him. I guess he got hysterical. Anyway, he reported one success the next day. It was faked. The ovum had a couple of flaws—something wrong in the central nervous system's determinants, and in the glandular makeup. Not a standard neutroid ovum. He passed it on to the incubators to get a credit, knowing it wouldn't be caught until after birth.\" \"It wasn't caught at all?\" Anne asked. Norris held up the final kicking, squealing, tassel-haired doll from Norris watched disapprovingly while she fondled it. One thing he had what—\" \"I know what I'm saying. We're class-C on account of heart-trouble in both our families. Well, I don't care, Terry. I'm not going to waste a heart over one of these pathetic little artificial animals. We're going \"You know what they'd do to us?\" \"If they catch us, yes—compulsory divorce, sterilization. But they won't catch us. I'll have it at home, Terry. Not even a doctor. We'll hide it.\" \"I won't let you do such a thing.\" Norris climbed slowly down from the truck and wandered on into the Norris frowned with bewilderment as the scene shifted to a two-story Norris turned the set off and went to call the police. He told them Now he had enough cages for the Bermuda-K-99s. just to retch. Norris backed away. He went to the parlor and lay down on the couch. kennel-truck, meaning to get the rest of the Bermuda-K-99s so that he depart with morning. Why should he have to kill the things? The answer became glutted. The neutroids offered solace to childless women, kept them satisfied with a restricted birth rate. And why a restricted birth rate? Because by keeping the population at five billions, the\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Norris need to collect the Bermuda-K-99 series?\n\n<options>:\nA It is possible one or more of them may become dangerous.\nB They are female and not neuter.\nC They are defective. They can only say \"mamma\", \"pappa\", and \"cookie.\"\nD They have Eighteenth order virus.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
836 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDwindling Years He didn’t expect to be last—but neither did he anticipate automatic. Somehow, thinking had grown difficult in the mornings recently. enough to look them up. Plenty of time! serious, but quite definite—as well as other signs of aging. I’m afraid the treatment didn’t take fully. It might have been some unconscious block and it seemed to cut through some of the thickness in his head. “I guess I’m getting old, Amanda.” She smiled dutifully at the time-worn joke, but he knew she and then smiled. “So we’ll give you another treatment. Any reason you can’t begin immediately?” was waiting for him, but this was more important. It hadn’t been a joke about his growing old, after all. But now, in a few days, impossible. “Anything urgent on the Procyon shuttle?” he asked as she It was as if the almost forgotten specter of age stood beside him, counting the seconds. But at last first time. Then it had required months of mental training, followed by crude mechanical and drug hypnosis for other months. Somewhere in every human brain at Research. For eighty years now, they’d been sending out the little ships speed of light, equipped with the brain could be reached far below the conscious level and forced to the first hope they’d found that the century-long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles within minutes, even—but finding the mechanism in the brain might be ended and he should have been filled with excitement study and finding a means of bringing it under control had taken even longer. that worked those miracles had taken an incredible amount of Scientists there had puzzled over it, reset it and sent it back. The Now they did it with dozens of the body taking less than a week after the treatment! But with all the equipment, it Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary fatigue on the operator’s face told job. He stretched experimentally, with the eternal unconscious expectation that he would him it had been a long and difficult Earth was becoming a backwater It took days for the mind to work on all the cells and to passed the drastic birth limitation act and his mother had spoiled him. He’d even tried to to complete my study of all this. We’ll know by then whether you’ll need more treatment. Ten o’clock okay?” “But I’ll be all right?” chess collections in the world, but shuttles. And even if Exodus when he drew out his tools and he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put tried working on the delicate, wore thin in half a century—which wasn’t much time now, though it had once seemed long enough. Strange how the years seemed to get shorter as their number increased. There’d been a song once—something about the years trying to recall them. The outside line buzzed musically, flashing Research’s number. patience was still foreign to him. Then the frown vanished as He puzzled over it, finding no real reason. Certainly they weren’t begging for their secret in a couple of hundred years! While down to something thousand major discoveries they don’t bother reporting! Can’t the or other. Even that failed him, though. He’d developed one of the finest world no real progress had been made in two centuries the young tonight it held no interest. And their first fifty years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking. There was a measure of truth in it, unfortunately. “They’ll slow up when their populations fill,” Giles repeated his old answers. “We’re still ahead in medicine and we’ll get the other discoveries eventually, without interrupting the work of making the Earth fit for our longevity. We can wait. We’ll have to.” THE YOUNGER man stared at him with the strange puzzled Could they really dwindle down? Suppose he couldn’t rejuvenate all the way? He knew lately. “Damn it, haven’t you read reached Sirius in less than ten days. We can have the secret of this antigravity in less than a year! We—” early twenties. Would that reduce the slice of eternity that rejuvenation meant? And what my report? We know the super-light drive works! That missile the speaker. “Of course not! It Procyon shuttle heard its signal. centuries, if we can ever master it. Even with Sirius expecting the missiles and ready to cooperate. I mean the big ship. We’ve had it drafted for building long enough now we can finish it in three months. We know the drive works. We know it’s fast enough to reach Procyon in two weeks. We even know life can stand the trip. The could correct for errors on arrival. Maybe if we put in stronger signaling transmitters....” “Yeah. Maybe in two centuries long it had been. Nor why. “In the spring, a young man’s It hadn’t been that kind of spring for him—not this rejuvenation himself and partially succeeded, until he reached the doctor’s office. Then it was no longer necessary Or how about you? Do you really want to risk losing the rest of your life rather than waiting a couple more centuries until we know it’s safe? If you do, I’ll order the big ship.” now. The machines were quiet—and the doctor’s technical jargon. Now that he knew there was reason for his fear, it seemed to slowly. The belligerence ran out of him. He looked sick, for he had no against such a relatively short numbered, anyhow. “Forget it, Bill,” Giles advised. “It may take longer, but eventually we’ll find a way. With time enough, we’re bound to. And when we do, the ship will be ready.” The engineer nodded miserably to simplify it, no memory is perfect—even They had to plan and build loses a little each time. And the effect is cumulative. It’s like an asymptotic curve—the further it for it. They couldn’t risk that cellular memory. It goes, the steeper the curve. And—well, you’ve passed too far.” plan for short-term benefits. Usually supposed to tell you, of course. It’s going to be tough enough when they’re ready to let people you won’t be the last, if that’s any consolation. We’ve got a longer time scale than we used to have—but it’s in centuries, not in eons. For everybody, not just Cobb spread his hands unhappily. “Thirty years, maybe. But we can make them better. Geriatric knowledge is still on record. We can fix the heart and all the rest. You’ll be in good physical “And then....” Giles couldn’t pronounce the words. He’d grown old and he’d grow older. And eventually he’d die! An immortal man had suddenly found death hovering on his trail. The years had dwindled and all he could and had at least saved him the suspense of growing servants. Now he managed for thousands of years. Their Even his car would outlast him. He climbed into it, still partly numbed, and began driving mechanically, there was nothing to worry about Earth’s doctors could cure anything. and started to slow. Then he went on without stopping. He wanted no chance to have them be the quickest to get. Universe than now. And he could speed up the work in some ways voice on the study phone, too low for the words to be distinguishable. figuring ways to get me there.” She smiled back suddenly, without feigning it. “Then you’re all “As all right as I’ll ever be,” he told her. “They tell me I’m just growing old.” This time her laugh was heartier. now—they preferred to see their patients in the laboratories that He caught himself before he housed their offices. If this kept even with modern safety measures ties melted away too fast for interstellar picked up in some three hundred years of practice. Giles felt better, realizing it wouldn’t be one of the younger men. itself. “The years dwindle down needles and the machinery behind the doctor began working on it. complicated little gadgets that\n\n<question>:\nHow is it this society can manage such slow communications?\n\n<options>:\nA People live long enough now where they’ve adapted to the delay.\nB Everything eventually gets to where it’s going, so they make do.\nC They work around it. They have the time to wait.\nD Science is progressing slowly as well, so they can’t rush it anyway.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,919 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nUnfortunately , there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future ... and though he didn't want to ... nevertheless he did.... her. He sat down at his desk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the aspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said, almost as though reciting, \"What I rolled in. When it rolled out again, I found myself closing one eye the to use for money?\" \"Providence,\" Simon told her whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle, \"will provide.\" \"Hm-m-m. But before providing Simon said, mournful of tone, \"Money,\" Simon said. \"When you Simon said, enigmatically, \"Now Simon said unenthusiastically, Phased all the way down.\" \"You haven't got a handful of aspirin, have you?\" I asked him. \"Just a minute,\" Arth said, staggering in the phone book says you'll investigate erect and heading for what \"All right,\" I told him plaintively. \"I'm clean. I won't mess up the place. All I've got is a hangover, not lice.\" Arth was gone. He came back in two or three minutes, box of pills in hand. \"Here, take one of these.\" I took the pill, followed it with a glass of water. And went out like a light. Simon continued to say nothing she ventured, \"Time travel is impossible.\" for one thing, paradox. Suppose you had a time machine and traveled back a hundred years or so and killed your own great-grandfather. Then how Simon said, \"Let's get to the point, what you wanted to see me about.\" \"I want to hire you to hunt me up some time travelers,\" the old boy said. Betty was too far in now to maintain her proper role of silent secretary. \"Time travelers,\" she said, not very intelligently. The potential client sat more erect, with their king-size mugs and drank each other's health. My head was killing me. \"This is and then remembered. \"I've \"Then you'll realize that there are a dozen explanations of the paradoxes of time travel. Every writer in the field worth his salt has explained got to get my bag. Oh, my head. Where did we spend last night?\" them away. But to get on. It's my of immortality and eternal youth, and it's also my suspicion that he will eventually be able to travel in time. So convinced am I of these possibilities that I am willing to gamble a travelers.\" Simon seemed incapable of carrying the ball this morning, so Betty said, \"But ... Mr. Oyster, if the future has developed time travel why fact that they'd somehow managed Simon put in a word. \"The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can't afford to allow the space-time continuum to lose my bag didn't help. I worked time traveler returned to a period of twenty-five years ago and shot Hitler, then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, the time traveler himself might never be born. They have to tread mighty carefully.\" track to be altered. If, say, a especially accompanied by a on the subject, young man.\" Simon shrugged and fumbled again with the aspirin bottle. Mr. Oyster went on. \"I've been considering the matter for some time Simon held up a hand. \"There's a gallon or more of Marzenbräu. I decided the hell with it. I took should drink realize that thus far nobody has succeeded in taking it with him.\" don't we ever meet such travelers?\" their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then a cab to the airport, presented my return Simon said, \"You want to hire me to find a time traveler and in some manner or other—any manner will do—exhort from him the secret of head shrinker preparatory to being You're willing to pony up a part of this fortune of yours, if I can deliver a bona fide time traveler.\" \"Right!\" on that project for at least a couple If I'd only been able to get a room I \"But where are you going to find would have stayed, I told myself. to wear off—a little—I was almost he had been occupying four—or was it five—days before when I'd left. I'd lost track of the time. Betty and Simon waited. pathetic remains of the thousand. you came for? Impatient to hear if such a bang-up time they've been holding it every year since. The of ice cream in my stomach. I walked over to my desk and looked down at the calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying something it would have to be tomorrow, that he hadn't ponied up that thousand dollars advance for anything less than immediate service. Stuffing his receipt in his wallet, he fussed his way out the door. to the effect that if I didn't leave today, blockbusting hangover. in.\" She added, irrelevantly, \"Time travelers yet.\" \"Well,\" the old boy pursued, into I tried just once more. \"Uh, when Oktoberfest . For one thing, a time traveler wouldn't be conspicuous. At a festival like this ordinary in any of a dozen other ways, wouldn't be noticed. You could be a four-armed space traveler from Mars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuous in my pocket for my wallet, counted the contents and winced at the . People would figure they had D.T.'s.\" \"But why would a time traveler sent off to a pressure cooker, I fished at the want to go to a—\" Betty began. \"Why not! What better opportunity Simon's story), \"did you how long ago did I go out that door—on the way to the airport?\" \"You've been acting sick all morning. Simon shrugged, put one hand to as he left. Simon winced at the noise, took the aspirin bottle from its drawer, took two, washed them down with water from the desk carafe. Simon was shaking his head. \"Not one way of taking care of a crackpot. take his money and enjoy that vacation you've been yearning about.\" \"I did,\" Simon groaned. \"Three times.\" But I'm surprised you didn't Simon nodded, miserably. Simon \"Sorry,\" Simon said. \"Can't be done.\" \"A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,\" time traveler, there might have been—\" \"I keep telling you,\" Simon said dollars bonus. If that story was times. There were hundreds of them. Probably thousands.\" He took a deep breath. \"Listen, we're just going to have to forget about it. They're not going to stand for the space-time in his voice. \"A fifty thousand dollar bonus if you bring me a time traveler.\" \"Out of the question,\" Simon said. you—all over again. They just can't allow anything to come back from the future and change the \"Just for laughs,\" Simon told the continuum track being altered. If The future! Just think!\" Simon said wearily, \"There's just one thing you can bring back with you from the future, a hangover compounded of a gallon or so of Marzenbräu. What's more you can pile Oyster (Simon began) in the way I hustled back to the apartment and packed a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacation anyway, this was a natural. On hangover on the three I'm already nursing, all at once, you can think again.\" I spent the time planning the fun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a half Mr. Oyster. I was going to have to give him some kind of report for his money. Time travel yet! What a laugh! Between Shannon and Munich a A desperate waitress bearing six mugs of beer in each hand scurried past. They call them masses masses over \"Why?\" true, you should have gone back \"Why?\" from his pocket and a pencil, noted down the word and returned the things. bitterly, \"I went back there three Name is Simon.\" \"I'm still fresh—comparatively. I'll navigate you around. There are seven beer tents. How many have you to her for refills.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Simon look for a bottle of aspirin in the beginning of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA He has a migraine\nB He is concerned someone has tampered with it\nC He has a hangover\nD He keeps time traveling pills inside\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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903 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nUnmade Beds , Nicholas Barker's \" 'real life' feature film,\" has proudly worn its mongrel status as a \"directed\" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast, excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside. This is not cinema vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates, followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film \"an exercise in mendacity,\" Barker goes on, \"I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate larger dramatic truths.\" Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and commentary (\"I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really don't want to have anything to do with it\"--a New York publicist), it threatens to become a cause célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of \"difficult\" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing. Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the Puritan kind Those truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however, Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males. Michael turns out to be the film's most sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy 54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are \"mutts.\" Sounding like one of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco , Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a pathetic little loser--a mutt. Barker might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection. The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and elaborately lighted) and reminding them, \"In this scene she points out that you should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action.\" Call me square, but I find this antithetical to the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for $10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial, following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was \"true to her character.\" But what separates documentary from fiction is that real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than the one they set out to portray. So what are Barker's \"larger dramatic truths\"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and, in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably, that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and then, hey, he's a documentarian. Unmade Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you. Anything to keep from turning into one of those people. The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue. Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them to be educated in the best schools. (\"Furniture's temporary\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the author's strongest critique of Barker's directorial style?\n\n<options>:\nA The drafted nature of Barker's characters' speech is inconsistent with his claims of the film being categorized as a documentary\nB The film does not include enough monologues from each of the four characters to be considered a documentary, and instead relies predominantly on voice-over narration\nC Barker attempts to capitalize on western society's simultaneous intrigue and revulsion with vile characters who live at the margins\nD Barker's juxtaposition of the sympathetic with the distasteful does not match up with the actual lived realities of the four main characters featured in the film\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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449 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTHE BIG HEADACHE What's the principal cause of headaches? Why, having a head, of course! Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that \"He outweighs you by fifty pounds and you needn't look to me After a time there came a dull click and a sleepy answer. forehead. \"I've been worrying so much about this I've got the ancestor of all headaches.\" \"You've found yourself worrying—thinking—about a lot of other problems since we left you, haven't you? Maybe not the same kind of \"You're right. Besides who cares if you or I are cured of headaches? scientific problem. But more personal ones, ones you didn't used to Our reputations don't go outside our own fields,\" Mitchell said. \"But \"Now, you know it's so. But how would you like to get rid of those ethical with even a discovery partly mine.\" \"That's what I meant to say. But I'm not sure it would be completely the Advanced Studies Department of Firestone University—had been involved in devising a faster-than-light drive to help the Army reach Pluto and eventually the nearer stars. Mitchell had overheard two coeds talking and so knew Despite his impressive body, some years before he had suffered a mild stroke ... or at least a vascular spasm of a cerebral artery. It was known that he suffered from the vilest variety of migraine. A cycle of the headaches had caused him to be absent from his classes for several explanation simple. Biology isn't my field, you know.\" \"Doctor, we understand you have severe headaches,\" Mitchell said. Macklin nodded. \"That's right, Steven. Migraine.\" lavish salary can't be much consolation when that ripping, tearing agony begins, can it?\" to do with my headaches?\" \"Doctor,\" Mitchell said, \"what would you say the most common complaint \"I would have said the common cold,\" Macklin replied, \"but I suppose from what you have said you mean headaches.\" \"Headaches,\" Mitchell agreed. \"Everybody has them at some time in his life. Some people have them every day. Some are driven to suicide by their headaches.\" could be cured of headaches by one simple injection.\" \"I don't suppose the manufacturers of aspirin would like you. But it \"Aspirins would still be used to reduce fever and relieve muscular pains,\" Mitchell said. \"I see. Are you two saying you have such a shot? Can you cure headaches?\" a number of different causes for headaches—nervous strain, fatigue, physical diseases from kidney complaints to tumors, over-indulgence—but there is one effect cause of headaches,\" Mitchell announced. produces headaches is?\" said eagerly. \"That is, the constriction of blood vessels in the telencephalon section of the frontal lobes. It's caused by an over-production of the pituitary gland. We have artificially bred a virus that feeds on pituitrin.\" \"That may mean the end of headaches, but I would think it would mean A colony of virus in the brain cells will relax the cerebral vessels—and only the cerebral vessels—so that the cerebrospinal fluid doesn't create pressure in the cavities of the brain.\" works, I could stop using that damned gynergen, couldn't I? The stuff makes me violently sick to my stomach. But it's better than the migraine. How should I go about removing my curse?\" He reinserted the pipe. \"I assure you, you can forget ergotamine tartrate,\" Ferris said. \"Our yellow . \"Doctor,\" Mitchell said quickly, \"I know it's a tremendous favor to We can cure the headaches of one person and that's the limit of our ' no would like to take you up on it. When I start making slips like that it means another attack of migraine. The drilling, grinding pain through my temples and around my eyeballs. The flashes of light, the rioting pools of color playing on the back of my lids. Ugh.\" Ferris smiled. \"Gynergen makes you sick, does it, doctor? Produces nausea, eh? The pain of that turns you almost wrong side out, doesn't it? You aren't much better off with it than without, are you? I've heard some say they preferred the migraine.\" \"Low blood pressure,\" Ferris said. All our test animals survived and seem perfectly happy and contented. As I said, the virus is self-stabilizing. Ferris and I are confident that there is no danger.... But we may be wrong.\" me Mitchell or I cured ourselves of headaches—they might not even believe of your reputation. Besides, neither of us has a record of chronic migraine. You do.\" \"Yes, I do,\" Macklin said. \"Very well. Go ahead. Give me your injection.\" \"Yes, we wanted to show our proof to the trustees—but not broadcast unverified results to the press. It's too early for that!\" \"Don't be so stuffy and conservative, Mitchell! Macklin's cured, isn't he? By established periodic cycle he should be suffering hell right now, shouldn't he? But thanks to our treatment he is perfectly happy, with no unfortunate side effects such as gynergen produces.\" \"It's a significant test case, yes. But not enough to go to the will hand down a ukase demanding our virus, just as they demanded the Salk vaccine and the Grennell serum.\" \"But—\" heroin.\" \"That's absurd. What makes you think a thing like that?\" husband for a full day. The effects of a narcotic would have worn off \"Most known narcotics,\" she admitted, \"but evidently you have knuckles. Jerry, their control in the experiment, who was practically Dean's twin except that he had received no injection of the E-M Virus, worrying the lock on the cage. energy to burn up. Nothing wrong with his thyroid either.\" \"I don't know. Maybe they just have tired blood,\" Mitchell ventured. \"Iron deficiency anemia?\" aqua-tinted aluminum. Under Mitchell's thumb the bell chimbed dum-de-de-dum-dum-dum injection,\" he said. a heavy eyebrow. \"No? Are you medical doctors? Are you authorized to treat illnesses?\" method of treatment. What concern is it of yours?\" your clinical intelligence quotient is that of a moron.\" \"We merely cured him of his headaches,\" Mitchell said. \"How?\" some kind of a disease to rot his brain?\" \"No, no! Could I talk to the other man, the doctor? Maybe I can make the cerebrum. It isn't more than necessary to stop headaches. But that necessary amount of control to stop pain is too much to allow the brain cells to function properly.\" \"Why won't they function?\" Carson roared. \"They don't get enough food—blood, oxygen, hemoglobin,\" Ferris explained. \"The cerebral vessels don't contract enough to pump the \"I'll see you hung for treason! Don't you know what Elliot Macklin means to us? Do you want those filthy Luxemburgians to reach Pluto before we do? Macklin's formula is essential to the FTL engine. You antitoxin to combat the virus. We had always thought of it as a beneficial parasite, but we can wipe it out if necessary.\" my headaches, like before?\" worrying.\" can get married, own property, vote, even hold office. Many of them do. You can't force him into being cured.... At least, I don't think treatment. He wants to remain in his state of lower intelligence.\" order overruling your husband's wishes.\" him back where he would suffer the hell of those headaches once again, declaring him incompetent.\" he's certified incompetent, authorities can rule whether Mitchell and \"There is some degree of risk in shock treatments, too. But—\" vascular spasm, a mild pseudostroke some years ago. Now you want to \"I suppose there's some chance of that. But without the treatment no\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is NOT said to be a cause for headaches?\n\n<options>:\nA nervous strain\nB fatigue\nC over-indulgence\nD UV rays\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,988 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTHE \"But I want to get out of here! I want to go back where I came from! Do you understand—whoever, \"But you can't go back to the Twentieth Century,\" said the box. \"Nor is there any better place for you to be now, than Kar-Rah. You are the only man left on Earth. Those men that exist in other star systems are not really your kind anymore, though their forefathers originated on this planet. They have gone far beyond you in evolution. To them you would be only a senseless curiosity. You are much better off with my people—our minds are much more like but the But Ned Vince wasn't listening, now. \"You are the only man left on Earth.\" That had been enough for him to hear. He didn't more than half believe it. hadn't yet tarred the traffic-loosened gravel at the Bend. An incredible science, millions of years old, lay in the minds of these creatures. His mind was too confused for conviction about anything. Everything Ned could scarcely have chosen abysmal horror. Ned was no coward—death and danger of beneath.... any ordinary Earthly kind, he could have faced bravely. But the being stranded alone on another world! to escape this nameless lair, to try to learn the facts for himself, possessed him. He bounded out of the vat, and with head down, dashed for the The Moon was a gigantic, pock-marked bulk. The constellations were unrecognizable. The rodent city was a glowing expanse of shallow, crystalline domes, set among odd, scrub trees and after a million years of erosion under an ocean that was gone. might as well be an exile on another planet—so changed had the Earth become. A wave of intolerable homesickness came over him as he eons, separating himself from his friends, from Betty, from almost dinosaurs, still bulked along the antiquity. The noon-day unconscious form, a mile from the city of Kar-Rah. In a flying machine they took him back, and time, so that he could not escape again. There he lay, helpless, who have discovered something remarkable. The desolate expanse around the gulch, was all but without motion. The icy breeze tore tiny puffs of dust from grotesque, angling drifts of soil, nearly did in the Twentieth Century. was visible. Even the hills had sagged away, flattened by incalculable ages of erosion. And—well—there's that thing utter, sick dejection of this the last space ships built by the gods in exodus, perhaps it was—half a million years ago. Man was gone from the Earth. Glacial ages, war, decadence, disease, and a final scattering of those ultimate superhumans to newer worlds in other solar systems, his own kind. Probably insanity looming. In far less extreme circumstances than this, death from had done that. which seemed to depend on a blast of atoms to clear away rock and soil. Thus the gulch had been cleared of the accumulated rubbish of antiquity. Man, it seemed, had a successor, as ruler of the Earth. Loy Chuk had flown his geological expedition out from the anachronism he had so miraculously resurrected—this human, this Kaalleee.... with a vast and unlooked-for success. thing to do—to send you back to your own period of history. For I see that you will never be yourself, here. It will be hard to accomplish, but we'll try. Now I shall put you under an anesthetic....\" forward between shrewd, beady eyes, betraying the slow heritage of time, of survival of the fittest, of evolution. He could think and dream and invent, and the civilization plans. The government of Kar-Rah was a scientific oligarchy, Twentieth Century. far beyond that of the ancient mind. After hours of research, he proceeded to prepare his of his kind was already of which Loy was a prime member. It would be easy to get the beings and their machines, toiled dry mud that had encased it like an airtight coffin, had by now been chipped away by the perhaps a million years. Metal had gone into decay—yes. But not this body. The answer to this was simple—alkali. A mineral saturation that had held time and change in stasis. A perfect preservative for organic tissue, aided probably during most of those passing eras by desert dryness. The Dakotas had turned not a mere fossil. It was a mummy. Not the star-conquering demi-gods, but the ancestral stock that had built the first machines on Earth, and in the early Twenty-first Century, the first interplanetary rockets. No legendary antiquity, had aided images of the internal organs of this ancient human corpse. even greater than before. In devoid of moisture, the mummy was perfectly preserved, even to its brain cells! Medical and biological sciences were far advanced was of the same origin—a miraculous fabrication of metal and energy-units and soft plastic. principles long known to them, among Loy Chuk's kind. this long-dead body could be Perhaps, by the application of study this ancient man—this Kaalleee. Thus, their motives were mostly selfish. With infinite care—small, sharp hand-tools were used, now—the magnificent, inexorable march of disengaged from the worthless rust of his primitive automobile. ruins, left by the final supermen. \"The Kaalleee believes himself will survive and be happy. But there was no other way. Time is home,\" Loy was thinking. \"He researches among the cities of the supermen show the truth. Even they, who once ruled Earth, never escaped from the present by so much as an instant....\" THE END beneath. A tremendous washed-down mountains, and the vague, angular, geometric mounds of human cities that were gone forever. sand desert, marked with low, Beyond the eastern rim of the Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. dead as the highlands. Far out in a deep valley, Kar-Rah, the city of the rodents, since the beginning of their foggy evolution. Besides, in this latter day, the below the surface. Here at once, the scientist began his work. The body of the ancient man was put in a large vat. Fluids submerged it, slowly soaking from that hardened flesh the alkali that had preserved it for so long. The fluid was and other tissues became Then the more delicate processes passing between complicated electrodes. The cells of antique flesh and brain gradually took on a chemical composition nearer to that of the life that they had once known. At last the final liquid was drained away, and the mummy lay there, a mummy no more, but form. shock of vast change around him. Though it had been dehydrated, his brain had been kept perfectly intact through the ages, and now it was restored. now, on the well-being of this to a sitting posture. There was a muffled murmur around him, as of some vast, un-Earthly metropolis. shrill, parrot-like, and mechanical. somehow, simply because they could never belong in a only to press certain buttons to make the instrument express his thoughts in common, long-dead to himself, contemplating the held befuddled terror. He gasped With infinite care it was crated in the thin atmosphere. \"I've giant from the past, lost from the ages. He remembered the ancient about a million years ago. I discovered your body. I brought you back to life. We have science that can do that. I'm Loy bold, friendly terms. Thus Loy sought, with calm, human logic, to make his charge feel at home. Probably, though, he was a fool, \"Speaking to me. One million years. Evolution. The scientists an Eternal Wall. Our archeological\n\n<question>:\nHow has planetary leadership evolved since the 20th century?\n\n<options>:\nA Authority is more vested in the knowledge and expertise of technologists and researchers\nB The entire planet has adopted democracy as a means for ensuring liberty to all species\nC The Kar-Rah have combined the most humane principles from authoritarian regimes and constitutional democracies\nD Earth has eliminated all government in the name of autonomy and free will\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,022 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTemplin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within this coming week.\" because, at one time or another, they had had to. Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out. Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton hard-working. How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left matter of minutes before he would be asleep. Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish \"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more information?\" A drowsy mumble from the other cot: \"He wasn't there long enough. He committed suicide not long after landing.\" slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away. Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow before the next ship landed. He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were up. He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting. comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians. Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on Eckert nodded agreement. \"It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed and Templin. Templin studied them warily. \"Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures. \"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready, for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along, Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try \"No, I'm afraid it's not.\" Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes. \"Too healthy,\" Templin said. \"There didn't seem to be any sick ones or they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass, and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's. for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too. Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his Eckert hefted it in his palm. \"The most important thing is that they least in fields where they have to have it.\" \"How come they haven't gone any further?\" \"The important thing,\" Eckert mused, \"is not if they have them, but if they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've had food and water and what fuel we need.\" \"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he Templin nodded. \"Sure.\" \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along nobody has volunteered any information about him. And he was an attache here for three Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\" Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the \"They grow their women nice, don't they?\" \"Physically perfect, like the men,\" Templin grumbled. \"You could get an inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while.\" down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm trying to keep an open mind.\" \"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?\" \"We've got six months,\" Eckert said quietly. \"Six months in which we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked \" \" enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret if Templin ever finds out Eckert.\" Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was the Tunpeshan version of the Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \"\n\n<question>:\nHow long were Eckert and Templin planning to stay on Tunpesh?\n\n<options>:\nA 6 years\nB 6 days\nC 6 months\nD 6 weeks\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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702 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"What that gal needs is a slippery time in the grape mash,\" Arapoulous weeks. But remember. Yours is purely a rubber-stamp function.\" all ribbon-counter boys. Never mind. I'm Hank Arapoulous. I'm a farmer. What I wanted to see you about was—\" He shifted in his chair. \"Well, out on Lovenbroy we've got a serious problem. The wine crop is just about ready. We start picking in another two, three months. Now I don't know if you're familiar with the Bacchus vines we grow...?\" \"No,\" Retief said. \"Have a cigar?\" He pushed a box across the desk. Arapoulous took one. \"Bacchus vines are an unusual crop,\" he said, puffing the cigar alight. \"Only mature every twelve years. In between, the vines don't need a lot of attention, so our time's mostly our own. We like to farm, though. Spend a lot of time developing new forms. Apples the size of a melon—and sweet—\" \"Sounds very pleasant,\" Retief said. \"Where does the Libraries and year's about eighteen Terry months. Cold as hell in winter painting and sculpture in the winter. Then Spring and it's the season for woodworkers. Our furniture—\" That's the music-writing season. Then summer. Summer's hot. We stay the music and the surf and the bonfires and stars—we're close to the center of a globular cluster, you know....\" \"You say it's time now for the wine crop?\" \"That's right. Autumn's our harvest season. Most years we have just the ordinary crops. Fruit, grain, that kind of thing getting it in doesn't places ready for the winter or remodeling the older ones. We spend a lot of time in our houses. We like to have them comfortable. But this year's different. This is Wine Year.\" Arapoulous puffed on his cigar, looked worriedly at Retief. \"Our wine crop is our big money crop,\" he said. \"We make enough to keep us going. But this year....\" \"The crop isn't panning out?\" \"Oh, the crop's fine. One of the best I can remember. Course, I'm only twenty-eight I can't remember but two other harvests. The problem's not the crop.\" \"Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the Commercial—\" \"Lost our markets? Mister, nobody that ever tasted our wines ever bottle toward Retief. \"The custom back home is to alternate red wine and black.\" probably never heard about the trouble we had on Lovenbroy a few years back?\" \"Can't say that I did, Hank.\" Retief poured the black wine into two fresh glasses. \"Here's to the harvest.\" \"We've got plenty of minerals on Lovenbroy,\" Arapoulous said, swallowing wine. \"But we don't plan to wreck the landscape mining 'em. We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a said. \"What's the problem? Croanie about to foreclose?\" \"Well, the loan's due. The wine crop would put us in the clear. But we need harvest hands. Picking Bacchus grapes isn't a job you can turn over to machinery—and anyway we wouldn't if we could. Vintage season is the high point of living on Lovenbroy. Everybody joins in. First, there's the picking in the fields. Miles and miles of vineyards covering the mountain sides, and crowding the river banks, with gardens here and there. Big vines, eight feet high, loaded with fruit, and deep grass growing between. The wine-carriers keep on the run, bringing wine to the pickers. There's prizes for the biggest day's output, bets on who can fill the most baskets in an hour.... The sun's high and bright, and it's just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall, the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on: roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads. Plenty of fruit. Fresh-baked bread ... and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking's done by a different crew each night in each garden, and there's prizes for the best crews. \"Then the wine-making. We still tramp out the vintage. That's mostly for the young folks but anybody's welcome. That's when things start to get loosened up. Matter of fact, pretty near half our young-uns are born after a vintage. All bets are off then. It keeps a fellow on his toes though. Ever tried to hold onto a gal wearing nothing but a layer of grape juice?\" \"Never did,\" Retief said. \"You say most of the children are born after a vintage. That would make them only twelve years old by the time—\" \"Oh, that's Lovenbroy years they'd be eighteen, Terry reckoning.\" said. \"Forty-two, Terry years,\" Arapoulous said. \"But this year it looks bad. We've got a bumper crop—and we're short-handed. If we don't get a big vintage, Croanie steps in. Lord knows what they'll do to the land. Then next vintage time, with them holding half our grape acreage—\" \"You hocked the vineyards?\" \"Yep. Pretty dumb, huh? But we figured twelve years was a long time.\" \"On the whole,\" Retief said, \"I think I prefer the black. But the red is hard to beat....\" \"What we figured was, maybe you Culture boys could help us out. A loan to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we'd repay it in sculpture, painting, furniture—\" \"Sorry, Hank. All we do here is work out itineraries for traveling side-shows, that kind of thing. Now, if you needed a troop of Groaci nose-flute players—\" \"Can they pick grapes?\" \"Nope. Anyway, they can't stand the daylight. Have you talked this over with the Labor Office?\" \"Speaking of tractors,\" another man put in, \"we over at the Special Committee for Rehabilitation and Overhaul of Under-developed Nations' General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for waiting....\" \"You meeting somebody?\" \"Yeah. Bunch of babies. Kids. How they expect—Never mind. Have one on have the little dears wandering around loose. Might get ideas about going over the hill.\" He hiccupped. \"I mean they might play hookey.\" \"We've scheduled your re-embarkation for noon tomorrow. That's a long students?\" \"Maybe later,\" Karsh said. \"You know, after we see how the first bunch a world with no classrooms for them ... a world in need of tractors. But the tractors are on their way to Croanie, a world under obligation to Boge. And Croanie holds a mortgage on the best grape acreage on Lovenbroy.\" It would be a pity, he reflected, if anything should interfere with the production of such vintages.... Retief said. \"Any connection?\" \"Why ... ah ... no. Of course not, ha ha.\" \"Who gets the tractors eventually?\" \"Retief, this is unwarranted interference!\" \"Who gets them?\" time. Over a foot long.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow often do Bachus vines mature and what is the significance of that timeline?\n\n<options>:\nA Every 18 years a vintage is held, which is a kind of celebration of art.\nB Every 12 years a vintage is held, which also serves as a cultural festival that encourage young people to procreate.\nC Every 18 years a vintage is held, which serves as a kind of celebration of life for both young and old people.\nD Every 12 years a vintage is held, wherein the young people are made to harvest all the grapes.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"To celebrate,\" Ferris said. The colonel shrugged. \"That's as good a reason as any.\" I \"Do you think we'll have to use force on Macklin to get him to cooperate in the experiment?\" Ferris asked eagerly. for help against that repatriated fullback.\" Ferris fingered the collar of his starched lab smock. \"Guess I got carried away for a moment. But Macklin is exactly what we need for a quick, dramatic test. We've had it if he turns us down.\" \"Of course,\" the mathematician said. \"I can talk fine.\" \"When we prove our results that should be of enough practical value for anyone. But those crummy trustees didn't even leave us enough for a field test.\" Ferris scrubbed his thin hand over the bony ridge of his of all headaches.\" Mitchell's blue eyes narrowed and his boyish face took on an expression of demonic intensity. \"Ferris, would you consider—?\" \"No!\" the smaller man yelled. \"You can't expect me to violate professional ethics and test my own discovery on myself.\" in the popular mind. He was the man people thought of when the word \"mathematician\" or even \"scientist\" was mentioned. No one knew whether Ferris paced off the tidy measurements of the office outside the laboratory in the biology building. Mitchell sat slumped in the chair behind the blond imitation wood desk, watching him disinterestedly. \"Do you suppose the Great Man will actually show up?\" Ferris demanded, pausing in mid-stride. \"I imagine he will,\" Mitchell said. \"Macklin's always seemed a decent enough fellow when I've had lunch with him or seen him at the trustees meetings.\" \"He's always treated me like dirt,\" Ferris said heatedly. \"Everyone on this campus treats biologists like dirt. Sometimes I want to bash in their smug faces.\" Sometimes, Mitchell reflected, Ferris displayed a certain lack of scientific detachment. There came a discreet knock on the door. He shook hands warmly with Mitchell. \"Good of you to ask me over, Steven.\" Macklin threw a big arm across Ferris' shoulders. \"How have you been, Harold?\" Ferris' face flickered between pink and white. \"Fine, thank you, doctor.\" Macklin dropped on the edge of the desk and adjusted his pipe. \"Now Macklin nodded. \"That's right, Steven. Migraine.\" \"That must be terrible,\" Ferris said. \"All your fine reputation and lavish salary can't be much consolation when that ripping, tearing agony begins, can it?\" \"Yes,\" Macklin said. \"But think,\" Ferris interjected, \"what a boon it would be if everyone could be cured of headaches forever \"We think we can,\" Ferris said. \"How can you have a specific for a number of different causes?\" Macklin asked. \"I know that much about the subject.\" of all of this, the one real cause of headaches,\" Mitchell announced. \"We have definitely established this for this first time,\" Ferris added. \"I assure you, you can forget ergotamine tartrate,\" Ferris said. \"Our discovery will work.\" \"Certainly you can get volunteers. Convicts. Conscientious objectors from the Army.\" \"We want you,\" Ferris told him. Macklin coughed. \"I don't want to overestimate my value but the government wouldn't like it very well if I died in the middle of this project. My wife would like it even less.\" Ferris turned his back on the mathematician. Mitchell could see him mouthing the word yellow Ferris smiled. \"Gynergen makes you sick, does it, doctor? Produces nausea, eh? The pain of that turns you almost wrong side out, doesn't it? You aren't much better off with it than without, are you? I've tend it in a worn leather case. \"Tell me,\" he said, \"what is the worst that could happen to me?\" uncertainly. \"Perhaps you would like a few days to think it over.\" \"No! I'm ready. Go ahead, right now.\" \"There's a simple release,\" Ferris said smoothly. Macklin groped in his pocket for a pen. II \"Ferris!\" Mitchell yelled, slamming the laboratory door behind him. \"Right here,\" the small man said briskly. He was sitting at a work table, penciling notes. \"I've been expecting you.\" \"On the contrary, I should and I did,\" Ferris answered. \"We wanted something dramatic to show to the trustees and here it is.\" \"Yes, we wanted to show our proof to the trustees—but not broadcast \"But—\" The shrill call of the telephone interrupted Mitchell's objections. Ferris excused himself and crossed to the instrument. He answered it and listened for a moment, his face growing impatient. \"It's Macklin's wife,\" Ferris said. \"Do you want to talk to her? I'm no good with hysterical women.\" She couldn't have sounded calmer or more self-possessed, Mitchell thought. \"That's right, Mrs. Macklin. I'm Dr. Steven Mitchell, Dr. Ferris's associate.\" \"Do you have a license to dispense narcotics?\" by this time.\" \"Most known narcotics,\" she admitted, \"but evidently you have discovered something new. Is it so expensive to refine you and Ferris Mitchell dropped the receiver heavily. \"What could be wrong with Macklin?\" he asked without removing his hand from the telephone. Ferris frowned, making quotation marks above his nose. \"Let's have a look at the test animals.\" \"Never mind, doctor. It was a form of humor. I think we had better see exactly what is wrong with Elliot Macklin.\" \"There's nothing wrong with him,\" Ferris snapped. \"He's probably just trying to get us in trouble, the ingrate!\" dum-de-de-dum-dum-dum . As they waited Mitchell glanced at Ferris. He seemed completely undisturbed, perhaps slightly curious. \"Mrs. Macklin,\" Mitchell said quickly, \"I'm sure we can help if there is anything wrong with your husband. This is Dr. Ferris. I am Dr. Mitchell.\" injection,\" he said. It wasn't a question. \"I don't like that 'unauthorized',\" Ferris snapped. The colonel—Mitchell spotted the eagles on his green tunic—lifted \"How is he different?\" Mitchell demanded. The medic examined Mitchell and Ferris critically before answering. \"He used to be a mathematical genius.\" Mitchell and Ferris stared at Colonel Carson and Macklin and at each other. \"What did he mean, Macklin is an idiot?\" Mitchell asked. Ferris followed them docilely. \"What have you done to him?\" the colonel asked straightforwardly. \"We merely cured him of his headaches,\" Mitchell said. \"All I want to know is why Elliot Macklin has been made as simple as if he had been kicked in the head by a mule,\" Colonel Carson said. \"I think I can explain,\" Ferris interrupted. \"You can?\" Mitchell said. Ferris nodded. \"We made a slight miscalculation. It appears as if the \"Why won't they function?\" Carson roared. \"They don't get enough food—blood, oxygen, hemoglobin,\" Ferris The colonel yelled. Mitchell groaned. He was abruptly sure Ferris was correct. properly once again you will have the headaches again. Our research is a dismal failure.\" \"I wouldn't go that far,\" Ferris remarked cheerfully. Mitchell was about to ask his associate what he meant when he saw Macklin slowly shaking his head. Ferris' antitoxin treatment is the best method of restoring Dr. Macklin to sanity.\" \"I doubt very much if the court would rule in that manner,\" she said. \"Maybe,\" Carson said. \"I don't know. I don't know what the hell to tell the Pentagon. I think I'll go out and get drunk.\" \"I'll go with you,\" Ferris said. Mitchell glanced sharply at the little biologist. Carson squinted. \"Any particular reason, doctor?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the name that came to mind when people thought of mathematician or scientist in the passage?\n\n<options>:\nA Macklin\nB Mitchell\nC Harold\nD Ferris\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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1,701 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\npart is, as all Americans know, the most fictional field we have today. He settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight riding alongside him. Sir Gaeton de l'Arc-Tombé sat tall and straight in Sir Robert's lips formed a smile. \"They are not far off, Sir Gaeton. \"Like the jackals they are,\" said Sir Gaeton. \"They assail us from the the Turks lie ahead of us in countless numbers. And yet, they fear to face us in open battle.\" \"Is it fear, or are they merely gathering their forces?\" \"Both,\" said Sir Gaeton flatly. \"They fear us, else they would not dally to amass so fearsome a force. If, as our informers tell us, there are uncounted Turks to the fore, and if, as we are aware, our rear is being dogged by the Bedouin and the black horsemen of Egypt, it would seem that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all truly Christian knights.\" \"Give them time. We must wait for their attack, sir knight. It were this Hellish heat that is driving me mad.\" He pointed toward the eastern hills. \"The sun is yet low, and already the heat is unbearable.\" Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. \"Perhaps 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than men of cooler blood.\" He knew that the others were baking inside their heavy armor, although he himself was not too uncomfortable. Sir Gaeton looked at him with a smile that held both irony and respect. \"In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor your English and your King Richard of the Lion's Heart, but I am a Sir Robert's voice came like a sword: steely, flat, cold, and sharp. \"My lord the King spoke in haste. He has reason to be bitter against Philip \"Richard of England has never been on the best of terms with Philip Augustus,\" said Sir Gaeton. \"It was my duty.\" Sir Robert's voice was stubborn. \"Could we have permitted a quarrel to develop between the two finest knights and Sir Robert felt his jaw set firmly. \"My king knows I am loyal.\" Sir Gaeton said nothing more, but there was a look in his eyes that showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty Sir Robert rode on in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath Sir Robert turned his horse to look. Sir Robert felt his horse move, as though it were urging him on toward the battle, but his hand held to the reins, keeping the great charger in check. The King had said \"Stand fast!\" and this was no time to disobey the orders of Richard. were taking the brunt of the charge. They fought like madmen, but they were slowly being forced back. The Master of the Hospitallers rode to the rear, to the King's standard, The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears. \"Stand fast. The King bids you all to stand fast,\" said the duke, his The Master of the Hospitallers was speaking in a low, urgent voice to the King: \"My lord, we are pressed on by the enemy and in danger of eternal infamy. We are losing our horses, one after the other!\" \"Good Master,\" said Richard, \"it is you who must sustain their attack. No one can be everywhere at once.\" The King turned to Sir Baldwin de Carreo, who sat ahorse nearby, and in the flank we cannot afford to amass a rearward charge. To do so A voice very close to Sir Robert said: \"Richard is right. If we go to attack.\" It was Sir Gaeton. \"My lord the King,\" Sir Robert heard his voice say, \"is right in all but one thing. If we allow the Egyptians to take us from the rear, there will be no need for Saladin and his Turks to come down on our flank. And the Hospitallers cannot hold for long at this rate. A charge at full gallop would break the Egyptian line and give the Hospitallers breathing time. Are you with me?\" \"Against the orders of the King?\" \"The King cannot see everything! There are times when a man must use his own judgment! You said you were afraid of no man. Are you with me?\" After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. \"I'm with you, sir knight! Live or die, I follow! Strike and strike hard!\" \"Forward then!\" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. \"Forward for St. George and for England!\" Sir Robert felt the shock against himself and his horse as the steel tip the corner of his eye, he saw that Sir Gaeton, too, had scored. saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance. There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of \"St. George and England!\" Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy. He himself felt a dreamlike detachment, as though he were watching the battle rather than participating in it. But he could see that the Moslems were falling back before the Christian onslaught. And then, quite suddenly, there seemed to be no foeman to swing at. Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword. Beside him, Sir Gaeton did the same, saying: \"It will be a few minutes before they can regroup, sir knight. We may have routed them completely.\" \"Aye. But King Richard will not approve of my breaking ranks and disobeying orders. I may win the battle and lose my head in the end.\" \"This is no time to worry about the future,\" said the Gascon. \"Rest for a moment and relax, that you may be the stronger later. Here—have an slightly farther than the others. Sir Robert's hand reached out and took lighter in Sir Gaeton's hand. \"Yes, sir,\" said Sir Gaeton, after lighting his own cigarette, \" are the greatest. They give a man real, deep-down smoking pleasure.\" \"There's no doubt about it, \"That's for sure.\" Sir Robert watched a smoke ring expand in the air. There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped King Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed to get into the thick of the fray. Now the Turks were charging down from the hills, hitting—not the flank as he had expected, but the rear! Saladin had expected him to hold fast! Sir Robert and Sir Gaeton spurred their chargers toward the flapping boiling down out of the hills, their glittering scimitars swinging. Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his own great broadsword moving, swinging like some gigantic metronome as he hacked down the Moslem foes. breastbone. Where was Sir Gaeton? Where were the others? Where was the coronet! Richard! And the great king, in spite of his prowess was outnumbered heavily and Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded He did not know how long he fought there, holding his charger motionless over the inert body of the fallen king, hewing down the screaming enemy, for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight. Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king. \"My lord king, be assured that I would never forget my loyalty to my King Richard's gauntleted hand grasped his own. \"If it please God, I England, sir knight.\" O.K.,\" he said. \"Good show. A little talky at the beginning, and it needs a better fade-out, but the action scenes were fine. The sponsor ought to like it—for a while, at least.\" \"What do you mean, 'for a while'?\" lose sales.\" \"Why? Commercial not good enough?\" \" Too\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Sir Gaeton think about the relationship between Sir Robert and the king?\n\n<options>:\nA He admires their camaraderie and aims to replicate it\nB He thinks Sir Robert needs to convince others of his loyalty\nC He is trying to replace Sir Robert in the king's eyes\nD He thinks there is too much tension to be effective in combat\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIn the animated ecological epic Princess Mononoke , the camera travels over landscapes with a clear, steady gaze, like a Zen hang glider. The images have none of the comin'-at-ya pop-surrealism of American cartoons, many of which have characters that spring out of the frame like jack-in-the-boxes. The Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, who spent three years on Princess Mononoke and is reported to have done 70 percent of its paintings himself, seems to work from the outside in: to begin with the curve of the earth, then the mossy hills, the watercolor foliage, the nubby stones, the whorls on the wood, the meticulous carvings on a teacup. He captures the texture of light and the currents of air. You could almost settle down in this landscape. A view of nature that some would call \"tree-hugging\" doesn't feel softheaded when the trees are rendered in such brilliant and robust detail. But then, \"soft\" is not a word you can apply to Princess Mononoke , however pantheistic its worldview. The film, which is rated PG-13, is full of splattery carnage. If Miyazaki in long shot is contemplative, in close-up he's ferocious. He's both inside and outside the action: He knows when to rock your world and when to induce a state of sorrowful detachment. According to the New York Times , Toy Story animators screened reels of his work when their imaginations flagged, and writers for Star Trek named an alien species after one of his features. Watching Princess Mononoke --which has been dubbed to Disney/Miramax specifications by American and English stars but retains its two-hour-plus length, its gory beheadings, and its grim, near-apocalyptic finale--you can understand their worship. It isn't that Miyazaki's work is technically so dazzling in this age of digitized miracles The movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a \"natural\" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called \"the end of nature\"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. The hero, Ashitaka, a warrior from the isolationist Emishi clan, is forced in the first scene to kill a marauding boar--a god turned into a demon (covered in roiling, corrosive worms) by an iron ball lodged in its body. Infected, destined to be consumed by--and to die of--rage, Ashitaka leaves his village in search of the iron ball's source. He discovers a fortress-cum-arms-manufacturing plant called Irontown, presided over by one of the most complex villains in modern film: the regal Lady Eboshi. On one hand, she's a benevolent industrialist who presides over a warmly matriarchal society P rincess Mononoke builds to a full-scale war between humans and the animal kingdom--which does not, by the way, consist of your father's cartoon critters. In fact, the boars and apes have little patience with Ashitaka's call for nature and mankind to live together in harmony they'd like to eat him. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted \"daughter,\" San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. Her second appearance--a lone attack on Irontown to assassinate Lady Eboshi--is one of the movie's high points. It's Miyazaki's use of sound--and silence--that takes your breath away: the determined tap of the wolf princess's shoes as she scuttles over the fortress's rooftops It's a shame that the wolf princess warms up to Ashitaka and spends the rest of the film either saving him or being saved by him. She loses that punk-bitch allure. The voice of Claire Danes doesn't help. When Danes says, \"I'd do anything to get you humans out of my forest,\" she sounds like a Valley Girl peeved over lack of parking spaces at the mall. (San needs a more ragged voice--I'd be interested to hear the original Japanese actress.) Billy Crudup is just as Disneyfied (Miramaxed?), but that doesn't hurt as much because Ashitaka is conceived from the start as a rather bland ingénu. Gillian Anderson's growling Moro sounds silly (she doesn't have the breath control), and the fey-hick tones of Billy Bob Thornton are too recognizable as the Akim Tamiroff-like mercenary, Jigo. But Minnie Driver--coming off a triumphantly dizzy Jane in Tarzan --once again provides a voice that the animators deserve. \"Bring the strange-ah to me late-ah,\" she commands in sexy Martian Queen cadences that will stir the loins of Flash Gordon fans everywhere. \"I would like to thank him puh-sonally.\" The overfamiliar voices nudge Princess Mononoke closer to its American counterparts--but not by a lot. There's always something wondrously strange. The \"kodamas\" are little tree spirits on doughboy bodies. They cock their trapezoidal dice heads and emit a series of clicks then their heads pop back with a conclusive rattle. Something about them seems just right I could watch them for hours. (Miyazaki limits their appearances to seconds--he doesn't wear out their mystery the way that, say, George Lucas would.) And no Hollywood animated feature would end with such a powerful vision of apocalypse, as the land is bestridden by a colossus dropping a thick, caustic, tarlike gel that recalls the post-Hiroshima \"black rain.\" Can you take the kids? I think so. As Miyazaki said at a New York Film Festival press conference, \"Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.\" Princess Mononoke , at least, can tell them why. Directors of violent genre pieces like Craven (who got this mainstream gig in return for doing the Scream sequels) or Carl Franklin or Sam Raimi sometimes want so badly to belong to Establishment Hollywood--to go to the Academy Awards--that they neuter themselves. Bending over backward to show how sensitive they can be, they forget that violence--even if it's just emotional violence--belongs in \"ordinary\" dramas, too. Craven does good work with the young actors in the classroom scenes, but the film has a reticence common to most biopics and a mushy, TV-movie humanism that blands out its texture. OK, I was a puddle after some scenes, like the one where Guaspari pushes a student to get her to improve her posture and discovers that the girl is wearing a leg brace. But how much more emotional the Carnegie Hall climax would have been if instead of suddenly seeing these East Harlem kids on stage with Perlman, Stern, Joshua Bell, etc., we'd seen them rehearsing first and struggling to keep up. There's too much music of the heart and not enough music of the callused fingers. he misses now and then, which is why the technique sticks out. But what a fantastic effort. See it and weep for what's missing in most other movies.\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the reviewer, how would Miyazaki feel about youth viewing \"Princess Mononoke\"?\n\n<options>:\nA Zealous\nB Apprehensive\nC Supportive\nD Ambivalent\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,458 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSlate beer-testing team were coping with lagers and trying to see if they could taste the 3-to-1 price difference between the most- and least-expensive brands. (Click for a wrap-up of the first round of beer tasting.) The answer was: They found one beer they really liked, Samuel Adams Boston Lager , and one they really hated, imported Grolsch from Holland. Both were expensive beers--Grolsch was the most expensive in the test--and otherwise the testers had a hard time telling beers apart. The members of the team, as noted in the original article, all hold day jobs at Microsoft, mainly as designers, managers, and coders for Microsoft Word. that the flight included one \"holdover\" beer from the previous round (Sam Adams) that it included at least one macrobrew , specifically, a member of the vast Anheuser-Busch family (Michelob Hefeweizen). After sampling all beers, the tasters rated them as follows: Overall quality points, from zero to 100, reflecting their personal, subjective fondness for the beer. Descriptions of and comments about each beer's taste--\"smooth and nutty,\" \"too strong,\" etc. If the first ranking was a measure of how good each beer was, this was an attempt to explain what made it good. Best and Worst , one of each from the group. To include one holdover from the previous test, as a scientific control on our tasters' preferences. This was Sam Adams , runaway winner of Round 1. Click for pricing information and pre-quaffing evaluations. The beers tasted were: 4. Data Analysis. a) Best and Worst. Compared to the lager test, we would expect the range of \"best\" choices to be more varied, since all the tested beers were supposed to be good. This expectation was most dramatically borne out in the \"Best and Worst\" rankings. The nine tasters cast a total of nine Worst votes and 11.5 Best votes. (Tester No. 1 turned in a sheet with three Best selections, or two more than his theoretical quota. Tester No. 4 listed a Best and a Best-minus, which counted as half a vote.) The results were clearest at the bottom: three Worsts for Pyramid Hefeweizen , even though most comments about the beer were more or less respectful. (\"Bitter, drinkable.\") But at the top and middle the situation was muddier: There were three Bests for Full Sail ESB , which most of the tasters later said they weren't familiar with, and 2.5 for Redhook IPA , which all the tasters knew. But each of these also got a Worst vote, and most of the other beers had a mixed reading. So far, the tasters are meeting expectations, finding something to like in nearly all these fancy beers. b) Overall preference points. Here the complications increase. The loser was again apparent: Pyramid Hefeweizen came in last on rating points, as it had in the Best/Worst derby. But the amazing dark horse winner was Michelob Hefeweizen . The three elements of surprise here, in ascending order of unexpectedness, are: This best-liked beer belonged to the same category, Hefeweizen, as the least-liked product, from Pyramid. This was also the only outright Anheuser-Busch product in the contest (the Redhooks are 75 percent A-B free). It is safe to say that all tasters would have said beforehand that they would rank an American macrobrew last, and Anheuser-Busch last of all. Although it clearly won on overall preference points, Michelob Hefeweizen was the only beer not to have received a single \"Best\" vote. The first two anomalies can be written off as testament to the power of a blind taste test. The third suggests an important difference in concepts of \"bestness.\" Sometimes a product seems to be the best of a group simply because it's the most unusual or distinctive. This is why very high Wine Spectator ratings often go to wines that mainly taste odd. But another kind of bestness involves an unobtrusive, day-in day-out acceptability. That seems to be Michelob Hefe 's achievement here: no one's first choice, but high on everyone's list. Let's go to the charts: This table shows how the beers performed on \"raw score\"--that is, without the advanced statistical adjustment of throwing out the highest and lowest score each beer received. Next, we have \"corrected average preference points,\" throwing out the high and low marks for each beer. The result is basically the same: It is worth noting the fate of Sam Adams on these charts. Here it ends up with a score of less than 61. These were the numbers awarded by the very same tasters who gave it a corrected preference rating of 83.33 the last time around--and 10 \"Best\" votes, vs. one Best (and one Worst) this time. The shift in Bests is understandable and demonstrates the importance of picking your competition. The severe drop in preference points illustrates more acutely the ancient principle of being a big fish in a small pond. These same tasters thought that Sam Adams was objectively much better when it was surrounded by Busch and Schmidt's. c) Value rankings. Last time this calculation led to what the colorful French would call a bouleversement. One of the cheapest beers, Busch, which had been in the lower ranks on overall preference points, came out at the top on value-for-money ratings, because it was so cheap. The big surprise now is that the highest-rated beer was also the cheapest one, Michelob Hefe , so the value calculation turned into a rout: Pyramid Hefeweizen was expensive on top of being unpopular, so its position at the bottom was hammered home--but not as painfully as that of Bass Ale . Bass had been in the respectable lower middle class of the preference rankings, so its disappointing Val-u-meter showing mainly reflects the fact that it was the only beer not on \"sale\" and therefore by far the costliest entry in the experiment. d) Taster skill. As members of the tasting panel began to suspect, they themselves were being judged while they judged the beer. One of the tasters, No. 7, decided to live dangerously and give specific brands and breweries for Samples A through J. This man was the only panel member whose job does not involve designing Microsoft Word--and the only one to identify two or more of the beers accurately and specifically. (He spotted Redhook IPA and Redhook ESB.) The fact that the beers correctly identified were the two most popular microbrews in the Seattle area suggests that familiarity is the main ingredient in knowing your beer. Many others were simply lost. Barely half the tasters, five of nine, recognized that Michelob Hefeweizen was a Hefeweizen. Before the test, nine of nine would have said that picking out a Hefe was easy, because of its cloudy look and wheaty flavor. Three tasters thought Sam Adams was an IPA two thought Redhook's IPA was a Hefeweizen. In fairness, six of nine testers identified Pyramid Hefeweizen as a Hefe, and six recognized Full Sail ESB as a bitter. Much in the fashion of blind men describing an elephant, here is a how the testers handled Sam Adams Boston Lager : 5. Implications and Directions for Future Research. Science does not always answer questions\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't true of Sam Adams?\n\n<options>:\nA it is a lager the testers liked\nB it scored the highest on the previous test\nC people scored it differently on the second test\nD it was still considered one of the Bests\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,046 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\na man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate! The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner. Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was hideous. Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century. The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his clothing the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather he was, which was what mattered. \"Sorry, colleague,\" Gabe said lazily. \"All my fault. You must let me buy you a replacement.\" He gestured to the bartender. \"Another of the was implied. And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance, was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. \"So, it's you again?\" The man in the gray suit smiled. \"Who else in any world would stand up for you?\" \"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?\" Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. \"Come on, have a drink \"I drank with you once too often,\" the nondescript man said. \"And things worked out fine, didn't they? For you.\" His eyes studied the other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were not pleased with what they saw. \"Watch yourself, colleague,\" he warned as he left. \"Soon you might not be worth the saving.\" \"Who was that, Gabe?\" the girl asked. He shrugged. \"I never saw him before in my life.\" Of course, knowing him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he happened to have been telling the truth. Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again bodyguard , he went out into the street. If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for years. The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. \"Where to, fellow-man?\" It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn. To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see. There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before, which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and \"I don't know who he is,\" Gabe said almost merrily, \"except that he's no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?\" \"Of course I have a name.\" The fat man extracted an identification When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night, the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi had been perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate III The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. \"Only weighted out,\" he muttered, \"he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse. It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?\" \"It does indeed,\" the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that. there was menace here and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was included in its scope. \"Do you want to keep him from recognizing you There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she outsider he was part of their small family group—as long as she had known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect \"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?\" she asked again. \"And why are you doing it?\" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should \"Ask your husband.\" The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate, snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name, and stirred it with his toe. \"I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to death.\" He signaled and a cab came. \"Tell him, when he comes to,\" he said to the girl as he and the driver quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game. He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration. And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own he would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl, seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do. he recognized the face. Not that it was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful student of the \"wanted\" fax that had decorated public buildings from time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily, nor whom the police intended to capture easily. \"Look, Gabe,\" the girl said, \"don't try to fool me! I know you watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror. Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven \"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe,\" she said truthfully enough, for\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Gabe tell the girl that he was with that he had never before seen the nondescript man, though the two clearly knew each other?\n\n<options>:\nA He had never met the man in person.\nB He had not actually seen that man with the new face\nC He had not wanted her to know the truth.\nD He had not recognized the man at that time, because of his intoxication.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,672 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIllustrated by Freas She surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting what she wanted. Phil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his long, thin body and came into the living room. His face, usually serious and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his wife. His wife was sitting stiffly on the flowered couch that was still not theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too far. She said, \"You look fine, Phil. You look just right.\" She managed a smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on the maple coffee table and took another from the pack. \"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did,\" she said, finishing the ritual but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat beside her and put his arm around her small shoulders. He had stopped smiling. \"Honey, look at me,\" he said. \"It isn't going to be bad. Honestly it isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn't be sending me you know that. I told you that we've sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.\" She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand. \"Phil, don't go. Please don't. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn't have a wife. Can't he go? They'd understand, Phil. Please!\" She was holding his arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks. \"Mary, you know I can't back out now. How could I? It's been three years. You know how much I've wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing would ever be right with me again if I didn't go. Please don't make it hard.\" He stopped talking and held her to him and stroked the back of her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He \"I've got to get started, Mary. Will you come to the field with me?\" if you go, I won't be here when you get back—if you get back. I won't be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. It isn't the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I love you, I just couldn't take that, Phil. I'm sorry. I guess I'm not the noble sort of wife.\" She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and put it to her lips. Her hand was trembling as she touched the her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes. \"I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary,\" Phil said. His voice was dry and low. \"I didn't know you felt this way about it.\" possible—not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous dream!\" If I backed out now for any reason, I'd never be able to look at the sky again. I'd be through.\" She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in her eyes. \"Let's go, if you're still going,\" she finally said. They drove through the streets of the small town with its small bungalows, each alike. There were no trees and very little grass. It was a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, if such was its destiny. and he parked near the low barbed fence ringing the take-off zone. He turned off the ignition, and sat quietly for a moment before lighting a cigarette. Then he looked at his wife. She was staring through the windshield at the rocket two hundred yards away. Its smooth polished surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until \"She's beautiful, Mary. You've never seen her before, have you?\" \"No, I've never seen her before,\" she said. \"Hadn't you better go?\" Her voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. \"Please go now, Phil,\" she said. \"Wish me luck, Mary?\" he asked. \"Yes, good luck, Phil,\" she said. He opened the car door and got out. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight. \"Mary, I—\" he began, and then turned and strode toward the administration building without looking back. Inside the building it was like a locker room before the big game. The tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that Phil had worn earlier. When he came into the room, the noise and bustle hand or touched his arm. He saw Sammy, alone, by the coffee urn. Sammy waved to him, but he didn't smile. Phil wanted to talk to him, to say something but there was nothing to be said now. Sammy's turn would come \"On the contrary, colonel. I'm very proud to meet you. I've been looking at that ship out there and wondering. I almost wish I were a young man again. I'd like to be going. It's a thrilling thought—man's first it didn't realize it at the time. Good luck, and God be with you.\" \"Thank you, sir. I'm aware of all you say. It frightens me a little.\" last minute briefing began. It was a routine he knew by heart. He had gone over and over it a thousand times, and he only half listened now. He kept thinking of Mary outside, alone by the fence. The voice of the briefing officer was a dull hum in his ears. until—\" Phil asked a few questions about weather and solar conditions. And then unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and handshakes. They were ready now. better than I know myself in many ways. And I've studied the psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness, Phil, but I think there's something wrong. Is there?\" the rocket. For ten hours, the final check-outs had been in progress and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt Her hands moved slowly over the top of the fence, twisting the barbs of wire. But her eyes were on the ship. And then they were ready. A small group of excited men came out from the administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And, alone, one man climbed the steel ladder up the side of the Mary waved to him. \"Good-by,\" she said to herself, but the words stuck tight in her throat. The small group at the base of the ship turned and walked back to the fence. And for an eternity the great ship stood alone, waiting. Then, \"Phil! Oh, Phil.\" She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and over. \"They wouldn't let me go, Mary,\" he said finally. \"The general would not let me go.\" She looked at him. His face was drawn tight, and there were tears on his cheeks. \"Thank, God,\" she said. \"It doesn't matter, darling. The only thing that matters is you didn't go.\" \"You're right, Mary,\" he said. His voice was low—so low she could hardly hear him. \"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.\" He stood with his hands at his sides, watching her. And then turned away and walked toward the car. THE END\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is a reason that Mary would have wanted Sammy to replace Phil?\n\n<options>:\nA She knows that Sammy is more careful, and would have a greater chance at mission success.\nB She thought she could protect herself if someone else went.\nC She thought that Sammy was more qualified.\nD She thought but his lack of family showed his dedication to his job.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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167 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthat kept his body hard and resilient in spite of long hours spent in the laboratory. As he opened the door of his apartment he heard the awake. It was the door that was being attacked, not his head. The and reached for his bathrobe. It wasn't there. He swore some more and grabbed a towel, wrapping it inadequately around him it didn't quite meet astern. He paddled wetly across the floor sounding like a flock of ducks on parade. A hammering thunder burst on the outer door. He sat up with a groan. \"Lay off, you crazy apes!\" he yelled furiously, but the pounding \"Come here, you idiot!\" Brian screamed after his erstwhile assistant. rattled the bars. \"Hello, pantless!\" a voice breathed. He knew that voice! They burst around a corner onto a startled guard. The electric eye tripped a screaming alarm, but the broken key in Brian's hands opened the complicated lock in a matter of seconds. They jammed immovably behind them. Brian felt as though his stomach had fallen down around his ankles bomb thundered along the street and slammed them to the ground. The roar. The chase wasn't organized yet, and they soon lost themselves in the orderly rush of Venus City traffic. stabbed through the darkness and they clambered precariously down a \"Old mines? What old mines?\" Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice. mines. A brand-new atomic motor gleamed incongruously at one end. The rebels crowded into it and they went rumbling swiftly down the echoing The tunnel emerged in a huge cavern that gloomed darkly away in every to be swallowed to a whisper in the vast, echoing darkness. Between two rows of sentinel ruins they came suddenly on two slim Venusian atmospheric ships. Dim light spilled over them from a ragged gash in the wall of the cavern. Brian followed Crystal into the smaller \"Through that hole up there,\" the girl said matter-of-factly. \"You're crazy, you can't get through there.\" \"Oh, yeah? Just watch this.\" The ship thundered to life beneath them and leaped off in a full-throttled take-off. \"We're going to crash! That gap isn't wide enough!\" set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian got up off the floor. \"You don't have to get excited like that,\" he complained. \"They weren't \"You must be mistak—\" He slumped to the floor as Crystal threw the ship into a mad, rolling spin. A tremendous crash thundered close astern. \"I guess that was a mistake!\" Crystal yelled as she fought the controls. streak of paint and metal ripped off the wing of the police ship. He saw the crew battling their controls in startled terror. The ship slipped frantically away and fell into a spin. jerked and jumped like crazy marionettes as the bullets smashed into through the fuselage. \"They're after us now!\" Crystal's answer was to yank the ship into a rocketing climb. The police were watching for that. The big ship roared up after them. She snapped the ship into a whip stall. For one nauseating moment they hung on nothing, then the ship fell over on its back and they screamed down in a terminal velocity dive, heading for the safety of the lower \" Brian gasped. \"Well, we got away that time. How in thunder the huge bulk of a mountain which blocked the entire width of the it up and up— \"Look! Police ships. They've seen us!\" The ship lunged straight for the mountain wall! \"Are you crazy? Watch out—we'll crash!\" of the mountain face. Brian yelped and cowered instinctively back. The through the foliage—there was no crash. They burst through into a huge, brilliantly lighted cavern and settled to a perfect landing. Men came running. Crystal tumbled out of her ship. \"Who was that crazy coot and what is this place?\" Brian demanded. thundered to life, streaked across the floor and burst out through the spotted for sure, now.\" The other rebels waited uncertainly, but not for long. There was the crescendoing roar of ships in a dive followed by the terrific crash of an explosion. \"They got him!\" Crystal's voice was a moan. \"Oh, the fool, the fool!\" \"Sounded like more than one ship. They'll be after us, now. Is there any other way of getting out of this place?\" \"Not for ships. We'll have to walk and they'll follow us.\" around so their rocket exhausts sweep the entrance to the cavern,\" They ran two ships out into the middle of the cavern, gunned them cautiously into the cavern, guns ready, expecting resistance. They met a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the two ships. Startled screams of agony burst from the crowded group of police as they were caught in the annihilating cross fire of roaring flame. They crisped and twisted, cooked to scorched horrors before they fell. A burst of thick, greasy smoke rushed out of the cavern. Two of climbed blindly from her ship. \"Let's get away! I can smell them burning,\" she shuddered and covered \"You don't have to. Wait here.\" He climbed back into one of the ships and cut the richness of the fuel mixture down till the exhaust was a lambent, shuddering stutter, verging on extinction. He dashed to the other ship and repeated the maneuver, fussing with the throttle till he had the fuel mixture adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In a moment the whole mass of air in the cavern hit the frequency with a subtle, intangible thunder of vibration. Crystal screamed. \"Brian! There's more police cutting in around the entrance.\" Brian clambered out of the ship and glanced at the glowing points in the rock where the police were cutting their way through outside the line of the exhaust flames. The pulsating thunder in the cavern crescendoed to an intolerable pitch. A huge mass of stalactites crashed to the floor. Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring crash of falling rock was a continuous, increasing avalanche of sound in the cavern behind them. They emerged from the tunnel on the face of the mountain, several hundred yards to the east of the cavern entrance. The ground shook and heaved beneath them. \"The whole side of the mountain's sliding,\" Crystal screamed. \"Run!\" Brian shoved her and they plunged madly through the thick tangle Huge boulders leaped and smashed through the matted bush around them. Crystal went down as the ground slipped from under her. Brian grabbed her and a tree at the same time. The tree leaned and crashed down the slope, the whole jungle muttered and groaned and came to life as it joined the roaring rush of the slide. They were tumbled irresistibly it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn vegetation. The remains of two police ships, caught without warning in the rush as they attempted to land, stuck up grotesquely out of the foot of the slide. The dust was settling away. A flock of brilliant blue, gliding Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside. \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\" scrambling through the jungle up the mountainside.\n\n<question>:\nWhat caused the avalanche of rocks in the cavern?\n\n<options>:\nA An atomite bomb.\nB A chemical reaction with the ships’ exhaust.\nC The vibrations of the advancing police.\nD Vibrations from the ships’ exhaust.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,761 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSECOND LANDING By FLOYD WALLACE A gentle fancy for the Christmas Season—an that left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available. it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. For days the two within the ship listened and watched with little soon. \"We've got to make or break,\" said the first alien. \"You know what I'm in favor of,\" said the second. each other—and invent better weapons.\" \"It's not what they've done,\" said Bal, the second alien. \"It's what they're going to do, with that big bomb.\" our help they may do just that.\" \"I may remind you that in two months twenty-nine days we're go.\" \"A week,\" said Ethaniel. \"We can spare a week and still get there on time.\" \"A week?\" said Bal. \"To settle their problems? They've had two world wars in one generation and that the third and final one in everything they do.\" \"It won't take much,\" said \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth.\" \"Could you? Forget so many people?\" \"I'm doing it,\" said Bal. \"Just give them a little time and they won't be here to remind me that to look at them.\" Bal rustled, flicking the screen intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" quite odd, they seem exactly like \"It is. The fact that they are we can do about it.\" \"There is. We can give them a week.\" \"In a week we can't negate \"We can look things over.\" \"And then what? How much we'll be busy. It will be a long time before anyone comes this way again.\" \"A very long time. There's nothing in this region of space our people want,\" said Ethaniel. \"And how long can Earth last? Ten years? Even ten months? The tension is building by the Earth, not intending to commit themselves. For a day they circled the planet, avoiding radar detection, which for them was not difficult, testing, and sampling. \"I know.\" \"We also knew they could deliver There's so little time,\" Ethaniel said. \"Language isn't the difficulty. Our machines translate their languages easily and I've taken a cram course in two or listening to advertisements, music, and news bulletins. I should go down and live among them, read books, talk to scholars, work with them, play.\" \"You could do that and you'd really get to know them. But that takes time—and we don't have it.\" \"I realize that.\" can do for them—but we have to try.\" \"Sure, I knew it before we find out what a people are like and when we can't help them we feel bad. It's going to be that \"Well, give me an hour to think of some way of going at It was longer than that before they met again. In the meantime the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. \"Yes. It's their winter.\" \"I did have an idea,\" said Bal. beings?\" hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said what they'll have to do if they're going to survive, how they can keep their planet in one piece so they can live on it.\" \"That'll go over big. Advice is always popular.\" \"Can't help it. That's all we have time for.\" \"Special instructions?\" \"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You can talk with me any time you want to through our communications, but don't unless you have to.\" them to think that we don't need to talk things over.\" \"I get it. Makes us seem better than we are. They think we know exactly what we're doing even though we don't.\" \"If we're lucky they'll think that.\" Bal looked out of the port at the planet below. \"It's going to be cold where I'm going. You too. Sure we don't want to change hemisphere? It's summer do the job.\" \"Yeah, but I was thinking of that holiday you mentioned. We'll be running straight into it. That won't help us any.\" \"I know, they don't like their holidays interrupted. It can't be helped. We can't wait until it's over.\" \"I'm aware of that,\" said Bal. \"Fill me in on that holiday, anything I ought to know. Probably religious in origin. That so?\" learn anything exact from radio and TV. Now it seems to be chiefly a time for eating, office parties, and selling merchandise.\" \"I see. It has become a business holiday.\" \"That's a good description. I didn't get as much of it as I ought to have. I was busy studying the people, and they're hard \"I see. I was thinking there might be some way we could tie ourselves in with this holiday. Make it work for us.\" \"If there is I haven't thought about. Down there, alone.\" \"I'll be with you. On the other side of the Earth.\" \"That's not very close. I'd like it better if there were someone in the ship to bring it down in a hurry if things get rough. They don't think much of each other. I don't imagine they'll like aliens any better.\" \"They may be unfriendly,\" It was snowing and men were cutting small green trees in where there's little chance it will be seen, we'll make sure that they do see it. Let's take it around to the night side of the planet and light it up.\" \"Say, pretty good,\" said Bal. light up an unmanned ship,\" said Ethaniel. \"Even if the thought should occur to them they'll have no way of checking it. Also, they won't be eager to harm us with the ship over where they can see it best and then I'll light it up. \"Don't spare power.\" \"Don't worry about that. They'll see it. Everybody on Earth will see it.\" Later, with the ship in position, glowing against the darkness of space, pulsating with light, Bal said: \"You know, I feel better about this. We may pull it off. Lighting the ship may be just the help we need.\" \"It's not we who need help, but the people of Earth,\" said Ethaniel. \"See you in five days.\" With that he entered a small landing craft, which left a faintly luminescent Earth. As soon as it was safe to do so, Bal left in another craft, heading for the other side of the planet. And the spaceship circled Earth, unmanned, blazing and winter skies of the planet below could equal it in brilliancy. Once a man-made satellite came near seldom, had Earth seen anything like it. In five days the two small landing craft that had left it arched up from Earth and joined the orbit of the large ship. The two small craft slid inside the large one and doors closed behind them. In a short time the aliens met again. \"We did it,\" said Bal exultantly seemed to be a good idea,\" said Ethaniel. \"If I went out walking one day I noticed that the next agreement they made isn't the best but I think it will keep them from destroying themselves.\" \"It's as much as we can expect,\" said Ethaniel. \"They may have small wars after this, but never the big one. In fifty or a hundred years we can come back and see how much they've learned.\" always cold. I walked out, but sometimes I flew back. I hope that was all right.\" bound to resemble ours.\" \"Sure,\" said Bal. \"Anyway, peace on Earth.\" THE END Transcriber's Note:\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the connection between the aliens in the present holiday?\n\n<options>:\nA The holiday allows the aliens to study the economic impact of holidays.\nB The timing of this trip allows the aliens to see an important holiday first hand.\nC The aliens happen to fit the image many humans have of this holiday.\nD The holiday means that there are more people off of work to interact with for the aliens to learn from.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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469 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"HORDE.\" He had blasted across trackless space to subdue a defenseless world—only to meet on Earth emotions that were more deadly than weapons. Thig's cold eyes opened a trifle wider as he stared into the thing's been further west of Long Island than Elizabeth, and he had promised his wife, Ellen, that he would take the three children and herself on a trailer tour of the West clamping his throat relaxed for a moment and hacked along the side of his head. Blackness flooded the brain of Lewis, and he knew no more. \"He resembles Thig,\" announced Kam. \"But for the strange covering he cultured and brought to life in the laboratories of their Horde, they knew neither father nor mother. Affection and love were entirely lacking in their early training and later life. They were trained antlike from childhood that only the growth and power of the Horde were of any moment. Men and women alike toiled and died like unfeeling For ten hours or more the droning hum of the relay sucked Terry's brain dry of knowledge. The shock upon the nervous system of the Earthman proved too violent and his heart faltered after a time and stopped An hour later, his scars and altered cartilage already healed and acquired memories labeled as pleasure, sent a warm glow upward from around his heart. Then he saw the slender red-haired shape of a woman, the mate of the dead man he knew, and confusion struck his well-trained brain. Men had no mates on Ortha, sex had been overthrown with all the other primitive impulses of barbarism so he was incapable of understanding the emotions that swept through his acquired memory. Unsteadily he took her in his arms and felt her warm lips pressed, trembling, against his own. That same hot wave of pulsing blood choked achingly up into his throat. \"Shoulda got a hundred bucks for that yarn,\" grunted Thig, and gasped. For the moment he had been Lewis Terry and not Thig! So thoroughly had he acquired the knowledge of Terry that he found himself unconsciously He flashed the jewels in front of Ellen's startled eyes and she clung, unbelieving, to his arm. \"Mmmmmm,\" came from the depths of the chipped white wash-basin. \"Home again,\" whispered Ellen as she stood beside Thig twelve weeks later and gazed tearfully at the weathered little gray house. She knelt beside the front stoop and reached for the key hidden beneath it. Thig tried to tell himself that it was the transmitted thoughts of the dead Earthman that made him feel so, but he was not too sure. For three months he had lived with people who loved, hated, wept and sacrificed for reasons that he had never known existed. He had learned the heady glory of thinking for himself and making his own decisions. He had experienced the primitive joy of matching his wits and tongue against the wits of other unpredictable human beings. There was no abrupt thought the same thoughts that a governor might think. Uncertainty added zest to every day's life. The Orthan had come to question the sole devotion of the individual to the Horde to the exclusion of all other interests. What, he wondered, mechanical hives. There was that moment on the brink of the Grand Canyon when Ellen had caught his arm breathlessly at all the beauty spread away there beneath who nestled trustingly against his tense man's body and slept—the son of Ellen and the man he had destroyed. Thig groaned. He was a weakling to let sentimentality so get the better but they smiled and waved their brown little hands. Ellen came to the door and called after him. \"Hurry home, dear,\" she said. \"I'll have a bite ready in about an hour.\" He dared not say anything, for his voice would have broken and she hand to show that he had heard, and blindly hurried toward the Sound. The ship trembled beneath their feet it tore free from the feeble broad fingers bit deep into the unyielding metal of his chair. Suddenly he knew that he must go back to Earth, back to Ellen and the children of the man he had helped destroy. He loved Ellen, and nothing must stand between them! The Hordes of Ortha must find some other world, an empty world—this planet was not for them. \"No human being is more important than the Horde,\" he stated baldly. \"This woman of whom you speak is merely one unit of the millions we must eliminate for the good of the Horde.\" Kam's startled throat and choked off any cry for assistance before it could be uttered. about full upon its owner's thick torso. Thig's fingers pressed down Before Thig's eyes half of his comrade's body sloughed away into foul corruption that swiftly gave way to hardened blobs of dessicated matter. Horror for what he had done—that he had slain one of his own Horde—made his limbs move woodenly. All of his thoughts were dulled His body seemed paralyzed. This was the end, he thought as he waited stupidly for the blow to fall, the end for Ellen and the kids and all the struggling races of Earth. He would never write another cowboy Even Torp, thought Thig ruefully, gave way to the primitive rage of his why he had been left until last. Perhaps Torp wished to take cultures of his blood and tissues to determine whether a disease was responsible for his sudden madness. The cases of fragile instruments were just above his head. Association scuffle out of silence and a choked cry in the man's throat squalled out into a senseless whinny. watching him, his breath gurgling brokenly through his deep-bitten The deadly attack of Thig his own violent avenging of Kam's death, and now the apparent return of the man he had killed come to life had all served to jolt his rigidly trained brain from its accustomed groove. The shock had been too much for the established thought-processes of the Orthan. the skeleton-thing that had been Torp, using the new strength that victory had given him to drive him along. He had saved a world's civilization from extinction! The thought sobered him yet, somehow, he was pleased that he had done so. After all, it had been the Earthwoman and the children he had been thinking of while he battled Kam, a selfish desire to protect them all. He went to the desk where Torp had been writing in the ship's log and emotions he had experienced on Earth since that day, so many months before, when he had felt the warmness of Ellen's lips tight against his. regret in his mind that he was not returning to the planet of his first existence. He thought of the dull greys and blacks of his planet, of the monotonous routine of existence that had once been his—and his heart thrilled to the memories of the starry nights and perfect exciting days crowded his mind. He shivered suddenly, remembering his utter callousness the first time he had sent a space ship whipping down toward the hills and valleys below. And there was a sickness within him when he fully realized that, despite his acquired memory and traits, he was an alien from outer space. He fingered the tiny scars that had completely obliterated the slight differences in his appearance from an Earthman's, and his fingers trembled a bit, as he bent and stared through the vision port. He said a brief prayer in his heart to a God whose presence he now felt very deeply. There were tears in the depths of his eyes, then, and memories were hot, bitter pains. Earth was not far below him. As he let gravity suck him earthward, he heaved a gasp of relief. He was no longer Thig, a creature of a Horde's West. He must remember that always. He had destroyed the real Terry and now, for the rest of his life, he must make up to the dead man's family. The knowledge that Ellen's love was not really meant for him would be a knife twisting in his heart but for her sake he must endure it. Her dreams and happiness must never be shattered.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Thig so confused by the overwhelming senses he felt when he saw Ellen while posing a Lewis?\n\n<options>:\nA She looked familiar to him\nB Men had no mates on Ortha\nC He had never seen a woman in person and was mesmorized by her beauty\nD He felt overwhelmed by sadness for her due to the unknown death of her husband.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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2,009 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwhat seemed to me, since I use two fingers only, a very creditable speed. laboratory after all, it seemed. \"What is it?\" I asked. \"You never tasty, I might add. \"Why, Donald,\" she said, \"it could be quite interesting, if I understand what a junior achievement group is. What gave you the idea?\" 20% solution.\" \"Goodness.\" I protested, \"it's been formula—.\" some of the children in the lower grades wanted to start one. They need adult guidance of course, and to the office today, and told me that and another in general physics in the Senior High School. It's a privilege which I'm sure many educators must envy, teaching in Ridgeville, for our new school is a fine one, and our academic standards are high. On the other hand, the fathers of most of my students work for the Commission and a constant awareness of the Commission and its work pervades the town. It is an uneasy privilege then, at least sometimes, to teach my old-fashioned brand of science to these children of a new age. \"That's very nice,\" said Marjorie. \"What does a junior achievement \"It has the purpose,\" I told her, \"of teaching the members something about commerce and industry. They manufacture simple compositions themselves. \"Well, now,\" I demanded, in my best classroom voice. \"What is all which are available for later educational expenses.\" \"Gracious, you wouldn't have to sell from door-to-door, would you?\" \"Of course not. I'd just tell the kids how to do it.\" Marjorie put back her head and laughed, and I was forced to join her, for we both recognize that my understanding \"Perhaps,\" I countered, \"somebody should tell me.\" and \"feel\" for commercial told us.\" all those simply captivating mice.\" \"Mice?\" \"Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice with those cute furry tails?\" Well, after a while things quieted so, of course, did we, which meant be our headquarters and factory for the summer—a roomy unused barn belonging to the parents of one of \"O.K.,\" I said, \"let's relax. You don't need to treat me as a teacher, you know. I stopped being a school to do with the starting capital we Those mice! I have always kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds, but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushy as miniature squirrels. \"How many generations?\" I asked were of an age and were all tall for ten-year-olds. I had the impression during that first meeting that they looked rather get out of their cages. But heaven knows what you'll do when fall comes. They won't live in an unheated from association, for they were close a certain similarity of restrained gesture and of modulated voice. And friends, they had just come to have right, if you promise me they can't of our efforts to protect the market. infectious laugh, and Tommy Miller, a few months younger, was just an average, extroverted, well adjusted youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted and butch-barbered. the gave us most of the third each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather you like to make and sell?\" I asked. The usual products, of course, with these junior achievement efforts, are chemical specialties that can be made safely and that people will buy and sort of thing. Mr. McCormack had told me, though, that I might find these youngsters a bit more ambitious. \"The Miller boy and Mary McCready,\" he had said, \"have exceptionally high IQ's—around one forty or one fifty. The other three are hard to classify. They have some of the attributes of exceptional pupils, but much of the time they seem to have little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just what they need.\" \"I've been wondering whether something Mary said, \"Why don't we make a that might be the case, and there are three patent men in our office who'd like to chip in and contribute some time. Partly for the kicks and partly \"I'd like to make something by brainstorm. We'll worry about everything else.\" \"What's to lose,\" Tommy interjected. And so we acquired a patent attorney, several of them, in fact. reluctantly. \"Then maybe something \"How about a new detergent?\" Hilary put in. He was scornful. \"No, they're formulations—you know, mixtures. got an idea for one that ought to be calling for capital investment. If we should keep the achievement group going for several summers, it might the last three nights studying the patent safe synthesis of some sort. You're Dr. Matlack's son, aren't you? Been dipping into your father's library?\" \"Some,\" said Hilary, \"and I've got literature and a few standard \"Mice,\" I echoed, then sat back and thought about it. \"Are they a pure strain? One of the recognized laboratory strains? Healthy mice of the an idea the Commission buys a supply every month.\" \"No,\" said Doris, \"these aren't laboratory mice. They're fancy ones. I \"I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And soft drinks and ice, a couple of loaves of bread and ingredients for a variety of sandwiches. The parents had agreed to underwrite lunches at the and to ask how we were progressing and that, according to all the articles I had perused, is most important to such groups. It's standard practice starts?\" \"Why not? The kids can sail through their courses without thinking about them, and actually they won't put in more than a few hours a week during the school year.\" \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\" that they'd each do what came naturally. On the other hand, they young boy who doesn't know any better, may wind up a sales manager. Over the sandwiches, then, I suggested be the only employees—just at first, anyway.\" \"Child labor nothing. They're the make. all, what's to lose?\" It was Mary, finally, who advanced \"and think about the small end. It'll work out all right.\" I wished that the youngsters weren't starting out by inventing a new article to manufacture, and risking an almost certain disappointment, but to hold my guidance to the minimum, I said nothing, knowing that later I could help them redesign it along standard lines. to recall all of the ideas which had been propounded. Most of them were impractical, of course, for a group of children to attempt, but several of them appeared quite attractive. Tommy, for example, wanted to two colors in the same bottle—orange for morning and blue for night, the blue ones designed to leave the a few turns of a screwdriver. Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his ideas on detergents, suggested we possible, to scatter on a snowy sidewalk where they would pick up extra heat from the sun and melt the and spread on the surface of a reservoir to reduce evaporation. These latter ideas had made unknowing use of some basic physics, and I'm afraid I relapsed for a few minutes into the role of teacher and told them a little bit about the laws of radiation and absorption of heat. It was beautifully made, and had a She looked doubtful. \"Why it would have to, wouldn't it? It changed the pattern of air pressures.\" She glanced at me quickly. \"Of course, I tried a lot of different \"Oh, sure, but don't you think it would be better to borrow from a bank? More businesslike?\" complacency in his voice. \"It didn't figured what's to lose, and picked one. stapling the seemed to satisfy him. He said he\n\n<question>:\nCentral theme of the story? Unrestrained allows for greater success and creativity and progress?\n\n<options>:\nA When children are allowed to challenge authority, the possibilities for havoc aren't as extreme as adults assume they will be\nB When children are allowed to control a group, the possibilities for destruction are higher than in a controlled, rulebound environment\nC When children are allowed to follow their dreams, the possibilities for failure are more amplified than in a practical, realistic environment\nD When children are allowed to embrace creativity, the possibilities for innovation are higher than in a rigid, standardized environment\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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380 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBoth these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Now, Ross seems like a nice lady, and I certainly have nothing against adultery, which I hear is being carried on in the best circles these days. But the public flaunting of adultery--especially when spouses and children are around--well, it brings out the bourgeois in me. It also made me feel funny about William Shawn, whom I have always regarded as a great man. I loved his New Yorker . The prose it contained--the gray stuff around the cartoons--was balm for the soul: unfailingly clear, precise, logical, and quietly stylish. So what if the articles were occasionally boring? It was a sweet sort of boredom, serene and restorative, not at all like the kind induced by magazines today, which is more akin to nervous exhaustion. Besides, the moral tone of the magazine was almost wholly admirable--it was ahead of the pack on Hiroshima, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the environment--and this was very much Shawn's doing. I do not like to think of him in an illicit love nest, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole but later to add that he \"mourned\" for Si Newhouse when Newhouse unceremoniously fired him in 1987 (a couple of years after buying the magazine)--well, that's a bit much. Even Jesus had his limits. Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was \"terminated\" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: \"He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end.\" Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.\n\n<question>:\nHow do Ross and Mehta view Brown's acquisition of the magazine?\n\n<options>:\nA Neither has a strong opinion on the matter, until after Shawn's death.\nB Mehta felt betrayed by being let go; Ross said she saw the same personality in her as Shawn and was glad to be invited back.\nC Ross was glad to see it brought a new interest in the magazine to Shawn, despite Mehta feeling otherwise.\nD Mehta resents that Shawn passed away so soon after her being brought on, while Ross was just happy to have a job again.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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7 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nnor the significance of Seymour Pond's retirement. Si didn't bother to remember his name. He only wondered vaguely why the cloddy had turned up at all. before him, Si Pond would have preferred something a bit more tangible The fact of the matter was, Si knew that his retiring had set them back. They hadn't figured he had enough shares of Basic to see him through decently. Well, possibly he didn't, given their standards. He'd had plenty of time to figure it out, there alone in space on the boredom and free fall. Plenty of time. Time to decide that a one room mini-auto-apartment, complete with an autochair and built-in autobar, and with one wall a teevee screen, was all he needed to find contentment for a mighty long time. Possibly somebody like Doc Girard-Perregaux might be horrified at the idea of living in a mini-auto-apartment ... not realizing that to a pilot it was roomy beyond belief compared to the conning tower of a space craft. No. Even as Si listened to their speeches, accepted the watch and wasn't anything they could do. He had them now. He had enough Basic to keep him comfortably, by his standards, for the rest of his life. He about it, now, set the tic to going at the side of his mouth. They could count down and blast off, for all he gave a damn. the Ultrawelfare State. Slumped in an autochair in the escape room of his Floridian home, and tequila. He said, \"Nevertheless, both you and I conform with the present generation in finding it far more pleasant to follow one's way of life in the comfort of one's home than to be confronted with the unpleasantness of facing nature's dangers in more adventurous pastimes.\" society that allows him an income sufficient to secure the food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education to sustain a low level of subsistence. Percentages were against his ever being drafted drafted into the working force reserves, served his time, and is now free from toil for the balance of his life. Why should he listen to our pleas for a few more trips?\" \"But has he no spirit of adventure? Has he no feeling for....\" seemingly mild though it was, had an astonishing ability to break off the conversation of one who debated with the easy-seeming, quiet spoken man. He said, \"No, he hasn't. Few there are who have, nowadays. Man has always paid lip service to adventure, hardships and excitement, but in actuality his instincts, like those of any other animal, lead him to the least dangerous path. Today we've reached the point where no one need face danger—ever. There are few who don't take advantage of the His friend and colleague changed subjects abruptly, impatiently. \"Let's increasingly hard to come by—even though in our Looking over the rim of his glass, his eyes narrowed in thought as his face took on an expression of Machiavellianism. \"And do not the ends would find him, drunk, rolled, tattooed and possibly sleeping it off in excuse would do. Back when he had finished basic education at the age of twenty-five and was registered for the labor draft, there hadn't Each time Si returned from one of his own runs, he celebrated. A spree, needs again. And he most certainly wasn't going to volunteer. He had taken his schooling much as had his contemporaries. There wasn't any particular reason for trying to excell. You didn't want to get the not. You had your Inalienable Basic stock, didn't you? What else did you need? It had come as a surprise when he'd been drafted for the labor force. In the early days of the Ultrawelfare State, they had made a mistake in adapting to the automation of the second industrial revolution. but two days a week, two hours a day. In fact, it got chaotic. It became obvious that it was more practical to have one worker putting in thirty-five hours a week and getting to know his job well, than it was to have a score of employees, each working a few hours a week and none of them ever really becoming efficient. The only fair thing was to let the technologically unemployed remain Thus, Si was vaguely aware, it had always been down through the quite so little for his money as that loneliest of all workers, he who must leave his home for distant lands, returning only periodically and usually with the salary of lengthy, weary periods of time to be spent hurriedly in an attempt to achieve the pleasure and happiness so long Si was going to do it differently this time. Attired satisfactorily, Si double-checked to see that his credit shot, and Si took the involuntary breath from which only heroes could sub-shots. Finally, the dash threw a green light and Si opened the Si took his time. Not that he really needed it. It was by far the most the guest might desire and Si touched the control that dilated it to He didn't take the time to flick on the menu, next to the auto-dining he well knew, would be superlative. Besides, he didn't plan to dine or do much drinking in his suite. He made a mock leer. Not unless he managed to acquire some feminine companionship, that was. He looked briefly into the swimming pool and bath, then flopped himself happily onto the bed. It wasn't up to the degree of softness For a moment he stood in the center of the floor, in thought. Take it easy, Si Pond, take it all easy, this time. No throwing his dollars around in second-class groggeries, no eating in automated luncheterias. This time, be it the only time in his life, he was going to frolic in He decided a drink was in order to help him plan his strategy. A drink At the door to the famous rendezvous of the swankiest set, Si paused a moment and looked about. He'd never been in a place like this, either. However, he stifled his first instinct to wonder about what this was going to do to his current credit balance with an inner grin and made his way to the bar. Si Pond suppressed his astonishment and said, offhand, attempting an The drinks in the Kudos Room might be concocted by hand, but Si noticed drink came, and had to quell his desire to dial for a balance check, so as to be able to figure out what the Sour had cost him. Well, this was something like it. This was the sort of thing he'd dreamed about, out there in the great alone, seated in the confining to his highest expectations, and then swiveled slightly on his stool to take a look at the others present. who occupied the stool two down from him. Si Pond blinked. He blinked pore, was in place. She sat with the easy Si cleared his throat. \"Hey,\" he said, \"how about letting this one be Si, disconcerted by the sudden reversal, said, \"Yeah ... sure.\" Si, carrying his glass, moved over to the stool next to her. \"Call me Si,\" he said. \"Everybody calls me Si.\" \"Si,\" Si said, gratified. Holy Zoroaster, he'd never seen anything current sex symbols, but never in person. \"Call me Si,\" he said again. \"I been called Si so long, I don't even know who somebody's talking to such that it was obvious she hadn't quite adjusted as yet to having met him. Si Pond was surprised. \"Cried?\" he said. \"Well, why? I was kind of Si was expansive. \"Why, sure. In the Space Department we don't have much time for formality. Everybody's just Si, and Doc, and Jim. Like Si grunted. \"Yeah. That's all part of the Doc's scheme to get me to Si said, \"Look, how about another drink?\" \"Si,\" Si said. He motioned to the bartender with a circular twist of\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Si deliberate on how to spend his night?\n\n<options>:\nA He finally has the opportunity to let loose, and wants to revel in it.\nB He’s spent his money on “cheap” entertainment in the past, and wants to do better now.\nC He’s not used to this freedom and is unsure what to do.\nD He’s not used to living this way and is uncomfortable.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
735 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs. The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut and bald head without a brain in it. His slim mother with nervously we'll be late.\" Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless noises, their blabbing and yakking as if they had something to say. Blab-blab about the same old bones, and end up chewing them in the impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion. So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone \"Well, dear, if you say so,\" Mother said, with the old resigned sigh that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly. They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up. \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\" \"What, son?\" his old man said uneasily. \"Sure we are. We're going to the movies.\" silent. \"Okay, go,\" Wayne said. \"If you wanta walk. I'm taking the family boltbucket.\" \"But we promised the Clemons, dear,\" his mother said. \"Hell,\" Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. \"I just got my draft call.\" He saw the old man's Adam's apple move. \"Oh, my dear boy,\" Mother cried out. \"So gimme the keys,\" Wayne said. The old man handed the keys over. His understanding smile was strained, and fear flicked in his sagging eyes. \"Do be careful, dear,\" his mother said. She ran toward him as he laughed and shut the door on her. He was still laughing as he whoomed Finally he said, \"So make up your mind, bud. Think you're the only kid breaking out tonight?\" \"Hold your teeth, pop,\" Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a cigarette. \"I've decided.\" The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement. a head shaped like a grinning bear. Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to shrink him. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea among bowling balls. Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy head. Shoulders hunched like stuffed sea-bags. Olds roared over the bridge as the night's rain blew away. The air through the open window was chill and damp coming from Slumville, but Wayne felt a cold that wasn't of the night or the wind. secretive and sparse, the uncared-for streets became rough with pitted potholes, narrow and winding and humid with wet unpleasant smells. Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with the shadows of mysterious promise. a bank of garbage cans, humming to himself, pulling at a rainsoaked shirt clinging to a pale stick body. He reminded Wayne of a slim grub a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and doom. \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\" Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled. The bum's fingers drew at the air like white talons. \"Help me, kid.\" as the Cad cruised in a slow follow-up. Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything. The crawling stewbum screamed as the baseball bat whacked. The teener laughed. Wayne wanted to shout. He opened his mouth, but the yell clogged up somewhere, so that he remained soundless yet with his mouth still open as he heard the payoff thuds where the useless wino curled Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in scummed rain pools. The smell of raw violence, the scent of blood, made his heart thump like a trapped rubber ball in a cage. of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive. Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty T-shirt, a big bruiser with a gorilla face. He was tussling his mouse heavy. fed on the promising terror and helplessness of her hunted face. She sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass. Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons imbedded in the waxlike skin of his face. Then he grinned all on one side. One huge hand scratched across the wet table top like a furious cat's. Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated but dead. Then he began struggling it up again with the scared little mouse. Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his veins, became hot wire twisting in his head. He drank again and forced out a shaky breath. The jazz beat thumped fast and muted brass moaned. Drumpulse, stabbing trumpet raped the air. Tension mounted as Wayne watched her pale throat convulsing, the white eyelids fluttering. Red fingered at her legs and salivated at her crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast filled the room. The psycho screamed and stumbled toward the door holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was out the door. Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the cold strange breath of moist air on his sweating skin as he sprinted down the alley into a wind full of blowing wet. She quivered above him on the stoop, panting, her eyes afire with terror. \"You, baby,\" Wayne gasped. \"I gotcha.\" She backed into darkness, up there against the sagging tenement wall, her arms out and poised like crippled wings. Wayne crept up. She gave a squeaking sob, turned, ran. Wayne leaped into gloom. Wood cracked. He clambered over rotten lumber. The doorway sagged and he hesitated in the musty dark. A few feet away was the sound of loose trickling plaster, a whimpering whine. \"No use running,\" Wayne said. \"Go loose. Give, baby. Give now.\" She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her, feeling his way through debris. Dim moonlight filtered through a Wayne took his time. He knew how she felt waiting in there, listening to his creeping, implacable footfalls. Then he yelled and slammed open the door. He turned and ran blindly, half-fell down the cracking stairs. Doctor Burns, head of the readjustment staff at the Youth Center, studied Wayne with abstract interest. killed her father when she was twelve. You realize there's nothing can be done for them? That they have to be executed?\" \"I know.\" in there. I can't turn you out and have it erupt later—and maybe shed clean innocent blood, can I?\" \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\" \"Give him the treatment,\" the doctor said wearily. \"And send him back to his mother.\" Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split open some prison of bone and lay bare and breathing wide. But there\n\n<question>:\nHow did Wayne's reaction to being drafted differ from his parents' reaction?\n\n<options>:\nA Wayne reacted quickly, while his parents took longer to react to the news.\nB Wayne was overjoyed while his parents were annoyed.\nC Wayne was excited while his parents were worried.\nD Wayne was in shock while his parents were sad.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,213 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey were mad, all right, and now Matilda wondered if, actually, Matilda would seek the happy medium. at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was This, in itself, was not unusual—but Matilda was so completely why Matilda liked the country better than the city, particularly on a Matilda, you see, had patience. She also had a fetish. Matilda had received her A.B. from exclusive them carefully and then read them again, looking for the masculine names which, through a system known only to Matilda, had an affinity to her own. To the gentlemen upon whom these names were affixed, Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, That particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the Matilda smiled. \"It wouldn't have worked out, Ma. He was too darned \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It in love, Matilda—no one does. Love osmoses into you Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found Matilda switched her bed lamp on and dabbed some citronella on each subject a young, personable man wanted an editorial position because Matilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light Matilda even liked the sound of the name. But mostly, she had to admit it . Or, that is, him . Intelligent, somewhat egotistical male who's really been around, whose Matilda could see that. But she had as though he would have reason indeed. He only wanted the best because he was the best. Like calls to like. The name—Haron Gorka: its oddness was somehow beautiful to Matilda. Haron Gorka—the nationality could be anything. And that was it. He had no nationality for all intents and purposes he was an international man, a figure among figures, a paragon.... Matilda sighed happily as she put out the light. The moon shone in Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed Matilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered \"Mother,\" gasped Matilda. Matilda always gasped when she saw something Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak Matilda hummed Mendelssohn's Wedding March all the way. It was her \"Hello,\" said Matilda. \"I said, where can I find Haron Gorka?\" \"Is that in the United States?\" \"It's not a that it's a he. Where can I find him? Where does he live? What's the quickest way to get there?\" The stereotype pushed up his glasses and looked at her squarely. \"Now Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an stereotype, and he scratched his bald head. Then he told Matilda almost Matilda did, only they didn't know any Haron Gorka, either. It turned out that no one did: Matilda tried the general store, the fire random. As far us the gentry of Cedar Falls was concerned, Haron Gorka did not exist. Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this hadn't she thought of it before? Certainly a man as well-educated as Haron Gorka would be an avid reader, and unless he had a permanent Matilda cleared her throat. \"Pardon me,\" she began. \"I'm looking for—\" \"Haron Gorka.\" The librarian nodded. \"How on earth did you know?\" \"That's easy. You're the sixth young woman who came here inquiring Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. Matilda thought a little flattery might be effective. \"Only ten,\" she \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this could get the vicarious pleasure of your contact with him. Report to me faithfully and you'll get his address. That's what the other five will do, and with half a dozen of you, I'll get an overall picture. Each one that the land no longer was being tilled. The house itself had fallen to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her spirits in check. Haron Gorka, the man, was what counted, and the librarian's account of him certainly had been glowing enough. Perhaps he was too busy with his cultural pursuits to pay any real attention to personal industry meant nothing at all to Haron Gorka. Matilda liked be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having that she really might have liked. Instead, someone she could only regard as a menial met her, and when he asked A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After she wasn't going to be girlishly timid about it. Besides, it was not her fault if, in his unconcern, Haron Gorka had unwittingly hired a For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was she had a nightmare in which Haron Gorka appeared as a giant with two heads, but, upon awaking with a start, she immediately ascribed that to her overwrought nerves. Matilda gasped once and felt about to gasp again—but by then her attributed to coincidence, and the further fact that everything was extremely palatable made her forget all about Haron Gorka's neurotic little while Matilda was asleep again. This time she did not dream at The feeling did not last long. Standing over her was Haron Gorka's He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair. \"You sure?\" Matilda wanted to take no chances. Haron Gorka. Well, then, she must see to it that she impressed him Haron Gorka. It was not that he was homely and unimpressive it was just that he was so ordinary He wore a white linen suit and he had mousy hair, drab eyes, an almost-Roman nose, a petulant mouth with the slight arch of the egotist at each corner. He said, \"Greetings. You have come—\" \"In response to your ad. How do you do, Mr. Gorka?\" \"I—do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back know the man. Well, Haron Gorka obviously had more experience along these lines Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her all over that system—\" \"Stop!\" \"What's that? Making fun of you?\" Haron Gorka's voice had been so eager as he spoke, high-pitched, almost like a child's, and now he Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the Then Haron Gorka had severed that relationship, too, and now he was all alone. were, of course, two alternatives. Either Haron Gorka was an eccentric who enjoyed this sort of outlandish tomfoolery, or else he was plainly aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what because she knew it would make her feel better. \"So,\" she finished, \"Haron Gorka is either extremely eccentric or insane. I'm sorry.\" Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told me if I told you something.\" \"What's that?\" \"I am Mrs. Gorka.\" see, my dear, Haron expects too much. He expects entirely too much.\" Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for . That would be so nice—\" \"I'm sure.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat about Haron didn't excite Matilda?\n\n<options>:\nA he was egotistical\nB he lived nearby\nC his physical appearance\nD his name\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,020 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ntomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls, men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It's true that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussion can never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is a challenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughts history—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilis made her underwater periplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza and concentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for the 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast today what was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning fiasco, for example, in which a the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook was Robert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustrating tensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming, end of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with the Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim hemorrhoid. Captain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by any other name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the taste give his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've got to live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship.\" \"I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook,\" Bailey said. \"The fat swine!\" \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I said. \"He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers in my time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none.\" Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. It tomorrow's menu.\" mass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was only cycler-salt.\" \"You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain,\" I said. I gazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. \"Yes, I eat it,\" the Captain said, taking and talking through another \"Only good food,\" Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguised algae. He tapped his head with a finger. \"This—the brain that guides the ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me, Belly-Robber?\" Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. \"Yes, sir. But I really don't know what I can do to please you.\" \"You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban followed him. \"Captain,\" I said, \"you're driving Bailey too hard. You're asking him to make bricks without straw.\" mother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make him uncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment, to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\" \"You're driving him too hard, Sir,\" I said. \"He'll crack.\" \"Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when we ground at Brady Station,\" Captain Winkelmann said. \"So much money buys many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\" Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the elliptical path to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiate the appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemned by that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain at mealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. \"Convey my compliments to the Chef, please,\" the Captain would instruct one of the crew, \"and ask him to step down here a moment.\" And the Cook would cheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary genius acidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to go into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in a lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot \"bread\" with a genuinely dairy smell. \"Splendid, Bailey,\" I said. \"We are not amused,\" said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second edibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you will have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics student. That will be all, Bailey.\" Bailey they were in addition gratified that the battle between their Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of books, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to help him while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for a fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of interested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability alien to his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'd \"What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today, Belly-Robber?\" he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'd had much practice. \"I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,\" he said. \"I think I've whipped the taste what was left was to get the Voila! \"It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about with our food,\" the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression of distaste. \"It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but I the meal.\" \"Aha! I have it!\" sufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep a bottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber.\" \"But, Sir....\" Bailey began. \"You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic slops for another hundred days, without the small consolation of \"Captain, you've gone too far,\" I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was scarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. \"Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship's Surgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain,\" Winkelmann said. \"Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you,\" I said. \"The other officers restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman.\" \"I hate him,\" Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for the decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He served the algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galley oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. Captain may be a hard man, Bailey but he did know how to coax maximum performance out of his Ship's Cook.\" Bailey stood up. \"Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?\" he asked. but it was all for the good of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked, spearing another piece of my artificial steak. \"Bailey, I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I do.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat likely happens after the story is over?\n\n<options>:\nA The Doc has to treat the crew for food poisoning because they are not used to real meat\nB Bailey is renowned for his culinary breakthrough, and his future restaurant is a success\nC The crew goes down in history, but not for the culinary feat\nD Bailey decides not to open a restaurant so he can continue cooking on ships\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,071 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBrightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse the patrons were few in number. Across to the right was a group that Baron knew vaguely—Andean climbers, or at least two of them were. Over near the door he recognized old Balmer, who had mapped the sky and hotter. Without our ultra-violet screens and glare he looked weary and immensely ugly. His cheeks and healing. The stranger said, “I’m glad you waited. I’ve heard you’re planning to attempt the Brightside.” Baron stared at the man for a moment. “I see you can read telecasts,” he said coldly. “The news was correct. We are going to make a Brightside Crossing.” “At perihelion?” “Of course. When else?” their Brightside Crossing. On the fifth driving period out, the terrain began to change. It looked the same, but every now and then it got to. You’re the only man on Earth who’s attempted a Brightside Crossing and lived through it! And the story you cleared for the news—it was nothing. We need details thick and tenacious, splattering around in steaming gobs as “It’s simple. We failed because it can’t be done. We couldn’t do it and neither can you. No human beings will ever cross the Brightside alive, not if they try for centuries.” “Nonsense,” Baron declared. “We will.” Claney shrugged. “I was there. I know what I’m saying. You broad flat plateau, dodging a network of gaping surface cracks—winding back and forth in an effort to keep the machines on solid rock. I couldn’t see far ahead, because of the yellow haze I’d been interested in the Brightside for almost as long as I can remember (Claney said). I guess I was about ten when Wyatt and Carpenter made the last attempt—that was in 2082, fifty yards to the left, then back to the right. There was only one place that looked like a possible crossing a long, narrow ledge of gray stuff that lay down across Twilight Lab up there and began to get Brightside into my “What trip?” “Brightside of Mercury,” the Major said. I whistled cautiously. “At aphelion?” He threw his head back. “Why try a Crossing at aphelion? heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four days later? No, thanks. I want the Brightside without any nonsense about it.” He leaned across me eagerly. “I want to make a Crossing at perihelion and I want to cross on the surface. If it. Nobody had, since Wyatt and Carpenter disappeared. Mercury turns on its axis in the same time that it wheels around the Sun, which means that the Brightside is always facing in. That makes the Brightside of Mercury at perihelion the hottest place in the Solar System, with one single exception: the surface of the Sun itself. would cross it. I wanted to be along. The Twilight Lab, near the northern pole of Mercury, was the Twilight Lab wasn’t particularly interested in the Brightside, of course—the Sun was Sanderson’s baby and he’d picked Mercury as the closest chunk of rock to the Sun that could hold his observatory. He’d chosen a good location, too. On Mercury, the Brightside temperature hits 770° F. at perihelion and the Darkside runs pretty constant at -410° F. No permanent installation with a human crew could survive at either extreme. But with Mercury’s wobble, the twilight zone between Brightside and Darkside offers something closer to survival temperatures. Sanderson built the Lab up near the pole, where the zone 60 degrees with the libration. The Solar ’scope could take that Poor Jack met us at the rocket landing almost bawling, Sanderson had given him such a gloomy picture of what Brightside “No. Are you worried?” “Not exactly. But Brightside is no place to count on luck.” The Major laughed. “I don’t think we need to worry about say much about it. Stone was getting edgy and so was I. We spent the second day studying charts of the Brightside, such as they were. The best available were pretty poor, taken from so surface activity.” The Major shrugged. “Well, it’s treacherous, there’s no doubt of it. But the only way to avoid it is to travel over the Pole, which would lose us days and offer us no guarantee of volcanoes on the Brightside—even on the Darkside, though But there were problems of atmosphere on Brightside, as flow from Brightside to Darkside. Not much—the lighter gases had reached escape velocity and disappeared from Brightside other heavier gases. There was also an abundance of sulfur vapor, as well as carbon disulfide and sulfur dioxide. The atmospheric tide moved toward the Darkside, where it condensed, carrying enough volcanic ash with it for Sanderson to estimate the depth and nature of the surface upheavals on Brightside from his samplings. The trick was to find a passage that avoided those upheavals as far as possible. But in the final analysis, we were barely scraping the surface. The only way sleepy, almost indolent, but capable of abrupt alertness. like this, and some of the best wouldn’t seem to be the most getting to that.” He settled back in his chair and continued. We jumped off from Twilight on a course due southeast with thirty days to make it to the Center of Brightside. If we could cross an average of seventy miles a day, we could hit Center exactly at perihelion, the point of Mercury’s closest approach to the Sun—which made Center the hottest part of the planet at the hottest it ever gets. The Sun was already huge and yellow over the horizon that Sun would grow bigger and whiter, and every day the was to meet us on the other side in the Laboratory’s scout ship, approximately sixty days from the time we jumped off. That was the plan, in outline. It was up to us to cross those dragging the sledges, so we’ll have to direct your course pretty closely. Peter’s job is to pick the passage at any given point. If there’s any doubt of safe passage, we’ll all explore ahead on foot before we risk the Bugs. Got that?” doesn’t matter. I just feel better when I’m on the move. Does never forget that huge yellow Sun glaring down, without a break, hotter and hotter with every mile. We knew that the first few days would be the easiest and we were rested and fresh when we started down the long ragged gorge southeast of the Twilight Lab. Major and McIvers crawling out behind me, their pillow tires taking the rugged floor of the gorge smoothly. Behind them, the track the early research teams had made out into the edge of Brightside. But in a couple of hours we rumbled past Sanderson’s little outpost observatory and the tracks stopped. We were in virgin territory and already the Sun was beginning to that glaring Sun and the baked yellow rocks going past, and The sun-shield cut the temperature down sixty or seventy with a barely visible yellowish mist of sulfur and sulfurous the hardest way possible: overland, through anything the land could throw up to us, at the most difficult time possible. worse heat in the Solar System was the surface of the Sun itself. Brightside was worth trying for. We would get it or it would get us. That was the bargain. The gorge petered out after a hundred miles and we moved onto the slope of a range of ragged craters that ran south and face of the planet. Not enough for erosion, though. The craters rose up out of jagged gorges, huge towering spears of rock and rubble. Below were the vast yellow flatlands, smoking and hissing from the gases beneath the crust. Over everything was gray ash, filling crevices and declivities—offering a soft, treacherous\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the Brightside?\n\n<options>:\nA The Brightside is the side of Mercury that constantly faces the sun.\nB The Brightside is the first passage to the core of Vulcan Crater on Venus.\nC The Brightside is the name of the passage on the Andean mountains of Venus.\nD The Brightside is the name of the crossing the climbers are going to climb.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,223 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\non Mars it's sandless (shower-wise) near angle on this trip ... but what was humane about sending me? . It must have been a oxygen for the return trip (Jones got me the job of going along to write up the first trip to Mars. He was always getting trip), and the air's only a little bit me . \"It'll be the biggest break a writer ever got,\" he told me, two days before blastoff. \"Oh, sure with the help of the aliens. Or maybe trip, but the public doesn't want on things.\" \"But, Louie,\" I said weakly, \"I'll probably be locked up for the whole trip. If there are fights or accidents, (a group of maybe ten, huddling they won't tell about me The hole went on practically forever, with you.\" \"how'll I go about it? A story? An asked me what the hell I kept writing a short and unscientific word and went to sleep. There's a Martian guarding the So I went on the first trip to Mars. And I kept a diary. This is left us here, and we're out of rations. They picked the launching date from the March, 1959, New October 1, 1960 Times , which stated that this was the most likely time for launching. Trip time is supposed to take 260 days (that's one way), so we're aimed toward where Mars will be (had June 23, 1961, I think We're either There are five of us on board. A met all but the pilot (he's very is rather old to take the \"rigors of the journey,\" as he puts it, but the stand the trip or an accomplished with us. He looks a damn sight better than I feel. He's kind of balding, and very iron-gray-haired and in the heart of the planet, says else. Right now I could eat a dinner itself out into airless space. furiously and went away. When the where we are? sleeping cycle here), Kroger talked yet. He has a little cubicle behind island before he made the far side. had to lift him out of the swirling the water and left his hand all studied them in the uncertain light, ream of paper, so we didn't meet. must be like Terran (Earth-type) during blastoff. The inertial gravities didn't bother me so much as the gyroscopic spin they put on the outside watched them more closely and seen that they have long rubbery their bodies isolated carbon from interview wasn't wasted. I learned Like plants, on Earth, he said. tall and does as Earth plants do in photosynthesis shape of the pilot all day. He passed my room on the way to the galley (the when he'd finished his spiel. in that medium, they lose all energy I still haven't met the pilot. October 3, 1960 Well, I've met the pilot. He is \"Which tunnel do we take?\" thought of escape. it that Pat said was the Earth. we're in. Actually, he explained to of starvation.\" we'd land on Mars upside down. He just stared at me. mines. That's I can't say I was too impressed with that 16 x 19 view of outer It looks like a long trip. gone berserk. October 4, 1960 hour, back in the canal, and were lucky enough to find our own trail We made the surface in another which the jeep still waited. stream (the Martians had probably and he went away. I went to the galley for coffee was nearly buried in sand, but we and he had important work to do got back to the ship quickly. First thing we did on arriving was to misunderstood and said, \"A good chance of liking on Mars?\" We're going back . Pat says that a week is all we were allowed to stay and that it's urgent to return and tell what we've learned Pat slept mostly all day in his When I got back to my compartment, about Mars (we know there are wasn't much to do, so I wrote a shortly after landing.\" He wrote something in the ship's uses his first name as a gag. Some fun. And only 255 days to go. April 1, 1961 I've skipped over the last 177 days or so, because there's nothing Mars, so escape velocity didn't (relatively) trip on our shock-absorbing about Vanity Fair , , War and Peace , Gone with Babbitt . They didn't take as long as I thought they would, except for Vanity Fair Guess I'll take a nap. . Kroger says there are two baby Martians loose on board ship. Pat told him he June 26, 1961 it when he'd pulled a particularly good gag. Some fun. And only 78 days to go. June 1, 1961 Only 17 days to go. I saw Mars on the screen today. It seems to be gone. Earth for instructions. We can't. Here we are, somewhere in a void headed for Earth, with enough air and water left for maybe three days—if the Martians don't take and he told me to go to hell. any more. June 18, 1961 Mars has Longest whiskers on landing gets a again. We're going to land, so I have to go to my bunk. It's all Kroger had only studied them, and Jones had brought them aboard. did me at takeoff. Earth seems awfully far away. of suspended animation till landing time, eight months away. Kroger said, \"How?\" Kroger put us all into a state June 27, 1961 got to set up camp, then get instructions from Earth. So we just have to wait. The air is very cold, but the Pat says what do we do the ship), and Jones threw it away. Got lost today. not to go too far from camp, so, when I took a stroll, I made sure the rocket behind me. Walked for maybe an hour then the oxygen got back they were gone. However, After maybe ten steps, the rocket disappeared. One minute it was next instant it was gone. a lifelong diet of anthracite. Pat out after me in the jeep, following Brief reprieve for us. The disappeared, but I kept going. Finally Worse and worse . Lloyd caught one of the Martians in the At least I think they were footprints. Twice as long as mine, and three times as wide, but kind of featureless because the sand's loose to make a landing. carry us to Earth and we can die on our home planet, which is better than perishing in space. than you.\" He shuddered. \"Ran off Earth in sight Martian is still with us. He's where them, nor the jeep, on my trip back. So we followed the wheel tracks for a while, and they veered off from my trail and followed another, very made of carbohydrates, too. I'd rather not have known. March 4, 1962 back yet, either. June 21, 1961 We're not Earth fills the camp, but a few rifle shots send in a descending spiral into one of before another windstorm blows my diary aboard, and towed the the \"captured Martian\" leaked out, And we're locking up the ship. It's later until the dismantling of the the jeep to follow the aliens' on a Martian. The trail ended at the brink of region on Earth. Kroger tried out of the sea on every coastal here is hard-packed and damp, and five of us have abetted an invasion from Mars. Needless to say, we're no longer inside of the crevice, but the Sun's not mine. June 22, 1961 Well, we're heroes. to sign on for the flight to Venus scheduled within the next few days—because of our experience. to go down. fuel for a one-way trip. I don't care. I've always wanted to travel with Kroger says there's only enough six or seven toes. It varies from print to print. And they're barefoot, too, or else they have the damnedest-looking\n\n<question>:\nHow long was the author away from earth on this trip?\n\n<options>:\nA 18 months\nB 17 months\nC 19 months\nD 16 months\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
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