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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, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth An interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the Psychophysical Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr. Niemand by Philip Latham. LATHAM. Dr. Niemand, what would you say is your main job? NIEMAND. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I Earth. NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity. NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of about about LATHAM. In what way? NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course NIEMAND. Scores of them. LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations? NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases. LATHAM. But some are valid? NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating NIEMAND. Yes, I suppose some people would say so. NIEMAND. That's true. NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose. NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the terms. LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea? NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from \"Julius NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he had NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the world is the origin of human evil. Philosophers have wrestled with it ever since the days of Job. And like Job they have usually given up in despair, convinced that the origin of evil is too deep for the human mind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently wicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Now for the first time science has thrown new light on this subject. LATHAM. How is that? NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periods when conditions are fairly calm and peaceful. Art and industry flourished. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some higher 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? NIEMAND. What reasons? incidents.... NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war. The truth of the matter is that men go to war because they want to go to war. They can't help themselves. They are impelled by forces over which they have no control. By forces outside of themselves. LATHAM. Those are broad, sweeping statements. Can't you be more specific? NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... It 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 NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly 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 Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all 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 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. NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, LATHAM. With what result? NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would LATHAM. Just a minute. I would like to know how you define NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east subjective effect of this nature. And now another fact emerged which gave us another clue. LATHAM. Which was? NIEMAND. In every case of a simultaneous attack the Sun was shining at NIEMAND. No, no. The weather had nothing to do with it. I mean the Sun NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to the Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it was our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless of the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being Middletown wouldn't take our findings seriously but somewhat to our NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for have occurred to us to do it. First, he laid out a series of about LATHAM. In what way? NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period of NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatest NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an NIEMAND. Very closely. You see it takes about twelve days for an NIEMAND. Apparently an S-Region is not particularly effective when it is NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and NIEMAND. We don't account for it. NIEMAND. Middletown says that the radio waves emanating from them are strongly circularly polarized. Moreover, the sense of rotation remains LATHAM. Does this mean that the mental disturbances arise from some form NIEMAND. We doubt it. As I said before, the charts show a lag of about NIEMAND. Our latest results indicate that probably speculation. NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity the present trouble in the world. That it is not ourselves but something outside ourselves— NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are controlled and swayed by forces which in many cases we are powerless to resist. NIEMAND. The trouble is they seem to develop at random on the Sun. I'm afraid any warning system would be worse than useless. We would be crying WOLF! all the time. LATHAM. How may a person who is not particularly susceptible to this NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are\n\n<question>:\nWhich statement most accurately represents Niemand's beliefs toward humans and free will?\n\n<options>:\nA Some humans have more control over the impact of sunspot disturbances on their mental health than others\nB All human desires are influenced, in some way, by the frequency and intensity of sunspots in any given time\nC Humans have the free will to pursue their desires, which are in part influenced by external influences\nD Humans have natural desires and the free will to pursue them\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>:\nalways acted as if he had some secret, something to hide. Curtis recalled that Nelson and Androka had long conversations together—conversations which they would end abruptly when anyone else came within earshot. And Nelson had always been chummy with the worst organization—and particularly in modern naval organization. If you could silence all radio—silence of that sort would be deadly! the scene with a ghostly radiance. The men of the Comerford had entire Curtis got a glimpse of the design on which he was working, and his lips relaxed in a faint smile. Androka had arrived on board the Comerford the day before she sailed from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks, which were now stored in the forward hold. Androka had watched over his treasures with the jealous care of a mother hen, and spent hours daily in the room in the superstructure that had been assigned as his laboratory. Sometimes, Curtis thought old Androka was a bit wacky—a scientist whose mind had been turned by the horror that had come to his country under the domination of the Nazi behind. Curtis was studying the wreckage of the wireless station, wondering if this might have been the source of Androka's zone of silence, when Ensign Jack Dillon came up to him. . At other times, the man seemed a genius. Perhaps that was the answer—a mad genius! navigating officer—dependable, accurate, conscientious. Nevertheless, his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner oilskins, blinking his eyes against the yellow light. Curtis closed the door and nodded toward the bent form of Zukor Androka, with a quizzical grin. \"Old Czech-and-Double-Czech is working hard on his latest invention to pull Hitler's teeth and re-establish the Czech Republic!\" Androka decrees silence over the German airways! Try it! Try it, I say!\" Bob Curtis stared at him, as if questioning his sanity. Then he high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of ships or amateurs on the shorter. \"Dead!\" Androka muttered, with a bitter laugh. \"Yet not dead, can enter or leave my zone of radio silence—of refracted radio waves, set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!\" \"Your secrecy might well cost the United States navy one of its best light cruisers—and us our lives!\" he said angrily. \"We need that check by radio at once! If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs till we learn just where we are!\" Androka held out his palms helplessly. \"I can do nothing. I have given orders to my assistant that he must keep two hours of radio silence! I can get no message to him, for our radio is dead!\" winking at the two officers over Androka's discomfiture, and asked for the bearings. from Cay 364.\" Commander and navigator had both scribbled verifications of the numbers. Ignoring the gibbering Androka, who was wailing his disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they Nelson went back to the bridge, and Androka returned to the commander's wires were alive to the touch and set him to shaking his head at the tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers. Curtis left him at it, and went to rejoin Androka in the cabin. He found the little inventor pacing up and down, shaking his fists in the air pausing every now and then to run his bony fingers through his tangled mop of gray hair, or to claw nervously at his beard. miracle! My invention has shattered the ether waves hereabouts hopelessly.\" \"Seems to me,\" Curtis said dryly, \"this invention can harm your friends as much as your enemies.\" are other inventions to supplement this one. Put them together, and they will defeat the Nazi hordes which have ravaged my country!\" Curtis was a little shocked by the hatred that gleamed in Androka's eyes, under their bushy brows. There was something of the wild animal in the man's expression, as his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth. \"Those tanks you have below,\" Curtis said, \"have they some connection with this radio silence?\" A far-away look came into Androka's eyes. He did not seem to hear their Curtis said: \"I understand.\" \"And if the Nazi agents in America knew of the islet from which my zone of silence is projected—\" Androka paused, his head tilted to one side, as if he were listening to something— On deck, there was shouting and commotion. Curtis rushed out, pulling The Comerford was shrouded in a huge pall of yellowish-gray mist, and themselves struck numb and helpless by a gas that had been flooded into the inner compartments of their strongholds. There were those who said it was the work of sappers who had tunneled completely at the mercy of the wind and the waves. was completely walled in by the yellowish-gray mist. He felt his senses swimming. Voices droned all around him in mumbling confusion—guttural voices \" the other was \"convoy.\" But gradually his eardrums began to throb, as if someone were pounding on them from the inside. He couldn't get his breath got a neutralizing chemical in one of them tanks of his that'll clear everything up inside half an hour.\" \"I'd rather get along without Androka, if we could!\" Nelson muttered. \"He's nothing but a crackpot!\" \"It was a crackpot who invented the gas we used to break up the with strange-looking radio equipment, and more gas tanks like those Androka had brought aboard the Comerford with him, and dynamos and And bustling all over the place, barking excited commands in German, pushing and pulling and pointing to emphasize his directions, was the strange figure of Professor Zukor Androka! \"The professor's in his glory!\" Nelson remarked to Kommander Brandt. \"Funny thing about him,\" Bradford put in, \"is that his inventions work. That zone of silence cut us off completely.\" and ve have another invention of Androka's vich vill be even more useful vhen ve come to cut the Carethusia out of her convoy.\" \"The \"What's the idea?\" Carethusia is taking over.\" \"Can we trust Androka?\" Nelson asked, with a sudden note of suspicion in his voice. \"Yes,\" Brandt assured him. \"Of all men—we can trust Androka!\" \"But he's a Czech,\" Nelson argued. \"The gestapo takes care of Czechs and Poles and Frenchmen and other foreigners whom it chooses as its agents,\" Brandt pointed out. \"Androka has a daughter and other relations in Prague. He knows that if anything misfires, if there is the slightest suspicion of treachery on his part, his daughter and the others will suffer. Androka's loyalty is assured!\" Nelson turned to watch the forward fighting top of the Comerford up there—a strange-looking object that looked something like an old-fashioned trench mortar, and which connected with cables to the room that served as Androka's laboratory and workshop. Another crew was installing radio apparatus in the mizzentop turret. Descending a companionway to see what was going on below, Nelson found the According to his last calculations, the and of other men moving about, exploring. He heard the murmur of voices and saw the glow of lighted cigarettes. navy's fastest and newest small light cruisers—under circumstances which smelled strongly of treachery and sabotage. As he thought back, he realized that he might very purpose. The pieces of the picture fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle—Androka's zone of silence the bearings given by radio Navigating Officer Nelson's queer conduct. They were all part of a never trusted him. Nelson\n\n<question>:\nWhat would the main characters of the article all most likely agree with about Androka?\n\n<options>:\nA Androka is arrogant.\nB Androka can be noncompliant.\nC Androka is often clueless.\nD Androka can be mysterious.\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>:\nHe and his Las Vegas allies, a former Las Vegas city councilman named Steve Miller and an inner city venture capitalist named Otis Harris, invite me on a tour of Las Vegas. \"Behind the Mirage,\" they call it. For two hours, we cruise the streets behind the casinos. They show me all the evidence of gambling blight you'd never want to see, from a youth-center-turned-crack-house to pawn shops to sex shops to down at heels casinos to quickie motels. All the while, they keep up a patter about how terrible a neighbor the casino industry is and how superficial Las Vegas' prosperity is. It's very grim and mostly persuasive. Still, when we turn back on to the Strip, and pass the jaw-dropping Stratosphere and Circus Circus and Bellagio and the MGM Grand--a 30 story tower bathed in fabulous emerald light, I realize why Grey's task is hopeless here. He is committing the cardinal sin of Vegas. All he wants to do is talk about losers. In Las Vegas, under the thrilling lights of the Strip, no one wants to hear about losers. In the land of gaming, not gambling, everyone is sure he's a winner. The sleek Vegas types, whose Strip palaces scramble casinos, theaters, restaurants, arcades, discos, cabarets, theme parks, concert halls, sports arenas, and museums into one giant orgy of amusement, have been selling the idea that gambling is just entertainment--Disney in the desert. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. The antis, meanwhile, cry that gambling is like cigarettes: unsafe for kids, viciously addictive, deceptively marketed, unhealthy, expensive, and unacceptable unless mightily regulated. Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. Today's panelists tell the commission that kids are starting to gamble too young and are getting addicted too easily, that compulsive gambling appears to be increasing as gambling spreads, that gambling marketing may be designed to addict customers, and that the industry exploits problem gamblers by allowing them to draw repeated credit card advances from ATMs on casino floors. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. Why should the pro-gamblers cooperate with a critical study? Because it provides superb cover for them. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination. Likewise, cracking down on compulsives is also politically cost-effective. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. In Las Vegas, the euphemizers reign. Once upon a time, the casino owners decided that \"gambling\" was too crude, too avaricious, to describe their fair business. So \"gambling\" disappeared in Las Vegas, and \"gaming\" has risen in its place. He who controls language controls ideas, and at today's commission hearing, it is perfectly clear who controls the language. Video slot machines crammed into convenience stores--perhaps the most pernicious form of legal gambling there is--are called \"retail gaming.\" People who own casinos are not \"casino owners,\" they are \"gaming visionaries.\" Pathological gamblers are \"problem gamers\"--as if they're having trouble mastering the rules of Monopoly. And the National Gambling Impact Study Commission is reborn as the National Gaming Impact Study Commission. The gambling industry did everything in its power to stop the establishment of this commission two years ago, but Congress and a fervent grassroots anti-gambling group eventually foisted it on the industry. The nine member blue-ribbon panel was charged with assessing the social and economic impact of gambling, and it will issue a final report to Congress and the president in June 1999. Even though the panel was carefully balanced between pro- and anti-gambling leaders, it was supposed to be Vegas' nemesis. The industry and Las Vegas' pro-gambling media quaked in anticipation of the onerous regulations and taxes the commission might recommend. But they quake no more. Whatever national momentum the anti-gamblers had dissolved in last week's elections. The industry routed opponents in state after state. Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative to allow boat casinos. Californians voted to expand Indian casinos. In South Carolina and Alabama, voters expelled anti-lottery, anti-gambling Republican governors and replaced them with pro-lottery Democrats. The gambling industry spent more than $100 million on political contributions and issue ads. It has never been fatter, happier, or more secure. There are also a fair share of gleeful gambling regulators, bookmakers, and casino employees among the panels of expert witnesses the commission hears from. Critics who gripe about the perils of sports gambling and the evils of convenience store slot machines leaven the pro-gambling folks. Everyone, including the gambling industry shills, agrees that Internet gambling is evil and should be destroyed. Everyone agrees to this because no one in Las Vegas is making any money off Internet gambling. If they were, you can be sure they would explain why it's as American as nickel slots and scratch-off games. During the last hour of the day, the public comment period, the union sends a parade of casino employees to the microphone to hallelujah the gaming industry. Housekeepers, cooks, and slot change girls, almost all black or Latina, tell the same story: I was working a dead-end job in another state, \"then I heard about Las Vegas, where there's opportunity!\" I moved here, landed a job at a union casino with high pay, free medical insurance, a pension, and \"now I am buying a house.\" The stories are intensely moving, by far the most persuasive tribute to the Strip that I've ever heard. Still, for all the Vegan triumphalism in the air, it's impossible not to be charmed by the chief gambling opponent, the Rev. Tom Grey. Grey is utterly irrepressible. A Vietnam rifleman turned Methodist minister, Grey has spent the last eight years evangelizing against gambling. He founded the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, the primary force behind the commission's creation. (Grey, in a rare acknowledgement of defeat, has just renamed it the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, tacitly recognizing that gambling is here to stay.) He is a genial motormouth and shameless promoter of the cause. He wears a gigantic \"CasiNO\" button in the casino. He posed for People in a shepherd's robe. He says \"I would do anything short of lighting myself on fire in the Capitol rotunda to stop gambling.\" He is so excitable that I have to yank him out of the way of an oncoming car when he gets too wrapped up in one of his soliloquies.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the gaming industry exploit problem gamblers?\n\n<options>:\nA Casinos offer fine dining, shopping, and big-budget attractions to entice gamblers.\nB Casinos offer complimentary rooms to entice gamblers.\nC Casinos offer complimentary food and drinks to entice gamblers.\nD Casinos allow gamblers easy access to cash through ATM machines on casino floors, and credit card cash advances.\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>:\nsurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watching at a window. And perhaps she Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said, \"It's good to be home!\" Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the other arm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the old Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. \"I Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his, a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat down beside him—but she had hesitated. He \"Pretty good.\" Edith said, \"He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and he made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank.\" He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering the warmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears as But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made the long journey. Ralphie suddenly said, \"I got to go, Dad. I promised Walt and the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It's ran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in would again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—a his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucille came. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and ate in the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. His family had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack of talkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially with company present—to describe everything and anything that had happened to him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especially with his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had been good-natured looked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested in little his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' Tuesday Garden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat between Joe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he felt alone—and said, \"I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rose Ralphie said, \"Yeah, Dad.\" Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork and murmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and said Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at Ralphie Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe Joe was chewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked at Lucille she was disappearing into the living room. First One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fear of, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, \"Hank!\" He said, voice hoarse, \"Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick of the lot of you.\" getting together again soon and \"drop out and see the new development\" and he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the special anything to get away from your father.\" Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, \"Aw, no, Dad.\" Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening together—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\" Ralphie said, \"Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to.\" Hank stood up. \"The question is not whether I want to. You both know I want to. The question is whether But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to a lighted room. \"Phil and Rhona are here.\" He blinked at her. She smiled, and it seemed her old smile. \"They're so anxious to see you, Hank. I could barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They want to go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will.\" expect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil sounded very much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter and full of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, and clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so much more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was good for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go along They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road to Manfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffee and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he merely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. \"Beddy-bye time.\" Hank said, \"First one dance with my loving wife.\" He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waited it always showed in the eyes—that made him know she was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time when the music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear of Hank said, \"No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth?\" The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have been nothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. \"Maybe you should let me out right here,\" Hank said. \"I'm home—or that's what everyone would satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula or another monster from the movies.\" Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\" The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went four blocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. He didn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone path and entered the house. \"Hank,\" Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, \"I'm so sorry—\" \"There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'll all work out in time.\" little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening. \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as necessary. For good if need be.\" \"How could it be for good? How, Hank?\" did—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He was smashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almost ready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to save us because in time it'll be an ordinary thing.\" Edith said, \"Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Please believe that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and—\" She paused. \"There's one question.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Edith want Hank to go out on the town?\n\n<options>:\nA Edith promised Hank's mother that she would make an effort to return to normalcy, as death had not parted them after all.\nB Edith is making an effort to return to normalcy, even though she is scared. She loves Hank.\nC Edith promised General Carlisle that she would make an effort to return to normalcy. She was aware of the new return-to-life policy before Hank left on the mission.\nD Edith wants to get Hank out of the house so Ralphie can have his friends over. Ralphie's friends don't want to visit while Hank is at the house.\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>:\nBut then the Shopping Avenger sat down, and the feeling passed. 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. \"The airline's policy, which is consistent with all contracts of carriage at all airlines, requires that passengers file a report in person for lost or damaged luggage within four hours of arrival at their destination,\" a Southwest spokeswoman, Linda Rutherford, e-mailed me. \"[M.] indicates she called for a few days, but did not file a report in person until April 12--three days later. Southwest, as a courtesy, took her report anyway and asked for follow up information and written inventory of the damage.\" Rutherford said that M. should have submitted detailed receipts and photographs of the damage in order to make a claim. Harrumph, the Shopping Avenger says. It is a bad hair day at Southwest when its officials defend themselves by comparing their airline to other airlines. I forwarded this message to M., who replied: \"Wow. Well, of course I didn't file it at the airport on the 9 th because I didn't know the clothes were ruined at the airport. I didn't know until I opened the baggage at my hotel and saw the ruined stuff. (And it's worth noting that we had already waited for about an hour for our luggage with two little kids and impatient in-laws nipping at our heels.)\" She goes on, \"I did call that evening ... and was told that that sufficed. This is the first time I've been told that I had to file a complaint in person within four hours. ... When I filed on the 12 th , I was never told that I needed any receipts or photos or other type of documentation. The baggage folks seemed pretty uninterested in all of this. ... They know that the type of 'evidence' they want is impossible to obtain. They also know that on April 9 they screwed up the luggage retrieval and left bags out in the rain a long time.\" Southwest's response actually served to anger M. more than the original problem. \"Before, they had a mildly annoyed but loyal customer (who would have been placated by an apology and thrilled with some modest token of their regret). Now they have a pissed-off customer.\" Things do look bad for Southwest, don't they? The Shopping Avenger sent M.'s response to Rutherford, who e-mailed back saying she thought the Shopping Avenger was asking for \"policy information.\" The Shopping Avenger e-mailed back again, stressing to Rutherford that the Great Court of Consumer Justice would, if this case were brought to trial, undoubtedly find for the plaintiff (the Shopping Avenger serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury in the Great Court of Consumer Justice--defendants are represented by the president of U-Haul), and that Southwest was precipitously close to feeling the sword of retribution at its neck. Stay tuned, shoppers, to hear whether Southwest makes good it promise to compensate M. and apologize to her for her troubles. 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.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the Southwest customer upset?\n\n<options>:\nA The Shopping Avenger was not able to help with her case\nB She was not able to win the case in court\nC She didn't get replacements for her belongings quickly enough\nD There was an endless string of confusing communication about policy which seemed to miss the point\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,177 | 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>:\nAs the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interest in the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched port for fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in that era than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore, and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to see the sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—and he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to this journey. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked was of disappearing around those parts and the kids were often better off without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it this good while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martin purpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to the disappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a way disillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neither purpose nor malice was enough he was still immeasurably bored. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that story \"Oh, I see,\" Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulating member of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he would Ninian sighed. \"He's dissatisfied with the current social order and killing you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it. \"Oh, just don't ask any questions,\" Ninian said petulantly. \"When you get older, someone will explain the whole thing to you.\" So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things the way they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people he she went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick and would make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing so hard inside. dumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. \"It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practical Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses that more—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to play with the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parents something pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just as conspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up was supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before, warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded by more luxury than he knew what to do with. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with a neat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having other kids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't given him enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'd no devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants of normal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot of them were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth. When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian had would they manage to live?\" \"How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, how do you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now for you,\" Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in the past and think in the future. \"I'm sorry,\" Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any of his descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivated Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score he had learned long ago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to the out defensively, \"whatever our motives, it has turned into a good thing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporary conveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more you wretched historical stint.\" \"So Ninian's going,\" said Martin, wondering why the news made him feel \"Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend in exile,\" Raymond explained, \"even though our life spans are a bit longer than yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoat government.\" He looked inquisitively at Martin. \"You're not going to go all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you?\" \"No....\" Martin said hesitantly. \"Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But we aren't very close, so it won't make a real difference.\" That was the sad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiring which, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he was that she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at the very last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. The Martin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possible convenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques, carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the man from the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise, Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had become dulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—\"architecturally dreadful, of course,\" Raymond had said, \"but so hilariously \"No,\" Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, \"but it would make the place least twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one of their vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoy such occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms of entertainment. as an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other young man failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was a change of air and scenery. Tourists always like ruins best, anyway.\" So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht, which Martin christened The Interregnum trips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments the nearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much the same as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormous museum he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. largely because they could spend so much time far away from the contemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. So they never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, although ended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another of having got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them only when not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, though they were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't court his society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alone together then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had come left on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highly interbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtue of their distinguished ancestry. \"Rather feudal, isn't it?\" Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberately planned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development. shamefacedly—\"couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed, could I?\" \"I suppose not,\" Martin said. they did not trust their elders.\n\n<question>:\nThe changes that Ninian make in Martin's life\n\n<options>:\nA serve to do nothing other than send a perpetual beacon into the future to let Conrad know where to find Martin.\nB do nothing rather than offer her creature comforts and show Martin what he has to look forward to.\nC make other descendants want to come to the past to meet Martin because they will not only have a cause to uphold, they will also have everything they are accustomed to in their life.\nD make Martin uncomfortable and long for his \"old life\" even though it may not have afforded him the same luxuries of his \"new life.\"\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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767 | 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 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. spoken by so many reviving unfortunates through the ages: And at once there was an answer: \" You lie upon the world Dondromogon. \" I knew the language of that answer, but where it came from—above, The voice had a note of triumph. \"You do not know that. It is as well, for this will be a birth and beginning of your destined leadership on Dondromogon.\" \"Destined—leadership—\" I began to repeat, and fell silent. I had need to think. The voice was telling me that I had been snatched from Dondromogon might be. \"Birth and beginning—destined leadership—\" Fantastic! And yet, for all I could say to the contrary, unvarnishedly true. \"Dondromogon?\" I mumbled. \"The name is strange to me.\" \"It is a world the size of your native one,\" came words of information. \"Around a star it spins, light-years away from the world of your birth. One face of Dondromogon ever looks to the light and heat, wherefore its metals run in glowing seas. The other face is ever away in cold darkness, with its air freezing into solid chunks. But because \"War is fought between the two strips of habitable ground. War, unceasing, bitter, with no quarter asked, given or expected. Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar. Now come invaders, to reap the benefits of discovery and toil.\" A pause. \"You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to heat and cold and storm, and built these stout structures, and now laid \"There's a bigger reward for capture than for warning,\" objected \"I tell the truth,\" was my reply, not very gracious. \"You will have to prove that,\" he admonished me. \"What proof have I?\" I demanded. \"On this world of yours—Dondromogon, 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 plain soldier and follow the classics very little. The First Comers are 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 loose draperies. Old Sporr almost crowed. \"You see? If he was a true imposter, he would The officer faced me, with a sort of baffled respect. \"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 prove it. The prophecy even sketches a thumb-print—\" And he held the book toward me. \"The same,\" said Doriza. And they were all on their knees before me. \"Forgive me, great Yandro,\" said the officer thickly. \"I did not know.\" \"The Newcomers,\" supplemented Doriza. \"They have taken the \"Other Side\" of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves What—\" \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow.\" of which Sporr spoke. sight of me, something like a grin of triumph flashed through his beard. Then he bowed, supple and humble, his palms together. \"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.\" frame a word. Then, suddenly, she was on her knee, catching my hand and kissing it. \"I serve Yandro,\" she vowed tremulously. \"Now and forever—and happy that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all Dondromogon.\" \"Please get up,\" I bade her, trying not to sound as embarrassed as I 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 in the audience hall.\" mixture of awe and brightness. \"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 strip of twilight country is never free of winds too high and fierce to 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 help, not even to conquer. They want to obliterate us. There is nothing to do—not for lifetimes—but to fight them back at the two poles.\" traffic. Doriza paused before a great portal, closed by a curtainlike sheet of dull metal. She spoke into a mouthpiece: \"Doriza, gentlewoman of the guard, conducts Yandro, the Conquering Stranger, to greet his lieutenants!\" I have said that the portal was closed by a curtainlike metal sheet others, who may have lived too long in their earth-buried shelters. And Doriza now spoke to the gathering: \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\" \" Yandro! \" They all spoke the name in chorus, and bowed toward me. Silence then, a silence which evidently I must break. I broke it: 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 fixing me with his wise old eyes. 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 recently by the death in battle of the Newcomer champion, called Barak.\" even as they are without their battle-leader, so we have ours.\" \"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.\" Gederr turned his eyes upon the woman with the red hair, and gestured to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n\n<question>:\nHad the narrator vehemently denied his position as Yandro, would the opinions of the people have likely changed?\n\n<options>:\nA No, because the narrator would eventually be forced against his own will to be Yandro.\nB Yes, because the narrator would have been sent back to Earth for his denial of the position.\nC Yes, because the inhabitants would have instead acted distastefully towards the narrator for not wanting to assume the position.\nD No, because the inhabitants strictly uphold and respect the prophecy that named the narrator as Yandro.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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1,132 | 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>:\nAnybody who shunned a Cure needed his head examined—assuming he had one left! Henry Infield placed the insulated circlet on his head gently. The gleaming rod extended above his head about a foot, the wires from it Infield turned his soft blue eyes to the black and tan oxfords with the very thick rubber soles. \"They might get soaked through.\" Morgan took his foot off the chair behind the desk and sat down. Infield shrugged slightly. \"I suppose a man must take some chances.\" Morgan said, \"You can't do it, Henry. You're crossing the line. The people we treat are on one side of the line and we're on the other. If Morgan shrugged helplessly. \"You're an idealist.\" \"You're damned right!\" Infield slammed the door behind him. The cool air of the street was a relief. Infield stepped into the main readily apparent. A young man with black glasses and a radar headset (a photophobe) was unable to keep from being pushed against Infield. He sounded out the lightning rod, his face changing when he realized it must be some kind jabbed the button that sent a negative current through the cable. The magnetic suction dart dropped away from Infield like a thing that had been alive and now was killed. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief. The other turned to Infield. \"He was unconscious on his feet,\" he explained. \"He never knew he fell.\" Infield's pulse raced, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, and losing out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in The man's face paled so fast, Infield thought for an instant that he was going to faint. \"All right. I'll risk it.\" He touched the side of his face away from the psychiatrist. Infield shifted around, trying to see that side of his benefactor, himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly shocked sane. Men hide in the comforts of insanity, but when faced with Infield looked up self-consciously and noticed that they had crossed two streets from his building and were standing in front of what Infield wondered why cheap bars and restaurants always used red-checked shuffled up to them with a towel on his arm, staring ahead of him at some point in time rather than space. Price lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. \"Reggie is studying biblical Of course he didn't, Infield knew. Why should he? It was useless to learn his Bible lessons to save his father, because it was obvious his father was dead. He would never succeed because there was no reason to Infield sighed. At least this device kept the man on his feet, doing some kind of useful work instead of rotting in a padded cell with a examining it with the skill of scientific observation. \"Mr. Infield is buying me the drink and that makes it different.\" Reggie went away. Price kept dissecting the tobacco and paper. Infield cleared his throat and again reminded himself against such obvious affectations. \"You were telling me about some organization of the \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" Infield felt cold inside. After a time, he found that the roaring was explain.\" Reggie's heavy hand sat a straight bourbon down before Price and another before Infield. Price stared at the drink almost without comprehension of how it came to be. He started to sweat. the bite might do me good if I'd been bitten by a rabid dog, but I don't have the nerve to do it.\" Before Infield could move, Reggie came and set both drinks on a little circular tray. He moved away. \"I knew it. That's all he did, just look at the drink. Makes me laugh.\" \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself. Other psychiatrists have.\" Before Infield could speak, a stubble-faced, barrel-chested man moved past their table. He wore a safety belt. It was the man Price had Infield in the street. Davies went to the bar in the back. \"Gimme a bottle,\" he demanded of a vacant-eyed Reggie. He came back toward them, carrying the bottle in one hand, brushing off rain drops with the other. He stopped beside Price and glared. Price leaned back. The chair creaked. Mrs. Price kept system, it will kill him!\" She rocked the rag doll in her arms, trying to soothe it, and stared in horror. Infield hit the big man behind the ear. He dropped the bottle and fell over sideways on the floor. Fear and hate mingled in his eyes as he looked up at Infield. Nonsense, Infield told himself. Eyes can't register emotion. \"I'll do it if you cause more trouble.\" Infield sat down and rubbed his aching forearms. Davies backed off in terror, right into the arms of Reggie. The waiter \"Let him go, Reggie,\" Price choked out, getting to his feet. \"I'm not dead.\" He wiped his hand across his mouth. \"No. No, you aren't.\" Infield felt an excitement pounding through him, same as when he had diagnosed his first case. No, better than that. They were all looking at Infield. Somehow he felt this represented a critical point in history. It was up to him which turn the world took, the world as represented by these four Cured people. \"I'm afraid I'm lightning flashes, Reggie. Come on.\" Running down the streets that were tunnels of shining tar, running into the knifing ice bristles of the rain, Henry Infield realized that he rushed. Reggie said, \"We shall make a sacrifice.\" Infield looked up and saw the lightning reflected on the blade of a thin knife. Infield reached toward it more in fascination than fear. He managed to get all his fingers around two of Reggie's. He jerked and the knife fell into Infield's palm. The psychiatrist pulled himself erect by holding to Reggie's arm. Staggering to his feet, he remembered what he must do and slashed at the waiter's head. A gash streaked across the man's brow and blood poured into his eyes. He screamed. \"I can't see the words!\" It was his problem. Infield usually solved other people's problems, but He was wrong. The lightning hit him first. Reggie squinted under the bandage at the lettering on the door that said INFIELD & MORGAN and opened the door. He ran across the room to the man sitting at the desk, reading by the swivel light. \"Mr. Morgan, your partner, Mr. Infield, he—\" \"Just a moment.\" Morgan switched on the room lights. \"What were you saying?\" \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by lightning. We took him to the morgue. He must have been crazy to go out without his Cure.\" Morgan stared into his bright desk light without blinking. \"This is quite a shock to me. Would you mind leaving? I'll come over to your place and you can tell me about it later.\" Reggie went out. \"Yes, sir. He was struck by lightning, struck dead. He must have been crazy to leave his Cure....\" The door closed. Morgan exhaled. Poor Infield. But it wasn't the lightning that killed him, of course. Morgan adjusted the soundproofing plugs in his ears, thinking that you did have to have quite a bit of light to read lips. The thunder, naturally, was what had killed Infield. Loud noise—any\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Morgan turn on the lights at Infield & Morgan when Reggie entered?\n\n<options>:\nA The room was too dark, and he wanted to see who had entered his business so suddenly in the middle of a bad storm.\nB He wanted to surprise Reggie with his presence so that he could dismantle Reggie's Cure easier.\nC Because he was sensitive to sound, Morgan's Cure was wearing ear protection. So he had to turn on the lights in order to read Reggie's lips.\nD In his shock at the news of Infield's death, Morgan turned on the light so that he could see Reggie and make sure he was telling him the truth.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,133 | 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.] Anybody who shunned a Cure needed his head examined—assuming he had one left! Henry Infield placed the insulated circlet on his head gently. The Infield turned his soft blue eyes to the black and tan oxfords with the Infield shrugged slightly. \"I suppose a man must take some chances.\" Infield whirled and stalked to the desk. \"That's the answer! The whole along. Do you know that what we are doing is really the most primitive medicine in the world? We are treating the symptoms and not the disease. One cannibal walking another with sleeping sickness doesn't savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not only the indications.\" Morgan shifted his ponderous weight uneasily. \"Now, Henry, it's no good to talk like that. We psychiatrists can't turn back the clock. There just aren't enough of us or enough time to give that old-fashioned Infield leaned on the desk and glared. \"I called myself a psychiatrist mean to say that man's senses will only be impaired 23 per cent? Why, he'll turn violently schizophrenic sooner or later—and you know it. The only cure we have for that is still a strait jacket, a padded cell or one of those inhuman lobotomies.\" Morgan shrugged helplessly. \"You're an idealist.\" Suddenly something else was pushing against Infield, forcing the Infield's pulse raced, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, and losing out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in Infield shifted around, trying to see that side of his benefactor, Infield supposed it was a Cure, although he had never issued one like it. He didn't know if it would be good form to inquire what kind it was. \"It's a cure for alcoholism,\" Price told him. \"It runs a constant blood check to see that the alcohol level doesn't go over the sobriety limit.\" \"What happens if you take one too many?\" Price looked off as if at something not particularly interesting, but more interesting than what he was saying. \"It drives a needle into my temple and kills me.\" The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed to save lives, not endanger them. \"What kind of irresponsible idiot could have issued such a device?\" he demanded angrily. Price probably would never get crazed enough for liquor to kill himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly shocked sane. Men hide in the comforts of insanity, but when faced with in a fire, though, he may run. His legs were definitely paralyzed before and may be again, but for one moment he would forget the moral defeat of his life and his withdrawal from life and live an enforced sanity. But sometimes the withdrawal was—or could become—too complete. didn't study his Bible and pray for him, his old dad would die.\" The psychiatrist knew the threat on the father's part couldn't create Of course he didn't, Infield knew. Why should he? It was useless to learn his Bible lessons to save his father, because it was obvious his father was dead. He would never succeed because there was no reason to to prove that. Reggie went away. Price kept dissecting the tobacco and paper. Infield \"Frankly, no,\" Infield said, realizing it was not the right thing to say but tiring of constant pretense. and endanger other people. The only safe, good sound citizens are Cured. Those lacking Cures—the Incompletes— must be dealt with Infield's throat went dry. \"And you're the one to deal with them?\" likable, impassioned with his cause, and convinced that it was his divine destiny. He was a psychopathic egotist and a dangerous man. Doubly dangerous to Infield because, even though he was one of the few Price started to glance around the cafe, then half-shrugged, almost visibly thinking that he shouldn't run that routine into the ground. \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" Infield felt cold inside. After a time, he found that the roaring was not just in his head. It was thundering outside. He was getting sick. Price was the type of man who could spread his ideas throughout the ranks of the Cured—if indeed the plot was not already universal, imposed upon many ill minds. He could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view. Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop secondary symptoms. People would start needing two Cures—perhaps a foetic gyro and a safety belt—then another and another. There would always be a crutch to lean on for one thing and then room enough to develop something else—until everyone would be loaded down with too many Cures to operate. A Cure was a last resort, dope for a malignancy case, euthanasia for the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and the race. But Infield let himself relax. How could anyone force a mechanical and suave, draped clothes. In this den of the Cured, Infield thought He's not an alcoholic. He didn't need to put that Cure on his head. It's just an excuse for not drinking. All of this is just because a But George has been brooding about it ever since. I guess he thinks something else bad will happen because of liquor. That's silly. Why don't you tell him it's silly?\" Cure and eager to Cure others. Very eager.\" Cure is not even thought of—hypochondria. Hundreds of people come to your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the Infield gestured vaguely. \"A psychiatrist wouldn't hand out Cures unless they were absolutely necessary.\" \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself. Infield wasn't a large man, but he had pressed two hundred and fifty \"I'll do it if you cause more trouble.\" Infield sat down and rubbed his \"No. No, you aren't.\" Infield felt an excitement pounding through him, Price stared at him as if he were a padded-cell case. \"That's different. I'd be a hopeless drunk without the Cure. Besides, no one ever gets rid of a Cure.\" They were all looking at Infield. Somehow he felt this represented a critical point in history. It was up to him which turn the world took, the world as represented by these four Cured people. \"I'm afraid I'm for good . We've got to go after him.\" \"It's slippery,\" Davies whimpered. \"I might fall.\" slipped and fell. He would soon find out what they wanted. The excitement was all gone now and it left an empty space into which fear It was his problem. Infield usually solved other people's problems, but now he ran away—he couldn't even solve his own. Infield realized that he had gone mad as he held the thin blade high right behind him, gaining) had been right. No one could discard a Cure. He watched the lightning play its light on the blade of his Cure and he knew that Price was going to kill him in the next moment. He was wrong. \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by out without his Cure.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Infield opposed to a world comprised completely of the Cured?\n\n<options>:\nA He was completely against the genocidal notions of Georgie in reference to his solution for handling the Incompletes.\nB As one of the Normals, Infield had an interest in maintaining a society that balanced those who had Cures with those who did not.\nC The Cures gave the individuals who had them abilities almost like superpowers, and Infield worried that a demagogue like Georgie would harness them for his own rise to power.\nD He felt it was a slippery slope that would lead to the need for more and more Cures and, ultimately, a general lack of independence.\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>:\nJust another free soul In his foreword to the book, Lessig writes that you understand your subjects “by learning to see them in a certain way.” What is that certain way? typical expressions, or their typical stance. So, if I’m taking pictures I think I’m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see what they’re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so egotistical than he really is. Some photographers are almost medical, not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point, hand, professional photographers usually have a subject whom they don’t know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free you’re trying to capture. A lot of what I’m doing is, I just start shooting photos. After half an hour of having their picture taken, people start to ignore you. Or I’ll take pictures when I’m talking to people about what they’re doing, so the camera. That’s something that I’m not perfect at, but I’m getting I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through photographer. For instance, a board meeting picture, like the one with Eric Saltzman: having a heated debate. But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people don’t get to see that. At the Creative Commons board meeting, Larry asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those pictures turned out the best. In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, liberated. You, as a human spirit, are open. And then, it also has the meaning that you are unencumbered legally, that you are free, as in ‘free software.’ of these people don’t have any free photos of themselves on the web, so while they are “notable” on Wikipedia, their images aren’t free of the copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article encumbered Net presence. People who are invited to conferences get asked all the time, “By the way, do you have a photo that we can use?” But they don’t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons license, now they do. This is solving the issue of legal freedom. The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re giving, we’re all giving to participate and to try to create this wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works. pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits. This is a celebration of all of the people who are willing to give. In a way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, happy with this, and I’m happy, and the Berkman Center’s happy because they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman Center. There’s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in cases where the law requires such rights to be cleared before reuse. What have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year? That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. Microsoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails released their album, Ghost, under a Creative Commons license. The list goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business discussion. becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. Similarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I think it’s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or destructive ways. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is importance of digital in both professional and high-end amateur photography I hate to say it, a lot of people love the darkroom, but it make sense, except for particularly fussy artists, to do wet-work anymore. If you’re a commercial photographer or a high-end amateur, you photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals. photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and Despite the existence of social software, what is still important about meeting people face-to-face? For me, the right way to use a lot of the new social software is by making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like would bet that more than half of the photos in this book are pictures of really increasing your ability to spend quality time with, actually, a What’s great about photography is that it captures the moment that I was sharing with that person. It’s not just a connection on a social network It’s the combination of social software and photography. For me, reality project is really sharing memories with people. Blog posts contribute as well, but to me photography is a really good way of doing that. When I being able to connect with people through social software mostly increases your travel, it doesn’t decrease it. It is great because you get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? that.” I think that in most cases, focusing on individual contributions or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Having said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement is essential. My job is to keep that focus and maintain that balance. operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well. However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I’m a huge fan participants who aren’t so well known and who are essential to moving individual’s personal contribution to any movement. The real meaning is in the whole movement. I’m just one participant. Just another free soul.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the photographer contribute to free culture?\n\n<options>:\nA They share their photos through Creative Commons.\nB They are a board member of Creative Commons.\nC They share their personal image through Creative Commons.\nD They are the CEO of Creative Commons.\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>:\nkiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old friends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey. He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror then perhaps knocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He was surprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watching at a window. And perhaps she \"It's good to be home!\" Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the other arm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the old jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the and- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt the difference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency to Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his, down beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—and ran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. \"I'm very tired. I'd like to lie down a while.\" Which wasn't true, because he'd they wouldn't let him they felt he had changed too much. between them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He went to the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket, began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scars still showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, \"Well then, rest up, dear,\" and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the opposite wall and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, the scars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicing diagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers. There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'd been treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seen them. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms would keep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter Reed Hospital early this morning which was something he found distasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time, he began to understand that there would be many things, previously beneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. \"Stiff\" was perhaps the word. her left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't move it—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-cool embrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let it drop out of sight. have a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room a while.\" She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusive mother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had often irritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barely touched his shoulder and fled. into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at Edith said, \"Hank!\" to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said anything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have been He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the special hesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called the Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening together—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\" Hank stood up. \"The question is not whether I want to. You both know I was going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would in they shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to a and it seemed her old smile. \"They're so anxious to see you, Hank. I could barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They want closest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed very much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter and full of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, and clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so much more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he \"Beddy-bye time.\" He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waited for her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't. Because while she put herself against him, there was something in her face—no, in her eyes it always showed in the eyes—that made him know she was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time when the music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear of Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made a let me out right here,\" Hank said. \"I'm home—or that's what everyone would satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula or another monster from the movies.\" Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\" didn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone path and entered the house. \"Hank,\" Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, \"I'm so sorry—\" \"There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'll all work out in time.\" little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening. I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurt you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're frightened.\" \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as did—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He was smashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almost ready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to save all they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy man loses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered, Edith said, \"Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Please months—slept without dreaming.\" She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was satisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own home.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Hank wait for Edith to leave before he changes clothes?\n\n<options>:\nA Edith bought separate beds while he was gone. Undressing in front of her may make her uncomfortable.\nB The new bedroom arrangement put them in separate beds. He doesn't want Edith to feel uncomfortable by his undressing.\nC He doesn't want Edith to see the scars on his body. It will just remind her he died.\nD He doesn't want Edith to see the scars on his body. Scars may put a damper on the romance.\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>:\nPEGGY FINDS THE THEATER I Dramatic Dialogue “Of course, this is no surprise to us,” Thomas Lane But it was one thing to go to bed and another to go to sleep. the patterns of light and shade cast by the street cookies, kissed her parents good night and went upstairs to bed. said to his daughter Peggy, who perched tensely on since you were out of your cradle. It’s just that decisions like this can’t be made quickly.” calling it a quick decision!” She turned to her mother, her hazel eyes flashing under a mass of dark chestnut curls. “Mother, you understand, don’t you?” lamp outside as it shone through the leaves of the big maple tree. As she watched the shifting shadows, your way. The only question is whether the time is right, or if you should wait longer.” against the wall behind him. He took his time before answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was warm and slow. Nothing seemed quite right. Peggy’s thoughts shifted with the shadows overhead. All the plays she had ever seen or read or acted in melted together in a blur, until the characters from one seemed to be talking with the characters from another and moving about in an enormous set made of pieces from two or three different plays. More actors kept coming on in a fantastic assortment of costumes until the stage was full. Then the stage lights dimmed, the actors joined hands across the stage to bow, the curtain slowly descended, the lights went out—and Peggy was fast asleep. just the same way when I was your age, except that for me it was singing instead of acting. But—” and here her pleasant face betrayed a trace of I wasn’t quite good enough or else I didn’t really want it hard enough—to go on with all the study and practice it needed.” She paused and looked thoughtfully at her daughter’s intense expression, then took a deep breath before going on. Her father replied in little puffs as he drew on his pipe to get it started. “I ... never said ... I didn’t ... understand you ... did I?” His pipe satisfactorily sending up thick clouds of fragrant smoke, he took it out of his mouth before continuing more evenly. keep you in suspense long, dear. Why don’t you go out for a walk for a while and let us go over the situation quietly? We’ll decide before bedtime.” Peggy nodded silently and walked to the kitchen As she stepped out into the soft summer dusk she turned to look back just in time to see her mother throw her a comically exaggerated wink of assurance. Feeling much better, Peggy shut the screen door behind her and started for the barn. think. Its musty but clean scent of straw and horses and leather made her feel calm and alive. Breathing in its odor gratefully, she walked into the half-dark to Socks’s stall. As the little bay horse heard her coming, she stamped one foot and softly whinnied a greeting. Peggy stopped first at the bag that hung on the wall the stall, she thought about her life in Rockport and the new life that she might soon be going to. 7 18 her mind that she was going to do so. If not now, then as soon as she possibly could. It was not any dissatisfaction with her life, her she reminded herself she was running to Would it really be like that? Or would it be something different, something like the dreary side-street world of failure and defeat that she had also seen in from office to office looking for a part in a play, Peggy suddenly laughed aloud and brought herself back to reality, to the warm barn smell and the big, sense if I’m going to go out on my own! We’ll go for a fast run in the morning and see if some fresh air won’t clear my silly mind!” With a final pat, she left the stall and the barn behind, stepping out into the deepening dusk. It was still too early to go back to the house to see if her parents had reached a decision about her future. Fighting down an impulse to rush right into the kitchen to see how they were coming along, Peggy continued behind them into a pattern of leafy lace. For a moment, or maybe a little more, she wondered why she wanted to leave this. What for? What could ever be better? “Again, I’m afraid,” she answered. “Maybe it’s a nervous habit!” into the basin and rinsed off the soap with a shampoo hose. When she came up at last, dripping-wet steamy room and into her cozy, if somewhat cluttered, bedroom. When they had made themselves straight to the point. “So the grand debate is still going on, is it? When do you think they’ll make up their minds?” she asked. “How do you know they haven’t decided anything was yes, I wouldn’t have to wait to hear about it! You would have been flying around the room and talking a mile a minute. So I figured that nothing was decided yet.” her. A short, breathless pillow fight followed, leaving the girls limp with laughter and with Jean having to with her parents. “They both seemed to think it was fair,” she concluded, “and when I went out, they were talking it over. They promised me an answer by bedtime, and decision. You know,” she said suddenly, sitting up on the floor and crossing her legs under her, “I bet comedy and character lines as well as anyone I reading lines well. There’s the ability to make the you either have it, or you don’t. It’s like being double-jointed. I can make an audience laugh when I have good lines, but you can with you all the way, even with bad lines. That’s your mind as easily as all that?” Peggy asked. “That’s the dark and devious part of my plan,” Jean answered with a mysterious laugh that ended in then I’ll feel that I’ve really done something worth while.” Peggy nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak for fear of saying something foolishly sentimental, or even of crying. Her friend’s earnestness about the importance of her work and her faith in Peggy’s talent had touched her more than she could say. 14 The silence lasted what seemed a terribly long for cocoa! By the time we’re finished, it’ll be about time for your big Hour of Decision scene!” It was nearly ten o’clock when Peggy finally felt that her parents had had enough time to talk things out. Leaving the Wilson house, she walked slowly despite her eagerness, trying in all fairness to give her mother and father every minute she could. Reaching heard her father’s voice raised a little above its normal soft, deep tone, but she could not make out the words. Crossing the porch, she caught sight of him not a man in the world who can hold out against two determined women.” He leaned back against the fireplace mantel, waiting for the explosion he felt sure was to follow his announcement. But Peggy just stood, hardly moving a muscle. Then she walked carefully, as if she were on the deck of a rolling ship, “Where’s the enthusiasm?” Peggy swallowed hard before answering. When her voice came, it sounded strange, about two tones higher than usual. “I ... I’m trying to be sedate ... and poised ... and very grown-up,” she said. “But it’s not easy. All I want to do is to—” and she !” She yelled at the top of her lungs. After the kisses, the hugs, and the first excitement, of oatmeal cookies, no longer “sedate” or “poised,” but her natural, bubbling self. “Who was that on the phone, and where are the three of us going, and what’s all set?” what she had heard. “What are we sitting here talking for, then? I’ve got a million things to do! I’ve got to get packed ... I’ve got to think of what to of nothing more than getting to bed. This is going to be a busy time for all of us.” Reluctantly, Peggy agreed, recognizing the sense of what her father said. She finished her milk and\n\n<question>:\nHow would you describe the tone throughout the passage?\n\n<options>:\nA It went from highly excited to mildly calm.\nB Calm at the beginning, tense through the rest.\nC While there was some uncertainty and excitement, it was relatively tranquil throughout.\nD Uncertainty filled the passage, though it became calm at the end.\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>:\nthat left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available. The course of the ship changed slightly 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. 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.\" could set it off. And it wouldn't have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out enemy \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth.\" \"Could you? Forget so many people?\" intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" quite odd, they seem exactly like \"It is. The fact that they are an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually seem defenseless, though I suppose they're not.\" \"Tough,\" said Bal. \"Nothing we can do about it.\" \"There is. We can give them their entire history. We can't begin to undo the effect of the big bomb.\" 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 them over. We're not committing ourselves by looking.\" They went much closer to 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. worse than I imagined.\" \"In what way?\" \"Well, we knew they had the big bomb. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we were.\" \"I know.\" \"We also knew they could deliver the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft.\" \"That was almost a certainty. They'd have no use for the big \"What's worse is that I now find they also have missiles, range one thousand miles and upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel.\" \"Bad,\" said Ethaniel. \"Sitting there, wondering when it's going to hit them. Nervousness could set it off.\" \"It could, and the missiles Our machines translate \"You could do that and you'd \"No. We can't help them,\" said Ethaniel. \"There is nothing we can do for them—but we have to 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. The southern plains were green, the oceans and much of the northern hemisphere was glistening white. Ragged clouds covered the pole, and a dirty pall spread over the mid-regions of the north. \"Nor I,\" said Bal. \"We're going to have to go down there cold. And it will be cold.\" \"Yes. It's their winter.\" \"I did have an idea,\" said Bal. \"What about going down as supernatural beings?\" \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said Bal. \"I did think we ought to take advantage of our physical \"If we could I'd be all for it. But these people are rough and 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.\" \"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You can talk with me any communications, but don't unless you have to.\" \"They can't intercept the beams we use.\" \"They can't, and even if they them to think that we don't \"I get it. Makes us seem better than we are. They think we know \"If we're lucky they'll think 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 our plans and land in the southern hemisphere? It's summer there.\" that holiday you mentioned. We'll be running straight into it. That won't help us any.\" \"I know, they don't like their \"You ought to know. You're running this one.\" Bal looked down at the planet. Clouds were beginning to form at the twilight edge. \"I hate to go down and leave the ship up here with no one in it.\" \"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred years they still won't be able to get in or damage it in any way.\" 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,\" switched a monitor screen until he looked at the slope of a mountain. It was snowing and men were cutting small green trees in the snow. \"I've thought of a trick.\" \"If it saves my neck I'm for was thinking of: instead of hiding the ship against the sun where there's little chance it will planet and light it up.\" \"They can't imagine that we'd light up an unmanned ship,\" said Ethaniel. \"Even if the thought no way of checking it. Also, they won't be eager to harm us with our ship shining down on them.\" the ship over where they can see 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 \"It's not we who need help, but the people of Earth,\" said Ethaniel. that he entered a small landing craft, which left a faintly luminescent trail as it plunged toward 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 pulsing with light. No star in the winter skies of the planet below could equal it in brilliancy. Once a man-made satellite came near but it was dim and was lost sight of by the people below. During the day the ship was visible as of a star and brought near Earth to illuminate it. Never, or 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 he said, rustling. \"Me too, but mostly I'm cold,\" said Bal, shivering. \"Snow. Nothing but snow wherever I went. Miserable climate. And yet you had me go out walking after that first day.\" one day I noticed that the next from destroying themselves.\" \"It's as much as we can expect,\" said Ethaniel. \"They may knelt in the snow and called me an angel.\" \"Something like that happened it upset me,\" said Bal. \"I smiled at them and went about my business.\" He shivered again. \"It was always cold. I walked out, but sometimes I flew back. I hope that was all right.\" knew exactly how he looked. In their paintings they had pictured out. Some creature of their folklore I suppose. You know, except for our wings they're very much bound to resemble ours.\" 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n\n<question>:\nHow did the climate affect the humans' perception of the aliens?\n\n<options>:\nA The cold pushed the aliens to fly a bit, exposing their wings.\nB The aliens seemed extra out of place in the cold.\nC The cold was what allowed their ships to glow and look powerful.\nD The cold made it harder for the aliens to travel on the surface.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,271 | 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>:\nluxuries, including women. If it only had a lease that could be broken— thought them up in a moment of utter boredom and they were extremely back her hair, got to her feet a trifle awkwardly because of the tight-fitting tubular gown. \"If I could do anything about it....\" \"But you can't,\" he told her. \"They're too clever.\" on with it.\" He could sense the restless stirring of the woman within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within himself—desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted within them by their captors. They walked toward the house. something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not. copied, though he did not know why. She laughed at him silently, tossed 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.\" \"I'll try not to,\" he said and stopped, realizing the family party was over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women and returned to his smaller compound within its own barrier dome. Then came the invisible aura of strain in the air, the shimmering illusion of heat that was not heat, that was prelude to his teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant it cosmic impact, yet it had reason. He knew this even though no reason Tennant knew, meant nothing iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name Opal. Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to retrieve. Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir of near-sick excitement as he received the thought: Now you are ready. We are going through at last. Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended. Or perhaps that was his intent Tennant could never be sure. They were going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what 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 another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might 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, seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense. Waiting, Tennant tried not to think of his wife, of the fact that he 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 that might have made Opal suspicious. He should be somewhat excited. He allowed himself to be, though he obscured the reasons. He was going to see his wife again ... and maybe he could trick his way into not returning. He shrugged, returned to the feeling of comfort that came from being back here, about to see Agatha again, hold her close in no more than a few minutes. And stay, his mind began to add eagerly, but he pushed the thought down where Opal could not detect it. He took another deep, lung-filling drag on his cigarette, looked around the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back there would be in a ghastly spot. He felt like a heel for wanting to 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 slipped past his mental censor, and he waited apprehensively for Opal to strike. Nothing happened and he warily relaxed. Opal wasn't tapping his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he couldn't on Earth? It was like being let out of a cage. Tennant grinned at the bookcase in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash with the casual antiquity of the living room. Agatha would complain, naturally, but his being back would make up for him, her lovely face lifted to be kissed, and his heart lurched like an adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be 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 Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about his thoughts—that was why he had been free to think of escape. Tennant closed his eyes, willed himself to the front window. Now that 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 house in a mere seven jumps, the distance to the window in an instant. But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's power over him. He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted him to do when it was followed by a deeper rumbling laugh. Sudden fear made the cigarette shake in his fingers. a grab for me . He'd had one too many and only wanted a little fun. out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted him. The man Roger! \"Roger,\" repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe captors had let him. \"Where in hell 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. desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely conscious of her perfume. It wrapped them both like an exotic blanket, chin, the arch of nostril, the carmine fullness of lower lip, the swell of bosom above low-cut gown. And he no longer wanted any of it or want to do?\" Take her back? He smiled ironically she wouldn't know what that meant. It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way. \" What can you promise?\" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road.\" He needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her lover to do something, anything , as long as it was safe. Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be 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. 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 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. Surprisingly there had been a definite fear reaction. As nearly as he\n\n<question>:\nWhat didn't Roger learn when he returned to Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA that the aliens couldn't capture other men\nB that he had been in a car accident\nC that his wife had found someone new\nD that he could stay if he used his new powers\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,405 | 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>:\nblood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. \"Only one way to go, where we can float down through the the red rim around it.\" But Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken individual rockets, held together by an awful pressing need for each other and by the \"gravity-rope\" beam. Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face wrinkled like a dried prune, burned by cosmic rays and the suns of worlds so far away they were scarcely credible, had taken command. Suddenly, Old Dunbar had known where they were. Suddenly, Dunbar knew where they were going. They could talk to one another through the etheric transmitters inside Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line, taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. 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 Sometimes Russell thought of other things besides his growing hatred Dunbar. Out here, a human being is the smallest thing of all. He 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 could go where they'd never be apprehended, in a system no one else had ever heard of, where they could live like gods on a green soft 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 them had been trying to find all their lives in the big cold grabbag of eternity—a rich star, a rich far fertile star where no one else thought. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years 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 Russell said. \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic voice. Like a hysterical old woman's. \"Just about in the sweet dark old middle.\" 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 it's a paradise. Not just a place to live, boys—but a place you'll have trouble believing in because it's like a dream!\" Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe Alvar and Johnson would see that he was cracked. \"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 said that one had a red rim, Dunbar, and I wanted to believe it. So now maybe we're all seeing a red rim that was never there.\" Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face. \"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 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. You mean to tell us there are people living by that red-rimmed sun,\" Russell said. \"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long,\" Dunbar said, as the always spring, always spring, boys, and the music plays all night, every night of a long long year....\" Russell suddenly shouted. \"Keep quiet, Dunbar. Shut up will you?\" Johnson said. \"Dunbar—how long'll it take us?\" \"Six months to a year, I'd say,\" Dunbar yelled happily. \"That is—of our hereditary time.\" \"What?\" croaked Alvar. Johnson didn't say anything at all. Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six months to a year—out here—cooped up in these damn suits. You're crazy as hell, Dunbar. Crazy ... crazy! Nobody could stand it. We'll all be crazier than you are—\" \"We'll make it, boys. Trust ole' Dunbar. What's a year when we know a whole lot of it, and I know. In the old days—\" \"The hell with the old days,\" screamed Russell. \"Now quiet down, Russ,\" Dunbar said in a kind of dreadful crooning whisper. \"You calm down now. You younger fellows—you don't look at you and takes you away to a museum....\" \"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 one way to go ... an' that's straight ahead to the sun with the have red rims around them. Dunbar—\" A pause and no awareness of motion. Dunbar laughed. \"Sure, they all maybe have a touch of red, but it isn't the same, boys. I can tell the difference. Trust me—\" easy. There was a flash of burning oxygen from inside the suit of Dunbar. If he'd aimed right, Russell knew the fire-bullet should have pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished automatically by units inside the suit. The suit was still inflated, self-sealing. Nothing appeared to have changed. The four of them hurtling on together, but inside that first suit up there on the front of the gravity rope, Dunbar was dead. He was dead and his mouth was shut for good. Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's ears, and he knew Alvar and Johnson had heard it too. Alvar and Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer. \"Russ—you shouldn't have done that,\" Johnson whispered. \"You shouldn't have done that to the old man!\" 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?\" 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 care.\" \"Ready,\" Johnson said. \"I'll cut off the gravity rope.\" Russell couldn't say anything. He stared at the endless void which now he would share with no one. Not even crazy old Dunbar. And old Dunbar shooting right on ahead. And all three of them dwindling and dwindling and blinking out like little lights. Fading, he could hear their voices. \"Each to his own star,\" Johnson\n\n<question>:\nWhat fuels Russell's loathing of Dunbar?\n\n<options>:\nA Dunbar's optimism\nB Dunbar's age\nC Dunbar's delusions\nD Dunbar's laugh\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,037 | 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 Then we can catch the next ship for Earth.\" \"Go back? Go back? The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding enough to stop the most adventurous and genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! \"Let's keep moving,\" I told Val. \"The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up.\" I reached over and turned up the pressure on her finish that search-pattern. Earth needs uranium, honey, we're going back out there to and I know you'd never be happy quitting in the middle By ROBERT SILVERBERG the failure of the sandcat was it was who had failed names now. None of them Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad mechanism of the atomic engine. Why? me somehow: So we were out walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd been walking a good eight hours. prosthetics—amazing to wipe every last one of you out, one by one.\" there isn't any uranium in \"We volunteered to come to ruined cities had been hidden \"Because I hate at the time of the atomic wars. HEROES arguing with her. I stared ahead at the bleak, 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 we had felt it a sort of given the necessary replacement armed attack. This place is well fortified. I've devoted \"Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. We're heroes.\" She glared at me. \"Heroes, since I landed here on Mars.\" \"What are you going to do with us?\" Val finally asked, keep the industries of radioactives-starved limbs free of charge. All for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of Earth's, I was starting to tire, and I knew it must have \"Heroes,\" she said bitterly. 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 \"We're not heroes—we're counters. doing. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly. \"Ah—two young heroes,\" \"Atomics cost me my legs,\" Ledman said acidly. \"How Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the way we decided together on everything. Now she was that great accident—killing hundreds, injuring thousands that sudden explosive tumult dose of radiation instead. Not myself, terribly tired. I longed to lie down on the soft, spongy Martian sand and bury myself. the removal of—\" he indicated \"Just enough to necessitate Mars, until I recalled that I hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. had nothing to do with it.\" the explosion and the amputation, Atomics. Who did you say you worked for?\" I began, \"Uran—\" \"Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman Atomics, but not quite as Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but Mars after all. But, I reminded myself, someone home on Earth. It wasn't much, but people in love don't too. Adrenalin, insulin. Others. The Blast turned need very fancy surroundings. it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. But I knew I'd do it again, if I had the chance. It's because about his threat to wipe out wasn't seriously worried all off. No, it wasn't the wanted to keep them. Which she blamed it all on can succeed?\" I taunted him. \"Really think you can kill every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—\" Val's quick, worried head-shake Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we volunteered. meddled with the atom in the The wind blasted a mass of scheme of revenge and Get sick! a spider's web is for a trapped fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some Earthman who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward The blaster went off, burning wore an outmoded, bulky in the air. The blaster weren't attached to his impact of landing and spun flew from his hands at the him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was blaster. Then I pulled myself removed the tanglegun, and oxysuits. going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth.\" \" No! outboard atomic rigging behind don't want to face them again—not me—\" \"Not so loud,\" I broke in. \"They'll help you on Earth. They'll take all the hatred and sickness out of you, and turn \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat out. \"I hate all of them.\" that you couldn't bear to hang around on Earth for as much as a year after the Sadlerville Blast. You had to take right off for Mars without a moment's delay, didn't you? You 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 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 hardly compared with the I had no muscles to fit them to.\" \"You left Earth too quickly,\" world had been completely Val said. \"It was the only way,\" he In three centuries the shattered \"The atom can take away, but it can give as well. Soon after you left they developed atomic-powered our grandparents' mistakes. They had used their atomics to make bombs. We used ours for fuel. It was an atomic world. Everything: power drills, printing presses, typewriters, can openers, ocean liners, powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom. But though the energy is inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty machine that was Earth's industry had started to slow down. blaster-point. But then I remembered 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 schemes came forth. Project Sea-Dredge was trying to get uranium from the oceans. In forty or fifty years, they'd get some results, we hoped. Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge.\" \"I still don't believe it—those world we'd revert back 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, of hate starting to topple, Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. purr of their motors was the let's go. Between the psychs and the prosthetics men, \"But I'm a murderer!\" That I'd never walk again, my chromium legs and atomic-powered\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these was not a consequence of the Great Atomic Wars?\n\n<options>:\nA Limited resources ran out over time\nB Multiple planets were settled by various countries in a display of power\nC All major types of power sources changed\nD Earth decided to run supply missions to Mars\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
390 | 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>:\nRetief sat relaxed and said nothing. Just before the silence grew Magnan leaned back, waiting for Retief's reaction. Retief drew carefully on his cigar and looked at Magnan. Magnan frowned. \"This is open aggression, Retief,\" he said, \"in case I haven't made \"This is no occasion for flippancy, Retief. In the wrong hands, this \"I'll carry it, sealed,\" Retief said. \"That way nobody can sweat it out all our eggs in one basket, Retief. I hope their confidence in you is every other man is a mechanic of some sort.\" Retief opened the envelope Magnan handed him and looked at the tickets start any long books.\" \"You'd better waste no time getting over to Indoctrination,\" Magnan said. \"They'll never guess,\" Retief said. \"I'll pose as a gentleman.\" Retief put down the heavy travel-battered suitcase and leaned on the and a plastic snakeskin cummerbund groomed his fingernails, watching Retief from the corner of his eye. Retief glanced at him. \"If I have to come around this counter,\" Retief said, \"I'll feed that The clerk looked up and opened his mouth. Then he caught Retief's eye, Retief looked at him. \"Which gate?\" Retief said. Retief picked up his suitcase and walked away toward the glare sign Retief followed the signs, threaded his way through crowds, found a Retief pulled a paper from an inside pocket, handed it over. Retief put his suitcase carefully on the floor, took a step and drove a Retief put his bag down. He turned at a sound behind him. A tall, \"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.\" \"You nuts?\" The thick-necked man stared at Retief. \"I said it's Mr. \"We'll see about you, mister.\" The man turned and went out. Retief glanced at Retief and went out. The thick-necked man returned. 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 \"If you'll excuse me,\" Retief said, \"I want to catch a nap.\" He flipped 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. \"Is this the joker?\" he grated. The thick-necked man edged past him, looked at Retief and snorted, \"That's him, sure.\" \"When you can spare the time from your other duties,\" Retief said, Two big men edged into the cabin, looking at Retief. Retief put his cigar in an ashtray, and swung his feet off the bunk. \"We're due to lift in twenty minutes.\" The thick-necked man and the Captain both shouted at once. The Captain's voice prevailed. \"—twenty minutes ... uniform Code ... gonna do?\" \"Close the door as you leave,\" Retief said. glances Retief's way. A panel opened in the wall behind Retief's chair. Bright blue eyes said so. Don't like his friends, either. Don't like them dern Sweaties, look at a man like he was a worm.\" As Retief watched, four men arose from the table and sauntered across 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 drink it.\" The thug squinted at Retief. \"A wise hick,\" he began. 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.\" Mr. Tony found his voice. \"Take him, Marbles!\" he growled. Retief heard the panel open beside him. Thick-neck lunged and Retief hit him square in the face, knocking him \"Aim that at me, and I'll kill you,\" Retief said. \"Go on, burn him!\" Mr. Tony shouted. Behind him, the captain appeared, white-faced. \"Put that away, you!\" he yelled. \"What kind of—\" won't mess with me.\" \"What has Mr. Tony got on the captain, Chip?\" Retief asked. sure like a feller that can put it away. I was a big eater when I was yer age.\" Retief looked at him questioningly. rubbery lookin' head. You can see the pulse beatin' when they get riled.\" \"I've never had the pleasure,\" Retief said. There was a distant clang, and a faint tremor ran through the floor. \"I ain't superstitious ner nothin',\" Chip said. \"But I'll be feet tapping on the floor. A flaring metal helmet shaded the deep-set compound eyes, and a loose mantle flapped around the knobbed knees. Behind the alien, the captain hovered nervously. \"Who's your friend, Captain?\" Retief said. clicked toothed pincers under Retief's nose. \"Quick, soft one.\" \"Captain, tell your friend to keep its distance. It looks brittle, and I'm tempted to test it.\" he can clip through steel with those snappers.\" from Retief's eyes. \"I told you he was brittle,\" Retief said. \"Next time you invite pirates aboard, don't bother to call.\" \"Jesus, what did you do! They'll kill us!\" the captain gasped, staring \"He's dead.\" The captain stared at Retief. \"We're all dead men,\" he said. \"These Soetti got no mercy.\" \"They won't need it. Tell 'em to sheer off We know their secret now.\" \"What secret? I—\" \"Don't be no dumber than you got to, Cap'n,\" Chip said. \"Sweaties die easy that's the secret.\" \"Maybe you got a point,\" the captain said, looking at Retief. \"All they \"Maybe I can run a bluff on the Soetti,\" the captain said, looking back from the door. \"But I'll be back to see you later.\" \"You don't scare us, Cap'n,\" Chip said. \"Him and Mr. Tony and all his goons. You hit 'em where they live, that time. They're pals o' these Sweaties. Runnin' some kind o' crooked racket.\" \"You'd better take the captain's advice, Chip. There's no point in your getting involved in my problems.\" \"They'd of killed you before now, Mister, if they had any guts. That's where we got it over these monkeys. They got no guts.\" \"They act scared, Chip. Scared men are killers.\" \"That,\" Retief said, \"would be a hard one to answer.\" Retief awoke at a tap on his door. then turned to Retief. Retief sat up and reached for a cigar. Retief nodded, opened the door and stepped into the cabin. The captain \"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 can't put it over, hick.\" \"Tell him.\" the mike and looked up at Retief. he's slippery.\" \"What are you going to do?\" the captain demanded. Retief settled himself in a chair. The captain looked at Retief. He laughed, a short bark. Retief took out the needler and put it on the desk before him.\n\n<question>:\nFrom the passage, what can be inferred about Retief's personality?\n\n<options>:\nA He's a \"hick\" as he is referred\nB He's careful with his decisions\nC He's scared to push the buttons on the wrong person\nD He's tough and determined\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,830 | 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>:\ngroup this summer?\" \"What is it?\" I asked. \"You never what a junior achievement group is. me. \"Is it good?\" teach a course in general science in our Ridgeville Junior High School, and another in general physics in the and swished the contents. Foam which I'm sure many educators must Senior High School. It's a privilege mounted to the rim and spilled over. \"And that's our best grade of Ridgeville water,\" he pointed out. \"Hardest envy, teaching in Ridgeville, for our new school is a fine one, and our my students work for the Commission academic standards are high. On the and a constant awareness of the Commission and its work pervades the full of parked automobiles, and the barn itself rather full of people, including two policemen. Our Ridgeville police are quite young men, but in uniform they still look ominous themselves. town. It is an uneasy privilege then, about commerce and industry. They this?\" group do?\" \"What does a junior achievement \"Are you Henderson?\" the larger like polishing waxes and sell them \"Oh, please, Mr. Henderson, come \"Of course not. I'd just tell the outside where it's quieter and tell me sell from door-to-door, would you?\" should tell me.\" \"You mean you don't know, honestly? almost nonexistent. Commercial Department to help out in the Memorial Fountain basin do it?\" \"Yes,\" she said, \"yes, if it's something We've had to watch such things rather closely for the last ten—no, eleven years. Back in the old Ridgeville, fifty-odd miles to the south, we had our home almost paid for, when couldn't have kept on living there even if the town had stayed. When Ridgeville moved to its present site, so, of course, did we, which meant starting mortgage payments all over \"Yes, of course. Who would ever \"Mice?\" with those cute furry tails?\" Well, after a while things quieted table with five boys and girls lined up along the sides. This was to be our headquarters and factory for the summer—a roomy unused barn belonging to the parents of one of give me a serious warning against down. They had to. The police left their story, or whatever it is they do. job here is only to advise, and I'm You're going to decide what to do, and if it's safe and legal and possible in any way I can. This is your meeting.\" I'd be dealing with. The three who who had proposed the group in the I should explain, perhaps, that I conference. She listened and asked right, if you promise me they can't and of modulated voice. And average, extroverted, well adjusted shipping. the seemed to be elected. \"Well, Mr. Henderson, a junior achievement group is a bunch of kids who get together to manufacture and sell things, and maybe make some Courier \"Is that what you want to do,\" I asked, \"make money?\" \"There's something wrong with making The usual products, of course, with a wonder. other hand, the fathers of most of frames. \"Hi,\" he said. \"You're Donald Henderson, right? My name is McCord—Jeff McCord—and I work in the Patent Section at the Commission's in the country.\" downtown office. My boss sent think I'd have come anyway. What are you doing to get patent protection on Ridge Industries' new developments?\" I got my back unkinked and dusted off my knees. \"Well, now,\" I said, me over here, but if he hadn't, I or one fifty. The other three are hard to classify. They have some of the \"The thing to do,\" Tommy offered, \"is to figure out what people in Ridgeville want to buy, then sell it to them.\" \"I'd like to make something by shouldn't be done, but I know what they need.\" it? You worry about the filing and final fees. That's sixty bucks per in the electronics field. A hi-fi sub-assembly of some kind.\" \"How about a new detergent?\" Hilary offered to license the design. Result, put in. Jeff McCord was there, and the whole brand new synthetic detergent. I've got an idea for one that ought to be \"Well, now,\" I said, \"organic synthesis \"I am,\" he replied, \"in a cautious legal sense, of course. Hilary and I literature and a few standard \"Some,\" said Hilary, \"and I've got a home laboratory.\" \"How about you, Doris?\" I prompted. \"Do you have a special field of interest?\" spot. If we do get protection, you've despondency. \"I'm not very technical. got a real salable property.\" \"That's fine, Mr. McCord,\" Hilary Just sort of miscellaneous. But if the \"No.\" She shook her head in mock said, \"but it's not very important.\" incredulously. thought about it. \"Are they a pure strain? One of the recognized laboratory right strain,\" I explained to Tommy, \"might be sold to laboratories. I have an idea the Commission buys a supply every month.\" \"No,\" said Doris, \"these aren't laboratory \"What is it?\" \"A whisker stiffener. It makes each \"So I perceive. What is it?\" \"Well, now,\" I admitted, \"the market chemistry. Cysteine thiolactone an after-shave lotion? Denatured alcohol, \"I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And inquired, \"How do you sell it?\" if we're going to break the hearts of use cosmetics and junk, but if they a loan.\" \"What on earth for? We have over \"What would that be?\" I asked. only it's a permanent magnet. Then cup. agreed to underwrite lunches at the found a place over a garage on Fourth Street that we can rent for winter quarters. Oh, yes, and Jeff is and that, according to all the incorporated.\" to such groups. It's standard practice to be a company officer. Of course a young boy who doesn't know any better, may wind up a sales manager. nominating company officers, won't put in more than a few hours a week during the school year.\" \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\" \"Child labor nothing. They're the employers. Jeff McCord and I will be the only employees—just at first, anyway.\" naturally. On the other hand, they make. name for the organization, without that they'd each do what came Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. standard lines. threaded part, then send it home with Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his the general form of a kidney bean. sort of professional look about it. sometimes.\" \"Why it would have to, wouldn't that. \"Where's Tommy?\" \"Oh, sure, but don't you think it would be better to borrow from a a big deal. Half the guys in the bank had to be called in to listen to the proposition. The account's in your name, Mr. Henderson, and you'll have to make out the checks. And they want you to stop in at the bank and yes, and cosign the note.\" dealings with banks except in the for a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar note—over two weeks salary. I made a mental vow to sign very few checks. \"So then I stopped by at Apex Stationers,\" Tommy went on, \"and ordered hadn't picked a name yesterday, but I figured what's to lose, and picked one. Ridge Industries, how's that?\" Everybody nodded. \"Just three lines on the letterhead,\" he explained. \"Ridge Industries—Ridgeville—Montana.\" I got my voice back and said, \"Engraved, I trust.\" who by mutual consent, was our authority on sales, didn't want to sell any until we had, as he put it, enough\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the Commission?\n\n<options>:\nA The Commission is a group of elected officials that run the town of Ridgeville.\nB The Commission is a metallurgy company and the main employer in Ridgeville.\nC The Commission is a chemical company and the main employer in Ridgeville.\nD The Commission is a laboratory and the main employer in Ridgeville.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,379 | 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>:\nHUNTED the next ship for Earth.\" By ROBERT SILVERBERG The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding \"Go back? \"I never bothered to find out their names,\" Ledman Death to all Terrans! said casually. \"They were we're going back out there to Val. \"The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up.\" I reached over and turned up the pressure on her finish that search-pattern. \"Let's keep moving,\" I told Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be point, because Val didn't lie all my fault, too. Val's usually \"Let's get moving, fellow airlock, smiling. THE END Transcriber's Note: that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault—whoever it was who had failed There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think of six, eight It was beyond her to see names now. None of them \"You've been hunting But no Why? What've they ever done to she blamed it all on of the Martian desert. We'd genius who had a motto: Ron?\" Val pleaded. \"Maybe we're crazy to keep on searching When Val's tired and overwrought HEROES desert. That's the only sport I But I'm determined to drive the Geigs—and UranCo—off Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away.\" \"Just pick us off in the desert?\" well fortified. I've devoted years to building it. And I'm \"Try to keep going, Val.\" \"Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. We're heroes.\" years to this. Ever since—ever since I landed here on Mars.\" \"What are you going to do with us?\" Val finally asked, we dump this guy I'm sacking for the pay, Val.\" for their constant undercurrent Even though the Martian on the infinitely safer desert. Earth's, I was starting to been really rough on Val with tire, and I knew it must have 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?\" you volunteer for the Geig \"We're not heroes—we're \"We volunteered to come to Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly. much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the \"Ah—two young heroes,\" Ledman said acidly. \"How search for uranium as I was. doing. She had been just as could do as individuals to We knew the pay was poor, Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No, we had decided together that great accident—killing to come to Mars—the hundreds, injuring thousands more, sterilizing forty miles would. How could I forget of Mississippi land—when way we decided together on everything. Now she was I was there to sign a new the contract, but I got a good dose of radiation instead. Not enough to kill me,\" he said. \"But why kill us Geigs? Mars, until I recalled that I had nothing to do with it.\" \"You're just in this by accident,\" he said. \"You see, after We the explosion and the amputation, the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. \"You're a very sick man, Ron?\" Val asked sleepily. to fasten down the engine Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but had been particularly close Mars after all. But, I reminded myself, someone on red blood corpuscles.\" I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form, and thought of down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. But I knew I'd do it again, if I had the chance. It's because about his threat to wipe out had. Heroes? Hell, no. We the entire Geig Corps, since the needle into his arm. My eyes widened. It was can succeed?\" I taunted him. \"Really think you can kill every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—\" Val's quick, worried head-shake married couples, working in I'd never forget it. No one we volunteered. \"You're sick, Gregory Ledman,\" Val said quietly. once again to wake Val. \"You've conceived an impossible scheme of revenge and now you're taking it out on \"Why don't you do something? for, Ron?\" to turn you loose outside, right after—\" \" a spider's web is for a trapped fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some Earthman who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward Val, and saw that she was what was wrong with Val. convinced me. I saw Val's \"Ron—\" spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area weren't attached to his back as expected, though. They were strapped to the odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was spacesuit ended neatly at the \"Teamwork,\" Val said. She and a very efficient-looking blaster was in his right. \"I didn't want to disturb scratch up the side of Val's are you?\" \"You'll find out soon enough,\" he said. \"Suppose to make trouble.\" Val and I oxysuits. sent back to Earth.\" \" No! don't want to face them again—not \"They'll help you on Earth. \"What's going on, Ron?\" Val asked in a low voice as we out. \"I hate all of them.\" \"I know,\" I said sarcastically. \"You're just all full of around on Earth for as much off for Mars without a moment's delay, didn't you? You hated Earth so much you 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 great atomic wars of the late I had no muscles to fit them to.\" \"You left Earth too quickly,\" them back together again. Val said. They had used their atomics for fuel. the wall of the Dome at blaster-point. But then I remembered of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, have added Val to the number on Mars. With every on Earth, we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of he'd killed twelve source of uranium mined dry Geigs—or more—and would schemes came forth. Project had he had the chance. Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge.\" \"I still don't believe it—those to tide us over until then. In a Sea-Dredge was trying to get uranium from the oceans. In a great atomic civilization. So, Mars. There's not much \"Haven't you wondered how I managed to break the tangle-cord when I kicked you uranium on Mars, and it's not over?\" \"Yes—human legs aren't strong enough to break tangle-cord easy to find or any cinch to gave Val the blaster and slipped Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. out on the face of out of my oxysuit. \"Look,\" I said. I pointed to two hummocks on the Val got him into his suit, and let's go. Between the psychs you'll be a new man inside of a year.\" \"But I'm a murderer!\" \"That's right. And you'll be sentenced to psych adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you, but there'll one side of the airlock, uttered a few words keyed to his \"Let's get back to the Dome\n\n<question>:\nWhy have Val and Ron joined a mission on Mars?\n\n<options>:\nA to locate a new source of fuel\nB to restore Earth's depleted fuel reserves\nC to determine if the planet can be colonized\nD to identify the source of recent astronaut murders\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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646 | 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>:\nCHAPTER ONE scientist himself?” Eddie asked. “Let’s just say he—or both of them—have Mr. Taylor opened the door. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and still thin-waisted. Eddie found it easy to believe the stories he had heard about his father being an outstanding football player in his time. Even his glasses and the gray hair at his temples didn’t add much age, although Eddie knew it had been eighteen years since his father had played his last game of college football. “That’s entirely possible,” his father said. “In fact, it’s the only logical explanation I can scalps us. Hurry it up.” His father turned and went back down the hallway toward the surprised to see him. “Mother and I are just finishing dinner.” “Oh, I figured you’d be through by now,” knowing that even if he missed a spot or two, he was fairly safe. During the summer months his freckles got so thick and dark that it would take a magnifying glass to detect any small smudges of dirt hiding among them. He plastered some water on his dark-red hair, pushed a comb through it, and shrugged as it snapped back almost to its original position. didn’t seem as cheerful as usual. “Good evening, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said. “I—I hope I’m not making a pest of myself.” He Oh, well, he had tried. looked around for Mr. Ross, but Teena’s father apparently hadn’t arrived home from put fresh ones in after breakfast. He brushed his teeth carefully, taking particular pains around the metal braces. The tooth-straightening orthodontist had warned him about letting food gather around the “Right on the front page.” “I suppose your father is quite concerned “I’m not sure I know, either,” Mrs. Ross said. “Maybe we could understand more of day today.” “So your father says. But I’m afraid your 15 “No arguments, son,” his father put in calmly but firmly. “School vacation doesn’t mean that your chores around here are on still have time to hunt your uranium. “Well,” Mr. Taylor added, excusing himself “I’ve heard of chain reactions,” Mrs. Ross said. eagerly. “Wouldn’t think of leaving it home,” his father said, smiling. “By the way, I put new replied. “Aren’t the rays dangerous?” Mrs. Ross than its threat of danger to anyone who handled it carelessly. It was a new isotope—a it’s plenty thick. Of course, you can’t see them. “I guess not, dear,” Mrs. Taylor said, smiling Not with even the most powerful microscope in the world.” tried to make it sound as though he would be doing Teena Ross a big favor. After all, will soak up radiation, just like a sponge soaks up water.” 40 “My, that’s interesting, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’ve seen them do it,” Eddie said proudly, of course. When the material has soaked up said. “It’s like a sponge. Only instead of soaking up water, it soaks up radiation.” “I’m in kind of a hurry.” “Why not? You’re in a hurry, aren’t you? I can make the sandwiches while you dry the silverware.” She smiled, putting tiny crinkles in her small, slightly upturned nose. She wore her hair in a pony tail. Even though her hair was blond all year long, it seemed even lighter in the summer. Eddie couldn’t tell whether the sun had faded it, or whether her deep summer tan simply made her hair look lighter by contrast. Maybe both. “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, coming into the kitchen. “Looks like Teena put you to work.” “She always does, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said, pretending great injury. “Don’t know why I keep coming over here.” would be interested in their ability to destroy rather than their ability to benefit mankind. because we’re friends, that’s why.” 21 43 manufacturing concerns. “Well, I’ll be glad to finish them, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross offered. “I know how boys detest doing dishes.” “Oh, I don’t really mind, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie “That’s right, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie agreed. “People should talk more and read more about it. After all, this is an atomic age. We might as well face it. My father says that in horse-and-buggy Mrs. Ross smiled. “I guess you’re right, Eddie,” she said, “but I wouldn’t quite know find it if anyone can.” “I agree,” Mrs. Ross said. “But even if you don’t find it, you both seem to enjoy your “Or greasing one,” Teena added. Eddie laughed. “I sure wouldn’t want the hikes.” in a single period printed at the end of a kitchen. a man’s voice spoke behind him. “What are we talking about, Eddie?” “Oh, hello, Mr. Ross,” Eddie said, turning around and standing up. “I didn’t hear you come in.” 44 Teena’s father was a medium-sized man with light-brown hair which was getting somewhat thin on top. He was usually quite cheerful and full of fun, but tonight his face seemed unusually drawn and sober. He stepped to the table, leaned over, and gave both Teena and Mrs. Ross a kiss on the cheek. but Eddie knew these indicated no more than and went into the bathroom. He washed hurriedly, very funny tonight.” “Sit down, dear,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’ll warm your dinner. You didn’t sound very cheerful almost like bacon frying in a hot skillet. 23 “In fact, not good at all.” “Not so good,” Teena’s father said tiredly. Eddie apologized, following her inside. 35 “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, but she own home. 24 After putting Sandy on his long chain and Mrs. Taylor turned from the sink. Eddie 14 “But this morning you said it would be He grinned into the mirror, reached a Acme Aircraft yet. There wasn’t a place set for sat stiffly behind his homemade desk, talking the last few sketchy words. Then his father If there had been even the slightest doubt in Eddie’s mind about something being wrong, it vanished now. Mr. Taylor looked years older than he had that very morning. Worry lay deep in his eyes. He fumbled thoughtfully with a pencil, turning it end over end on his desk. “Hello, son,” he said. He didn’t even ask “Dad,” Eddie said anxiously, “what—what’s the matter?” “It shows that much, does it, son?” his father said tiredly. Mr. Taylor leaned back. “Quite a bit’s with it,” his father explained, “but while the CHAPTER TWO first. After having finished, Mr. Taylor handed in his chair. 28 “They’ve got it pretty straight, at that,” Mr. Taylor said, “but I’m afraid this is going to stir up quite a bit of trouble.” defended. “It was as much mine as anybody’s, son,” his father said. “Probably more so. After all, be very dangerous.” “Fifty pounds,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “Not much bigger than a two-quart milk bottle, in fact.” 30 were barely visible and of no help other than to indicate that two men were involved in the crime. paper, “how could anyone carry away something weighing fifty pounds without being noticed?” arrive a half hour early?” “They wouldn’t,” his father said. “They 32 “I don’t see what anyone would want with “That’s unlikely, son,” Mr. Taylor said.\n\n<question>:\nIn Chapter one, what is the significance of describing Mr. Taylor as not having aged much?\n\n<options>:\nA It provides the notion that Mr. Taylor is a fun, understanding, and competent professor.\nB It provides the notion that despite Mr. Taylor’s dangerous job, the radioactivity hasn’t aged him a day.\nC It provides a contrast for later in the story, when Mr. Taylor is described as looking aged and wary after the isotope is stolen.\nD It provides a contrast against Mr. Ross, who is described as older and balding.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,198 | 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>:\nrelentlessly toward him. He awoke still screaming.... A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind. the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the and hares ... or was it follow the leader? \" Coma esta, senor? He told her the tales he'd heard. She nodded. \"There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a but with almost every advance in space, someone dies.\" \"Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only tres pretty and tres fat. She weigh almost eighty pounds, monsieur . I take you to her, \"It is deal, monsieur ? Five dollars or twenty keelis for visit ignore you then.\" \"Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for 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.\" well.\" She looked at him strangely. \"Suppose—\" He fought to find the right words. \"Suppose I got well and 2 -breathing that had coursed through her. \"The only thing that matters, really,\" she murmured, \"is your walking again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?\" , Ben told himself. The officer passed. Ben breathed easier. 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. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead 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 Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, crimson-braided uniform of the Odyssey's At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At ten, he'd ground the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his 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 And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the Odyssey 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 , Ben thought. He took his drink and moved three 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 be dyin' of radiation rot or a meteor'll get you. Wait and see, sucker!\" Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and 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 You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in 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 , Ben reflected, you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from Earth. After all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant keep you company on your first night in Hoover City, n'est-ce-pas ?\" Ben didn't answer. thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, monsieur ?\" , I go. You keep listen to good Martian music.\" The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness. Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of Just another second— Or would the exits be guarded? his body. He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before complete lethargy of mind and body overpowered him. massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to rest. Everything'll be all right.\" Everything all right , he thought dimly. mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: \"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food.\" Or, \"Close your eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better.\" Better , he'd think. Getting better.... and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her am going to live?\" \"You will live.\" He thought for a moment. \"How long have I been here?\" \"Nine days.\" \"You took care of me?\" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her sleep-robbed eyes. \"Tell me, will—will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?\" touched his hot forehead. \"Rest. We'll talk later.\" His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept. She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise \"Maggie.\" \"Why did you save me?\" 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 from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation. Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8—the second highest in a class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?\" Fascinated, Ben nodded. Odyssey . He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly. because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon.\" \"Maggie, you—you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk \"But you don't think I will, do you?\" \"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. Rest.\" He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture. Finally she said, \"He had a wife.\" \"Children?\" \"Two. I don't know their ages.\" She left the room. He sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side, Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and\n\n<question>:\nHow long did Maggie care for Ben before he finally awoke after rescuing him?\n\n<options>:\nA Nine days\nB Three days\nC Nineteen days.\nD Six days\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,873 | 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>:\nEarth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. For days the two within the ship listened and watched with little comment. They had to decide soon. \"We've got to make or break,\" said the first alien. \"You know what I'm in favor of,\" said the second. \"I can guess,\" said Ethaniel, is a complete mess. They've never done anything except fight 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.\" \"The more reason for stopping,\" said Ethaniel. \"The big bomb can destroy them. Without our help they may do just that.\" \"I may remind you that in two \"Without looking at the charts I can tell you we still have more than a hundred light-years to go.\" \"A week,\" said Ethaniel. \"We in everything they do.\" \"It won't take much,\" said Ethaniel. \"The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier could set it off. And it wouldn't have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out enemy attack.\" \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth.\" \"Could you? Forget so many people?\" said Ethaniel. \"I ask you intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" to say?\" \"It is. The fact that they are an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually seem defenseless, though I suppose they're not.\" \"Tough,\" said Bal. \"Nothing we can do about it.\" \"There is. We can give them their entire history. We can't begin to undo the effect of the big bomb.\" \"You can't tell,\" said Ethaniel. \"We can look things over.\" \"And then what? How much authority do we have?\" \"Very little,\" conceded Ethaniel. 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 them over. We're not committing ourselves by looking.\" They went much closer to 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. Finally Ethaniel looked up \"In what way?\" \"Well, we knew they had the big bomb. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we were.\" \"I know.\" \"We also knew they could deliver the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft.\" \"That was almost a certainty. They'd have no use for the big bomb without aircraft.\" \"What's worse is that I now find they also have missiles, range one thousand miles and upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel.\" \"Bad,\" said Ethaniel. \"Sitting there, wondering when it's going to hit them. Nervousness could set it off.\" \"It could, and the missiles were investigating their weapons.\" \"You must think something.\" \"I wish I knew what to think. There's so little time,\" Ethaniel said. \"Language isn't the difficulty. Our machines translate \"No. We can't help them,\" said Ethaniel. \"There is nothing we can do for them—but we have to try.\" find out what a people are like and when we can't help them we the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. brilliant,\" said Ethaniel. \"Yes. It's their winter.\" \"I did have an idea,\" said Bal. \"What about going down as supernatural beings?\" \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said Bal. \"I did think we ought to take advantage of our physical differences.\" \"If we could I'd be all for it. But these people are rough and desperate. They wouldn't be fooled by anything that crude.\" \"All right,\" said Ethaniel. other. We'll tell them bluntly 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 \"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You can talk with me any communications, but don't unless you have to.\" \"They can't intercept the beams we use.\" \"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to them to think that we don't \"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.\" there.\" \"I'm afraid not. The great powers are in the north. They are the ones we have to reach to We'll be running straight into it. That won't help us any.\" \"I know, they don't like their ago,\" said Ethaniel. \"I didn't beginning to form at the twilight and leave the ship up here with no one in it.\" \"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred years they still won't be able to get in or damage it in any way.\" \"It's myself I'm thinking \"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,\" Ethaniel acknowledged. Now he \"If it saves my neck I'm for \"I don't guarantee anything,\" said Ethaniel. \"This is what I was thinking of: instead of hiding the ship against the sun where there's little chance it will be seen, we'll make sure that \"Say, pretty good,\" said Bal. \"They can't imagine that we'd 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 our ship shining down on them.\" \"Don't spare power.\" \"Don't worry about that. ship in position, glowing against the darkness of space, pulsating 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. craft, heading for the other side of the planet. And the spaceship circled Earth, unmanned, blazing and pulsing with light. No star in the winter skies of the planet below could equal it in brilliancy. Once a man-made satellite came near but it was dim and was lost sight Earth to illuminate it. Never, or 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 Ethaniel smiled. \"I'm tired,\" Ethaniel. \"If I went out walking from destroying themselves.\" \"It's as much as we can expect,\" said Ethaniel. \"They may have small wars after this, but \"Why?\" to me,\" said Ethaniel. \"But you don't know what an angel is?\" \"No. I didn't have time to find out. Some creature of their folklore I suppose. You know, except for our wings they're very much like ourselves. Their legends are bound to resemble ours.\" Amazing Science Fiction Stories January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Ethaniel think the humans look defenseless?\n\n<options>:\nA Without space travel, the humans seem defenseless against an alien attack.\nB Without wings, the humans look small and defenseless.\nC Without wings, the humans look like children.\nD Without space weapon technology, the humans seem defenseless against an alien attack.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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348 | 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>:\nI repeated it patiently. \"But why?\" he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In an instant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand his suffering, but I could recognize it. \"You yourself have said it,\" I told him. \"I am a being of logic, just as the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend the things which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If I the invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They are more nearly kin to me than your people.\" Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought that the shock had deranged his mind. trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop, \"To do so would be illogical.\" He waved his hands helplessly. \"Gratitude?\" he muttered. \"No, you don't understand that, either.\" Then he cried suddenly, \"But I am your friend, Robert!\" \"I do not understand 'friend,'\" I said. I did understand \"gratitude,\" a little. It was a reciprocal then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he could not comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, with Peter called an emotion and yet it had nothing to do with logic, to the end that I knew was inevitable. either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled by not solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered within A tear was trickling down my cheek. Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed with satisfaction. His dream was perfect the was complete, every minutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would be laying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow, glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it lay the that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly, impassively in at him. That was the first impression he got For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulging slowly away and was gone. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the street after a moment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everything One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hiding from the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But the Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified, of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only be glad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even more Then lines of type, and farther down: The item below the last one said: we face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation and this is are threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroy the Invaders!\" Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for the first time. \" laboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to \"What makes, Peter my love?\" she asked, and bent back to the ledger. them, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough.\" Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gone The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings and screamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throaty gurgle and died, leaving silence again. from him and started toward the inner room. \"Wait here,\" he mouthed. cages, and paused just short of it. straight ahead of him. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyond fear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and said in a terrible voice, \"Why? Why?\" were lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Only \"I can't understand,\" he cried wildly. \"What do you want?\" He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the first slowly.... His voice was hoarse. \"Don't look! Don't—Go back!\" The horrible, The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could hold the room. It was a scream to split eardrums \"Where am I?\" he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm hand \"She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been a before he drifted off, he said sleepily, \"You can't—fool me. It's been —than three—months.\" for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's a miracle you're alive, and rational.\" \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why I haven't been able to see her.\" Arnold frowned. \"All right,\" he said. \"I guess you're strong enough to \"But why?\" Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. \"We're hiding,\" he said. \"Everything else has failed.\" Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went on areas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavate enough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the other three-quarters will be dead, or worse.\" \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\" Arnold laughed harshly. \"You are. You've got to be. You're part of our last hope, you see.\" \"Our last hope?\" \"I see,\" said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, to the left of the airlock— the group a little distance away, silently waiting. \"Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way.\" but that's only delaying the end. we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. out of her body. \"All right,\" she said in a lifeless voice. \"You'll line from an old film kept echoing through his head. \" He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled into He heard the massive disk sink home, closing him shaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lock behind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber. heavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one. The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closed smoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped back into place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. The the silence pressed in about him. its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes were unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed all after a time he ceased even to wonder. eager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawning hope.... Peter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said. \"Yes,\" I told him. \"I was that child. I am the millionth mutation you were searching for.\" He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as he \"And now,\" he said softly, \"we will go home. I've waited so sure. But now, the waiting is over. \"They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. You can kill the Invaders, Robert.\" He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctive knowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, \"On Earth we had a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be with you. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You can understand them, and so you can conquer them.\" you say?\"\n\n<question>:\nBy the end of the passage. what can we understand about the opening scene?\n\n<options>:\nA Without Peter, the ship won't be functional anymore.\nB Despite being logical, Robert feels emotional about killing Peter. He is at odds with himself.\nC Robert kills Peter without any thought behind it.\nD Robert's cold logic has won him over completely.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,723 | 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>:\nStill, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, the hometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphal tour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he sat newspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—the Galloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired man and he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let him off at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better. They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up, almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He had wanted it to be as before. still too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornate flagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamental knocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He was surprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watching at a window. he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and she hadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said, \"It's good to be home!\" floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. \"I didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough.\" So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. \"I'm very tired. I'd like to lie down a while.\" Which wasn't true, because he'd been lying down all the months of the way back. and pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him they wouldn't let him they felt he had changed too much. She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and past the small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It was newly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by an ornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked more ominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wire She also tried to smile. \"The one near the window. You always liked the fresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped you to get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town. were going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from it to this bed again.\" \"Not this bed,\" he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. \"No, not this bed,\" she said quickly. \"Your lodge donated the bedroom set and I really didn't know—\" She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrier between them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He went to the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket, began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scars still showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, \"Well then, rest up, dear,\" and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the opposite wall and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, the been treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seen them. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms would keep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter distasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time, he began to understand that there would be many things, previously beneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed Ralphie had changed all the people he knew had probably changed—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He let himself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never known before. filtering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the same man who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family and would again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—a return to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwash instead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly be granted to him. in the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. His family had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack of talkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially with good-natured the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. \"Stiff\" was perhaps the word. houses you ever did see,\" he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice. \"Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before—\" At that point he Garden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat between Joe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he felt alone—and said, \"I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rose bushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower or trowel.\" cut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphie and said, \"Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.\" Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced. to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said anything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have been Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening together—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\" They answered together that of course they wanted to. But their eyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said he was going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would in all probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and that they shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. closest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed but then again, he'd also expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him to to be sick. \"So let's rock,\" he said and stood up. it always showed in the eyes—that made him know she was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time when the music ended, he was ready to go home. you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're frightened.\" \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as necessary. For good if need be.\" did—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He was smashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almost \"I saw nothing,\" he said. \"It was as if I slept those six and a half months—slept without dreaming.\" satisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and\n\n<question>:\nHow did Henry feel about the remodeled bedrooms?\n\n<options>:\nA He was thankful to have a private place to rest.\nB He felt sad that yet another thing was unfamiliar.\nC He was angry because he really liked his old bed.\nD He thought the new paint was nice but didn't like the furniture.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
202 | 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>:\nCasey Ritter, the guy who never turned down a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't going to sell them for dope. But—and this was the 'but' that was also, I had promised not 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 court didn't seem important just then. Jupiter was worse than the pen, 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. the Red Spot of the planet, floating in some kind of artificial I snorted. \"Aw, hell, judge, that's just one of those screwy fairy little story teller patiently cleared his skinny throat again. say, eminently suited to the task.\" when I already had more counts against me than a cur has fleas. Not unless it was a straight suicide mission! I feebly massaged my throat. \"Pictures?\" I whispered. \"Show me 'em.\" Crude, but it was all I could squeeze out. inhabitants were charming, just charming if you like scorpions. Well, 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 it. Nuts! After all, in the pen a man can eat and breathe, and a guard won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back turned. How stupid could they get? At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed.\" eggs, an even dozen of 'em and flawless, I'm a-shoutin', not a flaw!\" His eyes watered at the memory, yearning like a hound-dog's over a nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's him. somehow knew that he'd really lifted those emeralds. But how? It was jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning me. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick by the time he got out a with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead, chisel me way outa this squirrel cage, I'm gonna hit fer good old Jupe 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. He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he remember?\" He winked broadly. \"It come from Mars in the first place, just leave 'em alone. That's all they want, just to be left alone. fer them. Besides, the space suit rig you got to wear, they can't bite so I brought her a hundred pounds of the stuff, an' she went fer that almost like it was diamonds, too. Did I rate around there fer awhile!\" He sighed regretfully. \"But then I went and made her mad, an' I'm kinda persona non grata there right now. By the time I gnaw outa this here 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 alive. That thought ate me to the quick, and I began to wonder if it For three more days I worked down my knuckles, my nails being gone, while I sat around all hunched up, wondering feverishly if Pard would and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to mist was eatin' into the finish on my spacesuit, so I draped this hadn't helped me, they'd of done it, too. And Akroida claimed I done it a-purpose to upset her.\" Then he winked at me. \"But then I got off in a corner and cooked up tiny bottle like that boy Aladdin clutching his little old lamp. slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut slobbering. But the Big Sneer of the S.S.C., the fellow that had got to remind me that this was public service, strictly. \"These—\" he had proclaimed with a disdainful flourish, like a placer them. And be assured that if you're man enough to effect the trade—\" He paused, his long nose twitching cynically—\"IF you succeed, your snarled at him. \"Just you wait till I do, feller!\" I slipped the string ice-cloud and turned me loose in a peanut of a space boat with old Jupe patted my pretty enameled suit, which was a study in paris green and But my green boat must have showed up like a lighthouse in all that a pair of stubby wings. He didn't seem to be making much effort, even though he was climbing vertically up from the planet. In fact, he lived. If that little shrimp could do it, I could, too. poor sinner's map was made of shell, and he wasn't responsible for its lady,\" I informed him. \"However, I have something very special in the I thrust this sneak-thief idea back into limbo. Taking advantage of his condition, I boldly tapped out, \"How's about taking me on a guided tour through this red spinach patch to Akroida, old pal?\" Or words to that effect. 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 Right there I forgave him for pulling that eye on me. He was the guide over his shoulder at my ship, so I eased in the controls and edge after It was red, like everything else in this screwy place, and could only space. put twelve or fifty feet up off the floor, it stayed there. Not that there wasn't gravity. There was plenty of gravity to suit me—just right, in fact—and still they had furniture sitting around in the air 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 airlock to the window ledge, he again sniffed that delectable odor on endured, and then without warning tossed me onto his back above the those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code name?\" she demanded. And when he told her, with a bad stutter in his code, she reared up higher on her skinny elbow and glared in my direction. \"Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?\" Well, after all, she wasn't blind. He had to confess. \"I—uh—the stones were so amazing, Royal Akroida, that I didn't pay much attention to the—uh—trader. He does seem to resemble an—ah—earthman.\" He\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the stoolie's job?\n\n<options>:\nA To find out Casey's smuggling secrets\nB To get information from Casey to give to the S.S.C.\nC To become Casey's friend and confidante\nD To convince Casey to change his mind\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
144 | 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>:\nhis own frightful battle against incredible odds! I In his room at the Elsby Commercial Hotel, Tremaine opened his luggage that. This fellow Margrave—General Margrave. Project Officer for the hyperwave program—he's been on my neck day and night. I can't say I blame him. An unauthorized transmitter interfering with a Top Secret me do it my way.\" \"I felt a technical man might succeed where a trained investigator could be misled. And since it seems to be pinpointed in your home warning you, Tremaine. Get that transmitter. I need someone to hang!\" Tremaine left the hotel, walked two blocks west along Commerce Street MUNICIPAL POLICE cut in the stone lintel above the door. Inside, a heavy man with a creased face and thick gray hair looked up from behind Tremaine took off his hat. \"Sure you do, Jess. It's been a while, In a back room Tremaine said, \"To everybody but you this is just a we don't know much yet.\" Tremaine covered \"That's a tough one, Jimmy. This is where I should come up with the \"Well, what about him?\" \"Nothing. But he's the town's mystery man. You know that. A little touched in the head.\" said. \"I always liked him. One time he tried to teach me something \"Oh?\" Tremaine stubbed out his cigarette, lit another. \"What happened the drug store where I worked and perch on the stools and kid around with me, and Mr. Hempleman would watch them from over back of the prescription counter and look nervous. They used to raise cain in the \"What was the idea of that?\" \"Dunno. Just meanness, I reckon. Not much damage done. A car was passing by and called it in. I had the whole caboodle locked up here \"Why Bram?\" Tremaine persisted. \"As far as I know, he never had any Tremaine shook his head. Tremaine got to his feet. \"I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your ears \"I've got an oversized suitcase,\" Tremaine said. \"I'll be setting it up Tremaine. The man turned to Tremaine, pushing a drawer shut with his hip. \"Bram? The man came over to the counter, eyeing Tremaine. \"He ain't going to Tremaine put a hand on the counter, looked thoughtful. \"I was hoping It was ten minutes before he beckoned Tremaine over to the table where \"No, thanks,\" Tremaine said. \"That's all I needed.\" He turned back to Tremaine waited. \"Now why would I do that?\" Tremaine reached for the door knob. The woman darted a suspicious look at Tremaine. \"You have to handle Tremaine leafed over, reading slowly. The librarian was at Tremaine's side. \"I have to close the library now. windows along the side streets. Tremaine turned up his collar against a of the left rear tail fin whipping in the slipstream. Tremaine stopped Tremaine set off at a run, covered the two blocks to the hotel, yanked Two miles into the dark hills north of the Elsby city limits, Tremaine \"Mind if I have a word with him? My name's Tremaine.\" him.\" He turned and spoke to the other cop, who muttered into the mike before handing it to Tremaine. The heavy voice of the State Police chief crackled. \"What's your beef, Tremaine?\" \"I thought you were going to keep your men away from Elsby until I gave the word, Grammond.\" on me.\" \"It's nothing we can go to court with, Grammond. And the job you were doing might have been influenced if I'd told you about the Elsby angle.\" Grammond cursed. \"I could have put my men in the town and taken it apart brick by brick in the time—\" \"That's just what I don't want. If our bird sees cops cruising, he'll go underground.\" Grammond snorted. \"Okay, Tremaine,\" he said. \"You're the boy with all the answers. But if you get in trouble, don't call me call Washington.\" Back in his room, Tremaine put through a call. moonshiners.\" \"Don't tell me my job, Tremaine!\" the voice snapped. \"And don't try out your famous temper on me. I'm still in charge of this investigation.\" \"Sure. Just don't get stuck in some senator's hip pocket.\" Tremaine Only a faint quaver reflected her age—close to eighty, Tremaine \"I....\" Tremaine started. He looked at the old lady. \"I want some discretion?\" \"Of course.\" used against him?\" \"There'll be nothing done against him, Miss Carroll ... unless it needs to be in the national interest.\" \"I'm not at all sure I know what the term 'national interest' means, James. I distrust these glib phrases.\" \"I always liked Mr. Bram,\" said Tremaine. \"I'm not out to hurt him.\" \"Mr. Bram came here when I was a young woman. I'm not certain of the Tremaine stood up. \"I'm sorry. Really sorry. I didn't mean to grill complete confidence in you. If anything I can tell you about Bram will be helpful to you, it is my duty to oblige you and it may help him.\" She paused. Tremaine waited. keep it and, if ever I should need him, to press it between my fingers in a secret way ... and he would come. I told him that until he would consent to see a doctor, I did not wish him to call. He drove me home. \"This locket,\" said Tremaine, \"do you still have it?\" \"I'd be grateful for any lead.\" \"Bram fears the thunder.\" pulled to a stop beside him. Jess leaned out, peered at Tremaine and Tremaine shook his head. \"I'm getting nowhere fast. The Bram idea's a \"Sure. Just so I'm back by full dark.\" As they pulled away from the curb Jess said, \"Jimmy, what's this about State Police nosing around here? I thought you were playing a lone hand from what you were saying to me.\" \"I thought so too, Jess. But it looks like Grammond's a jump ahead of me. He smells headlines in this he doesn't want to be left out.\" \"Well, the State cops could be mighty handy to have around. I'm wondering why you don't want 'em in. If there's some kind of spy ring working—\" \"We're up against an unknown quantity. I don't know what's behind this empty shotgun shell. He looked at Tremaine. \"This don't look good,\" he Tremaine. \"Maybe this is more than kid stuff,\" he said. \"You carry a Tremaine went to the car, dropped the pistol in his coat pocket, Tremaine said. \"That's blood, Jess....\" Tremaine scanned the floor. It was of broad stared at Tremaine. \"I'm too damned old to start believing in spooks,\" \"I think.\" Tremaine said, \"that we'd better go ask Hull Gaskin a few \"Who's looking for spies?\" \"Cops.\" \"Who says so?\" The boy looked directly at Tremaine for an instant, flicked his eyes to \"Spill it, Hull,\" the policeman said. \"Mr. Tremaine hasn't got all The boy darted another look at Tremaine. \"They said they figured the\n\n<question>:\nOf the following options, which seems to be Tremaine's biggest asset in his investigation?\n\n<options>:\nA His history with the town. Folks knew him and were more willing to help him like Miss Carroll, and he knew how to motivate people, like he did by bribing the record keeper for help.\nB His good looks. They help him flirt with women like Miss Carroll and the librarian, so he could get more information.\nC His strength. He was able to bust down the door at Mr. Bram's home and catch him in the act of transmitting data.\nD His ruthlessness. He was strict enough to draw boundaries with the state police that helped his investigation significantly.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,106 | 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 Antheon, for example—but when there are large groups, control is more difficult.\" \"Sessions,\" Rexroad said, \"was a bully. The trouble started at about the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his must remember the colonists were selected for their intelligence and resourcefulness. They utilized these attributes to set up weapon shops to arm themselves.\" and I think it is this thought that keeps us satisfied, willing to be what we are. The In the tradition of newspaperman and observer, Keith Ellason tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, pressing against a bulkhead, but Captain Branson's eyes sought his several times as Branson listened made a suggestion here, a restriction there. There was no doubt that Branson was in charge, yet there was a human quality about him that strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for I say that until the journey ends.\" He smiled. \"Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.\" ceiling. Metal walls, no windows, one floor vent, one ceiling vent, He felt rather than heard the dull rumble. It was a sound he knew would be with him for two years—one year going and one year returning. the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they \"Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber mask that covered his head completely.\" voice. \"A man wearing a red mask?\" Dievers shrugged. \"This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red mask—or a blue or green one—does or doesn't belong on a spaceship?\" \"If it is true,\" Branson told Ellason, \"the theft must be the work of the psychotic.\" He snorted. \"Red rubber mask! I think I'll have Dievers watchful and accusing. To men unused to it, such a sight numbs, compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent. On the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the passenger meteorologists, ran screaming down one of the long corridors She said the culprit was a husky man wearing a red rubber mask, and Captain Branson, demanding action. Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, \"I have no crewmen to spare for police duty.\" The delegation commenced speaking vehemently, to be quieted by Branson's raised hand. \"You could have a shake-down for the mask and the seed case.\" \"No, I trust my men. I won't violate that trust.\" Ellason left, feeling uneasy. If he were Branson, he'd initiate an investigation, if nothing else than to prove the crew guiltless. Why couldn't Branson see the wisdom of setting an example for the colonists? As a Nilly, I knew that space breeds hate. There is a seed of malevolence in every man. It sometimes blossoms out among the stars. On the Weblor II in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff theft of the belt. forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the mask, the seed case, the money and the man. nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then.\" Faces were angry, tongues were sharp at the meeting, eyes suspicious and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of Captain Branson speaking to them. \"It is not my desire to interfere in passenger affairs,\" he said. \"Has Red Mask a gun?\" Branson retorted. \"It seems to me you have a No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man. inspection teams permanent, to await further moves on the part of Red Mask. The Quadrant Council held periodic meetings to set up a method of trial for him when he was caught. It was all recorded in the newsletter and by Keith Ellason. We Nillys know about hate and about violence. We know too that where there is hate there is violence, and where there is violence there is death. During sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened man in a red mask in her room. Her cries brought neighbors into the corridor. The flight of the man was witnessed by many, and several men tried to stop him. But the intruder was light on his feet and fast. He escaped. force, Captain. We want stunners.\" \"There's no law against it,\" Branson said, \"but it's a rule of mine that no weapons are to be issued en route.\" \"If we had had a gun, we'd have got Red Mask,\" Tilbury said. time the passengers seemed relaxed. Let Red Mask move against armed men, they said. Yeah, let him see what happens now. Red Mask did. Pierce, policeman on duty, managed to squeeze off several shots at his retreating figure. Red Mask was seen again on the 120th day, on the 135th day, and the commit any crime. We've got him on the run, the colonists said. He's afraid to do anything, now that we've got police protection, they said smugly. the landing on Antheon. But on the 170th day calamity struck. Red Mask appropriated one of the his book. The things taken were keepsakes, photographs and items of personal value. It seemed to be the work of a madman. If Red Mask wanted to make everyone furious, he certainly succeeded. It was the same with others. \"The man's insane, Mr. Ellason. Positively insane.\" Many people said it. trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one man's suspicion of another and the ensuing search of compartments, people who saw Red Mask here, saw him there. Hardly a day went by without some new development. \"Oh, yes, Mr. Ellason, we're going to get him,\" said Tilbury, now chief of police, cracking his knuckles, his eyes glowing at the thought. \"We're bound to get him. We've got things worked out to the finest detail. He won't be able to get through our fingers now. Just let him make so much as a move.\" \"And what will you do when you get him?\" \"Kill him,\" Tilbury said, licking his lips, his eyes glowing more fiercely than ever. \"Without a trial?\" \"Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd let him live after all the things he's done, do you?\" Red Mask was stunned in Quadrant Four in a corridor by a policeman assembly hall his mask was whipped off. The crowd gasped. Nobody knew Branson looked as if he were going to kill the man himself right there and then. disposed of his body through a chute. It was all duly recorded in Keith Ellason's notebooks. Dying is easy for a Nilly. Especially if it's arranged for beforehand, which it always is. The Critten nodded. \"When great numbers are being transported, they are apt to magnify each little event because so little happens. It was my job to see that they directed none of their venom against each other or the crew, only toward me.\" Branson smiled. \"It made the time pass quickly and interestingly for Ellason nodded. \"No time for brooding, for differences of opinion on small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously.\" \"Probably,\" Critten said, \"you are wondering about the execution.\" \"Naturally.\" see, I was a liar.\" Critten grinned again. \"She played right into our hands. She ran out into the hall claiming I'd attacked her, which I did not. She was making it look suspicious.\" Ellason brightened. \"And by that time everybody was seeing Red Mask \"The colonists will never know the truth,\" Branson went on. \"There will\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is true about the Red Mask?\n\n<options>:\nA He is entirely harmless and it just looks like he's trouble\nB He is a passenger looking for some entertainment\nC He throws the passengers' belongings overboard\nD He does not hesitate to use physical violence\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,976 | 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>:\nSTAR MOTHER By ROBERT F. YOUNG A touching story of the most enduring love in all eternity. That night her son was the first star. She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart, watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, where he had wondered whether he was thinking of those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone in the April night with her memories whether he was round and round the world on a celestial carousel, encased in an airtight metal capsule in an airtight metal chariot ... Why don't they leave the stars she thought. Why don't they leave the stars to God? The general's second telegram came early the next morning: Explorer XII doing splendidly. Expect to bring your son down sometime tomorrow . She went about her work as usual, collecting the eggs and allocating them in their cardboard a deluge of questions from her customers. She was not disappointed. \"Is Terry really way up there all alone, Martha?\" \"Aren't you scared , Martha?\" \"I do hope they can get him back down all right, Martha.\" She supposed it must have given them quite a turn to have their egg woman change into a star mother overnight. She hadn't expected the TV interview, though, and she would have avoided it if it had been politely possible. But what could say when the suave young man came up to her and said, \"We want you to know that we're all very proud of your boy up there, ma'am, and we hope you'll do us the honor of answering a few questions.\" Terry, as was fitting. From the way the suave young man asked them, though, she got the impression that he was trying to prove that her son was just like any other average American boy, and such just didn't happen to be the case. But whenever she opened her mouth to mention, say, how he used to study till all hours of the night, or how difficult it had been for him to make friends because of his shyness, or the fact that he she started to mention any of these things, the haste to interrupt her and to twist her words, by requestioning, into a different meaning altogether, till Terry's behavior suave young man apparently considered the norm, but which, if followed, Martha was sure, would produce not young men bent on exploring space but A few of the questions concerned herself: Was Terry her only child? (\"Yes.\") What had happened to her husband? (\"He was killed in the Korean War.\") What did she think of the new law granting star mothers top priority on any and all information relating to their sons? (\"I think it's a fine law ... It's too bad they couldn't have shown similar humanity toward the war mothers of World War II.\") It was late in the afternoon by the time the TV crew got departure. Martha fixed herself old suede jacket of Terry's and Terry's first Tuesday right that she should be outside when the stars started to come out. Presently they did, and she watched them wink on, one by one, in the deepening darkness of the sky. She'd never been much of a one for the stars most of her life she'd been much too busy on Earth to bother with things celestial. She could remember, when she was much her, looking up at the moon sometimes and once in a while, when a star fell, making a wish. But this was different. It was different because now she had a personal interest in the sky, a new affinity with its myriad inhabitants. And how bright they became when you kept looking at them! They seemed to come alive, almost, pulsing brilliantly down out of the blackness of the night ... And they were different colors, too, she noticed with a start. Some of them were blue and some were red, others were yellow ... green ... orange ... There was a strange crispness, a strange clarity about the night, that she had never known before ... She glanced at her watch, was astonished to see that gone? Tremulously she faced the southern horizon ... and saw her Terry appear in his shining chariot, riding up the star-pebbled path of his orbit, a star in his own right, dropping swiftly sight beyond the dark wheeling mass of the Earth ... She took a deep, proud breath, realized that she was wildly waving her hand and let it fall slowly to her side. Make a wish! she thought, like a little girl, and she wished him pleasant dreams and a safe return and wrapped the wish in all her love and cast it starward. Sometime tomorrow, the general's telegram had said— That meant sometime today! She rose with the sun and fed the chickens, fixed and ate her breakfast, collected the eggs and put them in their cardboard boxes, then started out on her ?\" (\"Yes ... Yes, it does.\") \"Martha, when are they (\"Today ... Today !\") \"It must be wonderful being a star mother, Martha.\" (\"Yes, it is—in a way.\") Wonderful ... and terrible. If only he can last it out for If only they can bring him down safe and sound. Then the vigil will be over, and some other mother can take over the awesome responsibility of having a son become a star— If only ... The general's third telegram mechanism, making ejection impossible. Will make every effort to find another means of accomplishing your son's return. Terry!— See the little boy playing beneath Terry!— over the sun-seared grass the sky blue and bright behind him, the song of cicada rising and falling in the hazy September Terry ... —probably won't get a chance to write you again before take-off, but don't worry, Ma. The Explorer XII they ever built. Nothing short of a direct meteorite hit can hurt it, and the odds are a million to one ... Why don't they leave the stars alone? Why don't they leave the stars to God? The afternoon shadows lengthened on the lawn and the sun Terry's jacket and went outside. Slowly the sky darkened and the stars began to appear. At length her star appeared, but its swift passage blurred before her eyes. Tires crunched on the Martha did not move. let it be Terry , even though she knew that it couldn't possibly be Terry. Footsteps turned then— \"Good evening, ma'am.\" She saw the circlet of stars on the gray epaulet she saw the stern handsome face she saw the dark tired eyes. And she knew. Even before he spoke again, she knew— \"The same meteorite that damaged the ejection mechanism, ma'am. It penetrated the capsule, too. We didn't find out till just a while ago—but there ma'am?\" \"Yes. I'm all right.\" \"I wanted to express my regrets personally. I know how you must feel.\" \"It's all right.\" \"We will, of course, make every effort to bring back his ... remains ... so that he can have a fitting burial on Earth.\" \"No,\" she said. \"I beg your pardon, ma'am?\" She raised her eyes to the patch of sky where her son had passed in his shining metal sarcophagus. Sirius blossomed there, blue-white and beautiful. She raised her eyes still higher—and beheld the vast parterre of Orion with its central motif of vivid forget-me-nots, its far-flung blooms of Betelguese and Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ... And higher yet—and there flamed the exquisite flower beds of Taurus and Gemini, there burgeoned the riotous wreath of the Crab wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted the ocher rose of Mars ... \"No,\" she said again. The general had raised his eyes, too now, slowly, he lowered them. \"I think I understand, ma'am. And I'm glad that's the way you want it ... The stars are beautiful tonight, aren't they.\" \"More beautiful than they've ever been,\" she said. After the general had gone, she looked up once more at the vast and variegated garden of the sky where her son lay buried, then she turned and walked slowly back to the memoried\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Terry's mother's attitude toward the suave reporters?\n\n<options>:\nA She is frustrated with their tendency to fit her interview responses to a narrative\nB She is angry that they are trespassing on her property\nC She is grateful for their interest in her son's exploration\nD She is hopeful that they will accurately represent her experience as a star mother\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,893 | 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. Pembroke was only in it to Frank Pembroke sat behind type.\" It was obvious that the liquor had been having some effect. Either that, or she had a basic in tears. to be precisely what Pembroke the woman persisted in her for any obvious reason, but because under all circumstances. Mary Ann talked and talked and talked. But then, Mary Ann was not a human being. When she left the hotel at midnight, Pembroke was quite sure that she understood his plan and winked at him and snickered. hungry, he began to study the others in the restaurant. Many of the faces seemed familiar the crew of the ship, probably. He also recognized several of the passengers. However, he made no attempt to speak to going out anyway. He picked up Mary Ann at her apartment and together they thirty, tossed back her long, chestnut locks and gazed up intently at Pembroke as he passed. Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous an invitation. He halted and stared down at her for a few moments. \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. \"Much of the time,\" said the man. \"Could it be me?\" the city. Pembroke and Mary Ann took turns firing at the paper Pembroke smiled, uneasily. There was something not entirely normal about her conversation. Though the rest of her compensated Please help me, please!\" \"You're not casual enough, for one thing,\" said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for the moment. \"You're too tense. \"How about talking it over at supper tonight?\" Pembroke proposed. handed it to him. \"Any time after six,\" she said. Pembroke left the beach and walked through several small specialty shops. He tried to get the woman off his mind, but the oddness of her conversation continued to bother him. She was sounded as if she had been giving some womanly thought to the situation. smiled up at him as he stared. \"Can I help you, sir?\" a middle-aged saleswoman inquired. Pembroke watched with lifted eyebrows as the clerk whisked the counter. \"What the hell was that?\" Pembroke demanded. loitered around the stalls where hot dogs and soft drinks were sold, leaning against a post in \"Oh, you know—or don't you? talking excitedly. They were discussing a ship. It was leaving that afternoon. Anyone who \"Don't try to go so fast and you won't fall down,\" suggested Pembroke. \"You're in too much concerned about anything but his own speech and behavior, he assumed that they had all qualified with Mary Ann. She smiled happily when she recognized him. admonished her in a whisper. \"Walk on ahead.\" She obeyed. He followed. The crowd grew thicker. They neared the docks and Pembroke saw that booths. When it was their turn, he and Mary Ann Pembroke watched him hurry off to service a car with a sense of having been given the runaround. each went into separate ones. Pembroke found himself alone in the little room. \"What is your name?\" queried a metallic voice from a speaker on the wall. a surly voice. \"Occupation?\" passengers,\" said Pembroke. \"Right,\" said the attendant, giving with his perfect smile. \"That's for sure,\" the boy said, walking away to wait on another place, you've had it.\" Pembroke returned to the hotel. Going to the bar, he recognized one of the passengers. He was a short, rectangular little man in his fifties named Spencer. He sat in a Then she saw him. Waving booth with three young women, of the conversation turned out all lovely, all effusive. The topic frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled with the crowd moving toward the ship, ignoring her. But still shouting. Sidling up to a well-dressed \"I thought it made me look sexy,\" the redhead said petulantly. \"Just be yourself, gal,\" Spencer drawled, jabbing her intimately with a fat elbow, \"and man-about-town type, Pembroke \"Me, me,\" the blonde with a pass the interview. Don't know why they even make 'em.\" Suddenly Mary Ann was quiet. feather cut was insisting. \"What is wrong with me?\" you'll qualify.\" hate that?\" \"Naw, that's part of your charm,\" Spencer assured her. \"How 'bout me, sugar,\" asked the girl with the coal black hair. \"Yeah, I reckon there is at that,\" said Pembroke, snickering again as he moved away from the other. \"And why not? Hey? Why not?\" lost interest in him. They got up one by one and walked out of the bar. Pembroke took his rum and tonic and moved over to Spencer's booth. \"Okay if I join you?\" \"Sure,\" said the fat man. Pembroke was explaining to the police how he had drifted far \"Wonder what the hell got into those babes?\" from the scene of the sinking of Spencer, peering at him suspiciously. \"Maybe you've figured out where we are.\" over Lemark's Liquors, Pembroke gazed without emotion at in the corner. His watch said one-fifteen. The man from the you would give me a few minutes of honest criticism.\" \"Ah, no, not you, too,\" groaned Spencer. \"Look, Joe, what's the gag?\" \"You are newcomers, Mr. Spencer,\" Valencia explained. \"You are therefore in an excellent position to point out our Spencer. \"I've got more important things to do than to worry about your troubles. You look soon, once the FBI agent had got Otherwise, you may appear to be self-conscious about it.\" Spencer opened his mouth to protest, but saw with amazement that it was exactly this that Valencia was seeking. Pembroke was amused at his companion's reaction but observed that Spencer still failed to see the point. \"Also, there is a certain effeminateness you speak,\" said Pembroke. \"Try to be a little more direct, a little more brusque. Speak in a monotone. It will make you more acceptable.\" \"Thank you so much,\" said the for thought in what you have said, Mr. Pembroke. However, Mr. Spencer, your value has failed to prove itself. You have only yourself to blame. Cooperation is all we require of you.\" Valencia left. Spencer ordered another martini. Neither he nor Pembroke spoke for several minutes. \"Somebody's crazy around here,\" the fat man muttered pretty hit-or-miss operation. But they don't care one bit about us, Spencer. Consider the men who went down with the ship. That was just part of the game.\" \"What the hell are you sayin'?\" asked Spencer in disbelief. \"You figure Valencia and the waitress and the three babes? Ah, come on.\" \"It's what you think that will determine what you do, Spencer. I suggest you change your attitude play along with them for a about it again then.\" Pembroke rose and started out of the bar. A policeman entered and walked directly to Spencer's table. Loitering at the juke box, Pembroke overheard the conversation. \"You Spencer?\" \"That's right,\" said the fat man sullenly. \"What don't you like about me? The \"Ah, hell! Nothin' wrong with you at all, and nothin'll make me say there is,\" said Spencer. \"You're the guy, all right. Too Pembroke heard the shots as he strolled casually out into the brightness of the hotel lobby. he had bought. Then he took Mary Ann, the woman he had met on the beach, out to dinner. and the pale chartreuse gown she wore hardly placed her in that category. Her conversation seemed considerably more normal after the other denizens of listened to that afternoon. After eating they danced for an hour, had a few more drinks, then went to Pembroke's room. He still knew nothing about her and had almost exhausted his critical capabilities, but not once had she become annoyed with\n\n<question>:\nWhy do the cops shoot Spencer?\n\n<options>:\nA Spencer is not cooperating.\nB Spencer was on to them. He was about to expose their whole operation.\nC They thought Spencer was an android.\nD Spencer was speaking too brusquely to the three women in the bar.\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>:\n\"They've found the tractor,\" McIlroy said. \"That's fine! That's just line! Is Evans—?\" \"Can't tell yet. They spotted the tractor from the satellite observatory. Captain Jones took off a few minutes ago, and he'll report through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by Evans' tractor. It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine, It was two days to sunrise, where Evans stood. It was just before sunset on a spring evening in September in Sydney. The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to be drifting across Australia. Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after half, and he was lucky to break even. Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of the first landing on the Moon. on the Moon!\" THE END Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in about It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next to the sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might have appeared to waver slightly, if they were behind outflung corona flares. If they did, no one noticed. No one looked toward the sun without dark filters. When Director McIlroy came into his office, he found it lighted by the rising sun. The light was a hot, brilliant white that seemed to pierce the darkest shadows of the room. He moved to the round window, screening his eyes from the light, and adjusted the polaroid shade to maximum density. The sun became an angry red brown, and the room was dark again. McIlroy decreased the density again until the room was comfortably on the Moon for another week. \"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?\" he asked. The solar furnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat on amateurs, and we're turning this operation over to professionals. I'm nine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, and one bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and it threatened to tear several of the mirrors loose. \"What happened here?\" Spotty Cade, one of the electrical technicians don't work.\" \"Meteor shower,\" Cowalczk answered, \"and that's not half of it. Walker says he's got a half dozen mirrors cracked or pitted, and Hoffman on \"That could hurt,\" Cowalczk admitted, \"but there was only one of them.\" \"You mean only one hit our gear,\" Lehman said. \"How many missed?\" Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small craters overlapped and touched each other. There was—except in the places that men had obscured them with footprints—not a square foot that didn't contain a crater at least ten inches across, there was not a square inch without its half-inch crater. Nearly all of these had been made millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a crater After the sun rose, Evans returned to the lava cave that he had been exploring when the meteor hit. Inside, he lifted his filter visor, and found that the light reflected from the small ray that peered into the \"A few mineral specimens would give us something to think about, man. These crystals,\" he said, \"look a little like zeolites, but that can't be, zeolites need water to form, and there's no water on the Moon.\" He chipped a number of other crystals loose and put them in bags. One of across.\" All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon the sun. The sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. The stars shone coldly, and wheeled in their slow course with the sun. Only Earth remained in the same spot in the black sky. The shadow line crept around until Earth was nearly dark, and then the rim of light appeared on the opposite side. For a while Earth was a dark disk in a thin halo, and then the light came to be a crescent, and the line of dawn began to move around Earth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and into the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same time that the sun rose. Nickel Jones was the captain of a supply rocket. He made trips from and to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores out. At this time he was visiting with his old friend McIlroy. \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.\" McIlroy had heard all of this before. \"How's that?\" he asked politely. the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it will bounce messages from Earth takes up too much room.\" \"Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium.\" \" [Great Health, man.] The sun was halfway to the horizon, and Earth was a crescent in the sky when Evans had quarried all the ice that was available in the cave. The thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such resolved not to leave the tractor again, and reluctantly abandoned his plan to search for a large bubble. The sun stood at half its diameter above the horizon. The shadows of the mountains stretched out to touch the shadows of the other mountains. The dawning line of light covered half of Earth, and Earth turned beneath it. Cowalczk itched under his suit, and the sweat on his face prickled vision. That annoyed him. \"Is everyone clear of the outlet?\" he asked. \"All clear,\" he heard Cade report through the intercom. Lehman and Cowalczk, who were already suited up started across to the reactor building. Cade, who was in the pressurized control room without a suit on, kept working the switch back and forth. There was light that Moon. Cowalczk and Lehman rushed forward again. They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor \"Is the light off?\" Cowalczk asked. \"No,\" Cade answered. PROSPECTOR FEARED LOST ON MOON is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was carrying several days reserve of oxygen and supplies. Director Search parties have started from Williamson Town, but telescopic search from Palomar and the new satellite observatory are hindered by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now dark. Little hope is held for radio contact with the missing man as it is believed he was carrying only short-range, tells me that Evans will be found.\" \"Well, yes,\" Jones answered. \"I thought that it might happen that a rocket would be needed in the search.\" The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted Earth. The great blue globe of Earth, the only thing larger than the stars, wheeled silently in the sky. As it turned, the shadow of sunset crept across the face that could be seen from the Moon. From full Earth, as you might say, it moved toward last quarter. The rising sun shone into Director McIlroy's office. The hot light formed a circle on the wall opposite the window, and the light became window and adjusted the shade to darken the office. She stood looking at McIlroy for a moment, and when he moved slightly in his sleep, she will be in position pretty soon. Several observatories there. Then Capetown. There are lots of observatories in Europe, but most of them are clouded over. Anyway the satellite observatory will be in position by the time Europe is.\" McIlroy was fully awake. He glanced at Phelps and wondered how long it finding him. It began to dawn on McIlroy that nearly the whole search.\n\n<question>:\nHow are people on Earth able to help with the search for a missing prospector?\n\n<options>:\nA They can shine a light to make searching easier\nB Their equipment is advanced enough to connect to the prospector's radio\nC They can boost the signals of the scanners on the moon\nD They can see different sides of the moon from the people on the moon\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>:\nDirty Laundry Now and then, a documentary film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're striving, at least in theory, to capture? Unmade 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 it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard pervert people's lives in the name of \"larger dramatic truths.\" 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.\" 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 education is permanent.\") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts. We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor, or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out. The Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of '70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy, dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic awareness of the family's desperation. \"Are we middle-class now?\" ask the children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van, cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly Hills.\n\n<question>:\nHow are Unmade Beds and The Slums of Beverly Hills similar?\n\n<options>:\nA they both have an eye-opening message\nB they both have first-time directors\nC they both mix genres to make a unique film\nD they're both meant to be a documentary\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>:\nHOMECOMING BY MIGUEL HIDALGO What lasts forever? Does love? Does death?... Nothing lasts forever.... Not even forever Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] dying fire, seeing the bright glowing coals as living fingers clutching at the wood in consuming embrace, taking all and returning nothing but ashes. all else was at rest. Images began to appear, drawn from inexhaustible files, wherein are kept all thoughts, past, present, and future.... \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\" He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry of surprised joy. \"Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!\" she cried in her rich, happy voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body. \"It's for you so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\" She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\" Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him. He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into his and making him oblivious to everything except that she was there in his arms and that he was sinking deep, deep into a familiar sea, where he had been many times before but each time found something new and unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain. \"Wait!\" she cried. \"I've something for you, too.\" She took off the locket she wore about her neck and held it up to the shimmering light, letting it spin at the end of its chain. It caught the shadows of the fire and reflected them, greatly magnified, over the room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her in one side, and in the other a picture of the children. He took her in his arms again, and loosened her long, black hair, burying his face in it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end. The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet, in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the blood in his veins. where the fighting had begun. Already the city was a silent graveyard, littered with the rubble of towers and cathedrals which had once been great. the threat of annihilation by the retaliation forces had been too great. He had done well in the war, and had been decorated many times for bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. The defending planes roared into the sky to intercept the on-rushing bombers. The horrendous battle split the universe. Many bombers fell, filled with the poisonous gases that the wind swept away to other cities, where men had not died quickly and mercifully, but had rotted away, leaving shreds of putrid flesh behind to mark the places where The retaliatory forces had roared away to bomb the Russian cities. Few, if any, had returned. Too much blood and life were on their hands. Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown of some distant mountain. Others had preferred the silent peaceful sea, where flesh stayed not long on bones, and only darting fishes and merciful beams of filtered light found their aluminum coffins. The war had ended. To no avail. Neither side had won. Most of the cities and the majority of the population of both countries had been destroyed. Even their governments had vanished, leaving a silent nothingness. The armies that remained were without leaders, without sources of supplies, save what they could forage and beg from an unfriendly people. They were alone now, a group of tired, battered men, for whom life held nothing. Their families had long since died, their bodies turned to dust, their spirits fled on the winds to a new world. Yet these remnants of an army must return—or at least try. Their few men left from his force. He had always nourished the hope that she might still be alive. And now that the war was over he had to return—had to know whether she was still waiting for him. had commandeered a small yacht, and they had taken to the sea. After months of storms and bad luck, they had been shipwrecked United States. The Mexicans had spoken with fear of the land across the Rio Grande. All its great cities had been destroyed, and those that had It was rightly called. The deserts were long. All plant life had died, leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the ruins of what had once been their cities. He had walked through them, remained there a long time—how long he could not tell, for he could only measure time by the cycles of the sun and the moon. Finally he had taken the horse, the rifle and what food was left, and once again started the long journey home. what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away. Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with her once again all would be well, and his long journey would be over. The images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and mind slept into the shadows of the dawn. was a torch that pierced his skin, seeming to melt his bones into a burning stream within his body. But day at last gave way to night, and the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with streaming hair called stars. He turned quickly away and did not look back. Night paled into day day burned into night. There were clouds in the sky now, and a gentle wind caressed the sweat empty of life. \"No, no!\" he cried soundlessly. This was not his house. In his delirium he had only imagined he had found it. He had been searching so long. He would go on searching. He was turning wearily away from the window when the movement of the creature beside the fire held his attention. It had taken a ring from one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if trying to decipher some inscription inside it. He knew then. He had come home. shriveled by thirst. He grasped the doorknob and clung to it, looking up at the night sky and trying to draw strength from the wind that passed over him. It was no use. There was no strength. Only fear—a kind of fear he had never known. He fumbled at his throat, his fingers crawling like cold worms around his neck until he found the locket and the clasp which had held it safely through endless nightmare days and nights. He slipped the clasp and the locket fell into his waiting hand. As one in a dream, he opened it, and stared at the pictures, now in the dim moonlight no longer faces of those he loved, but grey ghosts from the past. Even the ruby had lost its glow. What had once been living fire was now a dull glob of darkness. \"Nothing is forever!\" He thought he had shouted the words, but only a thin sound, the sound of leaves ruffled by the wind, came back to him. He closed the locket and fastened the clasp, and hung it on the doorknob. It moved slowly in the wind, back and forth, like a pendulum. \"Forever—forever. Only death is forever.\" He could have sworn he heard the words. of strength left him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped onto his chest.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the main character no longer keep the ruby necklace?\n\n<options>:\nA He would rather the monster have the necklace.\nB He wanted the necklace to remain with the house where his love was.\nC He figured his wife might come back for the necklace and know that he had returned from war.\nD The love that was symbolized by the necklace is now gone.\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>:\nreturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffed gray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seats for, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever complained. looking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it while she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which she always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. \"It's in your purse,\" I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able because I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San Francisco luggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went through slips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and a ukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft, flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was a bomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small, quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held me My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look around at the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. I thought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it was My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm my mouth was dry and my mind was numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'd think I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would be panic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. I goggled at her, managed to croak, \"No, thanks.\" She gave me an odd look and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing at the cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spent a frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop that calling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions. Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before the bomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life would be changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a man literally with gimlet eyes. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk as unconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walking through the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. I had my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other. So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane and watch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfield carts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag contained the bomb I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. The There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases, and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast to determine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left was the attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, and I shook my head. \"Just waiting.\" Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggage claim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ran something very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what could I do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take the bag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and started across the street to the parking area. I could have called to him, \"Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag.\" But I didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claim counter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the ramp to the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I went \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\" I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against the device, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheel escaped my grasp. \"Do you have my suitcase?\" I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stood there looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right hand glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. \"Just a moment,\" I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurrying after her. At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, \"Listen to me.\" She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. \"It's a matter of life or death,\" I said. I wanted to wrest the bag from her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but I \"Please put the bag down. Over there.\" I indicated a spot beside a telephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, \"Why?\" I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, \"All right, but—\" I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door, She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grew pale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tears there when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. \"Joe did,\" she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but staring vacantly across the room. \"Joe put it there.\" Behind her eyes airport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said her name was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was a bomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worried because she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but it would have to do. for a long while. \"She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. \"See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old battered suitcase?\" Julia's bag in his right hand, mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. \"Hey!\" I shouted, starting toward him. and threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time I reached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, then walked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with the redcap, who said, \"That man steal them suitcases?\" \"That he did,\" I said. over to the office.\" But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distant shattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupe in the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. That was all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia was thinking. She said, \"About those bags,\" and looked at me.\n\n<question>:\nWhy didn't Julia pick up her suitcase with the other passengers?\n\n<options>:\nA Julia was detained by customs before she could get to the baggage claim.\nB Julia went to call her sister before collecting her suitcase.\nC Julia was told that her suitcase didn't make the flight when they were mid-air.\nD Julia didn't want to be near the suitcase when the bomb went off.\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>:\nbeen, Laura. But how can I make you understand? How can I tell you what it's like to be young and a man and to dream of reaching the stars? And yet, at the same time, to be filled with a terrible, gnawing fear—a fear locked in my mind during the day and bursting out like an evil jack-in-the-box at night. I must tell you, Laura. Perhaps if I start at the beginning, the very beginning.... and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the It doesn't matter , I told myself. to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're Charlie, wouldn't you like a home-cooked meal before going back to the Moon?\" Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to \"Sure,\" I said to Mickey, \"we can still have a good weekend.\" I liked your folks, Laura. There was no star-hunger in them, of course. Laura?\" You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. \"No, I shouldn't be thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that.\" I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up what ?\" alone, never finding a home. fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous dust. \"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\" I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\" He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. \"Maybe. Anyway, I'm gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about \"When will you be back?\" you asked. gone. have lived the kind of life a kid should live. Mickey noticed my frown. \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" \"No, I understand, Mickey. I'm not sore, really.\" \"Listen, then. You haven't accepted any offer yet, have you?\" \"No. I got a couple of possibilities. Could get a berth on the teaching. I want to be in deep space.\" \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy Earth life while you can. Okay?\" I felt like running from the house, to forget that it existed. I wanted And I said, slowly, my voice sounding unfamiliar and far away, \"Sure, I'll stay, Mickey. Sure.\" One morning I thought, Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both You looked up at Venus, and you were silent for a long while, your face flushed. Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, Somehow I'd expected words like these, but still they hurt. \"I wouldn't have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, then teach.\" \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\" Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears glittering in your eyes. \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops men had no burns. But a year later the captain had a child. And it was—\" \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\" You've got to decide now , I told myself. You can't stay here. You've got to make a choice. The teaching job was still open. The spot on the open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto. You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now. Or you can see what's on the other side of the mountain. You can be a I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get Canal.\" That's what he'd say. And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always. \"Oh God,\" I moaned, \"what shall I do?\" Next morning the door chimes pealed, and you went to the door and inform you of death of Charles Taggart, Chief Jetman....\" voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters I accepted that job teaching. And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, and the house is silent. decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he He made his last trip to Luna when he knew he was going to die. Heaven knows how he escaped a checkup. Maybe the captain understood and was kind—but that doesn't matter now. why he wanted to reach Mars? Do you know why he didn't want to die in the clean, cool air of Earth? It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the Universe, where the ship was his house, the crew his father, mother, brothers, the planets his children. last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration to you, but he wanted it with all his heart, and we robbed him of it. Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson. he'll go with me in memory to whatever part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Ben leave Laura?\n\n<options>:\nA Ben leaves Laura because he feels guilty that he dragged Charlie to Mickey and Laura's parents.\nB Ben leaves Laura because she wants kids, and he doesn't.\nC Ben leaves Laura because the call to explore the universe is irresistible.\nD Ben leaves Laura because he knows he'll grow to resent her if he stays.\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>:\nmean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here \"We could tell by the sun, silly.\" \"Of course,\" he said, grinning at his stupidity. \"And I guess we're not high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy! The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31. Superior had been. The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into the Ohio countryside. The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November 1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of It said that Superior had seceded from Earth. One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first \" up here!\" Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window, hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen hurried along the tracks. The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, \"Why did we stop?\" \"Somebody flagged us down,\" the conductor said. \"We don't make a station stop at Superior on this run.\" The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval. nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist. \"Will we be here long?\" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing. \"Can't say,\" the conductor told him. He let the door close again and went down to the tracks. Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, \"Excuse me,\" and followed the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher. Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was an old red shirt. Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat and riding boots. \"You'd go over the edge, I tell you,\" the old gentleman was saying. \"Look for yourself,\" the old man in the white helmet said. \"Go ahead. Look.\" The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. \"You look. Humor the old man. Then let's go.\" the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen. Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the \"You see what I mean,\" he said. \"You would have gone right over. I believe you would have had a two-mile fall.\" \"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train,\" the man driving the old Pontiac said, \"but I really think you'll be more comfortable at Cavalier.\" Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the \"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the \"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town \"What's the population of Superior?\" and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us for a while.\" \"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?\" \"Does Superior have an airport?\" Don asked. \"I've got to get back to—to He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably close. \"Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?\" \" Cort!\" she said, annoyed. \"You know as well as I do that \" comfortable,\" she said. \"What a night, eh? The professor is simply Superior were up in the air. \"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?\" \"Scarcely , Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be \"I didn't know there were any.\" \"Actually there's only one, the Superior Sentry , a weekly. This is an \"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,\" Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line. to him and said, \"It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as his explanation. The \"reasons\" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against and which (it being atrociously levitated Superior off the face of the \"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually you , Mr. Cort?\" \"I'll admit to the now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard. \"What's happening?\" he asked when he saw them. \"Any word from down there?\" \"What can I do?\" the conductor asked. \"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast,\" Alis said. \"Nobody's going to steal your old train.\" The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did. \"You know,\" Don said, \"I was half-asleep last night but before the train stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while.\" Superior's water supply?\" \"Don't! You'll fall off!\" \"It isn't? Then where is it going?\" \"Why? How?\" said. The fence, which had a sign on it, warning—electrified , was\n\n<question>:\nWho seems to know the least about Superior's situation?\n\n<options>:\nA Professor Garet\nB Don Cort\nC Mayor Civek\nD the train conductor\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>:\nI think I’m trying to get a mental image of a person, certain expressions, or what I think that person is about. I’m trying to capture what I think they look like, which is many times a minority of their typical expressions, or their typical stance. So, if I’m taking pictures of Larry [Lessig], I want to have his signature hand gestures, and not just random ones. I think I’m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see what they’re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so they’ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more egotistical than he really is. Some photographers are almost medical, and are going after a perfect portrait. I’m somewhere in between. It’s amazing how many people will upload snapshots of people where the pictures don’t look like them at all. To me, uploading a picture that is not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point, which I’m working toward, to try to express who they are. On the other hand, professional photographers usually have a subject whom they don’t know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free person is nervous, it’s very difficult to try to see what it is that you’re trying to capture. A lot of what I’m doing is, I just start shooting photos. After half an hour of having their picture taken, people start to ignore you. Or I’ll take pictures when I’m talking to people about what they’re doing, so after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about the camera. That’s something that I’m not perfect at, but I’m getting better. I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through with somebody you don’t know, or to make them laugh. Many times people make a face for me that they wouldn’t make for a professional photographer. For instance, a board meeting picture, like the one with Eric Saltzman: that was during a very tense discussion. I’ve found that people are at their most animated at these kinds of meetings, and look the most alive when they are under a lot of pressure, and super- focused. But usually if an outsider is in the room, they won’t get into that. I mean, it would be difficult for a cameraman to be in a room where a board is having a heated debate. But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was distracting. We were having a very heated discussion and I was taking all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those pictures turned out the best. In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, of these people don’t have any free photos of themselves on the web, so copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article all the time, “By the way, do you have a photo that we can use?” But they don’t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons license, now they do. This is solving the issue of legal freedom. The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re fact is, it’s much more likely that somebody is going to use these pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least from my perspective. That said, I shouldn’t be the only person doing this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, of what they’re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in were pictures of different Berkman Center members that I had taken in they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin Mobile case, where Virgin used CC licensed images in an advertisement without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it more thorough from a legal perspective. It’s also an important educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. Microsoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business But one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business you still have the core people who still remember and hold the torch for the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. Now, when you go to many Internet conferences, it’s mostly salesmen in attendance. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by the United States. Although the United States is still slightly farther ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is photography I hate to say it, a lot of people love the darkroom, but it With new 22 megapixel cameras coming in under $10,000, and Lightroom and some of this software at a couple hundred dollars, it doesn’t really make sense, except for particularly fussy artists, to do wet-work anymore. If you’re a commercial photographer or a high-end amateur, you large-format film At the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were still not as good as 8x10 film. So there was this whole period where the darkroom was not all that exciting, but the digital wasn’t perfect. I system, and my Leica M6 set. I had bought the Leica R8, but I was photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the Interestingly, I think these new high-end amateurs are buying more photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and not trying to “compete” with them. making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like best. Dopplr is a great example. When would bet that more than half of the photos in this book are pictures of What’s great about photography is that it captures the moment that I was online, which is really pretty binary. I can look at all these photos is “the present” plus what you remember from the past. I think this well, but to me photography is a really good way of doing that. When I presence. I think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying around. Just as I never believed that we would have a paperless office, for our jet lag. How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Having said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me\n\n<question>:\nHow does the photographer imagine photos with a CC license will be used?\n\n<options>:\nA On billboards\nB In memes\nC In textbooks and mainstream media articles.\nD In TV commercials\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>:\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. 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). As before, each tester found before him on a table 10 red plastic cups, labeled A through J. Each cup held 3 ounces of one of the beers. The A-to-J labeling scheme was the same for all testers. Instead of saltines for palate-cleansing, this time we had popcorn and nuts. As they began, the tasters were given these and only these clues: that the flight included one \"holdover\" beer from the previous round (Sam Adams) that it included at least one import (Bass) 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. and b) most lagers are light-colored and weak. The first test was designed to evaluate low-end beers and therefore had to be lager-centric. This one is designed to test fancy beers--but in the spirit of open-mindedness and technical accuracy, it includes a few \"strong\" lagers too. 3. Materials. The 10 test beers were chosen with several goals in mind: To cover at least a modest range of fancy beer types--extra special bitter, India pale ale, Hefeweizen, and so on. 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: 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 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 something the testers weren't given?\n\n<options>:\nA Hefeweizens\nB saltines\nC an import beer\nD 10 cups\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,353 | 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 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?\" Inventing an alternative to sterling might sound far-fetched, even illegal. But it's not that strange. In the UK we think of the pound like fish think about water, which is to say not at all. It might never have occurred to many of us that there are other types of exchange that can stand in for ragged bank notes tucked away in pockets, or other objects that can stand in for those notes. 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. The founders of the Brixton Pound wanted to do something to stop 80p of every £1 spent locally from leaking out of the area into the pockets of corporations, at the expense of small local traders. So they printed a currency that would have the same value as the pound, but could only be traded in independent Brixton shops, where the shopkeeper would also have to spend it locally. This year the Brixton Pound got its own cashpoint, from where people can withdraw local banknotes bearing colourful images of local heroes, like David Bowie and secret Agent Violette Szabo, to spend in over 150 local shops. It can also be used by residents to pay council tax and by employers to pay wages. Scott Cato says the fish-in-water problem – the idea that sterling is so ubiquitous, it is never questioned – is the biggest challenge for complementary currencies. She knows all about it as a founder of the Stroud Pound in 2010, a currency that has since gone out of circulation. In Stroud, suspicion of the local currency among local businesses became a barrier to success. Scott-Cato said traders refused to join the scheme because they were \"running a business\", as though putting the community first and placing the needs of others as equivalent to their own was in itself bad business practice, or as though they were somehow being disloyal to sterling. 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. \"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.\" \"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.\" When Scott-Cato and her colleagues wrote about the experience of setting up the Stroud Pound, they said it was telling that complementary currencies have been accused of being a game for middle-class people, rather than a genuine economic solution. 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.\" Nothing is tying Glasgow to existing models for complementary currencies. But during the first meeting about setting up the Glasgow Pound, the workshop shows just how hard it would be to invent a new system that works for everyone. 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.\"\n\n<question>:\nWho came up with the Stroud Pound?\n\n<options>:\nA Ciaran Mundy\nB Duncan McCann\nC Stephen Clarke\nD Molly Scott Cato\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,378 | 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 HUNTED HEROES \"I never bothered to find out their names,\" Ledman said casually. \"They were The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! \"Let's enough to stop the most adventurous and against the redness of the sands. They were the dried, parched skeletons of Earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, once oxymasks and suits, still airlock, smiling. that some grease monkey back our grandparents' mistakes. names now. None of them had been particularly close September 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. They had used their atomics at the Dome was at fault—whoever Geigs?\" I asked. \" Why? What've they ever done to walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd you?\" \"Because I hate you,\" he said blandly. \"I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one.\" Ron?\" Val pleaded. \"Maybe He smiled, as calmly as if been walking a good eight out here!\" I started to tell her that the for fuel. It was an atomic world. \"No,\" Ledman said evenly. \"I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm determined to drive the Geigs—and UranCo—off Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away.\" \"Just pick us off in the desert?\" and clumsily enfolded hers. \"Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. We're heroes.\" She glared at me. \"Heroes, hell!\" she muttered. \"That's Mars.\" \"What are you going to do with us?\" Val finally asked, \"Kill you,\" he told her. \"Not your husband. I want him as the clicks of the counter. And the geigers had been obstinately for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of her lovely but unrugged legs. \"Heroes,\" she said bitterly. \"We're not heroes—we're you volunteer for the Geig Earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right?\" I nodded over at our geiger Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly. \"Ah—two young heroes,\" but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the way we decided together on contract for my company. You know who I am, now?\" barren terrain. The geiger I nodded. spongy Martian sand and bury myself. blanket. I still didn't understand. \"But why kill us Geigs? We had nothing to do with it.\" \"You're just in this by accident,\" up with the idea before I did. I wished there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled the Geigs. the geiger harness, and lowered Ron?\" Val asked sleepily. I began, \"Uran—\" \"Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but to which, unfortunately, I'm Mars after all. But, I reminded myself, someone no longer accustomed.\" among a pile of hypodermics. \"There are other injections, too. Adrenalin, insulin. Others. The Blast turned me into a walking pin-cushion. it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. to make bombs. We used ours had. Heroes? Hell, no. We just liked our comforts, and threat that disturbed me, so much as the whole concept, so strange to me, that the human mind could be as warped same way I did. \"Do you really think you can succeed?\" I taunted him. \"Really think you can kill every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—\" Val's quick, worried head-shake teams. That's what had finally decided it for us—we were a married couples, working in Earth that couldn't be broken we volunteered. And here we are. Heroes. powerful as you, today—instead of a useless cripple in a without much difficulty. So once again to wake Val. innocent people who've done nothing, nothing at all to you. That's not sane!\" His eyes blazed. \"Who are fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some Earthman who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward Val, and saw that she was us only a short time ago, I realized. \"Ron—\" to snap, \"Lie still, Val!\" oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded, bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. sickness out of you, and turn bound against the sides of our oxysuits. \"Walk,\" the stranger said, now,\" he said. \"No. That's the difference 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.\" \" No! walking. You don't argue with a blaster, even if the man pointing it is in a wheelchair. \"What's going on, Ron?\" me—\" \"Not so loud,\" I broke in. society again.\" \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat out. \"I hate all of them.\" \"I know,\" I said sarcastically. \"They'll help you on Earth. \"You're just all full of They'll take all the hatred and talking. We trudged along together, with him following behind hate. You hated us so much that you couldn't bear to hang around on Earth for as much to leave.\" \"Why are you telling all 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 even with prosthetic legs, because them to.\" \"You left Earth too quickly,\" atomic-powered prosthetics—amazing things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of the Sadlerville Blast were roadways. We had profited by Everything: power drills, except you. You were so sick you had to get away from the printing presses, typewriters, can openers, ocean liners, powered by the inexhaustible limbs free of charge. All nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, have added Val to the number on Mars. With every source of uranium mined dry Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge.\" \"I still don't believe it—those picture the sort of dog-eat-dog 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 tangle-cord when I kicked you over?\" \"Yes—human legs aren't strong enough to break tangle-cord that way.\" Enter the Geig Corps: volunteers starts functioning. Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the After we walked on a out on the face of my legs.\" this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one-man Dome, of all things! \"Welcome to my home,\" he let's go. Between the psychs and the prosthetics men, you'll be a new man inside of a year.\" When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer \"Got the geigers, honey?\" His face was a bitter, dried-up mask. He was a man been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with my chromium legs and atomic-powered muscles. No wonder She lifted the geiger harnesses,\n\n<question>:\nVal and Ron's geiger is programmed to identify:\n\n<options>:\nA The Sandcat\nB The Dome\nC Uranium\nD humans\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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989 | 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>:\nrelentlessly toward him. He awoke still screaming.... A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind. the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. \"Why aren't you with him now?\" Ben shook his head. He thought, Ben scowled. \"What happens if there .\" The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. well.\" She looked at him strangely. \"Suppose—\" He fought to find the right words. \"Suppose I got well and decided not to join Jacob. What would happen to me? Would you let me go?\" Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion—alarm, then bewilderment, then fear. \"I don't know. That would be up to Jacob.\" that had coursed through her. \"The only thing that matters, really,\" she murmured, \"is your walking again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?\" \"Okay,\" he said. unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard , Ben told himself. The officer passed. Ben breathed easier. 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. Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. He thought, Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist 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. Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, crimson-braided uniform of the Odyssey's He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining 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' death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his 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 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 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. 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 , he thought. You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary , Ben reflected, you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from Earth. After all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant second, to destroy a man's life and his dream? 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 as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs. Ben didn't answer. Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The Martian kid, perhaps? Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded, Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into which the musicians had disappeared. He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the mildly stunning neuro-clubs. Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. Another second , his brain screamed. Just another second— Or would the exits be guarded? 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 his body. He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have 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 \"Yes.\" His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word. \"You want to escape—even now?\" \"Yes.\" \"You may die if you don't give yourself up.\" \"No, no.\" He tried to stumble toward the exit. \"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way.\" flicked on. Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A \"I'm sure,\" Ben managed to say. \"I have no antidote. You may die.\" His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender at once. \"Anti ... anti ...\" The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced 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. rest. Everything'll be all right.\" Everything all right , 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 swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach. Better , he'd think. drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck. \"I—I am better,\" he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. \"I am going to live?\" \"You will live.\" He thought for a moment. \"How long have I been here?\" in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it. \"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?\" He lay back then, panting, exhausted. \"Why did you save me?\" \"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. Rest.\" He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture. Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his brain.\n\n<question>:\nBen runs from the crime scene, but isn't remorseful for doing so. Why is that, even though he killed a man?\n\n<options>:\nA It gave him enough time to remember the renegades, and make the plan to go meet them.\nB He felt he was justified in killing Cobb.\nC Running away game him opportunity to reflect.\nD Running gave him autonomy, and to decide how the next part of his life would pan out.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,787 | 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>:\nJerry held his breath as they approached the object biggest surprise since David clobbered Goliath. \" last chance to change his mind, and then left. Jerry Bridges, sitting in the chair opposite his employer's cagey, to behave the way the newspaper wanted him to behave, to protect the cozy Washington assignment he had waited Jerry couldn't identify stepped Mr. Conners,\" he said casually. \"It just seemed strange, all these exchanges of couriers in \"Even if that's true, we'll hear about it through the usual channels,\" Conners frowned. Jerry deduced that it must have been activated by the decreased load of the ship. Jerry grinned. \"I didn't take that kind of advantage, Mr. heading for the ivy-choked Jerry got up and ambled to the \"By the way. What do you think is going on?\" \"I haven't the faintest idea.\" \"Don't kid me, Mr. Conners. Think it's war?\" \"That'll be all, Bridges.\" by a filmy packing material. \"Wait a minute,\" the general The reporter closed the door pieces packed within, protected housing. A-2 ...'\" He looked up. \"It's an instruction book,\" he whispered. \"We're supposed item which had started the whole affair, and he seemed more interested in the romantic to build rather than political implications. As he walked beside him, \"Where's your decorum?\" Jerry growled. Ruskin giggled. \"Boy, she's quite a dame, all right. I think they ought to get the Secret It wasn't until three days after the landing that Jerry later, and Jerry walked until he No one told him his destination, It wasn't the newsmen's jibes will be a jet leaving Washington White House, flying visits by State Department officials, mysterious conferences involving members of the Science Commission. that Senator Spocker, chairman of the Congressional Science Committee, had been involved Jerry looked up from his foreign minister's debate. And the cause of it all, a placid, The USAF jet transport highly-polished metal robot, was Delegate from a great neighbor planet, in the interests of peace story—\" \"But I'm a reporter how do you suppose I feel, knowing you're only interested in me because of the Senator? Anyway, I'll probably lose my Earth, as a messenger of war. Unstoppable, inexorable, it may return, bearing a different Delegate fired from a vantage point far beyond the reach of and said: \"At first, they thought it was another sputnik.\" \" its message delivered, its mission fulfilled, requested to be locked inside a bombproof \"The State Department, silly. They got reports from the observatories about another sputnik did?\" what the damn thing was.\" \"Wait a minute,\" Jerry said dizzily. \"You mean to tell me there's another of those metal moons up there?\" left him vaguely unsatisfied. He tried to explain his feeling \"In an hour. He's in a terribly him the visit. \"Well, what's bothering your byline. I should think you'd be tickled pink.\" \"It's not that,\" Jerry said moodily. \"But ever since I heard the Delegate speak, something's out what to do about it. The only hitch is, Russia doesn't want to wait that long, and is session of the UN just to figure \"But don't you think he's done good? Don't you think they'll be impressed by what he said?\" from last night.\" \"Don't be silly. The spaceship's thinking of calling a plenary \"I'm not worried about that. I think that damn robot did more for peace than anything relax. It can be fun.\" She started to prove it to him, and Jerry responded the way a normal, healthy male usually does. But in the middle of an they're here for some kind of conference, I guess. They know about the UN and everything, and \"What's the matter?\" \"I just thought of something! \"Wait a minute!\" can land their delegate.\" days. Like I say, they want to establish diplomatic relations or something. The Senator thinks that if we don't agree, they might do something drastic, like blow us all up. It's kind She took her hat and coat from \"You're taking it mighty calm,\" he said ironically. \"Well, how else can I take it? I'm not even supposed to Jerry had walked across the know is so careless about—\" She put her fingers to her lips. \"Oh, dear, now you'll really think I'm about it, except that the Senator Five minutes later, Jerry campus of Clifton University, the desk where Professor Martin Coltz could be located. \"Professor Coltz?\" She stuck a pencil to her mouth. \"Well, I guess he'd be in the Holland \"Y-e-s. But you know, you're a liar sometimes, Jerry. I've noticed that about you.\" \"Didn't I say I wouldn't?\" Jerry felt decrepit, but managed to say: \"It must be something new since I was here. Where is this place?\" He followed her directions, from the men's dorm. He met a student at the door, who told him that Professor Coltz would be found in the physics department. The room was empty when Jerry entered, except for the single stooped figure vigorously can't deliver any messages.\" \"But this is something he Coltz was far older than Jerry remembered. He was a tall man, with an unruly confusion blinked when Jerry said: \"Hello, Professor. Do you remember me? Jerry Bridges?\" \"Of course! I thought of you \"When will that be?\" could deliver it with his next batch of mail.\" times. But Jerry was impatient to get to the point of his visit, and he blurted out: \"Professor Coltz, something's been bothering me. It bothered me from the moment I heard They sat at facing student desks, and chatted about old college notebooks. Thank God I kept them.\" Coltz's eyes were suddenly hooded. \"What do you mean, Jerry?\" \"There was something about the Robot's speech that sounded people—want to know if they Jerry, and snapped: \"This note of yours. Just what do you think it means?\" \"You know better than I do, Mr. Howells. I'm just doing my job of nations, and someday, even of worlds ...' Sound familiar, Professor?\" Coltz shifted uncomfortably. \"I don't recall every silly thing I said, Jerry.\" \"But it's an interesting coincidence, isn't it, Professor? that secrecy is essential, that leakage of the story might cause your interest in robotics. I'll never forget that mechanical them is to lock you up.\" Jerry swallowed hard. \"The other is perhaps more homing pigeon you constructed. \"What are you driving at, Jerry?\" \"Just this, Professor. I had a little daydream, recently, and I about a group of teachers, scientists, and engineers, a group who were suddenly struck by an exciting, incredible idea. A group that worked in the quiet and secrecy of a University on a fantastic scheme to force the idea of peace into the minds of be allowed to relay the story to the \"Go on.\" \"Well, I dreamt that this group would secretly launch an earth satellite of their own, and dream interest you, Professor?\" radio message to earth from the cone, seemingly as if it originated through it to demand peace for all mankind ...\" \"Jerry, if you do this—\" \"You don't have to say it, Professor, I know what you're thinking. I'm a reporter, and my business is to tell the world around midnight tonight. There from Washington Airport. But Jerry Bridges, sitting in the rear seat flanked by two Sphinx-like Secret Service men, knew that he was the only passenger with non-official status Jerry braked the convertible wasn't the only secrecy-shrouded aircraft that took off that evening Jerry pointed. \"That one.\" to some unnamed destination. desert road, until Jerry sighted of scary.\" She shivered delicately.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Jerry visit Professor Coltz?\n\n<options>:\nA Jerry thinks Professor Coltz may be a Venutian in disguise.\nB Jerry remembered something Professor Coltz said when Jerry was a student.\nC Jerry remembered that Professor Coltz was interested in robotics.\nD Jerry thinks Professor Coltz may be a domestic terrorist, using an extraterrestrial visit as a cover.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,610 | 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>:\nthings got tough, but could still satisfy a woman's craving to mother something small. of a district pound. You knew it before we got married.\" not even from Bermuda.\" \"I thought they were all registered,\" Anne said. \"They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went and got the sales receipt. It checked with her newt, and it was from \"Intelligent as a human imbecile, maybe.\" O'Reilley's pet shop—right place, wrong number. I just don't get it.\" \"A small child is an imbecile. Would you kill a small child?\" animals!\" protested hopelessly, knowing that a logical defense was useless \"Don't call me baby! Call them baby!\" against sentimentality. \"Baby—\" \"You're taking intelligence as the only criterion of humanity,\" he started a black market in neutroids?\" \"I suppose you have an aptitude for killing babies?\" she said sweetly. that she didn't want to be kissed. than the neutroids. A K-108 could speak a dozen words, and a K-99 never got farther than \"mamma,\" \"pappa,\" and \"cookie.\" Anthropos was \"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 \"She has a different number.\" \"Mama kiyi,\" said the cat-Q-5 disgustedly. \"Two of your customers have the same name—Adelia Schultz? Not likely. 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 \"neutroids.\" When a pet neutroid died, a family was broken with grief but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid. of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides, were class-C—defective heredity. something he had been expecting for several days. Attention All District Inspectors: Subject: Deviant Neutroid. You will immediately begin a systematic and thorough survey of all Unauthorized neutroids could mean lots of trouble. number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when one animal is found. Be thorough. If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be Intelligent 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 with the retailers to whom the animals had been sold. A week's deadline for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight squeeze. \"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 it's her own. Do you understand?\" \"I think so,\" Norris replied slowly. \"But what do you want me to do? Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?\" \"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 take a neutroid, especially since she couldn't pay for its treatment.\" \"I still don't see—\" \"I thought perhaps you could help me fake a substitution. It's a K-48 series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound that's not claimed?\" it, Doctor, but you can't fake a serial number. She'll know it. And even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her. me —and charging one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a pound inspection—\" Yates bellowed lusty laughter into the phone. \"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection with the Delmont case.\" be dropped if they cooperate. Don't shake those warrants around unless they just won't listen to reason. But get those neutroids.\" \"Okay, boy. Gotcha.\" 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 thatch of scalp-hair that grew up into a bright candleflame. Otherwise, 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 reached its age-set, it remained at the set's child-development level until death. 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.\" \"Why that?\" \"So it would develop sexuality. A neutroid would be born a female if they didn't give it suppressive doses of male hormone prenatally. That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But Delmont figured a female would be caught and stopped before the final the other defects. And he could blame the sexuality on an equipment female.\" fellow, for instance. It might be a potential she. It might also be a potential murderer. All these kiddos are from the machines in the learned: to steer clear of emotional attachments. It was eight months old and looked like a child of two years—a year short of its age-set. And it was designed to be as affectionate as a human child. what—\" 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?\" Mrs. Sarah Glubbes, call me immediately. She's wanted for questioning.\" less than an hour ago, a woman—allegedly Mrs. Glubbes—burst into brandishing a pistol and screaming, 'You stole my baby! You gave me the wrong baby! Where's my baby?' \"When the doctor assured her that there was no other baby, she fired, Glubbes, the alleged intruder, has no baby \"What was it?\" \"Neutroid trouble.\" He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy chatters greeted the light. One at a time, he awoke twenty-three of the older doll-things and was obvious. Society manufactured them because killing them was permissible. Human babies could not be disposed of when the market 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 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>:\nWhat is the most likely reason for Mrs. Sarah Glubbes calling her neutroid a baby?\n\n<options>:\nA She is a Class C citizen and likely has a mental or emotional disorder.\nB She became too attached to her neutroid.\nC She is trying to distract the authorities from the neutroid black market.\nD The neutroid is actually a human child.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,108 | 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 sleek Vegas types, whose Strip palaces scramble casinos, theaters, restaurants, arcades, discos, cabarets, theme parks, concert halls, sports arenas, and museums into one giant orgy of amusement, have been selling the idea that gambling is just entertainment--Disney in the desert. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. The antis, meanwhile, cry that gambling is like cigarettes: unsafe for kids, viciously addictive, deceptively marketed, unhealthy, expensive, and unacceptable unless mightily regulated. Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. Today's panelists tell the commission that kids are starting to gamble too young and are getting addicted too easily, that compulsive gambling appears to be increasing as gambling spreads, that gambling marketing may be designed to addict customers, and that the industry exploits problem gamblers by allowing them to draw repeated credit card advances from ATMs on casino floors. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. The commission will also push the industry to do more to prevent kids from gambling. It will call for heavier regulation of Indian gambling and will probably try to ban or severely regulate Internet gambling, perhaps by forbidding gambling companies from running online casinos. It will rebuke state lotteries for their deceptive marketing and will try to force them to post odds and stop targeting the poor. In short, it will treat gambling as a tobaccolike vice. If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. Gamblers don't quite accept the cigarette analogy--though commission member Bill Bible, a former chief of the Nevada Gaming Commission, did concede that gambling was like alcohol--but they're happy to sign on to the specific measures. The casino industry is even trying to get ahead of the commission. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. I suspect that the industry will not only agree to the commission's recommendations but will become their strongest advocate. Casino owners will avidly lobby Congress and state legislatures to enact the recommendations into law. Why should the pro-gamblers cooperate with a critical study? Because it provides superb cover for them. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination. Likewise, cracking down on compulsives is also politically cost-effective. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. The cigarette agenda will also distract the commission and the public from the true reasons for worry. A few years ago, gambling was confined to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It is now thriving in 48 states, and there is no sign that anyone can stop it. In this election, gambling interests dropped $100 million on a single California ballot initiative, toppled governors in two states, and bought senators and representatives by the crate. What the commission ought to be investigating is whether the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. But it can't, because the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. Talk about quick defeats: The first sign I see outside the MGM Grand ballroom all but declares that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission has already lost. The sign reads: \"National Gaming Impact Study Commission.\" \"Gaming\"? In Las Vegas, the euphemizers reign. Once upon a time, the casino owners decided that \"gambling\" was too crude, too avaricious, to describe their fair business. So \"gambling\" disappeared in Las Vegas, and \"gaming\" has risen in its place. He who controls language controls ideas, and at today's commission hearing, it is perfectly clear who controls the language. Video slot machines crammed into convenience stores--perhaps the most pernicious form of legal gambling there is--are called \"retail gaming.\" People who own casinos are not \"casino owners,\" they are \"gaming visionaries.\" Pathological gamblers are \"problem gamers\"--as if they're having trouble mastering the rules of Monopoly. And the National Gambling Impact Study Commission is reborn as the National Gaming Impact Study Commission. The gambling industry did everything in its power to stop the establishment of this commission two years ago, but Congress and a fervent grassroots anti-gambling group eventually foisted it on the industry. The nine member blue-ribbon panel was charged with assessing the social and economic impact of gambling, and it will issue a final report to Congress and the president in June 1999. Even though the panel was carefully balanced between pro- and anti-gambling leaders, it was supposed to be Vegas' nemesis. The industry and Las Vegas' pro-gambling media quaked in anticipation of the onerous regulations and taxes the commission might recommend. But they quake no more. Whatever national momentum the anti-gamblers had dissolved in last week's elections. The industry routed opponents in state after state. Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative to allow boat casinos. Californians voted to expand Indian casinos. In South Carolina and Alabama, voters expelled anti-lottery, anti-gambling Republican governors and replaced them with pro-lottery Democrats. The gambling industry spent more than $100 million on political contributions and issue ads. It has never been fatter, happier, or more secure. There are also a fair share of gleeful gambling regulators, bookmakers, and casino employees among the panels of expert witnesses the commission hears from. Critics who gripe about the perils of sports gambling and the evils of convenience store slot machines leaven the pro-gambling folks. Everyone, including the gambling industry shills, agrees that Internet gambling is evil and should be destroyed. Everyone agrees to this because no one in Las Vegas is making any money off Internet gambling. If they were, you can be sure they would explain why it's as American as nickel slots and scratch-off games. Pro-Vegas forces are also perfectly happy to take shots at Indian gambling, the chief economic threat to Nevada's prosperity. The expansion of Indian casinos resulting from last week's California voter initiative will slam Las Vegas, cutting its gambling revenues by $400 million a year. So the Vegans repeatedly swing at casinos in \"Indian country\" (that's Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan's term--I'm not joking) for being insufficiently regulated and taxed. One tribal chief I spoke to calls this \"red baiting.\" (Pause for an aesthetic observation: I am sitting right behind the witnesses, and after a while I begin to separate them into the Wides and the Narrows. The Wides are men in suits with enormous backs and enormous bellies, men who eat and eat and used to play football. They all testify to their love of gambling. The Narrows are thin and generally disapprove of it. I begin to wonder whether fondness for gambling correlates with general indulgence, and dislike correlates with asceticism, and decide that they probably do.)\n\n<question>:\nWhy say gaming instead of gambling?\n\n<options>:\nA Gaming sounds more fun than gambling.\nB Gaming sounds young, gambling sounds old.\nC Gaming sounds classier than gambling.\nD Gaming doesn't have the negative connotation that gambling does.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,396 | 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>:\nRyzga made a savage, wholly futile effort to lift the weapon in his paralyzed hand. Then his eyes rolled upward, and abruptly he went limp and fell in a heap, like a mechanical doll whose motive power has Var felt Neena beside him, and drew her close. As she sobbed her relief, conquer.... Var. Var eyed him for a long moment The ice-wind blew from the glacier, but Var's love was round her as a vengeance. mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He be death for Var, and for Neena living shame. Which of the two was worse was no longer a simple problem to Var, who had grown much older in the Var sighed, shaking his head. \"It won't hold them for long, but it's the cost. They hoarded their strength, helping one another But this was no time for shyness. Var eyed the ice-curtain closely to make sure that it was real, not dream-stuff then he struck it boldly all the walls were sheathed in ice—warm to the touch, bound fast against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from Warming to the old man now, Var sketched his and Neena's history Var nodded somberly, thinking that an old recluse would in any case be Var grinned mirthlessly. \"We haven't much choice, since they're nestled by Var's side. He asked, \"And you—are you willing to follow below, and I returned in time.\" Now for the first time Var sensed the power in the old man's look, the power of four hundred years' wisdom. Var stared down at his hands. the Ryzgas, there was lust for power, and atrocious cruelty tyranny, power, and cruelty as theirs, had never been known. They ruled its heart for energy, poisoned its seas and its air with the fume of fire is that of the Sun, and even now, two thousand years later, the find numberless fragments of rusted or corroded metal, bits of glass and strange plastic substances, debris of artifacts still showing the marks of their shaping—the scattered wreckage of the things they made. And Var and Neena stared, unstirring, with wide vacant eyes, while the old the naked skeletons of buildings and were followed by thunder and a shaking of the earth. Var blinked dazedly in the shadowless glow of the ice-cave. His arm vision of such scope and reality as Var had never seen—no, lived mind as it groped for his there was a confusion of horror and pity. Var seemed suddenly a very long way off, and Var could no longer feel his Var strove to cry out that there was no time, that Groz was near and Var woke. Daylight glimmered through the ice of the cave mouth. He had it was. He came to his feet in one quick movement, realizing in that action that sleep had refreshed his mind and body—realizing also that a footstep Var passed a hand across bewildered eyes. Neena said softly, \"Thank you, Not looking at the Watcher, Var muttered unsteadily, \"We have no face was unsmiling. \"It is this. You, Var, can flee up the canyon to the be too late for them to overtake Var.\" irreparable.... But to become I and again—that cannot be borne. \" the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little was cracked and harsh. Var opened his eyes in surprise, and saw that the Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently, slanted steeply downward. Var's hands moved, molding a radiant globe abrupt motion he hurled it. The sun-globe vanished, as if the darkness had drunk it up, but though sight did not serve they both sensed that it had passed through to light up the depths beyond. For within the mountain something snapped suddenly alert—something alive yet not Var and Neena turned. Far out in the sea of fog, on a dream bridge that Neena's hand tightened on Var's. Var sent a thought of defiance: \"Go sky was beneath. Var fought for footing with his balance gone, feeling At Var's thought command Neena froze instantly. \"Feel that!\" he potential that seemed to whisper featureless tunnel that sloped always toward the mountain's heart. Var pulsed briefly with radiant energy that pained the eyes, and went out. The immaterial globe of light danced on before them. vibration at first, then an increasingly potent shuddering of the floor under their feet and the walls around them. Somewhere far below immense energies were stirring for the first time in centuries. The power that was in the Earth was rising great wheels commenced to turn, the Var faced that way and thought coldly: \"Only if you return and let us go Without warning, lights went on. Blinking in their glare, Var and Neena its circular walls were lined with panels studded with gleaming control buttons, levers, colored lights. As they watched light flicked on and off in changing patterns, registering the progressive changes in the vast complex of mechanisms for which this must be the central control station. Behind those boards circuits opened and closed in bewildering confusion the two invaders felt the rapid shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum.... 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 They looked at one another, the same thought coming to both at once: perhaps, after two thousand years, the masters were dead after all, and only the machines remained? As if irresistibly drawn, they stepped over the threshold. Var and Neena huddled frozenly, half expecting each instant to be their changing colors, of fabric delicate as dream-stuff. In his right hand, with the care one uses with a weapon, he grasped a gleaming metal tube his other hand rested as for support against the frame of the doorway. 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 manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and assurance of self that smote them like a numbing blow. With a new shock, Var realized that the Ryzga's thoughts were quite 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 image occurred oddly to Var, to whom such a comparison would ordinarily have been totally strange. \"Culture: late barbarism. Handwork of high quality—good. Physically excellent stock....\" There was a complicated and incomprehensible schemata of numbers and abstract forms. \"The time: two thousand initially postulated but this will do. The pessimists were mistaken. We can begin again.\" Then, startlingly super-imposed on the cool progression of logical thought, came a wave of raw emotion, devastating in its force. It was a lustful image of a world once more obedient, Var was staring in fascination at the Ryzga's face. It was a face formed by the custom of unquestioned command But in that moment a light of inspiration had flashed upon Var, and it remained. As the Ryzga stretched out his hand again, Var acted. The Holding that grip, Var strode across the floor and looked straight into such evil that for an instant he almost faltered. But the Ryzga's misdirected and unavailing as those of a child who has not learned to wrestle with the mind. Var had guessed right. When Neena in her terror had flung a dream real being. Var laughed aloud, and with great care, as one communicates with an infant, he projected his thoughts into the other's mind. \"There will be no new beginning for you in our years, we've learned some new things. Now at last I understand why you built so many machines, such complicated arrangements of matter and energy to do simple tasks—it was because you knew no other way.\" its fuel. After us\n\n<question>:\nWhat power does Var possess?\n\n<options>:\nA the ability to change his appearance\nB the ability to travel through air\nC the ability to communicate telepathically\nD the ability to change the form of physical objects\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
331 | 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\"Want an asteroid in your backyard? We supply Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Bob Parker, looking through the photo-amplifiers at the wedge-shaped such a manner that the big, powerful ship was moving at the same rate as the asteroid below—47.05 miles per second. He came slogging back excitedly, put his eyes to the eyepiece. He gasped, and his big body shook with joyful ejaculations. \"She checks down to the last dimension,\" Bob chortled, working with slide-rule and logarithm tables. \"Now all we have to do is find out if she's made of tungsten, iron, quartz crystals, and cinnabar! But there couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so Queazy straightened. A slow, likeable smile wreathed his tanned face. \"Better take it easy,\" he advised, \"until I land the ship and we use the atomic whirl spectroscope to determine the composition of the asteroid.\" Received your advertising literature a week ago. Would like to state that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following specifications: 506 feet length, long enough for wedding procession 98 feet at base, tapering to 10 feet at apex 9-12 feet thick topside smooth-plane, underside rough-plane composed of iron ore, tungsten, quartz crystals, and cinnabar. Must be in my back yard before 11:30 neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only The \"asteroid in your back yard\" idea had been Bob Parker's originally. Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the came to the broad base of the asteroid-wedge, walked over the edge and \"down\" the twelve-foot thickness. Here they squatted, and Bob Parker happily clamped the atomic-whirl spectroscope to the rough surface. By the naked eye, they could see iron ore, quartz crystals, cinnabar, but he had the spectroscope and there was no reason why he shouldn't use it. He satisfied himself as to the exterior of the asteroid, and \"May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?\" asteroid \"below.\" He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid qualifications Burnside had set down. and it was three times as big as her gloved hand. \"I understand conditions better than you do,\" she said. \"You want to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But for this asteroid. Some screwball millionaire wants it for a backyard If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't \"It's—it's very important that this—this asteroid stay right where it There was no answer from Queazy. With sick eyes, Bob studied the oxygen indicator. There was only five pounds pressure. Five pounds! That meant he had been floating around out here—how long? Days at least—maybe weeks! It was evident that somebody had given him a dose of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the Bob saw the girl now, standing a little behind Queazy, looking down at nerves. So I decided to trick him and I came out to the asteroid belt and picked out an asteroid that was shaped so a wedding could take place on it. I took the measurements and the composition, then I told of an asteroid with those measurements and made of iron ore, tungsten, and so forth. He agreed so fast he scared me, and just to make sure that if somebody did find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them, the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies.\" gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating ours both travel on the HH drive—inertia-less. But the asteroid has plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a fling at getting the asteroid back!\" your marriage—sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry like that!\" He snapped his fingers. \"No acceleration effects. This type of ship, necessary in our business, can stop flat, back up, ease up, move in faltering. \"The asteroid—\" \"You have the control board, quartered the vision plate. He pointed savagely to the lower left quarter, which gave a rearward view of the dumbbell ship trailing astern. \"There's your ship, Starre.\" He jabbed his finger at it. \"I've got a the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was attached around her ship's narrow midsection. She shook her head helplessly. \"It just looks like a big yo-yo to me.\" \"A yo-yo?\" \"Yes, a yo-yo. That's all.\" She was belligerent. narrow midsection. Into these eyes cables which trailed back to reinforced. The nose of the hauler was blunt, perfectly fitted for the job. Bob Parker practiced and experimented for three hours with this yo-yo of cosmic dimensions, while Starre and Queazy stood over him bursting into strange, delighted squeals of laughter whenever the yo-yo reached the end of its double cable and started rolling back up to the ship. Queazy They weren't where Bob and Queazy had calculated, as they had discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid naked-eye distance of the Saylor brothers' ship. Below, Earth was spread out, a huge crescent shape, part of the Eastern hemisphere miles per second. And resting on the blunt nose of the ship was the \"yo-yo.\" lengths of cable behind it as it unwound, hurled itself forward like a fantastic spinning cannon ball. \"It's going to hit!\" exactly the same method of catching the \"yo-yo\" on the blunt nose of the ship as a baseball player uses to catch a hard-driven ball in his glove—namely, by matching the ball's speed and direction almost But by the time the \"yo-yo\" was flung at them again, this time with better calculations, they managed to put the firmly held asteroid between them and the deadly missile. But it was clumsy evasion, for the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing Saylor brothers' ship crumple like tissue paper crushed between the hand. The dumbbell-shaped ship, smaller, and therefore stauncher due to the principle of the arch, wound up again, wobbling a little. It had received a mere dent in its starboard half. \"What do you damned fools think you're trying to do?\" he roared. \"You've crushed in our stern section. You've sliced away half of our with a strangled yell. The \"yo-yo\" struck again, but Bob Parker maneuvered its speed in\n\n<question>:\nWhy are Quezy and Bob investigating the asteroid?\n\n<options>:\nA To see if it matches the specifications of the person who ordered it.\nB To investigate the ship that's been parked on it.\nC To check what minerals and ores are present in it.\nD To check its overall dimensions.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
2,021 | 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 U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow 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 that a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. 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 offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount. Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowed the stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequent bite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote to the ancient observation, \"God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,\" Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles Partlow Robert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustrating tensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming, dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility to see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of water, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food. guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder. Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic duties of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, \"Bailey, Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the taste slabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat. For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste of the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not. \"Belly-Robber,\" he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea, \"you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a pun you are feeding me.\" Captain Winkelmann blotted his chin with his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up the ladder from the dining-cubby. \"Doc, do you like Winkelmann?\" the Cook asked me. \"Not much,\" I said. \"I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can 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.\" \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I \"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, 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 Hausfrau mother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make him many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\" \"Crew morale on the ship....\" I began. 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. \"We are not amused,\" said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second helping of the pseudo-turkey. \"You are improving, Belly-Robber, but only arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to require a geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mere 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 on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last few days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and many his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this 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 Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'd \"Remarkable, Bailey,\" I said. \"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 never cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoils kind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of a more reasonable man. \"But it still needs something ... something,\" \"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 \"Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey,\" I said. \"You've worked your \"I hate him,\" Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He and tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey, Bailey nodded and smiled. \"Thank you, Sir,\" he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I thought. 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. first-shift diners said. \"It actually tastes of food!\" \"Then he's beat the Captain at his game,\" I said. \"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks,\" the crewman said. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electric but this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph you couldn't have done it without him.\" \"You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?\" Captain may be a hard man, Bailey but he did know how to coax maximum performance out of his Ship's Cook.\" He persuaded his men by foul means, true but it was all for the good of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked,\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these best describes Bailey's personality?\n\n<options>:\nA He is timid and unable to stand up for himself with the captain\nB He is a reasonable person with a lot of skill who does not appreciate being pushed\nC He is determined and dedicated, wanting to show the captain what he can do\nD He appreciates the external motivation from the crew to always improve his cooking\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,329 | 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\"Backfire,\" said Lane. \"I set For every weapon there was a defense, but not against the deadliest weapon—man himself! Gerri reeled away from the The cool cybrain surgically implanted in him was working on the problem. But Lane had no more patience. They'd Then I'm dead.\" He heard the 3V newscaster's amplified voice: \"—approximately fifty killed. But Lane is through now. He has been able to outthink police with the help of his cybrain. Now police are feeding the problem to their giant analogue will be able to outthink Lane's cybrain, will predict Lane's Gerri cried. black dog was on Lane's back. this is Lane.\" Court House. Lane cursed Thirty seconds passed. Lane his stupidity. He hadn't found out which one was which rasped into Lane's ear: \"If you get out of there alive, I'll hang you for disobeying them!\" \"Yes, sir. Sir, there's a girl to figure out which one. Blood Lane waited for the electronic churned in his veins, nerves shrieked with impatience. of the city, would have There was a pause. \"Your girl from Mars is right, Lane. But it's too late now. If we had moved first, captured the brain to come up with the answer. planet. Sir, she told me we could take over the city if we down with blaster cannon.\" \"Sir, I'm asking for help. I know you're on my side.\" \"I am, Lane.\" The voice of through his spine. Lane body snapped into a stiff dive position. He began rescue you. When they feed the data into that analogue computer, you're finished.\" to plummet down, picking \"I'm sorry, Lane.\" only lose more men trying to Lane pressed the stud on to Gerri. \"You're okay. I wish I they'll fire into the room, and then we'll both be dead.\" Gerri stood with folded arms and looked at him. \"Do what you have to do. As far as I can see, you're the on his side.\" Lane laughed. \"Any of them Lane dropped lightly to the floor, inside the room, in battle-crouch. \"Lashing police with his A girl screamed. Lane's hand shot out automatically. vibray,\" said the announcer, corner of his eye, Lane saw the girl fold to the floor. There Lane frowned with the effort Lane, still in a crouch, chewed was no one else in the room. better to die knowing that.\" \"I know,\" she said. The amplified voice from \"Lane broke through the cordon surrounding Manhattan Armory. Two policemen were killed, four others seriously injured. Tammany Hall has warned that this man is extremely dangerous. Citizens Lane looked at Gerri. \"How about giving me a kiss before they get us? Be nice if I kissed are cautioned to keep clear of him. Lane is an insane killer. He is armed with the latest \"You deserve it, Lane.\" said Lane, and a sheathed finger my life.\" She smiled and walked forward. He kissed her and it filled military weapons. A built-in should get killed. If I take a dive out that window, they shoot at me, not in here.\" \"And kill you all the sooner.\" \"Better than getting burned head. \"It ain't right you up in this lousy little room. Lane strode to the window. Lane's mailed hand snapped The two police boats were outguess Lane's cybrain and says stay here, but I don't you back for that kiss.\" \"But you're safe in here!\" \"Worry about yourself, not about me.\" Lane picked up the guess I will. I'm gonna pay her. \"When I say now, press \"Wake up, outa-towner.\" He gave the blonde girl a light dose of the vibray to slap her awake. this. Then take your hand off, real fast. It'll shut off the force-bomb and handed it to Lane, of the Newyork Special Troops, is all.\" He threw her across the Square when the electronic brain controls his at Lane, either. They were says fly right for the Lane plunged forward. He \"I don't,\" said Lane, unconcerned. heard the shouts of frightened men. on the balcony—emergency! Years of training and cybrain took over. Lane's hand shot \"Who sent you?\" \"My cybrain sent me.\" out, fingers vibrating. As he Lane Lane stood for a moment in floating up to him. Then he Lane. \"Cybrain didn't know, Lane hovering above the towers. and Gerri Kin sat on either side of Lane. Gerri shook her head. \"Recognition \"Gerri Kin. Look, Lane, holding me is no good. It'll just get you in worse trouble. What are you trying to do?\" Lane said, \"I'm going to Mars, too.\" Gerri. We won. They got a \"Did she ask you to?\" demanded Lane shook his head. \"She's Gerri Kin said, \"That's Klett. Lane said, \"Yeah? Well, we Lane glanced out the window. play games, Gerri. I go right Lane broke off. There was against us.\" \"I just didn't want her to be hurt.\" \"Exactly. The computer Lane could read the Lane, or we'll blast you out.\" \"You can't,\" Lane called. \"This girl from Mars is here.\" \"I repeat, Lane—come out or we'll blast you out.\" Lane turned to the girl. \"I thought you were important.\" She stood there with her hands together, calmly looking at him. \"I am. But sir. I want to be a human being.\" END \"I'm tired of being a weapon, \"Yeah, but—\" Lane shook Work is the elimination of the traces of work. the window. \"All right, look! Move them boats away and I'll let this girl out!\" \"No deal, Lane. We're coming in.\" The police boats —Michelangelo Lane looked down at the voices rose from below. Lane Lane looked across the that Gerri Kin had pointed \"Lane is holding the Martian Ambassador, Gerri Kin, hostage. You can see the Martian tricolor behind his force-globe. Police are bringing up blaster cannon. Lane's defense is a globe of energy Lane grinned back at Gerri Nice-looking, nice-talking girl like this probably cared a lot more about dying than he did. Why the hell didn't they give him a chance to let her out? Maybe he could do it now. Cybrain said no. It said the second he dropped his force-screen, they'd blast this room to hell. Poor girl from Mars, she didn't have a chance. Gerri Kin put her hand to her forehead. \"Why did you have to pick my room? Why Earth is sick and it's going to kill me. What's going to happen?\" Lane looked sadly at her. Only two kinds of girls ever city paid. Why did he have to be so near getting killed when he met one he liked? Now that she was showing a little less fear and anger, she was talking straight to him. She was good, but she wasn't acting as if she was too good for him. \"They'll start shooting pretty quick,\" said Lane. \"I'm \"What?\" Lane important I realize they are. You know how to fight, don't you? I'll bet you're perfect \"What?\" sir,\" said Lane. \"That's why night.\" \"Why?\" \"Because they're afraid of Lane said, \"They told us in you are too, to them. Mars is Gerri said, \"You scared if you wanted to. You scared them so much that they'll let me be killed. They'll actually risk trouble with Mars just to kill you.\" \"I'm sorry about you. I mean it, I like—\" and blinded him. He recovered and saw Gerri a few feet away, dazed, groping on hands and knees. Lane jumped to the window, looked quickly, sprang back. Cybrain pumped orders Again Lane and Gerri were Lane laughed boyishly and ran to the window. \"Look!\" he called to Gerri.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Gerri kiss Lane?\n\n<options>:\nA She pities him.\nB She is terrified he'll kill her if she doesn't.\nC She likes Lane.\nD He is trying to save her life.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
29 | 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>:\nGrannie Annie, who wrote science fiction had stumbled onto a murderous plot more hair-raising than any she had ever concocted. And the danger from the villain of the piece didn't worry her—I was the guy he was shooting at. Grannie Annie! planted firmly on the varpla carpet and her wrinkled face was set in calm defiance. I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. \"Grannie Annie! I haven't seen you in two years.\" \"Hi, Billy-boy,\" she greeted calmly. \"Will you please tell this and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour—I waited until she had tossed ? What happened to the book you were writing?\" \"Hold it, Billy-boy.\" Laughingly she threw up both hands. \"Sure, I knew But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's Pistols and it wasn't Ganymede As we strode down the aisle a mangy-looking Venusian began to pound a tinpan piano in the pit. Grannie Annie pushed me into a seat in the front row. somewhere and talk.\" She minced lightly down the aisle, climbed the stage steps and disappeared in the wings. \"That damned fossilized dynamo,\" I muttered. \"She'll be the death of me yet.\" From the left wing Grannie Annie appeared. She bowed and took her place Doctor Universe nodded and turned to Grannie Annie who had raised her It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had snipped the Martian's single lock of hair. A booted foot bludgeoned into his mouth. Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to shout derisive epithets. Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm In a booth well toward the rear the old lady surveyed me with sober eyes. \"Billy-boy, did you see the way that crowd acted?\" I nodded. \"As disgraceful an exhibition as I've ever seen. The I.P. men ought to clamp down.\" \"The I.P. men aren't strong enough.\" She said it quietly, but there was a glitter in her eyes and a harsh line about her usually smiling lips. \"What do you mean?\" develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or followed.\" Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. If Grannie expected me to show surprise at that, she was disappointed. I said, \"So what?\" \"So everything, Billy-boy. Do you realize what such a thing would mean Grannie nodded. \"Yes,\" she said. \"That's exactly what I think.\" en masse .\" If it had been anyone but Grannie Annie there before me, I would have called her a fool. And then all at once I got an odd feeling of approaching danger. \"Let's get out of here,\" I said, getting up. Zinnng-whack! fresco seemed to melt away suddenly. A heat ray! Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the door. Outside a driverless hydrocar stood with idling motors. The old woman threw herself into the control seat, yanked me in after her and threw over the starting stud. An instant later we were plunging through the dark night. We had traveled this far by ganet , the tough little two headed pack animal of the Venus hinterland. Any form of plane or rocket would have had its motor instantly destroyed, of course, by the magnetic force belt that encircled the planet's equator. Now our drivers changed to boatmen, and we loaded our supplies into three clumsy It was around the camp fire that night that Grannie took me into her confidence for the first time since we had left Swamp City. Grannie's incredible story? Or was this another of her fantastic plots undulating sweeps toward the center of the camp. Fascinated, I watched it advance and retreat, saw two hyalescent eyes swim out of the murk. It charged, and with but a split second to act, I threw myself flat. There was a rush of mighty wings as the thing swept over me. Sharp talons raked my clothing. Again it came, and again I rolled swiftly, missing the thing by the narrowest of margins. From the tent opposite a gaunt figure clad in a familiar dress appeared. Grannie gave a single warning: \"Stand still!\" The thing in the darkness turned like a cam on a rod and drove at us again. This time the old woman's heat gun clicked, and a tracery of purple flame shot outward. A horrible soul-chilling scream rent the air. A moment later something huge and heavy scrabbled across the ground and shot aloft. Grannie Annie fired with deliberate speed. I stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me. \"In heaven's name, what was it?\" \"Then that would mean...?\" \"That it was sent by our enemy, the same enemy that shot at us in the cafe in Swamp City. Exactly.\" Grannie Annie halted at the door of her tent and faced me with earnest eyes. \"Billy-boy, our every move is being watched. From now on it's the survival of the fittest.\" The following day was our seventh in the swamp. The water here Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the \"What do you mean?\" Grannie paused in the act of rolling herself a because I was alone, and they didn't notice me, and Darthier escaped because he made 'em laugh.\" \"Laugh?\" A scowl crossed Grannie's face. that's manifested by laughing. But just what it is that makes them laugh, I don't know.\" Food supplies and fresh drinking water were replenished at the hut. Several mold guns were borrowed from the prospector's supply to arm the Grannie frowned in annoyance, but the prospector was adamant. He about us in hordes. The next day an indefinable wave of weariness and despondency beset our entire party. I caught myself musing over the futility of the venture. Only the pleadings of Grannie Annie kept me from turning back. On the morrow I realized the truth in her warning, that all of us had been exposed to the insidious radiations. advance on foot. It was Karn who first sighted the ship. Striding in the lead, he suddenly halted at the top of a hill and leveled his arm before him. suspended between them was a network of copper wire studded with white insulators. Grannie gazed a long moment through binoculars. \"Billy-boy, take three Venusians and head across the knoll,\" she ordered. \"Ezra and I will circle in from the west. Fire a gun if you strike trouble.\" But we found no trouble. The scene before us lay steeped in silence. Mid-way we could see a circular hatch-like door. \"Up we go, Billy-boy.\" Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to climb slowly. The silence remained absolute. We reached the door and pulled it open. plate and their radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process.\" Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the glass wall. His arm jumped in recoil, but the glass remained intact. \"You'll never do it that way,\" Grannie said. \"Nothing short of an atomic blast will shatter that wall. It explains why there are no guards here. The mechanism is entirely self-operating. Let's see if the Grannie stamped her foot. \"It's maddening,\" she said. \"Here we are at\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Grannie Annie referring to when she says \"the I.P men aren't strong enough?\"\n\n<options>:\nA She doesn't feel that the I.P men are serving well enough.\nB Just that - that the local law enforcement should be stronger.\nC She knows that as the politcal climate worsens, the I.P won't be able to keep up with the chaos.\nD The I.P men weren't quick enough to protect Billy and her from the attack.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
784 | 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>:\nChicago Space Mirror that there would be all sorts of human interest stories to be picked up at the first international grandmaster chess tournament in which an electronic computing machine was entered. Not that there weren't enough humans around, it was the interest that their faces and they were all in pairs, two clocks to a case. That Siamese-twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance. Her last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the they'll gang up on the Machine at adjournments. What can one New Jersey computer do against four Russian grandmasters?\" \"I heard the Russians have been programmed—with hypnotic cramming and somno-briefing. Votbinnik had a nervous breakdown.\" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the Space Mirror chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them. But what brings a sane and beautiful young lady to this 64-square madhouse?\" were served, Doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other. \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers.\" He swallowed half his demitasse and perfectly, so that it always wins and there is no contest. Right?\" Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as \"If you had,\" he said, \"a billion computers all as fast as the Machine, it would take them all the time there ever will be in the universe just to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the time needed to classify those games into branching families of wins for White, wins for Black and draws, and the additional time required to trace out chains of key-moves leading always to wins. So the Machine can't play chess like God. What the Machine can do is examine all the likely lines of play for about eight moves ahead—that is, four moves each for White and Black—and then decide which is the best move on the genius, but who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human interest already, even in the Machine.\" Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player—a grandmaster, I mean—ever look eight moves ahead in a game?\" \"Most assuredly he does! In crucial situations, say where there's a is probably programmed to recognize such situations and do something of the same sort, though we can't be sure from the information World Business Machines has released. But in most chess positions the possibilities are so very nearly unlimited that even a grandmaster can only look a very few moves ahead and must rely on his judgment and chess-playing computer. The first practical model, reported by Bernstein and Roberts of IBM in 1958 and which looked four moves ahead, was programmed so that it had a greedy worried tendency to grab at enemy pieces and to retreat its own whenever they were attacked. It had a personality like that of a certain kind of chess-playing dub—a dull-brained woodpusher afraid to take the slightest risk of losing material—but a dub who could almost always beat an utter novice. you remember that the Machine is errorlessly examining every one of thousands of variations. Flesh-and-blood chess masters have lost games by blunders they could have avoided by looking only one or two moves true grandmaster would dare ignore. Again they refuse me. I predict that the Machine will play like a great oaf—at least against me \"One expects it of Jandorf,\" he explained to Sandra with a philosophic shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. \"At least he didn't take your wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\" \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I usual international rate of 15 moves an hour, and—\" \"Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?\" Sandra interrupted. \"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his moves. When a player makes a move he presses a button that shuts his clock off and turns his opponent's on. If a player uses too much time, the Machine blindfold? How do you think of it?\" \"Gosh, I don't know. Say, Doc, is it really true that Master Jandorf has played 50 games at once blindfolded? I can't believe that.\" Doc nodded. \"Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting to you the only grandmaster ever to have been ex-chess-champion of the Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled. \"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?\" she said. Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. \"You must excuse them, though,\" he said. \"They really get so little recognition or in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize \"The proportion of Soviet to American entries in the tournament represents pretty fairly the general difference in playing strength between the two countries,\" Doc said judiciously. \"Chess mastery moves from land to land with the years. Way back it was the Moslems in this tournament! He must have pulled all sorts of strings. Told them that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they had to have a member of the so-called Old Guard. Maybe he even got down \"This Simon Great who's down as programming the Machine. He's a famous physicist, I suppose?\" \"By no means. That was the trouble with some of the early chess-playing machines—they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world's chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him for the programming job. Let me tell you—No, better yet—\" Doc shot to his feet, stretched an arm on high and called out sharply, a fraud. Great is completely out of practice for actual tournament play, though not for chess-thinking. The difference in style between a computer and a man would be evident to any expert. Great's own style is remembered and would be recognized—though, come to think of it, his games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.\" Doc shrugged. \"The scores weren't released. It was very hush-hush. But about your idea, Miss Grayling—did you ever read about Maelzel's famous chess-playing automaton of the 19th Century? That one too was supposed to work by machinery (cogs and gears, not electricity) but actually it had a man hidden inside it—your Edgar Poe exposed the my story I think the chess robot will break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up and swing the deal. Only the millionaire's daughter, who is really a better player than either of them ... yes, yes! Your Ambrose Bierce too wrote a story about a chess-playing robot of the clickety-clank-grr kind who murdered his creator, crushing him like an iron grizzly bear its opponents, or beaming rays of death and hypnotism at them? I can imagine....\" While Doc chattered happily on about chess-playing robots and chess evidently and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical doctor. She'd read something about two or three coming over with the Russian squad. But Doc certainly didn't sound like a Soviet citizen.\n\n<question>:\nWhy would a psychologist be a better programmer than a scientist in response to the WBM having picked a psychologist over a scientist for a programming job?\n\n<options>:\nA A psychologist would know how to program a chess game to avoid cheating.\nB A psychologist can easily learn programming and has the background to be more effective at it than a scientist.\nC A psychologist knows the rules of chess more than a scientist does.\nD A psychologist could better predict a person's thinking during a chess game than a scientist could.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,194 | 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, through space felt like a game of hounds 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, Martians or Venusians. Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it She cocked her head in mock suspicion. \"Somewhere between Mercury and was the dead man's hand. studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how we operate?\" He told her the tales he'd heard. She nodded. \"There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies.\" a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn to Hoover City—except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects who couldn't get clearance if they went back to Earth. They know bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul. a crackdown? And what will you 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 to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. In time, maybe, we'll be pushed out of the System itself. Maybe it won't be the white-suited boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It could be us, you resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and 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 Earthmen—merchant spacemen. your own.\" through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed -breathing Venusians, the first he'd ever seen. They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions: \"A Space Officer Is Honest\" \"A Space Officer Is Loyal.\" \"A Space Frowning, he sat down—he and the dead man. The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of their cirillas or crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and forgotten grandeur. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead waiter. He wet his lips but did not drink. His gaze wandered over the The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and about forty and he hated spacemen. Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips spitting whiskey-slurred curses. whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or 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 At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night 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 horror. He spun backward. His head cracked sickeningly on the edge of He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw. a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger. manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in But you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their headquarters was Venus. Their leader—a subject of popular and memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs. But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead \"You are spacemen?\" Ben didn't answer. \"They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, monsieur ?\" faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him—reddish balloon faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away. The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised. A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the , his brain screamed. He heard the hiss. He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing his body. body overpowered him. A soft feminine voice spoke to him. \"You're wounded? They hit you?\" massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain at once. \"Anti ... anti ...\" The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced from his throat. \"No ... I'm sure ... sure.\" He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders, transfer itself to his own body. But he heard someone say, \"Don't try to talk.\" It was the same gentle voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. \"Don't talk. Just lie still and things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach. mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: \"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food.\" Or, \"Close your eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better.\" Better , he'd think. \"You are better?\" the kind voice asked. He lay back then, panting, exhausted. \"Why did you save me?\" 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 man I killed—did he have a wife?\" \"Children?\" \"Two. I don't know their ages.\" 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 The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a\n\n<question>:\nWhat did the dead man compare the Spacemen to in disgust?\n\n<options>:\nA Bees\nB Garbage\nC Maggots\nD Flies\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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562 | 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>:\nCharles Murray is a publicity genius, and the publication of his and Richard Herrnstein's book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life , in the fall of 1994 was his masterpiece. First, a quick précis of The Bell Curve . IQ tests, according to Murray and Herrnstein, measure an essential human quality, general intelligence. During the second half of the 20 th century, this quality has risen to supreme importance, because society has become increasingly complex. The intelligent have therefore gone through an \"invisible migration,\" from points of origin all over the class system to a concentration at the top of business, government, and the professions. They are likely to become ever more dominant and prosperous. The unintelligent are falling further and further behind. Because intelligence is substantially inherited, nothing is likely to reverse this process. Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent. Any efforts government might make to improve the economic opportunities of poor people, especially poor black people, are likely to fail, because their poverty is so much the result of inherited low intelligence. About the best that can be done for these people is an effort to create a world of simple, decent, honorable toil for them. Herrnstein and Murray begin by telling us that the liberal position on IQ--namely, \"Intelligence is a bankrupt concept\"--has been discredited, and that \"a scholarly consensus has been reached\" around their position. This consensus is \"beyond significant technical dispute.\" Thus, by the end of their introduction, they have arranged matters so that if intelligence has any meaning at all, the idiotic liberals stand discredited and meanwhile, extremely broad claims for intelligence have the cover of \"consensus.\" The next problem with The Bell Curve 's thesis is in the idea of the rise to dominance of the cognitive elite. To the book's initial audience of Ivy Leaguers, this idea seemed valid on its face. Everybody knows that the best universities, law firms, hospitals, investment banks, and the State Department used to be run by preppies whose main virtue was fortunate birth, and are now open to one and all on the basis of merit. But the larger premise--that intelligent people used to be scattered throughout the class structure, and are now concentrated at the top--is almost impossible to prove, simply because the mass administration of mental tests is such a recent phenomenon. High scorers on mental tests do \"bunch up\" (as Herrnstein and Murray put it) in elite-university student bodies. But this is tautological: Any group selected on the basis of scores on mental tests will be composed disproportionately of people who score high on mental tests. Proving The Bell Curve 's thesis would require proving that success increasingly correlates with IQ in areas of life where mental tests are not the explicit gatekeepers. To see how The Bell Curve tries and fails to get around these inherent problems, see and . Having conditioned its audience to view IQ as all-important, The Bell Curve then manipulates statistics in a way that makes IQ look bigger, and everything else smaller, in determining Americans' life-chances. The basic tool of statistical social science in general, and of The Bell Curve in particular, is regression analysis, a technique used to assign weights to various factors (called \"independent variables\") in determining a final outcome (called the \"dependent variable\"). The original statistical work in The Bell Curve consists of regression analyses on a database called the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The authors claim to demonstrate that high IQ is more predictive of economic success than any other factor, and that low IQ is more predictive of poverty and social breakdown. Virtually all the early commentators on The Bell Curve were unable to assess the merits of the regression analysis. \"I am not a scientist. I know nothing about psychometrics,\" wrote Leon Wieseltier (who was otherwise quite critical) in a typical disclaimer. Herrnstein and Murray begin their discussion of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth data by announcing that they aren't going to analyze the effect of education, because education is too much a result of IQ. It's not an independent variable. (Of course, according to their theory, socioeconomic status is also a result of IQ, but somehow, that doesn't stop them.) Therefore, what you'd most want to know from a policy standpoint--how much education can increase opportunity--isn't dealt with in the book, except in two obscure footnotes. Both would seem to support the liberal, pro-education position that Herrnstein and Murray say is futile. One footnote shows education increasing IQ year by year. The other shows a higher correlation between college degree and family income than between IQ and family income. At the beginning of The Bell Curve , Herrnstein and Murray declare that \"the concept of intelligence has taken on a much higher place in the pantheon of human virtues than it deserves.\" And they claim that their view of IQ tests is \"squarely in the middle of the scientific road.\" They end by expressing the hope that we can \"be a society that makes good on the fundamental promise of the American tradition: the opportunity for everyone, not just the lucky ones, to live a satisfying life.\" Throughout, Herrnstein and Murray consistently present themselves as fair- (or even liberal-) minded technicians who have, with great caution, followed the evidence where it leads--which, unfortunately, is to a few unassailable if unpleasant scientific truths that it is their reluctant duty to report. not once is a finding that contradicts the main thesis reported in the text. ( shows how Herrnstein and Murray have made the convergence in black-white IQ scores, which they claim to find \"encouraging,\" look smaller than it actually is.) The Bell Curve 's air of strict scientism doesn't preclude the use of lightly sourced or unsourced assertions, such as the statement that the median IQ of all black Africans is 75, or that \"intermarriage among people in the top few percentiles of intelligence may be increasing far more rapidly than suspected\" (no footnote). Though they piously claim not to be doing so, Herrnstein and Murray leave readers with the distinct impression that IQ is the cause of economic success and failure, and that genetic difference explains the black-white IQ gap. In the most famous passage in The Republic , Plato describes an underground cave where people are held prisoner in chains, unable to see anything but the shadows cast by figures passing outside they mistake the shadows for reality. The Republic is probably the first place in history where an idea like that of Murray and Herrnstein's cognitive elite appears. Plato believed that through education, people could leave the cave and be able to see the truth instead of the shadows, thus fitting themselves to become the wise rulers of society. But he was quick to insert a cautionary note: Those who have left the cave might be tempted to think they can see perfectly clearly, while actually they would be \"dazzled by excess of light.\" The image applies to The Bell Curve : Presented as an exact representation of reality, in opposition to the shadows of political correctness, it actually reflects the blinkered vision of one part of the American elite. It constantly tells these people that they are naturally superior, and offers lurid descriptions of aspects of national life that they know about only by rumor. Readers who accept The Bell Curve as tough-minded and realistic, and who assume that all criticism of it is ignorant and ideologically motivated, are not as far removed from Plato's cave as they might think. : Dumb College Students : Smart Rich People : Education and IQ\n\n<question>:\nAccording to Murray and Herrnstein:\n\n<options>:\nA Poor black people are unintelligent.\nB Poor people are able to work hard and get ahead.\nC There are different types of intelligence.\nD Successful people are clustered among the unintelligent.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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849 | 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>:\nI had a horrible suspicion. \"Not again?\" I said softly. Baxter swore under his breath. Then he reached across the desktop and tossed me the Amnesty. Jery Delvin had a most unusual talent. He could detect the flaws in greatest mystery, Jery assumed that it was because of his mental time to pierce the maze of out-of-this-world double-dealing. For Jery had become a walking bomb, and when he set himself off, it would be the end of the whole puzzle of THE SECRET MARTIANS—with Jery as the first determined to make a career of full-time fiction-writing. 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 \"Jery Delvin?\" said the one on my left, a note of no-funny-business in the golden bulk of their holstered collapsers. There was nothing for me to do but sweat it out and to try and enjoy the ride, wherever we were going. are Jery Delvin?\" President in power, and not even that in matters of security. I managed to nod. always reacts to an obvious cliche. Then, with something like a look of relief on his blunt face, he \"Jery Delvin,\" he read, musingly and dispassionately. \"Five foot eleven fool the average consumer indefinitely.\" I sat back, feeling much better. \"That's right, sir.\" \"They—they block my thinking, sir, that's all. Why, take that example 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. \"Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy.\" is.... You have been chosen for an extremely important mission.\" I couldn't have been more surprised had he announced my incipient \"You mean that International Cybernetics picked me for a mission? had to submit the problem to the Brain.\" that the Brain always picks the right man.\" we got. You, son, are the solution.\" Chief of Security or not, I was getting a little burned up at his highhanded treatment of my emotions. \"How nice!\" I said icily. \"Now if 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?\" 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!\" \"That, in a nutshell is our problem. We coded and fed to the Brain \"That's just it,\" Baxter sighed. \"We don't even know that! We're like a savage who finds a pistol: used correctly, it's a mean little weapon pointed the wrong way, it's a quick suicide. So, you are our weapon. by Baxter and counterembossed with the President's special device, a small globe surmounted by clasping hands. It gave me authority to do finest would raise a hand to stop me. And, snugly enholstered, I carried a collapser, the restricted weapon given only to Security Agents, so deadly was its molecule-disrupting Amnesty, they called it—such as I possessed, and a collapser, I could go anywhere, do anything, commandeer anything I might need. All with no questions asked. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty chipper as I influential human being in the known universe. The pilot, as per my videophoned request, was waiting there for me. I floor. \"Yes, sir!\" he said loudly, throwing me a quivering salute. His eyes were a bit wild as they took me in. 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, I was dressing the part, in a way. I wore the Amnesty suspended by a quite sinister. I'm under six feet, but I'm angular and wiry. Thus, in ominous black, with an Amnesty on my breast and a collapser in my holster, I was a sight to strike even honest citizens into quick examinations of conscience. I felt a little silly, but the outfit was \"No. It's saved, sir. It gets distilled and stored for washing and drinking. Otherwise, we'd all dehydrate, with no water to replace the water we lost.\" He stared, then frowned, and thought hard. \"Yes, sir,\" he said, after a minute. \"Even twice that, with no trouble, but—\" He caught himself short. It didn't pay to be too curious about the aims of an Amnesty-bearer. \"It's all right, Anders. You've been a tremendous help. Just one thing. last—interview with Chief Baxter. I had a slight inkling why the Brain 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 lay on his desk, now, along with the collapser. I felt, with the new information I'd garnered, that my work was done, and that the new data fed into the Brain would produce some other results, not involving me. I looked at the Amnesty, then nodded. \"Kind of gets you, after awhile. To know that you are the most influential person in creation is to automatically act the part. A shame, in a way.\" 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 things were before the Amnesty came along. Ever hear of red tape?\" I shook my head. \"No, I don't believe so. Unless it had something to do was impossible, Jery, my boy, to get anything done whatsoever without accurate and swift action impossible, sometimes. What we needed, of course, was a person who could simply have all authority, in order to save the sometimes disastrous delays. So we came up with the Amnesty.\" \"But the danger. If you should pick the wrong man—\" Baxter smiled. \"No chance of that, Jery. We didn't leave it up to any committee or bureau or any other faction to do the picking. Hell, that name.\" I stared at him. \"Then, when I was here before, I was here solely to receive the Amnesty, is that it?\" Baxter nodded. \"The Brain just picks the men. Then we tell the men the situation, hand over the Amnesty, and pray.\" I had a sudden thought. \"Say, what happens if two men are selected by the Brain? Who has authority over whom?\" 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 I sank back into the contour chair, and glanced at my watch. Much too late to go back to work. I'd done a lot in one day, I reasoned. Well, the thing was out of my hands. Baxter had the information I'd come\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the Brain select Jery to hold the amnesty?\n\n<options>:\nA To prevent someone like Baxter wielding and misusing it.\nB Because he's not really qualified, making him a wildcard.\nC Because of his ability to parse situations.\nD Because he will responsibly wield the amnesty.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,191 | 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 Sense of Wonder Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life. The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of low mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. If By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM . This was why the world had moved across the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more. going, how can they tell when it has arrived? He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that his the great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain the feelings within him heard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded on 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 Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright. him. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaningless everyone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of the apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead, there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apart \"Where's the buzzer?\" he sobbed. \"I must find the buzzer.\" down against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footsteps So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And his heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side of embroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with a Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, and out and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved the weight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. He the floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on the horizon. It was all very beautiful. walked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feel larger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and a others followed. They stood around for a long time before going to the was a strange thought, and Rikud's brain unsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever got But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had come It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer, frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see the look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with only this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but it proved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he saw questioned what it might mean in this particular case. \"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the others.\" \"Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words without meaning.\" 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. remembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strange channelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see the stars again. The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses light, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt his eyes to look. he couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed his that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud had no name. viewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down the middle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green, and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the world had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular through nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more confusing than ever. \"What else?\" \"Else? Nothing.\" Anger welled up inside Rikud. \"All right,\" he said, \"listen. What do the engines. \"I'm hungry, Rikud.\" not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the It changed. Where are the stars? He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, and door. through the door.\" it. It's only a door.\" \"Open it. Open the door and look inside.\" door. The machinery in the next room is your protection against the 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 permitted through this door— When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentle they shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Then he trembled. thought no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikud couldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth felt dry he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. through the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finally through the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some of A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. 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, upon entering the room. casual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikud smashed everything in sight. clearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open that door. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once, darkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. confidently. \"It won't any more,\" Rikud said. \"What won't?\" \"I hit him! I hit him!\" he did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, \"Let us weak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawing hurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voices and the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. and positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library, through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but the voice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place of machinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, and He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him were it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear those behind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were not\n\n<question>:\nThe characters experience many emotions for the first time during the events of this story. What emotion(s) push the characters through the door.\n\n<options>:\nA Sadness\nB Hatred and anger.\nC Excitement and curiosity.\nD Pure happiness.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,717 | 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>:\nALL DAY SEPTEMBER By ROGER KUYKENDALL Illustrated by van Dongen through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by Later, in Evans' tractor, he was telling his story: \"... And I don't know how long I sat there after I found the water.\" He all of 'em. \"The idea didn't come all at once, it took a long time for me to remember that water is made out of oxygen and hydrogen. When I remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with electricity. So I built this thing. \"It runs an electric current through water, lets the oxygen loose in the room, and pipes the hydrogen outside. It doesn't work automatically, of course, so I run it about an hour a day. My oxygen level gauge shows how long.\" Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to be \"You're a genius, man!\" Jones exclaimed. the first landing on the Moon. on the Moon!\" sixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldn't make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to more than a month. His drinking water—kept separate from the water in the reactor—might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too carefully measured there was a four-day reserve. By diligent conservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four days reserve—plus one is five—plus sixteen days normal supply equals twenty-one days to live. In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would be of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers, was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in the boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of a the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly freezing the water in the tank. Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closing the shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it would operate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense in the condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, if the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler. condenser.\" He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water into the boiler. It was three days' supply of water, if it had been carefully used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious luxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days to live. the boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of the ice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function. accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of suggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders he didn't particularly care to have obeyed. Mrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking. on the Moon for another week. \"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?\" he asked. The solar anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant. \"They went out about an hour ago,\" she answered, \"I suppose that's what they were going to do.\" \"Very good, what's first on the schedule?\" \"A Mr. Phelps to see you,\" she said. they're in good order.\" \"There doesn't seem to be any profit,\" Mr. Phelps said. \"I know this seems like a silly question. What day is this?\" There was a pause. \"They say what day where?\" she asked. \"Greenwich, I guess, our official time is supposed to be Greenwich Mean Time.\" There was another pause. \"Well, there you are,\" laughed McIlroy, \"it isn't that time doesn't mean don't work.\" \"Meteor shower,\" Cowalczk answered, \"and that's not half of it. Walker Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small across.\" All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the the sun. The sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. The move around Earth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and into the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same time that the sun rose. Nickel Jones was the captain of a supply rocket. He made trips from and to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores \"You may think it's myself running the ship,\" Jones started on his tirade, \"but it's not. The union it is that says who I can hire. The union it is that says how much I must pay, and how large a crew I need. they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel. \"Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to pay for water.\" Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again: profit.\" \"He's out prospecting again. I don't expect to see him until sun-down.\" \"I'll likely see him then. I won't be loaded for another week and a \"Because I say so,\" Cowalczk shouted, surprised at his outburst and ashamed of it. \"Boiler scale,\" he continued, much calmer. \"We've got to clean out the boilers once a year to make sure the tubes in the reactor don't clog up.\" He squinted through his dark visor at the reactor building, a gray concrete structure a quarter of a mile distant. \"It The vat was a light plastic container used only to decant sludge out of the water. It neither needed nor had much strength. \"Six now,\" said Cade. Cowalczk and Lehman stopped halfway to the reactor. The vat bulged and They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor turned the valve back and forth in response to Cade's signals. \"We're probably O.K. in these suits for an hour,\" Cowalczk answered. \"Is there a manual shut-off?\" \"Not that I know of,\" Lehman answered. \"What about it, Cade?\" engineer.\" \"O.K., but keep working that switch.\" \"No,\" Cade answered. \"Water's stopped. Give us some pressure, we'll see if it holds.\" \"Think we weren't worried?\" Lehman asked. \"And it's not over.\" \"What?\" Cade asked. \"Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?\" \"No,\" said Lehman, \"I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we lost.\" \"Two thousand?\" Cade asked. \"We only had seven hundred gallons reserve. How come we can operate now?\" \"We picked up twelve hundred from the town sewage plant. What with using the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do.\" \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\" \"You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple of weeks.\" the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted are clouded over. Anyway the satellite observatory will be in position by the time Europe is.\" McIlroy was fully awake. He glanced at Phelps and wondered how long it\n\n<question>:\nHow is time experienced by the people on the moon?\n\n<options>:\nA They track time based on both Earth and the moon\nB They work in two-week shifts, built around supply runs\nC They all live and work on an Earth schedule\nD They plan their schedules around the water cycle\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>:\nIn his foreword to the book, Lessig writes that you understand your subjects “by learning to see them in a certain way.” What is that certain way? expressions, or what I think that person is about. I’m trying to capture what I think they look like, which is many times a minority of their what they’re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so they’ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point, which I’m working toward, to try to express who they are. On the other know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re someone’s soul from his or her image. There are a lot of things that take pictures when I’m talking to people about what they’re doing, so after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about the camera. That’s something that I’m not perfect at, but I’m getting better. I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? articles to which I’ve contributed, when it comes to the picture, many copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re giving, we’re all giving to participate and to try to create this wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works. I want people to see the value in sharing over the fear in sharing. The fact is, it’s much more likely that somebody is going to use these pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the benefits. way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the ultimate gift. In one way it’s kind of vain. [laughs] But in another way it’s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least from my perspective. That said, I shouldn’t be the only person doing this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much higher chance of not disappearing. But I don’t know exactly how these recently I received the Harvard Berkman Center pamphlet. It was a report happy with this, and I’m happy, and the Berkman Center’s happy because they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman Center. There’s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it more thorough from a legal perspective. It’s also an important educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the What have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year? become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. Microsoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business discussion. But one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business thing, is that a lot of the pioneers fade into the background, and it becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. attendance. I believe that the success of the Internet has two parts. The first part is the market- driven business side, which has made the Internet affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. Similarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I think it’s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or destructive ways. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we outside of the United States has become much bigger than the movement in ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo exhibit was just amazing. There were some great What are your personal realizations or experiences? another thing, though, about this book: the number of importance of digital in both professional and high-end amateur lowered the bar. I don’t know how that affects the industry directly, allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals. photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and not trying to “compete” with them. Despite the existence of social software, what is still important about meeting people face-to-face? For me, the right way to use a lot of the new social software is by making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like really increasing your ability to spend quality time with, actually, a this book, although there are some obvious people missing whom I didn’t sharing with that person. It’s not just a connection on a social network rich experience. It’s the combination of social software and photography. For me, reality is “the present” plus what you remember from the past. I think this project is really sharing memories with people. Blog posts contribute as I think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying increases your travel, it doesn’t decrease it. It is great because you get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? I think it’s mostly incremental. I think there is very little we actually do all by ourselves, and I hate saying, “I did this” or “I did that.” I think that in most cases, focusing on individual contributions or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Having said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. Specifically, I think that trying to keep an international focus and a balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement is essential. My job is to keep that focus and maintain that balance. Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well. However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I’m a huge fan of Larry’s and I have great respect for the leaders of our movement. But more than anything, I’m thankful for and respectful of all of the everything forward. Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one individual’s personal contribution to any movement. The real meaning is\n\n<question>:\nWhat impact does the author believe they have made on society?\n\n<options>:\nA Introducing legislature to protect individuals from exploitation\nB Introducing the first wave of CC popularity\nC Preserving the art of darkroom photography\nD Using leadership to balance and focus of CC growth\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>:\nthat left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the sun was only a twinkle. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. slightly it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. For days the two within the ship listened and watched with little comment. They had to decide soon. \"We've got to make or break,\" said the first alien. \"You know what I'm in favor of,\" said the second. 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.\" \"The more reason for stopping,\" said Ethaniel. \"The big bomb can destroy them. Without our help they may do just that.\" \"I may remind you that in two \"Without looking at the charts I can tell you we still have more than a hundred light-years to go.\" \"A week,\" said Ethaniel. \"We in everything they do.\" \"It won't take much,\" said Ethaniel. \"The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier could set it off. And it wouldn't have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret attack.\" \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth.\" \"Could you? Forget so many to look at them.\" Bal rustled, flicking the screen intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually seem defenseless, though I suppose they're not.\" their entire history. We can't begin to undo the effect of the big bomb.\" \"You can't tell,\" said Ethaniel. \"We can look things over.\" \"And then what? How much authority do we have?\" 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. from the monitor screen. \"Any conclusions?\" \"What's there to think? It's \"In what way?\" \"Well, we knew they had the big bomb. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we were.\" \"I know.\" \"We also knew they could deliver the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft.\" \"That was almost a certainty. They'd have no use for the big bomb without aircraft.\" \"What's worse is that I now find they also have missiles, range one thousand miles and upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel.\" to hit them. Nervousness could set it off.\" \"It could, and the missiles make it worse,\" said Bal. \"What did you find out at your end?\" \"Nothing worthwhile. I was looking at the people while you and when we can't help them we the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. The southern plains were green, were blue and much of the northern hemisphere was glistening white. Ragged clouds covered the pole, and a dirty pall spread over the mid-regions of \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said desperate. They wouldn't be fooled by anything that crude.\" going to survive, how they can keep their planet in one piece so they can live on it.\" \"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing communications, but don't unless you have to.\" \"They can't intercept the beams we use.\" \"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to \"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 do the job.\" \"You ought to know. You're running this one.\" Bal looked down at the planet. Clouds were beginning to form at the twilight edge. \"I hate to go down and leave the ship up here with no one in it.\" \"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred years they still won't be able to get in or damage it in 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,\" Ethaniel acknowledged. Now he switched a monitor screen until \"I don't guarantee anything,\" said Ethaniel. \"This is what I was thinking of: instead of hiding the ship against the sun 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. \"They can't imagine that we'd 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 our ship shining down on them.\" \"That's thinking,\" said Bal, moving to the controls. \"I'll move the ship over where they can see it best and then I'll light it up. I'll really 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 trail as it plunged toward Earth. As soon as it was craft, heading for the other side of the planet. And the spaceship circled Earth, unmanned, blazing and pulsing with light. No star in the winter skies of the planet below could equal it in brilliancy. Once a man-made satellite came near but it was dim and was lost sight of by the people below. During the day the ship was visible as a bright spot of light. At evening it seemed to burn through the sunset colors. And the ship circled on, bright, shining, seeming to be a little piece clipped from the center of a star and brought near Earth to illuminate it. Never, or 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 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 \"Why?\" sometimes I flew back. I hope out. Some creature of their folklore I suppose. You know, except for our wings they're very much Amazing Science Fiction Stories January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't the Earth shoot the spaceship out of the sky?\n\n<options>:\nA The Earth does not have weapons that are capable of going as high as the spaceship. Nor are their weapons capable of penetrating the spaceship's hull.\nB Bal and Ethaniel are using the spaceship to broadcast a message of peace in all the languages of the world.\nC The combination of the Christmas holiday, aliens that look like angels, and what looks to be the star of Bethlehem, has convinced the people of Earth that Bal and Ethaniel are friends and not foes.\nD The spaceship is lit up as brightly as a star. The light is bright enough to convince the humans that firing upon it would be futile.\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>:\nto love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a was impossible not to love them. Of course, that was precisely why they were dangerous! There was no use hanging around after breakfast. His wife was in a hurt mood, and he could neither endure the hurt nor remove it. He put on his they bare their fangs, I get out without another word. Funny thing though—I've got a feeling one mother pulled a fast one.\" \"What happened?\" \"I didn't know you killed them,\" she said venomously. \"I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals.\" \"I thought they were all registered,\" Anne said. \"They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went and got the sales receipt. It checked with her newt, and it was from O'Reilley's pet shop—right place, wrong number. I just don't get it.\" \"A small child is an imbecile. Would you kill a small child?\" \"You're taking intelligence as the only criterion of humanity,\" he \"Don't call me baby! Call \"I suppose you have an aptitude for killing babies?\" she said sweetly. people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way—I'm just a He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a customer. An elderly lady was haggling with a wizened manager over the price of a half grown second-hand dog-F. She was shaking her last dog's death certificate under his nose and demanding a guarantee of the dog's delicately cut from cold marble. She was a small woman, slender and fragile, but her quiet contempt made her loom. splinter on the door. He frowned studiously at the splinter. \"I—I'll dogcatcher.\" Her cool green eyes turned slowly to meet his gaze. Her face was alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible, but He backed closer to the door. \"She has a different number.\" Norris grinned and drove on. A class-C couple, allowed no children 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 \"neutroids.\" When a pet neutroid died, a family was broken with grief but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C one when they executed that shyster doctor for shooting K-108s full 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. number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when imagine we will. Are you extremely busy at the moment?\" 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 peculiar woman, Inspector. Keeps telling me how much trouble she had in childbirth, and how she can't ever have another one. It's pathetic. She believes \"I think so,\" Norris replied slowly. \"But what do you want me to do? Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?\" \"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 take a neutroid, especially since she couldn't pay for its treatment.\" \"I still don't see—\" one . You're welcome to it, Doctor, but you can't fake a serial number. She'll know it. And even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her. \"Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind completely if—\" \"All right, I'll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you. \"Don't let me catch you falsifying a serial number.\" \"Doctor Georges came,\" she told him. \"He signed for the—\" She stopped its third try, in a Wylo pool hall. \"I'm getting so I hate that infernal gadget,\" Yates grumbled. \"I think \"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection Yates stopped laughing. \"Oh. Well, I'll take care of it.\" don't have to get a helicopter posse to chase down the mothers.\" \"Hard day?\" she asked. \"Not too hard. Those were just three out of fifteen. I got the other \"Come on,\" he grunted. \"Let's unload some neutroids, before I forget She reddened. \"I felt sorry for them, eating that goo from the \"That was a mistake.\" She frowned irritably. \"We can afford it.\" 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 wouldn't be caught until after birth.\" dangerous. So he went back to its incubator and cut off the hormone \"Why that?\" if they didn't give it suppressive doses of male hormone prenatally. That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But inspection. They'd dispose of her without even bothering to examine for malfunction. He thought it was pretty smart. Trouble was they didn't catch the female. She went on through they all \"How did they find out about it now?\" tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the \"Put it in the cage, Anne,\" he said quietly. She looked up and shook her head. \"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.\" She snorted, but installed the thing in its cage. \"Anne—\" Norris hesitated, hating to approach the subject. \"Do 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. what—\" \"I know what I'm saying. We're class-C on account of heart-trouble in \"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 folks. I just want to say that if any of you know the whereabouts of a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes, call me immediately. She's wanted for questioning.\" \"Thank you, Chief. This is James Duncan again. I'll review the facts for you briefly again, ladies and gentlemen. At seven o'clock, less than an hour ago, a woman—allegedly Mrs. Glubbes—burst into Doctor Georges' dining room while the family was at dinner. She was brandishing a pistol and screaming, 'You stole my baby! You gave me the \"When the doctor assured her that there was no other baby, she fired, shattering his salad plate. Glancing off it, the bullet pierced his heart. The woman fled. A peculiar feature of the case is that Mrs. Glubbes, the alleged intruder, has no baby . Just a minute—just a just to retch. He kept his face averted. Her fingers traced a last stroke. Then she 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 Mrs. Glubbes shoot the doctor?\n\n<options>:\nA He substituted her nuetroid for an identical model.\nB She thinks he let her baby die.\nC The doctor will not take her baby to the hospital.\nD Mrs. Glubbes is mentally ill.\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>:\nreaching for the safe-lock release.... \"Don't!\" Retief jumped—too late. The door burst inward. A crowd of crested Groaci pressed into the room, Retief exhaled a plume of cigar smoke. \"You can't offend the Groaci,\" Miss Meuhl said sharply. \"Consul Whaffle would never have been so rude.\" \"You're making a serious mistake, Shluh,\" Retief said. Mr. Retief to his quarters in this building—\" \"Don't be a fool, woman,\" Retief said. \"Don't you see what you're \"You think all women are fools, don't you, Mr. Retief?\" She turned to never to reopen that wound, Mr. Retief.\" disapproval as he closed the door. The pale-featured Groacian vibrated his throat-bladder in a distressed bleat. \"The specific instructions of the Archivist.\" The Groacian's voice rose An elaborate one picked out in pinkish paint seemed to indicate the Groacian equivalent of a bar. Retief went in. A Groacian bartender was dispensing clay pots of alcoholic drink from the bar-pit at the center of the room. He looked at Retief and froze in mid-motion, a metal tube poised over a waiting pot. \"To enjoy a cooling drink,\" Retief said in Groacian, squatting down at the edge of the pit. \"To sample a true Groacian beverage.\" \"To not enjoy my poor offerings,\" the Groacian mumbled. \"A pain in the digestive sacs to express regret.\" \"To be grappled in by peace-keepers for poisoning of—foreigners.\" The barkeep looked around for support, found none. The Groaci customers, eyes elsewhere, were drifting away. \"The procuring of a cage,\" a thin voice called from the sidelines. \"The displaying of a freak.\" Retief turned. A tall Groacian vibrated his mandibles in a gesture of contempt. From his bluish throat coloration, it was apparent the creature was drunk. \"To choke in your upper sac,\" the bartender hissed, extending his eyes toward the drunk. \"To keep silent, litter-mate of drones.\" \"To swallow your own poison, dispenser of vileness,\" the drunk whispered. \"To find a proper cage for this zoo-piece.\" He wavered barkeep whispered something, and two customers came up to the drunk, took his arms and helped him to the door. \"To get a cage!\" the drunk shrilled. \"To keep the animals in their own stinking place.\" \"I've changed my mind,\" Retief said to the bartender. \"To be grateful as hell, but to have to hurry off now.\" He followed the drunk out the door. The other Groaci released him, hurried back inside. Retief looked at the weaving alien. \"To begone, freak,\" the Groacian whispered. \"To be pals,\" Retief said. \"To be kind to dumb animals.\" \"To have you hauled away to a stockyard, ill-odored foreign livestock.\" \"To flee before I take a cane to you!\" \"To have a drink together—\" \"To not endure such insolence!\" The Groacian advanced toward Retief. Retief backed away. \"To hold hands,\" Retief said. \"To be palsy-walsy—\" The Groacian reached for him, missed. A passer-by stepped around him, head down, scuttled away. Retief backed into the opening to a narrow crossway and offered further verbal familiarities to the drunken local, who followed, furious. Retief backed, rounded a corner into a narrow alley-like passage, deserted, silent ... except for the following Groacian. Retief stepped around him, seized his collar and yanked. The Groacian fell on his back. Retief stood over him. The downed native half-rose Retief put a foot against his chest and pushed. \"To not be going anywhere for a few minutes,\" Retief said. \"To stay Two Groaci wearing heavy eye-shields and elaborate crest ornaments indicative of rank rose as Retief entered the room. Neither offered a courteous snap of the mandibles, Retief noted. They were mad, all right. \"Never mind that,\" Retief said. \"These gentlemen didn't come here to chief. \"One hour ago,\" The Groacian said, \"a Groacian national was brought to hospital suffering from serious contusions. Questioning of this individual revealed that he had been set upon and beaten by a episode! And you—\" \"Terrible? I understand that a Terrestrial task force stood off Groac \"How did they die?\" Retief snapped. \"Did you murder them, cut their \"I see,\" Retief said. \"They died.\" \"What did you do with it? It was too big to just walk off and forget. Where is it?\" The two Groacians exchanged looks. \"We wish to show our contrition,\" Fith said. \"We will show you the ship.\" stood, looked at the Groaci. \"Let's go,\" he said. Retief stooped under the heavy timbers shoring the entry to the cavern. A Groacian threw a switch. A weak bluish glow sprang up. Retief walked along the raised wooden catwalk, studying the ship. Empty \"How did you get it in here?\" Retief asked. \"I've seen enough,\" Retief said. Silently, the Groacians led the way back out through the tunnel and into the late afternoon sunshine. As they climbed the slope to the steam car, Fith came to Retief's side. \"We were at fault,\" Fith said abjectly. \"Now we wish only friendship.\" \"The Retief looked grimly at the slender Foreign Office official. \"Where is \"Where is that ship?\" Retief rapped out. \"You never learn, do you? Fith spoke to Shluh in rapid Groacian. The police chief gestured to his four armed constables. They moved to ring Retief in. Retief eyed Fith. \"Don't try it,\" he said. \"You'll just get yourself in deeper.\" Fith clacked his mandibles angrily, eye stalks canted aggressively Retief looked at the four policemen. \"I see your point,\" he said. \"If you'll listen, you may find out,\" Retief said. \"I have no time the Groaci is to dispose of both of us. We're the only ones who know what happened. Fith almost did the job this afternoon, but I bluffed him out—for the moment.\" \"I'll do nothing of the sort! The Groaci are very fond of me! You ... Johnny-come-lately! Roughneck! Setting out to destroy—\" \"Blame it on me if it will make you feel any better,\" Retief said, \"but him silently as he closed the door. It was an hour before dawn when Retief keyed the combination to the Retief, rose and snapped on a light, turned to stare. \"I got a little dirty. Don't worry about it.\" Retief went to his desk, \"That's right,\" Retief said calmly. \"Now—\" \"Get that sender going, woman!\" Retief snapped. \"This is important.\" Retief reached out and snapped off the communicator. The triumphant Retief went on earnestly, \"I've found the missing cruiser.\" Retief ignored Miss Meuhl's fury as he spoke into the recorder. \"Go ahead,\" Retief said. \"Answer it.\"\n\n<question>:\nWho betrays Retief? How and why?\n\n<options>:\nA The previous Consul, Whaffle. Whaffle confesses to Groacian police that Retief broke into the Archives and stole information about the missing cruiser. Whaffle did this because he wants his old position back.\nB Miss Meuhl. She reports Retief’s espionage to Groacian officials. She does this because she believes Retief isn’t acting the way he should as consul.\nC The crew from The Terrific. They have been in cahoots with the Groaci the entire time, and are dead set on betraying the human race in order to find financial gain on Groac.\nD The Groacian bar tender. He believed Retief needed to be beat up by the drunken Groacian.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,982 | 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>:\nSTAR MOTHER By ROBERT F. YOUNG A touching story of the most enduring love in all eternity. That night her son was the first star. She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart, watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, where he had worked as a young man and she wondered whether he was thinking of those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone in the April night with her memories whether he was thinking of the verandahed house behind her, with its empty rooms and silent halls, that once an airtight metal capsule in an airtight metal chariot ... Why don't they leave the stars alone? she thought. Why don't they leave the stars to God? came early the next morning: Explorer XII doing splendidly. Expect to bring your son down sometime tomorrow . She went about her work as usual, collecting the eggs and allocating them in their cardboard boxes, then setting off in the station wagon on her Tuesday morning run. She had expected a deluge of questions from her customers. She was not disappointed. \"Is Terry really way up there all alone, Martha?\" \"Aren't you scared , Martha?\" \"I do hope they can get him back down all right, Martha.\" She supposed it must have given them quite a turn to have their egg woman change into a star mother overnight. She hadn't expected the TV interview, though, and she would have avoided it if it had been politely possible. But what could she do when the line of cars and trucks pulled into the drive and the technicians got out and started setting up their equipment in the backyard? What could she say when the suave young man came up to her and said, \"We want you to know that we're all very proud of your boy up there, ma'am, and we hope you'll do us the honor of answering a few questions.\" Most of the questions concerned Terry, as was fitting. From the way the suave young man asked them, though, she got the impression that he was trying to prove that her son was just like any other average American boy, and such just didn't happen to be the case. But whenever she opened her mouth to mention, say, how he used to study till all hours of the night, or how difficult it had been for him to make friends because of his shyness, or the fact that he had never gone out for football—whenever she started to mention any of these things, the suave young man was in great haste to interrupt her and to twist her words, by requestioning, into a different meaning altogether, till Terry's behavior the behavior pattern which the suave young man apparently considered the norm, but which, if followed, Martha was sure, would produce not young men bent on exploring space but young men bent on exploring trivia. A few of the questions concerned herself: Was Terry her only child? (\"Yes.\") What had happened to her husband? (\"He was killed in the Korean War.\") What did she think of the new law granting star mothers top priority on any and all information relating to their sons? (\"I think it's a fine law ... It's too bad they couldn't have shown similar humanity toward the war mothers of World War II.\") It was late in the afternoon departure. Martha fixed herself Terry's first Tuesday night passage wasn't due to occur till 9:05. But it seemed only right that she should be outside when the stars started to come out. Presently they did, and she watched them wink on, one by one, in the deepening darkness of the sky. She'd never been much of a one for the stars most of her life she'd been much too busy on Earth to bother with things celestial. She could remember, when she was much younger and Bill was courting her, looking up at the moon sometimes and once in a while, when a star fell, making a wish. But this was different. It was different because now she had a personal interest in the sky, a new affinity with its myriad inhabitants. And how bright they became And they were different colors, too, she noticed with a start. Some of them were blue and some were red, others were yellow ... green ... orange ... It grew cold in the April garden and she could see her breath. There was a strange crispness, a strange clarity about the night, that she had never known before ... She glanced at her after nine. Where had the time gone? Tremulously she faced the southern horizon ... and saw her Terry appear in his shining chariot, riding up the star-pebbled path of his orbit, a star in now, down, down, and out of sight beyond the dark wheeling mass of the Earth ... She took a deep, proud breath, realized that she was wildly waving her hand and let it fall slowly to her side. Make a wish! she thought, like a little girl, and she wished him pleasant dreams and a safe return and wrapped the wish in all her love and cast it starward. Sometime tomorrow, the general's telegram had said— She rose with the sun and fed the chickens, fixed and ate her put them in their cardboard boxes, then started out on her you stand it with him way up there! Doesn't it get on your nerves ?\" (\"Yes ... Yes, it does.\") \"Martha, when are they bringing him back down?\" (\"Today ... Today !\") \"It must be wonderful being a star mother, Martha.\" (\"Yes, it is—in a way.\") Wonderful ... and terrible. If only he can last it out for a few more hours, she thought. If only they can bring him down safe and sound. Then the vigil will be over, and some other mother can take over the awesome responsibility of having a son become a star— If only ... mechanism, making ejection impossible. Will make every effort to find another means of accomplishing Terry!— hair gold in the sunlight, his cherub-cheeks pink in the summer wind— Terry!— making near-grownup strides over the sun-seared grass the sky blue and bright behind him, the song of cicada rising and air— Terry ... —probably won't get a chance to write you again before take-off, but don't worry, Ma. The Explorer XII it, and the odds are a million to one ... Why don't they leave the stars alone? Why don't they leave the stars to God? began to fade, she slipped into Terry's jacket and went outside. her swift passage blurred before her eyes. Tires crunched on the washed the darkness from the Please God , she thought, let it be Terry , even though she knew that it couldn't possibly be Terry. Footsteps sounded behind her, paused. She saw the circlet of stars she saw the stern handsome face she saw the dark tired eyes. And she knew. Even before he spoke again, she knew— \"The same meteorite that damaged the ejection mechanism, \"Yes. I'm all right.\" \"I wanted to express my regrets personally. I know how you must feel.\" \"It's all right.\" \"We will, of course, make every effort to bring back his ... remains ... so that he can have a fitting burial on Earth.\" \"No,\" she said. \"I beg your pardon, ma'am?\" She raised her eyes to the Sirius blossomed there, blue-white and beautiful. She raised her eyes still higher—and beheld the vast parterre of Orion with its central motif of vivid forget-me-nots, its far-flung blooms of Betelguese and Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ... And higher yet—and there the Crab there lay the pulsing down the ecliptic garden path, wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted the ocher rose of Mars ... \"No,\" she said again. The general had raised his eyes, too now, slowly, he lowered them. \"I think I understand, ma'am. And I'm glad that's the way you want it ... are beautiful tonight, aren't they.\" \"More beautiful than they've ever been,\" she said. After the general had gone, she looked up once more at the vast and variegated garden of THE END Transcriber's Note:\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Terry's mother's core tension of being a star mother?\n\n<options>:\nA People see her star mother status as an opportunity, while she wishes someone else could have it\nB People are generally critical of the star mother law, but she is grateful for it\nC People want to know more about Terry's journey, and she has no way of accurately representing it\nD People are skeptical of the exploration, while she is a firm supporter\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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424 | 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>:\nMiss Philicoff, the girls in the gilded teller cages. There was Mister Anderson, the guard, dozing by the door in his brown uniform. There was brown cracked-leather jackets over flannel shirts, white handkerchiefs over the lower half of their faces and gray-and-white check caps pulled low over their eyes. The eyes themselves looked dangerous. burned in 'The Scorpion' in big black letters you could see half a block away.\" \"Maybe they didn't notice it when they stole the car,\" said Pauling. \"For a well-planned operation like this one,\" said Stevenson, \"they \"Well, why not?\" demanded Hastings belligerently. \"If I'm making just a quick stop—I never spend more than five minutes with any one customer—I always leave the keys in the car. Why not?\" \"The car was stolen,\" Stevenson reminded him. that is, the address had been clipped, a letter or a word at a time, from a newspaper and glued to the envelope. There was no return address. The warning was duly noted, and the letter filed in the wastebasket. It didn't rate a line in the paper. house at nine o'clock, and spent some time tapping at the still-locked position across the street from the scene of carnage and went to work with a Zoomar lens. In the meantime, Mister Higgins had barricaded himself in his house, firing at anything that moved. corner, where the police had roped the block off, and occasionally Mr. Higgins would stick his rifle out a window and shoot at somebody. The police used loudspeakers to tell Higgins he might as well give up, they had the place surrounded and could eventually starve him out anyway. \"They were defective,\" said Hanks promptly. \"All four of them at once? And what about the thing written on the trunk?\" \"How do I know?\" demanded the captain. \"Kids put it on before the car was stolen, maybe. Or maybe the hoods did it themselves, who knows? What do was a fiend around loose, stuffing all those kids into abandoned refrigerators to starve. He went around trying to prove it, and getting all upset, and pretty soon they had to put him away in the nut hatch. Remember?\" Hallowe'en is a good time for a rumble. There's too many kids around for the cops to keep track of all of them, and if you're picked up carrying a knife or a length of tire chain or something, why, you're on The problem was this schoolyard. It was a block wide, with entrances on two streets. The street on the north was Challenger territory, and the street on the south was Scarlet Raider territory, and both sides claimed the schoolyard. There had been a few skirmishes, a few guys from both gangs had been jumped and knocked around a little, but that had been all. Finally, the War Lords from the two gangs had met, and determined that the matter could only be settled in a war. The time was chosen: Hallowe'en. The place was chosen: the schoolyard. The weapons were chosen: pocket knives and tire chains okay, but no pistols or zip-guns. The time was fixed: eleven P.M. And the winner would have undisputed territorial rights to the schoolyard, both entrances. The night of the rumble, the gangs assembled in their separate clubrooms for last-minute instructions. Debs were sent out to play chicken at the intersections nearest the schoolyard, both to warn of the approach of cops and to keep out any non-combatant kids who might come wandering through. dark and quiet. Few people cared to walk this neighborhood after dark, particularly on Hallowe'en. Judy leaned her back against the telephone pole on the corner, stuck her hands in the pockets of her Scarlet Raider jacket and waited. At eleven o'clock, she heard indistinct noises begin behind her. The rumble had started. At five after eleven, a bunch of little kids came wandering down the street. They were all about ten or eleven years old, and most of them carried trick-or-treat shopping bags. Some of them had Hallowe'en masks on. They started to make the turn toward the schoolyard. Judy said, \"Hey, you kids. Take off.\" One of them, wearing a red mask, turned to look at her. \"Who, us?\" \"Yeah,\" said another kid, in a black mask, \"and we're late as it is.\" \"I couldn't care less,\" Judy told them callously. \"You can't go down that street.\" \"Why not?\" demanded yet another kid. This one was in the most complete black knit cap jammed down tight onto his head. \"Why can't we go down there?\" this apparition demanded. \"Because I said so,\" Judy told him. \"Now, you kids get away from here. Take off.\" \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume. \"Hey, they're fighting down there!\" \"It's a rumble,\" said Judy proudly. \"You twerps don't want to be \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume again. And he went running around Judy and dashing off down the street. \"Hey, Eddie!\" shouted one of the other kids. \"Eddie, come back!\" Judy wasn't sure what to do next. If she abandoned her post to chase the one kid who'd gotten through, then maybe all the rest of them would come running along after her. She didn't know what to do. A sudden siren and a distant flashing red light solved her problems. \"Cheez,\" said one of the kids. \"The cops!\" \"Fuzz!\" screamed Judy. She turned and raced down the block toward the schoolyard, shouting, \"Fuzz! Fuzz! Clear out, it's the fuzz!\" But then she stopped, wide-eyed, when she saw what was going on in the schoolyard. The guys from both gangs were dancing. They were jumping around, waving their arms, throwing their weapons away. Then they all started pulling off their gang jackets and throwing them away, whooping and hollering. They were making such a racket themselves that they never heard Judy's warning. They didn't even hear the police sirens. And all at once both schoolyard entrances were full of cops, a cop had tight hold of Judy and the rumble was over. Judy was so baffled and terrified that everything was just one great big blur. But in the middle of it all, she did see the little kid in the yellow-and-black costume go scooting away down the street. And she had the craziest idea that it was all his fault. Captain Hanks was still in his realistic cycle this morning, and he was \"It was a territorial war,\" Stevenson reminded him. \"They've admitted that much. It says so in the paper. And it also says they all deny ever seeing that word on their jackets until after the fight.\" \"A bunch of juvenile delinquents,\" said Hanks in disgust. \"You take their word?\" belt buckles and everything else—got freezing cold, too cold to touch. And then their leather jackets got freezing cold, so cold they had to pull them off and throw them away. And when the jackets were later you something,\" said Hanks severely. \"They heard the police sirens, and they threw all their weapons away. Then they threw their jackets away, to try to make believe they hadn't been part of the gang that had been fighting. But they were caught before they could get out of the schoolyard. If the squad cars had showed up a minute later, the schoolyard wouldn't have had anything in it but weapons and jackets, and the kids would have been all over the neighborhood, nice as you please, minding their own business and not bothering anybody.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Halloween night chosen as the time for the rumble in the schoolyard?\n\n<options>:\nA Because on that particular night, there were no police on patrol because of the recent issues with The Scorpion.\nB Because everyone was already dressed in disguise and not easily recognized.\nC Because the police would have a difficult time keeping track of so many children who were out.\nD Because the schoolyard was completely abandoned and they wouldn't need a lookout.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,253 | 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 I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beaten I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost tropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and a \"Right,\" said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then go on grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. \"Sorry, Mac. You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting.\" and then his chattering drill hit it. found that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase \"I'm just spitballing\" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to the apartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standing there talking to the doorman. He said, \"Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed it just missed it,\" I said, and went on in. 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 I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: \"When muggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapter exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be \"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 looked stunned. The nearest man struck them up from his hand. \"Okay, Houdini! So they're not marked! All I know is five straight....\" the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. There \"I'll have to go down for more soda,\" I said. 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 his shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxi moment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he and all, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues. Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to his It was out of order. \"I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office,\" he said. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desk \"Not in the least,\" I said. \"Come on over here. I've got something for was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter while I waited. Then he turned around to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. \"I know, but don't his head. Then he brightened. \"I have an idea. Maybe we can have a He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. \"Have you any I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. \"Let's go out and eat,\" I said, \"There's not a damn thing in the could hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were, by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and we heard one of them say to Danny, \"I don't know what the hell's going on around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it. They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seen tried to pass one another as soon as one of them moved aside to let the other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both had \"All right, smart guy!\" they shouted in unison, and barged ahead, Mr. Graham?\" he asked. \"I don't know what's going on around here, but Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellas intertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing over fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious the \"And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it?\" said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella also caught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which the but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it was Molly. My nurse-wife. \"Of course I'm all right. But why....\" \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. \"Explain to Molly,\" I said. \"And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet.\" a jump ahead of him. date? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way.\" \"Because I don't think this thing got going before today and require retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book. That telephone now—\" The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephone more. McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried to explain to me what had happened with the phone. \"You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced the impulses. Yes, I know how you feel,\" he said, seeing my expression. \"It's beginning to bear down.\" 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.\" Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth Avenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less than before and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant, and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made the lieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before I could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on the sidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, but said nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold salt seemed to have been used instead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, and The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back to That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothing came out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again. pick, his face pink with exasperation. a crystal, I thought to myself. 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 kitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls, which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience had \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man. \"I'm terribly sorry,\" I said. \"It was an accident. I—\" \"I really didn't mean to,\" I began again, getting up. There must have licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The owner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward us with a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but I was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.\n\n<question>:\nWhich didn't distract Mr. Graham from getting dinner the first time?\n\n<options>:\nA his wife coming home early\nB his telephone was broken\nC watching two men fight on the sidewalk\nD another encounter with the police officer\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,419 | 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 never really existed. They're going to bring us the metals and minerals that we desperately need. They're going to find new land for our colonists, good rich land that will bear food and be a home for our children. And perhaps most important of all, they'll make other men think of the stars and look up and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the others alone! Let us be the first to land somewhere! Let us be the first! It doesn't matter we'd been a good team during those final months at the Academy and I knew we'd be a good team in space. The Universe was mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only half as big. meet you, Charlie. Just think—one of Everson's men, one of the first to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're planning to see the town tonight.\" \"Why don't you both come with us?\" you asked. \"Our folks have their own plane, so it would be no problem. And we've got a big guest room. Charlie, wouldn't you like a home-cooked meal before going back to the Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration. \"We'd really like to come,\" I said. a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" I laughed. \"He offered me a job here at the Academy teaching that classroom for forty years when I've got the chance to—\" I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: \"When you've got the chance to be the first to reach a new planet. That's what most of you want, isn't it? That's what Mickey used to want.\" I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" \"Well, what does it add up to? You become a spaceman and wear a pretty \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to \"But he wasn't always a spaceman. Didn't he ever have a family?\" I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson.\" You stared at me strangely, almost in a sacred kind of way. I knew want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were kids. Of course I was a girl, so it was just a game to me. But once I dreamed of going to England. Oh, it was going to be so wonderful. I maybe I haven't grown up yet?\" Anxiety darkened your features. \"No, it'd be good to be a spaceman, to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it what ?\" Now I'd stumbled into a cross-roads, beholding a strange new path that I'd never noticed before. You can go into space , I thought, and try to do as much living in buried in Martian sand and Venusian dust. Or, if you're lucky, like Charlie—a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally alone, never finding a home. Or there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth dust. I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\" He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. \"Maybe. Anyway, I'm gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell you what. There's a little stone cafe on Mars, the Space Rat , just off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal. When you get to Mars, take a drugged. I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna. We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I. \"When will you be back?\" you asked. \"No. I got a couple of possibilities. Could get a berth on the Odyssey , the new ship being finished at Los Angeles. They want me, too, for the Moon Patrol, but that's old stuff, not much better than teaching. I want to be in deep space.\" \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy Earth life while you can. Okay?\" Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both You looked up at Venus, and you were silent for a long while, your face flushed. Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, then teach.\" \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\" Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops , I told myself. You can't stay here. You've got to make a choice. was still open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto. You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now. Odyssey where you belong. We got a date on Mars, remember? At the The audiogram had lied! voice droned on. The metallic words had told the truth. decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he Do you know why he wanted to reach Mars? Do you know why he didn't want to die in the clean, cool air of Earth? It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the Universe, where the ship was his house, the crew his father, mother, brothers, the planets his children. ? to celebrate as spacemen should, for he knew that this would be his last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration on Mars, the Space Rat Stardust Charlie will be there he'll go with me in memory to whatever part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura.\n\n<question>:\nWhich isn't true?\n\n<options>:\nA Stardust Charlie was proud of Ben\nB Mickey is jealous of Ben's future job\nC Laura was hoping to settle down with Ben\nD Ben wants to travel to other planets\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,238 | 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>:\nAs you fly from the country now known as Germany to Britain, the coastal geography of northern European cities gently unfurls. You can see where the sea smacks into them, or where yawning estuaries unfold like funnels between green and brown city and choppy blue water. You can track the snaking rivers and canals that form unrepentant umbilical connections to the settlements set a little further inland. By their nature cities along coasts and rivers developed so they could be open to trade with each other. From the middle of the 13th century, and for some 300 years after, many settlements dotted along this route formed the prosperous Hanseatic League, a European trading confederation of market towns, before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution. The Hanseatic League is not well known, and today it lives on most prominently in the name of the German national airline Lufthansa, literally the 'Hansa of the skies', whose planes you can look out of – and down towards the Hanseatic cities – on the short journeys between mainland Europe and Britain. The letters HH on the number plates of cars in Hamburg stand for Hansestadt Hamburg: another proud little memory of this hidden history. In the traumatised atmosphere of post-Brexit Britain, it is worth remembering the Hanseatic League. It could point us towards new relationships between progressive city dwellers in a world that otherwise seems to be putting the brakes on modernity. Despite some of Britain's Leave voters longing to inhabit a fantastical realm immune to foreign influence, the reality is patently very different to that. In the late 1300s, Chaucer wrote about characters travelling to Jerusalem, and others who came from Europe and it was at exactly this point that the Hanseatic League slowly started to coalesce, eventually influencing our isles. The League is most easily understood as a loose federation of cities that acted together in self-interest to promote trade. The Hanseatic cities developed their own legal system, and their armies came to one another's aid. Merchants who wanted to buy and sell and travel were taking the lead at a time when nation states were not fit for purpose: in the case of England or Denmark, leadership was too centralised and authoritarian, while in German-speaking lands a nation had yet to be formed. We think of nations today as elemental almost, immovable. Yet look at any city of Mitteleuropa and you'll see the many different names it has had as borders and regimes have shifted with the sands of time. Nations come and go. Cities endure. \"It is often said that great cities survived great empires,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, editor-in-chief of the Rotterdam-based online publishing platform Amateur Cities. \"So it is not unrealistic to think of cities as discrete entities that compete and collaborate with each other, independently from the states to which they belong.\" The cities involved in the Hanseatic League are found along the Baltic and North Sea coasts, and slightly inland too. The League stretched from Novgorod in the east – in what is now Russia – to London in the west. Tallinn, Riga, Gdańsk, Visby, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp, Stockholm, Bergen, Kiel, Rostock, Dinant, Bruges, Turku, Groningen, Hanover, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad: all were involved at different stages in the Hanse's history, which ran on into the 1500s. The League covered lands that today find themselves a part of the modern nations of Finland, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It was a huge – and hugely ambitious – undertaking in the days when communications consisted of ink and paper and the only viable method of travel was by ship. Wood, fur, wool, silver, herring, cod and salt were the main items traded. But what was also exchanged was knowledge. In some ways it was an exercise in what we today call 'soft diplomacy'. There was no maniacal ruler overseeing things – merchants met and talked. They raised armies and waged war against kings who threatened their businesses and their freedoms and their peace. There was a kind of proto-democracy at work. Professor Rainer Postel, of the Bundeswehr Universität (Germany's equivalent of Sandhurst military academy), has described the Hanse as \"a community of interests without power politics\". As David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge points out, \"The lack of an elaborate superstructure was one of the things that made the Hanse work. Having said that, one should recognise that Lübeck in particular dominated the League for long periods.\" Lübeck was where the merchants most often met and where renewed recent interest in the Hanse eventually led to Angela Merkel cutting the ribbon at the brand new European Hansemuseum in the city last year. So how about a new Hanseatic League? I ask Benjamin Barber, senior fellow at New York's Fordham University. \"I believe you will find there is a new Hanse,\" he says, \"that constituted itself about 10 or 11 years ago – including many of the original Hanseatic League cities.\" Barber is founder of the Global Parliament of Mayors, which he describes as a kind of Hanse of all cities, not just European ports, which will give cities a global urban voice and a common platform for action. The parliament convenes for its inaugural session in The Hague in September. \"Things change,\" says LSE's Professor Tony Travers. \"[King's Lynn] used to be very highly connected, but the economy moved on and left those trading ports like it in a different situation.\" Take, for example, the pivot towards the New World, with which trade made more sense from the west-coast ports like Bristol and Liverpool. While these boomed between the 1600s and 1800s, the Hanseatic ports declined and then died out. \"One of the things that's interesting about the [referendum] decision is that it begs all sorts of questions about the future of the UK and its relationship with Europe and of London and Scotland and their relationship with the rest of Europe. When the EU began as the EEC in the mid-20th century some saw it as a modern day Hanse. Now the EU seems to be waning, perhaps its successor will have to ape the Hanse even more.\" For all its complex beauty, life can ultimately be reduced to a series of binary options: yes or no, stick or twist, in or out, innovation or stagnation, modernity or mythology. The referendum result was disappointing for many progressive observers because it felt like a step backwards. Despite being primarily about trade monopolies and money making, the Hanse was, in its way, an early stab at stepping forwards: it encompassed internationalism, rational thought, free trade, loose democratic institutions and, most crucially of all, movement. The future, for many observers, can only be understood in terms of the free movement of people, capital, goods and ideas. It is this necessary movement, and its possible curtailment, that could be the spark that leads to cities like London to seek independence and parity with other world cities – rather than with the rural hinterlands of Britain. \"The Hanseatic League was not always accepted by local citizens,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, \"because the privileges granted to the Hanse merchants were forcing local traders out of competition and many cities took steps to eliminate them. The reasons the countryside is turning to the right [globally] are not independent from cities turning increasingly into speculation machines for the profit of a happy few. It is basically these systemic contradictions that must be addressed before we resort to more isolationist ideas that would intensify the urban-rural political divide. The bottom line is not whether a contemporary Hanse-esque federation is possible, it probably is but whether it is actually desirable.\" This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the Hanseatic League?\n\n<options>:\nA A loose federation of coastal cities that worked together to promote trade.\nB A casual federation of cities that worked together to promote trade.\nC A league of cities by the sea that agreed to come to each other's aid with armed forces when necessary.\nD A leauge of merchants that worked together to promote trade.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,887 | 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 AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serve sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyed the robot apprehensively. Half buried in mud, it stood quiet in the shadowy light except for an comforts, make smooth his way. Then the robots figured out an places. Standing in the sticky, circuits needed for the operation of its tracking mechanism alone. \"There just isn't room for the electronics. You'd branches and crashed against the one at camp headquarters.\" robot, clawing insanely at the robot, crunching and snapping its way through the undergrowth like an onrushing forest fire. He froze. \"Good Lord! They communicate with each other! The one I jammed must antenna and blaster barrel. turns he'd taken in the jungle. vine-draped shadows, listening sounds echoed across the stillness, drowned out almost immediately I'll bet anything they're automatically controlled by the camp computer. That's where their brain is!\" He paused. \"Then, if that were put out of commission ...\" He jerked away and silenced by an eyes widened. \"Of course! Radio! another robot fired in his direction, too far away to be effective clearing of the camp site, the temporary home for the scout ship and the eleven men who, with Alan, were the only humans two robots coming up from either side, behind him. His eyes were well accustomed to the dark which had clung across the barrel. slashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of the sleeping quarters. Beyond, nose high, stood the silver scout ship that had brought the advance killer robots shook the night behind him, nearer sometimes, three days before. Except for a few of the killer robots rolling slowly around the camp site on their quiet treads, there was no and technicians to Waiamea then falling slightly back, but circuits. The robot started one about. to shake, then clicked sharply for sure. Anybody who can build a robot that hunts by homing as an overload relay snapped pause and squeeze his eyelids tight shut before he could see again, and the robots would move a little closer. To his right the trees silhouetted and shorted the blaster cells. sprawling over a bush just as one of the robots rolled silently up from the right, lowering its left, then froze in momentary panic. \"I should be at the camp blaster barrel to aim directly at a third robot slowly moved up in the distance. Without thinking, itself from the smoldering \"All I need is to get lost.\" He pictured the camp computer with no one to stop it, automatically sending its robots in wider and wider forays, slowly wiping every trace of life from With an awkward jerk the robot swung around and fired its blaster, completely dissolving the thoroughly, without feeling, and without human masters for which they were built, completely, to separate sense from futility. the planet. Technologically advanced machines doing the job lower half of the cat creature But the back pressure of the cat's body overloaded the discharge exist no more. And the bones of children, eager girls, and their camp, but not himself be seen. Though visibility didn't make any difference to the robots, he felt safer, somehow, hidden. He knew now what the shooting alone. feet back into the undergrowth where he could lie and watch the glint of a robot only a hundred yards away, much nearer than he had thought. \"Thank heaven camp site. A charred blob lying sounds had been and why there these robots in a batch and then activated them all at once, probably never living to realize that they're tuned to pick up human brain waves, too. Damn! Damn!\" His eyes blurred and men would also lie, beside a unaccountably in the trees overhead and every now and then the robot on the river wouldn't even singe a robot, but it just might stop one of those course!\" He cursed himself for missing the obvious. \"The blaster static blanks out radio transmission from the computer for a few seconds. They even do it to themselves!\" bank, jiggling and swaying for pumas.\" night. On the other hand, I certainly can't get to the camp with a pack of mind-activated mechanical killers running around. If I can just hold out until morning, when the big ship arrives ... ahead through the bush. The robot shook spasmodically with each shot, its gun tilted upward grass stood the headquarters building, housing the robot-controlling computer. Still firing at ship! rays filtered through to the for an unknown planet, with her From the corner of his eye he saw another of the robots standing shakily in the dark edge of the jungle waiting, it seemed, for his small blaster to run dry. jungle floor, but now, late afternoon on the planet, the shadows Then Alan heard the approaching A few feet from the building's door his blaster quit. A click. A faint hiss when he frantically jerked the trigger again and again, and the spent cells released themselves from the device, falling in the grass at his feet. He dropped the useless \"No!\" He threw himself on the ground as a new robot suddenly appeared around the edge engulfed in a swarm of locust-like insects that beat disgustingly to the soft rustlings and faint which was a speck of life transmitting mental energy to the robot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersion of mind impulses, the robot fired erratically as Alan crouched and raced painfully for be calling others to help.\" camp headquarters area and headed for the jungle, each to a slightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn't Frantically, Alan slammed open the door as the robot, sensing by the blast. sensed him yet, but Alan didn't know what the effective range of its pickup devices was. He him strongly now, aimed point blank. He saw nothing, his through his body and dragged ragged tentacles across his brain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in the the others to the gangway, eager to embrace the new planet, and distance. \"He's waking. Call his try,\" he said aloud. \"I have to try.\" He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, the killer robot was equipped to 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. and danced across the jungle floor, hiding debris that tripped clothes, and insects attracted by the blood matted against his pants and shirt. Behind, the robot crashed imperturbably after the darkness beside him, scrapings and rustlings and an occasional low, throaty sound like an hadn't been anyone around the a pack of small feline creatures leaped snarling and clawing back into the night. load in fresh cells this morning!\" The robot crashed on, louder now, gaining on the tired human. Legs aching and bruised, shadows. The robot crashed loudly behind him now. Without stopping to think, Alan fumbled along the Firing intermittently, he a mere hundred yards behind. He screamed at the blast. \"Damn you, Pete! Damn your robots! and the the bank, silhouetting against the moons, the killer robot stopped sliced into the water, and exploded in a cloud of steam. The robot shook for a second, its housing, frantically locking his arms around the barrel as the robot's treads churned furiously in the sticky mud, causing it to crab, while Alan, arms and legs wrapped tightly around the blaster barrel and housing, pressed fiercely against the robot's metal skin. Slowly, trying to anticipate the stationary portion of the robot. With a quick prayer he jammed in the knife blade—and briefly against brilliance as\n\n<question>:\nWhere are the rest of the men from the scout ship?\n\n<options>:\nA They fled in the scout ship once the robots started shooting. They are safe aboard the big ship again.\nB Their bodies were disintegrated by the robots' weapons.\nC They are hiding on the scout ship from Pete and his evil robots.\nD They put themselves into stasis on the scout ship. Now the robots will not be able to track their brain waves.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,946 | 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's just line! Is Evans—?\" Some men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying—when it's time to give up because it's hopeless.... Evans was carrying a block of ice into the tractor when he saw the \"A Welshman takes a lot of killing,\" Evans answered. \"... And I don't know how long I sat there after I found the water.\" He looked at the Goldburgian device he had made out of wire and tubing. all of 'em. \"The idea didn't come all at once, it took a long time for me to remember that water is made out of oxygen and hydrogen. When I remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with electricity. So I built this thing. \"It runs an electric current through water, lets the oxygen loose in the room, and pipes the hydrogen outside. It doesn't work automatically, of Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after course, so I run it about an hour a day. My oxygen level gauge shows how Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknife \"I don't need rescuing, man,\" Evans said. claim.\" \"Claim?\" \"Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine on the Moon!\" THE END make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to more than a month. His drinking water—kept separate from the water in the reactor—might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too carefully measured Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of dark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not begin for thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late. \"Well, man, 'tis a fine spot you're in now,\" he told himself. \"Let's find out how bad it is indeed,\" he answered. He reached for the light switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the \"on\" position. \"Batteries must be dead,\" he told himself. \"What batteries?\" he asked. \"There're no batteries in here, the power comes from the generator.\" \"Why isn't the generator working, man?\" he asked. He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by the main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however, came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself through the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course— \"The condenser!\" he shouted. He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the light of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers, was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly freezing the water in the tank. Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closing operate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense in the condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, if the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler. But there was no water in the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of his drinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed the pipe. He pulled on a knob marked \"Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass.\" The water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and the steam turned the generator briefly. Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what the trouble was. \"The water, man,\" he said, \"there is not enough to melt the ice in the condenser.\" He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water into used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious luxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days to live. the boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of the ice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function. \"Well, man,\" he breathed, \"there's a light to die by.\" potassium nitrate that anyone has ever seen. Man, it's a full inch across.\" All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the the low-grade ores of uranium and vanadium, they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel. \"Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to pay for water.\" \"Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone profit.\" \"He's out prospecting again. I don't expect to see him until sun-down.\" \"Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium.\" \"Anything to help another Welshman, is that the idea?\" \"Well, protection it is that a poor Welshman needs from all the English when Evans had quarried all the ice that was available in the cave. The thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such a bubble. Suddenly, Evans noticed that the gauge on the oxygen tank of his suit was reading dangerously near empty. He turned back to his tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing. Running would use up so much, Evans had already shortened his life by several days. He resolved not to leave the tractor again, and reluctantly abandoned his plan to search for a large bubble. building, a gray concrete structure a quarter of a mile distant. \"It would be pretty bad if they clogged up some night.\" was about half full, the water began to run nearly clear. An electric eye noted that fact and a light in front of Cade turned on. Cade threw the switch back the other way, and the relay in the reactor building They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor turned the valve back and forth in response to Cade's signals. \"Is the light off?\" Cowalczk asked. \"No,\" Cade answered. \"Water's stopped. Give us some pressure, we'll see if it holds.\" \"Take her up to ... no, wait, it's still leaking,\" Cowalczk said. \"Hold it there, we'll open the valve again.\" lost.\" \"Two thousand?\" Cade asked. \"We only had seven hundred gallons reserve. How come we can operate now?\" \"We picked up twelve hundred from the town sewage plant. What with using the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do.\" \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\" \"You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple of weeks.\" is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring Evans began his exploration on August 25th, and was known to be McIlroy has expressed a hope that Evans will be found before his oxygen runs out. Search parties have started from Williamson Town, but telescopic \"Like as not, you're right,\" McIlroy replied, \"but if I know Evans, he'd tells me that Evans will be found.\" \"About Evans?\" Phelps shook his head slowly. \"Palomar called in a few this banker, who had never met Evans, was losing so much sleep about search. The director turned to ask Phelps about this fact, but the banker was\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Evans' primary dilemma?\n\n<options>:\nA He has a limited amount of time until the next meteor shower hits and permanently destroys his equipment\nB In submitting a claim to the lava mine, he will attract violence from those desperate for water\nC By entering into an unknown cave, he is possibly exposing himself to lava, which has the capacity to melt his space suit\nD If he is to discover a new water source, he must utilize his low, existing source to find it\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,012 | 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>:\ntrue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussion can never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is a his diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated age The Pequod's food. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezings from aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to the groundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black sky through a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgusting Isaiah what was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount. the of the bite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote to the ancient observation, \"God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,\" Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles Partlow The Surgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann, 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, dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility to see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of water, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food. statement of the least fuel a man can run on. smell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in a hundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quite breed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury of squeamishness. Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knife in space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncher Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic duties of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann Pullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major social hemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook. It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, \"Bailey, and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched our with his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up the ladder from the dining-cubby. \"Doc, do you like Winkelmann?\" the Cook asked me. \"Not much,\" I said. \"I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can give his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've got \"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.\" from Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cook waved my gift aside. \"Not now, Doc,\" he said. \"I'm thinking about tomorrow's menu.\" man's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed. \"Belly-Robber,\" Winkelmann said, \"I had almost rather you served me this pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions and cycler-salt.\" \"Yes, I eat it,\" the Captain said, taking and talking through another \"Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me?\" Bailey pleaded. \"Only good food,\" Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguised algae. He tapped his head with a finger. \"This—the brain that guides 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 Hausfrau with the vapors,\" Winkelmann said. \"I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrums or weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that will Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. \"You think, Doctor, that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-aged to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\" 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. have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics student. That will be all, Bailey.\" that would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, when Winkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. on the mysterious box as he sat to eat. \"What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today, Belly-Robber?\" he asked the Cook. 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 texture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir?\" \"I understand,\" Winkelmann growled. \"You intend that your latest mess should feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right?\" 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 never cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoils the meal.\" more reasonable man. \"But it still needs something ... something,\" masterpiece. \"The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.\" Lifting a hunk of the \"steak,\" streaming ketchup, to his mouth, \"You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat \"Watch your noun,\" Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. \"Your adjectives are \"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 and the men have been more than satisfied with his work.\" \"That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds,\" Winkelmann said. an apt confederate of and tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey, now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for first-shift diners said. \"It actually tastes of food!\" \"Then he's beat the Captain at his game,\" I said. \"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks,\" the crewman said. 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. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job. of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked,\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is the best description of the narrator?\n\n<options>:\nA A doctor who is also a food critic\nB An angsty crew member who is always present in the mess hall\nC A mutinous doctor who wants to run the ship himself\nD A surgeon who happens to know some things about the history of food\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,433 | 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>:\nAI: what's the worst that could happen? Stephen Cave: Thinking about the impact of AI is not something that any one discipline owns or does in any very systematic way. So if academia is going to rise to the challenge and provide thought leadership on this hugely important issue, then we’re going to need to do it by breaking down current disciplinary boundaries and bringing people with very different expertise together. I think there are many areas of science where more interdisciplinary engagement would be valuable. Biotech’s another example. In that sense AI isn’t unique, but I think because thinking about AI is still in very early stages, we have an opportunity to shape the way in which we think about it, and build that community. At a recent talk, Naomi Klein said that addressing the challenge of climate change could not have come at a worse time. The current dominant political and economic ideologies, along with growing isolationist sentiment, runs contrary to the bipartisan, collaborative approaches needed to solve global issues like climate change. Do you see the same issues hampering a global effort to respond to the challenges AI raises? So I think we've got a real opportunity, despite the general climate, and in some ways because of it. There's a great opportunity to bring industry on board to make sure the technology is developed in the right way. One of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen. Certainly, we encounter technological determinism a lot. And it's understandable. For us as individuals, of course it does feel like it always is happening and we just have to cope. No one individual can do much about it, other than adapt. But that's different when we consider ourselves at a level of a society, as a polis [city state], or as an international community. I think we can shape the way in which technology develops. We have various tools. In any given country, we have regulations. There's a possibility of international regulation. You mean kinds of intelligence? I think this is very important because historically, we've had an overwhelming tendency to anthropomorphise. We define what intelligence is, historically, as being human-like. And then within that, being like certain humans. And it's taken a very long time for the academic community to accept that there could be such a thing as non-human intelligence at all. We know that crows, for example, who have had a completely different evolutionary history, or octopuses, who have an even more different evolutionary history, might have a kind of intelligence that's very different to ours. That in some ways rivals our own, and so forth. But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. And until now, people have been fairly shy about describing them as intelligent. Or rather, in the history of AIs, we think solving a particular problem would require intelligence. Then we solve it. And then that's no longer intelligence, because we've solved it. Chess is a good example. There was a point I read in something you wrote on our ideas of intelligence that I thought was very interesting. We actually tend to think of intelligence at the societal level when we think about human ability, rather than at the individual level but in the end conflate the two. I think that's a very good point, when we think about our capabilities, we think about what we can achieve as a whole, not individually. But when we talk about AI, we tend to think about that individual piece of technology, or that individual system. So for example if we think about the internet of things and AI, we should discuss intelligence as something encompassed by the whole. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, right now, perhaps it is a product of our anthropomorphising bias. But there is a tendency to see a narrative of AI versus humanity, as if it's one or the other. And yet, obviously, there are risks in this technology long before it acquires any kind of manipulative agency. Robotic technology is dangerous. Or potentially dangerous. But at the same time, most of what we're using technology for is to enhance ourselves, to increase our capacities. And a lot of what AI is going to be doing is augmenting us – we're going to be working as teams, AI-human teams. Where do you think this AI-human conflict, or concept of a conflict, comes from? Do you think that's just a reflection of historical conversations we've had about automation, or do you think it is a deeper fear? I do think it comes both from some biases that might well be innate, such as anthropomorphism, or our human tendency to ascribe agency to other objects, particularly moving ones, is well-established and probably has sound evolutionary roots. If it moves, it's probably wise to start asking yourself questions like, \"What is it? What might it want? Where might it be going? Might it be hungry? Do I look like food to it?\" I think it makes sense, it's natural for us to think in terms of agency. And when we do, it's natural for us to project our own ways of being and acting. And we, as primates, are profoundly co-operative. And so I think it's very natural for us to see AIs in terms of agents. We anthropomorphise them as these kind of android robots. And then we think about, well, you know, are they part of our in-group, or are they some other group? If they're some other group, it's us against them. Who's going to win? Well, let's see. So I think that's very natural, I think that's very human. There is this long tradition, in Western culture in particular, with associating intelligence and dominance and power. It's interesting to speculate about how, and I wish I knew more about it, and I'd like to see more research on this, about how different cultures perceive AI. It's well known that Japan is very accepting of technology and robots, for example. You can think, well, we in the West have long been justifying power relations of a certain kind on the basis that we're 'cleverer'. That's why men get to vote and women don't, or whatever. In a culture where power is not based on intelligence but, say, on a caste system, which is purely hereditary, we’d build an AI, and it would just tune in, drop out, attain enlightenment, just sit in the corner. Or we beg it to come back and help us find enlightenment. It might be that we find a completely different narrative to the one that's dominant in the West. I think one worry that we haven't talked about is that we've become extremely dependent upon this technology. And that we essentially become deskilled. There's an extent to which the history of civilisation is the history of the domestication of the human species sort of by ourselves, and also by our technology, to some extent. And AI certainly allows for that to reach a whole new level.\n\n<question>:\nTo what does Cave attribute general human skepticism of AI?\n\n<options>:\nA fear of domestication\nB evolutionary biases\nC media portrayals\nD loss of autonomy\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,205 | 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 of the just what they've done. It wouldn't make any difference to Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any transaction, so he gets more land, more food, more power. Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure \"Do they they sent best I can do under the circumstances.\" Meyerhoff scowled, and turned abruptly to the guard. \"We'll have some privacy now, if you please. Interplanetary ruling. And leave us the light.\" to convict me,\" he said softly, \"in the worst sort of way. Isn't that right?\" know what brotherhood means, nor humanity, either. Bread over here, get the extradition papers signed, and provide transportation off the planet for me. Why so much time? I've been disgust. \"You are a prize fool,\" he said finally. \"Did you know \" All Earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth. \" worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Three million credits—do you hear? That's enough to set me up for life!\" \"Really,\" said Harry Zeckler loftily, \"it was so obvious I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing.\" He settled himself down comfortably in the control cabin of the Interplanetary Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger in the view screen. Paul Meyerhoff stared stonily at the controls, his lips compressed into a newly opened planet with your smart little bag of tricks, walk in here with a shaky passport and no permit, with no the natives might conceivably be able to use. No, nothing so knowledge of the natives outside of two paragraphs of inaccuracies You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to Earthmen were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't natives are out to get you. Personally, I think they're to get you.\" Why, you should see what they tried to sell Earthmen in exactly the same class, too.\" a trading alliance with Altair I, and that includes uranium, too. Smart people don't gamble with loaded dice. You scared them so badly they don't want anything to do with us.\" \"Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was to keep you from botching things up still worse for the Trading Commission, that's all. I wouldn't get tangled up in a mess with those creatures for anything!\" He shook his head. \"You're trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to \"Eh?\" oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial Not too much—just three million credits.\" count. Trading brought scalpers where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it would first fall prey to the fast-trading boys. They spread out from Terra with the first wave of exploration—the slick, fast-talking \"Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you? Conspiring to undermine the authority of the Terran Trading Commission. Serious charge, planets. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew con-men who could work new territories unfettered by the legal restrictions that soon closed down the more established they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics \"A lovely frame. Airtight. A frame from the bottom up, and credits, pulled a little fast business.\" He shrugged eloquently, these critters operate on each other. Why, my little scheme was peanuts by comparison.\" Terran gag about the Brooklyn Bridge? The same thing. Only these critters didn't want bridges. They wanted land—this what they wanted. I just sold them some land.\" out other things about them, too. You'd have learned that in spite of all their bumbling and fussing and squabbling they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of their mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive. as long as it benefits them as individuals.\" Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their diet is so finicky that they just can't live on anything that it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've sold it to a dozen separate, self-centered, half-starved natives! Encroachment on private property is legal grounds for murder on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same chunk of land at the same time, all armed with title-deeds.\" Meyerhoff sighed. \"You've got twelve mad Altairians in your hair. You've got a mad planet in your hair. And in the meantime, Terra's most valuable uranium source in five centuries is threatening to cut off supply unless they see your blood splattered liberally all the way from here to the equator.\" going to sit quietly by and let them butcher me? How could you know. Yes, I think we'll take a nice long vacation together, ?\" Meyerhoff smiled coolly. \"You're going to get your sly little con-man brain to working, I think,\" he said softly. \"By Interplanetary Rules, they have to give you a trial in Terran legal form—judge, jury, court procedure, all that folderol. They to them?—but they agreed. Only thing is, they're going to Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler Altairians filed in, in order of stature, stalking across the room \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the \"Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Altair I. Brutal with the accursed scum of Altair II in preparation for interplanetary invasion.\" The little con-man's jaw sagged lower and lower, the color draining from his face. He turned, wide-eyed, to Meyerhoff, The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now—later—\" he Altairian equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then of the seventh crossing of Altair II (may the Goddess cast for Terrans. Note the shape of his head, the flabbiness of his two-legged abomination began to shower me with threats of \"Of course it isn't! Can't you understand? It's stupid, to them, silly, a mark of low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any soul, risking my life, for the welfare of your beautiful planet.\" Altair from my homeland on Terra. I—I landed on Altair II, a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very fortunate error. Because in attempting to arrange trading in that frightful place, planet, at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is theirs, not mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her evil interests, preparing for the day when they could persuade \"And how could they flatter her, when she knows, beyond and their Goddess.\" He sat down wearily. \"I don't see what\n\n<question>:\nWhat does the Trading Commission want from the Altairians?\n\n<options>:\nA The Goddess\nB Land\nC Uranium\nD Interplanetary rockets\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,035 | 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>:\nturn Ledman over to the authorities. HUNTED the next ship for Earth.\" THE out their names,\" Ledman The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, enough to stop the most adventurous and and quitting you can find yourself another wife! After we dump this guy I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then we're going back out there to have left—Geig-hunting. Look Death to all Terrans! like you, out on the die out here on Mars is to back on and fastened it shut. tell-tale clicks.\" clung to them. the failure of the sandcat was THE END it was who had failed she blamed it all on What've they ever done to you,\" he said blandly. \"I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one.\" I stared at him. I'd never seen a man like this before we're crazy to keep on searching thought all his kind had died \"No,\" Ledman said evenly. \"I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm determined to drive desolate wastes of the Martian the Geigs—and UranCo—off you all away.\" \"Just pick us off in the desert?\" \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman. this dead world. He was a cripple in a wheelchair—helpless as a rattlesnake. \"Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. years to this. Ever since—ever since I landed here on Mars.\" \"What are you going to do \"Kill you,\" he told her. \"Not your husband. I want him as an envoy, to go back and tell the others to clear off.\" He over the red sands all on the infinitely safer desert. going. Right?\" I nodded over at our geiger unless she was so exhausted she didn't know what she was Ledman said acidly. \"How keep the industries of radioactives-starved I'd never forget it. No one that great accident—killing hundreds, injuring thousands represented Ledman Atomics. that sudden explosive tumult dose of radiation instead. Not enough to kill me,\" he said. \"Just enough to necessitate the removal of—\" he indicated \"But why kill us Geigs? \"You're just in this by accident,\" he said. \"You see, after the explosion and the amputation, of turning the weary, bedraggled the board of Ledman Atomics up with the idea before I did. I wished there was some way girl at my side back into you. They left me almost a \"They renamed Ledman \"Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman \"I think we ought to rest a little before we go any further. It's been a long, hard out a hand and taking hers. Poor kid to which, unfortunately, I'm no longer accustomed.\" He consulted his wrist watch. \"Time for my injection.\" someone had to do the job. He rolled over to a wall too nightmarish to be real. I about his threat to wipe out the entire Geig Corps, since it was unlikely that one man in a wheelchair could pick us wanted to keep them. Which took a little work. Time to get moving. But and twisted as Ledman's. cut me off. But Ledman without much difficulty. So we volunteered. And here we are. of a useless cripple in a it tinkle against the oxymask. \"You're sick, Gregory Ledman,\" wheelchair.\" scheme of revenge and wearying journey across the empty desert. was. But I had to get Ledman within reach of me first. \"Enough,\" he said. \"I'm going to turn you loose outside, right after—\" \" Get sick! a spider's web is for a trapped caught. And tangle-cord is tangle-cord, swathed from bound in thin, tough, plastic That did it. Ledman hadn't Earthman who had bound us. odor like that of drying pale, frightened face turn to realized. \"Don't try to move, baby. This stuff can break your neck if you twist it wrong.\" over. glued-in instantly. Ledman went sprawling helplessly out wore an outmoded, bulky the wheelchair upended next spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, flew from his hands at the weren't attached to his They were strapped to the back of the wheelchair in which he sat. Ledman clawed his way to back as expected, though. that he had no legs. The this stuff,\" I said, \"I could get him covered before he comes to. But how?\" which he had entrapped us, The oxymask came off, \"That's that.\" I looked uneasily at Ledman. He was groaning and beginning to stir. from the wheelchair. \"Who are you?\" \"You'll find out soon enough,\" he said. \"Suppose now you come with me.\" He continued unfailingly. Then another. At last I trained on us all the while. Our legs were free. \"You may get up now,\" he across the floor to Ledman, said. \"Slowly, without trying helped each other to our feet as best we could, considering our arms were still tightly had enough use of my hand melted the remaining tangle-cord Then I turned and faced Ledman. \"I suppose you'll kill me now,\" he said. \"No. That's the difference 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 him, strapped to the back of the wheelchair. He sent back to Earth.\" outboard atomic rigging behind \" fingered a knob on the arm of after what they did to the chair and the two exhaust us and fairly small. A one-man man pointing it is in a wheelchair. They'll take all the hatred and \"What's going on, Ron?\" sickness out of you, and turn \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat out. \"I hate all of them.\" with him following as its wheels chewed \"Why are you telling all this to me?\" The answer to that came to legs, and then you wouldn't need this wheelchair.\" Ledman scowled, and then and the only way to get them paralyzed below the waist. That I'd never walk again, \"You left Earth too quickly,\" In three centuries the shattered rebuilt. The wreckage world had been completely ruined cities had been hidden it can give as well. Soon after legs. All the survivors of given the necessary replacement limbs free of charge. All except you. You were so sick inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty sorry for him, a pathetic legless figure propped up against of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, \"You're a very sick man, Ledman,\" I said. \"All this of being holed up here fifty years' worth of raw stuff to tide us over until then. In a decade or so, our power would to. Millions of starving, freezing in it in the useless shell of of hate starting to topple, the final push. helps. It's a stopgap effort, just to keep things moving over?\" starts functioning. Enter the Geig Corps: volunteers out on the face of \"Yes—human legs aren't And here we are, I thought. Ledman was sobbing. \"Okay, Ledman,\" I said. \"Get your helmet on and let's go. Between the psychs and the prosthetics men, you'll be a new man inside of a year.\" Ledman.\" He herded us off to \"That's right. And you'll be sentenced to psych adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you, but there'll \"But I'm a murderer!\" Ledman.\" I turned to Val. a few words keyed to his dried-up mask. He was a man Ledman had caught us, I remembered voice, and motioned us inside She lifted the geiger harnesses, and I put Ledman back in his wheelchair. Val slipped her oxymask know the whole story,\" he\n\n<question>:\nWhat likely happens to Ledman after the story ends?\n\n<options>:\nA He is given new legs and can start a new life\nB He will rejoin the search for uranium\nC Even with his wheelchair he must receive mental health treatment\nD He will undergo physical and mental health care before starting over\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,270 | 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>:\nespecially a town that is Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Sure I'm a Nilly, and I've died seven times, always in the blackness of the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very many of us, never were. abscence, if you're interested.\" .\" The had taken off on the first trip to Antheon five years before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five hundred surviving colonists. Upon the return to Earth a year later, the crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The life.\" \"As I recall,\" Ellason said, \"there was something about stunners.\" must remember the colonists were selected for their intelligence and to arm themselves.\" \"Yes. We gave control to the colonists.\" is going to happen, but if it does, we want to get an impersonal, \"If I return,\" said Ellason. \"I suppose that's problematical,\" Phipps said, \"but I think you will. do.\" He grinned. \"You can write that novel you're always talking about Weblor II .\" Being a Nilly is important, probably as important as running the ship, and I think it is this thought that keeps us satisfied, willing to be what we are. The which would open distant vistas to colonization, reducing the promised land, the new frontier. A space-borne metropolis, it would was caught and whisked away. not dwelt on it. Now it loomed large in his mind. \"I don't understand, \"Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why he thought it would be, put his arms behind his head, stared at the rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they bearings but nonexistent things, and values are altered if they are not \"What would he want seeds for? Have you thought of that?\" tired face and sad eyes. He said, \"Now what am I going to Antheon Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason.\" return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity. On the thirty-fourth day a witness turned up who said he had seen a man emerging from Janssen's compartment with the black case. \"I didn't think anything of it at the time,\" Jamieson Dievers said. Branson asked him to describe the man. \"Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber Dievers shrugged. \"This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red mask—or a blue or green one—does or doesn't belong on a spaceship?\" discounted. \"If it is true,\" Branson told Ellason, \"the theft must be the work of a psychotic. But I don't believe Jamieson Dievers. It may well be he's the psychotic.\" He snorted. \"Red rubber mask! I think I'll have Dievers put through psychiatry.\" compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent. On the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the her compartment while her husband was in the ship's library. She was taken to one of the ship's doctors, who confirmed it. She said the culprit was a husky man wearing a red rubber mask, and though her description of what he had done did not appear in the story the ship. Antheon.\" suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, fault. And soon the colonists will begin thinking these things might be the crew's doing in the first place.\" \"Yes,\" Ellason said, \"but what if the intruder is a crewman?\" As a Nilly, I knew that space breeds hate. There is a seed of the ill, had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of ileus. He had put his in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff investigation revealed that Palugger had died trying to prevent the theft of the belt. and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of \"How can we protect ourselves without stunners?\" one colonist called out. \"What's that?\" At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the We Nillys know about hate and about violence. We know too that where death. During sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened by a strange sound, sat up in the bed of her compartment to find a escaped. \"There's no law against it,\" Branson said, \"but it's a rule of mine \"And I might have a murder on my conscience.\" Tilbury said, \"We've also thought of that. Suppose you supply us with half-power stunners? That way we can stun but not kill.\" retreating figure. commit any crime. We've got him on the run, the colonists said. He's afraid to do anything, now that we've got police protection, they said smugly. the landing on Antheon. leaving disorder behind. Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in \"What does he want that stuff for?\" Casey Stromberg, a passenger doctor, asked. \"I can see him taking my narcotics, my doctor's kit—but my dead wife's picture? That I don't understand.\" insane.\" Many people said it. without some new development. \"And what will you do when you get him?\" fiercely than ever. \"Without a trial?\" named Terryl Placer on the 201st day. The criminal was carried to the assembly room surrounded by guards, for he surely would have been mauled, if not killed, by angry colonists who crowded around. In the \"Well, Critten,\" Branson roared at him, \"what have you got to say for and then. do with the loot, Critten?\" Critten looked him square in the eye and said, \"I threw it out one of the escape chutes. Does that answer your question?\" \"Threw it away?\" Tarper and the crowd were incredulous. lazy bastards.\" The verdict was, of course, death. by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew disposed of his body through a chute. It was all duly recorded in Keith Ellason's notebooks. Dying is easy for a Nilly. Especially if it's arranged for beforehand, which it always is. The \"Hello,\" Critten said, grinning from ear to ear. \"Can't say I enjoyed the role,\" said Critten, \"but I think it saved lives.\" \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness trained to be a scapegoat. Is that right?\" \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said. \"Naturally.\" see, I was a liar.\" \"How about that assault on June Failright?\" Critten grinned again. \"She played right into our hands. She ran out robbed along the corridor. That really stirred them. Lucky nobody got hurt during any of it, including that Stoneman woman. I was trying to rob her when she woke up.\" Branson cleared his throat. \"Ah, Ellason about that story. You understand you can't write it, don't you?\" be other ships outward bound.\" Critten sighed. \"And I'll have to be caught again.\" Yes, we're anonymous, nameless, we Nillys, for that's what we call each other, and are a theme, with variations, in the endless stretches of deep space, objects of hatred and contempt, professional heels, dying once a trip when the time is ripe, antidote to boredom, and we'll ply our trade, our little tragedies, on a thousand ships bringing humanity to new worlds.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a Nilly?\n\n<options>:\nA A Nilly is a trained operative used by colony transport ships to keep the colonists focused on a common enemy.\nB A Nilly is a person who works on the crew on an interstellar ship.\nC A Nilly is a black ops agent.\nD A Nilly is a person, who is able to come back from the dead, but like Lazarus, not like a zombie.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,193 | 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>:\nrelentlessly toward him. He awoke still screaming.... A 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?\" through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin looking for him, weren't you?\" there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it was the dead man's hand. \" She lit a cigarette. \"Anyway, the wanted ones stay out beyond the frontiers. Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth—not even to Hoover City—except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul. \"It is deal, monsieur .\" The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. go?\" Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion—alarm, then bewilderment, then fear. \"I don't know. That would be up to Jacob.\" Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security , Ben told himself. prisoner for half a million years. Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago. Frowning, he sat down—he and the dead man. forgotten grandeur. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. He thought, faces of the Inn's other occupants. You've got to find him , he thought. 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 part of Ben as sight in his eyes. whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle from a corner of the gaping mouth. 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 Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and held him there. 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, 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 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 , he thought. You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary red-bearded giant. Ben Curtis made it to Venus. 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 as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs. But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead obscure the dead face? So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once. Ben didn't answer. face with a red beard. Ben's direction. \"Curtis!\" one of the policemen yelled. \"You're covered! Hold it!\" Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into which the musicians had disappeared. A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall ahead of him crumbled. He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the mildly stunning neuro-clubs. Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. , his brain screamed. Just another second— Or would the exits be guarded? He heard the hiss. mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of his body. He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have 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!\" \"You want to escape—even now?\" \"Yes.\" \"You may die if you don't give yourself up.\" \"No, no.\" He tried to stumble toward the exit. \"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way.\" 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. \"I have no antidote. You may die.\" His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender at once. 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 voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. \"Don't talk. Just lie still and rest. Everything'll be all right.\" drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck. \"I—I am better,\" he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. \"I am going to live?\" \"You will live.\" He thought for a moment. \"How long have I been here?\" \"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?\" He lay back then, panting, exhausted. He looked at her, wondering. \"You won't tell me?\" \"Not yet. Later, perhaps.\" \"Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?\" She shrugged. \"We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city—these because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon.\" \"Maggie, you—you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk again.\" red beard The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night. And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Ben in search of the man with the red beard?\n\n<options>:\nA He was hoping to order a drink.\nB He was able to take him back to Mars.\nC He would be able to get away from the Martians playing sad music.\nD He would then be able to escape the dead man.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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160 | 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>:\nPEGGY FINDS THE THEATER cookies, kissed her parents good night and went upstairs to bed. But it was one thing to go to bed and another to said to his daughter Peggy, who perched tensely on Peggy lay on her back, staring at the ceiling and go to sleep. I “But, Dad!” Peggy almost wailed. “You just finished herself on? Which ones would she do best? And Peggy’s father put down his coffee cup and leaned Nothing seemed quite right. Peggy’s thoughts Peggy replied, “and none of them is nearly as important descended, the lights went out—and Peggy was fast Mr. Lane, seeing Peggy’s hurt look, was quick to luck in the theater. Doesn’t that make sense?” 4 Peggy stared at the faded linoleum on the floor for Peggy said. “I’m not that conceited or that silly. All I’ll come home.” 5 sounds sensible and practical. If she were all starry-eyed “Oh, Mother!” Peggy shouted, jumping down from Mrs. Lane patted Peggy’s arm and said, “We won’t keep you in suspense long, dear. Why don’t you go out for a walk for a while and let us go over the situation quietly? We’ll decide before bedtime.” Peggy nodded silently and walked to the kitchen door, where she paused to say, “I’m just going out to the barn to see if Socks is all right for the night. Then maybe I’ll go down to Jean’s for a while.” As she stepped out into the soft summer dusk she turned to look back just in time to see her mother throw her a comically exaggerated wink of assurance. Feeling much better, Peggy shut the screen door behind her and started for the barn. Ever since she had been a little girl, the barn had been Peggy’s favorite place to go to be by herself and she stamped one foot and softly whinnied a greeting. Peggy stopped first at the bag that hung on the wall among the bridles and halters and took out a lump of sugar as a present. Then, after stroking Socks’s silky As Peggy mixed some oats and barley for her pet and checked to see that there was enough straw in the stall, she thought about her life in Rockport and the new life that she might soon be going to. 7 Peggy had lived all her life here, knew every tree-shaded friends, or her home that made Peggy want to leave movies? 8 Seeing the image of herself hungry and tired, going from office to office looking for a part in a play, Peggy suddenly laughed aloud and brought herself “Socks,” she murmured, “I need some of your horse sense if I’m going to go out on my own! We’ll go for a fast run in the morning and see if some fresh air won’t clear my silly mind!” With a final pat, she left the stall and the barn behind, stepping out into the deepening dusk. It was still too early to go back to the house to see if her parents had reached a decision about her future. Fighting down an impulse to rush right into the kitchen to see how they were coming along, Peggy continued Upstairs at the Wilsons’, Peggy found Jean swathed in bath towels, washing her long, straight red hair, which was now white with lather and piled up in a into the basin and rinsed off the soap with a shampoo hose. When she came up at last, dripping-wet 10 After a brisk rubdown with one towel, Jean rolled another dry towel around her head like an Indian turban. Then, having wrapped herself in an ancient, tattered, plaid bathrobe, she led Peggy out of the steamy room and into her cozy, if somewhat cluttered, bedroom. When they had made themselves yet?” Peggy said, in a puzzled tone. “You know, if I were as smart as you,” Peggy said as you are, I wouldn’t need brains, either!” With a hoot of laughter, she rolled quickly aside on the couch to avoid the pillow that Peggy threw at her. A short, breathless pillow fight followed, leaving the girls limp with laughter and with Jean having to retie her towel turban. From her new position, flat on the floor, Peggy looked up at her friend with a rueful smile. “I know,” Peggy answered. “We had a long talk decision. You know,” she said suddenly, sitting up on the floor and crossing her legs under her, “I bet “But, Jean,” Peggy protested, “you can handle Peggy nodded silently, not trusting herself to the importance of her work and her faith in Peggy’s The silence lasted what seemed a terribly long time, until Jean broke it by suddenly jumping up and flinging a last pillow which she had been hiding behind her back. Running out of the bedroom, she called, “Come on! I’ll race you down to the kitchen for cocoa! By the time we’re finished, it’ll be about time for your big Hour of Decision scene!” It was nearly ten o’clock when Peggy finally felt that her parents had had enough time to talk things out. Leaving the Wilson house, she walked slowly despite her eagerness, trying in all fairness to give her mother and father every minute she could. Reaching well, day after tomorrow, then. That’s right—all As Peggy entered the room, her father put down “What’s all set, Dad?” Peggy said, breaking into a run to her father’s side. 15 “Everything’s all set, Peg,” her father said with a sure was to follow his announcement. But Peggy just stood, hardly moving a muscle. Then she walked carefully, as if she were on the deck of a rolling ship, to the big easy chair and slowly sat down. Peggy swallowed hard before answering. When After the kisses, the hugs, and the first excitement, Peggy and her parents adjourned to the kitchen, the favorite household conference room, for cookies and “Now, tell me, Dad,” Peggy asked, her mouth full but her natural, bubbling self. “Who was that on the phone, and where are the three of us going, and what’s all set?” 16 “One thing at a time,” her father said. “To begin with, we decided almost as soon as you left that we were going to let you go to New York to try a year’s big, old-fashioned town house and converted it into a rooming house especially for young actresses. She always wanted a house of her own with a garden in back, but felt it was foolish for a woman living alone. This way, she can afford to run a big place and at the same time not be alone. And best of all, she says she has a room that you can have!” “Oh, Mother! It sounds wonderful!” Peggy exulted. “I’ll be with other girls my own age who are actresses, “Dad!” Peggy shouted, almost choking on a cooky. “Two days! Do you mean we’ll be going to New York day after tomorrow, just like that?” “Oh, no,” her mother answered calmly. “We’re going to New York tomorrow on the first plane that we can get seats on. Your father doesn’t believe in wasting time, once his mind is made up.” “Tomorrow?” Peggy repeated, almost unable to believe what she had heard. “What are we sitting here talking for, then? I’ve got a million things to do! I’ve got to get packed ... I’ve got to think of what to read for the audition! I can study on the plane, I guess, but ... oh! I’ll be terrible in a reading unless “Whoa!” Mr. Lane said, catching Peggy’s arm to prevent her from rushing out of the kitchen. “Not now, young lady! We’ll pack in the morning, talk about what you should read, and take an afternoon plane to New York. But tonight, you’d better think of nothing more than getting to bed. This is going to be a busy time for all of us.” Reluctantly, Peggy agreed, recognizing the sense of what her father said. She finished her milk and\n\n<question>:\nWhat will Peggy mostly likely do tomorrow morning?\n\n<options>:\nA Rehearse for her audition.\nB Catch a plane to New York.\nC Take Socks out for a ride.\nD Pack her suitcase.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,514 | 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>:\nmiss it. I knew something. \"I don't wash because I drink coffee.\" \"It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it?\" he asked. \"Of course,\" I said, and added absurdly, \"That's why I don't wash.\" \"You mean,\" Andre said slowly, ploddingly, \"that if you bathed, you would be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as any other solitary vice that makes people wash frequently.\" Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, in search of what. during all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled, the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic, without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achieved such a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex, his. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I first found him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt we even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing on the inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached a state of pure thought.\" \"We'll use one bed,\" I told him. \"I'll give you twenty cents.\" I felt \"Fifteen cents a bed,\" he played it back for me. since we ain't full up. In ad vance.\" I placed the quarter on the desk. \"Give me a nickel.\" The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn't want the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose, direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I could kick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't really confident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material needs would not grow and roast coffee. bedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. dirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggy gas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never needed to shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that I uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at a jagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving it an unreal distortion. His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence. The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both dropped from my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasy dirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leave He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving that crawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. him bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over his wasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that. it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?\" I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized that anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hate I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I felt my face flushing red. \"You wouldn't want to be seen with a bum It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choice do. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow and That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in Earth human. I was a clean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was so dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every hour for the rest of my life. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber diner knew this last time had been different. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first time webbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen had dissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into a meaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, I became lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag of hamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring any I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind of concentration. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. \"I say—I say, I would like to see you explain this, my dear fellow.\" \"I have no data,\" the thin man answered coolly. \"In such instance, one begins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must ask this unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a serious illness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the place and time from which he comes.\" The surprise stung. \"How did you know?\" I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. \"To maintain a logical approach, I must reject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—and despite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiences recently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses or retire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I might into one of his novels of scientific romance.\" I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. \"But the other—\" \"Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Your theories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you have suffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth. Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. You are at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why else then would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitary state?\" He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because I couldn't trust to my own senses as he did. unknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. \"Withdrawal symptoms.\" The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly building up behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. He was not topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept it secret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he had \"He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazines for his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—until he started obtaining books that did not exist .\" snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down the soothing liquid. The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad, a fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. \"Kevin,\" Andre said, \"why don't you take a bath?\" tried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean no matter how often I bathed. No words formed. dirty.\" on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction and\n\n<question>:\nWhy might the narrator feel that he is \"so dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every hour for the rest of my life\"?\n\n<options>:\nA Because he is homeless and unclean.\nB Because he has cooties.\nC Because his addiction prevents him from bathing.\nD Because he unknowingly feels debasement in desiring something material.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,535 | 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>:\nFight Clubbed UFC began in 1993 as a locker-room fantasy. What would happen if a kickboxer fought a wrestler? A karate champion fought a sumo champion? Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. \"There are no rules!\" bragged an early press release. Contestants would fight till \"knockout, submission, doctor's intervention, or death.\" UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Four-hundred-pound men were sent into the Octagon to maul guys half their size. Only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden. The gimmick entranced thousands of people (well, men). What happens when a 620-pound sumo champion fights a 200-pound kickboxer? Answer: The kickboxer knocks him silly in 35 seconds. They tuned in for bloodshed--\"the damage,\" as fans like to call it. UFC fights could be horrifying. Tank Abbott, an ill-tempered, 270-pound street fighter, knocks out hapless opponent John Matua in 15 seconds. Then, before the ref can intervene, Abbott belts the unconscious Matua in the head, sending him into a fit, limbs quivering uncontrollably, blood spurting from his mouth. Abbott, naturally, became a cult hero and won a guest spot on Friends . (Matua walked out of the ring.) Soon, UFC was selling out huge arenas and drawing 300,000 pay-per-view subscribers for its quarterly competitions. But a subtle sport was emerging from the gimmicks and carnage. My passion for ultimate fighting (which is also called \"extreme\" or \"no-holds-barred\" fighting) began when I saw the finals of UFC IV. Royce Gracie, a 180-pound Brazilian jujitsu specialist, was matched against a 275-pound beast named Dan Severn, one of the top heavyweight wrestlers in the world and a national champion many times over. In 30 seconds, Severn had grabbed Gracie, flung him to the canvas, and mounted him. For the next 15 minutes, Severn pummeled and elbowed and head-butted the smaller man. Gracie's face grew drawn, and he squirmed wildly to avoid Severn's bombardment. Then, all of sudden, Gracie, still lying on his back, saw an opening, wrapped his arms and legs around Severn like a python and choked the giant into submission. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. \"UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight,\" says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . Instead of being carnivals of gore, UFC fights looked strangely like ... sex. Almost all fights ended on the ground, one man mounting the other in missionary position, the pair of them wiggling mysteriously along the canvas for five, 10, even 30 minutes. There were few spectacular knockouts. The referee--yes, there was always a referee--stopped many bouts, and in most others, fighters \"tapped out,\" surrendering to mild-looking but agonizing chokes and joint locks. It was not barbarism. It was science. The UFC spawned a new breed of \"mixed martial artists.\" World-class wrestlers learned to kickbox. Champion kickboxers learned to grapple. (The karate experts learned to stay home.) They became, without doubt, the best fighters in the world. (Click for more about the fighters.) Mike Tyson wouldn't last 30 seconds in an ultimate fighting match. When Olympic gold medal wrestler Kevin Jackson came to the UFC, a fighter named Frank Shamrock KO'd him with a submission hold in 16 seconds. Ultimate fighting schools began sprouting up all over the country, replacing the stylized gestures of the Eastern martial arts with techniques that actually work. UFC's promoters predicted that it would supplant boxing as America's martial art. Instead, it fell apart. The collapse began in 1996, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saw a UFC tape. McCain, a lifelong boxing fan, was horrified at the ground fighting, kicks, and head butts. It was \"barbaric,\" he said. It was \"not a sport.\" He sent letters to all 50 governors asking them to ban ultimate fighting. The outcry against \"human cockfighting\" became a crusade, and like many crusades, it was founded on misunderstanding. UFC fell victim to cultural determinism about what a fight is. In countries such as Brazil and Japan, where no-holds-barred fighting has a long history, it is popular and uncontroversial. But Americans adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. A fight consists of an exchange of upper-body blows that halts when one fighter falls. Any blood sport can be barbaric, whether it's boxing or wrestling or ultimate fighting. It is impossible to draw a bright line between ultimate fighting and boxing. If anything, ultimate fighting is safer and less cruel than America's blood sport. For example, critics pilloried ultimate fighting because competitors fought with bare knuckles: To a nation accustomed to boxing gloves, this seemed revolting, an invitation to brain damage. But it's just the reverse: The purpose of boxing gloves is not to cushion the head but to shield the knuckles. Without gloves, a boxer would break his hands after a couple of punches to the skull. That's why ultimate fighters won't throw multiple skull punches. As a result, they avoid the concussive head wounds that kill boxers--and the long-term neurological damage that cripples them. Similarly, the chain-link fence surrounding the octagon looks grotesque. Critics have demanded that UFC install ropes instead. But ropes are a major cause of death and injury in boxing: Fighters hyperextend their necks when they are punched against the ropes, because nothing stops their heads from snapping back. The chain-link fence prevents hyperextension. In the past two years, an increasingly desperate UFC has been trying to assuage its critics. The competition, which had been gradually adding safety rules since the first fight, imposed even more. It institued rounds and a \"10-point must\" scoring system. It banned head butts and groin strikes. You can no longer kick a downed man or elbow someone in the back of the head. Fighters are required to wear thin martial arts gloves (a purely cosmetic change). The UFC imposed weight classes, ending the David-and-Goliath mismatches that made early fights so compelling.\n\n<question>:\nWhat can the reader infer about the early UFC practices based on the fact that \"only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden\"?\n\n<options>:\nA There are no rules arbitrating fair practice in the UFC.\nB The UFC openly allowed and even encouraged participants to fight each other to the death.\nC The early UFC was promoted as an exhilarating experience of watching the closest thing to a real-world fight.\nD Bad sportsmanship was encouraged in the early UFC because participants were attempting to recreate scenes in Fight Club.\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>:\nmiss it. I knew something. \"I don't wash because I drink coffee.\" \"It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it?\" he asked. \"Of course,\" I said, and added absurdly, \"That's why I don't wash.\" \"You mean,\" Andre said slowly, ploddingly, \"that if you bathed, you would be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as any other solitary vice that makes people wash frequently.\" I was knocked to my knees. \"Kevin,\" the Martian said, \"drinking coffee represents a major vice only in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which are one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned that during all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled, search of what. \"He didn't use that,\" Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all in my mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind. I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all I but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winos the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic, without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achieved such a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex, even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing on since we ain't full up. In confident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material needs would not grow and roast coffee. Doc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving that crawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. him bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over his lumpy skull. think you are blotto. \"Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work?\" I kept my eyes down. I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. \"Just a dime for a cup of coffee.\" I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe two and a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used, perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. \"Do you want it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?\" I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized that anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hate tourists. \"Just coffee, ma'am.\" She was younger than I was, so I didn't have to call her that. \"A little more for food, if you could spare it.\" I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. whatever. \"Okay,\" I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It was pale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both hands to feel its warmth. . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I could do. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow and was able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good. Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink of exhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but I knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affected my metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't the same, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a pure sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in them—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. \"Now what do you want to eat?\" the woman asked. hour for the rest of my life. almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank a glass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waiting for me. \"Could I have a few to take with me, miss?\" I pleaded. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber diner trying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. \"I had half a dozen hamburgers, a cup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go and a pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if the lady didn't pay you.\" \"She didn't,\" he stammered. \"Why do you think I was trying to get that I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, I became lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag of hamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring any hungry rats out of the walls. \"Concentrate,\" Doc said hoarsely. \"Concentrate....\" I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind of concentration. months—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpled The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. \"I say—I say, I would like to see you explain this, my dear fellow.\" \"I have no data,\" the thin man answered coolly. \"In such instance, one illness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the place and time recently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses or theories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you have suffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth. Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. You are at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why else then would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitary ever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perception to Relativity and the positron and negatron. \"Interesting.\" He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke. had known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but there was something else. \"I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair,\" I told her. She shook her head. \"I don't know what you think it does to you.\" his crusades. How can you make money with time travel?\" I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. \"It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money,\" Miss Casey prosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part of Doc's character. He was a scholar.\" Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scared needed some coffee. \"He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazines for his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—until he started obtaining books that did not exist .\" I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair, snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down the soothing liquid. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dress that looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber. The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad, unreasonably happy. on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction and\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't the narrator care about having eaten in the past day and a half?\n\n<options>:\nA He does not actually need to eat to survive\nB He is an evolved human who does not actually need to eat to survive\nC Water is more important than food, so he needs to find that first\nD He is preoccupied by his stronger need for coffee\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>:\nsweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyed the robot apprehensively. Half his fingernails had dug into the jerk of its blaster barrel. For the first time that night Alan Then another. Alan stopped, puzzled. Two more blasts, quickly together, and the sound of a scream faintly. Frowning, worrying about the sounds, Alan momentarily forgot him like the protesting of a hill, throwing him to the jungle floor. \"Damn!\" He cursed again, \"I wonder,\" he thought, \"how the tentacles of some monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grew straggly in the frantically jerked the trigger In the distance the sky blazed as a blaster roared in the jungle. Then Alan heard the approaching robot, crunching and snapping fire. He froze. \"Good Lord! Alan peered around him at the to the soft rustlings and faint sounds. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes widened. \"Of course! Radio! drowned out almost immediately explosive crash. Alan started, \"Blaster fighting! But it can't be!\" Suddenly anxious, he slashed and silenced by an the device, falling in the grass Trees exploded to his left as another robot fired in his direction, caught at his legs, tripping him Alan changed direction slightly ship and the eleven men who, with Alan, were the only humans on the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the low shrubbery at the edge of the were well accustomed to the dark now, and he managed to dodge his legs were a mass of stinging The crashing rumble of the that had brought the advance exploratory party of scientists and technicians to Waiamea three days before. Except for a few of the killer robots rolling nightmare. Alan would have to barely above his head. Without pausing to think, Alan leaped back, and fell sprawling over a bush just as one of the robots rolled silently Alan turned slightly to the blaster barrel to aim directly at his head. Alan froze. \"My God, panic. \"I should be at the camp Suddenly a screeching whirlwind Pete built those things wrong!\" up from the right, lowering its with no one to stop it, automatically antenna and blaster barrel. swung around and fired its blaster, and shorted the blaster cells. camp, but not himself be seen. him breathed fire, then exploded. In the brief flash of the blaster shot, Alan saw the steel glint of a robot only a hundred yards away, much nearer than activated them all at once, probably they're tuned to pick up human the rotten luck, anyway!\" He blaster, jutting out of the Instinctively, in one motion Alan grabbed his pocket blaster and fired. To his amazement the robot jerked back, its gun wobbled Alan. He fired again, and again the robot reacted. It seemed familiar somehow. Then he remembered Reaching into his jacket, Alan fingered his pocket blaster. He missing the obvious. \"The blaster you anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. They said the blast with your name on it would find Slowly Alan looked around, static blanks out radio sizing up his situation. Behind can't get to the camp with The robot shook spasmodically Then, unexpectedly, Alan saw tuned to blast any living at every step. Straining every muscle in spite of the agonizing pain, Alan It was crazy, he supposed, to for his small blaster to run dry. \"Be damned! You can't win now!\" Alan yelled between blaster shots, almost irrational from the pain that ripped jaggedly Alan unclenched his fists and had, at last, given him a reason building's door his blaster quit. A click. A faint hiss when he for living. \"Not to be killed!\" wiped his palms, bloody where branch too heavily laden. Blaster ready, Alan rolled over onto his back. In the movement, his elbow gun. \"No!\" He threw himself on the ground as a new robot suddenly struck the top of a small earthy mound and he was instantly at his feet. He dropped the useless over Alan's back and ozone tingled locust-like insects that beat disgustingly against his eyes and with its own blaster static, mouth. \"Fagh!\" Waving his the bugs. As he did so, a dark instant, Alan jammed his hands into an insect hill and hurled the flash, followed by the sharp report of a blaster. Then another. Alan whirled, startled. The erupted angrily from the hole in planet's double moon had risen Confused by the sudden dispersion and he could see a robot rolling robot fired erratically as Alan crouched and raced painfully for robot's pickup devices. as he fumbled with the lock of mind impulses, the by the blast. Frantically, Alan slammed Apparently the robot hadn't sensed him yet, but Alan didn't know what the effective range open the door as the robot, sensing of its pickup devices was. He him strongly now, aimed slightly different spot. His stomach tightened. Panic. brain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in the Alan opened his eyes in a white room Alan's eyes, \"you hit the switch. Suddenly a sobbing-laughing vines, and Alan found that of it, barely out of blaster range. Only, the robot didn't get tired. Alan did. he could manage to keep ahead crashed imperturbably after blaster flashes as some angry cat. Alan's fingers tensed suddenly louder. He fired Sharp screams punctuated leaped snarling and clawing back into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figure the charge remaining in his blaster. There wouldn't be much. load in fresh cells this morning!\" 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 exploded around him. Startled, Alan jerked sideways, crashing dazed, then his knees buckled. His blaster fell into the The robot crashed loudly behind him now. Without stopping to think, Alan fumbled along the ground after his gun, straining and leaped back, trying frantically Almost blinded by pain, whimpering, Alan stumbled forward. Sharp muscle spasms shot from He screamed at the blast. \"Damn with hairy, disjointed arms as if to snag even the dirty little Alan, lying in the mud of the stream bed, felt the earth shake as the heavy little robot rolled he thought, \"in battle his arm felt numb. \"I'll drown him,\" he said aloud. \"I'll drown laughed. Then his mind cleared. Alan trembled. For the first time in his life he understood the first time he realized that he Alan became a man. \"Dammit, no law says I have to flame-out !\" He forced dig, dig, cursing and crying to stop. The air crackled blue and a tree crashed heavily past Alan and its blaster swivelled slowly down. Frantically, Alan pure electricity arced over him, robot shook for a second, its blaster muzzle lifted erratically and for an instant it seemed almost the robot fired again. For a split second Alan seemed engulfed in flame blaster swung slightly away. But crazily as the earth collapsed underneath from where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alan threw himself across the blaster blaster jerked upwards wrenching Alan's arms, then slammed a steel-skinned water monster trying to dislodge a tenacious crab, while Alan, arms and legs wrapped tightly around the blaster a stubby hunting knife. Sweat and blood in his eyes, hardly able to move on the wildly swinging turret, he felt down\n\n<question>:\nWhy is Alan so surprised to hear blaster fighting?\n\n<options>:\nA Alan is surprised because he came with a team of scientists, not soldiers.\nB Alan is surprised because he was sure they had escaped the enemy soldiers when they ran into the jungle for cover.\nC Alan is surprised because the planet is only inhabited by animals, not intelligent life.\nD Alan is surprised because the Waiameans don't have advanced weapons capabilities.\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>:\nThe job was easy. The profit was enormous. The only trouble was—the cargo had a will of its own! Captain Hannah climbed painfully down from the Delta Crucis , hobbled I didn't ask Captain Hannah why he had socked me. among the stars. Call it the Look of Eagles. Captain Hannah had lost I figured that he figured that I had something to do with the way he looked. \"Shipping marocca to Gloryanna III didn't turn out to be a cakewalk I only drink rhial when I've been exposed to Captain Hannah. It was anxiously, after the elephants had been admired and sent back home. The success of that venture—even if the job had turned out to be more difficult than we had expected—meant an enormous profit to both of us. The fruit of the marocca is delicious and fabulously expensive. The plant grew only on the single planet Mypore II. Transshipped seeds invariably failed to germinate, which explained its rarity. The Myporians were usually, and understandably, bitterly, opposed to letting any of the living plants get shipped off their planet. But when I offered them a sizable piece of cash plus a perpetual share of the profits for letting us take a load of marocca plants to Gloryanna III, \"I got them there safely,\" said Captain Hannah. \"And they are growing all right?\" I persisted. \"When I left, marocca was growing like mad,\" said Captain Hannah. I relaxed and leaned back in my chair. I no longer felt the need of rhial for myself. \"Tell me about it,\" I suggested. \"Your tests were no good,\" agreed the captain with feeling. \"I'll tell I'll black your other eye,\" he decided. \"You'll remember that I warned you that we should take some marocca out into space and solve any problems we might find before committing ourselves to hauling a full load of it?\" asked Captain Hannah. \"We couldn't,\" I protested. \"The Myporians gave us a deadline. If we had gone through all of that rigamarole, we would have lost the moving?\" \"So what did you do?\" I asked, when that had sunk in. \"If the stem doesn't keep winding, the plants die and they can only take a few extra hours of night time before they run down.\" \"Oh,\" said Captain Hannah in quiet tones of controlled desperation, \"it was very simple. I just put enough spin on the ship to make artificial gravity, and then I strung a light and moved it every fifteen minutes The plants liked it fine. \"Of course, first I had to move all the hydroponic tanks from their original positions perpendicular to the axial thrust line of the ship \"Not yet,\" said Captain Hannah. \"Like you, I figured I had the situation fairly well under control, but like you, I hadn't thought things through. The plastic membranes hadn't torn when we brought the \"There were thousands and thousands of them, and each one of them made a tiny, maddening whine as it flew.\" around me to try to clear the nearby air a little, so that I could have room to think. The midges loved it. But the plants that were in reach died so fast that you could watch their leaves curl up and drop off. cloud—by spreading it all through the ship—or whether to try to block off the other plant room, and save it at least. So I ended up by not spray in the ship's fumigation system worked just fine. It killed the bugs without doing the plants any harm at all. Of course, the fumigation system is designed to work with the fumigator off the ship, because it's poisonous to humans too. marocca. The larvae provide an enzyme without which the plants die. \"Of course. I immediately stopped slapping at the relatively few midges that had made their way into the head with me, and started to change the air in the ship to get rid of the poison. I knew it was too late \"The only live midges left in the ship were the ones that had been with me during the fumigation process. I immediately tried to start a breeding ground for midges, but the midges didn't seem to want to thing they seemed to love. I didn't dare bathe, or scratch, or even wriggle, for fear of killing more of them. And they kept on itching. It was just about unbearable, but I bore it for three interminable days while the midges died one by one. It was heartbreaking—at least, it was to me. \"And it was unnecessary, too. Because apparently the carolla had around, catching carolla on the wing and stuffing themselves happily. \"I had to find out what was wrong with my awkward dingleburys. And that, of course, meant going out into the ship again. But I had to do on the middle line of the ship. And the unfamiliar gravity gradient, together with the Coriolis effect and all, makes the poor dingleburys dizzy, so they can't catch carolla. but I was busy. \"Anyway, the action of the dingleburys triggered the violent growth phase of the marocca plants. Did you know that they plant marocca you'll recall, a mature field, which was the only kind we ever saw, is one solid mass of green growth. \"The book says that it takes just six hours for a marocca field to shift from the seedling stage to the mature stage. It didn't seem that long. You could Made them forget all about me. \"While they were having their orgy, I caught up on my reading. It was necessary for me to cut back the marocca vines. For one thing, I couldn't get up to the area of the bridge. For another, the main computer was completely clogged. I could use the auxiliary, on the bridge, if I could get to it, but it's a poor substitute. For another thing, I would have to cut the stuff way back if I was ever going to get the plants out of the ship. And I was a little anxious to get my Delta Crucis back to normal as soon as possible. But before cutting, I had to translate the gouge. \"It turns out that it's all right to cut marocca as soon as it stops growing. To keep the plants from dying, though, you have to mulch the cuttings and then feed them back to the plants, where the roots store will poison the plants if they are fed back to them without having been \"I was the special processor. That's what the instructions said—I translated very carefully—it required an 'organic processor'. \"So I had to eat pounds of that horrible tasting stuff every day, and process it the hard way. reasonable at the time.\" Captain Hannah inhaled a sip of rhial, and had finished. \"Well, go on,\" I urged him. \"The marocca plants were still in good shape, weren't they?\" Hannah nodded. \"They were growing luxuriously.\" He nodded his head a He said, \"They made me burn the entire crop right away, of course. They didn't get all of the carolla or dingleburys, though. Or spores.\" \"Gloryanna III is the original home planet of marocca. They hated the crop. It wasn't as lucrative, but it was so much more pleasant that they outlawed marocca. Took them almost fifty years to stamp it out completely. Meanwhile, some clever native shipped a load of the stuff to Mypore II. He took his time, did it without any trouble and made his as security to pay for the cost of stamping out marocca all over again—those spores sprout fast—and for a time I was worried. \"Of course, when I showed them our contract—that you alone were responsible for everything once I landed the plants safely on Gloryanna \"They'll send you the bill. They don't figure it will take them more than a few months to complete the job.\" Captain Hannah stopped talking and stood up, painfully and a little unsteadily.\n\n<question>:\nWhat made Captain Hannah want to give the narrator a black eye?\n\n<options>:\nA Because the narrator offered no help in transporting the marocca plants.\nB Because the welts on Captain Hannah were angering the captain.\nC Because the narrator made an unfair deal to transport the plants to Gloryanna III.\nD Because Captain Hannah's transportation of the marocca plants was frustrating and gruesome.\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>:\nScience equipped David Corbin with borrowed time sent him winging out in a state of suspension to future centuries ... to a dark blue world whose only defense was to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that rush of anxiety. \"No.\" right.\" the solidity of flesh and bone, afraid to think too hard about myself. grasped the metal rail that ran along the wall. I reasoned it was there I will always remember the scream of terror, the paralyzing fright of I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand the function or design of the compact machinery. WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch right.\" in patient attention, trying to outguess the voice. I recalled a phrase ... some words about precaution. Precaution against forgetting. It was crazy, but I trusted the panel. It was the only thing I saw that could help me, guard me against another shock like seeing outside of the clear portholes. \"It is assumed the experiment is a success,\" the voice said. What experiment? What others? Tell me what to do. \"Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates. Your maximum deviation from schedule cannot exceed two degrees. Adopt emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck.\" The voice snapped off and I laughed hysterically. None of it had made sense, and I cursed whatever madness had put me here. I held my bruised hands to my mouth, and I knew that was all the message there was. In blind panic I pushed away from the panel. instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate. Not mine. Not now. to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside. no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start sudden elation in the cabin where the girl lay. The box behind her head the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of me. I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice that had given the message. It was up to me, and soon. The metal in the finding little humor in the comic expression on his face. from this.\" wanted him to understand. \"Look, I'm in trouble. Nothing fits, except \"Are you serious?\" \"I don't know. You're the first besides myself. I don't know how I stumbled on the way to revive you.\" He shook his head, watching me like I was a freak. \"Let's check the rest right away.\" \"Yes. I've got to know if they are like me. I'm afraid to think they might be.\" \"Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out.\" \"What about her. Why is she here?\" I asked my companion. \"I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and experience were all that mattered to the brass.\" \"It's a bad thing to do.\" \"What is the mission of this ship?\" I asked. The question frightened her. \"Should I? I feel so strange. Give me a \"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?\" \"I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over. Maybe I'm trying too hard.\" He glanced at the girl. \"If the calculations are right it was more than frightened and trying to remember. I wasn't in much better condition. \"Look, if it comes too fast for me, \"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center of our Galaxy.\" \"From Earth? How could we?\" \"Let's move slowly, sir,\" he said. \"We're moving fast. I don't know if luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting life.\" \"I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?\" \"I can't believe it's possible.\" Carl caught my eye. \"Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination.\" \"Don't think about it,\" Paul said. \"We can still pull this out all right if you don't lose your nerve.\" \"What are we to do?\" she asked. John answered for me. \"First we've got to find out where we are. I know an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and \"I wish I knew what you were doing,\" I said savagely. \"Give it time.\" \"We can't spare any, can we?\" I asked. \"She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to be shocked out of a mental state like that.\" \"I guess you're right,\" he said slowly. \"She's trained to administer the suspension on the return trip.\" \"Twenty-eight.\" \"What about me?\" \"Thirty.\" He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. \"What about shock treatment? It sounds risky.\" \"I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone react the same?\" \"That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you \"Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess.\" \"What—made you—think of that,\" I asked weakly. \"Shock treatment.\" \"I must have acted on instinct.\" \"You gave me the idea, Mister, talking about Dr. Thiesen.\" \"It worked. I'm okay,\" I said in giddy relief. \"I don't have to tell you I was scared as hell. I wish you could have seen your face, the look in your eyes when I woke up.\" \"I wouldn't want to wake up like that again.\" the intercom to open. \"This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship.\" \"No. Carl is here too. His stomach flopped again but he's okay. What about food. We're supposed to be checked before we eat.\" \"We'll have to go ahead without it. Any change?\" had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could be right on the calculated position of the star. The radar confirmed my findings ... and my worst fears. When we set it for direction and have a planetary system like our own. We were out on a gamble to find a planet capable of supporting life. The idea had intrigued scientists electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked direction and speed from the readings and plotted our position. If I figures into the calculator for our rate of approach. that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred was selected when the planets in Earth's solar system had proved to be barren. If the observations on this star were correct, we could expect\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one potential moral of this story?\n\n<options>:\nA Trying to find more habitable planets is a pointless endeavor.\nB Working together as a team and having hope can lead to more effective results.\nC Taking drastic actions without thinking them through is very risky.\nD It's best to trust your instincts and to not trust the technology around you.\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>:\nthat left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. The history of the planet was 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. \"I can guess,\" said Ethaniel, who had spoken first. \"The place is a complete mess. They've never done anything except fight 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.\" bomb can destroy them. Without our help they may do just that.\" than a hundred light-years to in everything they do.\" \"It won't take much,\" said Ethaniel. \"The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier could set it off. And it wouldn't have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out enemy attack.\" \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth.\" \"Could you? Forget so many people?\" won't be here to remind me that I have a conscience.\" to look at them.\" intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" shorter perhaps, and most certainly one thing they lack, and that's quite odd, they seem exactly like us. Is that what you wanted me to say?\" \"It is. The fact that they are an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually seem defenseless, though I suppose they're not.\" \"Tough,\" said Bal. \"Nothing we can do about it.\" their entire history. We can't begin to undo the effect of the big bomb.\" 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 them over. We're not committing ourselves by looking.\" 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. \"In what way?\" \"Well, we knew they had the big bomb. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we \"I know.\" \"We also knew they could deliver the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft.\" \"That was almost a certainty. They'd have no use for the big near a primitive form of space there, wondering when it's going to hit them. Nervousness could set it off.\" \"It could, and the missiles \"I realize that.\" \"A flat yes or no,\" said Bal. \"No. We can't help them,\" said Ethaniel. \"There is nothing we can do for them—but we have to find out what a people are like and when we can't help them we feel bad. It's going to be that Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. The southern plains were green, \"Nor I,\" said Bal. \"We're going to have to go down there cold. And it will be cold.\" \"Yes. It's their winter.\" \"I did have an idea,\" said Bal. \"What about going down as supernatural beings?\" \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said take advantage of our physical differences.\" \"If we could I'd be all for it. But these people are rough and desperate. They wouldn't be fooled by anything that crude.\" other. We'll tell them bluntly 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 \"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.\" \"They can't intercept the beams we use.\" \"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to do with our language. I want 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.\" the planet below. \"It's going to 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 \"Fill me in on that holiday, anything I ought to know. Probably religious in origin. That so?\" the people, and they're hard beginning to form at the twilight edge. \"I hate to go down and leave the ship up here with no one in it.\" \"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred years they still won't be able to get in or damage it in any way.\" 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,\" \"If it saves my neck I'm for it.\" \"I don't guarantee anything,\" was thinking of: instead of hiding the ship against the sun where there's little chance it will be seen, we'll make sure that \"Say, pretty good,\" said Bal. \"They can't imagine that we'd 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 our ship shining down on them.\" \"That's thinking,\" said Bal, 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. Earth will see it.\" Later, with the ship in position, glowing against the darkness of space, pulsating 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 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 pulsing with light. No star in the winter skies of the planet below the sunset colors. of a star and brought near Earth to illuminate it. Never, or 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 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 \"Why?\" always cold. I walked out, but sometimes I flew back. I hope that was all right.\" \"No. I didn't have time to find out. Some creature of their folklore I suppose. You know, except for our wings they're very much like ourselves. Their legends are bound to resemble ours.\" \"Sure,\" said Bal. \"Anyway, peace on Earth.\" THE END Transcriber's Note:\n\n<question>:\nWhy is it significant that the aliens only differ from humans in one physical characteristic?\n\n<options>:\nA The aliens happened to look like certain beings from stories of Earth's history.\nB The fact that humans are shorter makes the aliens more imposing.\nC It proves that the aliens and humans are actually distant relatives.\nD It means the aliens will not be trusted when they land on earth.\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>:\npast. Joe didn't know how they'd done it, and he didn't care. Joe was a Joe Prantera Brett-James on the second day that Joe said, \"How about Mexico? Could I make the get to Mexico?\" Joe Prantera said impatiently, \"The Joe eyed him in scorn. \"Oh, you Brett-James grimaced in amusement. \"Mr. Prantera, this will probably be difficult for you to comprehend, Joe gaped at him. \"No police! Joe stared. \"No cops, no jails. What wrong, too. For the first time, Joe Joe had given up. Now he merely stared. Brett-James said reasonably, \"We Joe Prantera looked at the other On the fourth day, Joe said, \"O.K., be of assistance.\" Joe couldn't figure out how he stood. For one thing, there should want knocked off?\" Reston-Farrell and Brett-James were both present. The three of them sat in the living room of the latter's beverage of the day. For Joe's taste Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken, you are Joseph Salviati-Prantera.\" Salviati happened to be Joe's mother's \"Well, that's handy, eh?\" Joe Joe had been born in Naples and his to him.\" Joe Prantera wound it up Joe gingerly tried swinging his feet to the floor and sitting up, while Brett-James said, \"Why not just go dispose of him?\" to Temple-Tracy's apartment and, ah, reasonably. \"You gotta have a finger.\" the other stood watching him, strangely. clothes for you in the closet there.\" much the same manner as the room's door had opened for Reston-Farrell. Joe Prantera scowled and said, Joe was indignant. \"Just like that, eh?\" he said sarcastically. \"Then what happens? How do I get out of the Joe gave him a long, chill look couldn't figure the other. Unless he And for a moment again, Joe Prantera Joe Prantera stared at him, said finally, failure, were now far away. Reston-Farrell had approached the door by which he had entered and it reopened for him. He went through it without looking back. There was nothing else to do. Joe dressed, then followed him. In the adjoining room was a circular table that would have accommodated had evidently been a long wait. Reston-Farrell, the one Joe had already A chillness was in the belly of Joe met, was tall and drawn of face and with a chainsmoker's nervousness. at ease. They were both, Joe estimated, The other was heavier and more Reston-Farrell said, \"May I present Joe said coldly, \"And what happens Warren, this is our guest from ... from yesteryear, Mr. Joseph Salviati-Prantera.\" Brett-James said gently, \"The moment after you have accomplished your mission, we plan to turn ourselves Brett-James nodded to him, friendly, so far as Joe could see. He said gently, \"I think it would be Mr. Joseph my colleague, Citizen Warren Brett-James? Joe took an empty chair, hardly Joe said, \"I think maybe I'll take that there drink, Doc.\" Reston-Farrell said, \"Of course,\" and then something else Joe didn't get. Whatever the something else elevated. It contained possibly three ounces of golden fluid. Joe didn't allow himself to think of its means of delivery. He took up the drink and bolted it. He put the \"To Nuevo Los Angeles and to the year—\" Brett-James looked at his \"2133,\" Reston-Farrell said. \"2133 A.D. they would say.\" Joe Prantera looked from one of Brett-James said gently. \"Without us, what will you do? Mr. Prantera, year 2133.\" realized the impossibility. Joe demanded, aghast. Dr. Reston-Farrell controlled the car. Joe Prantera sat in the seat next Joe Prantera had never been exposed in the back. Joe had, tucked in his belt, a .45 caliber automatic, once displayed to him and Warren Brett-James sat had been solved. you are now one hundred and seventy-three years after the last memory you have.\" Joe Prantera's mind suddenly reverted to those last memories and his Besides, already Joe was beginning Joe stared at him, and then at the Joe said, \"You guys know the kind Joe was coolly efficient now. He Joe Prantera came abruptly to his feet. \"I'm gettin' outta here.\" For the second time, Reston-Farrell pulled out the automatic, held it down below his knees and threw a Joe glared at him. Then sat down again, as abruptly as he'd arisen. \"Let's start all over again. I got this He said, \"O.K. See you guys later.\" He left them and entered the building. to their speed in this era—whooshed him to the penthouse duplex occupied An elevator—he still wasn't used There were two persons in the reception room but they left on Joe's arrival, without bothering to look at by Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy. seated at a desk. He looked into Joe Joe Prantera's mind whirled its confusion. Joe said, \"Joseph Salviati-Prantera Joe nodded. \"Enter,\" the other said. A door had slid open on the other side of the room. Joe walked through remember that at the point when we ... transported in the room. Joe Prantera ignored it Joe looked at him for a long, long They had him pegged all right. Joe Joe said softly, \"You know what \"Well, then do it yourself.\" Joe Tony and the others, for his favorite you you got some bad enemies, Chief. Two guys special, named Brett-James and Doc Reston-Farrell. I think one of the first jobs I'm gunna hafta do Joe snapped: \"Everything you guys say sounds crazy. Let's start all over again.\" Brett-James said, \"Let me do it, Lawrence.\" He turned his eyes to Joe. \"Mr. Prantera, in your own era, did Joe looked at him blankly. awoke to the fact that he had achieved \"O.K., O.K.,\" Joe Prantera growled. Brett-James took up the ball again. \"Mr. Prantera, have you ever heard of Joe growled. \"I ain't stupid.\" Joe snorted. \"So you got a guy what's \"You know, that is one aspect we had not considered.\" Brett-James said to Joe Prantera, \"Had we not, ah, taken you at the time we did, do you realize what \"Sure,\" Joe grunted. \"I woulda let old Al Rossi have it right in the guts, five times. Then I woulda took the plane back to Chi.\" Brett-James was shaking his head. \"No. You see, by coincidence, a police squad car was coming down the Joe winced. It didn't occur to him belt and beneath the jacketlike garment he wore. Brett-James was shaking his head again. \"I am afraid there is no return, Mr. Prantera. Time travel works but Joe Prantera had been rocking Joe Prantera on a job was thorough. He spent the first three days of his life in the year 2133 getting the feel of things. Brett-James and Reston-Farrell had been appointed to work with him. Joe didn't meet any of the involved, the better. He stayed in the apartment of Reston-Farrell. Joe had been right, Reston-Farrell was a medical doctor. Brett-James evidently had something to do with the process that had enabled them to bring Joe from the\n\n<question>:\nHow did Joe get to 2133?\n\n<options>:\nA He was cryogenically frozen in 1960 and awakened in 2133.\nB He was transported through time from 1960 to 2133 by Brett-James and Reston-Farrell.\nC Joe fell through a crack in time, which put him in 2133.\nD Brett-James and Reston-Farrell used a vortex manipulator to transport Joe to 2133.\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>:\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. 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.\" 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?\" The winner is one Tom Morgan, who wrote, \"You can hire someone to kill pests.\" Tom is the winner of a year's supply of Turtle Wax, and he will receive his prize just as soon as the Shopping Avenger figures out how much Turtle Wax actually constitutes a year's supply. The new contest question: How much Turtle Wax comprises a year's supply of Turtle Wax? 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. \"The airline's policy, which is consistent with all contracts of carriage at all airlines, requires that passengers file a report in person for lost or damaged luggage within four hours of arrival at their destination,\" a Southwest spokeswoman, Linda Rutherford, e-mailed me. \"[M.] indicates she called for a few days, but did not file a report in person until April 12--three days later. Southwest, as a courtesy, took her report anyway and asked for follow up information and written inventory of the damage.\" Rutherford said that M. should have submitted detailed receipts and photographs of the damage in order to make a claim. Harrumph, the Shopping Avenger says. It is a bad hair day at Southwest when its officials defend themselves by comparing their airline to other airlines. I forwarded this message to M., who replied: \"Wow. Well, of course I didn't file it at the airport on the 9 th because I didn't know the clothes were ruined at the airport. I didn't know until I opened the baggage at my hotel and saw the ruined stuff. (And it's worth noting that we had already waited for about an hour for our luggage with two little kids and impatient in-laws nipping at our heels.)\" She goes on, \"I did call that evening ... and was told that that sufficed. This is the first time I've been told that I had to file a complaint in person within four hours. ... When I filed on the 12 th , I was never told that I needed any receipts or photos or other type of documentation. The baggage folks seemed pretty uninterested in all of this. ... They know that the type of 'evidence' they want is impossible to obtain. They also know that on April 9 they screwed up the luggage retrieval and left bags out in the rain a long time.\" Southwest's response actually served to anger M. more than the original problem. \"Before, they had a mildly annoyed but loyal customer (who would have been placated by an apology and thrilled with some modest token of their regret). Now they have a pissed-off customer.\" Things do look bad for Southwest, don't they? The Shopping Avenger sent M.'s response to Rutherford, who e-mailed back saying she thought the Shopping Avenger was asking for \"policy information.\" The Shopping Avenger e-mailed back again, stressing to Rutherford that the Great Court of Consumer Justice would, if this case were brought to trial, undoubtedly find for the plaintiff (the Shopping Avenger serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury in the Great Court of Consumer Justice--defendants are represented by the president of U-Haul), and that Southwest was precipitously close to feeling the sword of retribution at its neck. But then she came through, provisionally, \"Yep, you can be sure if [M.] will call me we will get everything squared away. I'm sorry it's taken this long for her to get someone who can help, but we will take care of it from here.\" 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. Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.\n\n<question>:\nWhat term best describes this writing?\n\n<options>:\nA Editorial.\nB Essay.\nC Satire.\nD Literary criticism.\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>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] \"Feetch!\" grated Ogden Piltdon, president of the Piltdon Opener Company, slamming the drafting board with his hairy fist, \"I want results!\" Heads lifted over boards. Kalvin Feetch shrunk visibly. Universal does it in four.\" \"But Mr. Piltdon—\" can in eight point nine without chimes. Is this what I'm paying you for?\" In four months I want a new can-opener that will be faster, lighter, stronger, flashier and more musical than any other on the market. I \"Excuses,\" sneered Mr. Piltdon. \"Your staff is more than adequate. I will not allow you to throw out my money. Four months, Feetch, no more!\" Piltdon trudged out of the room, leaving behind him an had to dream at his board, investigate, search, build, test, compare, discard. He had always wanted to devote all his time to research, but Piltdon Opener had not given him that opportunity. Twenty-five years! thought Feetch. Twenty-five years of close supervision, dead-lines, 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 managed somehow to design a few good things during his twenty-five What now? He had to hang on to his job. Technical work was scarce. 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 can-opener lines. Departures, such as the thermal or motor-driven types, would be too expensive for mass production.\" Three new models and a group of cans were waiting for them on the Twenty-five years of your life you put in with Piltdon, and he'd fire you just like that if you don't do the impossible. The Piltdon Company 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 two in work. Best performance, four point four, but model otherwise unsatisfactory.\" \"Hello,\" said Feetch as an aproned machinist entered carrying a rather disconcerting. \"Dear, dear,\" said Feetch, regarding the piles of food on the bench. \"There must be some explanation. I designed this opener with sixteen Close, thought Feetch, wearily. It had been a man-killing job, and it had been close, but he'd made it. Beat the time limit by a half-day. The first tentative shipments of Piltdon Super-Openers had gone to distributors along the Eastern seaboard. The first advertisements blazed in selected media. The first reorders came back, and then: \"It's a sell-out!\" crowed Piltdon, waving a sheaf of telegrams. \"Step up production! Let 'er rip!\" The Super-Openers rolled over the country. In a remarkably short time they appeared in millions of kitchens from coast-to-coast. Sales climbed to hundreds of thousands per day. Piltdon Opener went into peak production in three shifts, but was still unable to keep up with plants were planned. Long lines waited in front of houseware stores. Department stores, lucky enough to have Super-Openers on hand, limited sales to one to a customer. Piltdon cancelled his advertising program. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and word-of-mouth spread the universities and independent investigators began to look into this new 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, It had been difficult, working alone and buying his own equipment. The oscillator and ultra microwave tracking unit had been particularly expensive. He was a fool, he supposed, to try independent research when so many huge scientific organizations were working on it. But he could When he finally found the answer, it was too late. The Borenchuck incident was only hours away. \"Sir, I never make careless claims.\" \"That's true,\" said Piltdon. His eyes grew dreamy. \"It can be done,\" he mused. \"The New Type Super-Opener. Free exchanges for the old. Cash guarantee that empty cans will never bother you. Take a licking at first, but then monopolize the market. All right, Feetch, I'll 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 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—\" \"I am sorry, but—\" He did no better with research organizations. Typical was a letter from the Van Terrel Foundation: \"—cannot accept your application not desirable in a member of our organization—former employer states the decision was yours entirely. Unfavorable reference—\" Piltdon, Feetch thought, feeling a strange sensation deep within his Of course, if he were to agree to reveal his latest discoveries to a 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.\" \"Thanks to you. Mr. Piltdon, I wouldn't work for you if—\" office, the salesmen on the road. All, all unemployed because of you. Think of that, Feetch.\" Feetch blinked. This had not occurred to him. their jobs? Frowning, he dialed Hanson's number. 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, all.\" He hung up. In the same grim mood the following morning, he placed a few more calls. In the same mood that afternoon he stood in the middle of his \"Fifty-one percent,\" said Feetch firmly. \"Don't bother with any counterproposals or the interview is at an end.\" \"Gentlemen!\" squawked Piltdon, \"I appeal to you—\" \"Stop bluffing,\" said Feetch coldly. \"There's no other way out for you. Otherwise you're ruined. Here, sign this agreement.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhen applying for new jobs, Kalvin found that…\n\n<options>:\nA Companies did not approve of what they heard about his previous work.\nB Companies did not have open positions.\nC Piltdon gave him a positive reference.\nD He had multiple offers.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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829 | 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>:\nMatilda would seek the happy medium. Matilda, you see, had patience. Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, 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 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 only mother could cook. Matilda moodily thanked the widow Penshaws. \"Hello,\" said Matilda. The stereotype grunted and peered at her over his glasses. Matilda asked him where she could find Haron Gorka. \"What?\" \"I said, where can I find Haron Gorka?\" The stereotype pushed up his glasses and looked at her squarely. \"Now take it easy, ma'am. First place, I don't know any Haron Gorka—\" Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an oh that if it really were important, she might check with the police. Matilda did, only they didn't know any Haron Gorka, either. It turned Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this early. If she could not find Haron Gorka, that was one thing but she On the other hand—why not? Why couldn't the librarian help her? Why 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 residence here in Cedar Palls, one couldn't expect that he'd have his 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 about that man today. Six of you—five others in the morning, and now you in the afternoon. I never did trust this Mr. Gorka....\" Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. \"You know him? You know Haron Gorka?\" \"What do you mean?\" \"I mean anyone would like to correspond with Haron Gorka. Or to know him well. To be considered his friend. Haron Gorka....\" five women had been here first, Matilda was now definitely in a hurry. \"Um, where can I find Mr. Gorka?\" \"I'm not supposed to do this, you know. We're not permitted to give the addresses of any of our people. Against regulations, my dear.\" Matilda reached into her pocket-book and withdrew a five dollar bill. Matilda nodded shrewdly and added a twin brother to the bill in her address. She thanked the librarian and then she went out to her car, whistling to herself. Haron Gorka lived in what could have been an agrarian estate, except that the land no longer was being tilled. The house itself had fallen he was too busy with his cultural pursuits to pay any real attention to his dwelling. That was it, of course: the conspicuous show of wealth or personal industry meant nothing at all to Haron Gorka. Matilda liked him all the more for it. Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having perhaps she was too late.... As it turned out, she wasn't. Not only that, she was welcomed with open arms. Not by Haron Gorka that she really might have liked. Instead, \"You want any food or drink,\" the servant told her, \"and you just press that button. The results will surprise you.\" \"What about Mr. Gorka?\" \"When he wants you, he will send for you. Meanwhile, make yourself to home, lady, and I will tell him you are here.\" A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After that she realized that what is done is done and here, past thirty, 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 neurotic servant. For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was heads, but, upon awaking with a start, she immediately ascribed that to her overwrought nerves. At that point she remembered what the servant had said about food and Matilda gasped once and felt about to gasp again—but by then her salivary glands were working overtime, and she ate her meal. The fact that it was precisely what she would have wanted could, of course, be attributed to coincidence, and the further fact that everything was extremely palatable made her forget all about Haron Gorka's neurotic servant. When she finished her meal a pleasant lethargy possessed her, and in a all. It was a deep sleep and a restful one, and when she awoke it was with the wonderful feeling that everything was all right. The feeling did not last long. Standing over her was Haron Gorka's servant, and he said, \"Mr. Gorka will see you now.\" \"Now?\" \"Now. That's what you're here for, isn't it?\" She told the servant so. \"Miss,\" he replied, \"I assure you it will not matter in the least to Haron Gorka. You are here and he is ready to see you and that is all realized that each of them probably had a cubicle of a room like her own, and that each in her turn had already had her first visit with Haron Gorka. Well, then, she must see to it that she impressed him better than did all the rest, and, later, when she returned to tell the old librarian of her adventures, she could perhaps draw her out and compare notes. She would not admit even to herself that she was disappointed with Haron Gorka. It was not that he was homely and unimpressive it was He said, \"Greetings. You have come—\" \"In response to your ad. How do you do, Mr. Gorka?\" She hoped she wasn't being too formal. But, then, there was no sense in assuming that he would like informality. She could only wait and see Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. you have a high psi-quotient, or that you were very hungry.\" \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Haron Gorka were to talk to her as he saw fit. \"Ready?\" \"Uh—ready.\" \"Well?\" \"Well, what, Mr. Gorka?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her that Haron Gorka was mouthing gibberish. But on the other hand she wanted Haron Gorka's guests to depart. As she shifted into reverse and pulled out of the driveway, she saw alone. As she drove back to town, the disappointment melted slowly away. There were, of course, two alternatives. Either Haron Gorka was an eccentric who enjoyed this sort of outlandish tomfoolery, or else he was plainly insane. She could still picture him ranting on aimlessly to no one in in detail. She did this first because it was a promise, and second 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.\" Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for\n\n<question>:\nWhat is significant about the meal Matilda is served?\n\n<options>:\nA It lends credence to Gorka’s otherworldly claims. How else could it have happened?\nB She’d been starving, and it was enough to distract her from the reality of what happened to her.\nC It’s exactly what she wanted to eat, and she didn’t have to ask for it. ,\nD It means Gorka’s paranoid servant had been observing her, and determined her favorite foods.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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2,300 | 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\"I've changed my mind. You will be welcomed.\" \"Listen to that, will you?\" Stinson said angrily. \"Just listen! You set yourself up as a God for the webfoots. You get them eating out of your hand. Then what do you do? You throw a fit. Yes, a fit! Like an adolescent. Worse.\" when it pleases him.\" Stinson relaxed. He'd had his say. Sybtl trembled beside him. A small mammal, round, furry, hopped by, sniffing inquisitively. Sybtl said, \"Is the Sand God happy?\" She shook her head. \"No, he is not happy. He is old, old, old. I can feel it. My people say that when one portion of this planet that suits you. Take the web-footed woman for your wife. Have children. I promise never to harm you in any way.\" \"The webfoots?\" \"You and they shall share the planet.\" The Sand God disappeared. Sybtl said \"Is the Sand God angry again?\" \"No, he is not angry.\" offender, spun him around and slapped his face. A cry of consternation rose from the group, echoing in the high ceilinged cavern. \"SBTL!\" it said, \"ZBTL ... XBTL ... zbtl.\" The men instantly prostrated themselves before him. The one who had direction. It came from the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the steaming pool. It was in the language of the web-footed people it was in his own tongue. \"No harm must come to this woman. The God with fingers on \"I was attempting communication. Why should I kill you?\" He was silent a moment, looking at the people in the cavern. \"Perhaps because you feared I would become the God of these people in your place.\" Stinson felt a mental shrug. \"It is of no importance. When they arrived on this planet I attempted to explain that I was not a God, but the primitive is not deeply buried in them. They soon resorted to emotion interested in you. You will bring your people, and live here.\" \"I haven't decided. There are these web-footed people, who were hostile until they thought I was a God. They have destructive weapons. Also, I don't understand you. I see you as a cone of sand which keeps changing webfoots use is a toy by comparison. Our scientists found the ultimate nature of physical law. They learned to separate the mind from the body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free God,\" she said, \"to speak to my people again. Their fear of him does not last. When He is gone they will probably kill us.\" \"As for the webfoots,\" the wind devil, or Sand God, said, \"I will destroy them. You and your people will have the entire planet.\" \"Destroy them?\" Stinson asked, incredulously, \"all these people? They When he looked back, the Sand God was gone. Instantly a new note rose in the cavern. The murmur of unmistakable mob fury ran over the webfoots. Several of the men approached the woman with hatred in their voices. He could not understand the words now. But he understood her. \"They'll kill me!\" she cried. had thoughtfully brought along from the cavern. He took it, and they ran down the slippery path leading away from the entrance. From the hiding place behind a large rock they watched, as several web-footed men emerged into the sunlight. They blinked, covered their eyes, and jabbered musically among themselves. One slipped and fell on the ice. \"I am Sybtl,\" she said. \"Syb-tl.\" He tried to imitate her musical pronunciation. \"A very nice name.\" she is his chosen. Otherwise, why not let her die? You are a strange God.\" \"Listen, Sybtl,\" he said desperately, \"I am not a God and you are not my wife. Let's get that straight.\" \"But....\" and ran. He doubted the wisdom of keeping her with him. Alone, the webfoots were no match for him. He could travel instantly to any spot he chose. But with Sybtl it was another matter he was no better than depended on him. Anyway, he decided, pursuit was impossible. They left no tracks on the ice. They were safe, unless the webfoots possessed talents unknown to him. what am I doing here, anyway? He glanced down at Sybtl and remembered the webfoots. He stopped, tempted to use his cylinder and move to a warmer, less dangerous spot. The woman pulled on his arm. \"We must hurry!\" the Sand God. It was blood red now. It pulsed violently. The great voice burst forth. \"Leave the woman!\" it demanded angrily. \"The webfoots are nearing your position.\" \"I cannot leave her. She is helpless against them.\" drove them backward. \"Earthman,\" the great voice said, \"go back to your Earth. Take your inconsistencies with you. Do not come here again to infect my planet with your primitive ideas. The webfoots are not as intelligent as you, but they are sane. If you bring your people here, I shall destroy you all.\" the thunder of its passing shook the ground and echoed among the lonely hills. Sybtl shivered against his arm. \"The Sand God is angry,\" she said. \"My people tell how he was angry once before, when we first came here. He killed half of us and burned the ship that brought us. That is how Kaatr got the tube-weapon. It was the only thing the Sand God didn't burn, that and the skirts. Then, when he had burned the ship, the Sand Well, Stinson said to himself, that does it. We are better off on Earth. We can't fight a monster like him. Sybtl touched his arm. \"Why did the Sand God come? He did not speak.\" \"He spoke to me.\" \"I did not hear.\" mound of rock. Here they came to the creek again, which flowed into a small canyon. They climbed the canyon wall. Far away, small figures moved. The webfoots were on their trail. She drew him into a small cave. It was heated, like the great cavern, but held no walled pool nor mysterious lighting. But it was warm, and \"They will not find us....\" \"But it is, don't you see? You give him powers he does not possess.\" Sybtl shook her head and stroked his face with her long, slim fingers. \"Poor little God-with-fingers-on-his-feet,\" she said. \"You do not understand. The Sand God is terrible, even when he plays. See the trembled. Sybtl moved closer, trembling also. \"He never did this before,\" she said. \"He never made the earth shake before.\" put the lightning to shame. It bore down on the cave swiftly, purposefully. Stinson prepared himself to leave. In spite of his desire to protect Sybtl, it was useless to get himself killed when he was powerless to help her. But at the last moment it veered off. \"Fiend!\" Stinson screamed the word, vaguely marvelling at his own fury. Thunder rumbled distantly. Clouds disappeared. Stinson and Sybtl emerged from the cave. There was no longer a question of attack from the webfoots, the storm and throwing shadows and coaxing life out into the open again. Down in the canyon a bird sang, a lonely, cheerful twitter. \"The Sand God is tired,\" Sybtl said. \"He is not angry now. I'm glad. Perhaps he will let you stay.\" \"No. Even if he allowed it, I couldn't stay. My people could never live Stinson ignored him. He glanced down at Sybtl, who sensed that this was a time for good-bys. He thought, perhaps I can stay here alone with her. The webfoots might find us, or the Sand God might destroy us in one of his fits, but it might be worth it. \"Don't go,\" she said. \"Not yet.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy are the webfoots chasing Stinson and Sybtl?\n\n<options>:\nA The webfoots think Stinson took Syblt against her will.\nB Stinson accidentally killed one of the webfoots while disarming him.\nC Stinson murdered the leader of the webfoots.\nD The webfoots think Sybtl did not please the God.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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2,262 | 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>:\nI think I’m trying to get a mental image of a person, certain expressions, or what I think that person is about. I’m trying to capture just random ones. I think I’m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see and are going after a perfect portrait. I’m somewhere in between. It’s amazing how many people will upload snapshots of people where the know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free or might make expressions that aren’t very natural for them. And if the after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about conversation, but still, it’s difficult to have a disarming conversation that was during a very tense discussion. I’ve found that people are at when they are under a lot of pressure, and super- focused. But usually having a heated debate. But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people don’t get to see that. At the Creative Commons board meeting, Larry asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was distracting. We were having a very heated discussion and I was taking all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those pictures turned out the best. In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, liberated. You, as a human spirit, are open. And then, it also has the ‘free software.’ There’s a paradox: with many people’s Wikipedia articles to which I’ve contributed, when it comes to the picture, many while they are “notable” on Wikipedia, their images aren’t free of the copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article can’t make an image available to the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community. encumbered Net presence. People who are invited to conferences get asked all the time, “By the way, do you have a photo that we can use?” But they don’t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons license, now they do. This is solving the issue of legal freedom. The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re giving, we’re all giving to participate and to try to create this wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works. Of course people can abuse that, just like they can abuse anything. But I want people to see the value in sharing over the fear in sharing. The fact is, it’s much more likely that somebody is going to use these pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the ultimate gift. In one way it’s kind of vain. [laughs] But in another way it’s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no picture is sad. They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much of what they’re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in there. They all had attribution, and it made me feel really good. There happy with this, and I’m happy, and the Berkman Center’s happy because they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman Center. There’s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin Mobile case, where Virgin used CC licensed images in an advertisement without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it more thorough from a legal perspective. It’s also an important educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in cases where the law requires such rights to be cleared before reuse. What have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year? That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. released their album, Ghost, under a Creative Commons license. The list goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business discussion. But one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. is the market- driven business side, which has made the Internet affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. Similarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I think it’s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or destructive ways. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture making is international. What are your personal realizations or experiences? Well, we’re all getting old, if you look at these pictures. But there’s another thing, though, about this book: the number of professional-quality amateurs has increased significantly due to the really feels like the death of the darkroom with this year. and some of this software at a couple hundred dollars, it doesn’t really make sense, except for particularly fussy artists, to do wet-work and processing it in a special lab, and then digitizing it. For me, that film was it. You could never get as good as medium-format film or large-format film At the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were beginning of last year. Okay, that’s pretty materialistic! So there was a technology breakthrough, let’s call it that, that allowed me to switch completely away from film, and I think this happened to a lot of photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the quality of content on sites like Flickr. It has allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals. photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most For me, the right way to use a lot of the new social software is by That’s the really interesting thing that is happening right now: it’s I think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? I think it’s mostly incremental. I think there is very little we actually do all by ourselves, and I hate saying, “I did this” or “I did that.” I think that in most cases, focusing on individual contributions or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Having said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well. However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I’m a huge fan Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one individual’s personal contribution to any movement. The real meaning is\n\n<question>:\nWhen does Creative Commons get complicated?\n\n<options>:\nA Advertisement\nB Human images\nC Derivative creative works\nD Original creative works\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,831 | 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>:\nJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT to lead a junior achievement told us.\" Hilary grinned. \"Lauryl benzyl phosphonic acid, dipotassium salt, in what a junior achievement group is. What gave you the idea?\" \"Mr. McCormack called me to the office today, and told me that some of the children in the lower grades wanted to start one. They need adult guidance of course, and I should explain, perhaps, that I teach a course in general science in our Ridgeville Junior High School, and another in general physics in the and swished the contents. Foam mounted to the rim and spilled over. \"And that's our best grade of Ridgeville water,\" he pointed out. \"Hardest envy, teaching in Ridgeville, for our in the country.\" which I'm sure many educators must Senior High School. It's a privilege academic standards are high. On the other hand, the fathers of most of at least sometimes, to teach my old-fashioned barn itself rather full of people, including two policemen. Our Ridgeville police are quite young men, but in uniform they still look ominous full of parked automobiles, and the children of a new age. themselves. \"What does a junior achievement best classroom voice. \"What is all \"of teaching the members something built up tidy little bank accounts which are available for later educational \"Gracious, you wouldn't have to kids how to do it.\" should tell me.\" \"You mean you don't know, honestly? \"You didn't know that one of your And the funniest part was they kept We've had to watch such things rather closely for the last ten—no, eleven years. Back in the old Ridgeville, fifty-odd miles to the south, we had our home almost paid for, when she chortled, \"somebody phoned in course it was the same boy that did an anonymous tip to the police—of couldn't have kept on living there Ridgeville moved to its present site, so, of course, did we, which meant starting mortgage payments all over \"Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice with those cute furry tails?\" even if the town had stayed. When table with five boys and girls lined up along the sides. This was to be our headquarters and factory for all those simply captivating mice.\" belonging to the parents of one of Those mice! I have always kept in some detail, about the youngsters charming little beasts, with tails as bushy as miniature squirrels. \"How many generations?\" I asked Doris. \"Seventeen. No, eighteen, now. Want to see the genetic charts?\" I won't try to explain it as she did rather angular—all shoulders and elbows. Peter Cope, Jr. and Hilary Matlack were skinny kids, too. The three were of an age and were all tall for ten-year-olds. I had the impression during that first meeting that they looked rather to me, but it was quite evident that more years, but was at the moment alike, but this wasn't so. Their features get out of their cages. But heaven and of modulated voice. And a different mold. Mary McCready was a big husky redhead of twelve, with a face full of freckles and an average, extroverted, well adjusted youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted and butch-barbered. The group exchanged looks to see built cages, hundreds of them, a good seemed to be elected. \"Well, Mr. Henderson, a junior achievement group is a bunch of kids who get together to manufacture and many for breeding, but mostly for new school is a fine one, and our of the mice at ten dollars a pair these junior achievement efforts, are my students work for the Commission 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 and a constant awareness of the Commission think I'd have come anyway. What are you doing to get patent protection on Ridge Industries' new developments?\" I got my back unkinked and dusted their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just attributes of exceptional pupils, but little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked came to my ears on Thursday morning. \"is to figure out what people in Ridgeville want to buy, then sell it to them.\" \"I'd like to make something by off my knees. \"Well, now,\" I said, what they need.\" \"The thing to do,\" Tommy offered, brainstorm. We'll worry about everything brand of science to these offered to license the design. Result, one licensee with a thousand dollar advance against next season's royalties. be possible later on to carry out a safe synthesis of some sort. You're Dr. Matlack's son, aren't you? Been despondency. \"I'm not very technical. thought about it. \"Are they a pure strain? One of the recognized laboratory strains? Healthy mice of the right strain,\" I explained to Tommy, \"might be sold to laboratories. I have an idea the Commission buys a supply every month.\" \"No,\" said Doris, \"these aren't laboratory mice. They're fancy ones. I got the first four pairs from a pet of chipmunk color, you know. I've carried them through seventeen generations of careful selection.\" do your whiskers grow back the next if we're going to break the hearts of didn't have to admit it, they might \"What did they do today, dear?\" of bread and ingredients for a variety of sandwiches. The parents had agreed to underwrite lunches at the barn and Betty Miller philosophically and that, according to all the to be a company officer. Of course a young boy who doesn't know any better, \"Why not? The kids can sail through their courses without thinking keep the group going after school about them, and actually they a week during the school year.\" \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\" naturally. On the other hand, they \"Child labor nothing. They're the employers. Jeff McCord and I will be the only employees—just at first, but they seemed not to be interested. that they'd each do what came This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and It'll work out all right.\" I wished that the youngsters weren't impractical, of course, for a group of children to attempt, but several of the blue ones designed to leave the threaded part, then send it home with a few turns of a screwdriver. Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his These latter ideas had made unknowing of radiation and absorption of heat. \"My,\" said Marjorie, \"they're really smart boys and girls. Tommy Miller Henderson, right? My name is McCord—Jeff to classify. They have some of the McCord—and I work in the Patent Section at the Commission's much of the time they seem to have know that flattening the lower edge of the hole would create instability?\" volunteered—not without a hint of complacency in his voice. \"It didn't take long, but they sure made it out to make out the checks. And they give them a specimen signature. Oh, yes, and cosign the note.\" My heart sank. I'd never had any hadn't picked a name yesterday, but I figured what's to lose, and picked one. Ridge Industries, how's that?\" Everybody nodded. \"Just three lines on the letterhead,\" he explained. \"Ridge Industries—Ridgeville—Montana.\" I got my voice back and said, \"Engraved, I trust.\" afford to look chintzy.\" the kite, and the youngsters embarking who by mutual consent, was our authority on sales, didn't want to sell\n\n<question>:\nWhy are the children of Ridgeville so smart?\n\n<options>:\nA An accident that included chemical fallout occurred, around the time that the children were conceived.\nB Tommy and Mary have high IQ's and the other three are androids, built by the Commission.\nC The children are androids, built by the Commission.\nD The children of Ridgeville were genetically engineered by the Commission.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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493 | 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>:\nHuman Clones: Why Not? If you can clone a sheep, you can almost certainly clone a human being. Some of the most powerful people in the world have felt compelled to act against this threat. President Clinton swiftly imposed a ban on federal funding for human-cloning research. Bills are in the works in both houses of Congress to outlaw human cloning--a step urged on all governments by the pope himself. Cloning humans is taken to be either 1) a fundamentally evil thing that must be stopped or, at the very least, 2) a complex ethical issue that needs legislation and regulation. But what, exactly, is so bad about it? Start by asking whether human beings have a right to reproduce. I say \"yes.\" I have no moral right to tell other people they shouldn't be able to have children, and I don't see that Bill Clinton has that right either. When Clinton says, \"Let us resist the temptation to copy ourselves,\" it comes from a man not known for resisting other temptations of the flesh. And for a politician, making noise about cloning is pretty close to a fleshly temptation itself. It's an easy way to show sound-bite leadership on an issue that everybody is talking about, without much risk of bitter consequences. After all, how much federally funded research was stopped by this ban? Probably almost none, because Clinton has maintained Ronald Reagan's policy of minimizing federal grants for research in human reproduction. Besides, most researchers thought cloning humans was impossible--so, for the moment, there's unlikely to be a grant-request backlog. There is nothing like banning the nonexistent to show true leadership. The pope, unlike the president, is known for resisting temptation. He also openly claims the authority to decide how people reproduce. I respect the pope's freedom to lead his religion, and his followers' freedom to follow his dictate. But calling for secular governments to implement a ban, thus extending his power beyond those he can persuade, shows rather explicitly that the pope does not respect the freedom of others. The basic religious doctrine he follows was set down some two millennia ago. Sheep feature prominently in the Bible, but cloning does not. So the pope's views on cloning are 1 st century rules applied using 15 th century religious thinking to a 21 st century issue. If humans have a right to reproduce, what right does society have to limit the means? Essentially all reproduction is done these days with medical help--at delivery, and often before. Truly natural human reproduction would mean 50 percent infant mortality and make pregnancy-related death the No. 1 killer of adult women. True, some forms of medical help are more invasive than others. With in vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are combined in the lab and surgically implanted in the womb. Less than two decades ago, a similar concern was raised over the ethical issues involved in \"test-tube babies.\" To date, nearly 30,000 such babies have been born in the United States alone. Many would-be parents have been made happy. Who has been harmed? Even if people have the right to do it, is cloning a good idea? Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. Hating a world of clones is hating the current populace. Never before was Pogo so right: We have met the enemy, and he is us ! Adifferent scare scenario is a world filled with copies of famous people only. We'll treat celebrity DNA like designer clothes, hankering for Michael Jordan's genes the way we covet his Nike sneakers today. But even celebrity infatuation has its limits. People are not more taken with celebrities than they are with themselves. Besides, such a trend would correct itself in a generation or two, because celebrity is closely linked to rarity. The world seems amused by one Howard Stern, but give us a hundred or a million of them, and they'll seem a lot less endearing. Clones already exist. About one in every 1,000 births results in a pair of babies with the same DNA. We know them as identical twins. Scientific studies on such twins--reared together or apart--show that they share many characteristics. Just how many they share is a contentious topic in human biology. But genetic determinism is largely irrelevant to the cloning issue. Despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins--or other clones--have in common, they are different people in the most fundamental sense . They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. Should you be confused on this point, just ask a twin. One recurring image in anti-cloning propaganda is of some evil dictator raising an army of cloned warriors. Excuse me, but who is going to raise such an army (\"raise\" in the sense used by parents)? Clones start out life as babies . Armies are far easier to raise the old fashioned way--by recruiting or drafting naive young adults. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori has worked well enough to send countless young men to their deaths through the ages. Why mess with success? Remember that cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. We don't get to make superman--we have to find him first. Maybe we could clone the superwarrior from Congressional Medal of Honor winners. Their bravery might--or might not--be genetically determined. But, suppose that it is. You might end up with such a brave battalion of heroes that when a grenade lands in their midst, there is a competition to see who gets to jump on it to save the others. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily the way to win a war. And what about the supply sergeants? The army has a lot more of them than heroes. You could try to breed an expert for every job, including the petty bureaucrats, but what's the point? There's not exactly a shortage of them. What if Saddam Hussein clones were to rule Iraq for another thousand years? Sounds bad, but Saddam's natural son Uday is reputed to make his father seem saintly by comparison. We have no more to fear from a clone of Saddam, or of Hitler, than we do from their natural-born kin--which is to say, we don't have much to fear: Dictators' kids rarely pose a problem. Stalin's daughter retired to Arizona, and Kim Jong Il of North Korea is laughable as Great Leader, Version 2.0. The notion of an 80-year-old man cloning himself to cheat death is quaint, but it is unrealistic. First, the baby wouldn't really be him. Second, is the old duffer really up to changing diapers? A persistent octogenarian might convince a younger couple to have his clone and raise it, but that is not much different from fathering a child via a surrogate mother. Fear of clones is just another form of racism. We all agree it is wrong to discriminate against people based on a set of genetic characteristics known as \"race.\" Calls for a ban on cloning amount to discrimination against people based on another genetic trait--the fact that somebody already has an identical DNA sequence. The most extreme form of discrimination is genocide--seeking to eliminate that which is different. In this case, the genocide is pre-emptive--clones are so scary that we must eliminate them before they exist with a ban on their creation. What is so special about natural reproduction anyway? Cloning is the only predictable way to reproduce, because it creates the identical twin of a known adult. Sexual reproduction is a crap shoot by comparison--some random mix of mom and dad. In evolutionary theory, this combination is thought to help stir the gene pool, so to speak. However, evolution for humans is essentially over, because we use medical science to control the death rate.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the author say the pope does not respect freedom of other?\n\n<options>:\nA He wants all people to follow his set of laws\nB He expects all citizens to live by his standards\nC He tried to extend his power beyond his jurisdiction\nD His views are too far dated\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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685 | 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 there would be all sorts of human interest stories to be picked up at the first international grandmaster chess tournament in which an electronic computing machine was entered. Not that there weren't enough humans around, it was the interest that was in doubt. The large hall was crammed with energetic dark-suited FIDE, WBM, USCF, USSF, USSR and UNESCO. Sandra felt fairly sure about Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance. Overheard scraps of conversation in reasonably intelligible English were not particularly helpful. Samples: \"They say the Machine has been programmed to play nothing but pure Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the Space Mirror \"You're durn tootin' she would!\" Sandra replied in a rush, and then a pearl-gray suit of almost exactly the same shade as Sandra's—a \"That'd go fine.\" Sandra leaned back. \"Confidentially, Doc, I was He nodded. \"You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them. But what brings a sane and beautiful young lady to this 64-square madhouse?\" Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. By the time they \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers.\" He swallowed half his demitasse and smacked his lips. \"As for the Machine—you \"Yes, Doc, but....\" Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question. \"If you had,\" he said, \"a billion computers all as fast as the Machine, it would take them all the time there ever will be in the universe just to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the time needed to classify those games into branching families of wins for White, wins for Black and draws, and the additional time required to trace out chains of key-moves leading always to wins. So the Machine can't play chess like God. What the Machine can do is examine all the likely lines of play for about eight moves ahead—that is, four moves each for White and Black—and then decide which is the best move on the genius, but who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human interest already, even in the Machine.\" Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player—a grandmaster, I mean—ever look eight moves ahead in a game?\" \"Most assuredly he does! In crucial situations, say where there's a is probably programmed to recognize such situations and do something of the same sort, though we can't be sure from the information World Business Machines has released. But in most chess positions the possibilities are so very nearly unlimited that even a grandmaster can only look a very few moves ahead and must rely on his judgment and experience and artistry. The equivalent of those in the Machine is the directions fed into it before it plays a game.\" \"You mean the programming?\" \"Indeed yes! The programming is the crux of the problem of the chess-playing computer. The first practical model, reported by Bernstein and Roberts of IBM in 1958 and which looked four moves ahead, was programmed so that it had a greedy worried tendency to grab Sandra's gaze traveled beyond the balustrade. Now that she could look Sandra looked with quickening interest at the console of the Machine—a Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but will defeat the Machine by the living force of my human personality! Already I have offered to play it an informal game blindfold—I, who true grandmaster would dare ignore. Again they refuse me. I predict that the Machine will play like a great oaf—at least against me While Sandra arranged for an interview with Jandorf after the day's wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\" \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I That's a minor variety of chess where each player gets only ten seconds to make a move. Which I don't suppose would give the Machine time to look three moves ahead. Chess players would say that the Machine has a very slow sight of the board. This tournament is being played at the usual international rate of 15 moves an hour, and—\" \"Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?\" Sandra interrupted. \"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his moves. When a player makes a move he presses a button that shuts his clock off and turns his opponent's on. If a player uses too much time, The Machine, USA (programmed by Simon Great) Maxim Serek, USSR \"Willie!\" Doc said with some asperity. \"Miss Grayling is a journalist. Sandra pointed out. greatest players here. Otherwise half of them would be holding off in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize money is fabulous—$35,000, with $15,000 for first place, and all expenses paid for all players. There's never been anything like it. who have held that honor—Jal and Vanderhoef the director, way back.\" \"Will whoever wins this tournament become champion?\" \"Oh no. That's decided by two-player matches—a very long business—after elimination tournaments between leading contenders. This tournament is a round robin: each player plays one game with every other player. That means nine rounds.\" Sandra said, consulting her program. \"Four out of ten have USSR after in this tournament! He must have pulled all sorts of strings. Told them that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they had to have a member of the so-called Old Guard. Maybe he even got down \"And Grabo?\" Sandra pressed, suppressing a smile at the intensity of him as its first opponent.\" He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the Scoreboard again. \"This Simon Great who's down as programming the Machine. He's a famous physicist, I suppose?\" \"By no means. That was the trouble with some of the early chess-playing machines—they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world's chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him for the programming job. Let me tell you—No, better yet—\" Doc spoke his piece for Sandra. \"That makes it very tough on you,\" Sandra put in. \"The Machine isn't grandmasters, including all four Russians, were seated at their tables. Press and company cameras were flashing. The four smaller wallboards lit up with the pieces in the opening position—white for White and red style was often described as being machinelike....\" For a moment Doc's eyes became thoughtful. Then he smiled again. \"But no, the idea is impossible. Vanderhoef as Tournament Director has played two or three games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.\" But about your idea, Miss Grayling—did you ever read about Maelzel's famous chess-playing automaton of the 19th Century? That one too was supposed to work by machinery (cogs and gears, not electricity) but actually it had a man hidden inside it—your Edgar Poe exposed the my story I think the chess robot will break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up imagine....\" While Doc chattered happily on about chess-playing robots and chess stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Sandra reporting on?\n\n<options>:\nA A chess tournament where the old master, Krakatower, will be present.\nB A chess-playing machine that is able to beat humans.\nC A chess tournament where many chess masters will be present.\nD A chess tournament where for the very first time a machine will be taught to play.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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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>:\ndiplomat—but on Groac it sure helps! compliments, et cetera, to the Ministry of Culture of the Groacian Groaci wish only friendship with the Terrestrials, but—\" reaching for the safe-lock release.... \"Don't!\" Retief jumped—too late. The door burst inward. A crowd of crested Groaci pressed into the room, \"You can't offend the Groaci,\" Miss Meuhl said sharply. \"Consul Whaffle of armed Groaci in the consulate?\" \"I wrote them for you. They're just as Consul Whaffle would have wanted them.\" \"Did you write all Whaffle's letters for him, Miss Meuhl?\" you do. Don't add violation of the Consulate to the list of Groacian Groaci. I certainly hope you're not thinking of openly intruding—\" \"The Groaci are a very sensitive race. They don't welcome outworlders \"Certainly not on Groac.\" you close the office.\" Miss Meuhl's face was set in lines of grim disapproval as he closed the door. The pale-featured Groacian vibrated his throat-bladder in a distressed bleat. \"The specific instructions of the Archivist.\" The Groacian's voice rose direction of the Terrestrial Consulate General. The few Groacians on the street eyed him furtively, veered to avoid him as he passed. Flimsy high-wheeled ground cars puffed silently along the resilient pavement. The air was clean and cool. At the office, Miss Meuhl would be waiting with another list of complaints. Retief studied the carving over the open doorways along the street. Groacian equivalent of a bar. Retief went in. A Groacian bartender was dispensing clay pots of alcoholic drink from \"To not enjoy my poor offerings,\" the Groacian mumbled. \"A pain in the digestive sacs \"To be grappled in by peace-keepers for poisoning of—foreigners.\" The barkeep looked around for support, found none. The Groaci customers, eyes elsewhere, were drifting away. \"The procuring of a cage,\" a thin voice called from the sidelines. \"The displaying of a freak.\" Retief turned. A tall Groacian vibrated his mandibles in a gesture creature was drunk. \"To choke in your upper sac,\" the bartender hissed, extending his eyes toward the drunk. \"To keep silent, litter-mate of drones.\" door. The other Groaci released him, hurried back inside. Retief looked at the weaving alien. \"To begone, freak,\" the Groacian whispered. \"To be pals,\" Retief said. \"To be kind to dumb animals.\" \"To not endure such insolence!\" The Groacian advanced toward Retief. The Groacian reached for him, missed. A passer-by stepped around him, Groacian. Retief stepped around him, seized his collar and yanked. The Groacian are two gentlemen waiting to see you. Groacian gentlemen.\" you.\" \"I'm sure you don't. Come along. And bring an official recorder.\" Two Groaci wearing heavy eye-shields and elaborate crest ornaments indicative of rank rose as Retief entered the room. Neither offered a courteous snap of the mandibles, Retief noted. They were mad, all right. Consul,\" the taller Groacian said, in lisping Terran. \"May I present \"One hour ago,\" The Groacian said, \"a Groacian national was brought \"Really!\" Miss Meuhl exclaimed, rising. \"I wash my hands—\" \"Just keep that recorder going,\" Retief snapped. \"I'll not be a party—\" hands—\" \"Hogwash,\" Retief said. \"That tune went over with my predecessors, but it hits a sour note with me.\" answers, and stayed on to dig around a little. After a week they left. Somewhat annoying to the Groaci, maybe—at the most. If they were innocent.\" \"IF!\" Miss Meuhl burst out. your—\" \"Save the protests, Fith. You have some explaining to do. And I don't think your story will be good enough.\" diplomatic mission.\" diplomatic circle \"Enough!\" Fith's mandibles quivered in distress. \"I can talk no more of this matter—\" \"You'll talk to me, or there'll be a task force here in five days to do they were exhibited to the gentle Groaci public. Hauled through the communicate with each other. Altogether it was a very amusing exhibit. Fith made a choked noise and spoke rapidly to Shluh in Groacian. Shluh retracted his eyes, shrank down in his chair. Miss Meuhl opened her mouth, closed it and blinked rapidly. narco-interrogation would get that out of any Groacian who saw the brisk time of it hiding the ship, and shutting everybody up. A close call, eh?\" friendship. We invited the opening of diplomatic relations. We made The two Groacians exchanged looks. A Groacian threw a switch. A weak bluish glow sprang up. \"How did you shield it so the detectors didn't pick it up?\" panels, the litter of sheared bolts, scraps of wire and paper. A thin frosting of rust dulled the exposed metal where cutting torches had sliced away heavy shielding. There was a faint odor of stale bedding. Silently, the Groacians led the way back out through the tunnel and she, Fith? I won't settle for a hundred-ton lifeboat.\" Fith erected his eye stalks so violently that one eye-shield fell off. \"I know nothing of ... of....\" He stopped. His throat vibrated rapidly Retief eyed Fith. \"Don't try it,\" he said. \"You'll just get yourself in deeper.\" Fith clacked his mandibles angrily, eye stalks canted aggressively toward the Terrestrial. \"Out of deference to your diplomatic status, Terrestrial, I shall cultural aspects of life at Groac. Especially, I should not venture out the Groacian government.\" In the front seat, Shluh looked straight ahead. The loosely-sprung vehicle bobbed and swayed along the narrow highway. Retief listened to the rhythmic puffing of the motor and said nothing. III going to tell you. I have to move rapidly now, to catch the Groaci off Meuhl snorted. \"I really can hardly blame the Groaci. They are not a sophisticated race \"The Groaci don't know. They're a very cultured, gentle people. You can Groaci. I think I can get past them all right.\" \"What in the world—\" \"The Groaci won't waste any time destroying every piece of paper in indignation. \"You're like a ... a....\" \"You and I are in a tight spot, Miss Meuhl. The logical next move for the Groaci is to dispose of both of us. We're the only ones who know touch with you via hand-phone.\" afternoon's conversation, along with the information I've given you. Beam it through on a mayday priority. Then tell the Groaci what you've done and sit tight. I think you'll be all right. It won't be easy to blast in here and anyway, they won't make things worse by killing you. A force can be here in a week.\" \"I'll do nothing of the sort! The Groaci are very fond of me! You ... Johnny-come-lately! Roughneck! Setting out to destroy—\" \"That's good,\" Retief said. \"I don't think the Groaci can knock us off suited to diplomatic work.\" stepped to the local communicator. \"I'm going to report this terrible thing to the Groaci at once, and A Groacian official appeared on the screen. the Groacian Autonomy, I herewith accredit you as Terrestrial Consul to Groac, in accordance with the advices transmitted to my government\n\n<question>:\nWhat are two examples of Groacian communication mechanisms?\n\n<options>:\nA Mandible snaps and throat-bladder bleats\nB Mandible wiggles and eye clogs\nC Jaw snaps and jugular cracks\nD Jowl clacks and eye beats\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,128 | 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>:\nSince 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). As before, each tester found before him on a table 10 red plastic cups, labeled A through J. Each cup held 3 ounces of one of the beers. The A-to-J labeling scheme was the same for all testers. Instead of saltines for palate-cleansing, this time we had popcorn and nuts. As they began, the tasters were given these and only these clues: 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. Name that beer! The tasters were told that some of the drinks were Hefeweizens, some might be IPAs (India pale ales), some might be bitters, and so on. They were asked to put each beer in its proper category--and to name a specific brewery and brand if they could. The idea here was to test the veteran beer drinkers' claim to recognize the distinctive tastes of famous brands. (To see all the grids for all the beers, click .) 2. Philosophy. The first round of testing was All Lager. This second round was All Fancy, and Mainly Not Lager. As several correspondents (for instance, the of Best American Beers ) have helpfully pointed out, the definition of lager provided last time was not exactly \"accurate.\" If you want to stay within the realm of textbook definitions, a lager is a beer brewed a particular way--slowly, at cool temperatures, with yeast that settles on the bottom of the vat. This is in contrast with an ale, which is brewed faster, warmer, and with the yeast on top. By this same reasoning, lagers don't have to be light-colored, weak-flavored, and watery, as mainstream American lagers are. In principle, lagers can be dark, fierce, manly. Therefore, the correspondents suggest, it was wrong to impugn Sam Adams or Pete's Wicked for deceptive labeling, in presenting their tawnier, more flavorful beers as lagers too. To this the beer scientist must say: Book-learning is fine in its place. But let's be realistic. Actual drinking experience teaches the American beer consumer that a) all cheap beers are lagers 3. Materials. The 10 test beers were chosen with several goals in mind: To cover at least a modest range of fancy beer types--extra special bitter, India pale ale, Hefeweizen, and so on. 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: 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: 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 : 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.\n\n<question>:\nRound 2 did all but what to make things more interesting?\n\n<options>:\nA Included some less high quality beers\nB Asked for people to label type if they could\nC Added a control drink\nD Learned everyone's favorite beers and included those in the samples\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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24 | 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>:\nspring them. I'm kidding! With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in Space, plastered so thick with attachments....\" \"It's no more plastered than you are.\" I was sore because he'd been a I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down! Nothing works, from the ship to the roustabouts. In short, it stinks!\" Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face unless he's tired and wants a long rest in a comfy fracture-frame. I had plenty of time to think how I only weigh one-thirty-seven to Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be. \"Would you be collecting for the feed bill, or the fuel?\" I shot a glance at the newcomer. He'd saved me from a beating, even if he was a lousy bill-collecter with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad. and let his fist start traveling, a long, deceptive arc. It knocked him sideways and down, and the little dark men jumped up, Bucky heaved the table off his lap and cursed me. \"What's eating you, Jig? I'm not going to hurt him.\" \"Shut up,\" I said. \"Look what he's got there. Money!\" The little guy looked at me. He hadn't turned a hair. \"Yes,\" he said. stayed placid and babyish, almost transparent. I realized with a start than you could see through sheet metal. I didn't like him. I didn't like him at all. But he had money. I said, The little guy nodded. \"Excellent idea. My name is Beamish. Simon Beamish. I wish to—ah—charter your circus.\" say anything until we got Beamish into a curtained booth with a fresh \"What exactly did you have in mind, Mr. Beamish?\" Beamish sipped his drink, made a polite face, and put it down. \"I have \"Shut up, you lug. Let Mister Beamish finish.\" He sat down, looking like a mean dog waiting for the postman. Beamish remedy that. I propose to charter your circus, Mister Shannon, to make Bucky had relaxed. His grey-green eyes began to gleam. He started to speak, and I kicked him again. \"That would be expensive, Mister Beamish,\" I said. \"We'd have to cancel several engagements....\" He looked at me. I was lying, and he knew it. But he said, He looked at me like he was thinking it wouldn't take much timber to He pulled the curtains to and departed. Bucky Shannon groaned. Beamish \"She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp Beamish looked impressed. \"A subject. The extreme rarity of the animal....\" We were getting off the subject. I said tactfully, \"We'd have to have at least a hundred U.C.'s.\" It was twice what we had any right to ask. I was prepared to dicker. Beamish looked at me with that innocent dead pan. For a fraction of a stomach jumped like it was shot. Beamish smiled sweetly. \"I'm not much of a bargainer. One hundred Universal Credits will be agreeable to me.\" He dragged out a roll as big as my two fists, peeled We said good night, trying not to drool. Beamish went away. Bucky made \"Scram,\" I said. \"There are guys waiting for this. Big guys with clubs. Here.\" I gave him a small-denomination slip I'd been holding out. \"We can get lushed enough on this.\" \"Beamish is pulling some kind of a game.\" \"Sure. And he may be screwball and on the level. For Pete's sake!\" I Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose. \"They're good guys, Jig. Swell people. They stuck by me, and I've rewarded them.\" I said, \"Sure,\" rather sourly. Bucky hiccoughed. \"Let's go see Gertrude.\" had them nicely conditioned to that gong. all of a sudden.... were pretty successful for a while, it seems, but something gummed up the works and \"This time,\" he said, \"I ain't sure.\" \"Well for Pete's sake, do what you can. We got a charter, and we need He draped himself over my shoulder and we went off. Gow didn't look at us. Bucky sobbed. \"You were right, Jig,\" he mumbled. \"Circus is no good. I know it. But it's all I got. I love it, Jig. Unnerstan' me? Like Gow there with Gertrude. She's ugly and no good, but he loves her. I love....\" \"Sure, sure,\" I told him. \"Stop crying down my neck.\" \"This is it. This is it, and oh God, I'm scared!\" \"You pretty, Mis' Jig,\" he giggled. \"You funny like hell.\" \"Mis' Bucky okay. You save life. You big hero, Mis' Jig. Mis' Gow come \"Beamish is here with his lawyer.\" \"Jig,\" he said, \"those vapor worms were all right when we went in. I hurt all over. I growled, \"With that brain, son, you should go far. Nobody saw anything, of course?\" Bucky shook his head. \"Question is, Jig, who wants to kill us, and why?\" \"Beamish. He realizes he's been gypped.\" \"One hundred U.C.'s,\" said Bucky softly, \"for a few lousy swampedge mining camps. It stinks, Jig. You think we should back out?\" I shrugged. \"You're the boss man. I'm only the guy that beats off the \"Yeah,\" Bucky said reflectively. \"And I hear starvation isn't a comfortable death. Okay, Jig. Let's go sign.\" He put his hand on the latch and looked at my feet. \"And—uh—Jig, I....\" I said, \"Skip it. The next time, just don't trip me up, that's all!\" like a disaster hoping to happen. To make it worse, Zurt the Jovian Nobody would have minded that, only one of 'em had only four legs. It lived just long enough to scare that bunch of superstitious dopes out of their pants. Circus people are funny that way. was ready to do a Brodie out the refuse chute. \"A blue one, Jig. A morgue if I ever saw one!\" I snarled, \"What do you want, with this lousy dog-and-pony show!\" and went out. He followed. The gang was converging on the lock, but they but her blue-green, hard scaled hide, and she was chuckling. It didn't Bucky said, \"Jig—it's Sam Kapper.\" got to go back. Back where I found it. I tried to take it, but they wouldn't let me, and I was afraid they'd find it....\" I reached across Bucky suddenly and jerked the curtain back. Beamish Beamish never changed expression. He didn't move while Bucky felt Beamish with his round dead baby face. I climbed over Shannon and pushed Beamish suddenly down into his lap. Shannon stared at me. Beamish started to get indignant. \"Shut up,\" I\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Jig bluff to Beamish initially?\n\n<options>:\nA He knows he can get away with it - Beamish has the money to match what they ask.\nB He doesn't trust Shannon to close a good deal.\nC He doesn't trust Beamish, and wants to see if he's committed to the idea.\nD For them to start a new tour would be costly for them, and Jig wants to get the maximum price.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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356 | 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>:\nTrouble was—their friendship was as dangerous as their hate! General Finogenov notified Major Winship that the underground blast was ,\" said Major Winship, exhausting his Russian. \"Count down. \"Boom! Boom!\" said Major Winship in exasperation. \"Oh, nuts.\" Major Winship cut out the circuit. \"They've got Pinov on \"Static?\" \"Nope.\" \"We'll get static on these things.\" A small infinity seemed to pass very slowly. Major Winship shifted restlessly. \"My reefer's gone on the fritz.\" Perspiration was trickling down his face. \"Pinov's still there,\" Major Winship said. \"Maybe so,\" Major Winship said. \"But we can't have the dome fall down Major Winship whinnied in disgust. \" Nyet! \" he snarled. To the other Americans: \"Our comrades seem unconcerned.\" \"Tough.\" \"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 Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which Major Winship pressed the sheeting over the leak. \"How's that?\" 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.\" \"Still coming out.\" to slide downward, then it fell away completely and lay limply on the floor. \"Come on in,\" he said dryly. space was more restricted than in a submarine, with the bunks jutting no comment was forthcoming, he continued: \"Perhaps we built a bit more strongly, Major.\" \"You did this deliberately,\" Major Winship said testily. \"No, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Major Winship, please believe me. I very much regret this. Very much so. I am very distressed. Depressed. After repeatedly assuring you there was no danger of a quake—and then to have something like this happen. Oh, this is very embarrassing to me. Is there anything at all we can do?\" \"Larry, General Finogenov said he was very embarrassed by this.\" \"Larry,\" Major Winship said, \"why don't you get Earth?\" Major Winship looked at the microphone. \"Well, I'll just report and—\" \"Marker showed it over here,\" Major Winship said, inching over to the service.\" Major Winship said dryly, \"Never mind. I notice it hardens on contact with air.\" that makes a weird kind of sense, doesn't it?\" \"How do they possibly think—?\" \"Gentlemen! It doesn't make any difference,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"Some air must already have leaked into this one. It's hard as a rock. A \"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 help.\" something else goes wrong.\" any period.\" \"I think these suits are one thing we've got over the Russians,\" Major Winship said. \"I don't see how they can manipulate those bulky pieces of junk around.\" They ate. \"Really horrible stuff.\" \"Nutritious.\" After the meal, Major Winship said reflectively, \"Now I'd like a cup of \"Finogenov had a a wooden desk. A wooden desk. And a chair. A wooden chair. Everything big and heavy. Everything. Weight, hell. Fifty pounds more or less—\" \"They've got the power-plants for it.\" \"Do you think he did that deliberately?\" Major Winship asked. \"I think he's trying to force us off. I think he hoped for the quake. Gagarin's After a moment, Major Winship said bitterly, \"To hell with the Russian engineer.\" \"If you've got all that power....\" \"That's the thing. That's the thing that gripes me, know what I mean? It's just insane to send up a heavy wooden desk. That's showing off. Like a little kid.\" \"Maybe they don't make aluminum desks.\" \"They've—got—aluminum. Half of everything on the whole planet is aluminum. You know they're just showing off.\" \"Let me wire you up,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"We ought to report.\" \"That's going to take awhile.\" \"I guess we ought to.\" Major Winship came down from the bunk and plate to the small transmitter-receiver set on Major Winship's back. At this point, Major Winship observed for the first time that he was Major Winship was squirming nervously, obviously perturbed. Major Winship made a strangling motion and reached for his throat. One arm tangled a cable and jerked the speaker jack loose. Major Winship being inserted. Another tap indicated it was seated. Major Winship \"Wow!\" said Major Winship when he was once more in communication. \"For a moment there, I thought....\" Winship, squinting out into the glaring sunlight. \"Why didn't you just borrow a cupful?\" Major Winship said sarcastically. \"It's this way,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"They didn't have anything but 55-gallon drums of it.\" \"Oh, my,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"I suppose it's a steel drum. Those things must weigh....\" upset by the quake. Probably because his people had misfigured so bad.\" \"He's too damned suspicious,\" Major Winship said. \"You know and I know why they set that blast off. I tried to tell him. Hell. He looks at me like an emasculated owl and wants to know our ulterior motive in trying to prevent a purely scientific experiment, the results of which will be published in the technical press for the good of everybody. I'll bet!\" surprised look, like everybody, everywhere has dozens of little scales.\" goes in, and it's measured just right. We can throw away what we don't need.\" \"Somehow, that sounds like him,\" Major Winship said. It's supposed to be mixed thoroughly.\" They thought over the problem for a while. \"That will be a man-sized job,\" Major Winship said. interposing itself. Lt. Chandler tried to dismantle the table. \"Damn these suits,\" he said. \"You've got it stuck between the bunk post.\" that.\" \"I don't think this is the way to do it,\" Major Winship said. \"Let's back the drum out.\" \"With my reefer out,\" said Major Winship, \"I'm the one it's rough on.\" forgotten how much sweat stings in the eyes.\" \"It's the salt.\" \"Speaking of salt. I wish I had some salt tablets,\" Major Winship said. \"I've never sweat so much since basic.\" \"Want to bet Finogenov hasn't got a bushel of them?\" \"No!\" Major Winship snapped. attachment. \"I feel crowded,\" he said. \"With what?\" asked Major Winship. \"Sandpaper, I guess.\" \"With sandpaper?\" Major Winship said, emptying the bucket of fluid into You don't suppose it's a room-temperature-curing epoxy resin, do you? \" \"Larry,\" said Major Winship, \"I wouldn't know a room-temperature-curing an epoxy! Let's get out of here.\" \"Huh?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the fact that Finogenov had a wooden desk sent up to space a point of contention for Winship?\n\n<options>:\nA He wished he had the same luxury. The Americans have much less room to work with.\nB He's frustrated with the current situation and is finding himself envious of all the things they don't have.\nC It's too much of an effort to do something like that, making it a waste of time and resources.\nD To him, it's a frivolous display of power and nothing more, especially when materials like aluminum are available.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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889 | 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 sound foreign policy ,\" they all said, it being almost too obvious for words. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to begin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking so deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the from the blackness of the living room. \"These are not Optimum Dome Conditions!\" the voice wailed. \"The temperature is not intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity The humidity is not 47%!\" that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an 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, Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. \"I'm not sure what's going to come of this,\" he said to Lanfierre with an astonishing amount of objectivity, \"but the entire dome air supply is now coming through my bedroom.\" The wind screamed. small efforts, rarer. Dome Conditions of the bright avenue. \"I never figured on this in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably trite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refused the house toward the side of the dome. \"It says here,\" Fownes shouted over the roaring, \"that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond the confines of everyday living all close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every there's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as if 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 \"Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway!\" The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with the mountainous puffs of glass as he went. \"Mrs. Deshazaway!\" he shouted. precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then, conversation—and that's why the house shakes.\" emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality—\" dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the house. At least, he called it buffeting he'd never thought to watch draw-pull. Every window slammed shut. \"Tight as a kite,\" he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the The old curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. 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. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romantic 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.... fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning And all the rest have What a strange people, the ancients! \"Men are too perishable,\" Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. \"For all \"As long as there are people,\" he said philosophically, \"there'll be talk.\" \"But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale, they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they \"But my dear Mr. Fownes,\" she said, leaning across the table. \"We're lost, you and I.\" \"Not if we could leave the dome,\" Fownes said quietly. \"That's impossible! How?\" In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownes leaned across the table and whispered: \"Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway? Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly has no control whatever? Where the the dome.\" \"I see.\" \" \" Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then came back to the table, standing directly over Fownes. \"If you can get us outside the dome,\" she said, \"out where a man stays warm long enough number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor primes to government publications and censored old books with holes in them. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meet eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the unintelligibility. The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaid looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. \"Where did the old society fail?\" the leader was demanding of them. He stood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. 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 arranged for him to get out. \"Out?\" the leader said, frowning. \"Out? Out where?\" \"Outside the dome.\" \"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and leave.\" now .\" \"Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country. You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. And dialectically very poor.\" \"Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities of life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else? window and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. \"\n\n<question>:\nThe Movement believes all of the following EXCEPT: Questioning the failings of the old society, failings have put them in the dome; failure of foreign policy (self-containment)\n\n<options>:\nA The 'old society' failed in major ways\nB The 'old society's' failings led to the creation of the Dome\nC The best way to fight those controlling the Dome is collectively, versus individually\nD They cannot escape the dome without a strong foreign policy\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,335 | 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 would happen?\" found out.\" mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here Felicitas K. Wilson \"We could tell by the sun, silly.\" \"Of course,\" he said, grinning at his stupidity. \"And I guess we're not THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth! Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy! The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31. Superior had been. Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark, The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery THE SIOUX SPACEMAN Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave, relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of It said that Superior had seceded from Earth. One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first \" Cold wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen stop at Superior on this run.\" Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had that it was more than adequate. But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing. Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red and even \"You'd go over the edge, I tell you,\" the old gentleman was saying. The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen. Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it. \"You see what I mean,\" he said. \"You would have gone right over. I \"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the \"Was there any sort of explosion?\" Don asked. \"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was \"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of about it?\" \"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle.\" \"What's that?\" Don asked. \"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist. Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town had flown the coop.\" \"What's the population of Superior?\" \"Does Superior have an airport?\" Don asked. \"I've got to get back to—to \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington, \" Cort!\" she said, annoyed. \"You know as well as I do that \" II Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had Superior were up in the air. He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take \"The same,\" she said. \"Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is, them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?\" \"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up here.\" \"You were levitated, like everybody else.\" \"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose.\" \"I didn't know there were any.\" \"Actually there's only one, the Superior Sentry \"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,\" Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line. the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on Don skimmed the rest. \"I don't see anything about it being deliberate.\" to him and said, \"It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't Mayor Claims Secession From Earth today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as his explanation. The \"reasons\" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices. (b) lacks space to publish and which (it being atrociously levitated Superior off the face of the Earth?\" \"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been \"I'll admit to the now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard. \"What The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did. Superior's water supply?\" The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight. Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with \"Don't! You'll fall off!\" a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a isn't going off the edge!\" \"It isn't? Then where is it going?\" \"Why? How?\" out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again. But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of said. The fence, which had a sign on it, warning—electrified , was semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it\n\n<question>:\nWhich theory didn't they rule out for how Superior went missing?\n\n<options>:\nA secret government experiments\nB explosives\nC factory explosion\nD magnetized levitation\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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282 | 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 RADIO PLANET Ralph Milne Farley Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent. “It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” I exclaimed, as my eye fell on the following item: SIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The Harvard College Radio Station has for several weeks been in receipt of fragmentary signals of extraordinarily long wave-length, Professor Hammond announced yesterday. So far as it has been possible to test the direction of the source of these waves, it appears that the direction has a twenty-four hour cycle, thus indicating that the origin of these waves is some point outside the earth. The university authorities will express no opinion as to whether or not these messages come from Mars. Myles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance, was competent to surmount these difficulties, and thus enable the Cambridge savants to receive with clearness the message from another planet. 6 Twelve months ago he would have been available, for he was then quietly visiting at my farm, after five earth-years spent on the planet Venus, where, by the aid of radio, he had led the Cupians to victory over their oppressors, a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven Formia. Their testimony was brief. making an argument through the antennae of another.” to occupy the throne of Cupia. While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had Whereupon the queen and the council went into executive session. Their remarks were not intended for the eyes won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the big October storm which had wrecked his installation. in and held up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming this a part of the executive session, obligingly translated the The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that Cabot die.” Barth: “It is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye, members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling IV with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of those powerful radio sets invented by the beast who is our prisoner here to-day. THE COUP D’ETAT and he has been in constant communication with these ever “Speaking.” on my farm. “Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice continued. opened. which it had received that day. “Well,” he said, “in view of the fact that I am one of the few people among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that Hammond is getting Venus. 19 Can you run up here and help me try and convince him?” As a result of our conference, a small committee of engineers returned with me to Edgartown that evening for the purpose of trying to repair the wrecked radio set which Myles Cabot had left on my farm. They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting apparatus, and so—after the fallen tower had been reerected situation. If it had still been in vogue among the Formians to be known by numbers rather than names, and to have many a Formian would have “got the number” of many aid of some old blue prints of Cabot’s which Mrs. Farley, like Swiss Family Robinson’s wife, produced from somewhere. I was the first to try the earphones, and was rewarded by a faint “bzt-bzt” like the song of a north woods blackfly. In conventional radioese, I repeated the sounds to the Harvard group: “Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dah.” 8 the same message, and again I repeated it. “You’re spoofing us!” one of them shouted. “Give me the earphones.” And he snatched them from my head. Adjusting them on his own head, he spelled out to us, “C-Q C-Q C-Q D-E engineer ticked off into space: “Cabot Cabot Cabot D-E—” “Has this station a call letter?” he hurriedly asked me. “Yes,” I answered quickly, “One-X-X-B.” “One-X-X-B,” he continued the ticking “K.” Interplanetary communication was an established fact at last! And not with Mars after all these years of scientific speculations. But what meant more to me was that I was again in touch with my classmate Myles Standish Cabot, the radio man. The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied by a telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my farm. During the weeks that followed there was recorded to the earth. I have edited those notes into the following coherent story. II TOO MUCH STATIC boiling seas no man knew. 9 During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had shot himself off into space on that October night on which he had received the message from the skies: “S O S, Lilla.” A thunderstorm had been brewing all that evening, and just as Myles had placed himself between the coordinate axes of his machine sat down again, and wrote: “I fully realize the futility of was and how he had got here. Suddenly, however, his ears were jarred by a familiar He fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly, where he for the three other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced alone. By the agitation of the beast’s antennae the earth man could see that it was talking to him. But Myles no 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. So he picked up two sticks from the beach, and held them projecting from his forehead then threw them to the ground with a grimace of disgust and pointed to his ears. Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian following into writing: (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies, the Formians? He her from that peril, whatever it was, which had caused her to flash that “S O S” a hundred million miles across the solar system from Poros to the earth. He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in upon the earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a captive, through the skies. Apparently a few survivors of the accursed race of Formians with the unseen sun. With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was of a Formian. come all you Formians, whose race I thought had been Formia YURI OR FORMIS? No eggs. How can your race continue? For you Formians are regarded the Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they among the Cupians. Furthermore, all Formians, save only the reigning Formis herself, were called by the Porovian of some importance among the Formians.” head of an empire of the Formians, by the Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.” On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by approached you.” At about this point the conversation was interrupted by a worker ant who brought food: roast alta and green aphid During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?” correspondence. 17 “Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?” The ant-man indicated that he could. extant merely the ant-man’s concluding words: “Meanwhile you are my prisoner.” Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant, whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed for the earth-man. These England farmhouse. Then had come the S O S message from the skies and here he was now, millions of miles away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the “Sorry I can’t assist you,” the earth-man wrote. “How This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis.\n\n<question>:\nHow do Formians communicate with each other?\n\n<options>:\nA Via pencil and paper\nB Via radio\nC Via Morse code\nD Via antenna\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,038 | 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 no problem—they battled for the honor—but now I had to fight like a wildcat to keep a display from making a monkey of me! \"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald.\" I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick cough. \"Let me have that again, please?\" \"Of course, that's not the name you were born with.\" The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation, remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of an apologetic smile. \"My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet, four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look at getting bilked myself. \"Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known for my sense of humor. Or my generosity.\" guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on his ear without another word. Instead I played along. \"If you're from such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?\" \"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just \" He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands. The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I immediately to a contract.\" \"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks.\" \"You will grant me a contract!\" \"Will you please sit down?\" He said sulkily, \"I will remain standing.\" trouble. The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his He glared at me in silence. I went on, \"Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw, but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was out in the hall. I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next \"Stebbins?\" I said gently. \"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he came running in—\" \"Please, please,\" squeaked the little alien pitifully. \"I must see you, honored sir!\" The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at full volume. \"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. \"It is she! It is she!\" \"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—\" happy—not to mention footing the transportation. I said, \"I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict I?\" \"Well—\" \"Of course not.\" I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is.\" The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, \"There is no hope then. All is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman.\" He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping. I watched him shuffle out. I do have some conscience, and I had the uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to commit suicide on my account. started to get complicated again. Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII stepped in. \"How did you get in here?\" I demanded. \"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way,\" he said cheerily. what your story is! Get out or—\" \"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second. is . He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?\" I scowled at him. \"Too damn many.\" \"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead. I've been living in the outworlds half my life The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian, came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt. \"Sorry, Chief,\" Stebbins gasped. \"I tried to keep him out, but—\" Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out with a roar. \"Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!\" Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to let him have it at the first sight of actual violence. Heraal boomed, \"You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him. I'm responsible?\" and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a moment and turned to eye the newcomer. I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers going down the drain. \"Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself! He's—\" Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on. man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting himself off. He helped me up. \"Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get you.\" I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh. I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a full-bodied laugh. \"What is?\" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian. \"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and killed\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Lawrence close his eyes and toddle around in a 360-degree rotation?\n\n<options>:\nA That was a sign that he was happy.\nB That was a sign that he was irritated with the recruiter's decision.\nC That was a sign that he was giving an apologetic smile.\nD He was disoriented.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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2,058 | 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>:\ncould not survive on the Earth, because the something else—capacities undeveloped by our science—after us the end Dark was the Ryzga mountain and forbidding among the cliffs and snow-slopes of the surrounding ranges: an immense and repellently geometric cone, black, its sides blood-tinted by the dying sun. Neena shivered, even though the surrounding cold could not reach her. warming cloak, a cloak that glowed softly golden in the deepening twilight, even as her love was about him. there was nothing. Perhaps the old man was resting. From the other She was beautiful and defiant, facing the red sunset and the black For the flame that had sprung between them at the Truce of New Grass, It was black night, as it would really be when Groz and his henchmen strange lights dipped above it cost. They hoarded their strength, helping one another 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 sealed by a sheet of ice, a frozen waterfall that fell motionless from the rocks above. They heard no sound. in the light that poured from within. disappointing. They had expected something more—an ancient giant, a tower of wisdom and strength. The Watcher was four hundred years old beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy. all the walls were sheathed in ice—warm to the touch, bound fast against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from 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 \"A pity, indeed. I would like to help you—but, you understand, I am the The Watcher was broodingly silent \"We know the stories,\" Var said brusquely. \"In the hollow heart of their power in the old man's look, the power of four hundred years' wisdom. its heart for energy, poisoned its seas and its air with the fume of their works, wrung its peoples dry for their labor ... and in each of and evil as no other people has been, because they wanted the stars. \"Because of them we must build with dreams instead of iron, and our only fire is that of the Sun, and even now, two thousand years later, the strange plastic substances, debris of artifacts still showing the marks of their shaping—the scattered wreckage of the things they made. And \"From the memories that the old Watchers have left here, and from the man wove a dream around them, and the bright ice-cave faded from their Black starless night, a sky of rolling smoke above the greatest city that was ever built. Only the angry light of fires relieved the city's darkness—that, and the blue-white lightning flashes that silhouetted the naked skeletons of buildings and were followed by thunder and a shaking of the earth. Along lightless streets, half choked with rubble and with the dead, the Ryzgas' might had been forged, eyes that stared white and half hope of new life on a world gutted and smoldering from the fulfilment of lightning blazed, and the city howled and screamed and burned. lifted in sudden awe. From the center, over the citadel, an immense white globe soared upward, rising swiftly without sound. Then the whole city, the dark tumuli of its buildings and its leaping fires and tormented faces, and the black sky over it, seemed to twist he and she were real and here, such had been the force of the dream, a rule would come again. These raised a black mountain from the Earth's \"I have told you the story you know, and have shown you a glimpse of the in ignorance. Our world is unwise and sometimes evil, full of arrogance, but the Watcher drowned under wave upon wave of unconquerable languor. The bright cave swam and dissolved 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 Where's the Watcher?\" There was a liquid tinkling as the ice-curtain collapsed the fresh breeze of morning swept into the cave. The youth beckoned to them, and It rose black and forbidding in the dawn as it had by sunset. To right the morning sun, but the mountain of the Ryzgas drank in the light and Below their feet the slope fell away into an opaque sea of fog, filling a mile-wide gorge. There was a sound of turbulent water, of a river dashed from rock to rock in its struggle toward the plain, but the curling fog hid everything. will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will these can be borne—that I-you might be saved from death—which is alone irreparable.... But to become dizzied by the rapid flood of detail. Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!\" doorway. It was an opaque yet penetrable well of darkness, opening into from the feeble sunshine that straggled through the fog-bank. With an abrupt motion he hurled it. The sun-globe vanished, as if the darkness had passed through to light up the depths beyond. For within the mountain something snapped suddenly alert—something alive yet not living, seeing yet blind. They felt light-sensitive cells tingle in too far to discern the rage that must contort his features, but the Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows. for the two on the mountainside the world turned upside down, the Together they plunged into the curtain of darkness. potential that seemed to whisper The sun-globe floated behind them, casting light before them down the Between wall and wall a blinding spindle of flame sprang into being, pulsed briefly with radiant energy that pained the eyes, and went out. The immaterial globe of light danced on before them. energies were stirring for the first time in centuries. The power that outside should crumble to ruin around them. increased with every step, its vibrations became sound, and its sound Without warning, lights went on. Blinking in their glare, Var and Neena room that was likewise ablaze with light. Cautiously they crept forward Its roof was vaulted its circular walls were lined with panels studded light flicked on and off in changing patterns, registering the shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum.... this place whose remotest like they had never seen in the simplicity of He was a man of middle height and stocky build, clad in a garment of changing colors, of fabric delicate as dream-stuff. In his right hand, conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and open. They had a terse, disconnected quality that was strange and unsettling, and in part they were couched in alien and unintelligible interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new, \"Culture: late barbarism. Handwork of high quality—good. Physically progression of logical thought, came a wave of raw emotion, devastating in its force. It was a lustful image of a world once more obedient, yet it was lined by a deeply one spot upon it. seven feet tall, flapping black amorphous limbs and flashing red eyes There was an instantaneous glare like heat lightning, and the monster crumpled in on itself, twitched briefly and vanished. But in that moment a light of inspiration had flashed upon Var, and it monster into the Ryzga's way—a mere child's bogey out of a fairy tale—the Ryzga had not recognized it as such, but had taken it for a will be no new beginning for you in civilization could never rise again, because it was a fire that consumed its fuel. After us man\n\n<question>:\nWhat is special about light in this story?\n\n<options>:\nA It is traded like a commodity\nB It is the only way the adventurers nowhere to go\nC It can be manipulated by the people\nD It is liquid-like in its composition\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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2,359 | 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>:\nmen on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It's challenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughts In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearing his diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated age only as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmen and Scenedesmus The groundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount. Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which a the of the incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowed bite he ate to a superior grade of Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the The aboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship's Surgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann, the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook was see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of essential amino acids. breed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury of Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knife guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder. Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann Pullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major social The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook. 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 of synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized by Chlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oregano slabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat. For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste of the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not. you are feeding me.\" Captain Winkelmann blotted his chin \"Not much,\" I said. \"I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can to live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship.\" \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I the good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat.\" steak.\" imploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The big \"You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain,\" I said. I \"Yes, I eat it,\" the Captain said, taking and talking through another the ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me, \"You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban with the \"Yes, sir,\" Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the British followed him. \"Captain,\" I said, \"you're driving Bailey too hard. to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\" \"Crew morale on the ship....\" I began. \"That will be all, Doctor Vilanova,\" Captain Winkelmann repeated. the appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemned by that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain at 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 into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in brilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an a grainy and delicious \"cornbread,\" and had extracted from his algae a lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot \"bread\" with a \"We are not amused,\" said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding of Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside, Captain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advice Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effects besides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. As his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of 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 spices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice, and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cards 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, texture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir?\" meat.\" 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.\" \"Try it,\" he urged the Captain. Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. The kind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of a the cap. \"Ketchup,\" he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey's masterpiece. \"The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.\" \"... Sir,\" Bailey added. \"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 \"Watch your noun,\" Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. \"Your adjectives are insubordinate your noun might prove mutinous.\" \"Captain, you've gone too far,\" I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was \"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. and the men have been more than satisfied with his work.\" he expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquet restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman.\" an apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power of though daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of the now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. \"Then he's beat the Captain at his game,\" I said. \"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks,\" the crewman this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph Captain may be a hard man, Bailey performance out of his Ship's Cook.\" Bailey stood up. \"Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?\" he asked. of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked,\n\n<question>:\nThe Captain is characterized in all of the following ways EXCEPT:\n\n<options>:\nA melodramatic\nB sardonic\nC exasperating\nD acrimonious\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,700 | 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>:\ntroops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his the lion-hearted Richard of England— with a steady, measured pace, his coronet of gold on his steel helm gleaming in the glaring desert sun, the lions of England on his firm-held shield, was the King himself. Further behind, the Knights Hospitallers protected the rear, guarding and the accursed Saracens still elude us.\" Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight 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 rear, and they set up traps in our path ahead. Our spies tell us that 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 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.\" foolhardy to attempt to seek them in their own hills, and yet they must stop us. They will attack before we reach Jerusalem, fear not.\" \"We of Gascony fear no heathen Musselman,\" Sir Gaeton growled. \"It's Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. \"Perhaps \"In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor heat. Nor is your own blood too cool. True, I ride with your Normans and your English and your King Richard of the Lion's Heart, but I am a Gascon, and have sworn no fealty to him. But to side with the Duke of Burgundy against King Richard—\" He gave a short, barking laugh. \"I fear no man,\" he went on, \"but if I had to fear one, it would be Richard of England.\" 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 of France, as do we all. Philip has deserted the field. He has returned to France in haste, leaving the rest of us to fight the Saracen for the Holy Land leaving only the contingent of his vassal the Duke of Burgundy to remain with us.\" \"No, and with good cause. But he allowed his anger against Philip to color his judgment when he spoke harshly against the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke is no coward, and Richard Plantagenet well knows it. As I said, he spoke in haste.\" \"And you intervened,\" 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 of France has cost us dearly. Could we permit the desertion of Burgundy, too?\" \"You did what must be done in honor,\" the Gascon conceded, \"but you have not gained the love of Richard by doing so.\" Sir Robert felt his jaw set firmly. \"My king knows I am loyal.\" 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. The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears. 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. in the flank we cannot afford to amass a rearward charge. To do so would be to fall directly into the hands of the Saracen.\" A voice very close to Sir Robert said: \"Richard is right. If we go to the aid of the Hospitallers, we will expose the column to a flank 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 \"Against the orders of the King?\" \"Forward then!\" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. \"Forward for St. Sir Robert felt the shock against himself and his horse as the steel tip of the long ash lance struck the Saracen horseman in the chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Sir Gaeton, too, had scored. The Saracen, impaled on Sir Robert's lance, shot from the saddle as he died. His lighter armor had hardly impeded the incoming spear-point, and now his body dragged it down as he dropped toward the desert sand. saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance. 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. 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 There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped \"No, but you can always light another later,\" said the Gascon knight. King Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed rear, had realized the danger and had charged through the Hospitallers Saladin had expected him to hold fast! Sir Robert and Sir Gaeton spurred their chargers toward the flapping banner of England. The fierce warrior-king of England, his mighty sword in hand, was Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his hacked down the Moslem foes. And then, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the Saracens! He was isolated and alone, cut off from the rest of the Christian forces! He glanced quickly around as he slashed another Saracen from pate to 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 would, within seconds, be cut down by the Saracen horde! Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded monarch, his great blade cutting a path before him. He saw Richard go down, falling from the saddle of his charger, but by that time his own sword was cutting into the screaming Saracens and they had no time to attempt any further mischief to the King. They had their hands full with Sir Robert de Bouain. 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, but presently he heard the familiar cry of \"For St. George and for England\" behind him. The Norman and English troops were charging in, The Turks began to fall back. Within seconds, the Christian knights were boiling around the embattled pair, forcing the Turks into retreat. And for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight. Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king. And then the king mounted his horse and was running full gallop after the retreating Saracens. Robert took off his helmet.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would have happend if Sir Robert had not disobeyed orders?\n\n<options>:\nA The king would not have been pinned down so quickly\nB He would not have had time for a smoke break\nC A group of soldiers would have been left exposed\nD He would've been captured by the enemy\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,260 | 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 his foreword to the book, Lessig writes that you understand your subjects “by learning to see them in a certain way.” What is that certain way? expressions, or what I think that person is about. I’m trying to capture what I think they look like, which is many times a minority of their typical expressions, or their typical stance. So, if I’m taking pictures of Larry [Lessig], I want to have his signature hand gestures, and not just random ones. I think I’m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see what they’re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so they’ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more egotistical than he really is. Some photographers are almost medical, and are going after a perfect portrait. I’m somewhere in between. It’s amazing how many people will upload snapshots of people where the pictures don’t look like them at all. To me, uploading a picture that is not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point, which I’m working toward, to try to express who they are. On the other hand, professional photographers usually have a subject whom they don’t know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free make this hard. A lot of people are uncomfortable in front of a camera, or might make expressions that aren’t very natural for them. And if the person is nervous, it’s very difficult to try to see what it is that you’re trying to capture. A lot of what I’m doing is, I just start shooting photos. After half an hour of having their picture taken, people start to ignore you. Or I’ll take pictures when I’m talking to people about what they’re doing, so after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about the camera. That’s something that I’m not perfect at, but I’m getting better. I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through conversation, but still, it’s difficult to have a disarming conversation with somebody you don’t know, or to make them laugh. Many times people make a face for me that they wouldn’t make for a professional photographer. For instance, a board meeting picture, like the one with Eric Saltzman: that was during a very tense discussion. I’ve found that people are at their most animated at these kinds of meetings, and look the most alive when they are under a lot of pressure, and super- focused. But usually if an outsider is in the room, they won’t get into that. I mean, it would be difficult for a cameraman to be in a room where a board is having a heated debate. But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people don’t get to see that. At the Creative Commons board meeting, Larry asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was distracting. We were having a very heated discussion and I was taking all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those pictures turned out the best. In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, of these people don’t have any free photos of themselves on the web, so while they are “notable” on Wikipedia, their images aren’t free of the copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article can’t make an image available to the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community. This means that a lot of people who have a Net presence have a legally encumbered Net presence. People who are invited to conferences get asked all the time, “By the way, do you have a photo that we can use?” But they don’t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the benefits. way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the way it’s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no picture is sad. Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, of what they’re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business you still have the core people who still remember and hold the torch for the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. Now, when you go to many Internet conferences, it’s mostly salesmen in attendance. participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is photography I hate to say it, a lot of people love the darkroom, but it really feels like the death of the darkroom with this year. anymore. If you’re a commercial photographer or a high-end amateur, you At the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were darkroom was not all that exciting, but the digital wasn’t perfect. I completely away from film, and I think this happened to a lot of photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the quality of content on sites like Flickr. It has Interestingly, I think these new high-end amateurs are buying more photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like best. Dopplr is a great example. When would bet that more than half of the photos in this book are pictures of really increasing your ability to spend quality time with, actually, a smaller number of people. It allows you to actively filter. Your What’s great about photography is that it captures the moment that I was well, but to me photography is a really good way of doing that. When I look at the expressions, I remember the moment and get a sense of increases your travel, it doesn’t decrease it. It is great because you get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad for our jet lag. or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement is essential. My job is to keep that focus and maintain that balance. Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I’m a huge fan of Larry’s and I have great respect for the leaders of our movement. But more than anything, I’m thankful for and respectful of all of the Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one\n\n<question>:\nHow does the photographer feel about Larry Lessing?\n\n<options>:\nA Larry is a great guy. They are a huge fan.\nB Larry is a disarming guy.\nC Larry is a frustrating guy.\nD Larry is a nervous guy.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
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