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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 SUPER OPENER you get a can opener! savagely. \"The Piltdon Can-Opener is trailing the competition. Advertising and Sales are breaking their necks. It's Engineering that's missing the boat!\" \"But Mr. Piltdon,\" remonstrated Feetch unsteadily under his employer's glare, \"don't you remember? I tried to....\" \"For two years there hasn't been one lousy improvement in the Piltdon Can-Opener!\" roared Mr. Piltdon. \"Look at our competitors. The \"But Mr. Piltdon—\" \"The Minerva Mighty Midget does it in four point two two and plays Home for?\" Feetch adjusted his spectacles with shaking hands. \"But Mr. Piltdon, managed somehow to design a few good things during his twenty-five years with Piltdon. That was some satisfaction. What now? He had to hang on to his job. Technical work was scarce. can-opener lines. Departures, such as the thermal or motor-driven 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 have no complaints. Although,\" a wistful note crept into his voice \"I would have liked a little recognition. Piltdon is a household word, but who has heard of Feetch? Well,\"—Feetch blew his nose—\"how do we stand, Hanson?\" \"There must be some explanation. I designed this opener with sixteen Several days later, however, Piltdon himself charged into the drawing room and slapped Feetch heartily on the back, causing him to break a pencil point. \"Feetch!\" roared Piltdon. \"Is this talk that's going he exulted, \"will make can-opener history. Instantaneous opening! Automatic disposal! Wait until Advertising and Sales get hold of this! We'll throttle our competitors! The Piltdon Super-Opener we'll call it.\" \"Mr. Piltdon—\" said Feetch shakily. 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 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 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 fame of the opener so that advertising was unnecessary. analyzed Super-Openers without achieving the glimmer of a satisfactory explanation. Competitors found the patent impossible to circumvent, for any departure from its exact specifications nullified the effect. Piltdon, genial these days with success and acclaim, roared at Feetch: \"I'm putting you in for a raise. Yes sir! To reward you for assisting me with my invention I'm raising your pay two hundred dollars a year. That's almost four dollars a week, man.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Piltdon.\" And still, thought Feetch wryly, he received no recognition. His name did not even appear on the patent. Well, well, that was the way it went. He must find his satisfaction in his work. And it had been interesting lately, the work he had been doing nights at home investigating what had been named the Piltdon Effect. It had been difficult, working alone and buying his own equipment. The oscillator and ultra microwave tracking unit had been particularly think I know where those cans are going. I recommend—\" \"Are you still worrying about that?\" Piltdon roared jovially. \"Leave that to the long-hairs. We're making money, that's all that counts, eh Feetch?\" the Piltdon Super-Opener. Statisticians and mathematicians calculated the mean rate of can Super-Opener sales of course immediately plummeted to zero and stayed there. Anti-Piltdon editorials appeared in the papers. Commentators accused Piltdon of deliberately hoaxing the public for his own gain. A Congressional investigation was demanded. Piltdon received threats of bodily injury. Lawsuits were filed against him. He barricaded himself the Super-Opener. Now, get out!\" \"You're positive, Feetch?\" Piltdon's eyes glared into Feetch's. \"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. production, at once, Feetch.\" Feetch felt himself sag inwardly. \"Mr. Piltdon,\" he said. \"I'm asking only one favor. Let me work full time on research and development, especially on the Piltdon effect. Hire a couple of extra men to help with production. I assure you the company will benefit in the end.\" \"Damn it, no!\" roared Piltdon. \"How many times must I tell you? You got your job back, didn't you?\" \"But see here, the New Type Super-Opener...!\" Piltdon, Feetch thought, feeling a strange sensation deep within his chest that he had not the experience to recognize as the beginning of a slow anger, Piltdon was hitting low and getting away with it. Of course, if he were to agree to reveal his latest discoveries to a to Piltdon under the one year clause in the company patent agreement. No, Feetch told himself, he was revealing nothing that Piltdon might grab. The anger began to mount. The phone rang. Feetch seized it and said to the image: \"Absolutely not.\" \"I'll go up another ten dollars,\" grated the little Piltdon image. 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—\" change all that, Feetch? We'll put out the New Type Super-Opener and Think of that, Feetch.\" Feetch blinked. This had not occurred to him. Piltdon eyed him sharply, then smiled with a hint of triumph. \"Think it over, Feetch.\" Feetch sat, thinking it over. Was it right to let all these people lose figured the Super-Opener can solve this.\" himself to see it. Not lack of brains, lack of guts. Well, he thought grimly, dialing Piltdon's number, he was going through with it now. \"Piltdon!\" he barked. \"Three p.m. tomorrow. My place. Be here. That's all.\" He hung up. In the same grim mood the following morning, he placed a few more calls. one condition is met by Mr. Piltdon.\" He stared at Piltdon. \"In short, I want fifty-one per cent of the stock of Piltdon Opener.\" Piltdon leaped from his chair. \"Outrageous!\" He roared. \"Ridiculous!\" \"Fifty-one percent,\" said Feetch firmly. \"Don't bother with any Piltdon threw the paper to the floor and screamed: \"Gentlemen, will you be a party to this?\" proportions of the original Super-Opener combined with the capacitor Type Super-Opener is designed to pass cans through the Beta screen. Multi-Dimensional Development Division of the Piltdon Opener Company. \"Piltdon, don't bother me about production. Production is your problem.\" \"But Mr. Feetch—\" \"Get out,\" said Feetch. Piltdon blanched and left.\n\n<question>:\nWhat didn't happen because of the original Super-Opener?\n\n<options>:\nA Feetch became famous\nB Feetch got a raise\nC People had to begin wearing hats and helmets\nD Piltdon made a lot of money\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>:\nshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which because I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San Francisco it amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me out the window. \"Where are we?\" she asked in a surprised voice. I told her 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 alarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. 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. \"Sir.\" My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle, the cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. to close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, the \"You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head back and forth.\" \"Must have been dreaming,\" I said as I rang for the stewardess. When just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammy with sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead to the landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel would I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybe 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. \"Were you really asleep that time?\" \"Not really,\" I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject to had my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other. 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 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 \"Take it inside. Why?\" over. \"Cab?\" 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 I should be with a man named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussing 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 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. inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\" \"Do you have my suitcase?\" 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.\" telephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, \"Why?\" or anything else right now if it had. \"I've got to talk to you. It's very important.\" The girl said, \"Why?\" I was beginning to think it was the only word she knew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to kill someone so lovely. \"I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make a telephone call.\" I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, \"And don't ask me why.\" She gave me a speculative look. 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, range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. \"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?\" she said stiffly. \"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain.\" 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 she was reliving some recent scene. \"Who is Joe?\" must have put the—put it in there.\" I said gently, \"Why would he want to do a thing like that?\" I nodded. \"As long as we don't move it.\" I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd been thinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell the 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. She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab.\" She smiled a little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was all Julia's bag in his right hand, mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. \"Hey!\" I shouted, starting toward him. 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. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, \"We'd better get 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 does the narrator make a phone call before explaining the bomb to Julia?\n\n<options>:\nA The narrator needs to call airport security so that they can evacuate the area before he explains the situation to Julia.\nB The narrator needs to call the FBI and report the bomb before he explains the situation to Julia.\nC The narrator fakes making a phone call so that he can focus on stopping the bomb again.\nD The narrator needs to alert the bomb squad before he explains the situation to Julia.\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>:\nGrannie Annie, who wrote science fiction under the nom de plume of Annabella C. Flowers, 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. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that voyage. The rule that no females could pass its portals was strictly ? What happened to the book you were hat, as modern as an atomic motor. She had probably written more drivel in the name of science fiction than anyone alive. But the public loved it. They ate up her stories, and they clamored for more. Her annual income totaled into six figures, and her publishers sat back and massaged their digits, watching their earnings mount. One thing you had to admit about her books. They may have been dime expeditions on Callisto, she went to Callisto. She was the most completely delightful crackpot I had ever known. \"What happened to \"It wasn't Guns , it was and it wasn't Ganymede , it was Pluto .\" I grinned. \"All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair.\" your hero fall in love with a bug-eyed monster.\" NINE GENIUSES THE QUESTION PROGRAM OF THE SYSTEM \"That damned fossilized dynamo,\" I muttered. \"She'll be the death of me audience. When it had voice echoed through the theater: \" And so it went. Questions from Mars, from Earth, from Saturn flowed in bantering side play, the experts gave their answers. When they failed, or when the Truthicator flashed a red light, he announced the name of the winner. brought me here. And then I began to notice things. seemed to have lost much of its original fervor. They applauded as before but they did so only at the signal of Doctor Universe. The spell created by the man was complete. Pompous and erect, he strode back and forth across the stage like a general surveying his army. His black eyes gleamed, and his thin lips A yellow-faced Kagor from the upper Martian desert country shuffled by, dragging his cumbersome third leg behind him. Kagors, of course, had an the Red Planet. But the thing that happened there was a throw back to Someone shouted, \"Yah, yellow-face! Down with all Kagors!\" As one rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to shout derisive epithets. was all but deserted. \"The I.P. men aren't strong enough.\" The old woman paused. \"Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?\" she \"It's not a new kind of anything. The Green Flame is a radio-active to radium in that they consist of streams of material particles projected at high speed. But the character of the Gamma never been completely analyzed. Like those set up by radium, they are electromagnetic pulsations, but they are also a strange combination of Beta or cathode rays with negatively charged electrons. Gamma rays from the Green Flame rock, they produce in the creature's brain a certain lassitude and lack of energy. As the period of exposure increases, this condition develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or guidance. Occasionally, as with the weak-willed, there is a spirit of intolerance. The Green Flames might be said to be an inorganic opiate, a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug.\" I was sitting up now, hanging on to the woman's every word. \"Now in 2710, as you'd know if you studied your history, the three planets of Earth, Venus, and Mars were under governmental bondage. The cruel dictatorship of Vennox I was short-lived, but it lasted long enough to endanger all civilized life. \"The archives tell us that one of the first acts of the overthrowing government was to cast out all Green Flames, two of which Vennox had ordered must be kept in each household. The effect on the people was immediate. Representative government, individual enterprise, freedom Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. an old space ship. The hold of that space ship was packed with Green Flames!\" I said, \"So what?\" if it were true? Green Flames were supposedly destroyed on all planets after the Vennox regime crashed. If a quantity of the rock were in existence, and it fell into the wrong hands, there'd be trouble. \"Of course, I regarded Karn's story as a wild dream, but it made corking good story material. I wrote it into a novel, and a week after it was completed, the manuscript was stolen from my study back on Earth.\" and laughed heartily. \"The same old Flowers,\" I said. \"Tell me, who's \"And you can lay it all to the Green Flames. It seems incredible that a single shipload of the ore could effect such a wide ranged area, but in my opinion someone has found a means of making that quantity a thousand times more potent and is transmiting it en masse .\" A heat ray! , 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 see, I'm positive the Green Flames have never been removed from the that broadcast would have meant little, a slight rebellion here, an 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. 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. I stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me. \"In heaven's name, what was it?\" \"Hunter-bird,\" Grannie said calmly. \"A form of avian life found here trained to pursue a quarry until it kills. It has a single unit brain and follows with a relentless purpose.\" \"That it was sent by our enemy, the same enemy that shot at us in the the swamp had undergone a chemical change and evolved into a cohesive hand into one of those yellow streaks, he would have been devoured in a matter of seconds. type of visi set in one corner showed that Karn was not isolated from object of our trip, the prospector became thoughtful. \"Green Flames, eh?\" he repeated slowly. \"Well yes, I suppose I could cigarette. \"You know where it is, don't you?\" \"Dangerous?\" \"Yes and no. Only man I ever heard of who escaped their country outside of myself was the explorer, Darthier, three years ago. I got away because I was alone, and they didn't notice me, and Darthier escaped because he made 'em laugh.\" that all of us had been exposed to the insidious radiations. 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. There it lay, a huge cigar-shaped vessel of blackened \"What's that thing on top?\" Karn demanded, puzzled. \"Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble here,\" Ezra Karn observed. Grannie nodded. \"Some kind of a broadcasting unit. The Green Flames in tholpane plate and their radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process.\" Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the Green Flames are more accessible.\" vessel's hull were tiers of rectangular ingots of green iridescent ore.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the Green Flame so sought after?\n\n<options>:\nA It was capable of shooting rays that would destroy every existance.\nB It was used in warfare and needed to be protected\nC It was too dangerous to be left unattended\nD It was more powerful than any known drug\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>:\nCOMPLEXITY AND HUMANITY We have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day and night coming up with the most ingenious, improvised solutions to everything from food and shelter to communications and security. Working disaster zones. It is, however, complex and rapidly changing and careless borrowers in the United States can upend economic others have planned, means that there are many more moving parts that affect each other. And from this scale of practical effects, complexity but the systematic application of knowledge to the creation of new knowledge, innovation to innovation, and information to making more information has become pervasive These two features−the global scale of interdependence of human action, and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a unpredictability makes it unwise to build systems that take too much discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from the radical divergence of Toyota’s production system from the highly structured model put in place by Henry Ford, to the Internet’s radical departure from the AT& T system that preceded it, and on to the way Wikipedia constructs human knowledge on the fly, incrementally, in ways that would have been seen, until recently, as too chaotic ever to work (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that systems work best by making work human. Modern Times Modern times were hard enough. Trains and planes, telegraph and telephone, all brought many people into the same causal space. The solution to this increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design. During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with control. In business, this rationalization was typified by Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management, later embodied in Henry Ford’s assembly line. The ambition of these approaches was to specify everything that needed doing in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of change by removing thinking to the system, and thus neutralizing the time, and what it did to humanity, more vividly than Charlie Chaplin’s assembly line worker in Modern Times. At the same time, government experienced the rise of bureaucratization and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously successful state bureaucracies that responded to the Great Depression with the New Deal. It took shape in the Marshall Plan to pull Europe out of the material abyss into which it had been plunged by World War II, systems too, we saw in mid-century marvels like the AT& system and the IBM mainframe. For a moment in history, these large scale managed systems were achieving efficiencies that seemed to overwhelm competing models: from the Tennessee Valley Authority to Sputnik, from perspective is already to presage the demise of the belief in their inevitable victory. The increasing recognition of the limits of command-and-control systems led to a new approach but it turned out to be a retrenchment, not an abandonment, of the goal of perfect rationalization of systems design, which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved through a hyper-simplification of human nature, wedded to mathematical modeling of what hyper-simplified selfish rational actors, looking only to their own interests, would do under diverse conditions. This approach was widespread and influential it still is. And yet it led to such lust and desire, recklessness and helplessness, or how to slow down the transmission of AIDS. Only by concocting such a thin model of humanity−no more than the economists’ utility curve−and neglecting any complexities of social interactions that could not be conveyed through prices, could the appearance of rationalization be maintained. Like bureaucratic rationalization, perfect-market rationalization also had successes. But, like its predecessor, its limits as an approach to human systems design are becoming cleare seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away to coordinating human action will disappear. But these managed systems are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic make the most innovative region in the United States a Ludic paradise, gratifying employees at the expense of productivity, but rather to engage the human and social in the pursuit of what is, in the long term, the only core business competency−innovation. Wikipedia has eclipsed all IPO and hiring the smartest guys in the room, but by building an open and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their The set of human systems necessary for action in this complex, unpredictable set of conditions, combining rationalization with human the regularities and dependencies among objects and processes are less occur through multiple systems simultaneously, have room to fail, or shift from one system to another to achieve a solution. of scientific management was to offer a single, integrated system where could be isolated and controlled. Fordism took that ambition and embedded the managerial knowledge in the technological platform of the reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks, loosely coupled networks of innovation and supply represented by But let us also consider the system in question that has made this work possible, the Internet, and compare it to the design principles of the T network in its heyday. Unlike the Internet, AT& T’s network was phones at the endpoints, arguing that it needed to prohibit customers excluded competitors). This generated profit, but any substantial technical innovations required the approval of management and a re-engineering of the entire network. The Internet, on the other hand, was designed to be as general as possible. The network hardware merely hard processing work−manipulating a humanly-meaningful communication (a computers owned by users. This system allowed the breathtaking rate of innovation that we have seen, while also creating certain These vulnerabilities have led some to argue that a new system to manage the Internet is needed. We see first of all that doubts about trust and security on the Internet arise precisely because the network was originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other, and offloaded security from the network to the edges. As the network agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere) declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building security into the technical system, both at its core, in the network company, or the employer. This is thought to be the most completely effective means of preventing copyright infringement or system failure, and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach of the Internet. Instead of locating authority and capacity to act at malevolent, incompetent, or both. Taylorism, the Bell system and trusted computing are all efforts to remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed, tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure, communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight, To deal with the new complexity of contemporary life we need to taught us anything, it is that what makes for human insight is extremely difficult to replicate or systematize. At the center of these new scope of action for human frailty. Although this idea is most alien to the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the solution for increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th century?\n\n<options>:\nA Assembly lines\nB The increased role of structure and improved design\nC Complex managed systems\nD Child labor laws\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>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always maintained, was a cosmic one—till I learned the the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree tearing down the animal rooms and lab building. The caretakers had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my ranch and the fun would be on. \"Well, Dad-dee, I can't!\" \"I've finished my work and we no longer need the buildings. I'm going to write a paper about my results.\" \"You can't turn this old key tightly enough.\" on here?\" My son asked, \"What happened to the animals?\" \"Turned them over to the university for further study,\" I lied. \"Well,\" he said to her, \"you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision.\" Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation on the ranch. Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day given me the idea of a flying mutant. When Nijinsky saw me looking at him, he started a little tarantella \"Mother says you are eccentric. Is that true?\" \"Don't you know ?\" learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. Modulating alleles had smoothed the freakish into a beautiful pattern. She peeked too, as she had for fifteen years, but I blocked her view when I slipped out. \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\" \"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out.\" \"From me, of course.\" boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture. I thought, \"By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!\" . Why?\" \"Because, dear, I said so.\" The boy had already raced across the terrace and jack-knifed into the pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit. \"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young man sooner than already.\" \"Well, if you feel that way about it, they'll both have to start \"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever since you came out of the lab.\" \"I told you—\" \"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age.\" The best part was that no one had seen me do it. They just couldn't understand how so many snakes got there. I learned how great it can be to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that you have prepared for them.\" eccentric ?\" I grinned. \"Forgive me if I eat and run, dear. Something in the lab can't wait.\" The fact was that I had something more in the lab than I had bargained for. I had aimed only at a gliding mammal a little more efficient than They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of growth in the metabolic accelerator. When I returned to the lab, they were already moving about on the mattress and the male was trying to his arms out and tried to tease the spars open. They were not new. The spars had been common to the basic colony for years and were the result them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and decidedly amorous. She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. \"Wouldn't you When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He would conclude, \"I am convinced that they have a language and speak it intelligently.\" The government would issue denials. Reporters would \"expose the truth\" and ask, \"Where have these aliens come from?\" The government would reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends. Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I think, are the funniest. \"What broadcast?\" \"For heaven's sake, darling,\" my wife complained, \"I told you about broadcasts.\" As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. \"He's out of himself explaining that when he pressed the button before him, the hatch on the third stage of the great rocket in the background would \"Darling, will you please—be— quiet ?\" \"Yeah, Dad. Can it, will you? You're always gagging around.\" My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out of the lab. their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes. Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little whoop. After that, it was a carnival. They learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers they were Chronicle motored out into the hills to witness this! Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so solemn and thoughtful that I reached out and stroked the fur on his thousand years and was bringing antique wisdom to bear. \"I can get up there. I can stay for a while. How long will they be in the tree?\" \"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case they leave while you are climbing.\" him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he strutted in like every human hunter. They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal. When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire. I said again, \"Promise me you won't leave here until we've made you \"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?\" \"I can't remember any old ones. You tell me.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't the narrator want to tell anyone about his experiments?\n\n<options>:\nA He wants to wait until he can publish a paper about his results\nB He wants to sit back and watch what happens when they're released on the world\nC It is illegal to breed mutant animals, and doesn't want to get caught\nD He doesn't want people to know about his work until he has perfected the new species\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWe have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day coming up with the most ingenious, improvised solutions to everything from food and shelter to communications and security. Working and careless borrowers in the United States can upend economic expectations everywhere else in the world, no matter how carefully application of knowledge to the creation of new knowledge, innovation to innovation, and information to making more information has become different than this. The Web, after all, is less than a generation old. These two features−the global scale of interdependence of human action, and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a away from what human beings do best: look, think, innovate, adapt, discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from departure from the AT& T system that preceded it, and on to the way Wikipedia constructs human knowledge on the fly, incrementally, in ways (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that systems work best by making work human. Modern Times century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design. During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with crisp specification of roles, lines of authority, communication and In business, this rationalization was typified by Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management, later embodied in Henry Ford’s assembly line. The in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and later to build it into the very technology of work−the assembly line. The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously successful state bureaucracies that responded to the Great Depression with the New Deal. It took shape in the Marshall Plan to pull Europe out and shepherded Japan’s industrial regeneration from it. In technical Watson’s IBM to General Motors. Yet, to list these paragons from today’s which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved through a hyper-simplification of human nature, wedded to mathematical modeling of what hyper-simplified selfish rational actors, looking only to their own interests, would do under diverse conditions. This approach was widespread and influential it still is. And yet it led to such unforgettable gems as trying to understand why people do, or do not, use successes. But, like its predecessor, its limits as an approach to human systems design are becoming cleare Work, Trust and Play Pricing perfectly requires perfect information. And perfect information, of constant, rapid change and complex global interactions. What we are seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away from either control or perfect pricing. Not that there isn’t control. to coordinating human action will disappear. But these managed systems are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic motivations and social relations. Dress codes and a culture of play in the workplace in Silicon Valley, like the one day per week that Google employees can use to play at whatever ideas they like, do not exist to make the most innovative region in the United States a Ludic paradise, gratifying employees at the expense of productivity, but rather to engage the human and social in the pursuit of what is, in the long term, the only core business competency−innovation. Wikipedia has eclipsed all IPO and hiring the smartest guys in the room, but by building an open and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their passion for knowledge, and each other’s company. The set of human systems necessary for action in this complex, unpredictable set of conditions, combining rationalization with human agency, learning and adaptation, is as different from managed systems and perfect markets as the new Toyota is from the old General Motors, or as the Internet now is from AT& environment, identifying opportunities and challenges to action and acting upon them, are located (b) an emphasis on the human: on trust, cooperation, judgment and insight (c) communication over the lifetime strictly associated with each other where actions and interactions can occur through multiple systems simultaneously, have room to fail, maneuver, and be reoriented to fit changing conditions and new learning, all human and material elements of the production system. The ambition of scientific management was to offer a single, integrated system where embedded the managerial knowledge in the technological platform of the assembly line, guided by a multitude of rigid task specifications and routines. Toyota Production System, by comparison, has a substantially smaller number of roles that are also more loosely defined, with a reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks, and who are encouraged to experiment, improve, fail, adapt, but above all communicate. The system is built on trust and a cooperative dynamic. The enterprise functions through a managerial control system, but also through social cooperation mechanisms built around teamwork and trust. However, even Toyota might be bested in this respect by the even more loosely coupled networks of innovation and supply represented by But let us also consider the system in question that has made this work possible, the Internet, and compare it to the design principles of the AT& proper functioning of the networking and monitoring of customer excluded competitors). This generated profit, but any substantial technical innovations required the approval of management and a innovation that we have seen, while also creating certain originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other, and offloaded security from the network to the edges. As the network grew and users diversified, trust (the practical belief that other human agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere) declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building elements themselves, and at its periphery, through “trusted computing.” company, or the employer. This is thought to be the most completely effective means of preventing copyright infringement or system failure, and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered for implementing such systems). Trusted computing in this form is the ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach Reintroducing the Human Taylorism, the Bell system and trusted computing are all efforts to remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed, tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of the system are such that they control or direct action and learning over time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system comes from the outside, from the designer, in the initial design over contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure, communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given action by the system itself. By creating such domains of human agency, system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight, and building in the possibilities of learning over time through action in the system, by agents acting within To deal with the new complexity of contemporary life we need to taught us anything, it is that what makes for human insight is extremely experiment, learn and adapt. But enabling human agency also provides the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now turn our attention to building systems that support human sociality−our ability to think of others and their needs, and to choose for ourselves goals consistent with a broader social concern than merely our own self-interest. The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and Free software, Wikipedia, Creative Commons and the thousands of emerging human practices of productive social cooperation in the networked information economy give us real existence proofs that human-centric\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Google do for their employees to foster innovation?\n\n<options>:\nA They use Segways on the Google campus and in the buildings.\nB They have a relaxed dress code.\nC One day a week, they can pursue whatever ideas they like.\nD They have a culture of play.\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>:\nfor weapons more adequate for encountering the local fauna when it was over. Blast-rifles were not effective against such creatures as these. Torches were contact weapons It seemed insane that such creatures, even in miniature, should painstakingly be brought across light-years of space to the new worlds men settled on. But it had been found to be necessary. The ecological system in which human beings belonged had turned out to be infinitely complicated. It had turned out, in fact, to be the ecological system of Earth, and unless all parts of the complex were present, the total was subtly or glaringly wrong. So mankind distastefully ferried pests as well as useful creatures to its new worlds as they were made ready for settlement. Mosquitos throve on the inhabited globes of the Rim Stars. Roaches twitched nervous antennae on the settled planets of the Coal-sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, and scratched their bites, and humanity spread through the galaxy with an attendant train of insects and annoyances. If they left their pests behind, the total system of checks and balances which make life practical would get lopsided. It would not maintain itself. The vagaries that could result were admirably Nadine . Something had been left out of the seeding of this planet. The element—which might be a bacterium or a virus or almost anything at all—the element that kept creatures at the size called \"normal\" was either missing or inoperable here. The results were not desirable. much. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in the planet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would not allow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid or thick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,—all the , then approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with no reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the four-man crew watched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. Burleigh said encouragingly such as are placed on certain worlds for the convenience of interstellar skippers who need to check their courses on extremely long runs. This was something else. its space-port. With clearance-papers in order, they could land unquestioned at any other space-port and take off again—provided the of space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences of have bought a ticket, but he'd tried to get off the planet Coryus on the Coryus Three. The others were fugitives too, from some unnamed world Moran did not know. They might be sent back where they came from. In effect, with six people on board instead of five, the practically any direction for a length of time that was at least indefinite. A liner could re-locate itself without trouble. It had elaborate observational equipment and tri-di star-charts. But smaller craft had to depend on the Galactic Directory. The process would be to find a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets, and its flora and fauna against descriptions in the Directory. That was enough for ourselves. But we can spare some. We'll give you the emergency-kit, anyhow.\" The emergency-kit contained antiseptics, seeds, and a weapon or two, with elaborate advice to castaways. If somebody were wrecked on an even possibly habitable planet, the especially developed seed-strains would provide food in a minimum of time. It was not an encouraging thought, very important, and the fact that Moran had forced him to fight and killed him in fair combat made no difference. Moran had needed to get off-planet, and fast. But space-travel regulations are especially designed to prevent such escapes. He'd made a pretty good try, at that. One of the controls on space-traffic required a ship on landing to deposit its fuel-block in the space-port's vaults. The fuel-block was not returned until clearance for departure had been granted. But Moran had waylaid the messenger carrying the planet from which they'd carried away a criminal, even though they'd done it unwillingly. Investigation of such a matter might last for months. The Nadine checked her downward motion. Interplanetary drive is rugged and sure, but it does not respond to fine adjustment. Burleigh used shared the peculiarity of the ground as far as they could see through the haze. It was not vegetation in any ordinary sense. Certainly it was no mineral surface! The landing-pockets had burned away three or four spare. And meanwhile we'll take a look at that wreck yonder. There might be an indication in it of what solar system this is. There could be something in it of use to you, too. You'd better come along when we suit. Modern space-suits weren't like the ancient crudities with bulging metal casings and enormous globular helmets. Non-stretch fabrics took the place of metal, and constant-volume joints were really practical suits would take care of that. Anyhow the ice-cap said there were no water-soluble gases in the atmosphere, and a gas can't be an active poison if it can't dissolve. They filed out of the airlock. They stood on ash-covered stone, only slightly eroded by the processes which made life possible on this The hole exposed a cheesy mass of soft matter which seemed riddled with small holes. \" They're—bugs! \" she said incredulously. \" They're beetles! They're twenty times the size of the beetles we humans have been carrying around the galaxy, but that's what they are! \" discovered. It had not been practical for men to move onto new planets and subsist upon the flora and fauna they found there. On some new planets life had never gotten started. On such worlds a highly complex operation was necessary before humanity could move in. A complete ecological complex had to be built up microbes to break down the rock for soil, bacteria to fix nitrogen to make the soil fertile plants to grow in the new-made dirt and insects to fertilize the plants so they would multiply, and animals and birds to carry the seeds planet-wide. On most planets, to be sure, there were local, aboriginal plants and animals. But still terrestrial creatures had to be introduced if a colony was to feed itself. Alien plants did not supply satisfactory food. So an elaborate adaptation job had to be done on every planet before native and terrestrial living things settled down together. It wasn't impossible that the scuttling things were truly beetles, grown large and monstrous under the conditions of a new planet. And the ground.... \"This ground stuff,\" said Moran distastefully, \"is yeast or some sort of it, so somebody dumped germs and spores and bugs to make it ready for plants and animals eventually. But nobody's come back to finish up the job.\" \"It's not a hunting creature on worlds It was to be noted that Hallet the engineer, avoided the huge harmless creature more widely than most. everywhere. \"We're going to find that this wreck has been here a century creatures in their labyrinths of tunnels began to panic. Off to the right the blanket-like surface ripped and they poured out. They scuttled crazily here and there. Some took to wing. By instinct the other men—the armed ones—moved back from the smoke. They wore space-helmets But above all he raged because he was to be marooned here. He could not altogether blame the others. They couldn't land at any colonized world with him on board without his being detected as an extra member of the crew. His fate would then be sealed. But they also would be investigated. Official queries would go across this whole sector of the galaxy, naming five persons of such-and-such description and A ship that came in to port with two few on board would be investigated as thoroughly as one that had too many. Perhaps more thoroughly. So if\n\n<question>:\nWhy have humans been carrying beetles around the galaxy?\n\n<options>:\nA Beetles are just one piece of the puzzle to create an ecological system capable of supporting human life.\nB Beetles are a good source of protein for new planet settlers.\nC Beetles, like other pests, always seem to make their way on board spaceships.\nD Beetles are an integral part of a spaceship's waste management system.\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>:\nKrugman's Life of Brian Where it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Letter from Ted C. Fishman 3) Pace Krugman, I also did not claim that Arthur bears principal responsibility for the rediscovery of increasing returns by economists in the 1970s and 1980s. As Krugman notes, several scholars (himself included) who were working in the fields of game theory and international trade published articles incorporating increasing returns before Arthur did. My claim was simply that Arthur applied increasing returns to high-technology markets, and that his work influenced how other economists and government officials think about these markets. Krugman apart, virtually every economist I have spoken to, including Daniel Rubinfeld, a former Berkeley professor who is now the chief economist at the Justice Department's antitrust division, told me this was the case. (Rubinfeld also mentioned several other economists who did influential work, and I cited three of them in the article.) 4) Krugman appears to suggest that I made up some quotes, a charge that, if it came from a more objective source, I would consider to be a serious matter. In effect, he is accusing Brian Arthur, a man he calls a \"nice guy,\" of being a fabricator or a liar. The quotes in question came from Arthur, and they were based on his recollections of two meetings that he attended some years ago. After Krugman's article appeared, the Santa Fe professor called me to say that he still recalled the meetings in question as I described them. Krugman, as he admits, wasn't present at either of the meetings. Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. When Waldrop's book came out, I wrote him as politely as I could, asking exactly how he had managed to come up with his version of events. He did, to his credit, write back. He explained that while he had become aware of some other people working on increasing returns, trying to put them in would have pulled his story line out of shape. ... So what we really learn from the legend of Arthur is that some journalists like a good story too much to find out whether it is really true. Now, I will admit to many sins, not the least of them being a profound ignorance of graduate-level economics I spent my graduate-school career in the physics department instead, writing a Ph.D. dissertation on the quantum-field theory of elementary particle collisions at relativistic energies. However, I am not so ignorant of the canons of journalism (and of common sense) that I would take a plausible fellow like Brian Arthur at face value without checking up on him. During my research for Complexity I spoke to a number of economists about his work, including Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, co-creator of the General Equilibrium Theory of economics that Brian so eloquently criticizes. They generally agreed that Brian was a maverick in the field--and perhaps a bit too much in love with his own self-image as a misunderstood outsider--but basically sound. None of them warned me that he was usurping credit where credit was not due. Which brings me to Professor Krugman's letter, and my reply. I remember the exchange very well. Obviously, however, my reply failed to make clear what I was really trying to say. So I'll try again: The point is that it's not just a matter of failing to cite a few more people. Your book, like the Cassidy article, didn't just tell the story of Brian Arthur Even more to the point: How did Cassidy come by his story? Is it possible that he completely misunderstood what Brian Arthur was saying--that the whole business about the seminar at Harvard where nobody would accept increasing returns, about the lonely struggle of Arthur in the face of ideological rigidity, even the quotation from Arthur about economists being unwilling to consider the possibility of imperfect markets because of the Cold War (give me a break!) were all in Cassidy's imagination? Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. His theme is stated in his first paragraph: \"Cassidy's article [in The New Yorker of Jan. 12] tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" Cassidy, however, said nothing of the sort. The concept of increasing returns is indeed very old, and Cassidy at no point attributed that idea to Arthur. Indeed, the phrase \"increasing returns\" appears just once in Cassidy's article and then merely to say that Arthur had used the term while others refer to network externalities. Further, Arthur has never made any such preposterous claim at any other time. On the contrary, his papers have fully cited the history of the field and made references to the previous papers, including those of Paul Krugman. (See Arthur's papers collected in the volume Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, especially his preface and my foreword for longer comments on Arthur's work in historic perspective. Click to see the foreword.) Hence, Krugman's whole attack is directed at a statement made neither by Arthur nor by Cassidy. Krugman has not read Cassidy's piece with any care nor has he bothered to review what Arthur has in fact said. What Cassidy in fact did in his article was to trace a line of influence between one of Arthur's early articles and the current claims of the Department of Justice against Microsoft. It appears that Cassidy based his article on several interviews, not just one. --Kenneth J. Arrow Nobel laureate and Joan Kenney professor of economics emeritus Stanford University Letter from Ted C. Fishman: After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons. --Ted C. Fishman\n\n<question>:\nWhich would Fishman not use to describe Brian Arthur?\n\n<options>:\nA innovative\nB vain\nC a nice guy\nD intelligent\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>:\nThe Birds and the Bees Which goes to prove that, in some Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion. But of course there were no cousins. There was nothing. And Man returned, and settled down to live. Saddened, but resigned and content to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the ancient evils, wars, emergencies. states, quite prevalent among members of the race long ago, and are seldom seen today. Indeed, Melia was on this account made the butt of many jokes and, I fear, would have had a lonely life of it had it not been for the friendship of Xeon. warning, continued to rise, and then—poof. Everything has evaporated in Maternite. All the Prelife is gone.\" \"There is nothing left,\" Melia insisted. \"Can more be made? And if not, what will happen with no more children?\" consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware indeed, an emergency. For a machine had failed! Not in the memory of the eldest among us has a machine failed. They were created so long ago, indeed, that the ignorant believe them to have been constructed by the gods themselves. And never, so far as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity. assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave had departed for home and supper. Yet perhaps it is for the best, for those left were the most earnest and intelligent. \"I would not bore you,\" he said, \"with details of which only the gods are sure. Know, then, that once granted a few cells of Prelife, it is thus assuring us, as has always been, a continuous source of Prelife to be born by the Generating Machine as children. The machines bear the exact number of children each year to balance the number of us whom the gods claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial.\" A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered actually failed.\" Cries of \"Treason\" sprang up, and I fear it might have gone hard for the priest had I not been able to insure order. \"That is not the worst,\" he cried, as if in defiance. \"All the Prelife has been dried up. It will not function. There is no more. And there will be no more children!\" At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times that I most revere the wisdom of the ancients, who decreed seventy years the minimum age for a member of the Conclave. They shouted and roar like a youngster? They quieted, breathing heavily, and I asked, \"Is there no way, then, to produce more Prelife in order that the machines may produce more children for us? \"As I have said,\" he replied, \"give the machines but a bit of Prelife and they will produce more. But take away that least bit, and they are helpless.\" been a beginning to Prelife? For the Machine, it seems, cannot make it \"Riddles are not called for,\" I answered severely. \"Are not riddles often the beginning of knowledge?\" he asked, in that irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. \"Must there not, long ago, have been a source of Prelife: a source now forgotten? And may it not even now—should we discover it—be available to us? I am reminded of the story of the animals of old—\" \"I know well the legend of the animals, but what does it have to hastened to explain the legend of the animals. \"It is said that many thousands of years ago, time without reckoning, there existed on the earth creatures who were alive like us, and yet not like us. It is said although not mute, they could not speak.\" Rocsates' voice made itself heard. \"It is true. Such creatures did men—if it were so, then, what of it?\" \"May it not be,\" Rocsates put in, \"that these animals had no machines to reproduce their kind? For surely the gods would not grant machines to such creatures. And indeed, if they had Maternite Machines, why then we would yet have these animals among us.\" \"And how, then, did these animals reproduce?\" I asked. Machine, and that at such a time both the animals and Men reproduced At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and and so delicate, that they are kept in an air-tight tomb lest, being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost. Therefore, they have not been read in the known history of our race. \"Some of those among you are She's,\" he began. \"And you know you are different from the rest of us. To the advantage, your skin is fairer and your features more often handsomer than ours. To the disadvantage, your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. And, you may say, why should this not be so? There is, indeed, no reason why we should all be identical. Perforce you have the advantage, perforce we exist no reason for this? Was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a discovered: Then reproduction was carried on by individuals, without help of the then nonexistent machines. The She's are not wanderers from another land, but they have lived with us for all time they are not another race, but we are all types of one race. And the fact of reproduction is somehow intimately related to the physical distinctions of the She's!\" These last sentences were shouted to be heard above the roar of the \"In fact,\" Rocsates added, sitting down, \"this process of reproduction seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of over-population.\" Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his neighbor, and for some time I could not restore order. I realized that something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the assembled overwhelmed him. such there was, I was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with no harm done. \"For if people reproduced too often, why then this reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do otherwise they where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?\" Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together the process of reproduction was of ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!\" At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond however, I had to admit that his supposition was a possibility, and appearance—he looked as if he had not slept of late, nor eaten either. His eyes were sunken, and his features had doubled in age. He was bent formalities were over. I intended to speak for Xeon, but Rocsates was \"I have indeed discovered the secret of reproduction,\" he began. \"After but it seems to mean....\" His words trailed off. He was obviously When he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words, to move. I cleared my throat. \"Shall not these organs which you mention have atrophied by now? With no use throughout all these generations, will they not have evolved into nothingness?\" \"I do not think so,\" Rocsates replied after a while. \"What to us is an eon, to evolution is but an instant. And then the swelling of the breasts, I believe, proves that there is still reproductive activity in breasts. Melia has volunteered, on condition that Xeon be released from I voiced my assent, and the entire Conclave adjourned to the fields. \"They seemed finally to accomplish all the book described,\" I muttered. a time lapse which is necessary. The child does not appear immediately.\" \"It doesn't matter,\" I said disconsolately. \"Who could ask them to go through such an ordeal again?\" My heart has a warmth in it, and I no longer fear for the future of our race when our young people can show such nobility and sacrifice.\n\n<question>:\nSince humans stopped reproducing among themselves, what has been the greatest impact on human biology?\n\n<options>:\nA significant reduction of the appearance and function of sex organs\nB more predictable measures for increasing the global population\nC gradual decrease in the overall intellectual quotient of a society\nD a lower prevalence of birth defects and learning disabilities\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,173 | 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>:\nTwo background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Second, scholarly journals generally don’t pay authors for their research articles, which frees this special tribe of authors to consent to OA without losing revenue. This fact distinguishes scholars decisively from musicians and moviemakers, and even from most other kinds of authors. This is why controversies about OA to music and movies don’t carry over to OA for research articles. Both facts are critical, but the second is nearly unknown outside the academic world. It’s not a new fact of academic life, arising from a recent economic downturn in the publishing industry. Nor is it a case of corporate exploitation of unworldly academics. Scholarly journals haven’t paid authors for their articles since the first scholarly journals, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London and the The academic custom to write research articles for impact rather than money may be a lucky accident that could have been otherwise. Or it may be a wise adaptation that would eventually evolve in any culture with a serious research subculture. (The optimist in me wants to believe the latter, but the evolution of copyright law taunts that optimism.) This peculiar custom does more than insulate cutting-edge research from the market and free scholars to consent to OA without losing revenue. It also supports academic freedom and the kinds of serious inquiry that advance knowledge. It frees researchers to challenge conventional wisdom and defend unpopular ideas, which are essential to academic freedom. At the same time it frees them to microspecialize and defend ideas of immediate interest to just a handful people in the world, which are essential to pushing the frontiers of knowledge. This custom doesn’t guarantee that truth-seeking won’t be derailed by profit-seeking, and it doesn’t guarantee that we’ll eventually fill the smallest gaps in our collaborative understanding of the world. It doesn’t even guarantee that scholars won’t sometimes play for the crowd and detour into fad thinking. But it removes a major distraction by allowing them, if they wish, to focus on what is likely to be true rather than what is likely to sell. It’s a payment structure we need for good research itself, not just for good access to research, and it’s the key to the legal and economic lock that would otherwise shackle steps toward OA. Creative people who live by royalties, such as novelists, musicians, and moviemakers, may consider this scholarly tradition a burden and sacrifice for scholars. We might even agree, provided we don’t overlook a few facts. First, it’s a sacrifice that scholars have been making for nearly 350 years. OA to research articles doesn’t depend on asking royalty-earning authors to give up their royalties. Second, academics have salaries from universities, freeing them to dive deeply into their research topics and publish specialized articles without market appeal. Many musicians and moviemakers might envy that freedom to disregard sales and popular taste. Third, academics receive other, less tangible rewards from their institutions—like promotion and tenure—when their research is recognized by others, accepted, cited, applied, and built upon. It’s no accident that faculty who advance knowledge in their fields also advance their careers. Academics are passionate about certain topics, ideas, questions, inquiries, or disciplines. They feel lucky to have jobs in which they may pursue these passions and even luckier to be rewarded for pursuing them. Some focus single-mindedly on carrying an honest pebble to the pile of knowledge (as John Lange put it), having an impact on their field, or scooping others working on the same questions. Others focus strategically on building the case for promotion and tenure. But the two paths converge, which is not a fortuitous fact of nature but an engineered fact of life in the academy. As incentives for productivity, these intangible career benefits may be stronger for the average researcher than royalties are for the average novelist or musician. (In both domains, bountiful royalties for superstars tell us nothing about effective payment models for the long tail of less stellar professionals.) There’s no sense in which research would be more free, efficient, or effective if academics took a more “businesslike” position, behaved more like musicians and moviemakers, abandoned their insulation from the market, and tied their income to the popularity of their ideas. Nonacademics who urge academics to come to their senses and demand royalties even for journal articles may be more naive about nonprofit research than academics are about for-profit business. We can take this a step further. Scholars can afford to ignore sales because they have salaries and research grants to take the place of royalties. But why do universities pay salaries and why do funding agencies award grants? They do it to advance research and the range of public interests served by research. They don’t do it to earn profits from the results. They are all nonprofit. They certainly don’t do it to make scholarly writings into gifts to enrich publishers, especially when conventional publishers erect access barriers at the expense of research. Universities and funding agencies pay researchers to make their research into gifts to the public in the widest sense. Public and private funding agencies are essentially public and private charities, funding research they regard as useful or beneficial. Universities have a public purpose as well, even when they are private institutions. We support the public institutions with public funds, and we support the private ones with tax exemptions for their property and tax deductions for their donors. We’d have less knowledge, less academic freedom, and less OA if researchers worked for royalties and made their research articles into commodities rather than gifts. It should be no surprise, then, that more and more funding agencies and universities are adopting strong OA policies. Their mission to advance research leads them directly to logic of OA: With a few exceptions, such as classified research, research that is worth funding or facilitating is worth sharing with everyone who can make use of it. (See Of course, conventional publishers are not as free as authors, editors, and referees to forgo revenue. This is a central fact in the transition to OA, and it explains why the interests of scholars and conventional publishers diverge more in the digital age than they diverged earlier. But not all publishers are conventional, and not all conventional publishers will carry print-era business models into the digital age. OA isn’t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public statements on OA insist on its importance. Because scholarly journals generally don’t pay peer-reviewing editors and referees, just as they don’t pay authors, all the participants in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. While OA to unrefereed preprints is useful and widespread, the OA movement isn’t limited to unrefereed preprints and, if anything, focuses on OA to peer-reviewed articles. (More in section 5.1 on peer review.) 6 on copyright.) OA isn’t an attempt to reduce academic freedom. Academic authors remain free to submit their work to the journals or publishers of their choice. Policies requiring OA do so conditionally, for example, for researchers who choose to apply for a certain kind of grant. In addition, these policies generally build in exceptions, waiver options, or both. Since 2008 most university OA policies have been adopted by faculty deeply concerned to preserve and even enhance their prerogatives. (See chapter 4 on OA policies.)\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is not an expected impact of OA on academic inquiry?\n\n<options>:\nA It shoud allow more open discussion of a wide variety of topics\nB More people will be able to pursue specialized knowledge that does not have a large target audience\nC There will be less of a reason for researchers to work only inside of popular trends\nD Scholars will be tempted to leave academia to pursue publishing options that they can make money from\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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774 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\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 dust-caked, tired body, yet there they were, seeking, always seeking—searching the clear horizon, and never seeming to find what they sought. into their pores and drank deeply of it, feeling life going once more through their veins. Satisfied, they lifted themselves from the water, and the man lay down on the yellow sand of the river bank to sleep. shadows on the face of the rippling water. Quickly he gathered slope where he hobbled him and left him for the night. In the fading light, he ate the hard beef jerky and drank the scalding coffee. Refreshed and momentarily content, he sat staring into the dying fire, seeing the bright glowing coals as living fingers clutching at the wood in consuming embrace, taking all and returning nothing but ashes. Slowly his eyelids yielded. His body sagged, and blood seemed to fill his brain, bathing it in a gentle, warm flood. It was the night before he was to go overseas. World War III had been \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\" dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\" She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\" 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. 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 large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her 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, sodden ground, and the air was heavy in his lungs. He had driven off little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the where the fighting had begun. Already the city was a silent graveyard, littered with the rubble of towers and cathedrals which had once been miles lay behind, a dead man on every foot of those miles. Yet victory was near. The Russians had not yet used the H-bomb 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 soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. \"Heavy bombers!\" The alarm had sounded, and the men had headed for But the planes had passed over, the sun glinting on their bellies, reflecting a blinding light. They were bound for bigger, more important shelters. An icy wind swept the field, bringing with it clouds which screaming noises which had jarred the people from sleep in time to die. The defending planes roared into the sky to intercept the on-rushing bombers. The horrendous battle split the universe. Many bombers fell, victims of fanatical suicide planes, or of missiles that streaked across the sky which none could escape. But too many bombers got through, dropping their deadly cargo upon the helpless cities. And not all the prayers or entreaties to any God had buildings into molten streams, and then the great triple-mushroom cloud filled with the poisonous gases that the wind swept away to other cities, where men had not died quickly and mercifully, but had rotted they had crawled. 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 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 exodus was just beginning. Somehow he had managed to hold together the 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. They had started the long trek. Throughout Europe anarchy reigned. He and his men were alone. All they could do now was fight. Finally they 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 been only partially destroyed were devoid of people. The land across the Rio Grande had become a land of shadows. The winds were poisoned, and the few people who might have survived, were crazed and maimed by the blasts. Few men had dared cross the Rio Grande into \"El Mundo gris de Noviembre\"—the November world. Those who had, had never returned. leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the and all that he had seen were the small mutant rodents, and all that he exhausted. The mountains were just beginning, and he hoped to find food there. He had not found food, but his luck had been with him. He had found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He 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. separating the muscles, making the chest broad. Well satisfied with his body, he plunged into the cold water, deep down, until he thought his lungs would burst He would ride all day and the next night. And he would be home. Still northward. The hours crawled slower than a dying man. The sun 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 He turned quickly away and did not look back. Night paled into day day burned into night. to the inner gloom, he saw how bare the room was. No matter. Now that fireplace, the feeble light cast by the embers veiling her in mauve mumbling mouth. The eyes, turned momentarily toward the window, were empty of life. \"No, no!\" he cried soundlessly. feet were stones, reluctant to leave the earth. His body was a weed, 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 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 \"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. Conqueror trotted away, the sound of his hooves echoing hollowly in the vast emptiness.\n\n<question>:\nHow did the gloomy outcome of World War III in the article foreshadow the rest of the main character's story?\n\n<options>:\nA The main character would still find ways to motivate himself regardless of what he faced.\nB The main character would continue to realize how superficial the world is.\nC The main character would continue to suffer loss.\nD The main character would succumb to every failure.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,604 | 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>:\nmutants as children. He had been brought up in it. Emotion came in Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] They were such cute synthetic creatures, it was impossible not to love them. Of course, that was precisely why they were dangerous! conflict with the grim necessities of his job. Somehow he would have to love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a matter of adjustment. of a district pound. You knew it before we got married.\" \"I didn't know you killed them,\" she said venomously. \"I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals.\" \" Intelligent \"They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went animals!\" \"A small child is an imbecile. Would you kill a small child?\" \"You're taking intelligence as the only criterion of humanity,\" he started a black market in neutroids?\" protested hopelessly, knowing that a logical defense was useless \"Intelligent as a human imbecile, maybe.\" against sentimentality. \"Baby—\" \"Don't call me baby! Call them ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their aptitude for dealing with people. Can't you understand? Destroying unclaimed units is the smallest part of it. Honey, before the evolvotron, before Anthropos went into the mutant-animal business, people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way—I'm just a dogcatcher.\" Her cool green eyes turned slowly to meet his gaze. Her face was 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 afraid to make the quasi-humans too intelligent, lest sentimentalists proclaim them really human. top, but the rest of its body was covered with blue-gray fur. Its tiny pink tongue was licking daintily at small forepaws with prehensile 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 couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid. of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides, you're required to keep sales records until they've been micro-filmed. Subject: Deviant Neutroid. Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular 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 dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight there.\" He hesitated. \"The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It's Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?\" 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—\" . 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. It'll be spooky.\" There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. \"I'll try it anyway. Can I But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later have to be killed. one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a \"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection they just won't listen to reason. But get those neutroids.\" for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that The doll-like neutroids began their mindless chatter as soon as their keepers entered the building. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh as they leaped about their compartments with monkey grace. 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. \"They must be getting to know you pretty well,\" Anne said, glancing \"That's not the point. There's a reason for the mechanical feeders.\" He paused, wondering how he could tell her the truth. He blundered on: \"They get to love whoever feeds them.\" \"I can't see—\" \"How would you feel about disposing of something that loved you?\" pets, always frightened of strangers. radiation from the enlarger. A good operator can get one success out of determinants, and in the glandular makeup. Not a standard neutroid develop sexuality. A neutroid would be born a female That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But the back of the kennel-truck. He grinned at his wife. \"This little fellow, for instance. It might be a potential she. It might also be a Anne snorted and caught the baby-creature in her arms. It struggled and tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the snare. \"Kkr-r-reee,\" it cooed nervously. \"Kkr-r-reee!\" 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. 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. heart over one of these pathetic little artificial animals. We're going to have a baby.\" \"You know what they'd do to us?\" \"If they catch us, yes—compulsory divorce, sterilization. But they \"Neutroid trouble.\" He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy 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 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 dangerous aspect of the neutroids and other mutant animals?\n\n<options>:\nA Because they are grouped together in isolated areas, it is possible that they could use their adorable appearance and innocent demeanor to hide the fact that they are conspiring to overthrow the society.\nB Because they only live up until a certain age, they often act with a level of invincibility that is threatening to society and its systems of social stratification.\nC Their cute appearance causes others to underestimate their high predatory instincts and behaviors, and many injuries and deaths result because of this incongruency.\nD Their cute appearance makes it easy for humans to get attached to them, and mass levels of attachment could potentially thwart current methods of classifying members of society.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,711 | 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>:\nAssociation for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand delivered a paper entitled simply, \"On the Nature of the Solar S-Regions.\" Owing to its unassuming title the startling implications contained in the paper were completely overlooked by the press. These Earth. LATHAM. What do you mean by activity on the Sun? NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity. LATHAM. Just what is a sunspot? NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only describe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its surroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore not so bright. LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of eleven years? NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of about eleven years. That word LATHAM. In what way? NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course of sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things. LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced between sunspots and various effects on the Earth? NIEMAND. Scores of them. LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations? NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that. LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating LATHAM. In what way have your investigations differed from those of others? NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been studying on the Earth. It's something like the eruptions in rubeola. Attention is concentrated on the bright red papules because they're such a conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is an invisible filterable virus. In the solar case it turned out to be these S-Regions. LATHAM. Why S-Regions? NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose. LATHAM. You say an S-Region is invisible? NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by radiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effects observed. put it the other way around. \"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves but in our stars\" or better \"in the Sun.\" LATHAM. In the Sun? NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the 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. LATHAM. What did you do? hours but this had not seemed especially significant. Here we had evidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have some connection with the Sun. LATHAM. That must have had you badly puzzled at first. solar rotation. That is, if you see a large spot at the center of the Sun's disk today, there is a good chance if it survives that you will see it at the same place twenty-seven days later. But that night Sun in a way that was even more convincing. at intervals of twenty-seven point three days. LATHAM. Why is that so important? NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot zone is not twenty-seven days but twenty-seven point three days. And on this chart the lines did not slant but went vertically downward. The correlation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practically perfect. LATHAM. But how did you get onto the S-Regions? he detect them? NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an optical telescope, but are detected with ease by a astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with the more powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of an S-Region is heralded by a long series of bursts of a few seconds duration, when the radiation may increase up to several thousand times about ten or twelve days. How does that tie-in with the S-Regions? NIEMAND. Very closely. You see it takes about twelve days for an S-Region to pass across the face of the Sun, since the synodic rotation is twenty-seven point three days. LATHAM. I should think it would be nearer thirteen or fourteen days. NIEMAND. Apparently an S-Region is not particularly effective when it is just coming on or just going off the disk of the Sun. LATHAM. Are the S-Regions associated with sunspots? NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and S-Region activity certainly go together. The more sunspots the more violent and intense is the S-Region activity. But there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region. The same thing is true of sunspots and magnetic storms. LATHAM. How do you account for this? NIEMAND. We don't account for it. LATHAM. What other properties of the S-Regions have you discovered? strongly circularly polarized. Moreover, the sense of rotation remains constant while one is passing across the Sun. If the magnetic field associated with an S-Region extends into the high solar corona through which the rays pass, then the sense of rotation corresponds to the ordinary ray of the magneto-ionic theory. emanating from an S-Region consists of some highly penetrating form of corpuscular radiation, as yet unidentified. LATHAM. A question that puzzles me is why some people are affected by the S-Regions while others are not. NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a dozen solar rotations. Then it dies out and for a time we are free from this malignant radiation. Then a new region develops in perhaps an entirely different region of the Sun. Sometimes there may be several different S-Regions all going at once. LATHAM. Why were not the S-Regions discovered long ago? NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the end of World War II. S-radiation since about 1955? NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large enough numbers to attract attention. Also the present sunspot cycle started its rise to maximum about 1954. LATHAM. Is there no way of escaping the S-radiation? LATHAM. What is the present state of S-Region activity? NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for a decrease in activity is not very favorable. Sunspot activity continues at a high level and is steadily mounting in violence. The last sunspot cycle had the highest maximum of any since 1780, but the present cycle bids fair to set an all time record. LATHAM. And so you believe that the S-Regions are the cause of most of the present trouble in the world. That it is not ourselves but something outside ourselves— controlled and swayed by forces which in many cases we are powerless to resist. LATHAM. Could we not be warned of the presence of an S-Region? 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 LATHAM. How may a person who is not particularly susceptible to this malignant radiation know that one of these regions is active? unable to concentrate, if you feel suddenly depressed and discouraged about yourself, or are filled with resentment toward the world, then you may be pretty sure that an S-Region is passing across the face of the\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the role of sunspots in this phenomenon?\n\n<options>:\nA Sunspots are what we are able to see, but serve only as an approximation of S-Regions, the true cause\nB Sunspots were the key for Henry Middletown's breakthrough in the study\nC Sunspots were what inspired Dr. Niemand to do research on the Sun in the first place\nD Sunspots are the underlying cause of the issue, which are trackable by S-regions\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>:\nMONOPOLY Sheer efficiency and good management can make a monopoly grow into being. And once it grows, someone with a tyrant mind is going to try to use it as a weapon if he can— Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that \"That all, chief? Gonna quit now?\" can get at that vitamin count early in the morning.\" \"Tomorrow morning? Aw, for gosh sakes, chief, why don't you take a day off sometime, or better yet, a night off. It'd do you good to relax. alone, he let his only known emotion sweep through him, pride. He had that amounted to anything on this planet. True, there had been others, pioneers, before the company came, who objected to the expansion of the regime served the best interests of the planet, they would just have to suffer the consequences of their own ignorance. There had been rumors of revolution among the disgruntled older families. in precisely seven minutes, four and four-fifths seconds. He undressed and climbed into the tub, relaxing luxuriously in the exhilaration of irradiated water. He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful \"What do you want?\" it didn't quite it should be, but the outline under the counterpane and the luxuriant Now he got it. This was probably the young fool's idea of a joke. He'd soon fix that. \"All right, joke's over, you can beat it now.\" \"Joke? I don't see anything funny, unless it's you and that suggestive towel. You should either abandon it or get one that goes all the way round.\" \"Well, what do you think?\" he burst out angrily. \"I'm going to finish struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his force.\" satisfaction of the unending extra work that was going to occur around the laboratory from now on. He sank back into the soothing liquid embrace of the bath and deliberately set his mind loose to wander in complete relaxation. \"What the devil do you want? Haven't you caused enough blasted trouble arrested is your idea of a joke—\" she's a rebel and she's sure been raising plenty of hell as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"There's nothing to give away, you fool!\" Brian bellowed. \"I don't know pass the word along.\" \"What the devil are you doing here?\" trouble because of me. But don't worry, we're going to get you out.\" \"Shut up! Do you want to get us shot?\" \"Damn,\" she swore viciously. \"This is the wrong key! Your goose is sure \"This way,\" he snarled and took the lead. He knew the ground plan of bathrobe, leading a band of escaping rebels out of the company's best before a blackjack caught up with him and he folded into a corner. The electric eye tripped a screaming alarm, but the broken key in shooting to kill. \"What are we stopping here for?\" Brian demanded. \"We've got to get away.\" stabbed through the darkness and they clambered precariously down a \"Oh, you don't have to whisper, we're safe enough here. This is one of \"Old mines? What old mines?\" \"That's something you newcomers don't know anything about. This whole \"What do we do? Hide here?\" keeps up to scare people with.\" \"That's what you think,\" Crystal snapped. \"McHague's legend got my father and he'll get all of us unless we run the whole company right mines. A brand-new atomic motor gleamed incongruously at one end. The rebels crowded into it and they went rumbling swiftly down the echoing passage. The lights of the car showed the old working, rotten and twisting, tortuous course for half an hour, switching from one tunnel going. The tunnel emerged in a huge cavern that gloomed darkly away in every direction. The towering, massive remains of old machinery, eroded and \"We're going to crash! That gap isn't wide enough!\" set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian for peanuts.\" \"Authority doesn't make much difference to them,\" Crystal snapped bitterly. \"They've been killing people all over the planet. What do you think this revolution is about?\" to the floor. The police ship was right on their tail. The girl gunned outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\" \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's down in a terminal velocity dive, heading for the safety of the lower \" Phew! \"Well, you don't do it on faith. Take a look at that fuel gauge! We solely by instruments and dead reckoning. The needle of the fuel gauge flickered closer and closer to the danger point. They tore loose from \"That's figuring it nice and close,\" Crystal said in satisfaction. \"We \"Maybe they haven't. Anyway, there's only one place we can land.\" \"Are you crazy? Watch out—we'll crash!\" She held the ship in its glide, aiming directly for the tangled foliage lush green of the mountainside swirled up to meet them. They ripped through the foliage—there was no crash. They burst through into a \"They jumped us when we had no fuel, and quit acting like an idiot.\" to get out of here.\" an explosion. \"Sounded like more than one ship. They'll be after us, now. Is there any other way of getting out of this place?\" \"Not for ships. We'll have to walk and they'll follow us.\" \"We've got to slow them down some way, then. I wonder how the devil \"How come?\" \"Well, what do we do now? Just stand here? It looks like everybody's leaving.\" \"We might as well just wait,\" Crystal said hopelessly. \"It won't do us Brian suggested doubtfully. She looked at him steadily. \"You sound like the only good rebel left. We can try it, anyway.\" a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at They crisped and twisted, cooked to scorched horrors before they \"Snap out of it,\" he barked. \"That's no worse than shooting helpless men in parachutes. We can't go, yet \"Oh, let them shoot us! I can't go through that again!\" verging on extinction. He dashed to the other ship and repeated the adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In to the floor. \"It's time to check out,\" Brian shouted. Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring crash of falling rock was a continuous, increasing avalanche of sound \"The whole side of the mountain's sliding,\" Crystal screamed. \"Run!\" Brian shoved her and they plunged madly through the thick tangle her and a tree at the same time. The tree leaned and crashed down the joined the roaring rush of the slide. They were tumbled irresistibly downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn they attempted to land, stuck up grotesquely out of the foot of the with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside. \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\" scrambling through the jungle up the mountainside. \"Where are we heading for?\" Brian grunted as he struggled along. can depend on. They've kept out of the rebellion, but they're on our side. They've helped us before.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one potential moral to this story?\n\n<options>:\nA It's good to take risks and expose yourself to the world every once in a while.\nB Often individuals are corrupt, and conceal their corruption well.\nC Sometimes your worldviews might be wrong at first, but what matters is that you change your actions and views according to the information you have.\nD Adventure is a fun and worthwhile endeavor.\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>:\nfound out.\" She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth below and to the west. \"It's impressive, isn't it?\" she said. \"I wonder if that's Indiana way over there?\" mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here as it used to down there?\" \"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 cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local townspeople, a crackpot professor. But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious clean clothes, you're not going to like me.\" \"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery.\" She stopped, still Superior had been. Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark, it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into the Ohio countryside. shortly after midnight. Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was the witching hour. 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 people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself. 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 \"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 club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval. The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had given her. Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe that it was more than adequate. If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered, with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully. 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. Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, \"Excuse me,\" and followed 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 swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture. \"Behold,\" he said. \"Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of the world.\" True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen. Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the \"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then was frowning. \"Are you thinking,\" he asked, \"that Mayor Civek was perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?\" \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white laboratory smock. and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat building, and other people going in random directions. The first were students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct. others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below. knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and gestured to the empty place opposite her. \"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up here.\" Don blinked at the headline: being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually ever since.\" \"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?\" She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt, emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be \"On such short notice?\" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been They found it coursing along between the banks. \"Looks just about the same,\" she said. \"That's funny. Come on The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight. Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees, with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended. \"Where is the water going?\" Don asked. \"I can't make it out.\" \"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people.\" \"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look.\" \"Don't! You'll fall off!\" \"I'll be careful.\" He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed panting, head pressed to the ground. \"How do you feel?\" Alis asked. \"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look.\" ankle and held it tight. \"Just in case a high wind comes along,\" she said. \"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go.\" He lifted his head. \"Damn.\" \"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming back.\" He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again. But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. \"This is new,\" Alis said. The fence, which had a sign on it, warning—electrified , was the tarp and fence. \"Look how it comes in spurts,\" Alis said.\n\n<question>:\nWhat had given it away to Don that the attractive redhead he saw on the train was not actually a natural redhead?\n\n<options>:\nA Her skin tone was too off to match the hair color.\nB The red tone of her hair was far too bright to be considered natural.\nC She was carrying box hair dye.\nD Her dark roots were showing.\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>:\nElizabeth is a lurid paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: \"I knew the Virgin Queen before she was a virgin.\" As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan, redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers (lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal. (Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a) \"unsex\" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama. The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon. With all due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, \"There are thousands of Catholics simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to organize it.\") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an awe-inspiring center. In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him, Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the uncomprehending world at bay. But if Haynes wants Velvet Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one. A case can be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are strung. Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who doesn't appear to have an idée in his head. Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980 Shoot the Moon , 1982), labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that begin \"Am I to understand that ...?\" and a corporate villain who directs another character to \"wake up and smell the thorns.\" It apparently never occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful realization that he'd \"never write the great American novel\"--no kidding, given his flagrantly Welsh accent. Actually, Hopkins gives this humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank \"Hey now!\" Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter, the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or is that the Black Death of Pitt?\n\n<question>:\nWho is the best actor mentioned, according to the author?\n\n<options>:\nA Anthony Hopkins\nB Miranda Richardson\nC Cate Blanchett\nD Johnathyn Rhys-Meyers\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>:\nsmuggling Kooleen crystals in from Mars, I knew I was in that corner, and sewed up tight. Sure, the crystals are deadly, but I was smuggling them legitimately, in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't and after awhile I braced him. I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip. \"Oh, a pretty good jolt if they can keep hold of me,\" he says. \"I just made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed.\" \"Oh, no!\" I moaned. \"What were you trying to do, start a feud between us and Mars?\" but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, \"When I 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. \"Jupiter!\" I goggled at him. \"Akroida! Who's she?\" He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he was sure I'd been born. \"Don't you know nothin', butterhead?\" From him I took it. I even waited patiently till the master spoke again. The memory still makes me fry. \"Akroida,\" he explained in his own sweet time, \"is the queen-scorp of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the Halcyon Diamond that disappeared from the World Museum five years ago, remember?\" He winked broadly. \"It come from Mars in the first place, you know. Mars! What a place fer jools! Damn desert's lousy with 'em, fer them. Besides, the space suit rig you got to wear, they can't bite you. Akroida's not a bad old girl. Partial to arsenic on her lettuce, 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!\" nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and along with it, the chance of a lifetime. A better man than me had already penetrated the Great Red Spot of old Jupiter and come out was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins. But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew 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 make a deal about those emeralds. Then I broke down and sent out a letter to the S.S.C. friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with those scorpions, and how he'd made Akroida mad. I'd had a lot of cooperation getting that far. An Earth patrol had slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut Emeralds from where Pard Hoskins had cached them and safe out in space again, we had pored over that string of green headlights practically snarled at him. \"Just you wait till I do, feller!\" I slipped the string of emeralds back into its little safe. \"Instead of sniping at me, why don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?\" patted my pretty enameled suit, which was a study in paris green and passionate purple. I patted the three hundred pounds of arsenic crystals for Akroida and the socket and reeled it out to the end of a two-foot tentacle, and then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. \"Who named you that?\" He simpered. \"My dear friend, Pard Hoskins.\" I breathed again. How simple could I get? He'd already mistaken me for Pard, hadn't he? Then I remembered something else. \"How come you aren't Hoskins. How had he made friends with the brute in the first place? Pard was right again. These critters had brains. And my S.S.C. persecutor was right, too. That anti-grav secret was worth more than any string of rocks in the system, including the Killicut Emeralds. Under the vicious sag of her Roman nose, her mandibles kept grinding, shaking the jewels that were hung all over her repulsive carcass, and making the Halcyon Diamond on her chest blaze like a bonfire. Attaboy dumped me onto a floating cushion where I lay clutching and shuddering away from her and from the void all around me, and went \"Who from?\" asked Akroida. \"Who from?\" Attaboy cringed lower and blushed a purple all-over blush. \"Dear lady, it is from an interspace trader who possesses some truly remarkable jewels,\" he confessed coyly. Akroida toyed with the Halcyon Diamond and ignored the bait. \"His 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 to the—uh—trader. He does seem to resemble an—ah—earthman.\" He ducked his head and fearfully waited. A sort of jerking quiver ran through Akroida. She reared up even higher. Her mean Roman nose twitched. \"An earthman? Like Pard Hoskins?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the best explanation of Pard Hoskins’ relationship to Akroida?\n\n<options>:\nA Pard Hoskins sold Jupiter’s queen scorpion, Akroida, a Halcyon Diamond. Before he was put in prison, he planned to bring her Killicut Emeralds. However, their business relationship became complicated when Hoskins accidentally wore yellow in front of Akroida—a deeply offensive color to Jupiter’s scorpion race.\nB Pard Hoskins sold Jupiter’s queen scorpion, Akroida, Kooleen crystals. Before he was put in prison, he planned to bring her a Halcyon Diamond. However, their business relationship became complicated when Hoskins accidentally wore purple in front of Akroida—a color which deeply offends Jupiter’s scorpion race.\nC Pard Hoskins sold Jupiter’s queen scorpion, Akroida, a Halcyon Diamond. Before he was put in prison, he planned to bring her Casey Ritter as human tribute. However, their business relationship became complicated when Hoskins accidentally wore purple and green in front of Akroida—a color which deeply offends Jupiter’s scorpion race.\nD Pard Hoskins sold Jupiter’s queen scorpion, Akroida, a Halcyon Diamond. Before he was put in prison, he planned to bring her lettuce and arsenic, her favorite foods. However, their business relationship became complicated when Hoskins accidentally wore green in front of Akroida—a color which deeply offends Jupiter’s scorpion race.\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>:\nWhat cities in the post-Brexit era could learn from a 14th-century trading bloc 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 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. Germany today – multicultural, economically and culturally motoring, free and fair – seems like the ideal model for a modern European nation state. And part of that success lies in the gravitas the country has given to its Hanseatic history. For Germany is not a top-down country with one city unhealthily dominating as with France and Britain (regional economic inequalities have plagued Britain since the painful de-industrialisation of the 1980s, especially in the north). Germany respects federalism and its cities exist on a much more even keel. The way that Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart all bring varied economic and cultural character to the party is pure Hanse. The former Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen have city state status within Germany, putting them on the same level as a whole region or 'land' like Bavaria or Brandenburg. \"Cities both exist within nations and transcend nations. Their power lies not just in the extent of autonomy ceded or granted by 'higher' levels of government,\" says Bruce Katz, centennial scholar at the Washington DC thinktank the Brookings Institution. \"Rather, cities have de facto power, the result of larger market and demographic forces and environmental imperatives that value proximity, density, connectivity and quality. Smart nations will see themselves as partners to their cities, setting strong platforms for urban prosperity and devolving powers, where appropriate, to give cities the flexibility to perform… Dumb nations will continue to dictate from above, stifling market activity and urban potential.\" But could we go further? Could cities like London declare independence from the UK? London's economy is larger than that of Scotland and Wales combined. \"States will not vanish or surrender their waning sovereignty,\" says Benjamin Barber. \"But cities will meet across frontiers and work together to solve problems. The objective is not an independent London or New York, but interdependent cities collaborating globally. And that is happening.\" Back in Britain, one of history's little oddities pops up on the east coast. Boston in Lincolnshire and King's Lynn in Norfolk were both forward-looking Hanseatic League towns that traded with far-flung ports and hosted foreign merchants. King's Lynn contains the only extantHanse House left in Britain (London's was knocked down to build Cannon Street Station in the 1800s). Yet in the EU referendum these two areas polled among the highest Leave votes of anywhere in the country. \"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. Of course, cities seceding from their nation states would provide huge headaches for countries whose biggest economic driver had been removed – as well as likely deepening ideological differences between city and rural dwellers. Moreover, cities need the food the countryside provides. Yet for all the potential pitfalls, city states can thrive. Look at Singapore, Hong Kong, or de facto city states like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. One of the most telling characteristics about these four – all of course former British imperial enclaves – is that they are utterly outward looking. To return to the sky analogy, it's the airlines of each of these (Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Etihad) that open up each respective city to the world in the way that the machinery of the Hanse did on the Baltic Sea 600 years ago. And it's the unions each city makes with other places that also look thoroughly Hanseatic in character. A model for modern city states, then. But is it one that we want?\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a modern city that is large enough to be a city-state?\n\n<options>:\nA Dublin\nB London\nC Trinidad\nD Glasgow\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>:\njust 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 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 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 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. There’s a paradox: with many people’s Wikipedia articles to which I’ve contributed, when it comes to the picture, many 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 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 our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of 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 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? 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 photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, recently I received the Harvard Berkman Center pamphlet. It was a report of what they’re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in 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? That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has 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 movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo exhibit was just amazing. There were some great images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is beyond what anybody has done in the US. A lot of the progress that we’re 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 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 really feels like the death of the darkroom with this year. 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 quality of content on sites like Flickr. It has allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals. 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. 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 friends, than I’ve met in any other year. I know my travels were crazy, but I think that the online world has allowed me to do that. 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 online, which is really pretty binary. I can look at all these photos and remember exactly what we were doing, what we were eating, what we were drinking, what we were talking about, and to me that’s a much more 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 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 presence. 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 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. 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 participants who aren’t so well known and who are essential to moving 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 is the central purpose of the article?\n\n<options>:\nA To advocate support for expansion of Creative Commons licenses\nB To inform the readership of current problems in the photography industry\nC To illustrate how photographers go about their creative processes\nD To praise a fellow photographer and writer for his recent contributions\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>:\nThere were more Joes on Venus than you could shake a ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel Walsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as I liked him, and so he decided the job was just right for a Major. At least, that's what he told me. it, the most I ever did was inspect a few defective tubes every now and then. The rest was gravy, and Colonel Walsh wasn't going to let me get by with gravy. \"It will be a simple assignment, Major,\" he said to me, peering over added, \"For a native, that is.\" I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. \"He's had many dealings with the natives there,\" Walsh explained. \"If anyone can tell us the reasons for the revolt, he can.\" If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. him for sleeping on Boiler Watch. He'd goofed off on a pile of uranium that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night. He still thought it was my fault, as if I'd done the wrong thing by \"I don't know, sir.\" \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took over. Swell guy, Walsh. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. \"Yes,\" I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh. \"You better get your butt over to the captain's shack,\" he said. \"He's about ready to post you as overdue.\" Lots of enlisted men, you know.\" I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful ancestry more keenly. Bransten was saying. I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh of thing was definitely against regulations, but he submitted when I twinkled my little gold leaf under his nose. Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat pussy cat. \"What is it, Major?\" he asked. \"This man Joe,\" I said. \"Can you give me any more on him?\" Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any difficulties, are you?\" \"None at all,\" I snapped back. \"I just thought I'd be able to find him a lot sooner if....\" \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\" \"I thought....\" \"I'm sure you can do the job,\" Walsh cut in. \"I wouldn't have sent you otherwise.\" Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\" He blinked at the screen, trying to realize I'd deliberately hung up on him. \"Polk!\" he shouted, \"can you hear me?\" I smiled, saw the twisted hatred on his features, and then the screen on my end went blank, too. course, and return empty handed. Mission not accomplished. Or, I might I made my decision quickly. I wanted to stay in the Service, and Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me. I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back. The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good points against his bad. But it all came back to the same thing. A guy who would deliberately go to sleep on Boiler Watch with a ton of uranium ready to blast a barracks to smithereens if it wasn't watched, the nose, and a lot of things became clear then. I also saw Walsh standing near one of the huts, a stun gun in his hand. \"Hello, Major,\" he called, almost cheerfully. The gun didn't look was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game. I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" \"Colonel,\" Walsh corrected me. \"You mustn't forget to say Colonel, Major .\" He emphasized my rank, and he said it with a sort of ruthless finality. I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the smile faded from his lips and his eyes took on a hard lustre. \"I'm going to kill you, you know.\" He said it as if he were saying, \"I think when you decided to cork off.\" Beside me, Joe chuckled a little, enjoying the game immensely. \"You didn't have to report me,\" Walsh said. \"No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!\" Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely audible. The heat was oppressive, as if it were concentrated on this little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small, understand the seriousness of our voices. What had happened to the game, the fun? \"You brought the Mars business on yourself,\" I told Walsh. \"There was never any trouble before you took command.\" \"The natives,\" he practically shouted. \"They ... they....\" Joe caught his breath sharply, and I wondered what Walsh was going to say about the natives. Apparently he'd realized that Joe was a native. \"What about the natives?\" I asked. \"Nothing,\" Walsh said. \"Nothing.\" He was silent for a while. \"A man of my calibre,\" he said then, his face grim. \"Dealing with\n\n<question>:\nWho was the mission intended to benefit?\n\n<options>:\nA Captain Walsh, because they desperately needed to find the right Joe.\nB Major Polk, because he wanted to force Captain Walsh out of office.\nC Major Polk, because he wanted to prove himself better than Major Walsh.\nD Captain Walsh, because he wanted to see Major Polk suffer.\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>:\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? I 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 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, 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 Of course people can abuse that, just like they can abuse anything. But 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 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 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. 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 higher chance of not disappearing. But I don’t know exactly how these photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, 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 we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it 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. 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 “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or 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 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 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 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 best. Dopplr is a great example. When I visit a city, I will see all of the people who are in the city at the friends, and they’re not in their hometown. That’s the really interesting thing that is happening right now: it’s 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 look at the expressions, I remember the moment and get a sense of presence. around. Just as I never believed that we would have a paperless office, being able to connect with people through social software mostly 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 balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free participants who aren’t so well known and who are essential to moving everything forward. Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one\n\n<question>:\nHow does the author try to disarm their subjects?\n\n<options>:\nA Engaging them in conversation\nB Telling them a personal story\nC Highlighting their best angles\nD Making silly faces or gestures\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>:\nThe Bell Curve Flattened Charles 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. Virtually all ambitious trade hardcover books are preceded by an edition of 100 to 200 flimsy \"galley proofs.\" These are sent out to people who might generate buzz for the book: blurbists, bookers for television talk shows, editors, and--most important--book critics. There is an ethos of letting the chips fall where they may about the sending out of galleys: Now the book will begin to receive uncontrolled reaction. (For example, back in 1991, Murray somehow got hold of the galleys of my own last book, and wrote me heatedly denying that he was working on a book about black genetic intellectual inferiority, as I had asserted. I left the passage in, but softened it.) The Bell Curve was not circulated in galleys before publication. The effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray and his publisher. The ordinary routine of neutral reviewers having a month or two to go over the book with care did not occur. Another handpicked group was flown to Washington at the expense of the American Enterprise Institute and given a weekend-long personal briefing on the book's contents by Murray himself (Herrnstein had died very recently), just before publication. The result was what you'd expect: The first wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence, because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully. The Bell Curve isn't a typical work of trade nonfiction. It is gotten up as a work of original scholarly research. Most works containing fresh regression analysis and historical argument from primary sources would be published in academic quarterlies that send manuscripts out for elaborate, lengthy evaluation before deciding whether to publish them. Herrnstein and Murray didn't do this, so it wasn't until a full year or more after The Bell Curve was published that the leading experts on its subject had a chance to go through the underlying data with care. Therefore, as time went on, the knowledgeability of the Bell Curve discussion grew, but the attention paid to that discussion inevitably shrank. The debate on publication day was conducted in the mass media by people with no independent ability to assess the book. Over the next few months, intellectuals took some pretty good shots at it in smaller publications like the New Republic and the New York Review of Books . It wasn't until late 1995 that the most damaging criticism of The Bell Curve began to appear, in tiny academic journals. What follows is a brief summary of that last body of work. The Bell Curve , it turns out, is full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors. Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis. 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. But by now the statistics have been gone over by professionals, who have come up with different results. The key points of their critique of The Bell Curve are as follows: Most of The Bell Curve 's analysis is devoted to proving that IQ has more predictive power than parental \"socio-economic status.\" But Herrnstein and Murray's method of figuring socioeconomic status seems designed to low-ball its influence, as explains. If the purpose of the whole exercise is to figure out what our social policies should be, then, \"Which is more predictive, IQ or socioeconomic status?\" isn't the essential question anyway. Making it the essential question avoids the issue of whether IQ is really so massively predictive that it drowns out everything else. (Herrnstein and Murray mostly leave the evidence for this, their central contention, to footnotes. The figures they offer are far from dispositive.) 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. In fact, The Bell Curve is a relentless brief for the conservative position in psychometrics and social policy. For all its talk of reflecting a consensus, the sources it draws upon are heavily skewed to the right. Herrnstein and Murray used quasi-nutty studies that support their position (as Charles Lane demonstrated in the New York Review of Books ), and ignore mainstream studies that contradict it (as Richard Nisbett showed in the New Republic ). The data in The Bell Curve are consistently massaged to produce conservative conclusions 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.\n\n<question>:\nWhich is the least likely reason for not circulating The Bell Curve in galleys?\n\n<options>:\nA by the time people could intelligently criticize it, it was nearly too late\nB it made people more excited to read it when it did come out\nC it gave little time for people to check the facts\nD there wasn't enough time between the galley publication and the official publication\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>:\nMom sighs, shoulders falling, looks at Sara directly. \"I'm sorry honey.\" She looks old, Sara thinks, watching a resigned tiredness flicker across her face in a way she'd not noticed before. Like she's exhausted by conflict, surrendered to it. \"Now, don't I get a hug?\" \"Mom, just leave that and I'll…\" \"Your father's in the front room,\" she says, just before she disappears from view. \"Go say hi.\" For a few seconds Sara is alone in the hallway, the smell of cooking meat coming from one doorway, the sound of rolling news from another. She shakes her head, kicks off shoes, tucks hair behind her ears. Braces herself. Sara finds herself in the front room, sobbing. He's sat in the living room, reclining in the Lazy Boy. He doesn't hear her enter - her socked feet silent on the pile carpet floor, his attention lost in the screen that fills most of the wall. Fox News. She braces herself again. Dad pauses the TV, looks up at her. It looks like he's been crying too. \"Sara?\" \"Hey Dad.\" \"Honey?\" Their first words in nearly a year. Fine. So far. She relaxes. Of course it is. How bad could it be? \"Of course honey.\" Mom and Dad watch Sara leave the room, and then look at each other. \"Well.\" \"Well indeed.\" \"Well I'm sure they'll be fine.\" She regrets the sarcasm as soon as she hears it in her own voice, but she still can't stop herself, like it's expected, like it's part of the routine. Part of their schtick. \"They just got to get themselves out there, huh Dad? Pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That's the American way, right?\" \"I'm glad you think this is funny, I really do. But what you New York types need to realise is-\" \"Ed!\" Mom had appeared in the doorway. \"Please! Both of you. No fighting today, please.\" \"Sorry Mom.\" Sara turns back to the TV, to watching the war, to trying to work out which one it is. It had always been this way, ever since she was about thirteen. Up until then it just seemed like constant warmth, as though she didn't have any childhood concept of Dad apart from him getting home from work, then her sitting on his knee, eating cookies and watching football highlights until Mom came in and scolded them both for ruining their appetites before dinner. And then everything changed. Suddenly there was rap music and nose rings, sneaking out of the house to see her friends and not wanting to go to church. Suddenly he was no longer this lovable bear-man that ruffled her hair and gave her candy and explained defensive plays to her, but this huge obelisk of injustice that just wanted to crush her high school life into dust. It was constant warfare every opinion she had became a battle, every decision she made a conflict. Getting away to college gave her escape, but bred resentment too So they didn't talk much now, barely online, never on the phone. Since her second year of school he'd never been to NYC to visit her. She came back when she could face it Dinner is Mom's meatloaf, with gravy and mashed potatoes. Cornbread and broccoli. Every mouthful tastes like nostalgia, and Sara can feel herself being encompassed by a bubble, this barrier of warm air and long forgotten simplicity enveloping her body, protecting her from the confusion of the world outside. \"How's work, honey?\" Mom asks. \"Yeah, going OK.\" Sara works for a non-profit in Brooklyn that helps big organisations to transition to renewable energy. The pay is lousy but it feels important. \"We just got the last few schools in the city to agree to put solar panels on their roofs. Big deal for us. I've been working on them for the last two years.\" Mom says nothing, just looks down at her plate. Sara laughs, covering her mouth as she nearly chokes on chewed food. \"What? No they don't Dad.\" \"-because they are the world's largest manufacturers of solar panels. But the research has been done. The scientific evidence is out there. Look it up.\" \"Look it up?\" Sara shakes her head, not knowing where to even start. \"Dad, who is telling you this stuff?\" \"No blasphemy at the dinner table, please honey\" says Mom. \"What about them?\" Sara looks over to Mom, who looks like she's on the brink of tears. Suddenly she finds she's also lost the will to fight. Gently she closes the iPad and puts it down on the table, next to her plate. \"No, of course not Dad. Maybe I'll read this later, after the game.\" After dinner she helps Mom clean-up, the two of them loading the dishwasher in near silence. She's leaning against the counter, scrolling through Twitter on her phone, when Mom finally speaks. \"You should go easy on your father, you know. He's worried about a lot of things.\" \"What things? Solar panel cancer?\" \"Don't joke Sara, I'm serious. There's a lot that bothers him. The state of the world. The future. All these damn wars.\" \"We're all worried about all that, Mom.\" Sara looks up from her phone, genuine concern. \"Is he OK?\" \"I had no idea-\" \"Yeah, well you know your father. Doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to burden other people with his problems. Hates pity.\" She pauses, looks out the window into the yard. When she turns back to Sara her eyes are damp. \"This is why I was so excited about you coming back. Why he was so excited! I thought it'd take his mind of all this. He was so excited to see you. You know he loves watching the game with you, Sara.\" \"I know. I'm sorry I-\" Sara slips her phone into her pocket, genuine guilt. Feels like a spoiled kid. \"I didn't realise. I'm sorry.\" Mom smiles, walks over and kisses her on the forehead. \"It's OK honey. Don't feel bad. Just go. Just go sit in there with him and watch some TV. Please.\" \"Fuck this,\" says Sara, getting up from her seat. \"Sara!\" says Mom. \"No I'm sorry, I can't. I can't sit here and watch this… this bullshit. This propaganda.\" She storms out of the room. \"Sara!\" Mom makes to get up. \"No, just leave her,\" says Dad, gently, his eyes still fixed on the screen. \"Just let her go.\" Out in the kitchen Sara sits at the table and wants to scream. She's angry, mainly with herself. She should never have fucking come here. She should have known better. There was never any fucking way anything good was going to come from this. As much as Mom wants to romanticise things, to make them sound cute and adorable, the truth is shit with Dad has never been right since she was a teenager. Too much resentment, too much bad blood, too much control and rebellion. They hadn't agreed on anything - they hadn't managed to have a simple conversation that didn't descend into fighting - in 15 goddamn years, and no amount of eating cookies and watching fucking Super Bowl ads on the TV was going to fix that. She sighs, wipes a tear from her cheek. On autopilot she takes her phone from her pocket, feels its reassuring warmth in her hand, and swipes open Twitter. Everybody seems to be talking about the same thing.\n\n<question>:\nWhy have Sara and her father not spoken in over a year?\n\n<options>:\nA Sara attended college in New York and stayed there after graduating.\nB They have intense disagreements on most political issues.\nC Sara and her father voted for different presidential candidates.\nD Sara's father was an authoritative presence during her high school years.\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>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Everyone—all the geologists, at any rate—had known about the Kiowa Fault for years. That was before there was anything very interesting all even the professionals were interested in knowing. There was never so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the general public. It was still a matter of academic interest when in the late '40s geologists speculated on the relationship between the Kiowa Fault and the Conchas Fault farther south, in New Mexico, and which followed the Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was suggested that the Niobrara Fault (just inside and roughly parallel to By the mid sixties it was definitely established that the three Faults It is not really surprising that it took so long to figure out the connection. The population of the states affected was in places as low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed impossible that it could ever be used except for sheep-farming. It strikes us today as ironic that from the late '50s there was grave concern about the level of the water table throughout the entire area. Newspapers in the mountain states gave it a few inches on the front a dust volcano? Unusual, they knew, but right on the Kiowa Fault—could headlines, and some papers even left off the question mark. It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not mentioned. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. His suggestion was mentioned on page nine or ten To excuse the other geologists, it must be said that the Kiowa Fault Still, it was only a theory. It had to be proved. As the tremors grew Edison were shaken to pieces by incredible earthquakes, whole bus- and for their university and government department to approve budgets. They found, of course, that Schwartzberg had been perfectly correct. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. Atop the new Dry earth churned like mud, and rock shards weighing tons bumped and rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles themselves. \"It looks like sand dancing in a child's sieve,\" said the normally impassive Schwartzberg in a nationwide broadcast from the scene of disaster. \"No one here has ever seen anything like it.\" And \"Get out while you can,\" Schwartzberg urged the population of the affected area. \"When it's over you can come back and pick up the pieces.\" But the band of scientists who had rallied to his leadership privately wondered if there would be any pieces. Land west of the Fault was holding firm, though Denver had recorded everywhere east of the Fault, to almost twenty miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent All mountain climbing was prohibited on the Eastern Slope because of the danger of rock slides from minor quakes. The geologists went home As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome down. They danced \"like sand in a sieve\" dry, they boiled into rubble. By 23 September the Fault was active well into Wyoming on the north, Tremendous fissures opened up perpendicular to the Fault, and a general On the actual scene of the disaster (or the scenes it is impossible to speak of anything this size in the singular) there was a horrifying assured that everything possible is being done.\" But what could be done, with his state dropping straight down at a mean rate of a foot a day? Soon the Missouri began slowly slipping away westward over the slowly floods, in the usual sense. The water moved too slowly, spread itself with no real direction or force. But the vast sheets of sluggish water and jelly-like mud formed death-traps for the countless refugees now Perhaps the North Platte disaster had been more than anyone could take. 193 people had died in that one cave-in. Certainly by 7 October it had to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced bell. It was simply the tortured rock of the substrata giving way. The second phase of the national disaster was beginning. wake the earth to the north \"just seemed to collapse on itself like Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the through the night. The earth continued its descent, eventually tipping thirst of the soil temporarily broke the furious charge. Washington announced the official hope that the Ozarks would stop the Despite hopeful announcements that the wave was slowing, had virtually stopped after inundating Oklahoma City, was being swallowed up in the rescuers on the cliffs along what had been the west bank of the Pecos River afterwards recalled the hiss and scream like tearing silk as the water broke furiously on the newly exposed rock. It was the most terrible sound they had ever heard. \"We couldn't hear any shouts, of course, not that far away and with all down with his State. Daniel Bernd of Lincoln, Nebraska, was washed up half-drowned in a cove Mrs. Creeth when she afterwards appeared on a popular television spectacular. Her rural good-humor undamaged by an ordeal few women can ever have been called on to face, she added, \"We sure wondered why flushes never came out right. Jimanettly, we'd left the king of hearts behind, in the rush!\" But such lightheartedness and such happy endings were by no means typical. The world could only watch aghast as the water raced north under the shadow of the cliffs which occasionally crumbled, roaring, into the roaring waves. Day by day the relentless rush swallowed what along what is roughly the present shoreline of our inland sea, it was estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives. No one could even estimate the damage to property almost the entirety of eight states, and portions of twelve others, had simply vanished came to America. Today, nearly one hundred years after the unprecedented—and happily unrepeated—disaster, it is hard to remember the terror and despair of those weeks in October and November, 1973. It is inconceivable to think of the United States without its beautiful and economically essential What would the United States have become without the 5600-mile coastline of our inland sea? It is only within the last twenty years that any but the topmost layer of water has cleared sufficiently to permit a really extensive fishing industry. Mud still held in suspension by the restless waves will not precipitate fully even in our is directly ameliorated by the marine heart of the continent. Who today could imagine the United States without the majestic vied favorably with such giant systems as the Amazon and the Ganges. The political situation has long been a thorny problem. Only tattered remnants of the eight submerged states remained after the flood, but in the continuing anomaly of the seven \"fringe States\" represented indistinguishable from their neighboring states. Fortunately it was decided some years ago that Oklahoma, only one of the eight to have completely disappeared, could not in any sense be considered to have a continuing political existence. So, though there estate, the state has in fact disappeared from the American political scene. But this is by now no more than a petty annoyance, to raise a smile when the talk gets around to the question of State's Rights. Not even the tremendous price the country paid for its new sea—fourteen million dead, untold property destroyed—really offsets the asset we enjoy Unimaginable too would have been the general growth of population axis of world communication, a population explosion was touched off of\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the idea of Joseph Schwartzberg regarding the explanation for Kiowa Fault not recognized largely by newspapers?\n\n<options>:\nA He lacked the credentials needed for such a proclamation\nB His information was disproven very early on.\nC His theory lacked the dramatic effect that was desired\nD He was not dignified enough to receive the recognition\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>:\nfive buckos for a glass of water—and got it! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] that had been termed a spaceport. When Harvey staggered pontifically incoherent. They met in the doorway, violently. \"We're delirious!\" Joe cried. \"It's a mirage!\" \"What is?\" asked Harvey through a mouthful of cotton. Joe reeled aside, and Harvey saw what had upset his partner. He stared, hands, six siphons in two others, and a broom and dustpan in the juice and sweep the floor, all of which the native did simultaneously. \"Water—quick!\" \"Strangers, eh?\" he asked at last. lush manner. \"We purvey that renowned Martian remedy, La-anago Yergis , the formula for which was recently discovered by ourselves in the ancient ruined city of La-anago. Medical science is unanimous in proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history of therapeutics.\" \"Yeah?\" said the bartender disinterestedly, polishing the chaser glasses without washing them. \"Where you heading?\" \"Out of Mars for Ganymede. Our condenser broke down, and we've gone chaser.\" crook—robbing poor spacemen! You—\" bartender apologetically. \"Don't mind my friend. His adrenal glands are sometimes overactive. You were going to say—?\" The round face of the barkeeper had assumed an aggrieved expression. \"Folks are always thinkin' the other feller's out to do 'em,\" he said, shaking his head. \"Lemme explain about the water here. It's bitter as some kinds of sin before it's purified. Have to bring it in with buckets and make it sweet. That takes time and labor. Waddya think—I was chargin' feller critters for water just out of devilment? I charge five-bucko bills, \"here is your money. What's fair is fair, and you thirst.\" \"If that's an apology, I accept it. Now the mayor'll discuss filling that's all.\" preposterous. We simply can't afford it.\" Johnson's response almost floored them. \"Who said anything about charging you for battery water? You can have all you want for nothing. It's just the purified stuff that comes so high.\" get used to in ten minutes.\" \"What's this doing here?\" Harvey asked, puzzled. \"I thought Johnson had to transport water in pails.\" from .\" Five minutes later, panting heavily from the unaccustomed exertion of born and raised in low gravity. For any decent-sized world would have kept him down near the general dimensions of a man. atmosphere. feel well?\" down with asteroid fever!\" \"Of course,\" replied Harvey calmly. \"Any fool knows the first symptoms of the disease that once scourged the universe.\" \"What do you mean, once frantically, \"sulfopyridine, mustard plasters, rubs, inhalers, suction cups—\" \"Relics of the past,\" Harvey stated. \"One medication is all modern man requires to combat the dread menace, asteroid fever.\" \"What's that?\" asked the mayor without conviction. few minutes, carrying a bottle. \"Maybe you need another dose,\" Harvey suggested. Joe recoiled. \"I'm fine now!\" he cried, and sprang off the bar to prove \" La-anago Yergis never fails, my friend,\" Harvey explained. \"By actual test, it conquers asteroid fever in from four to twenty-three minutes, depending on the severity of the attack. Luckily, we caught don't charge too much,\" he said warily, \"I might think of buying some.\" \"We do not sell this unbelievable remedy,\" Harvey replied with dignity. \"It sells itself.\" \"'Course, I'd expect a considerable reduction if I bought a whole case,\" said Johnson. \"That would be the smallest investment you could make, compared with the vast loss of time and strength the fever involves.\" buckos.\" \"There ain't no words for that taste,\" he gulped when it was safe to talk again. \"Medicine,\" Harvey propounded, \"should taste like medicine.\" To Joe he said: \"Come, my esteemed colleague. We must perform the sacred task to which we have dedicated ourselves.\" his murderous silence and cried: \"What kind of a dirty trick was that, giving me poison instead of that snake oil?\" \"That was not poison,\" Harvey contradicted quietly. \"It was La-anago Yergis extract, plus.\" \"Plus what—arsenic?\" \"Now, Joseph! Consider my quandary when I came back here to manufacture our specific for all known ailments, with the intention of selling yonder asteroidal tin-horn a bill of medical goods—an entire case, mind you. Was I to mix the extract with the water for which we had been swindled to the tune of ten buckos a liter? Where would our profit have been, then? No I had to use the bitter free water, of course.\" \"But why use it on me?\" Joe demanded furiously. Harvey looked reprovingly at his gangling partner. \"Did Johnson ask to the same medicine that we will now manufacture. Thus, you were a least as good as the first he gagged. \" \" the mayor grunted. \"Powdered concentrates. Compressed pap. grinned, bowed and asked: \"Everything satisfactory, gents?\" , using his other two \"It's been a great honor, gents,\" he said. \"Ain't often I have Harvey. Harvey picked it up negligently, but his casual air vanished in a yelp of horror. !\" \"restaurateur,\" pocketed it. Meanwhile, Harvey tipped Joe the sign to schoolmasterish severity, \"your long absence from Earth has perhaps made you forget those elements of human wisdom that have entered the folk-lore of your native planet. Such as, for example: 'It is folly to kill a goose that lays golden eggs,' and 'Penny wise is pound foolish.'\" \"I don't get the connection,\" objected Johnson. the peculiar creature you call Genius. But by reducing our funds the way you have—\" offer, anyhow?\" \"It doesn't matter any longer,\" Harvey said with elaborate carelessness. \"Perhaps you wouldn't have accepted it, anyway.\" \"Which one? The one we were going to make, or the one we can make now?\" \"Either one. It don't make no difference. Genius is too valuable to sell.\" \"Oh, come now, Mr. Johnson. Don't tell me no amount of money would five-fifty.\" filial mammoth to keep you company.\" study, which I am positive will soon reward us with the key to an enormous fortune.\" years.\" saying I'll buy, but what is it I'm turning down?\" his tragic death, you will recall, Dean allegedly went insane.\" He banged his fist on the bar. \"I have said it before, and I repeat again, that was a malicious lie, spread by the doctor's enemies to discredit his greatest invention—this fourth dimensional radio!\" \"This what?\" Johnson blurted out. \"And this thing gets broadcasts from the fourth dimension?\" \"It does, Mr. Johnson! Only charlatans like those who envied Doctor Dean's magnificent accomplishments could deny that fact.\" lie that broke Dean's spirit and drove him to suicide?\" Johnson recoiled. \"No—no, of course not But it is a matter of record that the doctor proved the broadcasts emanating from the super-dimension were in English! Why should that be \"For three years, Joseph and I lost sleep and hair, trying to detect the simple key that would translate the somewhat metamorphosed broadcasts into our primitive English. It eluded us. Even the doctor\n\n<question>:\nWhat is \"La-anago Yergis\"?\n\n<options>:\nA It's a panacea that can cure any ailment.\nB It's medicine. It's a cure for \"asteroid fever.\"\nC It's purified water.\nD It's a placebo. It's not real medicine.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,619 | 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>:\nCraig looked them over quickly. at all. Maybe you could go with me to have dinner. It must be almost dinnertime now. You could sort of check me out on some....\" Rootless and footloose, a man in space can't help but dream of coming home. But something nobody should behind Craig fidgeted. hoped he would have the right size of Terran units in his wallet. A murmur greeted the order. Craig experienced the thrill of knowing the envy of the others. Grav 1—that meant Terra. He crossed the long, \"Grav 1—Terra,\" fumbled Craig. \"Los Angeles.\" \"I—I—\" Craig muttered, fumbling in his pockets. \"No specific destination,\" supplied the man as he punched a key on a small instrument, \"Air-lock ahead and to your right. Strip and follow entered. He nudged Craig wickedly. \"You know what they're like?\" \"Yeah,\" Craig said disgustedly. Traffic in the illicit mental-image Intergalactic considered them as great a menace to mental and moral how long it would take him to shake his—sea legs, the psychologist had called it. One thing was sure: Terra aggressively went after its personnel and felt the impotence of a spaceman who had long forgotten \"Place your clothing in the receptacle provided and assume a stationary position on the raised podium in the center of the lock.\" Craig obeyed the robot voice and began reluctantly to remove his flight strange, foreign associations for the base station clerk who would to hate a robot, but one could certainly hate those who set it into that button.\" Stepping on the button with his bare foot produced an instant of Craig obeyed and clenched his teeth against a sharp stinging. His \"Well, what's next?\" asked Craig somewhat more belligerently than he \"I'm a little anxious to get home, I suppose,\" said Craig defensively. \"By 'home' you mean Terra. But you've never been there, have you?\" \"Yes,\" Craig said. He was uncomfortable nothing to stop you from going to Terra.\" \"Yes. You have spent eleven years in space. Your body is conditioned to a normal state of free fall, or at best to a state of acceleration.\" \"Yeah, I know. Once on Gerymeade....\" \"You were ill, couldn't keep your balance, felt dizzy. That is why \"I expect to have some trouble at first.\" Craig was disturbed by the wordy psychologist. What was the man actually saying? \"Do you know what sailors of ancient times meant by 'sea legs?'\" asked Wyandotte. \"Men on a rolling ocean acclimated themselves to a rolling horizontal. They had trouble when they went ashore and the horizontal and pick you up tomorrow morning at, say, 0900.\" During the days that followed, the psychologist seemed to Craig to become progressively more didactic. He would deliver long speeches about the \"freedom of open space.\" He spoke repetitiously of the \"growing complexity of Terran society.\" And yet the man could not Craig began to hate the delay that kept him from Terra. Through the really knew very much about Terra. So what? I know it won't be as it You tell me spacemen don't settle down on Terra. Yet you won't—or \"The twelfth day is the worst,\" a grizzled spaceman told Craig. \"That's \"Dropped ... it ... down?\" \"Maybe that ain't scientific, but it's the way I always think of it.\" \"Can't they ... drop it down continuously?\" \"They tried that a few times—once when I was aboard. You wouldn't like it, kid. You wouldn't like it at all.\" \"How ... many times ... do they drop it?\" \"Four times during the day, three at night. Twenty days.\" A nightmare of visual sensations ebbed into Craig's mind. He was moved so much as an inch. Craig heard the voices around him, muffled, as though talking through white-clad figures, ridiculously out of proportion, hovered wraithlike over him. Four elongated eyes peered at him. Attendants coming for to take me home.... \"Touch me and I'll kick your teeth in!\" he yelled. \"I'm going to Terra. Wish you were going to Terra?\" On the eighteenth day, automatic machinery freed them from their imprisoning cots. Clumsily and awkwardly at first, the men began to walk, to hold their heads and arms in proper attitudes. They laughed and joked about it and kidded those who were slow at adjusting. Then they again began taking paraoxylnebutal in preparation for the free-fall flight to Terra. voluntarily in his cot. \"Space article violator,\" the old man informed Craig. \"Psycho, I think. \"What will they do, exile him?\" card and gave him a one-way ticket to Terra.\" doing when you get to Terra, for instance?\" engaged in an animated conversation. \"It's a good job. There's a future to it.\" \"Yeah.\" Why did he have to explain anything at all to the old space tramp? Craig half rose from his cot, jarred into anger. thinking anyone who stays closer'n eighty light years from Terra is a Craig relaxed, realizing he had acted childishly. \"Used to think the The old man looked up at Craig. \"You don't know much about Terra, do \"What are you doing in Grav 1?\" Craig asked. The old man's face clouded for an instant. \"In the old days, they used to say us old-timers acted like clocks. They used to say we just ran Craig regretted his question. He would have muttered some word of stand this whirligig conditioning, you're through with space.\" \" green. \" \" \" \" \" \" \" \" \" \" They'll dump him, won't they? \" \" \" \" \" \" on and play spaceman. But Craig swore he'd make sure that the kid knew Robert Craig. Report to Orderly 12. Report to Orderly 12 through the With pangs of anxiety he could not completely suppress, Craig obeyed. \"Who's it from? Somebody on Terra?\" The message container produced a battered punch card. Craig easy if she moved. Women don't generally shove off and not leave a forwarding address. Not Ethel, at least. Damn the old man! How did one explain? Craig descended the ramp from the huge jet and concentrated on his planet Terra. He tried to recall his first thrill at seeing Los Angeles, 1500 square miles of it, from the ship as it entered the atmosphere. He was about to step off the last step when a man appeared hurriedly. A \"A moment, sir. Just a little greeting from the Terra. You understand, of course. Purely routine.\" Craig remained on the final step of the ramp, puzzled. The man turned to a companion at his right. \"We can see that this gentleman has come from a long, long way off, can't we?\" to be a kind of camera. \"We can allow the gentlemen to continue now, can't we? It wasn't that we believed for a minute, you understand ... purely routine.\" Both men were gone in an instant, leaving Craig completely bewildered. \"You goin' to move on, buddy, or you want to go back?\" Craig turned to face a line of his fellow passengers up the ramp behind him. \"Who was that?\" Craig asked. \"You mean he screened me? What for?\" \"Hard to say,\" the other passenger said. \"You'll get used to this. They first physical contact with Terra had passed unnoticed. \"Sir! Sir!\" cried a voice behind him. He wheeled to see a man walking briskly toward him. metal. He did not look directly at Craig for more than an instant at a time, and commented on Craig's description of his trip through the city only very briefly between questions. \"I see,\" said the man noncommittally. It seemed to Craig that he was about him, Craig thought. \"This is Mr. Craig's first landing on Terra, Miss Wendel,\" the you couldn't be expected to be familiar with Terra's fashions. In your Craig reddened in spite of himself. He had bought the suit on Ghandii.\n\n<question>:\nThe denizens of Terra would most likely make fun of Craig for his ______.\n\n<options>:\nA clothing\nB accent\nC posture\nD walking\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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587 | 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 a cool cat—the elevator and the Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the money operators all wore earmuffs—was just as phony as a three-dollar bill! \"They're so very strange,\" Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying \"He was a very kind employer,\" Orison said. She tried to keep from \"What kinda salary you bucking for?\" he translated, bouncing up and down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots. \"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji,\" Orison said. It was indeed. to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, \"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?\" Orison asked. \"It seems a rather peculiar job,\" Orison said. \"After all, I'm a Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the By lunchtime Orison had finished the Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude. Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together, eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven of her first day's spying. No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, Orison lay down cautiously. \"All right,\" she whispered to her pillow. Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. \"A radio?\" she \"I got the job,\" Orison said. \"Are you ... in that pillow ... all the \"You make it sound so improper,\" Orison said. Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a \"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?\" Orison asked. a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? \"It's nothing,\" Orison said, switching off the microphone. reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well,\" Orison said. \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\" \"That's the drill,\" he said. \"One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?\" curtsy? Orison wondered. to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. Small bows, true just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding. Orison finished the Orison looked up. \"Oh, hello,\" she said. \"I didn't hear you come up.\" of the desk, \"and pounce ever so hard.\" She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said, and tried to smile back without showing \"Thanks,\" Orison said. \"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly,\" Orison said, rolling her \"You make it very clear,\" Orison said. \"Now you'd best hurry back to he stepped up to Orison's desk. \"Good morning. Miss McCall,\" he said. \"What is this?\" Orison demanded. \"Visiting-day at the zoo?\" She paused \"Yeah, intense,\" Orison said. \"Like a kidney-stone.\" but the ears were in evidence, and seemed normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed—what continental manners these bankers had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it. Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and said, \"I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. \"I quit!\" she finance, and listen to another word.\" \"Dearest lady, my humblest pardon,\" Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, a bit lower. \"Your work is splendid your presence is Taft Bank's most \" Orison said. \"Well, Buster, here's a word to the foolish. Get lost.\" Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. \"Until we meet again?\" Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with fifth floor. First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before \"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding.\" Orison clicked the phone down. The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison Into a pair of arms. \"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall,\" Kraft Gerding said. Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have we to toss you into one of these tanks....\" Orison struggled against \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted. damsels in distress,\" Kraft said. \"Someone, after all, has to mind the bank.\" though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering Samma! \" Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator. \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do Orison,\" he said. eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison.\" He extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the \"He's like a baby crawdad,\" Orison said. \"What do they do?\" Orison asked. \"What's he doing now?\" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae. \"They like gold,\" Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices.\" He took her arm. \"If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world.\" Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to\n\n<question>:\nHow did Orison feel on the first day of her job?\n\n<options>:\nA confused about her job duties\nB frustrated with the other women that worked there\nC excited about such a large raise\nD in love with the quirkiness of the employees\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,561 | 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. the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] They were such cute synthetic creatures, it was impossible not to love them. Of course, that was precisely why they were dangerous! \"I didn't know you killed them,\" she said venomously. \"I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals.\" \" \"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 \"Nothing to worry about, is it Terry?\" He looked at her peculiarly. \"Ever think what might happen if someone started a black market in neutroids?\" protested hopelessly, knowing that a logical defense was useless against sentimentality. \"Baby—\" \"Don't call me baby! Call them baby!\" O'Reilley's pet shop—right place, wrong number. I just don't get it.\" The dog was saying, \"Don' sell me, Dada. Don' sell me.\" Norris smiled sardonically to himself. The non-human pets were smarter 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 afraid to make the quasi-humans too intelligent, lest sentimentalists 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 couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid. of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides, 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 Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular The bio-agent waited. Again the thought of a black market troubled him. Unauthorized neutroids could mean lots of trouble. to hear. He shut the door behind him, and Norris heard the lock click. one animal is found. Be thorough. If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his \"I thought they were all registered,\" Anne said. Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together 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. 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?\" 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 even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her. It'll be spooky.\" There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. \"I'll try it anyway. Can I come get the animal now?\" Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal. But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later citizens with resisting a Federal official—namely 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.\" Yates stopped laughing. \"Oh. Well, I'll take care of it.\" \"That'll be all right. And listen, Yates—fix it so the charges will 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.\" Norris gave him the names and addresses of the three unwilling mothers. \"Come on,\" he grunted. \"Let's unload some neutroids, before I forget with a conveyor belt leading from it to a crematory-incinerator. Norris kept the third locked lest his wife see its furnishings. 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 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. \"They get to love whoever feeds them.\" \"I can't see—\" \"How would you feel about disposing of something that loved you?\" Anne folded her arms and stared at him. \"Planning to dispose of any 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.\" \"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 tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the snare. \"Kkr-r-reee,\" it cooed nervously. \"Kkr-r-reee!\" 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 \"What was it?\" \"Neutroid trouble.\" \"You meet up with a lot of unpleasantness in this business, don't you?\" \"Lot of unpleasant emotions tangled up in it,\" he admitted. out of the north. He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy 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 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>:\nWhy shouldn't Anne feed the neutroids?\n\n<options>:\nA Neutroids can only form attachments with a limited number of people. The neutroids at the kennel belong to other people.\nB Neutroids are supposed to eat a nutritional paste from a mechanical feeder.\nC Neutroids have a special diet to limit their physical and mental development.\nD Neutroids could become excitable and bite someone who is not their owner.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,375 | 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>:\nGetting specimens for the interstellar zoo was no problem—they battled for the honor—but keep a display from making a monkey of me! It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see and smell them with ease. My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old exhibitionist urge. lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?\" giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition. Gorb shrugged. \"What have I to lose?\" arrival. Stuff like this: Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial, other species of the universe. The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, \"The first certain information about—\" \"I am a being of Regulus II,\" came the grave, booming reply, even before I had picked up the blank. \"I need no special care and I am not a fugitive from the law of any world.\" 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 shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see.\" transportation.\" The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping on one side, two on the other. \"Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I accept the terms!\" I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in 2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement. Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down, a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo. That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is, of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens we advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it. We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms. My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can. After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids, fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks. It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman. about him. He said, in level Terran accents, \"I'm looking for a job with your outfit, Corrigan.\" \"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only.\" \"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz XIII.\" I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line Earthborn as I am.\" \"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth,\" he said smoothly. \"I happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to another chance.\" He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile. This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get a job! But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket home. I said, \"I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a female now and—\" \"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry, languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You must Earth!\" \"But—\" My face was expressionless. \"You don't really intend to join our organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?\" \"Yes, yes!\" wailed the Stortulian. \"Find some other member of my race, happy—not to mention footing the transportation. I said, \"I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life 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 day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract. 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. outside 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 me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me. I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is arrival. The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against crackpots. In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, \"Life is no longer\n\n<question>:\nWould the narrator consider his trip worthwhile?\n\n<options>:\nA No - it was more trouble than it was worth\nB All of the above\nC No - it nearly cost him his life\nD Yes - he found many new non-terrestrials\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,392 | 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>:\nme as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just how you feel I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two of the same people. You sense things. So I'll simply go ahead talking for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling what happened to me So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me. You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes it is probably the field that prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section isn't protected, though. You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button, it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no there . You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can guess how things are. You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening and you don't try it again. Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time. You turn to me, getting used to the idea. \"So this is the fourth dimension?\" you ask. Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first, then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space. You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't think about that then, either. time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still. Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe \"I'm staying here,\" I tell you. \"This is like the things they wear in this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming back with you.\" You nod, remembering I've told you about it. \"What century is this, anyway?\" I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. \"As near as I can guess, it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an interstellar civilization.\" You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor. This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs, and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open. \"What about the time machine?\" you ask. \"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe.\" We get in the elevator, and I say \"first\" to it. It gives out a You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect. And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed. Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing. happens, though. You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction and heads back to the museum. You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light. You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim light appears you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with some pencil marks over them—\"Press these to return to yourself 30 years\"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't because there is only one of you this time. Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement, land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then, feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of the makeshift job you've just done. that the date of the patent application is 1951. It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to yourself.... kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you. without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left. Let's go.\n\n<question>:\nWhat does the older man plan to do after this event?\n\n<options>:\nA retire\nB grow his company and make more money\nC go to another dimension\nD travel back in time again\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,932 | 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 Sir Robert's lips formed a smile. \"They are not far off, Sir Gaeton. that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all truly Christian knights.\" hills. \"The sun is yet low, and already the heat is unbearable.\" Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. \"Perhaps 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than men of cooler blood.\" He knew that the others were baking inside their Sir Gaeton looked at him with a smile that held both irony and respect. \"In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor 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 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 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 warleaders in Christendom at this crucial point? The desertion of Philip \"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.\" Sir Gaeton said nothing more, but there was a look in his eyes that showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty of Sir Robert de Bouain. Sir Robert rode on in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath him. There was a sudden sound to the rear. Like a wash of the tide from the Sir Robert turned his horse to look. The Negro troops of Saladin's Egyptian contingent were thundering down upon the rear! They clashed with the Hospitallers, slamming in like a \"Stand fast! Stand fast! Hold them off!\" It was the voice of King Richard, sounding like a clarion over the din of battle. 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 stopped moving. The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears. \"Stand fast. The King bids you all to stand fast,\" said the duke, his voice fading as he rode on up the column toward the knights of Poitou 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. 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 King cannot see everything! There are times when a man must use his own judgment! You said you were afraid of no man. Are you with me?\" After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. \"I'm with you, sir knight! Live or die, I follow! Strike and strike hard!\" \"Forward then!\" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. \"Forward for St. George and for England!\" \"St. George and England!\" the Gascon echoed. The Egyptians tried to dodge, as they saw, too late, the approach of the Christian knights. 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. Another Moslem cavalryman was charging in now, swinging his curved saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance. There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy broadsword. His hand grasped it, and it came singing from its scabbard. The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting sweeping arc, and the Egyptian's horse rode on with the rider's headless body. Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of \"St. George and England!\" The Hospitallers, taking heart at the charge, were going in! Behind them came the Count of Champagne, the Earl of Leister, and the Bishop of Beauvais, who carried a great warhammer in order that he might not break Church Law by shedding blood. Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy. He himself felt a dreamlike detachment, as though he were watching the battle rather than participating in it. onslaught. And then, quite suddenly, there seemed to be no foeman to swing at. Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword. Beside him, Sir Gaeton did the same, saying: \"It will be a few minutes before they can regroup, sir knight. We may have routed them completely.\" \"Aye. But King Richard will not approve of my breaking ranks and disobeying orders. I may win the battle and lose my head in the end.\" \"This is no time to worry about the future,\" said the Gascon. \"Rest for \"That's for sure.\" Sir Robert watched a smoke ring expand in the air. There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped 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 Saracen horde pressed on. More and more of the terrible Turks came boiling down out of the hills, their glittering scimitars swinging. Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his own great broadsword moving, swinging like some gigantic metronome as he hacked down the Moslem foes. 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 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, 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. And then a voice was saying: \"You have done well this day, sir knight. Richard Plantagenet will not forget.\" Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king. \"My lord king, be assured that I would never forget my loyalty to my sovereign and liege lord. My sword and my life are yours whenever you\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the main risk of Sir Robert's command to charge into Saladin's frontline?\n\n<options>:\nA The Hospitallers might not have enough time to recover\nB He is disobeying King Richard's orders\nC King Richard will be left unprotected\nD Sir Robert will likely perish in the fray\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,272 | 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>:\ntraveling from star to star! 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. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish. But to ask a man to give up two years of his life—well, that was asking a lot. Two years in a sardine can. Still, it had an appeal Keith Ellason knew he couldn't deny, a newsman's joy of the clean beat, a planetary system far afield, a closeup view of the universe, history in the first trip.\" Weblor I Weblor I 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 decision of Interstellar was that the colonists started a revolution the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his \"The second trip is history,\" Rexroad said. \"And a puzzle.\" \"If I return,\" said Ellason. Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you on your return trip on the 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 Weblor II had been built in space, as had its predecessor, the Weblor I which would open distant vistas to colonization, reducing the hollow spike, the ship would never land anywhere, but would circle Antheon as it circled Earth, shuttling its cargo and passengers to the be the home for three thousand persons outward bound, only the crew on the return trip. It was equipped with every conceivable facility was caught and whisked away. strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for Transworld at the end.\" \"Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why I say that until the journey ends.\" He smiled. \"Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.\" a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others, except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near the front of the spike near the officers' quarters. 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. He looked at his watch, picked up his notebook and made an entry. The ship right now would be slipping ever so slowly away from Earth. He got up. He'd have to go forward to the observation dome to see that. Last view of Earth for two years. The penetration of space by large groups is the coming out from under the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they was significant that all en route had passed stability tests, and that Weblor I ? They had passed stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I looking at the stars from the observation dome, walking down the same knows we try to vary it as much as we can. Space creates rough edges. But the point is, we know all this, and knowing it, we shouldn't let it happen. We've got to find that thief.\" Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am I going to get seeds like those? Do you know how long it took me to collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason.\" return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity. 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 of the Third Quadrant. She told the captain she had been attacked in \"I sympathize,\" Branson said, \"but it is up to each quadrant to deal The group left in a surly mood. suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, the crew's doing in the first place.\" Weblor II it was ready for ripening. Raymond Palugger was killed in the ship's hospital on the sixty-first forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then.\" out. better weapon than any gun.\" \"What's that?\" \"This ship is only so wide, so long and so deep. If every inch is searched, you'll find your man. He has to be somewhere aboard.\" each of the quadrants was named to serve under him. Each of these men in turn selected five others from his own group. Those assembled waited in the hall while each team of six inspected the compartments of the others. These compartments were then locked, everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was conducted. It took twenty hours. No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man. At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the escaped. the corridors—eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first We've got him on the run, the colonists said. of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter. The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until the landing on Antheon. without some new development. detail. He won't be able to get through our fingers now. Just let him make so much as a move.\" 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?\" and then. It was a long trial—from the 220th to the 241st day—and there didn't seem to be much doubt about the outcome, for Critten didn't help his own cause during any of it. \"Sure,\" Critten said. \"You colonists got the easy life as passengers, just sitting around. I had to work my head off keeping records for you lazy bastards.\" The verdict was, of course, death. 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 Weblor II was only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent lives.\" \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness and boredom that caused the killings on the Weblor I Critten nodded. \"When great numbers are being transported, they are apt they told me they'd use it on other trips to Antheon.\" \"Naturally.\" \"We removed the charges before the guns were used.\" \"He'll get it back when he's shuttled to Antheon. And all the other \"Gave them something to do,\" Branson said. \"Every time things got dull, I livened them up. I got a stunner and 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 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>:\nHow long will it take the Weblor II to make the round trip to the new colony and back?\n\n<options>:\nA 24 months\nB 42 months\nC 30 months\nD 36 months\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
197 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nin the miasma of a planet without nobody bothered to laugh at, and then we were all silent. I was feeling lost and just beginning to enjoy it when Jimmy Dentremont came over to me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An intelligent runt like me. He said what I expected. \"Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get come back alive.\" It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went back to his place without saying anything. My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the meantime, I've got brains as a consolation. Thinking it over, I was almost sorry I'd been stinking to Jimmy D. He's the only competition I have my own age. The trouble is, you don't go kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going and little grubby things just looking for In a minute we were airborne again. I wondered if I would ever see Jimmy—if he would get back alive. It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive. Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow for fourteen years and then kick us out to die. They prepare us. They do figure, though, that if you can't keep yourself alive by the time you're fourteen, you're too stupid, foolish or unlucky to be any use to the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship is a person who can take care of himself if he has to. Daddy says that something has to be done in a closed society to keep the population found at the end of the month, saddle and cinches, food and clothes. have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the bad moment any longer. thirty gone. I rode in a spiral search pattern during the next two days. I had three things in mind—stay alive, find people and find some of the others. The first was automatic. The second was to find out if there was a slot I could fit into for a month. If not, I would have to find a place to camp out, as nasty as that would be. The third was to join forces, though not with that meatball Jimmy D. No, he isn't really a meatball. The trouble is that I don't take nothing from nobody, especially him, and he doesn't take nothing from nobody, especially me. So we do a lot of fighting. I had a good month for Trial. My birthday is in November—too close to as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything cats with kittens. One of them had a string of packhorses on a line and he saw me and called to another who seemed to be the leader. That one wheeled his black horse and rode back toward me. Daddy, who should know better. We were coming up on the others now, and the man said, \"Maybe you'd The hard man said to the others, \"This boy will be riding along with us to Forton for protection.\" along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable. didn't want to be fried. narrowed eyes. But one of the others held up a hand and in wheedling tones said, \"Look here, kid....\" \"Shut up,\" I said, in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It that mean. I decided he just I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. III When I was nine, my Daddy gave me a painted wooden doll that my great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, nestled one in another, are eleven more dolls, each one smaller than hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work. But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or something. silently past. And I overtook a wagon driven by the oldest man I've seen in my life. He waved to me, and I waved back. Near the end of the afternoon I came to the town, and there I received stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were were little kids, there were boys and there were men, but no girls. All Horst and his buddies assumed I was a boy. It wasn't flattering but I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the clocks tick on this planet. But that wasn't what bothered me. It was the kids. My God! They swarmed. I saw a family come out of a house—a father and four children. It was the most foul thing I've ever seen. It struck me then—these people were Free Birthers! I felt a wave of nausea and I The first thing you learn in school is that if it weren't for idiot and criminal people like these, Earth would never have been destroyed. The evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people been eight billion people. But, no. They bred and they spread and they devoured everything in their path like a cancer. They gobbled up all the resources that Earth had and crowded and shoved one another until the final war came. I am lucky. My great-great-grandparents were among those who had enough foresight to see what was coming. If it hadn't been for them and some older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the smart and brains I needed. up with a sore head and an empty pocket. The best thing I could think I set up camp and ate my dinner. In the wagon closest to me were a man, his wife and their three children. The kids were running around and playing, and one of them ran close to the high-walled pen. His father came and pulled him away. The kids weren't to blame for their parents, but when one of them said hello to me, I didn't even answer. I know how lousy I would feel if I had two or three brothers and sisters, but it didn't strike me until that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these kids. Isn't that horrible? About the time I finished eating, and before it grew dark, the old man seen before. When nightfall came, they started a large fire. Everybody gathered around. There was singing for awhile, and then the father of the children tried to pack them off to bed. But they weren't ready to go, nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony poor girl's position. All the little girl had to help her were the handkerchief, the comb and the pearl that she had inherited from her dear dead mother. But, as it turned out, they were just enough to I wished for the same for myself. The old man had just finished and they were starting to drag the kids one, Horst. We should have been here hours ago. It be your fault we're not.\" Horst growled a retort. I decided that it was time for me to leave the who'd made the joke about me being beneath the notice of a Losel. He was alone with me now, but with that call the others would be up fast. The other one didn't move. \"Get going, Jack,\" Horst said in a menacing tone and they stood toe to toe for a long moment before Jack finally with it.\" He said, \"Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of trouble. So don't give me a hard time.\" He still thought I was a boy. It was not time to correct him, but I Ships,\" Horst said. \"That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton.\" I was about to bring my gun out when up came Jack leading Ninc, with enough,\" to the others who'd come up behind me. I felt like a fool. natural and mine wasn't, \"The piece be yours.\" Then he tromped on it until it cracked and fell apart.\n\n<question>:\nWhat did Mia have for siblings?\n\n<options>:\nA a brother and a sister\nB no siblings\nC two sisters\nD one brother\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,108 | 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>:\nIt made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship planetary system far afield, a closeup view of the universe, history in Interstellar Chief Rexroad knocked the dottle from his pipe in a tray, \"Crewmen,\" Rexroad said, \"make poor reporters.\" The crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The decision of Interstellar was that the colonists started a revolution far out in space, that it was fanned by the ignorance of Captain the problem of small groups in space—witness the discovery of the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare Ellason nodded. \"The ship disappeared.\" \"Yes. We gave control to the colonists.\" \"Assuming no accident in space,\" Phipps said, \"it was a wrong decision. They probably took over the ship.\" \"And now,\" Ellason said, \"you're going to try again.\" Interplanetary. Harvey Branson. No doubt you've heard of him. He's unprejudiced view. That's where you come in. You do the observing, the reporting. We'll evaluate it on your return.\" \"If I return,\" said Ellason. \"I suppose that's problematical,\" Phipps said, \"but I think you will. The , at a tremendous cost. Basically, it was an instrument which would open distant vistas to colonization, reducing the shoulder-to-shoulder pressure of a crowded solar system. A gigantic, Antheon as it circled Earth, shuttling its cargo and passengers to the promised land, the new frontier. A space-borne metropolis, it would to introduce Keith Ellason, whose presence Interstellar has impressed Ellason thought it was a good staff. Branson detained him after the others had gone. \"One thing, Mr. Ellason. To make it easier for you, I suggest you think of this journey strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for Transworld at the end.\" Ellason was startled. While he had considered the possibility, he had not dwelt on it. Now it loomed large in his mind. \"I don't understand, Captain Branson. It seems to me—\" Ellason left the captain's quarters with an odd taste in his mouth. Now why had Branson said that? Why hadn't Rexroad or Phipps said something, if it was important? are humanity adrift, rudderless, for whom the stars are no longer The theft of Carver Janssen's attache case occurred on the thirty-first day out. In Ellason's mind the incident, though insignificant from the standpoint of the ship as a whole, could very well be the cause of stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I know people get tired of seeing each other, playing the same tapes, \"What would he want seeds for? Have you thought of that?\" \"Of course. They'd have real value on Antheon.\" Ellason sought out Carver Janssen. He was a middle-aged man with a tired face and sad eyes. He said, \"Now what am I going to Antheon for? I could only take along so much baggage and I threw out some Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity. Dievers shrugged. \"This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red Although Dievers' account appeared in the newsletter, it was largely 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 in the newsletter, it lost no time in penetrating every compartment of the ship. Ellason was present when a delegation from the Third Quadrant called on Captain Branson, demanding action. Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, \"I have \"I sympathize,\" Branson said, \"but it is up to each quadrant to deal with its problems, whatever they may be. My job is to get us to Antheon.\" The group left in a surly mood. \"You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason,\" Captain Branson said. \"But suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, and further incidents occur. What then? It soon becomes the crew's the crew's doing in the first place.\" \"Yes,\" Ellason said, \"but what if the intruder is a crewman?\" \"I know my men,\" Branson said flatly. \"You could have a shake-down for the mask and the seed case.\" \"Do you think it is a member of the crew?\" Branson's eyes were bright. \"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? the theft of the belt. Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's \"Insofar as the ship is concerned, it is my duty to make certain no the landing on Antheon. put occupants to sleep as he went, taking many articles of value and leaving disorder behind. Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in Ellason was busy noting it all in his book. It became filled with jottings about innocent people being accidentally stunned when 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 \"Without a trial?\" \"Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd him. Ellason's first thought was that he must be a stowaway, but then he remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at him, unhappily admitted the man was a member of the crew. His name was which it always is. The Weblor II was only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent for Ellason and introduced him to the executed man. \"Hello,\" Critten said, grinning from ear to ear. \"I figured as much,\" Ellason said. \"I've been doing a lot of thinking.\" \"You're perhaps a little too good as an observer,\" Branson said. \"Or for this job, Gelthorpe Nill. Nill used to be in counter-espionage when there were wars.\" \"You were excellent,\" Ellason said. \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness the passengers.\" \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said. \"And you, Mr. Ellason, were along to observe it all,\" Captain Branson put in. \"Interstellar wanted an accurate picture of this. If it worked, they told me they'd use it on other trips to Antheon.\" Ellason nodded. \"No time for brooding, for differences of opinion on Captain Branson told them to do that.\" \"And the murder?\" 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?\" Ellason said regretfully that he did understand. \"The colonists will never know the truth,\" Branson went on. \"There will ply our trade, our little tragedies, on a thousand ships bringing\n\n<question>:\nWhich is true about the role of Interstellar in this story?\n\n<options>:\nA They hire Ellason so that memories of the journey can be documented for the families who are traveling\nB They hire the Red Mask so that they can make back some of the costs of running the mission\nC They hire the Red Mask as well as a reporter to make it look like they have nothing to hide\nD They are the company who hired Ellason in order to get to the bottom of why the missions are going awry\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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102 | 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 to laugh! For Click and Irish were marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from actor are you?\" \"That's a silly question.\" \"You only have to do three things. Walk with your gun out in front of and fall down dead. Number three is to clutch at your side, fall down questioningly dark eyes, and his scrawny body was lost in folds of against your eighty-five.\" nearest thing, and held on. You came hunting for a space-raider and you ended up cradled in a slab-sized Irishman's arms, diving at a hunk of \"Is this pursued to the death by the Beasts. One of you escaped, it seemed.\" Five hundred Patrolmen in one long, incredible line, carrying paralysis \"Get out there, you men! Throw them back! We're outnumbered!\" film, or an audience. Like this one, dammit! Like this one! His thinking \"Well, I'll at least have a few good scenes on film. I'll—\" whirred. \"Low angle shot Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed from asteroid crackup. Swell stuff. I'll get a raise for this!\" \"From the toe of me boot!\" snarled Marnagan brusquely. Oxen shoulders flexed inside his vac-suit. \"I might've died in there, and you nursin' that film-contraption!\" Hathaway felt funny inside, suddenly. \"I never thought of that. of dusty red hair. \"And I promised the boys at Luna Base this time I'd capture that Gunther lad!\" His voice stopped and the silence spoke. suffocation a better death...? . And then some way back to Earth.\" Hathaway went on saying his thoughts: \"This is Gunther's work. He's here somewhere, probably laughing his guts out at the job he did us. to Earth. I.P.'s Irish Marnagan, temporarily indisposed by a pirate whose dirty face has never been seen, Gunther by name, finally wins much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting. ?\" ?\" numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some toward the mouth a small cave. \"This way, fella!\" Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. \"They're too big they can't get us in here!\" Click's voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him. Instinctively, Hathaway added, \"Asteroid monsters! My camera! What a scene!\" eh, Click?\" will we be doing with these uninvited guests at our door?\" \"Which one will you be having?\" asked Irish, casually. \"A red one or a blue one?\" me doing it. Joking in the face of death.\" \"Me father taught me \"Then,\" retorted Marnagan, \"we'll develop it for our own benefit negotiations betwixt me and these pixies.\" that proves it. Gunther's short on men. So, what's he do he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space war isn't perfect yet, guns don't prime true in space, trajectory is lousy over long distances. So what's the best weapon, which dispenses with losing valuable, rare ships and a small bunch of men? unseen ships simply crash, that's all. A subtle hand, with all aces.\" Marnagan rumbled. \"Where is the dirty son, then!\" wounds caused at the crackup. If they survive all that—the animals then.\" it out to its full twenty inch length, held it to the light while it \"Huh?\" \"It's a strange process'll develop my picture and ignore the asteroid monsters complete.\" \"What!\" with pretending to be happy in front of nothing . Maybe— \"If my theory is correct I'll do it, unafraid,\" said Click. it'll be me does the going.\" \"Why not?\" \"You'd be going on my say-so.\" \"Ain't your say-so good enough for me?\" \"Yes. Sure. Of course. I guess—\" for teaching Junior Patrolmen how to act in tough spots. First-hand education. Poke another spool of film in that contraption and give me profile a scan. This is lesson number seven: Daniel Walks Into The Lion's Den.\" Think it hard. There aren't any animals—\" \"What do they say...? Oh, yeah. Action. Lights. Camera!\" \"And to think we let them hole us in that way, Click Hathaway, you coward!\" \"I'll take it up with the Board, lad.\" of his set-up. Explorers who land here inadvertently, are chased back kill them.\" \"Think not, Mr. Marnagan? As long as we believed in them they could have frightened us to death, forced us, maybe, to commit suicide. If that isn't being dangerous—\" Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters.\" Click attached his camera to his mid-belt. \"Gunther probably thinks we're dead by now. Everyone else's been fooled by his playmates they never had a chance to disbelieve them.\" \"If it hadn't been for you taking them pictures, Click—\" \"Come back? How?\" \"They're waiting, just outside the aura of our thoughts, and if we believe in them again, they'll return.\" Marnagan didn't like it. \"Won't—won't they kill us—if they come—if in them to a . Psychologically they can both be seen and \" Do we, now?\" \"With twenty minutes left, maybe less—\" Think it over and over.\" Marnagan cursed. \"All right, lad. Let's have at it!\" in malevolent anticipation about the two men. sending station for these telepathic brutes. Come on!\" faces, silvery fat bodies misting as he plowed through them. forget.\" Marnagan showed his teeth. \"Gah! Let a flea have all the fun? And besides, Click, I like to look at them. They're pretty.\" Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily. \"We'll be taking our chances on guard,\" hissed Irish. \"I'll go ahead, draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then, \"We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They The strange harsh voice said, \"That's better. Don't try and pick that How'd you get past the animals?\" receiving One and listening to Marnagan's lying voice: swimming darkly, his lungs crammed with pain-fire and hell-rockets. He A tunnel curved, ending in light, and two men silhouetted in that wanted, anway. A nice sordid death.\" \"Don't move!\" he snapped. \"I've got a weapon stronger than yours. One acting.\" \"What!\" hid him in a huge trash receptacle. \"Where he belongs,\" observed Irish tersely. They found themselves in a complete inner world an asteroid nothing more than a honey-comb fortress sliding through the void unchallenged. Perfect front for a raider who had little equipment and was cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the swarms of tourists that filled the void these days. Small fry weren't wanted. They were scared off. The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of \"So here we are, still not much better off than we were,\" growled up any moment. You think we could refocus this doohingey, project the monsters inside the asteroid to fool the pirates themselves?\" \"What good would that do?\" Hathaway gnawed his lip. \"They wouldn't fool the engineers who created them, you nut.\"\n\n<question>:\nBased on your interpretation of the passage, of the following options who do you think would most likely be interested in reading it?\n\n<options>:\nA A luddite who thinks even discussing technology is frustrating.\nB A well-read teenager with a penchant for thrilling adventure stories.\nC An avid reader of romance novels set in sci-fi locations.\nD An elementary schooler who likes outer space.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,094 | 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>:\nSara lets the Lyft park itself in the drive, lets out a sigh, and tweets \"It's OK Mom, I got it.\" that much of a failure.\" Mom sighs, shoulders falling, looks at Sara directly. \"I'm sorry honey.\" She looks old, Sara thinks, watching a resigned tiredness flicker across her face in a way she'd not noticed before. Like she's exhausted by conflict, surrendered to it. \"Now, don't I get a hug?\" Sara smiles. They hold each other for a few long seconds, rubbing and squeezing each other as the Lyft silently backs itself out of the driveway. When they part it's Mom's hand that's on the bag's handle. Inside she unwraps herself from scarves and layers, the heat in the house almost a shock after the cold air. Michigan in February. Mom is already halfway up the stairs, bag in tow, headed for her room. Fade to black. Chevrolet logo. White text against black. 'We know what really makes America great' Sara finds herself in the front room, sobbing. \"Honey?\" Dad pauses the TV, looks up at her. It looks like he's been crying too. \"Sara?\" She straightens herself up, wipes her eyes. Suddenly feels a little self conscious. \"Sure. Let me just go freshen up first.\" \"Of course honey.\" Mom and Dad watch Sara leave the room, and then look at each other. \"Well.\" \"Well indeed.\" \"What did I tell you? You two just needed to spend some time together. Some quality time.\" \"I guess so. What did I ever do to deserve a woman as hot and as smart as you, huh Sheryl?\" Mom stands up and makes to leave the room, leaning down to kiss him as she passes. \"I ask myself that question every day.\" \"Fine.\" \"Sorry Mom.\" Sara turns back to the TV, to watching the war, to trying to work out which one it is. It had always been this way, ever since she was about thirteen. Up until then it just seemed like constant warmth, as though she didn't have any childhood concept of Dad apart from him getting home from work, then her sitting on his knee, eating cookies and watching football highlights until Mom came in and scolded them both for ruining their appetites before dinner. And then everything changed. Suddenly there was rap music and nose rings, sneaking out of the house to see her friends and not wanting to go to church. Suddenly he was no longer this lovable bear-man that ruffled her hair and gave her candy and explained defensive plays to her, but this huge obelisk of injustice that just wanted to crush her high school life into dust. It was constant warfare Dad is in the bathroom, and Sara has had enough of Fox and whichever war this is. She reaches over and grabs the remote from the arm of his chair, and tries to find something else to watch. The government had scrapped all the rules about how the internet worked, and for most people like her parents it had suddenly gotten a lot cheaper to get their TV through Facebook, so all she can find is Dinner is Mom's meatloaf, with gravy and mashed potatoes. Cornbread and broccoli. Every mouthful tastes like nostalgia, and Sara can feel herself being encompassed by a bubble, this barrier of warm air and long forgotten simplicity enveloping her body, protecting her from the confusion of the world outside. \"How's work, honey?\" Mom asks. \"Yeah, going OK.\" Sara works for a non-profit in Brooklyn that helps big organisations to transition to renewable energy. The pay is lousy but it feels important. \"We just got the last few schools in the city to agree to put solar panels on their roofs. Big deal for us. I've been working on them for the last two years.\" Mom says nothing, just looks down at her plate. Sara laughs, covering her mouth as she nearly chokes on chewed food. \"What? No they don't Dad.\" \"Look it up?\" Sara shakes her head, not knowing where to even start. \"Dad, who is telling you this stuff?\" \"No blasphemy at the dinner table, please honey\" says Mom. \"What about them?\" \"They show me this stuff because they've got products to sell. That's how the economy works. That's how we create jobs. Godammit Sara, are you telling me you hate advertising now? Do you just hate everything about America?\" Sara looks over to Mom, who looks like she's on the brink of tears. Suddenly she finds she's also lost the will to fight. Gently she closes the iPad and puts it down on the table, next to her plate. \"No, of course not Dad. Maybe I'll read this later, after the game.\" After dinner she helps Mom clean-up, the two of them loading the dishwasher in near silence. She's leaning against the counter, scrolling through Twitter on her phone, when Mom finally speaks. \"You should go easy on your father, you know. He's worried about a lot of things.\" \"Don't joke Sara, I'm serious. There's a lot that bothers him. The state of the world. The future. All these damn wars.\" \"We're all worried about all that, Mom.\" Sara looks up from her phone, genuine concern. \"Is he OK?\" \"Yeah, well you know your father. Doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to burden other people with his problems. Hates pity.\" She pauses, looks out the window into the yard. When she turns back to Sara her eyes are damp. \"This is why I was so excited about you coming back. Why he was so excited! I thought it'd take his mind of all this. He was so excited to see you. You know he loves watching the game with you, Sara.\" Sara slips her phone into her pocket, genuine guilt. Feels like a spoiled kid. \"I didn't realise. I'm sorry.\" Mom smiles, walks over and kisses her on the forehead. \"It's OK honey. Don't feel bad. Just go. Just go sit in there with him and watch some TV. Please.\" \"Fuck this,\" says Sara, getting up from her seat. \"Sara!\" says Mom. \"No I'm sorry, I can't. I can't sit here and watch this… this bullshit. This propaganda.\" She storms out of the room. \"Sara!\" Mom makes to get up. \"No, just leave her,\" says Dad, gently, his eyes still fixed on the screen. \"Just let her go.\" Out in the kitchen Sara sits at the table and wants to scream. She's angry, mainly with herself. She should never have fucking come here. She should have known better. There was never any fucking way anything good was going to come from this. As much as Mom wants to romanticise things, to make them sound cute and adorable, the truth is shit with Dad has never been right since she was a teenager. Too much resentment, too much bad blood, too much control and rebellion. They hadn't agreed on anything - they hadn't managed to have a simple conversation that didn't descend into fighting - in 15 goddamn years, and no amount of eating cookies and watching fucking Super Bowl ads on the TV was going to fix that. She sighs, wipes a tear from her cheek. On autopilot she takes her phone from her pocket, feels its reassuring warmth in her hand, and swipes open Twitter. Everybody seems to be talking about the same thing.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Sara's relationship with her mom?\n\n<options>:\nA Sara's mom doesn't trust Sara very much given the history Sara has with her dad\nB Sara's mom is endlessly proud of Sara even if this is tense in the rest of the family\nC Sara is worried she has disappointed her mom who is exhausted by being in the middle of a family fight\nD Sara does everything driven by a desire to make her mom proud, and she is praised in return\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
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>:\n\"Don't!\" Retief jumped—too late. Retief exhaled a plume of cigar smoke. \"You're violating Terrestrial territory, Shluh,\" Retief said steadily. \"Never mind the excuses,\" Retief said. \"Just tell him I won't be \"You're making a serious mistake, Shluh,\" Retief said. Mr. Retief to his quarters in this building—\" \"I don't advise you to violate my diplomatic immunity, Fith,\" Retief immunity in the case of Mr. Retief.\" \"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 the present government in power?\" \"I'm sure I haven't pried into—\" \"What about that Terrestrial cruiser? The one that disappeared out this Groaci. I certainly hope you're not thinking of openly intruding—\" \"Why?\" \"The Groaci are a very sensitive race. They don't welcome outworlders raking up things. They've been gracious enough to let us live down the fact that Terrestrials subjected them to deep humiliation on one occasion.\" \"You mean when they came looking for the cruiser?\" \"I, for one, am ashamed of the high-handed tactics that were employed, grilling these innocent people as though they were criminals. We try never to reopen that wound, Mr. Retief.\" \"They never found the cruiser, did they?\" \"Certainly not on Groac.\" Outside, Retief stood for a moment looking across at the deeply carved Retief studied the carving over the open doorways along the street. \"To enjoy a cooling drink,\" Retief said in Groacian, squatting down at \"To get the lead out,\" Retief said, placing a thick gold-piece in the Retief turned. A tall Groacian vibrated his mandibles in a gesture toward Retief. \"To show this one in the streets, like all freaks.\" door. The other Groaci released him, hurried back inside. Retief looked \"To not endure such insolence!\" The Groacian advanced toward Retief. Retief backed away. head down, scuttled away. Retief backed into the opening to a narrow who followed, furious. Retief backed, rounded a corner into a narrow Retief stepped around him, seized his collar and yanked. The Groacian Retief put a foot against his chest and pushed. \"Government men, I imagine. Word travels fast.\" Retief pulled off his indicative of rank rose as Retief entered the room. Neither offered a \"Never mind that,\" Retief said. \"These gentlemen didn't come here to Mr. Consul. I shall ask Shluh to recount it.\" He nodded to the police 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 \"Have you ever heard,\" Retief said, looking steadily at Fith, \"of a \"Just keep that recorder going,\" Retief snapped. \"All our efforts,\" Miss Meuhl said, \"to live down that terrible episode! And you—\" \"Terrible? I understand that a Terrestrial task force stood off Groac and sent a delegation down to ask questions. They got some funny 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.\" \"—to keep the Terrestrial consul and his staff in the dark,\" Retief Retief turned a steady look on Miss Meuhl. She closed her mouth. The back—about nine, I think—there was a little parade held here. Some curious looking creatures were captured. After being securely caged, they were exhibited to the gentle Groaci public. Hauled through the \"How did they die?\" Retief snapped. \"Did you murder them, cut their \"No!\" Fith gasped. \"I must correct this terrible false impression at once.\" \"False impression, hell,\" Retief said. \"They were Terrans! A simple narco-interrogation would get that out of any Groacian who saw the parade.\" \"We'll deal with that question later,\" Retief said. \"Right now, I want Retief stooped under the heavy timbers shoring the entry to the cavern. Retief walked along the raised wooden catwalk, studying the ship. Empty \"How did you get it in here?\" Retief asked. Retief grunted. \"Let's go inside.\" Retief clambered up a narrow companionway, glanced around the interior Retief looked grimly at the slender Foreign Office official. \"Where is \"Where is that ship?\" Retief rapped out. \"You never learn, do you? \"You can and you will, Fith,\" Retief said. \"I intend to get to the four armed constables. They moved to ring Retief in. Retief eyed Fith. \"Don't try it,\" he said. \"You'll just get yourself in Retief looked at the four policemen. \"I see your point,\" he said. \"Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said, \"I want you to listen carefully to what I'm \"If you'll listen, you may find out,\" Retief said. \"I have no time \"You're still determined to make an issue of that incident!\" Miss Meuhl snorted. \"I really can hardly blame the Groaci. They are not a sophisticated race they had never before met aliens.\" happened nine years ago I'm concerned with. It's what's happening now. I've told you that it was only a lifeboat the Groaci have hidden out. Don't you understand the implication? That vessel couldn't have come far. The cruiser itself must be somewhere near by. I want to know where!\" \"The Groaci don't know. They're a very cultured, gentle people. You can \"That's my decision,\" Retief said. \"I have a job to do and we're 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.\" 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—\" \"Blame it on me if it will make you feel any better,\" Retief said, \"but 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, \"I have a message to get off first, Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said sharply. \"That's right,\" Retief said calmly. \"Now—\" \"Get that sender going, woman!\" Retief snapped. \"This is important.\" \"I've already done so, Mr. Retief!\" Miss Meuhl said harshly. \"I've been \"Mr. Retief,\" the face on the screen said, \"I am Counsellor Pardy, Retief reached out and snapped off the communicator. The triumphant Retief went on earnestly, \"I've found the missing cruiser.\" \"Don't touch that screen,\" Retief said. \"You go sit in that corner Retief ignored Miss Meuhl's fury as he spoke into the recorder. \"Go ahead,\" Retief said. \"Answer it.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the conspiracy Retief is trying to uncover?\n\n<options>:\nA Nine years ago Groacians invaded Earth and stole a Terran space cruiser. Retief wants to find out what happened to it.\nB Nine years ago, Consul Whaffle mysteriously disappeared from his government office. As the new consul, Retief feels it is his duty to find out what happened.\nC Nine years ago, a Terran cruiser landed on Groac but soon mysteriously disappeared, along with its entire crew. Retief wants to find out what happened to the ship and its crew.\nD Nine years ago Terrans came to Groac and attempted to take over the existing government, but failed. During the skirmish, a Terran cruiser disappeared. Retief wants to find out why the siege failed and what happened to the cruiser.\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>:\nBy PHILIP LATHAM Illustrated by Freas [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth whatever to it. It's obviously utterly impossible ... isn't it? 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 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 falls in a cycle of eleven years? NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of eleven years. That word 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. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from \"Julius Caesar\" where Cassius is bewailing the evil times that beset ancient 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 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 goal. Then suddenly— for no detectable reason —conditions are reversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy of bloodshed and misery. NIEMAND. What reasons? LATHAM. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... border NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war. 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 hardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good many LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of modern life? NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at . Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stress and strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing in 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 remedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod way NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the attack struck with almost the impact of a physical blow. The prodromal symptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness and life. One man said he felt as if the world were closing in on him. NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, however, take pains to impress upon them the necessity of keeping an simultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southern NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would think I had gone completely crazy. Imagine my surprise and gratification on receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also had NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east coast, for example, not earlier or later than five minutes of an attack 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 NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for intensity of the attacks reported on that day. Then he laid out another obvious. 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 mental disturbance slanted slightly. On this second chart the squares NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the the chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with the 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 no one is completely immune. All are affected in some degree. Just why some NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a 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 started its rise to maximum about 1954. LATHAM. Is there no way of escaping the S-radiation? 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 on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for cycle had the highest maximum of any since 1780, but the present cycle 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 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 Middletown believes that the Intense radiation recently\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Niemand's tone toward the 'stress-and-strain of modern life' theory?\n\n<options>:\nA Inconsistent\nB Ambiguous\nC Dismissive\nD Vehement\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>:\nIt's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul! Like all superheroes worthy of the title, the Shopping Avenger has an Achilles' heel. In the case of the Shopping Avenger, his Achilles' heel is not animal, vegetable, or mineral but something less tangible. An explanation: Last week, the magazine you are currently reading forced the Shopping Avenger at gunpoint to read a series of treacle-filled self-help books, and then to . The Shopping Avenger, who can withstand radiation, extreme heat and cold, hail, bear attacks, and Eyes Wide Shut , almost succumbed to terminal jejuneness after reading these books. Except for one thing: One of the books, The Art of Happiness , which collects and simplifies the Dalai Lama's philosophy, got the Shopping Avenger to thinking. This, in a way, is the Shopping Avenger's Achilles' heel: thinking. Perhaps it is wrong, the Shopping Avenger thought, to complain about the petty insults and inconveniences of life in the materialistic '90s. The Shopping Avenger felt that perhaps he should counsel those who write seeking help to meditate, to accept bad service the way one accepts the change of seasons, and to extend a compassionate hand of forgiveness to those who provide poor customer care. But then the Shopping Avenger sat down, and the feeling passed. The Shopping Avenger does not make light of the Dalai Lama or of the notion that there is more to life than the impatient acquisition of material goods. If the Shopping Avenger were not, for a superhero, extremely nonjudgmental--as opposed to his alter ego, who is considered insufferably judgmental by his alter ego's wife--the Shopping Avenger would tell the occasional correspondent to let go of his petty grievance and get a life. But the Shopping Avenger also believes that the Dalai Lama has never tried to rent a truck from U-Haul. If he had tried to rent from U-Haul, he never would have escaped from Tibet. (For the complete back story, see \"Shopping Avenger\" column and one.) The complaints about U-Haul's nonreservation reservation policy continue to pour in through the electronic mail. One correspondent, B.R., wrote in with this cautionary tale: \"Last weekend, I went to San Francisco to help my brother and his family move into their first house. My brother had reserved a moving truck with U-Haul for the big day. I warned my brother about U-Haul's 'not really a reservation per se' policy that I learned from the Shopping Avenger. He didn't believe such a thing would happen to him, so he didn't act on my warning.\" 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.\" 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: 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.\" 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. Take the case of K., who found himself waiting in vain for Circuit City to repair his television. Televisions break, even 1-year-old televisions, as is the case with K's. But Circuit City, where he bought the television, gave him a terrible runaround. The Shopping Avenger dispatched his sidekick, Tad the Deputy Avenger, to get to the bottom of K.'s story. This is what he found: K. grew concerned, Tad the Deputy Avenger reports, after his television had been in the Circuit City shop for a week. When he called, he was told to \"check back next week.\" When he asked if someone from the store could call him with more information, he was refused. Weeks went by. When K. told one Circuit City employee that he really would like to get his television back, the employee, K. says, asked him, \"Don't you have another television in your house?\" More than a month later--after hours and hours and hours of telephone calls and days missed at work--K. received his television back. Stay tuned for answers. And next month, a Shopping Avenger clergy special: TWA screws with a Hasidic rabbi's travel plans, leaving the rabbi's wife crying at the airport. Find out if the Shopping Avenger can save TWA from certain heavenly punishment, in the next episode. Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the best description of the tone of this passage?\n\n<options>:\nA Incredulous that these situations are being reported with these companies in particular\nB Frustrated with the issues that the consumers are reporting\nC Lighthearted while maintaining focus on the issues at hand\nD Joking, making light of the issues that are discussed\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>:\nWe know that paedophiles, murderers and other violent criminals come in many shapes and sizes. If we knew nothing about their criminal history, some of their photos might even appear attractive. But the idea that someone's features betray their character is something rooted deep within us it's the reason why certain photos perform well on dating apps, or why trustworthy-looking politicians might rack up votes. But how wrong are our hunches of perceived criminality? A recent paper, published by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang of Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, claims to be the first to use machine learning and neural networks to attempt a fully automated inference of criminality from facial images, removing prejudice from the equation and testing the validity of our gut feelings. \"What facial features influence the average Joe's impulsive and yet consensual judgments on social attributes?\" they ask. Through a study of 1,856 images (\"controlled for race, gender, age and facial expression\") they claim to have established the validity of \"automated, face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding this line of enquiry.\" It's a claim that's been made many times over the years. Physiognomy, the 'science' of judging people by their appearance, was first theorised by the ancient Greeks in around the 5th century BC. Aristotle's pronouncement that \"it is possible to infer character from features\" led to a number of works relating to 'Physiognomica', a word derived from physis gnomon (judge or interpreter). All of Greek society, it was claimed, could benefit from this skill: it could assist with choosing an employee, a slave or a spouse, while its inherent vagueness made it intriguing to philosophers and useful for scientists who bent the theories to support their own beliefs. It became a recognised science in the Islamic world, and was used and taught in Europe throughout late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, despite nagging doubts among thinkers and physicians of the day. In the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci claimed not to \"concern myself with false physiognomy, because these chimeras have no scientific foundation.\" Theories of physiognomy, however, would persist beyond the Renaissance. In 1586, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta published a book, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII, which established him as the 'father of Physiognomy'. Della Porta's thinking was based on the 'doctrine of signatures' the idea that the appearance of plants and animals offers clues to their nature. For example, as one writer of the time suggested, walnuts are good for curing headaches because they're shaped a bit like a human head. The theories in della Porta's book were supported by dozens of detailed illustrations which, by comparing human faces to those of animals, suggested that they must surely share similar character traits. In the 17th century, Swiss poet Johann Caspar Lavater took della Porta's methodology and ran with it, commissioning artists to illustrate his popular Essays On Physiognomy – which, to the chagrin of his contemporary, the writer Hannah More, sold for \"fifteen guineas a set… while in vain we boast that philosophy [has] broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition.\" Lavater's work was criticised for being ridden with bias (black faces rarely emerged well from his analyses) but he was right in one respect: \"Whether they are or are not sensible of it,\" he wrote, \"all men are daily influenced by physiognomy.\" We attribute social characteristics based on opinions we already hold about certain kinds of faces: whether they look unusual in some way, whether they resemble a partner, a family member or even ourselves, or perhaps have some other cultural association. Physiognomy ultimately stems from what Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology at Princeton University, calls an 'overgeneralisation hypothesis'. \"People,\" he wrote, \"use easily accessible facial information (eg an expression such as a smile, cues to gender and ethnic group) to make social attributions congruent with this information (eg a nice person).\" In a social media age, the pictures we choose to represent ourselves online are a form of self-presentation driven by those social attributions and the knowledge that our pictures are being judged. This kind of deep-seated bias looms large throughout physiognomic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, from absurdities such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader of 1902 (handy if you want to find out what a \"deceitful chin\" looks like) to more inherently troubling volumes such as Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man. The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour – not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results. The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as \"What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?\" prompted a wave of press coverage. The vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality – but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. \"The main problem is the sampling of the images,\" he says. \"There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status.\" The revitalisation of the theory of physiognomy by the Shanghai students is, according to Todorov, deeply problematic on a theoretical level. \"Are we back to Lombroso's theory,\" he asks, \"that criminals were anomalous creatures, evolutionary degenerates? How does one become criminal, and what role do various life forces play into this? There are people making claims that you just need to look at the face to predict personality and behaviour, but many of these people have not given much thought to their underlying assumptions.\" not least because it helps to sustain a low-level belief in the 'science' of physiognomy, despite its tendency to crumble under the slightest cross examination.\n\n<question>:\nWhat does the author think of physiognomy?\n\n<options>:\nA It is flimsy and relies on too many assumptions\nB It is useful once someone is accused of a crime but not beforehand\nC It deserves more attention but from people outside of tech\nD It is a promising but little-understood field of study\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>:\nfor Purnie's game—but his new friends played very rough! Purnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run of brothers and parents, there was nothing now to stop him from going whirlpools. He glanced furtively from side to side, pretending that the thin-winged bees that hovered over the abundant foliage. \"Stop!\" He shrieked this command upward toward the dense, low-hanging purple clouds that perennially raced across the treetops, making one wonder how tall the trees really were. and the heavy purple fluid overhead held fast in its manufacture of whorls and nimbi. With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie the wonders of the beach country. The stories he had heard from his brothers and their friends had taunted him for as long as he could remember. So many times had he heard these thrilling tales that now, as he ran along, he could clearly picture the wonderland as though he three-legged tripons who never stopped munching on seaweed, and many his fifth birthday? He ran along feeling sorry for four-year-olds, and even for those who were only four and a half, for they were babies and wouldn't dare try slipping away to the ocean alone. But five! \"I'll set you free, Mr. Bee—just wait and see!\" As he passed one of Purnie had stopped time, the bees—like all the other creatures he He chose to ignore the negative maxim that \"small children who stop time without an adult being present, may not live to regret it.\" He chose, instead, to picture the beaming praise of family and friends when they learned of his brave journey. exploded into towering white spray while others were poised in smooth orange curls waiting to start that action. And there were new friends everywhere! Overhead, a flock of spora were frozen in a steep glide, preparatory to a beach landing. Purnie had heard of these playful creatures many times. Today, with his brothers in school, he would have the pets all to himself. Further down the beach was a pair of two-legged animals poised in mid-step, facing the spot where Purnie now stood. Some distance behind them were eight nothingness upon the sand, he saw standing here and there the comical of munching seaweed. \"Hi there!\" Purnie called. When he got no reaction, he remembered that expected time to resume. It did! Immediately he was surrounded by the dew of acid that floated from the spray, and he saw his new friends delicate wings. The brook, the clouds, and the insects had not been interrupted in the least with continuing sureness. It was time itself that Purnie had stopped, The tripon thought Purnie's feat was superb. It stopped munching long Purnie ran from pillar to post, trying to see and do everything at once. He looked around to greet the flock of spora, but they had glided to a spot further along the shore. Then, bouncing up to the first of the two-legged animals, he started to burst forth with his habitual \"Hi \"Hi there, wanna play?\" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than startled glance from the animals who quickly returned to their chatter. tagging along at their heels. \"I've got my lunch, want some?\" The animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in wild animals or worse, and here we are surrounded by quaint little creatures that run up to us like we're long-lost brothers. Let the men look around a minute or two before we stake out your claim.\" \"Bah! Bunch of damn children.\" will you get this bug-eyed kangaroo away from me!\" Purnie shrieked with When the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along. sentiment if you will.\" \"Don't worry, I won't. I've seen real-estate flags before.\" When they stopped, Purnie stopped. At first he had been interested in the strange sounds they were making, but as he grew used to them, and as they in turn ignored his presence, he hopped alongside chattering to himself, content to be in their company. Purnie saw one of the animals hovering around him with a little box. Thankful for the attention, he stood on his head. \"Can you do this?\" He was overjoyed at the reaction. They all started making wonderful noises, and he felt most satisfied. these creatures around here someplace. And to think of those damn fools flocking to me. How about it, Benson—does pioneering pay off or doesn't it?\" Purnie was tired. First the time-stopping, then this. While this day happily exhausted, hoping that his friends would show him some of their own tricks. Purnie sat up to watch the show. powers the little fella has. Play it safe and use the rope.\" \"I swear he knows what we're saying. Look at those eyes.\" \"All right, careful now with that line.\" \"Come on, baby. Here you go. That's a boy!\" Purnie took in these sounds with perplexed concern. He sensed the He watched the animals huddle around the box on the beach, their and at last Purnie knew that the idea was to get him into the box. The pang in his leg was nothing: Purnie's misery lay in his confusion. transverse waves back to one of the two-legged animals. Purnie dragged hissing sound whenever Purnie was near. These things told him nothing. explosion, it had jumped four feet into the air before Purnie had Reaching the top of the bluff, he looked down upon his silent friends When Purnie started time again, the animal with the noose stood in spot where Purnie had been standing. Then another of the animals, the one with the smoking thing in his did you do with him?\" fuzzy little devil that we should.... Forbes! I warned you about that gun!\" Purnie moved across the top of the rockpile for a last look at his distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at \"I didn't mean it!\" Purnie screamed. \"I'm sorry! Can't you hear?\" He Purnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves. The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of death. Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness, His friends came to life. The first one he saw stir lay on his stomach Purnie as sounds came from the animal. \"What's the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick! \"We'll have to get him. Miles, Schick, come along. Forbes! You all \"Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this. Hee-hee!\" Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone? three, the weak helping the weaker. As they disappeared around the \"I still can't believe it.\" \"He'll never be the same.\" \"But didn't you notice our little pop-eyed friend?\" come back to his tormentors—back to us—when we were trapped under As Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend he was beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he returned. Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different directions. He watched the animal walk over to the pile of scattered shadow was cast around the animal. With foggy awareness, Purnie watched Purnie's eyes stared, without seeing, at the panorama before him. The white square floating on the ocean. Across it, the last thing Purnie\n\n<question>:\nWhat were Purnie's friends like in this story?\n\n<options>:\nA Self-interested and ignorant\nB Intelligent and caring\nC Malicious and blunt\nD Sweet and charming\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
605 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTOLLIVER'S ORBIT \"Yes,\" admitted Tolliver, \"there sourly. \"The main problem is whether you can cook.\" the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Johnny Tolliver scowled across the desk at his superior. His black thatch was ruffled, as if he had been rubbed the wrong way. \"I didn't ask you to cut out your own graft, did I?\" he demanded. \"Just don't try to sucker me in on the deal. I know you're operating something sneaky all through the colony, but it's not for me.\" Tolliver anchored himself in a seat and grinned as he thought about it too. After a while , he promised himself, I'll explain how I cut the fuel flow and see if she's detective enough to suspect that we're just \"Try not to be simple—for once!\" growled Jeffers. \"A little percentage here and there on the cargoes never shows by the time figures get back \"You asked any of them lately?\" Tolliver prodded. Tolliver rammed his fists into the side pockets of his loose blue uniform jacket. He shook his head, grinning resignedly. \"You just don't listen to me ,\" he complained. \"You know I took this account?\" Tolliver stared at him silently, but the other had difficulty meeting that way, either you get in line with us or you're through right now!\" \"You can't fire me,\" retorted the pilot pityingly. \"I came out here \"Okay I can't fire you legally—as long as you report for work,\" grumbled Jeffers, by now a shade more ruddy. \"We'll see how long you \"Doesn't matter,\" answered Tolliver, grinning amiably. \"The hazardous Tolliver began to have his doubts the next day On the bulletin board, Tolliver's name stood out beside the number Tolliver turned to see Red Higgins, a regular driver. \"What do you mean?\" .\" \"What's wrong with that?\" asked Tolliver. \"Outside of the way they keep Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a Tolliver. \"By the way, just call me Betty.\" \"Sure,\" agreed Tolliver thinking, \"It's true enough,\" Tolliver assured her. \"We need people out here, and \"What did you expect?\" asked Tolliver. \"Square dances with champagne?\" this creeper, I'm entitled to some amusement. And Daddy's little girl is trying too hard to sound like one of the gang. Tolliver pursed his lips and put on a shrewd expression. \"I'll tell you some day,\" Tolliver promised darkly. \"This moon can strike like a vicious animal.\" \"Oh, they told me there was nothing alive on Ganymede!\" you'd least expect. That's why I draw such high pay for driving an She was now sitting bolt upright in the swaying seat. Tolliver Say, that's pretty good! he told himself. What a liar you are, Tolliver! He enlarged upon other dangers to be encountered on the satellite, Tolliver, driver of \"missions\" across the menacing wastes between dome , he resolved. It isn't really funny if the sucker is too ignorant to know better. Tolliver, you can go. Yes, indeed! Mr. Koslow—the president, that is: your father—sent a message about you. I repeat, it will be an honor to show you the ropes. Did you want something else, Tolliver?\" \"Never mind him, Mr. Jeffers,\" snapped the girl, in a tone new to Tolliver. \"We won't be working together, I'm afraid. You've already had enough rope.\" lips twitched uncertainly, and he looked questioningly to Tolliver. The elder Koslow. He was also trying to remember some of the lies he had told en route from the spaceport. He darted a suspicious glare at Tolliver. Tolliver blinked. He had taken her for three or four years older. authority, though. And you look like the source of the trouble to me.\" \"You can't prove anything,\" declared Jeffers hoarsely. \"Oh, can't I? I've already seen certain evidence, and the rest won't be hard to find. Where are your books, Mr. Jeffers? You're as good as fired!\" The manager dropped heavily to his chair. He stared unbelievingly at Betty, and Tolliver thought he muttered something about \"just landed.\" Tolliver, hardly thinking about it, expected the someone to be Tolliver started for the door immediately, but was blocked off. Tolliver brought up a snappy uppercut to the man's chin, feeling that \"I told you no questions!\" bawled Jeffers. The fallen hero, upon arising, had to content himself with grabbing Betty. The others were swarming over Tolliver. Jeffers came around his Tolliver found himself dumped on the floor of an empty office in the After considering the idea a few minutes, Tolliver managed to sit up. Tolliver grunted. Sorrow would not reduce the throbbing, nor was he \"Thanks for letting me know in time,\" said Tolliver. \"You'd be surprised. How did you catch on to him so soon?\" \"Your paycheck,\" said Betty. \"As soon as I saw that ridiculous amount, it was obvious that there was gross mismanagement here. It had to be Jeffers.\" Tolliver groaned. \"Then, on the way over here, he as good as admitted everything. You didn't hear him, I guess. Well, he seemed to be caught all unaware, and seemed to blame you for it.\" \"Sure!\" grumbled the pilot. \"He thinks I told you he was grafting or \"Nothing,\" retorted Tolliver. \"Except that there are some. There are claiming the stuff lost in transit. You didn't think you scared him that bad over a little slack managing?\" building, plotting the next move, brought Tolliver to his feet. \"This plastic is tough,\" said Tolliver, \"but it will bend with enough \"You know,\" he reflected, \"it might be better for you to stay here. He can't do much about you, and you don't have any real proof just by yourself.\" \"I'll come along with you, Tolliver,\" said the girl. Tolliver kicked at the edge of the door experimentally. It seemed to Tolliver. \"Why do you want them?\" tractor. I bet Jeffers already phoned the garage and all the airlocks with some good lie that will keep me from getting through.\" can't be running everything !\" They had to cross one open lane between buildings, and Tolliver was , Tolliver reminded himself. Don't be here from the settlement, Tolliver simply dragged her. Ganymede. They took one short rest, during which Tolliver was forced spaceship. \"That's all right,\" Tolliver told the girl. \"We can get in with no Tolliver led the way up another ladder to the control room. It was a warned her the trip might be long. \"I told you not to come,\" he said at last. \"Now sit back!\" \"Who knows?\" retorted Tolliver. \"There wasn't time to check Tolliver sighed. In their weightless state, it was no easy task to pry making contact. uniform. \"Space Patrol?\" whispered Tolliver incredulously. reporting the manager as the head of a ring of crooks, he began to suspect. He also noticed certain peculiarities about the remarks of the , Tolliver realized. Tolliver, saved my neck by making the ship take off somehow, but he Tolliver pulled her back, holding her in mid-air by the slack of her about that.\" The girl grinned. \"Relax, Tolliver,\" she told him. \"Did you really believe Daddy would was gypping him?\" \"You ... you...?\" \"Sure. The name's Betty Hanlon. I work for a private investigating firm. If old Koslow had a son to impersonate—\" Tolliver finished for her. \"I guess it's better this way,\" he said \"Oh, come on ! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're going?\" \"I didn't expect to so soon.\" \"Yeah, you were pretty lucky. They'll think you're a marvel to crack\n\n<question>:\nWhich word doesn't describe Tolliver?\n\n<options>:\nA hot-headed\nB stubborn\nC clever\nD liar\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
703 | 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.\" fancy I've made MUDDLE what it is today. Frankly, I question the weeks. But remember. Yours is purely a rubber-stamp function.\" of heavy cloth, a loose shirt open at the neck and a short jacket, out on Lovenbroy we've got a serious problem. The wine crop is just about ready. We start picking in another two, three months. Now I don't Arapoulous took one. \"Bacchus vines are an unusual crop,\" he said, puffing the cigar alight. \"Only mature every twelve years. In between, the vines don't need a lot of attention, so our time's mostly our own. We like to farm, though. Spend a lot of time developing new forms. \"It sounds like it, Mr. Arapoulous. Just what—\" \"Call me Hank. We've got long seasons back home. Five of 'em. Our year's about eighteen Terry months. Cold as hell in winter eccentric orbit, you know. Blue-black sky, stars visible all day. We do mostly painting and sculpture in the winter. Then Spring and it's the season for woodworkers. Our furniture—\" comes the Monsoon. Rain—it comes down in sheets. But the sun's getting closer. Shines all the time. Ever seen it pouring rain in the sunshine? That's the music-writing season. Then summer. Summer's hot. We stay inside in the daytime and have beach parties all night. Lots of beach on Lovenbroy the music and the surf and the bonfires and stars—we're close to the center of a globular cluster, you know....\" \"You say it's time now for the wine crop?\" \"That's right. Autumn's our harvest season. Most years we have just the ordinary crops. Fruit, grain, that kind of thing getting it in doesn't take long. We spend most of the time on architecture, getting new places ready for the winter or remodeling the older ones. We spend a lot of time in our houses. We like to have them comfortable. But this year's different. This is Wine Year.\" Arapoulous puffed on his cigar, looked worriedly at Retief. \"Our wine crop is our big money crop,\" he said. \"We make enough to keep us going. But this year....\" \"The crop isn't panning out?\" \"Oh, the crop's fine. One of the best I can remember. Course, I'm only twenty-eight I can't remember but two other harvests. The problem's not the crop.\" \"Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the \"Lost our markets? Mister, nobody that ever tasted our wines ever time like the present,\" he said. dusty, with faded labels, and blackened corks secured by wire. \"This isn't native customs.\" port.\" mouthful of wine, swished it around his teeth, swallowed. \"It's Bacchus bottle toward Retief. \"The custom back home is to alternate red wine and black.\" fresh glasses. \"Here's to the harvest.\" We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a \"That's too bad,\" Retief said. \"I'd say this one tastes more like roast said. \"What's the problem? Croanie about to foreclose?\" \"Well, the loan's due. The wine crop would put us in the clear. But turn over to machinery—and anyway we wouldn't if we could. Vintage grass growing between. The wine-carriers keep on the run, bringing wine to the pickers. There's prizes for the biggest day's output, bets on who can fill the most baskets in an hour.... The sun's high and bright, and it's just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall, the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on: roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads. Plenty of fruit. Fresh-baked bread ... and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking's \"Then the wine-making. We still tramp out the vintage. That's mostly for the young folks but anybody's welcome. That's when things start to get loosened up. Matter of fact, pretty near half our young-uns are born after a vintage. All bets are off then. It keeps a fellow on his toes though. Ever tried to hold onto a gal wearing nothing but a layer of grape juice?\" \"Never did,\" Retief said. \"You say most of the children are born after a vintage. That would make them only twelve years old by the time—\" \"Oh, that's Lovenbroy years they'd be eighteen, Terry reckoning.\" \"I was thinking you looked a little mature for twenty-eight,\" Retief said. \"Forty-two, Terry years,\" Arapoulous said. \"But this year it looks bad. vintage, Croanie steps in. Lord knows what they'll do to the land. Then next vintage time, with them holding half our grape acreage—\" \"You hocked the vineyards?\" \"Yep. Pretty dumb, huh? But we figured twelve years was a long time.\" to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we'd \"Can they pick grapes?\" Said it was what they classified as menial drudgery here. Cultural exhibits, you know.\" What are they getting?\" earlier today. It seems she holds a mortgage on some vineyards over General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for institution.\" waiting....\" \"You meeting somebody?\" \"Yeah. Bunch of babies. Kids. How they expect—Never mind. Have one on me.\" \"I'll tell you what I am. I'm a cradle-robber. You know—\" he turned to Retief—\"not one of those kids is over eighteen.\" He hiccupped. on.\" \"Thanks,\" said Karsh. \"They'll stay here until take-off time. Can't have the little dears wandering around loose. Might get ideas about going over the hill.\" He hiccupped. \"I mean they might play hookey.\" \"We've scheduled your re-embarkation for noon tomorrow. That's a long wait. MUDDLE's arranged theater tickets and a dinner.\" \"Coming in aboard a Croanie lighter.\" But the tractors are on their way to Croanie, a world under obligation to Boge. And Croanie holds a mortgage on the best grape acreage on never mind. I'd like you to look up an item for me. How many tractors vehicle. \"That's the model WV,\" she said. \"It's what is known as a continental is a tractor. Model WV M-1—\" \"Five hundred.\" production of such vintages.... the tractors. I'm wondering if there's been a slip up. My records show \"That's correct. Five hundred.\" tractors.\" outfit? I should think—\" \"See here, Retief! Why all this interest in a few surplus tractors? hundred and ninety tractors?\" tradition that any time you can get anybody to accept anything as a \"The tractors are for transshipment. We've gotten ourselves into a \"Why ... ah ... no. Of course not, ha ha.\" \"Who gets the tractors eventually?\" \"Who gets them?\" \"Why ... ah ... I've been working with a Mr. Gulver, a Bogan representative.\" \"And when will they be shipped?\" \"Why, they went out a week ago. They'll be half way there by now. But look here, Retief, this isn't what you're thinking!\" \"That's worse than listening in on phone conversations, eh? But never fish, I guess. We import our seafood from there. Nice prawns in monsoon \"So?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a vintage?\n\n<options>:\nA The anniversary of Lovenbroy’s independence.\nB The time of year that Lovenbroy switches to making music as their primary occupation.\nC The time of year that wine grapes are harvested.\nD The time of year that children are born.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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2,202 | 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>:\nbelieve it.\" Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest liar? I mean, how do they feel toward him?\" any interference.\" Zeckler was on his feet, his eyes suddenly bright with excitement. \"Wait a minute,\" he said tensely. \"To tell them a lie that they'd have to believe—a lie they simply couldn't Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his sallow face. His thin body fairly shook. He started hopping \"No, no, I've got a problem in the bag!\" Zeckler's cheeks flushed. \"Let's go back in there—I think I've got an answer!\" The courtroom quieted the moment they opened the door, and the judge banged the gavel for silence. As soon as Zeckler had taken his seat on the witness stand, the judge turned to the head juryman. \"Now, then,\" he said with happy finality. The judge stared down at Zeckler as if he were a bug on a a little. \"So Harry Zeckler's in a jam again,\" he said. rock. \"Oh, yes. You had something else to say. Well, go ahead Zeckler looked sharply around the hushed room. \"You want and say it.\" Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing Zeckler stood up shakily. \"You can't believe anything the natives say,\" he said uneasily. \"They're pathological liars. Why, you should see what they tried to sell so badly they don't want anything to do with us.\" Zeckler's grin broadened, and he leaned back luxuriously. \"Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was your lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That—uh—jury trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\" \"Is that right? My goodness. You don't suppose they could A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. \" Arrest! \" Zeckler spluttered. \"There's no evidence—you've got nothing 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 so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word. Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face a study in troubled concentration. \"But I didn't do Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they possibly have a legal Meyerhoff sighed. \"You've got twelve mad Altairians in your Zeckler was visibly shaken. \"Look,\" he said weakly, \"so I wasn't so smart. What am I going to do? I mean, are you going to sit quietly by and let them butcher me? How could with twelve chairs—larger chairs, with a railing running along the front. The rest of the room was filled almost to the door with seats facing the bench. Zeckler followed the shaggy-haired In the back of the room a door burst open with a bang. Loud, harsh voices were heard as half a dozen of the huge Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler clamped on the headset to his translator unit, and watched the hubbub in the anteroom with growing alarm. Finally the question Altairians filed in, in order of stature, stalking across the room flanked by two clerks, who took their places beside him. The prosecutor eyed Zeckler with cold malevolence, then turned down at Zeckler with all three eyes, and pounded the bench top with a wooden mallet until the roar of activity subsided. The court. \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler—\" he paused for a long, impressive moment—\"Terran.\" The courtroom immediately burst into an angry growl, until the judge Karzan at the third hour before dawn in the second period after his arrival. Desecration of the Temple of our beloved Goddess Zermat, Queen of the Harvest. Conspiracy with the lesser gods to cause the unprecedented drought in the Dermatti section of our fair globe. Obscene exposure of his pouch-marks \" Now wait a minute! \" Zeckler was on his feet, wild-eyed. \"What kind of railroad job—\" The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now—later—\" he muttered. Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. \"These charges,\" he whispered. \"They're insane!\" \"Of course they are,\" Meyerhoff whispered back. puzzled note, \"—Goddess?\" The witness removed the paw from the rock pile long enough to scratch his ear. Then he replaced it, and replied, \"Of course,\" Zeckler's face, another on the prosecutor, and closing the third as if in meditation. \"I think it happened on the fourth night of the seventh crossing of Altair II (may the Goddess cast Zeckler—\"stopped me in my tracks with a vicious cry. He had a weapon I'd never seen before, and before I could find my cruel glint in his eyes that there was no warmth, no sympathy in his heart, that I was—\" \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his unless I would tell him where he could find the resting place of our blessed Goddess—\" \"I never saw him before in my life,\" Zeckler moaned to Meyerhoff. \"Listen to him! Why should I care where their Goddess—\" A third witness took the stand, continuing the drone as the room grew hotter and muggier. Zeckler grew paler and paler, low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any respect for is a liar bigger and more skillful than they are.\" Zeckler jerked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed out. \"Does the defendant have anything to say before the jury delivers the verdict?\" \"Do I have—\" Zeckler was across the room in a flash, his pale cheeks suddenly taking on a feverish glow. He sat down \"Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear,\" Zeckler true. But in every instance, I was working with heart and soul, risking my life, for the welfare of your beautiful planet.\" There was a loud hiss from the back of the court. Zeckler Altair from my homeland on Terra. I—I landed on Altair II, Somebody in the middle of the court burst out laughing. One by one the natives nudged one another, and booed, and guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's words. \"The defendant is obviously lying,\" roared the prosecutor over the pandemonium. \"Any fool knows that the Goddess can't be bribed. How could she be a Goddess if she could?\" Zeckler grew paler. \"But—perhaps they were very clever—\" \"And how could they flatter her, when she knows, beyond Somehow, Zeckler managed to stumble from the witness stand, amid riotous boos and hisses, and tottered into the anteroom. Zeckler puffed hungrily on a cigarette, and looked up at Zeckler sat in silence for a moment. \"This lying business,\" he said finally, \"exactly how does it work?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy do the Altairians let Zeckler go?\n\n<options>:\nA They let Zeckler go because he did not murder any Altairians.\nB They let Zeckler go because he is the best liar.\nC They let Zeckler go because Altairian law doesn't apply to Earthmen.\nD They let Zeckler go because he converted to the religion of the Altairian Goddess.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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740 | 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 ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel Walsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. \"It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native.\" I wanted to say, \"Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. \"I always figured Venus was under the jurisdiction of Space III, sir. I thought our activities were confined to Mars.\" He folded his fingers like a deck of cards and dropped them on his desk as if he were waiting for me to cut. them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. \"And this man is on Venus now?\" I asked for confirmation. I'd never been to Venus, being in Space II ever since I'd left the Moon run. It was just like Walsh to ship me off to a strange place. \"Yes, Major,\" he said. \"This man is on Venus.\" At the Academy he had called me Fred. That was before I'd reported that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night. He still thought it was my fault, as if I'd done the wrong thing by \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. The trip to Venus came off without a hitch. I did a lot of thinking on that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started I dropped my bags and stared at him. Maybe this was \"Same here, Toots,\" he answered. \"The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you,\" I told him. \"You've got the wrong number,\" he said, and I was a little surprised at his use of Terran idiom. \"You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?\" upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him looked as hot as hell. On the inside it was about two degrees short of that mark. I began to curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II. was so funny. I tossed him my withering Superior Officer's gaze and waited for his explanation. \"I hadn't realized this was your first time on Venus,\" he said. I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh sitting back in a nice cozy foam chair back on Earth. \"Get to the point, Captain!\" I barked. \"Easy, sir,\" Bransten said, turning pale. I could see that the Captain He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were personally responsible for Venusian culture. In fact, he looked as if he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first place. \"Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all.\" chase a hell of a long way from home. \"I understand perfectly,\" I snapped. \"Where are my quarters?\" Bransten asked a Venusian named Joe to show me my quarters, reminding me that chow was at thirteen hundred. As I was leaving, the first stuffed into his pockets. I shrugged and went to change into a tropical tunic. I called Earth right after chow. The Captain assured me that this sort of thing was definitely against regulations, but he submitted when I twinkled my little gold leaf under his nose. Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any \"I'm sure you can do the job,\" Walsh cut in. \"I wouldn't have sent you surprised look on his face as his screen went blank millions of miles away. He blinked at the screen, trying to realize I'd deliberately hung up on him. I smiled, saw the twisted hatred on his features, and then the screen on my end went blank, too. He's somewhere in the jungle, you know. I thanked Captain Bransten for his hospitality and went back to my quarters. As I saw it, there were two courses for me to follow. One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping the next ship back to Earth. It would also mean disobeying the direct order of a superior officer. It might mean demotion, and it might mean getting bounced out of the jungle, a Joe separate and apart from the other Joes on this planet, a trader Joe who knew the Martians well. I could always admit failure, of course, and return empty handed. Mission not accomplished. Or, I might really find a guy who was trader Joe. I made my decision quickly. I wanted to stay in the Service, and life. Maybe there was a Joe here who could help us on Mars. If there was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed. planet. Take you anywhere you want to go, do anything you want to do. Courageous. Doesn't know the meaning of fear. I've known him to....\" \"Skip it,\" I said, cutting the promotion short. \"Tell him to show up When he was gone I began figuring out a plan of action. Obviously, I'd just have to traipse through the jungle looking for a guy named Joe on a planet where everyone was named Joe. Everybody, at least, but the Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me. I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of back again, sooner or later. Maybe he had another little junket all set for me. Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back. The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with Space II. I chuckled as I thought of him isolated in some God-forsaken place like Space V or Space VII. This probably bothered him a lot, too. But what probably bothered him more was the fact that I was next in command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I I any idea how I was supposed to find him. I began to feel pretty low about the whole affair. began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about the people there, about my decision to attend the Academy, the rigid \"How far are we from the Station?\" I asked. \"Three or four Earth weeks,\" he replied. I sighed wearily. \"Where do we go from here?\" feeling I'd had a long time ago on my sixteenth birthday. One of my friends had taken me all over the city, finally dropping me off at my And then I saw the ship, nose pointing into space, catching the rays of the sun like a great silver bullet. \"What...?\" I started. I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the \"You gave me a powerful handicap to overcome,\" Walsh said. \"I suppose I Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely \"Nothing,\" Walsh said. \"Nothing.\" He was silent for a while.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the narrator initially become frustrated with the task that Captain Walsh gave him.\n\n<options>:\nA The narrator realized the directions he was given were unclear.\nB The task proved much harder than the narrator thought.\nC He realized that he was part of a more important mission.\nD He realized he was sent to the wrong planet.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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49 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nof space, or one spaceman's life? I They gave him a gold watch. It was meant to be symbolical, of course. crediting, on a confoundedly limited crediting, than to take the two or three more trips in hopes of attaining a higher standard. He'd had plenty of time to figure it out, there alone in space on the space cafard, the madness compounded of claustrophobia, monotony, boredom and free fall. Plenty of time. Time to decide that a one wasn't anything they could do. He had them now. He had enough Basic to keep him comfortably, by his standards, for the rest of his life. He was never going to subject himself to space cafard again. Just thinking about it, now, set the tic to going at the side of his mouth. They could count down and blast off, for all he gave a damn. population is ever called up. But Pond was. His industrial aptitude dossier revealed him a possible candidate for space pilot, and it was you yourself who talked him into taking the training ... pointing out He brought his wallet from his pocket, and flicked it open to his universal credit card. \"The ultimate means of exchange,\" he grunted. for space pilot, he had celebrated once again. Twenty-two others had taken the training with him, and only he and Rod Cameroon had passed the finals. On this occasion, he and Rod had celebrated together. It works. But nothing but the best. To start off, he dressed with great care in the honorable retirement-rank suit he had so recently purchased. His space pin he attached carefully to the lapel. That was a good beginning, he decided. A bit of prestige didn't hurt you when you went out on the town. In titles. Attired satisfactorily, Si double-checked to see that his credit card was in his pocket. As an after-thought, he went over to the auto-apartment's teevee-phone, flicked it on, held the card to the screen and said, \"Balance check, please.\" He opened the small, closet-like door which housed his vacuum-tube two-seater, and wedged himself into the small vehicle. He brought down the canopy, dropped the pressurizer and considered the dial. Only one He dialed Manhattan and felt the sinking sensation that presaged his car's dropping to tube level. While it was being taken up by the robot controls, being shuttled here and there preparatory to the shot to his destination, he dialed the vehicle's teevee-phone for information on he'd read about and seen on the teevee casts of society and celebrity gossip reporters, and dialed it on the car's destination dial. \"Nothing too good for ex-Space Pilot Si Pond,\" he said aloud. The car hesitated for a moment, that brief hesitation before the or do much drinking in his suite. He made a mock leer. Not unless he managed to acquire some feminine companionship, that was. He looked briefly into the swimming pool and bath, then flopped himself happily onto the bed. It wasn't up to the degree of softness he presently desired, and he dialed the thing to the ultimate in that direction so that with a laugh he sank almost out of sight into the mattress. He came back to his feet, gave his suit a quick patting so that it fell into press and, taking his credit card from his pocket, put it against the teevee-phone screen and pressed the hotel button so that registration could be completed. For a moment he stood in the center of the floor, in thought. Take it at the hotel's famous Kudos Room where celebrities were reputed to be a dime a dozen. He left the suite and stepped into one of the elevators. He said, \"Kudos Room.\" The auto-elevator murmured politely, \"Yes, sir, the Kudos Room.\" moment and looked about. He'd never been in a place like this, either. However, he stifled his first instinct to wonder about what this was going to do to his current credit balance with an inner grin and made his way to the bar. The drinks in the Kudos Room might be concocted by hand, but Si noticed they had the routine teevee screens built into the bar for payment. He put his credit card on the screen immediately before him when the drink came, and had to quell his desire to dial for a balance check, so Well, this was something like it. This was the sort of thing he'd dreamed about, out there in the great alone, seated in the confining conning tower of his space craft. He sipped at the drink, finding it up to his highest expectations, and then swiveled slightly on his stool to take a look at the others present. that he placed, at least—top teevee stars, top politicians of the Ultrawelfare State or Sports personalities. He turned back to his drink and noticed, for the first time, the girl who occupied the stool two down from him. Si Pond blinked. He blinked and then swallowed. eyes. Every pore, but every pore, was in place. She sat with the easy grace of the Orient, so seldom found in the West. His stare couldn't be ignored. She looked at him coldly, turned to the bartender and murmured, \"A Far Out Cooler, please, Fredric.\" Then deliberately added, \"I thought the Kudos Room was supposed to be exclusive.\" Si cleared his throat. \"Hey,\" he said, \"how about letting this one be on me?\" Her eyebrows, which had been plucked and penciled to carry out her The bartender said hurriedly, \"I beg your pardon, sir....\" The girl, her voice suddenly subtly changed, said, \"Why, isn't that a space pin?\" Si, disconcerted by the sudden reversal, said, \"Yeah ... sure.\" \"Good Heavens, you're a spaceman?\" \"Sure.\" He pointed at the lapel pin. \"You can't wear one unless you been on at least a Moon run.\" She was obviously both taken back and impressed. \"Why,\" she said, She said, \"I'm Natalie. Natalie Paskov. Just Natalie. Imagine meeting \"I been called Si so long, I don't even know who somebody's talking to such that it was obvious she hadn't quite adjusted as yet to having met him. bored with the whole thing. But old Doc Gubelin, I used to work under him in the Space Exploration department, he was hot for it.\" \" Academician \"... and he said all those things about man's conquest of space. And the dream of the stars which man has held so long. And then the fact Si said, \"Look, how about another drink?\" the hand indicating their need for two more of the same. \"How come you know so much about it? You don't meet many people who are interested in space any more. In fact, most people are almost contemptuous, like. Think it's kind of a big boondoggle deal to help use up a lot of materials and all and keep the economy going.\" Natalie said earnestly, \"Why, I've been a space fan all my life. I've read all about it. Have always known the names of all the space pilots and everything about them, ever since I was a child. I suppose you'd Si chuckled. \"A real buff, eh? You know, it's kind of funny. I was never much interested in it. And I got a darn sight less interested after my first run and I found out what space cafard was.\" She frowned. \"I don't believe I know much about that.\" Sitting in the Kudos Room with the most beautiful girl to whom he had aboard. The Doc says later on when ships are bigger and there's a whole flock of people aboard, there won't be any such thing as space cafard, but....\" Of a sudden the right side of Si Pond's mouth began to tic and he hurriedly took up his drink and knocked it back.\n\n<question>:\nWhat caught Natalie's attention at the Kudos Room and prompted the chat with Si?\n\n<options>:\nA The bartender introduced the two after serving them drinks at the same time.\nB She thought he was attractive enough and she was bored.\nC He had offered to buy her drinks all night.\nD She noticed his space pin.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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956 | 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.] It was a fine day at the beach for Purnie's game—but his new friends played very rough! Purnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run no more. He fell headlong into a patch of blue moss and whooped with delight in having this day free for exploring. He was free to see the heavy purple fluid overhead held fast in its manufacture of whorls and nimbi. With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie Purnie had stopped time, the bees—like all the other creatures he frozen in a steep glide, preparatory to a beach landing. Purnie had heard of these playful creatures many times. Today, with his brothers tripons, those three-legged marine buffoons who made handsome careers of munching seaweed. \"Hi there!\" Purnie called. When he got no reaction, he remembered that he himself was \"dead\" to the living world: he was still in a zone of time-stopping, on the inside looking out. For him, the world would with continuing sureness. It was time itself that Purnie had stopped, done, for he felt weak and dizzy. Already time-stopping had left its mark on his strength. But his spirits ran on unchecked. The tripon thought Purnie's feat was superb. It stopped munching long enough to give him a salutory wag of its rump before returning to its repast. Purnie ran from pillar to post, trying to see and do everything at once. He looked around to greet the flock of spora, but they had glided you going to do with them—mount them on the wall of your den back in San Diego?\" \"Hi there, wanna play?\" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than startled glance from the animals who quickly returned to their chatter. He scampered up the beach, picked up his lunch, and ran back to them, expedition just to give your flunkies a vacation.\" The animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in will you get this bug-eyed kangaroo away from me!\" Purnie shrieked with believe.\" \"Radiation, bah! We've found low-grade ore on every planet I've discovered so far, and this one'll be no different. Now how about that When the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along. When they stopped, Purnie stopped. At first he had been interested in Purnie saw one of the animals hovering around him with a little box. Thankful for the attention, he stood on his head. \"Can you do this?\" He was overjoyed at the reaction. They all started making wonderful \"Good God, what a specimen to take back. Radio-active animals! Why, to me. How about it, Benson—does pioneering pay off or doesn't it?\" \"Not so fast. Since this little fellow is radioactive, there may be great danger to the crew—\" \"Now look here! You had planned to put Purnie was tired. First the time-stopping, then this. While this day had brought more fun and excitement than he could have hoped for, the strain was beginning to tell. He lay in the center of the circle He didn't have to wait long. The animals forming the circle stepped back and made way for two others who came through carrying a box. Purnie sat up to watch the show. \"Hell, Captain, why don't I just pick him up? Looks like he has no intention of running away.\" \"All right, careful now with that line.\" \"Come on, baby. Here you go. That's a boy!\" Purnie took in these sounds with perplexed concern. He sensed the imploring quality of the creature with the rope, but he didn't know into the little crowd. \"I've got my lunch, want some?\" The party came to life once more. His friends ran this way and that, and at last Purnie knew that the idea was to get him into the box. He picked up the spirit of the tease, and deliberately ran within a \"There you are, boys. It's all in knowing how. Just winged him, that's all. Now pick him up.\" The pang in his leg was nothing: Purnie's misery lay in his confusion. motionless over his head while the rest of the rope snaked its way in transverse waves back to one of the two-legged animals. Purnie dragged himself through the congregation, whimpering from his inability to understand. hissing sound whenever Purnie was near. These things told him nothing. explosion, it had jumped four feet into the air before Purnie had When Purnie started time again, the animal with the noose stood in open-mouthed disbelief as the rope fell harmlessly to the sand—on the spot where Purnie had been standing. distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at The boulders caught most of them as they stood ankle-deep in the surf. Others were pinned down on the sand. \"I didn't mean it!\" Purnie screamed. \"I'm sorry! Can't you hear?\" He hopped back and forth near the edge of the rise, torn with panic and shame. \"Get up! Please get up!\" He was horrified by the moans reaching Purnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves. The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of death. wavelet gently rolling over his head. Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding the consequences, he ordered time to stop. tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked slowly and carefully. He knew there was no hurry—at least, not as far as his friends' safety was concerned. No matter what their condition position, his face contorted into a frozen mask of agony and shock. Another, with the weight removed, rolled over like an iron statue into a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the chaotic scene before him. At last he could do no more He instinctively knew that if he lost his senses during a period of time-stopping, events would pick up where they had left off ... without him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness, he knew he must first resume time. Step by step he plodded up the little hill, pausing every now and then Purnie as sounds came from the animal. \"What's the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick! What's happening?\" \"Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this. Hee-hee!\" Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone? He pulled himself along on his stomach to a position between two rocks, where he could see without being seen. By the light of the twin moons \"That's my responsibility, Cabot, not yours. Now go on.\" As Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through had become familiar. \"Where are you?\" Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend he was beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different directions. He watched the animal walk over to the pile of scattered \"If you're hurt I'd like to help!\" The twin moons were high in the sky now, and where their light broke through the swirling clouds a double shadow was cast around the animal. With foggy awareness, Purnie watched the creature shake its head slowly, then walk away in the direction of the others. Purnie's eyes stared, without seeing, at the panorama before him. The white square floating on the ocean. Across it, the last thing Purnie\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Purnie save the humans?\n\n<options>:\nA Purnie is worried other humans will come to his planet if he doesn't save this group.\nB Purnie blames himself for the avalanche that trapped his friends.\nC Purnie thinks the humans are his friends.\nD Purnie thinks the humans can cure his radiation poisoning.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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897 | 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>:\nIwatched those episodes, and, incongruous as it may sound, I thought of Kenneth Tynan. Britain's great postwar drama critic was no fan of American football, but he was a fan of swearing. Thirty years earlier, almost to the week, Tynan was interviewed on BBC television in his capacity as literary director of Britain's National Theater and asked if he would allow the theater to present a play in which sex took place on stage. \"Certainly,\" he replied. \"I think there are very few rational people in this world to whom the word '[expletive]' is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden.\" It turned out there were a few more than Tynan thought. Within 24 hours, resolutions had been introduced in the House of Commons calling for his prosecution on charges of obscenity, for his removal as a theater official, and for censure of the network for allowing an obscene word to go out on the airwaves. Tynan escaped punishment, but he acquired a public reputation for tastelessness that he carried for the rest his life. To much of ordinary Britain, he became the man who had said \"[expletive]\" on the BBC. Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on. I am talking to a distinguished professor of public policy about a foundation grant. I tell her something she wasn't aware of before. In 1965, the appropriate response was \"no kidding.\" In 1996, you do not say \"no kidding.\" It is limp and ineffectual. If you are surprised at all, you say what she says: \"No shit.\" But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it. And so I am reasonably sure that when my children have children, there will once again be words so awesome that they cannot be uttered without important consequences. This will not only represent a new stage of linguistic evolution, it will be a token of moral revival. What the dirty words will be, God only knows.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the author's central point about the increased frequency of expletive use in western society?\n\n<options>:\nA It represents mass disillusionment in ideals that were once central to a well-functioning society\nB It will inevitably result in an increase in crime and socially unacceptable behaviors\nC It has no correlation with crime but a positive correlation with acceptance of the taboo\nD It will bring about a new era of creativity and innovation in the years to come\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,534 | 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>:\nVolpla That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to actual parenthood. By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through midday and midnight. The afternoon my family returned home, I had a crew of workmen out tearing down the animal rooms and lab building. The caretakers nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation on the ranch. Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed. Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their \"Lunch, dear.\" \"Be right there.\" She peeked too, as she had for fifteen years, but I blocked her view when I slipped out. \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\" \"Oh, good heavens!\" Pacific shimmered. I thought, \"All this and three volplas, too.\" the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun.\" My wife sighed patiently. the whole world. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, on the walk in front of the movie just as Theda Bara's matinee let out. my first volplas were shockingly humanoid. They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same proportion to the body as it is in the human. Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. Cloud Nine and he wants to celebrate.\" I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He \"Darling, are you listening to me?\" my wife asked with impatient your TV set on?\" \"No,\" I answered. \"Should I?\" \"It's almost time for the broadcast. I was afraid we would miss it.\" \"What broadcast?\" \"From the rocket.\" broadcasts.\" As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. \"He's out of contact today. Thinks he's Zeus.\" \"Darling, will you please—be— quiet ?\" \"Yeah, Dad. Can it, will you? You're always gagging around.\" my volplas. But only for a moment. The screen returned to a studio, where an announcer explained that the map behind him. A chronometer appeared on the screen and, for several seconds, there was silence. Suddenly there was a lunar landscape on the screen, looking just as \"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Hello, Earth,' from my position in Mare Serenitatis. First I will pan the Menelaus Mountains for fifteen seconds. Then I will focus my camera on Earth for five seconds.\" awesomely wild. Toward the end of the movement, the shadow of the I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out of the lab. I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley about a mile back in the ranch. They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously. Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught He probably meant to dive for her. But when he spread his arms, the hung in the breeze for a long moment, thirty feet above the ground. He turned a plaintive face back to me, dipped worriedly and skimmed The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him launched themselves in beautiful glides for hundreds of feet, banking, Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a \"Before the red men came, did we live here?\" \"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so We both heard the whir of wings overhead. Two mourning doves flew He looked around slowly at the breeze playing in the branches and dancing along the hillside grass. It was as if he had been flying a there. I can stay for a while. How long will they be in the tree?\" \"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case they leave while you are climbing.\" himself, streaked down-valley a way and caught a warm updraft on a criss-crossing the ridge, working his way back to us. wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with hundred and fifty feet. One of the girls, with her eyes fast on his He flashed high above the stream and hung behind the crest of the hill occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near. The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the bird's crossward flight. I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal. When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire. here in this woods until they're ready to leave.\" \"I promise.\" He looked up at the night sky and, in the firelight, I saw Sunday supplements that would be written in about a year, maybe even less. He looked into the sky for a long time. \"Those little lights are the stars?\" \"That's right.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy is the narrator the only one who notices a flight of volplas soaring slowly across the full Moon?\n\n<options>:\nA Because volplas are fictional creatures and people do not believe they exist.\nB Because other witness believe this was ET with a little boy riding his bicycle over the moon.\nC Because people generally only notice what they look for and would dismiss the phenomenon as something else.\nD Because it is nighttime and everyone is indoors.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from 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 algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open the history—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilis no Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment more than a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads of their war on canned pork and beans. The periplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza and concentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for the 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. what was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We think of the incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowed the stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequent the ancient observation, \"God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,\" Sale . The the low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as the human period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen fir seedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be planted 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. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargo no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae to work over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tons of metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano West and back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat, protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And the algae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubble from our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en route and back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich in essential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill the 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 wore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule of glomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundling politicians are right enough when they say that we spacers are a breed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury of done splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heart was a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planet hemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook. of synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized by For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste of the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not. you eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this give his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've got my time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none.\" Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. It guess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling and drying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nine heads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce de mass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was only this pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions and cycler-salt.\" bite. \"But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms and \"You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban or weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that will keep my belly content and my brain alive.\" somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\" cheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary genius turkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacy a grainy and delicious \"cornbread,\" and had extracted from his algae a lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot \"bread\" with a 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 memories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men had Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effects 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 fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of spices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice, exercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowance To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to come baggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noon what was left was to get the should feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right?\" \"Yes, Sir,\" Bailey said. \"Well, I squeezed the steak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of special seasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaeal oil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuine meat.\" \"Remarkable, Bailey,\" I said. \"It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about with the meal.\" masterpiece. \"The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.\" Lifting a hunk of the \"steak,\" streaming ketchup, to his mouth, sufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep a bottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber.\" to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic slops for another hundred days, without the small consolation of molecules reclaimed from the head packaged amino acid additives. And he expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquet of the Friends of Escoffier!\" \"Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey,\" I said. \"You've worked your fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're not appreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A year restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman.\" mess compartment, we ate I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electric warming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three of us with the small \"steaks.\" Each contained about a pound of dried Chlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenched in a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black iron a bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course there are plate. \"Then have another piece,\" he said.\n\n<question>:\nAll of the following is 'recycled' to create extra 'food' EXCEPT for:\n\n<options>:\nA urine\nB hair\nC algae\nD bones\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>:\nCULTURAL EXCHANGE It was a simple student exchange—but Retief gave them more of observed. Retief thumbed through the papers, pausing to read from time an education than they expected! Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that unfortunate incidents.\" it.\" \"I don't appreciate frivolity with reference to this Division,\" Magnan fancy I've made MUDDLE what it is today. Frankly, I question the weeks. But remember. Yours is purely a rubber-stamp function.\" to bear.\" be the first step toward sublimation of their aggressions into more cultivated channels.\" campaigns in the last two decades. They're known as the Hoodlums of the Nicodemean Cluster. Now, perhaps, we shall see them breaking that precedent and entering into the cultural life of the Galaxy.\" But I'm wondering what they'll study on d'Land. That's an industrial world of the poor but honest variety.\" \"Academic details are the affair of the students and their professors,\" Magnan said. \"Our function is merely to bring them together. See that you don't antagonize the Bogan representative. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to practice your diplomatic restraint—not your strong point, I'm sure you'll agree.\" of heavy cloth, a loose shirt open at the neck and a short jacket, \"You work for this Culture bunch, do you? Funny. I thought they were What I wanted to see you about was—\" He shifted in his chair. \"Well, We like to farm, though. Spend a lot of time developing new forms. Arapoulous leaned forward. \"We go in pretty heavy for the arts. Folks land area we've got into parks and farms. Course, we left some sizable \"It sounds like it, Mr. Arapoulous. Just what—\" painting and sculpture in the winter. Then Spring and it's the season for closer. Shines all the time. Ever seen it pouring rain in the sunshine? That's the music-writing season. Then summer. Summer's hot. We stay we're mostly islands. That's the drama and symphony time. the music and the surf and the bonfires and stars—we're close to the center of a globular cluster, you know....\" \"That's right. Autumn's our harvest season. Most years we have just the ordinary crops. Fruit, grain, that kind of thing getting it in doesn't take long. We spend most of the time on architecture, getting new places ready for the winter or remodeling the older ones. We spend a But this year....\" \"The crop isn't panning out?\" twenty-eight I can't remember but two other harvests. The problem's not the crop.\" \"Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the Commercial—\" settled for anything else!\" \"This isn't to think of it, we also have to be careful about violating quaint native customs.\" and black.\" fresh glasses. \"Here's to the harvest.\" We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a force. They figured they knew better what to do with our minerals than we did. Wanted to strip-mine, smelt ore. We convinced 'em otherwise. But it took a year, and we lost a lot of men.\" \"That's too bad,\" Retief said. \"I'd say this one tastes more like roast beef and popcorn over a Riesling base.\" said. \"What's the problem? Croanie about to foreclose?\" here and there. Big vines, eight feet high, loaded with fruit, and deep to the pickers. There's prizes for the biggest day's output, bets on who can fill the most baskets in an hour.... The sun's high and bright, and it's just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall, the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on: roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads. Plenty of fruit. Fresh-baked bread ... and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking's done by a different crew each night in each garden, and there's prizes for the best crews. for the young folks but anybody's welcome. That's when things start to \"Never did,\" Retief said. \"You say most of the children are born after \"On the whole,\" Retief said, \"I think I prefer the black. But the red is hard to beat....\" \"What we figured was, maybe you Culture boys could help us out. A loan to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we'd \"Can they pick grapes?\" \"Nope. Anyway, they can't stand the daylight. Have you talked this over Said it was what they classified as menial drudgery here. Cultural exhibits, you know.\" across the table. What are they getting?\" Exchanges.\" He pursed his lips. \"However, I suppose there's no harm in on—\" General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for \"That's the trouble with peaceful worlds,\" the SCROUNGE committeeman sending them two thousand exchange students. It must be quite an institution.\" \"And nights to match.\" \"Yeah. Bunch of babies. Kids. How they expect—Never mind. Have one on attention, his chest out. for?\" details.\" said. \"Personally, I'm curious as to just what it is these students are me with the question of two thousand young male students headed for always—\" Library. In the stacks he thumbed through catalogues, pored over indices. vehicle. \"Five hundred.\" CROANIE (general).\" He paused at a page headed Industry. It would be a pity, he reflected, if anything should interfere with the we're shipping five hundred units....\" \"That's correct. Five hundred.\" \"One unit would require a good-sized plant to handle its output,\" outfit? I should think—\" \"See here, Retief! Why all this interest in a few surplus tractors? And in any event, what business is it of yours how we plan to use the equipment? That's an internal affair of my government. Mr. Whaffle—\" \"I'm not Mr. Whaffle. What are you going to do with the other four \"I understood the grant was to be with no strings attached!\" \"I know it's bad manners to ask questions. It's an old diplomatic tradition that any time you can get anybody to accept anything as a gift, you've scored points in the game. But if Croanie has some scheme cooking—\" \"Nothing like that, Retief. It's a mere business transaction.\" difficult situation, balance-of-payments-wise. This is an accommodation to a group with which we have rather strong business ties.\" \"Who gets the tractors eventually?\" \"Who gets them?\" \"They happen to be going to Lovenbroy. But I scarcely see—\" \"Miss Furkle, I'd like to be notified immediately of any new \"Well, it happens, by coincidence, that I have an application here now. shirt, shiny shoes with round toes and an ill-tempered expression. \"What is it you wish?\" he barked. \"I understood in my discussions with the other ... ah ... civilian there'd be no further need for these irritating conferences.\" many this time?\" \"And where will they be going?\" \"Will there be any other students embarking this season?\" \"Another under-populated world—and in the same cluster, I believe,\" importance to see to.\" break-out of all the student movements that have been planned under the present program,\" he said. \"And see if you can get a summary of what outside our interest cluster.\" \"That's worse than listening in on phone conversations, eh? But never mind. I need the information, Miss Furkle.\" \"Loyalty to my Chief—\" \"Loyalty to your pay-check should send you scuttling for the material \"You on good terms with them?\" \"Sure, I guess so. Course, they're pretty thick with Boge.\" \"So?\" game.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one common theme in this article?\n\n<options>:\nA Money buys happiness.\nB Suspicion indicates deception.\nC Education does not always lead to success.\nD Wit and charm are the keys for negotiation.\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>:\nKrugman's Life of Brian Where it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. 1) Krugman claims that my opening sentence--\"In a way, Bill Gates's current troubles with the Justice Department grew out of an economics seminar that took place thirteen years ago, at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government\"--is \"pure fiction.\" Perhaps so, but in that case somebody should tell this to Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. When I interviewed Klein for my piece about the Microsoft case, he singled out Brian Arthur as the economist who has most influenced his thinking about the way in which high-technology markets operate. It was Klein's words, not those of Arthur, that prompted me to use Arthur in the lead of the story. 4) Krugman appears to suggest that I made up some quotes, a charge that, if it came from a more objective source, I would consider to be a serious matter. In effect, he is accusing Brian Arthur, a man he calls a \"nice guy,\" of being a fabricator or a liar. The quotes in question came from Arthur, and they were based on his recollections of two meetings that he attended some years ago. After Krugman's article appeared, the Santa Fe professor called me to say that he still recalled the meetings in question as I described them. Krugman, as he admits, wasn't present at either of the meetings. 5) For a man who takes his own cogitations extremely seriously, Krugman is remarkably cavalier about attributing motives and beliefs to others. \"Cassidy has made it clear in earlier writing that he does not like mainstream economists, and he may have been overly eager to accept a story that puts them in a bad light,\" he pronounces. I presume this statement refers to a critical piece I wrote in 1996 about the direction that economic research, principally macroeconomic research, has taken over the past two decades. In response to that article, I received dozens of messages of appreciation from mainstream economists, including from two former presidents of the American Economic Association. Among the sources quoted in that piece were the then-chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (Joseph Stiglitz), a governor of the Federal Reserve Board (Laurence Meyer), and a well-known Harvard professor (Gregory Mankiw). To claim, as Krugman does, that I \"don't like mainstream economists\" and that I am out to denigrate their work is malicious hogwash. The fact of the matter is that I spend much of my life reading the work of mainstream economists, speaking to them, and trying to find something they have written that might interest the general public. In my experience, most economists appreciate the attention. 6) I might attach more weight to Krugman's criticisms if I hadn't recently reread his informative 1994 book Peddling Prosperity , in which he devotes a chapter to the rediscovery of increasing returns by contemporary economists. Who are the first scholars Krugman mentions in his account? Paul David, an economic historian who wrote a famous paper about how the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard evolved and, you guessed it, Brian Arthur. \"Why QWERTYUIOP?\" Krugman wrote. \"In the early 1980s, Paul David and his Stanford colleague Brian Arthur asked that question, and quickly realized that it led them into surprisingly deep waters. ... What Paul David, Brian Arthur, and a growing number of other economists began to realize in the late seventies and early eighties was that stories like that of the typewriter keyboard are, in fact, pervasive in the economy.\" Evidently, Krugman felt four years ago that Arthur's contribution was important enough to merit a prominent mention in his book. Now, he dismisses the same work, saying it \"didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know.\" Doubtless, this change in attitude on Krugman's part is unconnected to the fact that Arthur has started to receive some public recognition. The eminent MIT professor, whose early academic work received widespread media attention, is far too generous a scholar to succumb to such pettiness. Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy: Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. I leave it for others to decide whether I was too gullible in writing Complexity . For the record, however, I would like to inject a few facts into Krugman's story, which he summarizes nicely in the final paragraph: Which brings me to Professor Krugman's letter, and my reply. I remember the exchange very well. Obviously, however, my reply failed to make clear what I was really trying to say. So I'll try again: a) During our interviews, Brian went out of his way to impress upon me that many other economists had done work in increasing returns--Paul Krugman among them. He was anxious that they be given due credit in anything I wrote. So was I. c) So, when I received Krugman's letter shortly after Complexity came out, I was puzzled: He was complaining that I hadn't referenced others in the increasing-returns field--Paul Krugman among them--although I had explicitly done so. d) But, when I checked the published text, I was chagrined to discover that the critical passage mentioning Krugman wasn't there. Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop: Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons.\n\n<question>:\nWhich writer seemed to like Krugman the most?\n\n<options>:\nA Waldrop\nB Arrow\nC Cassidy\nD Fishman\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>:\nJUPITER'S JOKE didn't foul me with this trip to good old Jupiter. Then I croaked, \"Jupiter! What for? Are you running outa space in stir? dried-up straw, joined his fingertips carefully, cleared his scrawny throat, and told me what for. pardon. And a reward. Oh, no! I told myself, it wasn't possible. Not when I already had more counts against me than a cur has fleas. Not the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!\" he sneered. They were really stumped. They hadn't expected me to take this attitude at all. No doubt they had it figured that I'd gratefully throw myself refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling safe and secure in the grip of the good old Iron College, I relaxed. At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my cell block. They were too smart for that. But we met at recreation, and right to be and after awhile I braced him. I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week 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 fresh scent. of contemptuously but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's champion liar or its bravest son, and either way I took my hat off to him. He looked loftily past me. \"Sorry. Gotta keep that a secret. Likewise where I cached 'em.\" \"Cached what?\" That night I turned on my hard prison cot until my bones were so much jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning with this fever for information, only to find that Pard had got himself put in solitary for mugging a guard, and that really put the heat on me. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick by the time he got out a week later. By that time he really had me hooked. I'd of sworn he was leveling with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead, he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, \"When I \"Jupiter!\" I goggled at him. \"Akroida! Who's she?\" He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he was sure I'd been born. \"Don't you know nothin', butterhead?\" From him I took it. I even waited patiently till the master spoke again. The memory still makes me fry. of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the remember?\" He winked broadly. \"It come from Mars in the first place, about the rocks on Mars but I jerked him back. 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 was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins. But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group of lifers made a break that didn't jell, and the whole bunch was locked up in the blockhouse, the special building reserved for escapees. Pard Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew it. So did I. 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 make a deal about those emeralds. Then I broke down and sent out a letter to the S.S.C. friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with mist was eatin' into the finish on my spacesuit, so I draped this here slicker around me to sorta fancy up the rig before goin' in to an audience with the old rip.\" He shook his head slowly. \"The kid to which, IF you succeed, you will be a free man.\" That twitch of the nose riled me no little. \"I ain't failed yet!\" I snarled at him. \"Just you wait till I do, feller!\" I slipped the string then they took me in to the edge of Jupiter's though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted dead away right there if Pard Hoskins hadn't been there already and lived. If that little shrimp could do it, I could, too. I braced up and tapped out the greeting Pard had taught me. My fiendish-looking opponent tapped right back, inquiring why the hell the socket and reeled it out to the end of a two-foot tentacle, and then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those removable eyes, for reasons best known to himself. I still wake up 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! I tried to back off from him a bit, but the ship stopped me. \"I'm Casey nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. \"Who named you that?\" He simpered. \"My dear friend, Pard Hoskins.\" I breathed again. How simple could I get? He'd already mistaken me for Pard, hadn't he? Then I remembered something else. \"How come you aren't mad at him? Don't you hate yellow, too?\" He hung his silly head. \"I fear I am colorblind,\" he confessed sadly. Right there I forgave him for pulling that eye on me. He was the guide I needed, the one who had got Pard out alive. I almost hugged him. \"Lead off, old pal,\" I sang out, and then had to tap it. \"I'll follow in my boat.\" Well, I'd met the first of the brood and was still alive. Not only alive but loved and cherished, thanks to Pard's inventiveness and to a kindly fate which had sent Pard's old pal my way. A great man, Pard Hoskins. How had he made friends with the brute in the first place? Pard was right again. These critters had brains. And my S.S.C. persecutor was right, too. That anti-grav secret was worth more than Attaboy, however, had the answers for everything. Towing me from the dropped the arsenic. But he didn't have any brakes I could grab, so he just flew out into mid-air in a room that could have swallowed a city shuddering away from her and from the void all around me, and went That conversation was telegraphed to me blow by blow by the actions of those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code direction. \"Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat convinced Casey to go to Jupiter?\n\n<options>:\nA The Government offered additional money\nB Pard told him about the perfume\nC He learned that Pard had a friend there\nD Pard told him he'd lived through it\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>:\nto make two ounces of an isotope quite powerful—and quite deadly. I only hope whoever stole it knows what he’s doing. However, I’m scientist himself?” Eddie asked. “Let’s just say he—or both of them—have enough training in the subject to know how to handle that isotope safely,” Mr. Taylor said. “But, Dad,” Eddie wondered, “what could the dream, he added, “Oh, Dad, is it all right if I use the Geiger counter today?” 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 “That’s entirely possible,” his father said. “In fact, it’s the only logical explanation I can last game of college football. “You may use the Geiger counter any time you want, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor said, “as long as you take good care of it. You figured out where think of. People simply don’t go around stealing surprised to see him. “Mother and I are just “Oh, I figured you’d be through by now,” “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, but she 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 looked around for Mr. Ross, but Teena’s Acme Aircraft yet. There wasn’t a place set for him at the table, either. “You’re never a pest, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross assured him. “I was going to call your mother in a little while about that newspaper write-up.” “I suppose your father is quite concerned “I’m not sure I know, either,” Mrs. Ross said. “Maybe we could understand more of “But, Mom—” 15 “No arguments, son,” his father put in calmly but firmly. “School vacation doesn’t mean that your chores around here are on vacation, too. Get at it right away, and you’ll still have time to hunt your uranium. “Well,” Mr. Taylor added, excusing himself from the table, “I’d better be getting over to school. I’m expecting to receive shipment “I’ll say,” Eddie agreed. “Of course, only The very word excited Eddie. In fact, anything excited him. He knew something about “I’ve heard of chain reactions,” Mrs. Ross asking that particular question was to keep my work is a little different, you know. At the speed atomic science is moving today, we simply can’t afford to waste time. But don’t eagerly. “Wouldn’t think of leaving it home,” his father said, smiling. “By the way, I put new “Well, they know just how to do it,” Eddie replied. “Aren’t the rays dangerous?” Mrs. Ross “I’ll say they’re dangerous,” Eddie said. had provided during the earlier hours. “Anything else, Mom?” he asked, returning door before his mother had much time to think of something more for him to do. “I guess not, dear,” Mrs. Taylor said, smiling over his hasty retreat. “What are you going to do?” tried to make it sound as though he would be doing Teena Ross a big favor. After all, “My, that’s interesting, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross “It’s hot,” Eddie said, “but not like if it Christina Ross—whom everybody called wouldn’t even know it for a while. It would be “So that’s what a radioisotope is,” Mrs. Ross “Well, I—I just happened to be going by,” counter. But maybe you’re too busy.” That’s how to handle it, Eddie thought. “Who, me?” “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 it?” Mrs. Ross said. “My goodness, it is a serious matter, isn’t “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, coming into work.” “She always does, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said, pretending great injury. “Don’t know why I stoop to stealing isotopes more than likely would be interested in their ability to destroy because we’re friends, that’s why.” 21 Eddie knew she was right. They were rather than their ability to benefit mankind. keep coming over here.” “Well, I certainly do hope everything works “Oh, we’re glad you did, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross 43 “That’s right, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie agreed. 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 well face it. My father says that in horse-and-buggy “People should talk more and read more about many people even bother to find out what an atom is.” 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 hikes.” “Or greasing one,” Teena added. Eddie laughed. “I sure wouldn’t want the job of trying to feed a herd of them the size of how to go about feeding an atom.” “Three million billion is a lot of something,” “Oh, hello, Mr. Ross,” Eddie said, turning You know the rules.” “We sure do, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie assured counter. “And stick near the main roads. thin on top. He was usually quite cheerful and full of fun, but tonight his face seemed Mrs. Ross a kiss on the cheek. mother said. “Did you know there were three million billion of them in a period?” “How many in a comma?” Mr. Ross said to It wasn’t very funny. I—I’m afraid I don’t feel very funny tonight.” “Sit down, dear,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’ll warm your dinner. You didn’t sound very cheerful 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 “Hello, son,” he said. He didn’t even ask “It shows that much, does it, son?” his father said tiredly. “Or can’t you tell me?” Mr. Taylor leaned back. “Quite a bit’s wrong, Eddie,” he said, “and I guess there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. It’ll be in He took the newspaper to his father to read first. After having finished, Mr. Taylor handed 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.” “It wasn’t your fault, was it, Dad?” Eddie defended. “It was as much mine as anybody’s, son,” his father said. “Probably more so. After all, “Fifty pounds,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty big thing to steal, isn’t it?” “Not much bigger than a two-quart and carefully carried out. It was not the work of amateurs.” paper, “how could anyone carry away something weighing fifty pounds without being noticed?” “That’s unlikely, son,” Mr. Taylor said. “Believe me, it was no common theft. Nor were the thieves ordinary thieves. That isotope in order to find out exactly how it could best be put to use as a cure for disease, or for sterilizing food, or even as a source of power.”\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of describing Mr. Ross as a funny person?\n\n<options>:\nA It provides a stark contrast to the stressed Mr. Ross we meet in Chapter Two. It shows the reader that something has gone horribly wrong at Mr. Ross’s job.\nB It demonstrates to the reader that Eddie will be able to get along with him, and therefore share what he knows about radiation.\nC It throws Eddie off the scent of Mr. Ross being a culprit responsible for Mr. Taylor’s missing isotope.\nD It provides a comparison to Mr. Taylor, who is more successful than Mr. Ross and therefore doesn’t have to rely on humor.\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>:\nSharism: A Mind Revolution freely in Social Media while rallying a Web 2.0 content boom, the inner dynamics of such a creative explosion must be studied more closely. What motivates those who join this movement and what future will they create? capital are being accumulated by those who share. The key motivator of Sharism. Sharism suggests a re-orientation of personal values. We see it in User Generated Content. It is the pledge of Creative Commons. It is in the plans of future-oriented cultural initiatives. Sharism is also a Sharism is encoded in the Human Genome. Although eclipsed by the many pragmatisms of daily life, the theory of Sharism finds basis in such a simple logic can be iterated and amplified, since all neurons work on a similar principle of connecting and sharing. Originally, the brain is quite open. A neural network exists to share activity and Thus, our brain supports sharing in its very system-nature. This has profound implications for the creative process. Whenever you have an intention to create, you will find it easier to generate more creative ideas if you keep the sharing process firmly in mind. The tells them to be protective of their ideas, people start to believe in the danger of sharing. Then Sharism will be degraded in their mind and share, her sharing paths will stay open. Sharism will be kept in her company, a nation is oriented toward Sharism or not. For those who are not, what they defend as “cultural goods” and “intellectual property” are just excuses for the status quo of keeping a community closed. Much of their “culture” will be protected, but the net result is the direct loss of many other precious ideas, and the subsequent loss of all the potential gains of sharing. This lost knowledge is a black hole in our life, which may start to swallow other values as well. Non-sharing culture misleads us with its absolute separation of Private and Public space. It makes creative action a binary choice between public and private, open and closed. This creates a gap in the spectrum of knowledge. Although this gap has the potential to become a valuable creative space, concerns about privacy make this gap hard to fill. We shouldn’t be surprised that, to be safe, most people keep their sharing private and stay “closed.” They may fear the Internet creates a potential for abuse that they can’t fight alone. However, the paradox is: The less you share, the less power you have. New Technologies and the Rise of Sharism than just E-mail. It’s Sharism. the blogosphere. This required a more delicate social networking system and content- sharing architecture. But people now understand that they can have better control over a wide spectrum of relationships. Like how Flickr allows people to share their photos widely, but safely. The checkbox-based privacy of Flickr may seem unfamiliar to a new user, but you can use it to toy with the mind-switches of Sharism. By checking a box we can choose to share or not to share. From my observations, I have seen photographers on Flickr become more open to sharing, while retaining flexible choices. alternative to broadcast media. These new technologies are reviving Sharism in our closed culture. Local Practice, Global Gain If you happened to lose your Sharism in a bad educational or cultural persistence of practice can lead to a full recovery. You can think of Sharism as a spiritual practice. But you must practice everyday. Otherwise, you might lose the power of sharing. Permanently. You might need something to spur you on, to keep you from quitting and but you can amplify it with new technologies. Enlist some people from might be hard to feel the gains of Sharism. The true test then is to see results. The happiness that this will obtain is only the most immediate reward. But there are others. The first type of reward that you will get comes in the form of comments. Then you know you’ve provoked interest, appreciation, excitement. The second reward is access to all the other stuff being shared by friends in your network. Since you know and trust them, you will be that much more interested in what they have to share. Already, the return is a multiple of the small meme you first shared. But the third type of return is more dramatic still. Anything you share can be fast as a mouse-click. You should get to know the Sharism-You. You’re This brings us to the fourth and final type of return. It has a meaning not only for you, but for the whole of society. If you so choose, you may allow others to create derivative works from what you share. This one choice could easily snowball into more creations along the sharing about creating and sharing as you are. After many iterative rounds of development, a large creative work may spring from your choice to share. Of course, you will get the credit that you asked for, and deserve. And it’s okay to seek financial rewards. But you will in every case get something just as substantial: Happiness. The more people who create in the spirit of Sharism, the easier it will will rely on the even distribution of social networking. These “Shaeros” (Sharing Heroes) will naturally become the opinion leaders in the first wave of Social Media. However, these media rights will belong to everyone. You yourself can be both producer and consumer in such a system. Sharism Safeguards Your Rights Still, many questions will be raised about Sharism as an initiative in new age. The main one is copyright. One concern is that any loss of control over copyrighted content will lead to noticeable deficits in personal wealth, or just loss of control. 5 years ago, I would have said that this was a possibility. But things are changing today. The sharing environment is more protected than you might think. Many new social applications make it easy to set terms-of-use along your sharing path. Any infringement of those terms will be challenged not just by the law, but by your community. Your audience, who benefit form your sharing, can also be the gatekeepers of your rights. Even if you are a traditional copyright holder, this sounds ideal. Furthermore, by realizing all the immediate and emergent rewards that can be had by sharing, you may eventually find that copyright and “All Rights Reserved” are far from your mind. You will enjoy sharing too much to worry about who is keeping a copy. The new economic formula is, the more people remix your works, the higher the return. I want to point out that Sharism is not Communism, nor Socialism. As for sharing nature and forced them to give up their rights, and their property. Socialism, that tender Communism, in our experience also lacked respect for these rights. Under these systems, the state owns all property. Under Sharism, you can keep ownership, if you want. But I like to share. And this is how I choose to spread ideas, and prosperity Sharism is totally based on your own consensus. It’s not a very hard concept to understand, especially since copyleft movements like the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons have been around for years. These movements are redefining a more flexible spectrum of licenses for both developers and end-users to tag their works. Because the new licenses can be recognized by either humans or machines, it’s becoming easier to re-share those works in new online ecosystems. The Spirit of the Web, a Social Brain Sharism is the Spirit of the Age of Web 2.0. It has the consistency of a naturalized Epistemology and modernized Axiology, but also promises the power of a new Internet philosophy. Sharism will transform the world This is an evolutionary leap, a small step for us and a giant one for Sharism will be the politics of the next global superpower. It will not data and remix information for public use. The collective intelligence of a vast and equitable sharing environment can be the gatekeeper of our rights, and a government watchdog. In the future, policymaking can be made more nuanced with the micro-involvement of the sharing community. Representative democracy will become more timely and diligent, because Sharism will result in better social justice. In a healthy sharing Emergent democracy will only happen when Sharism becomes the literacy of the majority. Since Sharism can improve communication, collaboration and system. Sharism can be applied to any cultural discourse, CoP (Community of Practice) or problem-solving context. It is also an antidote to\n\n<question>:\nThe author promises all of the following returns from investing in Sharism EXCEPT for:\n\n<options>:\nA access to cultural capital\nB amplified networks\nC social validation\nD exclusive copyright privileges\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>:\nThey were mad, all right, and now Matilda wondered if, actually, Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] All she wanted was a mate and she had the gumption to go out and hunt one down. But that meant Matilda would seek the happy medium. The best that could be said for Matilda Penshaws was that she was poaching in a strictly forbidden territory! something of a paradox. She was thirty-three years old, certainly not paths across her face and now she needed certain remedial undergarments at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was also looking for a husband. This, in itself, was not unusual—but Matilda was so completely wrapped up in the romantic fallacy of her day that she sought a prince charming, a faithful Don Juan, a man who had been everywhere and tasted of every worldly pleasure and who now wanted to sit on a porch and talk about it all to Matilda. why Matilda liked the country better than the city, particularly on a Matilda not in the least. She had been known to say that there are over a billion men in the world, a goodly percentage of whom are eligible bachelors, and that the right one would come along simply because she had been waiting for him. Matilda, you see, had patience. She also had a fetish. Matilda had received her A.B. from exclusive Ursula Johns College and Radcliff had yielded her Masters degree, yet Matilda was an avid follower of the pen pal columns. She would read Matilda gasped and ran into her car. She started the gears and pressed names which, through a system known only to Matilda, had an affinity Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, That particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the rocking on the glider and Matilda said hello. The first thing the widow Penshaws did was to take Matilda's left hand Matilda smiled. \"It wouldn't have worked out, Ma. He was too darned Victorian prude and even less of a man than the others.\" \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It You don't fall in love, Matilda—no one does. Love osmoses into you slowly, without you even knowing, and it keeps growing all the time.\" 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 an elderly man interested in ornithology wanted a young chick correspondent interested in the same a young, personable man wanted an editorial position because he thought he had something to offer the editorial world and— Matilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light Matilda even liked the sound of the name. But mostly, she had to admit Matilda could see that. But she had never minded an egotistical man, at least not when he had something about which he had a genuine reason to be egotistical. The man sounded as though he would have reason indeed. He only wanted the best because Matilda sighed happily as she put out the light. The moon shone in through the window brightly, and at such times Matilda generally would Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed Matilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered \"Mother,\" gasped Matilda. Matilda always gasped when she saw something Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak only mother could cook. Matilda moodily thanked the widow Penshaws. Matilda hummed Mendelssohn's Wedding March all the way. It was her favorite piece of music. Once, she told herself: Matilda Penshaws, you are being premature about the whole thing. But she laughed and thought which hung too far down on his nose. Matilda knew he would peer over \"Hello,\" said Matilda. The stereotype grunted and peered at her over his glasses. Matilda Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an stereotype, and he scratched his bald head. Then he told Matilda almost Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this to analyze other people's mistakes, especially Matilda's. Accordingly, Matilda trudged wearily toward Cedar Falls' small and Then Matilda frowned. Twenty years from now, this could be Matilda 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 Matilda cleared her throat. \"Pardon me,\" she began. \"I'm looking for—\" Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. Matilda thought a little flattery might be effective. \"Only ten,\" she Matilda reached into her pocket-book and withdrew a five dollar bill. \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this Matilda nodded shrewdly and added a twin brother to the bill in her Matilda assured her that it was, and, breathlessly, she wrote down the to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought had been her ingenuity, and which now turned out to be something which she had in common with five other women. You live and learn, thought Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having been the first. Perhaps the other five all were satisfactory that she really might have liked. Instead, someone she could only regard as a menial met her, and when he asked had she come in response to the advertisement, she nodded eagerly. A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After 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 For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was 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 He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair. ordinary -looking. She almost would have preferred \"I—do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. \"I must admit I was surprised when I got exactly what I wanted for \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her wanted to believe in him and the result was that it took until now for her to realize it. eager as he spoke, high-pitched, almost like a child's, and now he seemed disappointed. He smiled, but it was a sad smile, a smile of Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the remembered what she had promised the librarian. In her own way, the aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what \"He's neither,\" the librarian contradicted. \"Perhaps he is slightly eccentric by your standards, but really, my dear, he is neither.\" \"What do you mean?\" Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for\n\n<question>:\nWhat best summarizes Matilda’s attitude?\n\n<options>:\nA She’s too easily trusting of strangers and the unknown.\nB She is a lonely, unhappy person looking for an outlet via the Pen Pals column.\nC She’s naive, and doesn’t understand relationship.s\nD She’s naive, and a romantic who craves excitement.\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>:\nmany of us, never were. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish. .\" \"Crewmen,\" Rexroad said, \"make poor reporters.\" The crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The decision of Interstellar was that the colonists started a revolution far out in space, that it was fanned by the ignorance of Captain Sessions in dealing with such matters. Ellason nodded. \"The ship disappeared.\" \"Yes. We gave control to the colonists.\" \"Assuming no accident in space,\" Phipps said, \"it was a wrong decision. They probably took over the ship.\" \"And now,\" Ellason said, \"you're going to try again.\" Rexroad said very gravely, \"We've got the finest captain in \"If I return,\" said Ellason. \"I suppose that's problematical,\" Phipps said, \"but I think you will. Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you compartments, recreation areas, swimming pool, library, theater. Nothing had been overlooked. The captain's briefing room was crowded, the air was heavy with the breathing of so many men, and the ventilators could not quite clear the air of tobacco smoke that drifted aimlessly here and there before it Captain Branson's eyes sought his several times as Branson listened to final reports from his engineers, record keepers, fuel men, computermen, and all the rest. He grunted his approval or disapproval, Branson was in charge, yet there was a human quality about him that Ellason liked. The captain's was a lean face, well tanned, and his eyes were chunks of blue. Ellason was startled. While he had considered the possibility, he had not dwelt on it. Now it loomed large in his mind. \"I don't understand, Captain Branson. It seems to me—\" \"Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why I say that until the journey ends.\" He smiled. \"Perhaps I shouldn't Ellason left the captain's quarters with an odd taste in his mouth. Now why had Branson said that? Why hadn't Rexroad or Phipps said something, if it was important? the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they are humanity adrift, rudderless, for whom the stars are no longer bearings but nonexistent things, and values are altered if they are not The theft of Carver Janssen's attache case occurred on the thirty-first was significant that all en route had passed stability tests, and that it was to the ship's discredit that someone with criminal tendencies should have been permitted aboard. Ellason had to smile at that. What did Captain Branson think of those colonists who killed each other on the stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I know people get tired of seeing each other, playing the same tapes, There was an appeal from Janssen in the next day's newsletter \"Didn't you think that was important?\" Branson asked in an outraged Seen in space, stars are unmoving, silent, sterile bright eyes ever watchful and accusing. To men unused to it, such a sight numbs, compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he the ship. Ellason was present when a delegation from the Third Quadrant called on 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. Antheon.\" The group left in a surly mood. \"You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason,\" Captain Branson said. \"But suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, and further incidents occur. What then? It soon becomes the crew's \"Do you think it is a member of the crew?\" Branson's eyes were bright. \"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? forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the mask, the seed case, the money and the man. \"I will not countenance such an act by a crewman,\" Branson said. \"If and when he is found, he will be severely dealt with. But he might not be a member of the crew. I am ordering an assembly of all passengers at 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. \"Insofar as the ship is concerned, it is my duty to make certain no crewman is guilty. This I am doing. But my crew is not and cannot be \"How can we protect ourselves without stunners?\" one colonist called out. The captain reported that his search had been equally fruitless. tried to stop him. But the intruder was light on his feet and fast. He escaped. The Quadrant Council confronted the captain, demanding weapons. \"Are you out of your minds?\" Branson exclaimed. He's afraid to do anything, now that we've got police protection, they said smugly. The Quadrant Council congratulated itself. The passengers were proud of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter. wanted to make everyone furious, he certainly succeeded. \"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 It was the same with others. \"The man's insane, Mr. Ellason. Positively insane.\" Many people said it. The council issued orders that all passengers from now on would be required to lock their compartments at all times. More guns were obtained from the captain. More policemen were appointed. trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one man's suspicion of another and the ensuing search of compartments, him. Ellason's first thought was that he must be a stowaway, but then he remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at him, unhappily admitted the man was a member of the crew. His name was spat at the captain. the passengers.\" \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said. \"And you, Mr. Ellason, were along to observe it all,\" Captain Branson put in. \"Interstellar wanted an accurate picture of this. If it worked, small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously.\" items will be returned. They're all tagged with their owner's names. Captain Branson will say they were found somewhere on the ship. You see, I was a liar.\" into the hall claiming I'd attacked her, which I did not. She was certainly amazed when the ship's physicians agreed with her. Of course Captain Branson told them to do that.\" \"And the murder?\" understand you can't write it, don't you?\" Ellason said regretfully that he did understand. \"The colonists will never know the truth,\" Branson went on. \"There will be other ships outward bound.\" Critten sighed. \"And I'll have to be caught again.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is significant about the captain's initial reaction to Mr. Janssens attache case being stolen?\n\n<options>:\nA It reveals his negligence as a leader\nB It proves that the captain does not think anything could be wrong\nC It shows that the captain wants to give people the impression that he thinks the passengers are all okay\nD It shows the passengers that the captain cannot be trusted\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
2,190 | 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 ULTROOM ERROR sense of humor, though, even in the Ultroom! HB73782. Ultroom error. Tendal 13. Arvid 6. Kanad transfer Occasionally she glanced at her son in the play pen, who was getting his daily dose of sunshine. He was gurgling happily, examining a ball, a cheese grater and a linen baby book, all with perfunctory interest. \"All right, Joe.\" He reached into the pen, picked up the baby. As he did so the baby's knees hit the side of the play pen and young Laughton let out a scream—half from hurt and half from sudden lack of confidence in his new handler. But this did not deter Joe. He started off with the child. Around the corner and after the man came a snarling mongrel dog, eyes bright, teeth glinting in the sunlight. The man did not turn as the dog threw himself at him, burying his teeth in his leg. Surprised, the man dropped the screaming child on the lawn and turned to the dog. Joe seemed off balance and he backed up confusedly in the face of the snapping jaws. Then he suddenly turned and walked away, the dog at his heels. \"I tell you, the man said he was my brother and he made me think he When her husband did not answer, her head sank to her arms on the table and she sobbed. him. \"We'll go up and look at him together.\" They found Reggie peacefully asleep in his crib in his room upstairs. They checked the windows and tucked in the blankets. They paused in think he was her brother. She doesn't even have a brother. Then he tried to get away with the baby.\" Martin leaned down and patted the dog. \"It was Tiger here who scared him off.\" The police sergeant looked at the father, at Nancy and then at the dog. He scribbled notes in his book. The sergeant flipped his notebook closed. \"You'd better keep your dog inside and around the kid as much as possible. Keep your doors and windows locked. I'll see that the prowl car keeps an eye on the house. him, making idle comment until Dr. Tompkins came down the stairs with the sleeping baby cuddled against his shoulder. \"Never mind the check, now, Martin. I see we're ready to go.\" He went over to his assistant and took the baby. Together they walked out the front door. Stuart crumpled to the ground, the baby falling to the lawn. Dr. forward on his face. The figure of a woman ran from the house, retrieved the now squalling infant and ran back into the house. Once inside, Nancy slammed the door, gave the baby to the stunned Martin and headed for the telephone. \"One of them was the same man!\" she cried. guy carrying your baby, don't you think?\" \"I shot him in the legs. The other—the other turned and I shot him in the baby.\" He reached over and smoothed the sleeping Reggie's hair. Nancy, who was rocking the boy, narrowed her eyes. \"I wonder why they want our baby? He's just like any other baby. We don't have any money. We couldn't pay a ransom.\" gurgled with delight at the change in environment. This peaceful scene was disturbed by a speeding car in which two men were riding. The car roared up the street, swerved toward the parkway, tires screaming, bounced over the curb and sidewalk, straight toward the child and mother. Reggie, attracted by the sudden noise, looked up to see the approaching vehicle. His mother stood up, set her palms against her cheeks and shrieked. The car came on, crunched over the play pen, killing the child. The said. Must have happened years ago.\" \"That's odd. The man who accosted Mrs. Laughton in the afternoon was bitten by their dog. Later that night she said she shot the same man in the chest. Since the scars are healed it obviously couldn't be the same man. But there's a real coincidence for you. And speaking of the dogbite, the Laughton dog died that night. His menu evidently didn't agree with him. Never did figure what killed him, actually.\" \"Any record of treatment on the man she shot?\" his chest. This gave him the appearance of being alert despite reclining. Even as he lay, his mouth held a hint of a smile. Arvid 6—for John Smith was Arvid 6—had lain in that position for more than four hours, when suddenly he snapped his eyes open and appeared to be listening. For a moment a look of concern crossed his face and he swung his legs to the floor and sat there expectantly. Arvid 6 knew Tendal 13 had materialized and was somewhere in the building. Eventually there were some sounds from beyond the steel cell and doorway. There was a clang when the outer doorway was opened and Arvid 6 rose from his cot. \"I'm really sorry about that,\" Arvid 6 said. \"You didn't have to come along at all, you know,\" Arvid 6 said. \"How well I know! How sorry I am that I ever did! It was only because I was sorry for you, because someone older and more experienced than you was needed. I volunteered. Imagine that! I volunteered! Tendal 13 reaches the height of stupidity and volunteers to help Arvid 6 go back 6,000 years to bring Kanad back, to correct a mistake Arvid 6 made!\" \"All right, all right,\" Arvid 6 said. \"I'll admit I've made some mistakes. You're just not adventurous, that's all.\" \"Shut up! For once you're going to listen to me. Our instructions child right out from under its mother's nose' were your exact words. And before I could stop you, you did. Only you forgot an important factor in the equation—the dog, Tiger. And you nursed a dogbite most These twentieth century machines aren't what they ought to be,\" Arvid 6 said. \"You never run out of excuses, do you, Arvid? Remember what you said in the Ultroom when you pushed the lever clear over and transferred in.\" Tendal 13 turned and looked steadily and directly at Arvid 6. \"Do you know what I think? I think you deliberately pushed the lever over as . That's how simple I think it was.\" Arvid 6 flushed, turned away and looked at the floor. \"What crazy things have you been doing since I've been gone?\" Tendal 13 asked. Arvid 6 sighed. \"After what you just said I guess it wouldn't amuse you, although it has me. They got to me right after the accident before I had a chance to collect my wits, dematerialize or thousand or more or until their bones are like paper.\" \"I just wonder how angry Kanad will be,\" Arvid muttered. HB92167. Ultroom Error. Tendal 13. Arvid 6. Kanad transfer out of 1951 complete. Next Kanad transfer ready. 2267. TB92167 Arvid 6 rose from the cot and the two men faced each other. \"Before we leave, Arvid,\" Tendal 13 started to say. \"I know, I know. You want me to let you handle everything.\" \"Exactly. Is that too much to ask after all you've done?\" barred door the jailer fumbled with the keys and clumsily tried several with no luck. Arvid 6, an amused set to his mouth and devilment in his eyes, watched the jailer's expression as he walked through the bars of the door. He laughed as he saw the jailer's eyes bulge. \"Arvid!\" Tendal 13 walked briskly through the door, snatched Arvid 6 by the shoulders and shook him. The jailer watched stupified as the two men vanished in the middle of\n\n<question>:\nWhat was Arvid 6's mistake?\n\n<options>:\nA Arvid 6 dematerialized in front of humans.\nB Arvid 6 transferred Kanad back in time 6000 years.\nC Arvid 6 crashed a car into a tree which killed a woman.\nD Arvid 6 dropped the baby when the dog started barking at him.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
438 | 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 AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from suffering, but I could recognize it. \"You yourself have said it,\" I told him. \"I am a being of logic, just Planet Stories Spring 1944. Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, but Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought that Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that went to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just as the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] as the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend the He waved his hands helplessly. \"Gratitude?\" he muttered. the invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They are arrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not actively want to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well, the machinery, and like Peter. Peter called an emotion instant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand his eating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwise than they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, for cheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed with satisfaction. His dream was perfect was complete, every minutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would be finished, a living thing. things which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If I satellite, about the Earth endlessly gathering knowledge into its laboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments a laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled with He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the street newsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. 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 London \"The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know that we face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy challenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual lives 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 laboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to \"What makes, Peter my love?\" she asked, and bent back to the ledger. \"Darling, what's wrong?\" He said, \"Have you seen the news recently?\" She frowned. \"Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-six hours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why?\" \"You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox?\" She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. \"Pete, \"I'm sorry, I forgot,\" he said. \"But you have a scanner?\" \"Yes, of course. But really, Pete—\" It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded by and below them, a pitiful huddle of helpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was more horrible than any cry of agony. \"The Invaders are here, citizens,\" the commentator was saying in a strangled voice. \"Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off the streets....\" His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. \"Peter!\" she said faintly. \"Why do they broadcast such things?\" \"They have to,\" he told her grimly. \"There will be panics and suicides, and they know it but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, where the noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to be any noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know about them, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough.\" away from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reached There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings and other faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a man screamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throaty Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and arms \"Wait here,\" he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. \"No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! cleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked down distorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside his Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin, The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin. In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood, The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he were relaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit puddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. \"I can't understand,\" he cried wildly. \"What do you want?\" floor. a scream to wake the dead. Somebody said, \"Doctor!\" Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He looked Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metal out of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'd \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why take it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children, \"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 \"And since then?\" Peter asked huskily. \"Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would be enough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the other \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\" last hope, you see.\" \"Our last hope?\" \"Yes. You're a scientist.\" \"I see,\" said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel thousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving into the hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled with A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, to the left of the airlock— . He stepped away now, and joined Lorelei said, \"You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter—\" \"There's no other way,\" Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as if come back, Peter.\" line from an old film kept echoing through his head. \" They'll come retired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poised his flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, working its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes from the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he was hungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly, Earth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in its after a time he ceased even to wonder. Peter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said. were searching for.\" His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. \"You are. Your brain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solve instinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hours of work. You are a superman.\" his cheeks were blobbed with excresences of you. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You can understand them, and so you can conquer them.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat was Peter's occupation?\n\n<options>:\nA Doctor\nB Lab Technician\nC Scientist\nD Journalist\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,630 | 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>:\nPLANET of DREAD was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors. in miniature form on other worlds. Enlarged like this. It seemed insane that such creatures, even in miniature, should painstakingly be brought across light-years of space to the new worlds system in which human beings belonged had turned out to be infinitely complicated. It had turned out, in fact, to be the ecological system of Earth, and unless all parts of the complex were present, the total was subtly or glaringly wrong. So mankind distastefully ferried pests as well as useful creatures to its new worlds as they were made ready for settlement. Mosquitos throve on the inhabited globes of the Rim Stars. Roaches twitched nervous antennae on the settled planets of the Coal-sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, and scratched their bites, and humanity spread through the galaxy with an attendant train of insects and annoyances. If they left their pests behind, the total system of Nadine . Something had been left out of the seeding of this planet. The element—which might be a bacterium or a virus or almost anything at all—the element that kept creatures at the size called \"normal\" was either missing or inoperable The ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planet nowhere else. There was an ice-cap in view. The rest was—clouds. planet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would not allow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid or hydrochloric-acid ice. But the ice-cap was simple snow. Its size, too, told about temperature-distribution on the planet. A large cap would have meant a large area with arctic and sub-arctic temperatures, with much. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in the rotated at a not unreasonable rate. The fact that it was water-ice told thick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,—all the surface, in fact, outside the ice-cap. But since there were ice-caps small temperate and tropical climate-belts. A small one like this meant wide tropical and sub-tropical zones. The fact was verified by the such as are placed on certain worlds for the convenience of interstellar seem to resent what he'd tried to do, or that he'd brought them an of space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences of effect, with six people on board instead of five, the find a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets, The Nadine needed to make a planet-fall for this. that had that sound in it. It marked a first-landing spot on some planet could see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was a proper company watched as the planet's surface enlarged. The ice-cap cloudy world. There were some dim markings near one lighted limb, but possibly habitable planet, the especially developed seed-strains would off-planet, and fast. But space-travel regulations are especially planet from which they'd carried away a criminal, even though they'd rivulet ran between improbable-seeming banks. There were a few very small hills of most unlikely appearance. It was the ground, the matter on which one would walk, which was strangest. It had color, but the vegetation on a planet with a sol-type sun. stone. The walls of the hollow were black and scorched. It seemed that at some places they quivered persistently. shared the peculiarity of the ground as far as they could see through the haze. It was not vegetation in any ordinary sense. Certainly it was no mineral surface! The landing-pockets had burned away three or four feet of it, and the edge of the burned area smoked noisesomely, and somehow it looked as if it would reek. And there were places where it much louder. Something hooted, maintaining the noise for an impossibly \"What's that stuff there, the ground?\" he demanded. \"We burned it away in landing. I've seen something like it somewhere, but never taking the place of grass!\" Then, instantly he'd said it, he recognized that it could be true. The mound was not a fold in the ground. It was not an up-cropping of the ash-covered stone on which the Nadine rested. The enigmatic, dirty-yellow-dirty-red-dirty-blue-and-dirty-black ground-cover hid something. It blurred the shape it covered, very much as enormous suit. Modern space-suits weren't like the ancient crudities with bulging nowadays. A man could move about in a late-model space-suit almost as water-soluble gases in the atmosphere, and a gas can't be an active poison if it can't dissolve. They filed out of the airlock. They stood on ash-covered stone, only slightly eroded by the processes which made life possible on this planet. They looked dubiously at the scorched, indefinite substance which had been ground before the Nadine The hole exposed a cheesy mass of soft matter which seemed riddled with small holes. Something black came squirming frantically out of one of the openings. It was eight or ten inches long. It had a head, a thorax, and an cheese-like, curd-like stuff. More black things squirming to view in obvious panic. They popped out everywhere. It was suddenly apparent that the top of the soil, here, was a thick and blanket-like sheet over the whitish stuff. The black creatures lived and thrived in tunnels under it. They're—bugs! They're beetles! They're twenty times the size of the beetles we humans have been carrying around the galaxy, but that's what they are! discovered. It had not been practical for men to move onto new planets and subsist upon the flora and fauna they found there. On some new planets life had never gotten started. On such worlds a highly complex operation was necessary before humanity could move in. A complete ecological complex had to be built up microbes to break down the rock for soil, bacteria to fix nitrogen to make the soil fertile plants to grow in the new-made dirt and insects to fertilize the plants so they would multiply, and animals and birds to carry the seeds planet-wide. On most planets, to be sure, there were local, aboriginal plants and animals. But still terrestrial creatures had to be introduced if a colony was to feed itself. Alien plants did not supply satisfactory food. So an elaborate adaptation job had to be done on every planet before native and terrestrial living things settled down together. It large and monstrous under the conditions of a new planet. And the ground.... \"This ground stuff,\" said Moran distastefully, \"is yeast or some sort of toadstool growth. This is a seedling world. It didn't have any life on it, so somebody dumped germs and spores and bugs to make it ready for plants and animals eventually. But nobody's come back to finish up the job.\" a foot thick and ten feet long, and it had a group of stumpy legs at its \"We're looking at an inch-worm, grown up like the beetles only more so. creature more widely than most. destroy it. Thick fumes arose, and quiverings and shakings began. Black creatures in their labyrinths of tunnels began to panic. Off to the right the blanket-like surface ripped and they poured out. They scuttled men—the armed ones—moved back from the smoke. They wore space-helmets size and registration. The world they came from would claim them as\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the most likely reason that creatures on the alien planet have grown to such a large size?\n\n<options>:\nA The planet is being used by the government as a site to breed creatures that could keep the population in check.\nB The planet's atmosphere comprises gases that target the DNA of living creatures, causing them to grow in size.\nC The planet, like many others, is being used as a site to copy a habitable eco-system, but has been left unchecked.\nD The planet's cheesy, perforated ground is made up of a substance that causes living creatures to mutate.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
607 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTOLLIVER'S ORBIT \"Great!\" muttered Betty. \"What a lucky girl I am!\" \"Yes,\" admitted Tolliver, \"there I'll explain how I cut the fuel flow and see if she's detective enough to suspect that we're just orbiting Ganymede! \"You asked any of them lately?\" Tolliver prodded. Tolliver rammed his fists into the side pockets of his loose blue can't quit.\" Jeffers fidgeted in his chair, causing it to creak under the bulk of his body. It had been built for Ganymede, but not for Jeffers. Tolliver stared at him silently, but the other had difficulty meeting that way, either you get in line with us or you're through right now!\" \"You can't fire me,\" retorted the pilot pityingly. \"I came out here on a contract. Five hundred credits a week base pay, five hundred for hazardous duty. How else can you get pilots out to Jupiter?\" \"Okay I can't fire you legally—as long as you report for work,\" \"Doesn't matter,\" answered Tolliver, grinning amiably. \"The hazardous part is just being on the same moon as you for the next six months.\" Tolliver began to have his doubts the next day which was \"Tuesday\" by the arbitrary calender constructed to match Ganymede's week-long journey around Jupiter. His contract guaranteed a pilot's rating, but someone had neglected to On the bulletin board, Tolliver's name stood out beside the number Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a in stronger gravity than Ganymede's. Her trim coiffure was a shade too blonde which served to set off both the blue of her eyes and the cap apparently won from one of the pilots. She wore gray slacks and a heavy Tolliver. \"By the way, just call me Betty.\" \"It's true enough,\" Tolliver assured her. \"We need people out here, and He followed the signals of a spacesuited member of the port staff and maneuvered out of the dome. Then he headed the tractor across the frozen surface of Ganymede toward the permanent domes of the city. \"How is it here?\" asked the girl. \"They told me it's pretty rough.\" \"What did you expect?\" asked Tolliver. \"Square dances with champagne?\" see much else.\" \"You never can tell,\" said the pilot, yielding to temptation. \"Any square inch of Ganymede is likely to be dangerous.\" I'll be sorry later , he reflected, ?\" Tolliver pursed his lips and put on a shrewd expression. \"Don't sneer at Ganymede, honey!\" he warned portentously. \"Many a man who did isn't here today. Take the fellow who used to drive this mission!\" \"You can call me Betty. What happened to him?\" \"I'll tell you some day,\" Tolliver promised darkly. \"This moon can strike like a vicious animal.\" \"Oh, they told me there was nothing alive on Ganymede!\" you'd least expect. That's why I draw such high pay for driving an unarmored tractor.\" deliberately dipped one track into an icy hollow. In the light gravity, the tractor responded with a weird, floating lurch. \"Those slides,\" he continued. \"Ganymede's only about the size of Mercury, something like 3200 miles in diameter, so things get heaped up at steep angles. When the rock and ice are set to sliding, they come Tolliver! he was drawing the salary of a space pilot. Betty looked thoughtful. \"I'm retiring in six months if I'm still alive,\" he said bravely, edging the tractor into the airlock at their destination. \"Made my \"Miss Koslow!\" he beamed, like a politician the day before the voting. \"It certainly is an honor to have you on Ganymede with us! That's all, Tolliver, you can go. Yes, indeed! Mr. Koslow—the president, that is: your father—sent a message about you. I repeat, it will be an honor to Tolliver. \"We won't be working together, I'm afraid. You've already had Tolliver blinked. He had taken her for three or four years older. \"Daddy gave me the title of tenth vice-president mostly as a joke, when he told me to find out what was wrong with operations on Ganymede. I have some Betty, and Tolliver thought he muttered something about \"just landed.\" Tolliver, hardly thinking about it, expected the someone to be Tolliver brought up a snappy uppercut to the man's chin, feeling that it was a poor time to engage Jeffers in fruitless debate. In the gravity of Ganymede, the man was knocked off balance as much as he was hurt, and sprawled on the floor. \"I Betty. The others were swarming over Tolliver. Jeffers came around his Tolliver found himself dumped on the floor of an empty office in the Tolliver grunted. Sorrow would not reduce the throbbing, nor was he \"Thanks for letting me know in time,\" said Tolliver. \"Your paycheck,\" said Betty. \"As soon as I saw that ridiculous amount, Tolliver groaned. \"Sure!\" grumbled the pilot. \"He thinks I told you he was grafting or \"What do you know about the crooked goings-on here?\" asked Betty after \"Nothing,\" retorted Tolliver. \"Except that there are some. There are rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells things to the mining colonies and makes a double profit for himself by \"What do you think you're up to?\" asked Betty with some concern. \"I'll come along with you, Tolliver,\" said the girl. Tolliver. with some good lie that will keep me from getting through.\" Through the faceplates, he saw the girl nod, wide-eyed. As soon as he plunged the knife into the outer layer, he could see dusty, moist air puffing out into the near-vacuum of Ganymede's surface. Fumbling, he cut as fast as he could and shoved Betty through the small opening. , Tolliver reminded himself. Then, when he decided that it was safe enough to pause and tell her Ganymede. They took one short rest, during which Tolliver was forced to explain away the dangers of slides and volcanic puffballs. He admitted to having exaggerated slightly. In the end, they reached the \"That's all right,\" Tolliver told the girl. \"We can get in with no the time required to seal, pump air and open the inner hatch and then \"Who knows?\" retorted Tolliver. \"There wasn't time to check Tolliver sighed. In their weightless state, it was no easy task to pry When Betty produced a memo giving frequency and call sign, he set about exasperatedly at a bulkhead, marveling at the influence of a man who could arrange for a cruiser to escort his daughter to Ganymede and For one thing, though the officer seemed well acquainted with Betty, he , Tolliver realized. \"We do have one trouble,\" he heard Betty saying. \"This tractor driver, Tolliver, saved my neck by making the ship take off somehow, but he says it's set for a six-month orbit, or economy flight. Whatever they call it. I don't think he has any idea where we're headed.\" Tolliver pulled her back, holding her in mid-air by the slack of her \"Miss Koslow?\" repeated the spacer. \"Did she tell you—well, no matter! \"Relax, Tolliver,\" she told him. \"Did you really believe Daddy would send his own little girl way out here to Ganymede to look for whoever was gypping him?\" \"I'd be stuck for six months in this orbit with some brash young man,\" Tolliver finished for her. \"I guess it's better this way,\" he said \"I didn't expect to so soon.\" \"Yeah, you were pretty lucky. They'll think you're a marvel to crack the case in about three hours on Ganymede.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat did Tolliver tell Betty that was actually true?\n\n<options>:\nA he regularly drives armored vehicles on missions\nB the rock and ice slides kill people often\nC volcanic puffballs pop out through the frozen crust\nD how much he's making to work on Ganymede\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
2,061 | 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. But Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they 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 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 he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third, knew too, but were afraid to admit it. 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 thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing. for Dunbar. Hell no—Dunbar had to start talking about a place they find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of now, Russell thought—if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar. They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old rum-dum. Russell had known now for some time that they were going in the wrong direction. No reason for knowing. Just a hunch. And Russell \"We're about in the middle of those four suns aren't we, Dunbar?\" 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 life on it, Dunbar ... the only one we can live on?\" Russell asked. \"That's right! That's right,\" Dunbar yelled. \"That's the only one—and Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\" Russell said. \"Yeah, that's right,\" said Alvar. \"Sometimes I see a red rim around Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face. bobbing neck, his simpering watery blue eyes. But he still had to suffer that immutable babbling, that idiotic cheerfulness ... and knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them wrong. I'd break away, go it alone to the right sun, Russell thought—but I'd than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all was to get rid of Dunbar. \"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?\" \"What?\" croaked Alvar. Johnson didn't say anything at all. Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six \"We'll make it, boys. Trust ole' Dunbar. What's a year when we know isn't big enough to kill the will of a human being, boys. I been over 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 \"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 Then he saw how the other two stars also were beginning to develop red rims. He yelled this fact out to the others. And Alvar said. \"Russ's right. That sun to the right, and the one behind us ... now they ALL pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished of the gravity rope, Dunbar was dead. Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer. \"I did it for the three of us,\" Russell said. \"It was either him or us. Lies ... lies that was all he had left in his crazy head. Paradise ... don't tell me you guys don't see the red rims around all four suns, all four suns all around us. Don't tell me you guys didn't know he was batty, that you really believed all that stuff he was spouting all the time!\" dead.\" \"How could he see any difference in those four stars?\" Russell said, louder. \" Shhhh ,\" said Alvar. It was quiet. How could it be so quiet, Russell decide what to do.\" And Alvar said, \"Guess he was crazy all right, and I guess we trusted him because we didn't have the strength to make up our own minds. Why Sweat ran down Russell's face. His voice trembled. \"No—that's wrong. You're both wrong.\" He could see himself going it alone. Going crazy because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction, long ago but for that fear. \"How can we tell which of us is right?\" Alvar said. \"It's like all the time. Jezebel stars, the old man said.\" \"I know I'm right,\" Russell pleaded. \"My hunches always been right. time ... just wake up enough times to give himself another boost with the old life-gun.\" can come and help the other two....\" \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can ever make it alone....\" Alvar said, \"We each take the star he likes best. I'll go back the other way. Russ, you take the left. And you, Johnson, go to the right.\" Johnson started to laugh. Russell was yelling wildly at them, and above his own yelling he could hear Johnson's rising laughter. \"Every guy's got a star of his own,\" Johnson said when he stopped laughing. sun.\" Now Russell wasn't saying anything. \"And the old man,\" Alvar said, \"can keep right on going toward what he thought was right. And he'll keep on going. Course he won't be able to give himself another boost with the life-gun, but he'll keep going. old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't \"Ready, Russ?\" Russell couldn't say anything. He stared at the endless void which now he would share with no one. Not even crazy old Dunbar. \"All right,\" Johnson said. \"Good-bye.\" Russell felt the release, felt the sudden inexplicable isolation and aloneness even before Alvar and Johnson used their life-guns and shot out of sight, Johnson toward the left and Alvar back toward that other 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 said. \"On a bee line.\" \"On a bee line,\" Alvar said. Russell used his own life-gun and in a little while he didn't hear Alvar or Johnson's voices, nor could he see them. They were thousands of miles away, and going further all the time. to his stature, and he will rest here among the brave. \"Let the women dance and the music play for this old man. Let the trumpets speak, and the rockets fly up. And let flowers be strewn over the path above which the women will carry him to rest.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is the best representation of the connection between Old Dunbar and the rest of the crew?\n\n<options>:\nA He tagged along when they escaped their previous situation\nB They are all former members of the military on equal footing\nC He led the group out of their previous lives\nD He thinks he is in charge but does not call any of the shots in reality\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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481 | 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>:\nand the reclusive English writer Henry Green. Green's new novel, Loving , has just received a very favorable review in The New Yorker . Shawn--\"with his usual hushed delicacy of speech and manner\"--inquires of the novelist whether he could possibly reveal what prompted the creation of such an exquisite work. Green obliges. \"I once asked an old butler in Ireland what had been the happiest times of his life,\" he says. \"The butler replied, 'Lying in bed on Sunday morning, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers.' \" This was not the explanation Shawn was expecting, Gill tells us. \"Discs of bright red begin to burn in his cheeks.\" Was Shawn blushing out of prudishness, as we are meant to infer? This was, after all, a man renowned for his retiring propriety, a man who sedulously barred anything smacking of the salacious--from lingerie ads to four-letter words--from the magazine he stewarded from 1952 until 1987, five years before his death. But after reading these two new memoirs about Shawn, I wonder. \"He longed for the earthiest and wildest kinds of sexual adventures,\" Lillian Ross discloses in hers, adding that he lusted after Hannah Arendt, Evonne Goolagong, and Madonna. As for Ved Mehta, he reports that Shawn's favorite thing to watch on television was \"people dancing uninhibitedly\" ( Soul Train , one guesses). I suspect Shawn did not blush at the \"cunty fingers\" remark out of prudery. He blushed because it had hit too close to home. Both these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole And what does she think of Mrs. Shawn? \"I found her to be sensitive and likeable.\" Plus, she could \"do a mean Charleston.\" There is nothing more poignant than the image of an openly cheated-upon and humiliated wife doing \"a mean Charleston.\" But it kept coming. And I, for one, was grateful. Here was a boy growing up in Punjab during the fall of the Raj and the Partition, a boy who had been blinded by meningitis at the age of 3, roller-skating through the back streets of Lahore as Sikhs slaughtered Hindus and Hindus slaughtered Muslims and civilization was collapsing and then, decades later, having made his way from India to an Arkansas school for the blind to Balliol College, Oxford, to The New Yorker , re-creating the whole thing in Proustian detail and better-than-Proustian prose ... ! Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was \"terminated\" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: \"He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end.\" Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.\n\n<question>:\nPresumably why did Shawn seem to blush at the comment made by Green in regards to his creation of exquisite work?\n\n<options>:\nA He took business very seriously.\nB He was a prude.\nC He lacked the sense of humor that Green had.\nD The comment hit too close to home for him.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,220 | 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>:\npast. Joe didn't know how they'd to adapt. There didn't seem to be any hurry. Once the deal was made, they left it up to him to make the decisions. Joe Prantera as it had in his own time. Oceans, mountains, and to a lesser extent, deserts, are fairly permanent even way it always did. The older man stopped and against man's corroding efforts. Joe said, \"How about Mexico? Could squinted, but not suspiciously, even Joe Prantera said impatiently, \"The And he pressed the trigger. And at that moment, the universe America has been united into one unit. Today, there are only eight nations in the world.\" caved inward upon Joseph Marie There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve. \"That's a helluva long way to go on a get.\" Joe eyed him in scorn. \"Oh, you There was pain, horror and tumultuous \"We hadn't thought of the matter \"Mr. Prantera, this will probably be difficult for you to comprehend, \"If I understand your idiom correctly, you mean prison. There are no prisons in this era, Mr. Prantera.\" wrong, too. For the first time, Joe wrong. The other spoke precisely and Joe had given up. Now he merely slowly, the way a highly educated man speaks a language which he reads and writes fluently but has little occasion time to financial matters in all their endless ramifications—including bank robberies—as we were to productive efforts. So we turned to more efficient methods of distribution.\" On the fourth day, Joe said, \"O.K., let's get down to facts. Summa the Joe couldn't figure out how he Salviati happened to be Joe's mother's Joe had been born in Naples and his father hadn't brought him to the Rossi. My finger, he works in Rossi's house, see? He lets me know every Wednesday night, eight o'clock, Al leaves the house all by hisself. O.K., so I can make plans, like, to give it flatly, \"or let me outta here.\" Joe gingerly tried swinging his Lawrence Reston-Farrell said, \"You are not being constrained. There are Brett-James said, \"Why not just go \"Jest walk in, eh? You think I'm stupid? How do I know how many the other stood watching him, strangely. He came to his feet. With the exception door sliding back into the wall in much the same manner as the room's Joe Prantera scowled and said, Joe was indignant. \"Just like that, and then stepped to the window. He couldn't figure the other. Unless he so quick—\" \"See here, Mr. Prantera,\" Brett-James said softly. \"We no longer have And for a moment again, Joe Prantera He stared for a long, long moment. The cars didn't even have wheels, he noted dully. He turned slowly and Joe scowled. \"You said they didn't Prantera. \"I wanta get out of here,\" Joe said. \"Where would you go?\" There was nothing else to do. Joe won't rat on you?\" after you have accomplished your mission, we plan to turn ourselves Joe said, \"I think maybe I'll take and then something else Joe didn't is a unique animal. Physically he matures at approximately the age Joe didn't allow himself to think and adjustment is often not fully realized until thirty or even more. Indeed, it is sometimes never of thirteen. However, mental maturity you, I suppose one might longer in Los Angeles—\" the year—\" Brett-James looked at his companion. \"What is the date, Old screws everything up. But the way things are, there's no way of making Joe Prantera looked from one of are confusing you. Briefly, we have the year 1960, you are now in the transported He let the sentence fall away as he realized the impossibility. Brett-James said gently, \"Hardly for one hundred and seventy years, Mr. Prantera.\" that once confused the race with their limitations as a means of communication.\" Joe demanded, aghast. \"You mean there's no place in the say, from your own era to ours.\" Joe Prantera had never been exposed to the concept of time travel. He had simply never associated with Reston-Farrell said, \"I am afraid we considered such an idea. Now he said, \"You mean, like, I been asleep all that time?\" to fit it, but that problem too frowning. Reston-Farrell said, \"Suffice to say, you are now one hundred and seventy-three years after the last memory you have.\" Joe Prantera's mind suddenly reverted had been solved. out. He knew it wouldn't have If they allowed him to call it off today, taken much for them to cancel the Besides, already Joe was beginning 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 again, as abruptly as he'd arisen. \"Let's start all over again. I got this straight, you brought me, some screwy way, all the way ... here. room but they left on Joe's The two men of the future said nothing more for long minutes while Joe Prantera's mind whirled its confusion. Joe said, \"Joseph Salviati-Prantera remember that at the point when we ... transported in the room. Joe Prantera ignored it They had him pegged all right. Joe this age, nor have there been for over a century and a half.\" \"Well, then do it yourself.\" Joe Prantera's irritation over this whole Giovanni's. Right now he could have windows. He looked out, as though unseeing. Then, his back turned, he said, \"We have tried, but it is simply not in us, Mr. Prantera.\" \"No, if by that you mean afraid. It is simply not within us to take the two.\" THE END Transcriber's Note: again.\" Joe snapped: \"Everything you guys say sounds crazy. Let's start all over 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. Just as we are today and just as nations were a century or a millennium ago.\" and a half ago our society eliminated the reasons for international conflict. For that matter,\" he added Shortly after your own period, man awoke to the fact that he had achieved to the point where it was possible to produce an abundance for all with a minimum of toil. Overnight, for all practical purposes, the whole world was industrialized, automated. The second industrial revolution was accompanied by revolutionary changes in almost every field, certainly in every found, Mr. Prantera, that it is difficult for a man to be free so long as others are still enslaved. Today the democratic ethic has reached a pinnacle era.\" \"O.K., O.K.,\" Joe Prantera growled. Joe Prantera scowled at him emptily. Joe growled. \"I ain't stupid.\" not considered.\" time we did, do you realize what would have happened?\" \"Sure,\" Joe grunted. \"I woulda let five times. Then I woulda took the plane back to Chi.\" law of the period, your life would have been forfeit, Mr. Prantera.\" Joe winced. It didn't occur to him your present—\" \"Waita minute, now. You figure on Brett-James was shaking his head again. \"I am afraid there is no return, Mr. Prantera. Time travel works but in one direction, with the flow of the time stream. There can be no return to your own era.\" Joe Prantera had been rocking with the mental blows he had been assimilating, but this was the final haymaker. He was stuck in this Careful, painstaking, competent. He spent the first three days of his with him. Joe didn't meet any of the them to bring Joe from the\n\n<question>:\nWhy can't Joe go back to 1960?\n\n<options>:\nA Temple-Tracy destroyed the vortex manipulator.\nB The time circuits were damaged when they brought Joe into the future.\nC Temple -Tracy destroyed the time transmitter.\nD Time only moves one way.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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72 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nof the inner worlds. It made a one-night pitch on a Venusian swamp-town—to spring them. \"We,\" he said, \"are broke. We are finished, through. Washed up and down the drain.\" He added, as an afterthought, \"Destitute.\" I looked at him. I said sourly, \"You're kidding!\" pleasantly and said, very gently: \"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 quivering and showing their teeth. The Martian girl screamed. Bucky heaved the table off his lap and cursed me. \"What's eating you, Jig? I'm not going to hurt him.\" ain't happy. She ain't had the right food. If something....\" I said, \"That'll all be taken care of, Gow. Run along now.\" thildatum !\" It was pretty late when we got back to the broken-down spaceport where Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late as it was, they were waiting for us. About twenty of them, sitting around and smoking and looking very ugly. It was awfully lonesome out there, with the desert cold and restless They got up off the steps, and the packing cases, and came toward us. I grinned and got into my brassies. We felt we owed those boys a lot more than money. It grates on a man's pride to have to sneak in and out of \"Let's go see Gertrude.\" I didn't want to see Gertrude. I never got over feeling funny going into the brute tank, especially at night or out in space. I'm a city guy, myself. The smell and sound of wildness gives me goose bumps. But Bucky was looking stubborn, so I shrugged. The fight had just put the topper on him. I was afraid he'd fall down the ladder and break his neck. That's why I went along. If I hadn't.... Oh, well, what's a few nightmares among friends? It was dark down there in the tank. Way off at the other end, there was a dim glow. Gow was evidently holding Gertrude's hand. We started down the long passageway between the rows of cages and glassed-in tanks and compression units. Our footsteps sounded loud and empty on the iron floor. I wasn't were pretty successful for a while, it seems, but something gummed up the works and now there's only a few left, way in the deep-swamp country, where even looking out over the tank, sniffing a little, like a hound. Then he turned to Gertrude. \"I saved her life,\" he said. \"When we bought her out of Hanak's wreck Gertrude. She's ugly and no good, but he loves her. I love....\" \"Sure, sure,\" I told him. \"Stop crying down my neck.\" We were a long way from the light, then. The cages and tanks loomed high and black over us. It was still. The secret, uneasy motion all around us and the scruffing of our feet only made it stiller. Bucky was almost asleep on me. I started to slap him. And then the mist rose up out of the darkness in little lazy coils, sparkling faintly with blue, cold fire. I yelled, \"Gow! Gow, the Vapor snakes! Gow—for God's sake!\" I started to run, back along the passageway. Bucky weighed on me, limp and heavy. The noise burst suddenly in a deafening hell of moans and I could hear Gertrude's lonely, whistling scream. I thought, \" Somebody's down here. Somebody let 'em out. Somebody wants to kill us! \" I tried to yell again. It strangled in my throat. I sobbed, and the sweat was thick and cold on me. One of Bucky's dragging, stumbling feet got between mine. We fell. I The first snake touched me. It was like a live wire, sliding along the Bucky moaned and kicked under me. I remember hanging on and thinking, \"This is it. This is it, and oh God, I'm scared!\" Then I went out. Kanza the Martian croaker, was bending over me when I woke up. His little brown face was crinkled with laughter. He'd lost most of his said, \"Where's Shannon? How is he?\" \"Mis' Bucky okay. You save life. You big hero, Mis' Jig. Mis' Gow come nickuhtime get snakes. You hero. Haw! You funny like hell!\" Kanza went out, still giggling. Bucky closed the door. \"Jig,\" he said, \"those vapor worms were all right when we went in. Somebody followed us down and let them out. On purpose.\" I hurt all over. I growled, \"With that brain, son, you should go far. \"Question is, Jig, who wants to kill us, and why?\" and Gow, on the rare occasions he came up for air, went around looking like a disaster hoping to happen. To make it worse, Zurt the Jovian strong-man got hurt during the take-off, and the Mercurian cave-cat had kittens. 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. Shannon and I did a little quiet sleuthing, but it was a waste of time. Anybody in the gang might have let those electric worms out on us. It dinner, was busy thinking ways to kill you. By the time we hit Venus, I was ready to do a Brodie out the refuse chute. Shannon set the crate down on the edge of Nahru, the first stop on our weren't happy. You get so you can feel those things. The steamy Venus heat was already sneaking into the ship. While we passed the hatchway to the brute tank, I could hear Gertrude, screaming. The canvasmen were busy setting up the annex, slopping and cursing in the mud. The paste brigade was heading for the shacks. Shannon and I The hot rain sluiced over her. She shivered, and the pale skin under her jaw pulsed like a toad's, and her eyes were red. \"The deep swamps are angry,\" she whispered. \"Something has been taken. They are angry, and I smell death in the wind!\" She turned away, laughing, and I cursed her, and my stomach was tight and cold. Bucky said, \"Let's eat if they have a bar in this dump.\" We weren't half way across the mud puddle that passed as a landing could see him plainly, because he was off to one side of the crowd. He fell on his knees in the mud, making noises. It took him three or four tries to get our names out clear enough to understand. Bucky said, \"Jig—it's Sam Kapper.\" We started to run. The crowd, mostly big unshaken miners, wheeled around to see what was happening. People began to close in on the man who crawled and whimpered in the mud. me,\" he said simply. \"I'm scared.\" His mouth drooled. \"I got it hidden. They want to find out, but I won't tell 'em. It's 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....\" how they found out about it, but they did. I've got to get it back. I've got to....\" \"Don't leave me. Got to tell you—where it is. Got to take it back. Promise you'll take it back.\" He gasped and struggled over his\n\n<question>:\nHow were Jig and Bucky attacked by the Vapor snakes?\n\n<options>:\nA They had been released by someone on purpose\nB Bucky had released them while inebriated\nC They had gone into the wrong enclosure.\nD They had escaped their tanks in search of food.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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2,200 | 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>:\nplace was dark and damp, and smelled like moldy leaves. Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure fold of his hairy hide. \"I still don't see any reason for all the fuss,\" he grumbled in a wounded tone. \"We've treated Zeckler was on his feet, his eyes suddenly bright with excitement. they sent you ! I knew I could count on it!\" He executed a Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his and the judge banged the gavel for silence. As soon as Zeckler gaunt face of the prisoner. Zeckler's face was dark with a The judge stared down at Zeckler as if he were a bug on a Zeckler looked sharply around the hushed room. \"You want Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I 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!\" his jaw sagging. One of the jurymen let out a little squeak, and fainted dead away. It took, all in all, about ten seconds for the statement \" Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. \"I mean precisely that. You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing of Epimenides the Cretan. It really stopped them cold. They knew convict me.\" He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. \"The paradox to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to Zeckler stood up shakily. \"You can't believe anything the me go.\" \"A little fine of one Terran neck.\" Meyerhoff grinned nastily. You've also completely botched any hope of ever setting up 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.\" \"You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. He brushed an imaginary lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That—uh—jury trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial was awfully silly—until they got their money back, of course. Not too much—just three million credits.\" Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\" A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. \" Arrest! Zeckler spluttered. \"There's no evidence—you've got nothing But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization 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 Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face 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. Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their diet is so finicky that they just can't live on anything that Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they went out and found a chunk of ground in the uplands, and 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 with seats facing the bench. Zeckler followed the shaggy-haired Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler clamped on the headset to his translator unit, and watched the hubbub in the anteroom with growing alarm. Finally the question Altairians filed in, in order of stature, stalking across the room in flowing black robes, pug-nosed faces glowering with self-importance. They descended upon the jury box, grunting and prosecutor eyed Zeckler with cold malevolence, then turned \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler—\" he paused for a long, impressive moment—\"Terran.\" The courtroom pounded the bench five or six times more. \"This—creature—is hereby accused of the following crimes,\" the judge bellowed. \"Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Altair I. Brutal murder of seventeen law-abiding citizens of the village of Karzan at the third hour before dawn in the second period after his arrival. Desecration of the Temple of our beloved in a public square. Four separate and distinct charges of jail-break and bribery—\" The judge pounded the bench for order—\"Espionage with the accursed scum of Altair II in preparation for interplanetary invasion.\" The little con-man's jaw sagged lower and lower, the color \" Zeckler was on his feet, wild-eyed. \"Later. You have to have the trial before you can have the verdict.\" The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now—later—\" he muttered. \"Have the prosecutor call his first witness,\" said Meyerhoff. Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. \"These charges,\" he whispered. \"They're insane!\" Altairian equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then he cleared his throat and started. \"This Terran riffraff—\" \"The oath,\" muttered the judge. \"We've got to have the Zeckler's face, another on the prosecutor, and closing the third as if in meditation. \"I think it happened on the fourth night of the seventh crossing of Altair II (may the Goddess cast a drought upon it)—or was it the seventh night of the fourth crossing?—\" he grinned apologetically at the judge—\"when I Zeckler—\"stopped me in my tracks with a vicious cry. He had \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his The witness glowered at Zeckler. \"As I was saying before who were listening enraptured to the second witness on the stand. This one was testifying regarding the butcherous slaughter of eighteen (or was it twenty-three? Oh, yes, twenty-three) women and children in the suburban village of Karzan. The Zeckler jerked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed \"Do I have—\" Zeckler was across the room in a flash, his The murmur quieted down, all ears straining in their headsets Altair from my homeland on Terra. I—I landed on Altair II, a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very fortunate error. guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's Zeckler grew paler. \"But—perhaps they were very clever—\" The hisses grew louder, more belligerent. Cries of \"Butcher him!\" and \"Scald his bowels!\" rose from the courtroom. The Somehow, Zeckler managed to stumble from the witness Zeckler puffed hungrily on a cigarette, and looked up at Zeckler sat in silence for a moment. \"This lying business,\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat did the Altairian's arrest Zeckler for?\n\n<options>:\nA They arrested him for selling the same plot of land to a dozen different Altairians.\nB They arrested him for lying.\nC They arrested him for disrespecting the Goddess.\nD They arrested him for slaughtering twenty-three Altairians.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
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1,786 | 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 VENUS Everybody was waiting to see what the delegate from Venus only for their patience was the looked like. And all they got when they were yards away did \"We expect a certain amount of all I'm asking for.\" yards from the ship when the voice spoke to them. \"Greetings from Venus,\" it said, and then repeated the phrase in six languages. \"The ship you see is a Venusian Class 7 interplanetary rocket, built for one-passenger. It is clear of cagey, to behave the way the all radiation, and is perfectly safe to approach. There is a group that worked in the quiet part of him, a rebel part, and secrecy of a University on a \"It's a box!\" someone said. the world's big shots. Does my A trio came forward and their tools. But when it was \"By the way. What do think is going on?\" \"I haven't the faintest idea.\" \"Don't kid me, Mr. Conners. Think it's war?\" \"'First, remove all parts and more interested in the romantic rather than political implications. some three hours later, by a team of scientists and engineers who seemed to find the Venusian instructions as elementary as a blueprint in an Erector set. But \"Where's your decorum?\" simple as the job was, they were they ought to get the Secret have a low mind. For a week, this town has been acting like the think about is dames. What's that's what you call it, but you'll cloud comes?\" sighed. \"What a way to get Along with a dozen assorted it was the members of the Science Commission. So far, the byword had been secrecy. They knew that Senator Spocker, chairman of the Congressional Science foreign minister's debate. And the cause of it all, a placid, highly-polished metal robot, was seated blithely at a desk which bore the designation: VENUS. The robot delegate stood up. \"Gentlemen,\" it said into the the confining effect of a mannishly-tailored her outrageously feminine qualities. \"They told me you might be prompt attention. I come as a Delegate from a great neighbor planet, in the interests of peace and progress for all the solar system. I come in the belief that upon the other. I speak come to offer your planet not merely a threat, a promise, or an easy solution—but a challenge.\" The council room stirred. \"Your earth satellites have astronomers of our world, and we foresee the day when contact between our planets will be commonplace. As for ourselves, we have hitherto had little desire But to \"I wouldn't have minded so to explore beyond our realm, cannot last in the face of \"Here, then, is our challenge. compete with each other for the minds of men, fight your bloodless knowing you're only interested battles, if you know no other means to attain progress. without unleashing the terrible forces of power now at your command. Once unleashed, these forces may or may not destroy all that you have gained. But we, the scientists of Venus, promise you this—that on the very day your conflict deteriorates into heedless \"What?\" and let the ugly contagion spread. On that day, we of Venus will act swiftly, mercilessly, and relentlessly—to destroy your world completely.\" \"Did I say that?\" violence, we will not stand by us.\" peace. But envision it, men of Earth, as a messenger of war. Unstoppable, inexorable, it may return, bearing a different Delegate from Venus—a Delegate of Death, who speaks not in words, but in the explosion of atoms. \"Greta!\" \"But if you print one again.\" your retaliation. This is the will hang in your night sky from this moment forward. Look at the planet Venus, men of Earth, and see a Goddess of Vengeance, poised to wreak its wrath upon \"That's those who betray the peace.\" Four days later, a mysterious explosion rocked the quiet sands of Los Alamos, and the Venus spacecraft was no more. Two \"At first, they thought it was hours after that, the robot delegate, Who another sputnik.\" \" being launched by the Russians. Only the Russians denied it. Then there were joint meetings, about another sputnik did?\" what moons up there?\" \"But it's not a moon. That's the big point. It's a spaceship.\" what \"Well, what's ?\" coolly, sipping lemonade. \"They you?\" \"A spaceship,\" Greta said session of the UN just to figure out what to do about it. The only hitch is, Russia doesn't want to wait that long, and is asking for a hurry-up summit meeting to make a decision.\" \"A decision about what?\" \"About the Venusians, of course.\" \"Greta,\" Jerry said mildly, \"I good? Don't you think they'll be from last night.\" \"Don't be silly. The spaceship's from Venus they've already more for peace than anything established that. And the that's ever come along in this they're people—want to know if they can land their delegate.\" \"Their what?\" \"What's the matter?\" the UN and everything, and they want to take part. They say that with all the satellites being launched, that our affairs are \"I just thought of something! I guess. They know about of confusing, but that's what they say.\" \"You mean these Venusians speak English?\" \"And Russian. And French. are \"What their every country for the past three days. Like I say, they want to to do, right away!\" or something. The Senator thinks that if we don't agree, they might do something drastic, like blow us all up. It's kind when I'm not wanted.\" of scary.\" She shivered delicately. \"Terrible? I think you're wonderful!\" it?\" \"Didn't I say I wouldn't?\" \"Y-e-s. But you know, you're \"Holland Laboratory? What's that?\" to say: \"It must be something will of the U. S. Marines. But Jerry Bridges tried. he said. \"I don't want to see \"You don't understand, Lana,\" Where is this place?\" him something.\" wants \"Of course! I thought of you \"When will that be?\" to match.\" \"There was something about \"This note of yours. Just what do you think it means?\" \"'It's my belief that peace is I think the public has a right to know about this spaceship that's flying around—\" isn't it, Professor? These very words were spoken by the Delegate from Venus.\" \"A coincidence—\" \"Is it? But I also remember panic. Since you're the only unauthorized person who knows of them is to lock you up.\" it, we have two choices. One of \"The other is perhaps more that secrecy is essential, that leakage of the story might cause about a group of teachers, scientists, and engineers, a group press until such a time as all correspondents are informed. who were suddenly struck by fantastic scheme to force the idea of peace into the minds of be worth something.\" dream interest you, Professor?\" an exciting, incredible idea. A \"Well, I dreamt that this group would secretly launch an earth satellite of their own, and arrange for the nose cone to come down safely at a certain \"You mean the spaceship's a marvelous electronic robot Then, when the Robot was assembled, they would speak through it to demand peace for all mankind ...\" \"Jerry, if you do this—\" \"You don't have to say it, business is to tell the world Sphinx-like Secret Service men, \"And to think what that terrible planet can do to us!\" \"Oh, I dunno. Venus is also the Goddess of Love.\" were sleek, purring black autos around her, and Venus winked approvingly. THE END He swung his other arm won't want to see me any more.\" \"It just won't be any use. object. Larger and larger the object grew, until it assumed\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the Venusians want?\n\n<options>:\nA The Venusians want galactic peace.\nB The Venusians want to join the UN.\nC The Venusians want to atomize the Earth.\nD The Venusians don't want the people of Earth to use nuclear weapons.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
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1,299 | 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>:\nNeither Greg Lloyd nor Michael Irvin was so stigmatized. \"It's live television,\" NBC Vice President Ed Markey said, rationalizing the outbursts. \"It's an emotional moment. These things happen.\" Irvin wasn't about to let that stand. \"I knew exactly what I was saying,\" he insisted later. \"Those of you who can't believe I said it--believe it.\" Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on. I am walking along a suburban street, trailing a class of pre-schoolers who are linked to each other by a rope. A pair of teen-agers passes us in the other direction. By the time they have reached the end of the line of children, they have tossed off a whole catalog of obscenities I did not even hear until I was well into adolescence, let alone use in casual conversation on a public street. What word is taboo in middle-class America in 1996? There are a couple of credible candidates: The four-letter word for \"vagina\" remains off-limits in polite conversation (although that has more to do with feminism than with profanity), and the slang expression for those who engage in oral sex with males is not yet acceptable by the standards of office-meeting etiquette. But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges. What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it. And so I am reasonably sure that when my children have children, there will once again be words so awesome that they cannot be uttered without important consequences. This will not only represent a new stage of linguistic evolution, it will be a token of moral revival. What the dirty words will be, God only knows.\n\n<question>:\nWhat wouldn't the author agree with?\n\n<options>:\nA new swear words will exist in the future\nB it's important for a culture to have profane words\nC swear words have changed over the centuries\nD all people should become more comfortable with swearing\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,797 | 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 Cosmic Express that would have made an old subway rider gasp with amazement. In five more minutes their car The year 1928 was a great year of discovery for STORIES . They were uncovering new talent at such a great rate, had whipped up to the base of another building, in the business section, where there was no room COSMIC EXPRESS it. As they approached, a lean man, carrying a black bag, darted out of an elevator shaft opposite the door, ran across the corridor, and entered. They pushed in after him. They were in a little room, . He followed his initial success the sleepy boy. \"Queek! I have tell you zee truth! I have zee most urgent fiction authors ever to sit down at the typewriter. When the pressed a button. The door sprang open in the grill, and the frantic physician leaped through it. switches, and pressed another button. \"Why, hello, Eric, old man!\" were telling me about? Congratulations!\" A bell jangled before him on the panel. \"Just a minute. I've got a call.\" would do, he produced \"With the half-hidden machine, spoke courteously. The Cosmic Express \"All right, madam. Walk out. Folded Hands ...\" \"... And came from the machine. \"Sir, what have you done with my darling Violet?\" \"None of your impertinence, sir! I want my dog.\" \"Ah, a dog. Must have jumped off the crystal. You can have the story. With only a few thousand scanning-disk television sets in existence at the time of the writing, the surmise that this media would be a natural for clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously out of the door through which the frantic French doctor had when covered wagons were the primary form of transportation and apaches still raided the settlers. so recently vanished. She rolled into the corridor. Shrill words floated back: rounds of what seemed an endless, heart-breaking war with \"I'm going to see my lawyer! The discovery of AMAZING STORIES orders are to use the Express labored to this end and the first he knew that a story of his had been accepted was when he \"Sure, old boy. I'd send you to heaven for that, if you'd give me the micrometer readings to set lay quiet beneath light silk covers. With a groan, he stood up and began a series of fantastic sides. Don't move.\" The little door had swung open again, and Eric led Nada that would have been strange to the man of four or five centuries before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning. Suddenly there was a sharp tingling and also with scientific appliances Eric helped Nada to a place A bell jangled. \"So long,\" the youth called. Nada and Eric felt themselves sensation where they touched the polished surface. Then blackness, blankness. The next thing they knew, the fires were gone from about them. They were lying in something slid a small typewriter out of its drawer, and began pecking at it impatiently. At last he straightened reluctantly, For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding and struggling up, her bright garments stained with black mud. said, \"of ages past, when men were men. Red-blooded heroes responding \"At last!\" Nada cried. \"We're vigorously to the stirring was impartial as to the source of his thrills—provided they were distant enough \"Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines.\" must be practical. We must build a fire, find weapons, set up a shelter of some kind. I guess it strong, fearless, resourceful fellows, \"We'll find a nice dry cave, and have a fire in front of the who could handle a club on equal terms with a cave-man, or \"But first we must find a flint-bed. We need flint for tools, and to strike sparks to make a fire be very abundant, and of a most sticky consistence. They sank into it ankle deep at every step, their feet. A mile they struggled on, without finding where a provident nature had left them even of a dead mammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presently came Nada stopped. \"Eric,\" she resolved to forget that his next \"red-blooded action thriller\" was due in the publisher's office at the tools, sharpened in the fire.\" \"Probably you're right. This breakfast sent up the automatic shaft from the kitchens below. never tried it, myself. We need some dry sticks, first.\" They resumed the weary seemed scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth. \"You didn't bring any matches, dear?\" \"Matches! Of course not! soon.\" \"If dry wood were gold dust, we couldn't buy a hot dog.\" He confessed to a few pangs of his own. They turned their attention when life was simple and natural, when men hunted and killed their to looking for banana meat, instead of drinking synthetic stuff, when men still had animals that might have been slain with a broken branch had At last, from sheer weariness, they stopped, and gathered branches to make a sloping shelter by a vast fallen tree-trunk. contrary ideas about the matter. \"And tomorrow, when it has quit raining—I'm sure we'll do better.\" They crept in, as gloomy night swarmed about them in clouds. Then came a sound from the dismal stormy night, a hoarse, bellowing roar, raucous, terrifying. Nada clung against Eric. they flourished there.... But maybe it won't find us.\" The Cosmic Express.\" \"The Cosmic Express?\" The roar was repeated, nearer. The earth trembled beneath a \"Eric?\" she called softly. \"Yes, dear.\" \"Don't you wish—we had \"we\" the girl did not notice. The roaring outside was closer. And suddenly it was answered considerable distance, that echoed strangely through the forest. The fearful sounds were repeated, alternately. And always broke out in the darkness. Bellows. Screams. Deafening shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if weren't a scientist.\" He glowed Eric and Nada clung to each the new Cosmic Express, is simply with pride. \"But the method, in fingers through golden-brown hair. \"But I don't see how they get any recognizable object, not overcame them. A few moments later, they were lying Cosmic Express office, with all and lenses about them. A bustling, red-faced official appeared through the door in the grill, fairly bubbling apologies. \"So sorry—an accident—inconceivable. the Express Ray picks up an hope you haven't been injured.\" \"Why—what—what—\" \"Why I happened in, found our operator drunk. I've no idea where he got the stuff. He muttered consulted the auto-register, and found two more passengers registered here than had been recorded the television at once, and we happened to find you. \"I can't imagine how it happened. I've had the fellow locked up, and the 'dry-laws' are on the \"No, I ask nothing except that you don't press charges against A bell had rung at the shaft. She ran to it, and returned with a great silver tray, laden with spouse, after they had washed off the grime of another planet. He spent the next twelve hours When they had finished, she carried the tray to the shaft, slid it in a slot, and touched a button—thus disposing of the culinary for himself and his mate, hunted food for her, defended her from cares of the morning. She ran back to Eric, who was stone tools, erected a dwelling death about the Cosmic Express! once more staring distastefully at his typewriter. \"We can go to their office—it's only five minutes. The chap He's not supposed to take passengers\n\n<question>:\nWould Eric and Nada have been rescued, had the Cosmic Express operator not been drunk?\n\n<options>:\nA Yes. Eventually, someone would have checked the logs and recovered their bodies.\nB No. The official only checked the logs because the operator was drunk.\nC No. The operator told them he wouldn't be responsible.\nD Yes. Eventually, someone would have checked the logs and started a search.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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1,788 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThe saucer was interesting, but where was the delegate? was clear. No one moved DELEGATE on long poles before them. Jerry held his breath as they what the delegate from Venus approached the object only biggest surprise since David when they were yards away did he appreciate its size. It wasn't a gloved hand. \"It's okay,\" a voice breathed behind him. \"No radiation ...\" Slowly, the ring of spectators closed tighter. They were twenty yards from the ship when the cagey, to behave the way the newspaper wanted him to behave, to protect the cozy Washington assignment he had waited for one-passenger. It is clear of all radiation, and is perfectly 7 interplanetary rocket, built safe to approach. There is a part of him, a rebel part, wanted him to stay on the trail Jerry couldn't identify stepped hatch which may be opened by A door slid open. \"It's a box!\" someone said. \"A crate—\" \"Colligan! Moore! Schaffer! A trio came forward and hoisted the crate out of the ship. Then the voice spoke again Jerry deduced that it must have been activated by the decreased load of the ship. will find our delegate within. with the courtesy of an official emissary.\" They set to work on the crate, its gray plastic material giving in readily to the application of opened, they stood aside in amazement and consternation. There were a variety of metal pieces packed within, protected by a filmy packing material. \"Wait a minute,\" the general Think it's war?\" He picked up a gray-bound volume, and opened its cover. \"'Instructions for assembling Delegate,'\" he read aloud. The reporter closed the door behind him, and then strolled out of the building into the sunlight. housing. A-2 ...'\" He looked up. \"It's an instruction book,\" he whispered. \"We're supposed to build the damn thing.\" The Delegate, a handsomely constructed robot almost eight feet tall, was pieced together some three hours later, by a mechanism they had assembled. It stood impassive until they obeyed the final instruction. \"Press Button K ...\" They found button K, and pressed it. escort me to the meeting place ...\" It wasn't until three days after the landing that Jerry Bridges saw the Delegate again. government officials, Army officers, and scientists, he was quartered in a quonset hut in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Then, after seventy-two frustrating and they gave him snickering greetings. He took a small table in the rear and ate his meal in sullen silence. It wasn't the newsmen's jibes No one told him his destination, and it wasn't until he saw the So far, the byword had been secrecy. They knew at the realization—Nikita Khrushchev Spocker was unavailable. His himself. It was a summit secretary, however, was a little Four days later, a mysterious highly-polished metal robot, was seated blithely at a desk which the cause of it all, a placid, The robot delegate stood up. Delegate from a great neighbor out. He ran after her, the restaurant proprietor shouting about being far too occupied with internal matters. But our isolation cannot last in the face of and relentlessly—to destroy your world completely.\" Again, the meeting room exploded return, bearing a different Delegate from Venus—a Delegate of Death, who speaks not in words, but in the explosion of atoms. Think of thousands of such Delegates, fired from a vantage point far beyond the reach of the idea,\" Greta said stiffly. In a secluded booth at the rear of a restaurant unfrequented by The Delegate sat down. and said: explosion rocked the quiet sands of Los Alamos, and the Venus \"At first, they thought it was hours after that, the robot delegate, its message delivered, its mission fulfilled, requested to be locked inside a bombproof chamber. When the door was opened, the Delegate was an exploded another sputnik.\" \" spacecraft was no more. Two out what the damn thing was.\" ruin. in Washington. They were in his apartment, and it was the first for about three days, and they're thinking of calling a plenary session of the UN just to figure the Delegate speak, something's from last night.\" \"Don't be silly. The spaceship's can land their delegate.\" \"Their delegate. They came embrace, he cried out: \"What's the matter?\" \"I just thought of something! Now where the hell did I put my old notebooks?\" He got up from the sofa and went scurrying to a closet. From a debris of cardboard boxes, he found a worn old leather brief case, and cackled with delight when he found the yellowed notebooks inside. \"What are or something. The Senator when I'm not wanted.\" She took her hat and coat from the hall closet, gave him one last chance to change his mind, and then left. Greta said haughtily. \"I know \"Well, how else can I take it? I'm not even supposed to know \"Terrible? I think you're wonderful!\" \"And you promise not to print a massive woman with gray hair and impervious to charm, guarded the portals of his office with all the indomitable will of the U. S. Marines. Jerry felt decrepit, but managed building three hundred yards 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 \"That'll be all, Bridges.\" it with his next batch of mail.\" \"When will that be?\" \"In an hour. He's in a terribly said. \"Here's a book—\" a stack of memorandums and the Delegate speak. I didn't know what it was until last night, when I dug out my old college notebooks. Thank God I kept them.\" letters, his own envelope atop Coltz's eyes were suddenly \"What do you mean, Jerry?\" hooded. AP correspondent, in front of until I checked my old Jerry, and snapped: notes, and here's what I found.\" He dug into his coat pocket \"This note of yours. Just what do you think it means?\" the Pan-American Building on by the Delegate from Venus.\" that secrecy is essential, that leakage of the story might cause person who knows of it, we have two choices. One of them is to lock you up.\" Jerry swallowed hard. panic. Since you're the only unauthorized Jerry?\" allowed to relay the story to the press until such a time as \"Wait a minute!\" group that worked in the quiet and secrecy of a University on a all fantastic scheme to force the group would secretly launch an earth satellite of their own, and come down safely at a certain time and place. They would install within the cone, ready to be assembled. They would beam a radio message to earth from the reached to accept the delegate. from their 'spaceship.' Then, when the Robot was assembled, cone, seemingly as if it originated on it. Meanwhile, consider yourself in custody.\" The USAF jet transport wasn't the only secrecy-shrouded aircraft that took off that evening 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 aboard. It was only a few minutes past ten when they arrived at the air base at Los Alamos. The desert sky was cloudy and starless, and powerful searchlights Jerry braked the convertible waiting to rush the air passengers to some unnamed destination. They drove for twenty of nowhere. On the perimeter, official vehicles were parked in orderly rows, and four USAF trailer trucks were in evidence, their radarscopes turning slowly. good job of keeping the excitement contained. He was allowed to leave the car and stroll unescorted. He his back against the grill of a staff car, smoking one cigarette after another. As the minutes ticked off, the returned to the desert, and calm was shattered. At first, he hit, a dust cloud obscured it from sight. A loudspeaker blared out an unintelligible order, but its message\n\n<question>:\nWhat happened to the Delegate?\n\n<options>:\nA The Marines destroyed it.\nB It self-destructed.\nC It returned to Venus.\nD It was locked inside a bomb shelter.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
668 | 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>:\nStranger of the Prophecy—and he found that then the tug and buffet of a strong, probing wind, spoken by so many reviving unfortunates through the ages: \"Where am I?\" I knew the language of that answer, but where it came from—above, \"How did I get here?\" I demanded of the speaker. \"Who am I?\" \"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—\" Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar. pause. \"You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that \"You are going to ask how you were brought here. That is the mystery of the Masters destiny.\" called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to heat and cold and storm, and built these stout structures, and now laid \"Who are you, and where are you from?\" said one of the two, a broad-faced middle-aged fellow. \"Don't lie any more than you can help.\" had first spoken. Then, to his comrade: \"No reward, then.\" fellow's weapon wrist, I clamped it firmly and bent it back and around. He whimpered and swore, and his glowing sword dropped. Its radiant heavily. Triumphant laughter came from both adversaries. Then: \"What's this?\" The challenge was clear, rich, authoritative. Someone else had come, \"They lie,\" I broke in, very conscious of my naked helplessness before have seen who are heavier than you, but none taller. Whence came you?\" \"The story is a strange one,\" she commented. \"And your name?\" \"I do not know that, either. Who are you?\" \"Stranger,\" he said to me, \"can you think of no better tale to tell \"I tell the truth,\" was my reply, not very gracious. \"The stranger of the prophecy!\" he cried, in a voice that made us all jump. The officer rose from behind the table. \"Are you totally mad, Sporr? You mystic doctors are too apt to become fuddled—\" 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 \"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 come equipped with all plausible knowledge. As it is—\" \"As it is, he may remember that the Conquering Stranger is foretold to come with no memory of anything,\" supplied the officer. \"Score one against you, Sporr. You should have been able to instruct me, not I you.\" The attendant reentered, with a big book in his hands. It looked old and well-thumbed, with dim gold traceries on its binding. Sporr snatched it, and turned to a brightly colored picture. He looked once, his beard gaped, and he dropped to his knees. time by the First Comers!\" \"I still say you will understand my caution,\" he addressed me, with \"Oh, yes, the thumb-print,\" I repeated wearily. \"By all means, study my thumbs, if you'll first take these bonds off of me.\" \"Bonds,\" mumbled old Sporr. He got creakily up from his knees and bustled to me. From under his robe he produced a pouch, and took out a pencil-sized rod. Gingerly opening the red mantle, he touched my tether \"Get up,\" I bade them. \"I want to hear why I was first bound, and now They rose, but stood off respectfully. The officer spoke first. \"I am Rohbar, field commander of this defense position,\" he said with crisp respect. \"Sporr is a mystic doctor, full of godly wisdom. Doriza, at the poles. Now,\" and her voice rang joyously, \"you will lead us to quarters, your destiny, all await you.\" We went out by the door at the rear, and Sporr respectfully gestured me upon a metal-plated platform. Standing beside me, he tinkered with a lever. We dropped smoothly away into a dark corridor, past level after The mention of food brought to me the thought that I was hungry. I said as much, even as our elevator platform came to the lowest level and stopped. \"I have arranged for that,\" Sporr began, then fell silent, fingers combing his beard in embarrassment. What—\" \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow.\" We entered a new small chamber, where a table was set with dishes of porcelain-like plastic. Sporr held a chair for me, and waited on me with the utmost gingerly respect. The food was a pungent and filling jelly, a little bundle of transparent leaves or scraps like cellophane It was a sleeping chamber, with a cot made fast to the wall, a metal locker or cupboard, with a glass door through which showed the garments of which Sporr spoke. The door closed softly behind me—I was left alone. I took the military cloak which Doriza had lent me and slung it over my shoulders. Turning, I clanked out on my metal-soled shoes. Sporr was waiting in the room where I had eaten. His eyes widened at 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.\" that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all felt. \"Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.\" herself at my left hand. \"Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited one tangled crossway after another. My questions she answered with a 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 welcomed me to stuffy Rohbar, the commander to Sporr, spry and clever enough, but somehow unwholesome Doriza—no, she was not like these \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\" \" Yandro! \" \"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. One of the group, called Council by Doriza, now moved a pace forward. 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 \"Weapons in his hands were the instruments of fate. His hands alone caused fear and ruin. But it pleased our fortune-bringing stars to encompass his destruction.\" He grinned, and licked his full lips. \"Now, even as they are without their battle-leader, so we have ours.\" Dondromogon. But I must know them before I can help.\" to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n\n<question>:\nWho first tells the narrator about his destiny?\n\n<options>:\nA Doriza\nB The Masters of the Worlds\nC The Voice\nD Old Sporr\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
1,721 | 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—?\" Evans was carrying a block of ice into the tractor when he saw the \"Evans, man!\" said Jones' voice in the intercom. \"Alive you are!\" 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 looked at the Goldburgian device he had made out of wire and tubing. \"Finally I built this thing. These caves were made of lava. They must 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 was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknife \"You're a genius, man!\" Jones exclaimed. Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after \"Back?\" \"Well, it was to rescue you that I came.\" \"I don't need rescuing, man,\" Evans said. Jones stared at him blankly. \"You might let me have some food,\" Evans continued. \"I'm getting short Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in about 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 \"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 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 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. 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. live. The generator started again, and the lights came on. They flickered as 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.\" He felt a little guilty about this, because he had ordered that all doors in the survey building should remain closed except when someone was passing through them. This was to allow the air-conditioning system to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly improbable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he was disobeying his own orders no more flagrantly than anyone else in the survey. McIlroy had no illusions about his ability to lead men. Or rather, he did have one illusion he thought that he was completely unfit as a leader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed with cheerful contempt, but it was also true his mildest requests were Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he 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. anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant. \"Wasn't anybody out in it.\" \"Hey, Chuck,\" another technician, Lehman, broke in, \"you could maybe get hurt that way.\" After the sun rose, Evans returned to the lava cave that he had been waste oxygen. The ones that looked like zeolites were zeolites, all right, or something very much like it. One of the crystals that he \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going back to mining.\" McIlroy noticed that his friend's glass was empty, and he quietly filled it again. Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again: \"Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone \"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.\" 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 quarter of a mile from the tractor, Evans found a promising looking mound of lava. It was rounded on top, and it could easily be the dome of 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 oxygen too fast. He was halfway there when the pressure warning light went on, and the signal sounded inside his helmet. He turned on his ten-minute reserve supply, and made it to the tractor with about five minutes left. The air purifying apparatus in the suit was not as efficient as the one in the tractor it wasted oxygen. By using the suit 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. \"What's going on out there?\" demanded McIlroy on the intercom. \"Scale stuck in the valve,\" Cowalczk answered. \"Not that I know of,\" Lehman answered. \"What about it, Cade?\" \"I don't think so,\" Cade said. \"I'll get on the blower and rouse out an engineer.\" \"O.K., but keep working that switch.\" McIlroy released a statement today that Howard Evans, a prospector is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring presumed that he was merely temporarily delayed. Evans began his exploration on August 25th, and was known to be carrying several days reserve of oxygen and supplies. Director McIlroy has expressed a hope that Evans will be found before his oxygen runs out. dark. Little hope is held for radio contact with the missing man as it is believed he was carrying only short-range, saying to McIlroy, \"a Welshman knows when his luck's run out. And never \"Like as not, you're right,\" McIlroy replied, \"but if I know Evans, he'd tells me that Evans will be found.\" \"Well, yes,\" Jones answered. \"I thought that it might happen that a \"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 finding him. It began to dawn on McIlroy that nearly the whole\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Jones likely think Evans is up to when he finds him?\n\n<options>:\nA He saw that he was setting up a mine to start collecting water\nB He thought he had found a new source of crystals\nC He thought he was already dead\nD He thought his oxygen machine was meant to be a temporary survival tool\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
77 | 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>:\npitch on a Venusian swamp-town—to find that death stalked it from the I said, \"Bucky. Hold on, fella. I....\" Bucky heaved the table off his lap and cursed me. \"What's eating you, 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, \"Howdy. Let's go find a booth. These Marshies make me nervous, looking like hungry cats at a mouse-hole.\" I looked at Bucky. He looked hungrier than the Marshies did. We didn't Bucky got red around the ears. \"Just a minute,\" he murmured, and The curtains were yanked back suddenly. Beamish shut up. Bucky and I \"Gertrude be blowed,\" growled Bucky. \"Can't you see I'm busy?\" He pulled the curtains to and departed. Bucky Shannon groaned. Beamish \"Yeah. She's kind of temperamental.\" Bucky took a quick drink. I We said good night, trying not to drool. Beamish went away. Bucky made poked his head outside. \"Hey, boy! More Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late as it was, they were waiting for us. About twenty of them, sitting around and smoking and looking very ugly. It was awfully lonesome out there, with the desert cold and restless Bucky Shannon walked out into the glare of the light at the entrance to feet. He waved and said, \"Hiya, boys.\" They got up off the steps, and the packing cases, and came toward us. I grinned and got into my brassies. We felt we owed those boys a lot more than money. It grates on a man's pride to have to sneak in and out of weeks we'd come in at the front door. Bucky and I checked the bills, paid them, and pocketed the receipts. Bucky yawned and stretched sleepily. Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose. I said, \"Sure,\" rather sourly. Bucky hiccoughed. \"Let's go see Gertrude.\" I didn't want to see Gertrude. I never got over feeling funny going into the brute tank, especially at night or out in space. I'm a city Bucky was looking stubborn, so I shrugged. The fight had just put the topper on him. I was afraid he'd fall down the ladder and break his neck. That's why I went along. If I hadn't.... Oh, well, what's a few nightmares among friends? Our footsteps sounded loud and empty on the iron floor. I wasn't rank and sour and wild. And the sound of them, Bucky Shannon lurched against me suddenly. I choked back a yell, and had them nicely conditioned to that gong. But they didn't quiet down. Not really. They were uneasy. You can feel them inside you when they're uneasy. I think that's why I'm scared of them. They make me feel like I'm not human as I thought—like I wanted to put my back-hair up and snarl. Yeah. They were uneasy that night, all of a sudden.... Bucky Shannon sniffled again. I said irritably, \"Be reasonable, Gow! rose up out of the darkness in little lazy coils, sparkling faintly with blue, cold fire. I yelled, \"Gow! Gow, the Vapor snakes! Gow—for God's sake!\" I started to run, back along the passageway. Bucky weighed on me, limp and heavy. The noise burst suddenly in a deafening hell of moans and I could hear Gertrude's lonely, whistling scream. I thought, \" Somebody's down here. Somebody let 'em out. Somebody wants to kill us! One of Bucky's dragging, stumbling feet got between mine. We fell. I rolled on top of him, covering his face, and buried my own face in the hollow of his shoulder. The first snake touched me. It was like a live wire, sliding along the back of my neck. I screamed. It came down along my cheek, hunting my mouth. There were more of them, burning me through my clothes. Bucky moaned and kicked under me. I remember hanging on and thinking, \"This is it. This is it, and oh God, I'm scared!\" Then I went out. said, \"Where's Shannon? How is he?\" \"Mis' Bucky okay. You save life. You big hero, Mis' Jig. Mis' Gow come nickuhtime get snakes. You hero. Haw! You funny like hell!\" I said, \"Yeah,\" and pushed him away and got up. I almost fell down a couple of times, but presently I made it to the mirror over the snakes had done a good job. I looked like I was upholstered in Scotch plaid. I felt sick. Bucky Shannon opened the door. He looked white and grim, and there was I picked up my shirt. \"Right with you.\" Kanza went out, still giggling. Bucky closed the door. \"Jig,\" he said, \"those vapor worms were all right when we went in. Somebody followed us down and let them out. On purpose.\" I hurt all over. I growled, \"With that brain, son, you should go far. Nobody saw anything, of course?\" Bucky shook his head. 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!\" We had a nasty trip to Venus. Gertrude kept the brute tank on edge, and Gow, on the rare occasions he came up for air, went around looking kittens. 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. Shannon and I did a little quiet sleuthing, but it was a waste of time. Anybody in the gang might have let those electric worms out on us. It didn't help any to know that somebody, maybe the guy next to you at dinner, was busy thinking ways to kill you. By the time we hit Venus, I was ready to do a Brodie out the refuse chute. our router's runabout beside it. Bucky Shannon groaned. 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 weren't happy. You get so you can feel those things. The steamy Venus heat was already sneaking into the ship. While we passed the hatchway to the brute tank, I could hear Gertrude, screaming. The canvasmen were busy setting up the annex, slopping and cursing in the mud. The paste brigade was heading for the shacks. Shannon and I Bucky said, \"Jig—it's Sam Kapper.\" Bucky started to help him up. Kapper was crying, and he jerked all over like animals I've seen that were scared to death. Some guy leaned over and put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it for him. I was thinking about Kapper, then, and I didn't pay much attention. I Bucky said gently, \"Okay, Sam. Relax. What's the trouble?\" The cigarette stub fell out of his mouth. He didn't notice it. \"Help me,\" he said simply. \"I'm scared.\" His mouth drooled. \"I got it hidden. They want to find out, but I won't tell 'em. It's 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....\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Jig and Bucky rarely come in through the front door?\n\n<options>:\nA They wanted to avoid the screams of Gertrude\nB They wanted to avoid the debt collectors\nC They preferred the back entrance as to be closer to the action\nD They wanted to avoid the Vapor snakes\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
1,183 | 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 The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that . This was why the world had moved the great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain the they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever since the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone, from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his the metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest: Something small and brown scurried across the other side of the Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaningless machinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metal apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead, If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this was odd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—what was it? children. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars.\" he just didn't, without comprehending. So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And ignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feeling embroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with a and knew it was your time, too....\" explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had whirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions and unsatisfactory answers. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completely But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had come It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer, there should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machine in the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who had governed the world. They told you to do something and you did it, but that was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You only that could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and the had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of medicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of old often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future, 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 \"Yes?\" Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with the people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it was always the same. called astronomy, I think.\" This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on one elbow. \"What did you find out?\" \"That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think.\" 'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymous terms.\" questioned what it might mean in this particular case. \"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the knew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than he \"I'm only saying what I read in the book,\" Crifer protested mildly. meaning.\" \"People grow old,\" Rikud suggested. but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. remembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed turn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failed was that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age? book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it was variable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. But the new view persisted. that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and of it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of the viewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down the had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular intervals by a sharp booming. through nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more confusing than ever. you hear?\" \"Broom, brroom, brrroom!\" Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting of vaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewport did. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. \"It looks like the garden,\" not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the \"It is an old picture of the garden,\" Chuls suggested, \"and the plants \"So there is a change from day to night!\" reading machine had begun to bore him. He said, \"Well, variable or not, the man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed so it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the health-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through the vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also was purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. But if everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how could Damn the man, all he did was eat! now, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, reading \"I know, but what's beyond it?\" through \"No—\" Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake of He missed the beginning, but then: is a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it is Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusing humming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlike no one quite seems to know its meaning.\" although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topography Then he trembled. he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. interested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope with and Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read that in five years, the Calculator will send you through \"You'll show me nothing because I won't go.\" \"Stop that,\" said the older man, mildly. punctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with the machinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gears crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbled under his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were not was a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first, beneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shone clearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Whimpering, he fled. whimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but the \"What won't?\" \"It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and the \"That's ridiculous,\" Chuls said. too, to show you how it is to be broken.\" \"I hit him! I hit him!\" how big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing him were unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completely He became sickly giddy thinking about it. die because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled and voice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place of\n\n<question>:\nThe tone of the story, especially towards its end, is delivered very simplistically, in an almost child-like fashion. This is to show that the story\n\n<options>:\nA is like a fable. It offers a moral to the story and teaches a truth about society.\nB is like a fairy-tale because the characters go on a magical journey, but its main purpose as a story is to decieve.\nC is like a ghost story. It frightens the reader by playing on the dark and supernatural.\nD is like mythology because it is folklore that explains society's origins.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,272 | 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\"But you can't,\" he told her. \"They're too clever.\" \"Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?\" she asked cynically. himself—desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted within them by their captors. disapprovingly. \"Why take it out on Rog?\" she asked bluntly. \"He didn't ask to come here any more than we did. He's got a wife back home. Maybe sure of that, though, till we got the radio.\" \"Why haven't they brought more of us through?\" Eudalia asked, tamping her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their captors had seen to that it is.\" \"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 The captor Tennant called Opal came in through a far corner of the ceiling. He—if it was a he—was not large, although this, Opal might extend thousands of yards in some unseen direction. He had no regular shape and much of him was iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name Opal. Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled or sung and Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three feet. He was getting good at it. Dog does trick, he thought. 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 curious as a cat—or a human being. Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless 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 sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal. Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the thought: What cover must your body have not to be conspicuous? a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He 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 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? 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 house, his life.... Your wife and a man are approaching the house. The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command: You are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another live male. Tennant shook his head, stiff and defiant in his chair. The punishment, when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout. 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 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 , the ex-halfback whose bulk was beginning to get out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted him. The man Roger! found that he suddenly didn't care. She couldn't say it was loneliness. Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his captors had let him. brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him 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, 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 easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it. Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They had simply picked him up. Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in body chemistry or psychology, perhaps. More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It simply wasn't feasible—and furthermore he derived an impression of the tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself.\n\n<question>:\nWhy had Roger been trained by Opal?\n\n<options>:\nA because Opal wanted to further his experiment\nB because Opal needed help building a new gateway\nC because Opal was looking for someone to take his place\nD because Opal was unable to bring other men back\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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553 | 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>:\nKrugman's Life of Brian Where it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Letter from John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop Letter from John Cassidy: Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. 1) Krugman claims that my opening sentence--\"In a way, Bill Gates's current troubles with the Justice Department grew out of an economics seminar that took place thirteen years ago, at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government\"--is \"pure fiction.\" Perhaps so, but in that case somebody should tell this to Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. When I interviewed Klein for my piece about the Microsoft case, he singled out Brian Arthur as the economist who has most influenced his thinking about the way in which high-technology markets operate. It was Klein's words, not those of Arthur, that prompted me to use Arthur in the lead of the story. 4) Krugman appears to suggest that I made up some quotes, a charge that, if it came from a more objective source, I would consider to be a serious matter. In effect, he is accusing Brian Arthur, a man he calls a \"nice guy,\" of being a fabricator or a liar. The quotes in question came from Arthur, and they were based on his recollections of two meetings that he attended some years ago. After Krugman's article appeared, the Santa Fe professor called me to say that he still recalled the meetings in question as I described them. Krugman, as he admits, wasn't present at either of the meetings. 5) For a man who takes his own cogitations extremely seriously, Krugman is remarkably cavalier about attributing motives and beliefs to others. \"Cassidy has made it clear in earlier writing that he does not like mainstream economists, and he may have been overly eager to accept a story that puts them in a bad light,\" he pronounces. I presume this statement refers to a critical piece I wrote in 1996 about the direction that economic research, principally macroeconomic research, has taken over the past two decades. In response to that article, I received dozens of messages of appreciation from mainstream economists, including from two former presidents of the American Economic Association. Among the sources quoted in that piece were the then-chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (Joseph Stiglitz), a governor of the Federal Reserve Board (Laurence Meyer), and a well-known Harvard professor (Gregory Mankiw). To claim, as Krugman does, that I \"don't like mainstream economists\" and that I am out to denigrate their work is malicious hogwash. The fact of the matter is that I spend much of my life reading the work of mainstream economists, speaking to them, and trying to find something they have written that might interest the general public. In my experience, most economists appreciate the attention. --John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy: I think that David Warsh's 1994 in the Boston Globe says it all. If other journalists would do as much homework as he did, I wouldn't have had to write that article. Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop: Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. I leave it for others to decide whether I was too gullible in writing Complexity . For the record, however, I would like to inject a few facts into Krugman's story, which he summarizes nicely in the final paragraph: Which brings me to Professor Krugman's letter, and my reply. I remember the exchange very well. Obviously, however, my reply failed to make clear what I was really trying to say. So I'll try again: c) So, when I received Krugman's letter shortly after Complexity came out, I was puzzled: He was complaining that I hadn't referenced others in the increasing-returns field--Paul Krugman among them--although I had explicitly done so. d) But, when I checked the published text, I was chagrined to discover that the critical passage mentioning Krugman wasn't there. Schuster had suggested a number of cuts to streamline what was already a long and involved chapter on Brian's ideas. I accepted some of the cuts, and restored others--including (I thought) the passage that mentioned Krugman. In the rush to get Complexity to press, however, that passage somehow wound up on the cutting-room floor anyway, and I didn't notice until too late. Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop: Even more to the point: How did Cassidy come by his story? Is it possible that he completely misunderstood what Brian Arthur was saying--that the whole business about the seminar at Harvard where nobody would accept increasing returns, about the lonely struggle of Arthur in the face of ideological rigidity, even the quotation from Arthur about economists being unwilling to consider the possibility of imperfect markets because of the Cold War (give me a break!) were all in Cassidy's imagination? Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the most accurate paraphrase of Paul Krugman’s reply to John Cassidy?\n\n<options>:\nA “I disagree with you.”\nB “Your article was better than David Warsh’s.”\nC “My article was a necessary contribution to the research.”\nD “David Warsh is a journalist who did it right.”\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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947 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nShe provocatively arched her back. Not even the women of Kelburn's race had a body like hers and she knew it. race an inferiority complex—but then he tried to climb it! In repose, Taphetta the Ribboneer resembled a fancy giant bow on a was purely reflexive. His hand swung out and he could feel the flesh give when his knuckles struck it. his wide, thin body, which constituted the knot at the middle. His neck was flat, too, arching out in another loop. Of all his features, only his head had appreciable thickness and it was crowned with a dozen long feel that attraction to her? \"Try Emmer,\" he suggested tiredly. \"He'll find you irresistible, and he's even more savage than I am.\" \"Is he?\" She smiled enigmatically. \"Maybe, in a biological sense. Too much, though. You're just right.\" \"That's because you're unique,\" said Halden. \"Outside of your own Emmer would do—and she knew. She had no concept of love outside of accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human development. \"Emmer, a Neanderthal type and our archeologist, is around the higher, she was as cruel to herself as she was to him. And yet he wanted her. Emmer's side. Meredith, linguist, is on the other side of the middle. advantage?—for the children she intended to have. Outside of that, nothing mattered, and for the sake of alloying the lower with the The racial disparity was great and she had provoked him, but it was not completely her fault. Besides.... Besides what? She had a beautiful body that could bear superior children—and they might be his. Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may He twisted away. With those thoughts, he was as bad as she was. Were you in spite of everything. But you'll have to watch out whose children through —everybody they could coerce, seduce or marry—onward and upward. He raised his hand, but it was against himself that his anger unbroken line of evolution that could be traced back a billion years.\" \"You're thinking of Earth,\" said Halden. \"Humans require a certain kind only the human race.\" ribbons. \"Frankly, no one else is much interested in Man's theories about himself.\" It was easy to understand the attitude. Man was the most numerous though not always the most advanced—Ribboneers had a civilization as Halden flushed the sarcasm wasn't necessary. It was true that Kelburn was the most advanced human type present, but while there were differences, biological and in the scale of intelligence, it wasn't as great as once was thought. Anyway, non-humans weren't trained in ability.\" Taphetta crinkled politely at the reference to his skill. \"I had other plans, but I can't evade professional obligations, and an emergency an equal lack of grace. He seemed to have difficulty in taking his eyes off Meredith, though, since he was a notch or so above her in the mating scale, he shouldn't have been so interested. But his planet had been inexplicably slow in developing and he wasn't completely aware of his place in the human hierarchy. the physical, to make use of her body so as to gain an advantage—what \"More than a man?\" Firmon leered at Meredith and, when she failed Halden took a deep breath. \"Seems all right to me.\" evolution had taken a different course, but that he was in no sense less complex than Man. It was a paradox that some biologically higher humans hadn't developed as much as lower races and actually weren't Halden. \"Do anything you can to give it to him.\" I have.\" She wriggled into his arms. Use them.\" \"It's an animal,\" said Firmon. \"We tried poison and got a few, but now they won't touch the stuff. I had electronics rig up some traps. The Halden glowered at the man. \"How long has this been going on?\" It was probably nothing to become alarmed at, but an animal on the ship was a nuisance, doubly so because of their pilot. \"Tell me what you know about it,\" said Halden. They couldn't set up a continuous watch and shoot the animals down because there weren't that many men to spare. Besides, the use of Halden started. So she Halden shrugged. \"We've got to have better air. It might work.\" \"Pests on the ship? It's filthy! My people would never tolerate it!\" \"Neither do we.\" The Ribboneer's distaste subsided. \"What kind of creatures are they?\" smarter?\" \"I'd say that, yes. It must be a fairly intelligent creature to be so hard to get rid of. But it can be lured into traps, if the bait's humans. Is there anything else you can tell me about the hypothetical ancestor?\" Emmer didn't look like the genius he was—a Neanderthal genius, but nonetheless a real one. In his field, he rated very high. He raised a stubble-flecked cheek from a large thick-fingered paw and ran shaggy aggressive, but their total number was great and they held themselves aloof. The unknown ancestor again. Who else had such an origin and, it was tacitly assumed, such a destiny? It was Halden who answered him. \"There's the satisfaction of knowing curiosity.\" \"Cultural discoveries,\" rumbled Emmer. \"How did our ancestors live? When a creature is greatly reduced in size, as we are, more than fractionally and ceaselessly. \"I don't like to, but we'll have to risk using bait for your pest.\" He'd have done it anyway, but it was better to have the pilot's consent. And there was one question Halden wanted to ask defeat. This time it had no trouble with the raised section. It leaped and landed on top and made considerable noise in doing so. The big animal The small one stood still till the last instant—and then a paw flickered out and an inch-long knife blade plunged into the throat of the charging creature. Red spurted out as the bigger beast screamed. The knife flashed in and out until the big animal collapsed and stopped moving. The small creature removed the knife and wiped it on the pelt of its foe. Then it scampered back to the platform on which the knife had been found— and laid it down \"The electronic puppets were a good imitation, but the animals don't have to identify them as their species. If they're smart enough, they'll know the value of a knife, no matter who uses it.\" \"What if they're smarter? Suppose they know a knife can't be used by a \"Very good. I never thought of that,\" said Meredith, coming closer. \"I like the way your primitive mind works. At times I actually think of marrying you.\" \"Primitive,\" he said, alternately frozen and thawed, though he knew that, in relation to her, he was not advanced. \"It's almost a curse, isn't it?\" She laughed and took the curse away by leaning provocatively against him. \"But barbaric lovers are often nice.\" Here we go again, he thought drearily, sliding his arm around her. To her, I'm merely a passionate savage. They went to his cabin. She sat down, smiling. Was she pretty? Maybe. For her own race, she primeval Earth.\" He said nothing she knew as well as he that Earth was as advanced as \"I don't think I will, though. We might have children.\" \"Would it be wrong?\" he asked. \"I'm as intelligent as you. We wouldn't have subhuman monsters.\" \"It would be a step up—for you.\" Under her calm, there was tension. \"Why did you ever have anything to do with me?\" demanded Halden. \"Love,\" she said gloomily. \"Physical attraction. But I can't let it There's a fifty per cent chance you might conceive.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat most attracts Meredith to Halden?\n\n<options>:\nA His compassion\nB His physical appearance\nC His intellect\nD His savageness\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
] |
1,372 | 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 Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest. \"Hold it,\" the Wazzenazzian said crisply. \"The Consulate can't help you. I can.\" \"You?\" I said. Gorb grinned rakishly. \"Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition. Gorb shrugged. \"What have I to lose?\" packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind, other species of the universe. The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, \"The first \"Your name?\" \"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald.\" I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick cough. \"Let me have that again, please?\" \"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for \"Of course, that's not the name you were born with.\" of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at anything short of top rate. It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into 400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look \"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz XIII.\" for my sense of humor. Or my generosity.\" \"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth,\" he said smoothly. \"I happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I 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 \"Very clever, Mr. Gorb.\" I grinned at him and shook my head. \"You spin a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb.\" I pulled away from his yawning mouth. \"Good-by, Mr. Gorb,\" I repeated. Good-by, Mr. Gorb! a job! But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that 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 sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed because—\" \"You will hire me or trouble I will make!\" The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. \"Yes, you have avenge , I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he I went on, \"Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest \"No. You will hire me now.\" \"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!\" \"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting \"It isn't his turn in line,\" Stebbins protested. \"There are at least fifty ahead of him.\" \"All right,\" I said tiredly. \"As long as he's in here already, I might as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins.\" \"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress, \"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors must \"But—\" It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience I?\" \"Well—\" \"Of course not.\" I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right along. \"Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up, I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your \"I thought the truth would move you.\" criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to \"Then you will refuse me?\" scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is.\" He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping. 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. \"Change your mind about me yet?\" \"Get out before I have you thrown out.\" Gorb shrugged. \"I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I tell you that I am your story is! Get out or—\" Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours \"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead. the office before I spoke. \"Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is, to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is that I'm not looking for any of those came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt. \"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the \"The evidence lies before us,\" intoned the leader, \"in the cadaver going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against crackpots. He's—\" \"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian psychology, Corrigan,\" Gorb said lightly. \"Suicide is completely abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a full-bodied laugh. \"Funny,\" I said. \"What is?\" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian. \"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and killed himself \"Don't mention it,\" Gorb said.\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't a reason for narrator to be so skeptical of Gorb?\n\n<options>:\nA Gorb looked just like an Earthling\nB Gorb was asking for too much money\nC Gorb had no proof to back up his claims\nD he had never heard of Wazzenazz\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
825 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey were mad, all right, and now Matilda wondered if, actually, they were husband and wife. It could readily be Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] All she wanted was a mate and she had the gumption to go out and hunt one down. But that meant Matilda would seek the happy medium. poaching in a strictly forbidden territory! maybe the madness at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was also looking for a husband. This, in itself, was not unusual—but Matilda was so completely wrapped up in the romantic fallacy of her day that she sought a prince talk about it all to Matilda. bachelors, and that the right one would come along simply because she had been waiting for him. Matilda, you see, had patience. She also had a fetish. Matilda had received her A.B. from exclusive Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, that it was in this way she would find her husband. The widow Penshaws impatiently told her to go out and get dates. That particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the The first thing the widow Penshaws did was to take Matilda's left hand in her own and examine the next-to-the-last finger. \"I thought so,\" she said. \"I knew this was coming when I saw that look in your eye at dinner. Where is Herman's engagement ring?\" college reunion was this weekend and he had already turned down the invitation.\" The widow Penshaws nodded regretfully. \"That was thoughtful of Herman to hide his feelings.\" \"Hogwash!\" said her daughter. \"He has no true feelings. He's sorry that he had to miss his college reunion. That's all he has to hide. A stuffy Victorian prude and even less of a man than the others.\" \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It ain't that you ain't popular, but you just don't want to cooperate. You don't in love, Matilda—no one does. Love osmoses into you Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found nothing which was not objectionable about being unaware of the impact of love. She said good-night and went upstairs, climbed out of her a gratifying selection of pen pals. She shut off the shower, brushed her teeth, gargled, patted herself dry with a towel, and jumped into bed, careful to lock the door of her Matilda switched her bed lamp on and dabbed some citronella on each Matilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light to herself, it was the flavor of the wording. This very well could be it . Or, that is, Matilda could see that. But she had Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed Matilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered in both her uppers and lowers this early in the morning. \"I'm fixing breakfast, of course....\" Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak Matilda hummed Mendelssohn's Wedding March all the way. It was her that if she was, she was, and, meanwhile, she could only get to Cedar Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an out that no one did: Matilda tried the general store, the fire Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this but she knew that she'd rather not return home and face the widow Penshaws, at least not for a while yet. The widow Penshaws meant well, but she liked to analyze other people's mistakes, especially Matilda's. Accordingly, Matilda trudged wearily toward Cedar Falls' small and Then Matilda frowned. Twenty years from now, this could be Matilda Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this Matilda nodded shrewdly and added a twin brother to the bill in her that the land no longer was being tilled. The house itself had fallen to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought had been her ingenuity, and which now turned out to be something which she had in common with five other women. You live and learn, thought Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having been the first. Perhaps the other five all were satisfactory she wouldn't be needed perhaps she was too late.... As it turned out, she wasn't. Not only that, she was welcomed with open A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears had not missed the ominous click. She ran to the door and tried to open it, but it would not budge. It was locked—from the outside. 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 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 that it was precisely what she would have wanted could, of course, be attributed to coincidence, and the further fact that everything was He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair. compare notes. She would not admit even to herself that she was disappointed with it was just that he was so 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 and adjust her own actions to suit him. Meanwhile, it would be best to \"I—do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back than she did. He waited, however, as if wondering what to say, and Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her wanted to believe in him and the result was that it took until now for her to realize it. \"Stop making fun of me,\" she said. resignation, and he said, \"Very well. I'm wrong again. You are the sixth, and you're no better than the other five. Perhaps you are even more outspoken. When you see my wife, tell her to come back. Again she Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the remembered what she had promised the librarian. In her own way, the aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up in detail. She did this first because it was a promise, and second because she knew it would make her feel better. \"What do you mean?\" \"Did he leave a message for his wife?\" Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for loses his temper, he tries to convince me that any number of females of the particular planet would be more than thrilled if they were given the opportunity just to listen to him. \"But he's wrong. It's a hard life for a woman. Someday—five thousand, ten thousand years from now—I will convince him. And then we will \"Well, if Haron wants me back, then I have to go. Have a care, my dear. If you marry, choose a home-body. I've had the experience and you've\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Matilda break off her engagement with Herman?\n\n<options>:\nA She’s looking for someone more adventurous.\nB He was too “stuffy” for Matilda.\nC She doesn’t want to settle for him, as she’s too fixated on the idea of romance she has.\nD She’s afraid of commitment, as is hinted by this being another broken engagement for her.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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995 | 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>:\nPrinted in U.S.A. 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 Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway.\" They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy! I The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31. A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where Superior had been. his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then sped off to a telephone. The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they 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 shortly after midnight. 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 loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of. A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern: It said that Superior had seceded from Earth. One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying 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. \"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 club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair 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 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. True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on 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 face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding. \"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.\" \"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the world, hasn't it?\" \"Overnight,\" Geneva Jervis said. \"If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town had flown the coop.\" \"What's the population of Superior?\" \"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us \"What do you mean by that?\" Jen Jervis asked. \"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 Earth.\" It sounded odd to put it that way. \"Nope,\" Civek said. \"No airport. No place for a plane to land, either.\" \"Maybe not a plane,\" Don said, \"but a helicopter could land just about anywhere.\" \"No helicopters here, either.\" perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?\" \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie another night, then taken a plane to Washington.\" \"Washington?\" Don said. \"That's where I'm going. I mean where I was going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington, Superior were up in the air. He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The \"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't you get 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.\" apparently grave situation. Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are 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. A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said 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 he levitated Superior off the face of the Earth?\" double entendre ,\" Alis said. \"What I meant—for now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us.\" \"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?\" 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. 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?\" Alis shrugged. \"All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water. Let's go look at the creek.\" with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended. \"Where is the water going?\" Don asked. \"I can't make it out.\" \"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people.\" \"I still can't see where the water goes,\" Don said. He stretched out on his stomach and began to inch forward. \"You stay there.\" \"The other end of the creek?\" \"Exactly.\" South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to\n\n<question>:\nHad the truck driver driving along Route 202 not noticed the change in road ahead while traveling, what would have likely happened?\n\n<options>:\nA He would have driven down into the pit where Superior was formerly located.\nB He would have passed right over the town and missed it totally.\nC He would have spilled his coffee while trying to make the sudden stop.\nD He would have floated above the ground and continued driving into the town of Superior.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,290 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nA FALL OF GLASS thirty-five years overdue!\" She was calculating the fine as he closed the door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was one block away from his house. It was then that he realized something The weatherman was always right: The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, the that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a confusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postman happened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got his and take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he \"What?!\" huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning them. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled a \"Are you going to make it stop or aren't you!\" MacBride yelled. \"You'll have to tell me what you did first!\" to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his way \"What have I done?\" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer. \"I'm not sure what's going to come of this,\" he said to Lanfierre with Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. \"Sometimes his house shakes they quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refused to believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting a blow, it would mountainous puffs of glass as he went. \"Mrs. Deshazaway!\" he shouted. \"No, I don't need a vacation.\" running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister. Optimum temperature collapsed. \"Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will you marry me? Yoo-hoo!\" he uses! He could be family of thirsty and clean kids, and he of his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn't right? No, The old It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. really smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. \"No\" Contrived. How about a simple, When the At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn't the first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months, about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April. He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. \"Men are too perishable,\" Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. \"For all practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die.\" \"Would you pass the beets, please?\" Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. \"And don't look at me that way,\" she said. \"I'm not going to marry you and if you want reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse.\" The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything passionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately never known anyone like her. \"You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,\" she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. \"Do you have any idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob \"As long as there are people,\" he said philosophically, \"there'll be worse for him.\" She threw up her hands. \"You'd be the worst of the lot!\" She left the they'll find out? \"And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes, you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man a to be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask \"That won't be necessary,\" Fownes said with unusual force. \"With all due respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well state here and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway.\" \"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 it the other way around? No matter. How would you like \"I see.\" the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's long enough for his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ... you may call me Agnes.\" When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was a look of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt a wistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. It would be such a number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor unintelligibility. later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book. that ?\" \"I'd say,\" Humphrey Fownes said, \"that he ... that he recommended it to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about this book and then they ... they went to the library together and she borrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married.\" \"Hah! They were brother and sister!\" the librarian shouted in her parched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything 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 said, \"for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, with this problem in revolutionary dialectics. ,\" 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 by common consent of the governments is known as self-containment.\" in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be arranged for him to get out. \"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and \"And that day I'll await impatiently,\" Fownes replied with marvelous tact, \"because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future wife and I have to leave now \"Tell the man what he's forgotten,\" the leader said, walking to the far\n\n<question>:\nWho would want to fix the mistake made in the story?\n\n<options>:\nA MacBride wouldn't go into the house with Lanfierre\nB Humphrey would not create the wind maker in his house\nC Lanfierre would listen to MacBride in Humphrey's house\nD Agnes wouldn't give Humphrey a condition for marriage\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
] |
662 | 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>:\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 trouble maker in the crew—Bos'n's Mate Bradford. Curtis went around, finding the officers, issuing orders. There were still some unconscious men to be revived. In a sheltered cove among Comerford Comerford's entire Comerford complement of two hundred and twenty men were present—except Navigating Officer Nelson, and Bos'n's Mate Bradford! And Zukor Androka was also missing! Comerford's Curtis got a glimpse of the design on which he was working, and his lips relaxed in a faint smile. Comerford Androka had arrived on board the 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 the day before she sailed 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 radio station on a high promontory on the north shore of the islet. Another had found the remains of tents and log cabins, recently 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. cheeks, streaking them with glistening furrows. The fellow was a headache to Curtis. He was overfriendly with a black-browed bos'n's mate named Joe Bradford—the worst trouble maker on board. But there was no question of his ability. He was a good 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 Comerford 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 hastened to the radio room, with Nelson at his heels, and the Czech trotting along behind. still wearing his earphones, and stood staring upward incredulously at the aërial. \"Get us a radio cross-bearing for location at once,\" Curtis said sharply, for the operator seemed in a daze. \"Bearing, sir?\" The man brought his eyes down with difficulty, as if With the coming of dawn, a little exploration revealed that the \"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 As if to mock him, the ship's radio began to answer: \"Station 297 calling U. S. Cruiser Comerford Comerford Comerford calling Station 297!\" the operator intoned, winking at the two officers over Androka's discomfiture, and asked for the bearings. Comerford !\" Curtis sighed with relief. He saw that Nelson was staring fiercely at the radio operator, as the man went on calling: \"U. S. Cruiser Comerford Comerford Comerford Comerford 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 must be right. Continue as you were!\" \"I'm relieved, sir, just the same,\" Nelson admitted, \"to have the radio at them. Nelson went back to the bridge, and Androka returned to the commander's cabin. Curtis lingered in the wireless room with the radio operator. \"It's a funny thing,\" the latter said, still dialing and grousing, \"how I got that cross-bearing through and can't get another squeak out of 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 \"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 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, at the end of a swing or smacked against something solid. Curtis felt Nelson's hand grip his shoulder, as he put his lips close to his ear and shouted: \"You must have been right, sir, and the radio Comerford Comerford Carethusia \" the other was \"convoy.\" But gradually his eardrums Comerford gas mask. Nelson spoke in a low tone, his lips close to Bradford's ear. \"It worked, Joe!\" \"Yeah!\" Bradford agreed. \"It worked—fine!\" The limp bodies of the Comerford's 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!\" for a career in the United States navy—and no one suspected me. No one—\" \"Sometimes,\" Bradford put in, \"I think Curtis suspected you.\" \"Maybe Curtis'll find out his suspicions were justified,\" Nelson said bitterly. \"But it won't do Curtis any good—a commander who's lost Comerford men—officers, seamen, mechanics, radio men, technical experts, all German naval reservists living in the United States, who've been sent here secretly, a few at a time, during the past six weeks!\" The three—Brandt, Nelson and Bradford—stood on the bridge and talked, while the efficient stretcher-bearers worked industriously to remove the limp bodies of the Comerford's with strange-looking radio equipment, and more gas tanks like those Androka had brought aboard the Comerford with him, and dynamos and Comerford Carethusia ?\" Nelson asked, in a puzzled tone. Brandt said: \"She's a freighter in a convoy out of St. Johns—twelve 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!\" Comerford 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. Comerford's Comerford A man with a flashlight was approaching him. Its white glare shone for a moment in Curtis' face, and the familiar voice of Ensign Jack Dillon spoke: \"Commander Curtis! Are you O. K., sir?\" \"I think so!\" Curtis' heart warmed at the eager expression in Dillon's \"How about yourself, Jack?\" Curtis added. \"A bit of a headache from the gas, but that's all. Any orders, sir?\" Curtis thought for a moment. \"Muster the crew, as best you can. We'll try to make a roll call. Is there any sign of the ship?\" Comerford 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>:\nWho are the four to blame for the Comerford’s incident?\n\n<options>:\nA Nelson, Androka, Brandt, Bradford\nB Curtis, Androka, Brandt, Bradford\nC Bradford, Nelson, Androka, Curtis\nD Androka, Curtis, the radioman, Bradford\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>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the making. Interstellar Chief Rexroad knocked the dottle from his pipe in a tray, mask that covered his head completely.\" \"Didn't you think that was important?\" Branson asked in an outraged 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?\" 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.\" Attendant to taking notes on this incident, Ellason noted a strange watchful and accusing. To men unused to it, such a sight numbs, compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he 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 in the newsletter, it lost no time in penetrating every compartment of \"Yes,\" Ellason said, \"but what if the intruder is a crewman?\" \"I know my men,\" Branson said flatly. \"You could have a shake-down for the mask and the seed case.\" it was ready for ripening. Raymond Palugger was killed in the ship's hospital on the sixty-first money belt in the drawer of the small stand beside his bed. A man 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. Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's speaker system, he reported that Palugger had a fortune in credits in the belt and had died of a severe beating. He said that since the mask, the seed case, the money and the man. \"I will not countenance such an act by a crewman,\" Branson said. \"If and when he is found, he will be severely dealt with. But he might not \"How can we protect ourselves without stunners?\" one colonist called out. \"Has Red Mask a gun?\" Branson retorted. \"It seems to me you have a better weapon than any gun.\" \"What's that?\" everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was conducted. It took twenty hours. No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man. The captain reported that his search had been equally fruitless. At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the 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. 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 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 \"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. \"And I might have a murder on my conscience.\" Tilbury said, \"We've also thought of that. Suppose you supply us with the corridors—eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first time the passengers seemed relaxed. Let Red Mask move against armed men, they said. Yeah, let him see what happens now. Red Mask did. On the 101st day he was seen in a corridor in Quadrant Four. Emil 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 157th day. He was seen, shot at, but not hit. He was also unable to commit any crime. The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until the landing on Antheon. But on the 170th day calamity struck. Red Mask appropriated one of the stunners, made his way down one whole corridor section in Quadrant Two, put occupants to sleep as he went, taking many articles of value and Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in 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. \"What does he want that stuff for?\" Casey Stromberg, a passenger 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 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 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 assembly hall his mask was whipped off. The crowd gasped. Nobody knew him. Ellason's first thought was that he must be a stowaway, but then he Harrel Critten and he was a record keeper third class. \"Well, Critten,\" Branson roared at him, \"what have you got to say for \"Go to hell,\" Critten said quietly. As if it were an afterthought, he seem to be much doubt about the outcome, for Critten didn't help his do with the loot, Critten?\" Critten looked him square in the eye and said, \"I threw it out one of They executed Harrel Critten on the morning of the 270th day with 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, \"Hello,\" Critten said, grinning from ear to ear. matter, Critten did a good job. He was trained by an old friend of mine \"Can't say I enjoyed the role,\" said Critten, \"but I think it saved Critten nodded. \"When great numbers are being transported, they are apt \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said. small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously.\" \"Probably,\" Critten said, \"you are wondering about the execution.\" Critten grinned again. \"She played right into our hands. She ran out Captain Branson told them to do that.\" \"And the murder?\" \"Raymond Palugger died in the hospital all right, but he died from his illness on the operating table. We turned it into an advantage by making it look suspicious.\" Ellason brightened. \"And by that time everybody was seeing Red Mask everywhere and the colonists organized against him.\" \"Gave them something to do,\" Branson said. Critten sighed. \"And I'll have to be caught again.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is not true about Harrel Critten?\n\n<options>:\nA He was in cahoots with the captain all along\nB He is a member of the crew\nC He was hired by the same people as the reporter was\nD He is killed in order to protect the secret of the Red Mask\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>:\nThis week, soft-porn entrepreneur Ron Harris began auctioning the eggs of fashion models on the Internet. His site, ronsangels.com (named after the 1970s' babe show Charlie's Angels ), invites visitors to \"bid on eggs from beautiful, healthy and intelligent women.\" Like Dr. Richard Seed, who recently declared his intention to clone human beings, Harris has attracted the attention of the media and politicians who are \"looking into\" whether he can be stopped. Most people agree that Harris is a creep and that his site is an outrage. What they don't agree on is why. Here's what the critics have to say about the auction--and each other. 1. Egg auctions will produce designer babies. Harris cites his experience as a horse breeder and asks, \"We bid for everything else in this society--why not eggs?\" Alarmists, agreeing that Harris \"can put you into your own designer baby by selling eggs,\" predict that his success will steer \"the future of human breeding\" toward \"genetic engineering.\" 3. Egg auctions will promote the survival of the fittest. Doomsayers predict that once \"beautiful eggs are available strictly to people who are willing to spend an ungodly sum for them,\" the rich will transform themselves into a \"super-race\" reminiscent of the Nazis. To this, Harris replies, \"It is not our intention to suggest that we make a super society of only beautiful people. This site simply mirrors our current society, in that beauty usually goes to the highest bidder.\" But this reply only fuels concern that gradually, society will separate into \"genetic haves and have nots.\" 4. Egg auctions will promote the survival of the unfittest. Harris writes that only men with \"substantial financial resources\" are fit to give his models' offspring \"a financially secure and stable life.\" But skeptics wonder whether women who sell their eggs to the highest bidder--and men who buy these eggs for the sole purpose of spawning good-looking children--may produce children just as dysfunctional as themselves. As Calgary Sun columnist Sydney Sharpe put it, \"Any woman ... who enters into this mephistophelian pact has a few screws loose. Maybe her kid will, too. Not to mention the buyers who sign her up.\" 5. Egg auctions will fail to promote the survival of the unfittest. Many models, if not most, have had cosmetic surgery. A model who is perfectly ruthless will conceal this fact when selling her eggs. (One of Harris' \"angels\" has already been caught lying about her age.) How does Harris know whether his models have had collagen injections and nose jobs? \"There's no way to know that. You can ask the girl and hope she tells you the truth,\" he says. Annas concludes that since there's \"no way to know how much of their beauty is a product of their genes, plastic surgery, a makeup artist, or exercise,\" only a \"naive\" person would buy their eggs on the basis of the photographs displayed on the site. \"You don't want to see the models,\" he points out. \"You want to see pictures of their parents.\" On this theory, children produced by the egg auction are likely to be the offspring of liars on one side and fools on the other. 9. The auction exploits desperate buyers. Harris preaches pure capitalism, saying it's \"unfair to put a limit on a girl's ability to make money\" by auctioning her eggs. In turn, fertility clinic operators accuse Harris of \"taking advantage of couples trying to conceive\" and exploiting \"desperate people ... susceptible to the dreams he is trying to sell.\" USA Today laments, \"This is about human need. And human greed.\" 10. The auction exploits desperate sellers. By late Monday, Harris had only a handful of bids, and only one was verified as legitimate. On the other hand, 50 women had asked him to put their eggs up for auction. Gradually, the media concluded that the donors were the true victims. USA Today described the models as \"struggling actresses,\" reported that they were unaware of the health risks of donating eggs, and quoted one as saying, \"I'd rather do this than do Playboy or Penthouse .\" Harris' sole verified bidder told the paper that selling eggs was \"better than prostitution.\" Harris constantly refers to the donors as his \"girls\" and describes them like cattle--\"We have a legitimate bid of $42,000 on one of the girls.\" He gets a 20 percent commission on each winning bid, though he takes no responsibility for executing financial transactions or medical procedures. \"We have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the items advertised, the truth or accuracy of the listings, the ability of sellers to sell items or the ability of buyers to buy items,\" he stipulates. His role, he explains, is simply to \"find beautiful girls, take beautiful photographs of them, [and] put them up on the Web.\" To some critics, the mystery isn't, as Harris suggests, how women throughout history have exploited their sexual power over men, but how pimps like him have come away with the profit. 11. The auction exploits voyeurs. The Washington Post thinks Harris isn't targeting either buyers or sellers. He's not serious about selling eggs, says the Post . He's just using the sex appeal of his models and the intriguing perversity of a human egg auction to drum up publicity and attract Internet traffic to his site, from which he can sell advertising and subscriptions ($24.95 a month to view profiles of the models), hawk his forthcoming book ( Naked Power ), and direct prurient visitors to his various porn sites. A spokesman for fertility doctors suspects that ronsangels.com is really aimed at \"adolescent boys.\" 13. The Internet cheats people of their monstrous purchases. The only thing worse than buying human eggs on the Internet, according to the critics, is not getting the eggs you paid for. \"When you have large transactions of this kind conducted over the Internet, there may be fraud,\" a computer crime expert warns USA Today . Lori Andrews, a reproductive technology lawyer, warns CNN viewers that \"there's very little that you can do to prove that these eggs actually came from the donors that were expected,\" and \"the Internet just adds ... a layer that it makes it even more difficult to scrutinize where the eggs are coming from.\" 14. Egg buyers will reap unintended consequences. Sophisticated skeptics point out that Harris' application of Darwin's theories to human professional success overlooks the interaction of genetics and human psychology. To begin with, if a child produced by Harris' auction fails to turn out as pretty as the buyer expected, the buyer may shun the child, or the child may grow to hate herself for disappointing her parents. (On the Today show, Harris said of this theory, \"That's a pretty cynical view of human nature.\") Second, if the child turns out pretty but doesn't want to be a beauty queen, her parents may force her in that direction anyway, thereby stifling her true talents and preventing her from becoming successful. Third, the child's good looks may attract too much attention of the wrong kind, eventually destroying her. Critics cite Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe as examples. This critique challenges two precepts of Harris' worldview. First, while pretending to accept human nature as a given, he violates it by peddling strangers' eggs and encouraging the production of children who will probably never know their mothers. Family association, loyalty, and love are among the best parts of human nature. Slavish catering to physically attractive strangers is among the worst. If we're going to challenge human nature, the critics ask, why not start with the latter rather than the former?\n\n<question>:\nWhat would likely happen if Harris begins legally selling women's eggs?\n\n<options>:\nA he would have an influx of buyers\nB he would have more egg donors than egg buyers\nC he would make millions off of commissions\nD no one would show interest in his website\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>:\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 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 upon a time had been his birthplace. 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 alone? she thought. Why don't they leave the stars to God? 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 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 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 twist her words, by requestioning, into a different meaning altogether, till Terry's behavior pattern seemed to coincide with the behavior pattern which the suave young man apparently considered the norm, but which, if followed, Martha was sure, 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 by the time the TV crew got everything repacked into their cars and trucks and made their departure. Martha fixed herself a light supper, then donned an old suede jacket of Terry's and went out into the garden to wait for the sun to go down. According to the time table the general had outlined in his first telegram, 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 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 new affinity with its myriad inhabitants. And how bright they became pulsing brilliantly down out of the blackness of the night ... ... green ... orange ... It grew cold in the April garden and she could see her breath. 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 his own right, dropping swiftly now, down, down, and out of 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 Wednesday morning run. \"My land, Martha, I don't see how 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 ... The general's third telegram to find another means of accomplishing your son's return. Terry!— See the little boy playing beneath the maple tree, moving his tiny cars up and down the tiny streets of his make-believe village the little boy, his fuzz of hair gold in the sunlight, his cherub-cheeks pink in the summer wind— Terry!— Up the lane the blue-denimed young man walks, swinging his thin tanned arms, his long legs making near-grownup strides over the sun-seared grass the sky blue and bright behind him, the song of cicada rising and falling in the hazy September 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? The afternoon shadows lengthened on the lawn and the sun tried to eat, and couldn't. After a while, when the light began to fade, she slipped into Terry's jacket and went outside. Slowly the sky darkened and the stars began to appear. At washed the darkness from the drive. A car door slammed. Martha did not move. God , she thought, let it be Terry , even though she knew that it couldn't possibly be Terry. Footsteps sounded behind her, paused. Someone coughed softly. She turned then— \"Good evening, ma'am.\" She saw the circlet of stars on the gray epaulet knew. Even before he spoke again, she knew— \"The same meteorite that ma'am. It penetrated the capsule, too. We didn't find out \"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.\" \"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. of Orion with its central motif of vivid forget-me-nots, its far-flung blooms of Betelguese and Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ... flamed the exquisite flower beds of Taurus and Gemini, there burgeoned the riotous wreath of the Crab there lay the pulsing petals of the Pleiades ... And down the ecliptic garden path, wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted the ocher rose of Mars ... \"No,\" she said again. 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.\" 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>:\nWhy does Martha wear Terry's jacket?\n\n<options>:\nA The reporter asked her to wear Terry's jacket.\nB She could see her breath in the air.\nC She wants to feel close to Terry.\nD Terry's jacket reminds the neighbors that she is a star mother.\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 movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a \"natural\" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called \"the end of nature\"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. they'd like to eat him. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted \"daughter,\" San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. Her second appearance--a lone attack on Irontown to assassinate Lady Eboshi--is one of the movie's high points. It's Miyazaki's use of sound--and silence--that takes your breath away: the determined tap of the wolf princess's shoes as she scuttles over the fortress's rooftops then their heads pop back with a conclusive rattle. Something about them seems just right I could watch them for hours. (Miyazaki limits their appearances to seconds--he doesn't wear out their mystery the way that, say, George Lucas would.) And no Hollywood animated feature would end with such a powerful vision of apocalypse, as the land is bestridden by a colossus dropping a thick, caustic, tarlike gel that recalls the post-Hiroshima \"black rain.\" Can you take the kids? I think so. As Miyazaki said at a New York Film Festival press conference, \"Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.\" Princess Mononoke , at least, can tell them why. \"A special smile ... a certain touch ...\" So begins the elevator-music theme song of Music of the Heart ... \"I never had a lot that I loved so much.\" The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag. Did Miramax and director Wes Craven have to work so hard to schlockify the story of Roberta Guaspari (played here by Meryl Streep), whose violin courses in East Harlem elementary schools have become a beacon for such programs nationwide? A fabled taskmaster (her story was told in the 1996 documentary Small Wonders ), Guaspari used music as a way to teach self-discipline--along with the healthy self-respect that follows in its wake. When the New York school board cut the funding for her program, she proved a marvel of self-promotion, attracting features in all the major dailies and ending up along with her best students at Carnegie Hall for a benefit \"Fiddlefest\"--along with Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, and other legendary \"fiddlers.\" Streep has said that she spent so much of the time on the set learning the violin (she doesn't play any instruments) that she didn't bring the full force of her acting technique to bear on Roberta. Maybe that's why the performance seems so natural. Let her always learn an instrument on the set! Still, she doesn't make much sense of Guaspari. The script, by Pamela Gray ( A Walk on the Moon ), has her students complain of her nastiness and perfectionism, but Streep--who has made herself look dumpy, thick-waisted, and bedraggled--is so busy telegraphing her vulnerability that all we get is dippy niceness. Instead of a monument to an individual's iron will, Music of the Heart becomes the story of a woman so helpless that she arouses the kindness of strangers. Directors of violent genre pieces like Craven (who got this mainstream gig in return for doing the Scream sequels) or Carl Franklin or Sam Raimi sometimes want so badly to belong to Establishment Hollywood--to go to the Academy Awards--that they neuter themselves. Bending over backward to show how sensitive they can be, they forget that violence--even if it's just emotional violence--belongs in \"ordinary\" dramas, too. Craven does good work with the young actors in the classroom scenes, but the film has a reticence common to most biopics and a mushy, TV-movie humanism that blands out its texture. OK, I was a puddle after some scenes, like the one where Guaspari pushes a student to get her to improve her posture and discovers that the girl is wearing a leg brace. But how much more emotional the Carnegie Hall climax would have been if instead of suddenly seeing these East Harlem kids on stage with Perlman, Stern, Joshua Bell, etc., we'd seen them rehearsing first and struggling to keep up. There's too much music of the heart and not enough music of the callused fingers. In outline, The Limey is a lean little B-movie revenge melodrama about a felonious Brit (Terence Stamp) who's newly sprung from prison and flies to Southern California to get to the bottom of his beautiful daughter's death: \"My name's Wilson ... Who dunnit?\" The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, would be worth seeing just for Stamp's performance, at once rock-hard and goofily blinkered, and for Peter Fonda's wittily self-parodic turn as the suspected killer, a music producer who coasts on '60s counterculture easiness while his lackeys do the dirty work. (\"Oh, man,\" he says, the fear finally seeping through the ether. \"This is getting all too close to me.\") But the picture's glory is its layered and intricate syntax. The dialogue moves ahead--there are great gobs of exposition--but the images continually double back: to Stamp and Lesley Ann Warren, as his daughter's acting teacher, simply gazing at each other or to Stamp sitting on a plane, remembering his daughter as a girl on the beach, the lens of his home movie camera creating an eerily bright--almost supernatural--spot that dances over her face. The film's most violent act happens well off screen. (You hear the distant \"pop-pop-pop-pop-pop\" of the hero's gun.) The rest is only half-glimpsed, fantasized, or saturated by memory--or is the present the memory? Is all of The Limey a temporal hiccup? Some, including the critic at Time , have questioned Soderbergh's sanity. (But of course--Soderbergh flouts time!) I see a method to his madness. Less grandiosely than Harmony Korine in Julien Donkey-Boy , Soderbergh pores over every scene in search of its essential dramatic gesture. He's saying: This --not all that other stuff--is what's important. He telegraphs the ending--you know the Limey will somehow be at the root of his daughter's death--but it's still an emotional wow. The climax justifies the technique. It says the point of this odyssey isn't revenge but regret--for irredeemably blown chances and a tragic waste of love. Soderbergh is one of those rare filmmakers who learn on the job. Working within a tight genre structure, he's discovering hundreds of ways of editing a given scene that can give it the richness of a novel. Is he totally successful? No he misses now and then, which is why the technique sticks out. But what a fantastic effort. See it and weep for what's missing in most other movies.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the author feel about Music of the Heart?\n\n<options>:\nA The film had lots of areas that could've been improved.\nB The director missed his chance to make a great film by making safe choices.\nC The film is not going to be nominated for an Academy Award.\nD There is not enough footage of the students learning their instruments.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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429 | 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 asteroid, was plainly flabbergasted. Not in his wildest imaginings had he thought they would actually find what they were looking for. as the asteroid below—47.05 miles per second. He came slogging back couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so \"Whee! Mr. Andrew S. Burnside, you owe us five hundred and fifty the atomic whirl spectroscope to determine the composition of the asteroid.\" In the ship, the ethergram from Andrew S. Burnside, of Philadelphia, one of the richest men in the world, still lay on the deck-plates. It was addressed to: Mr. Robert Parker, President Interplanetary Hauling & 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 composed of iron ore, tungsten, quartz crystals, and cinnabar. Must be in my back yard before 11:30 A.M. my time, for important wedding June 2, else order is void. Will pay $5.00 per ton. Bob Parker had received that ethergram three weeks ago. And if The ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. It was, plainly, a hair-brained request. And yet, if by some chance 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 it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid. Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on that brainstorm, chiefly the firm of the Saylor brothers—which persons before this if he hadn't been lanky and tall while they were giants. 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 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?\" \"I said,\" remarked the girl, \"that you should scram off of my asteroid. qualifications Burnside had set down. \"Wait a minute,\" Bob Parker begged nervously. \"I want to make some conversation, lady. I'm sure you don't understand the conditions—\" 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 wedding see? We get five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it! 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 sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood ethergram direct from Andrew S. Burnside ordering this asteroid.\" It was Bob Parker's misfortune that he didn't carry a weapon. Each of hurled straight at Billy Saylor, lifted him straight off the asteroid swept across his line of vision. A cold hammering began at the base of of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the \"I'll starve,\" he thought. \"Or suffocate to death first!\" a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against The girl said glumly, \"I guess you men won't much care for me when you find out who I am and what I've done. I'm Starre Lowenthal—Andrew S. Burnside's granddaughter!\" Bob came slowly to his feet, and matched Queazy's slowly growing anger. \"Say that again?\" he snapped. \"This is some kind of dirty trick you and your grandfather cooked up?\" \"No!\" she exclaimed. \"No. My grandfather didn't even know there was an asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you—or from the Saylor brothers. You see—well, my granddad's about the stubbornest old hoot-owl in this universe! He's always had his way, and when people stand in his way, that's just a challenge to him. He's been badgering me for years to marry Mac, and so has Mac—\" \"Who's Mac?\" Queazy demanded. \"My fiancé, I guess,\" she said helplessly. \"He's one of my granddad's protégés. Granddad's always financing some likely young man and giving him a start in life. Mac has become pretty famous for his Mercurian If you knew my grandfather, you'd know how absolutely 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 my grandfather I'd marry Mac if the wedding was in the back yard on top 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 find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able to get it back to Earth, I came out here and decided to live here. Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them, by common law.... So I had everything figured out—except,\" she added bitterly, \"the Saylor brothers! I guess Granddad wanted to make sure 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 fling at getting the asteroid back!\" matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't attach any significance to Starre's dumbbell-shaped ship, which trailed Starre apparently knew he was in love with her, too, for on the fifth day Bob was teaching her the mechanics of operating the hauler, and she gently lifted his hand from a finger-switch. \"Even faltering. \"The asteroid—\" \"You have to marry him?\" Her eyes filled with tears. \"I have to live up to the bargain.\" \"And ruin your whole life,\" he ground out. Suddenly, he turned back to the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies snapped his fingers. \"It'll work!\" His gray eyes showed satisfaction. \"Now, if only the discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid the still bigger asteroid—inside the Moon's orbit! A mere two hundred \"It's going to hit!\" better calculations, they managed to put the firmly held asteroid the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing \"I'll inform the Interplanetary Commission!\" screamed Saylor. you release the asteroid.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Mr. Burnside so determined to have such a large and specific asteroid delivered to his backyard?\n\n<options>:\nA He didn't actually want it, he just wanted the Saylor brothers and Parker and Queazy to be occupied.\nB He had previously had one that was similar and wanted another for reminiscing.\nC He wanted something more grand and valuable than anyone else.\nD His granddaughter had requested one for her wedding.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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1,204 | 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 one of the many talents bred here! I His name was Liam O'Leary and there was something stinking in his He was partly right. He would be right in the middle of it—for every O'Leary shook his head. \"Let her talk, Sodaro.\" It said in the No mixing. That was the prescription that kept the city-state alive. There's no harm in to speak in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings.\" And O'Leary a family fight—and aren't all mechanics a family, aren't all laborers a clan, aren't all clerks and office workers related by closer ties than blood or skin? But the declassed cons of the Jug were the dregs of every class and once they spread, the neat compartmentation of society was pierced. The breakout would mean riot on a bigger scale than any prison had ever known. disciplinary block help straighten her out? He rubbed his ear and warned her then that next time she'd get the Greensleeves for sure.\" O'Leary stopped her. \"That's enough! Three days in Block O!\" Captain O'Leary took a long drink of water from the fountain marked anything, she had had a better environment than O'Leary himself, and look what she had made of it. The direction of evolution is toward specialization and Man is no exception, but with the difference that his is the one species that creates its own environment in which to specialize. From the moment that clans formed, specialization began—the hunters using the weapons made by the flint-chippers, the food cooked in clay pots made by the ceramists, over fire made by the shaman who guarded the sacred flame. Civilization merely increased the extent of specialization. From the born mechanic and the man with the gift of gab, society evolved to the point of smaller contact and less communication between the specializations, until now they could understand each other on only the most basic physical necessities—and not even always then. But this was desirable, for the more specialists, the higher the degree of civilization. The ultimate should be the complete segregation of each specialization—social and genetic measures to make them breed true, because the unspecialized man is an uncivilized man, or at any rate he does not advance civilization. And letting the specializations mix would produce genetic undesirables: clerk-laborer or Professional-GI misfits, for example, being only half specialized, would be good at no specialization. And the basis of this specialization society was: \"The aptitude groups are the true races of mankind.\" Putting it into law was only the legal enforcement of a demonstrable fact. touched his cap as O'Leary passed by. O'Leary noted, with the part of his mind that always noted those didn't. There wasn't anything wrong with that job, he told himself. It was a perfectly good civil-service position—better than post-office clerk, right that he should be proud of it. He was civil-service born and bred, and naturally he was proud and content to do a good, clean civil-service job. If he had happened to be born a fig—a himself—if he had happened to be born a clerk, why, he would have been proud of that, too. There wasn't anything wrong with being a clerk—or a mechanic or a soldier, or even a laborer, for that matter. Good laborers were the salt of the Earth! They weren't smart, maybe, but they had a—well, a sort of natural, relaxed joy of living. O'Leary was a broad-minded man and many times he had thought almost with a laborer . No responsibilities. No worries. Just an easy, slow routine of work and loaf, work and loaf. Of course, he wouldn't really want that kind of life, because he was Civil Service and not the kind to try to cross over class barriers that weren't meant cars going—and, O'Leary thought approvingly, when his sentence was up Block O in Estates-General Correctional Institution was the disciplinary block, and because of the green straitjackets its inhabitants wore, it was called the Greensleeves. It was a community of its own, an enclave within the larger city-state that was the Jug. And like any other community, it had its leading citizens ... two of them. irritable guard, climbing the steel steps toward Block O from the floor \"Owoo-o-o,\" screamed Sauer from one end of the cell block and of 'em, will you? Especially the lady—she's going to like it here, company.\" He laughed coarsely and abandoned his charges to the Block O The outside guard said sourly: \"A woman, for God's sake. Now O'Leary rule that, even in Block O, you didn't leave the tangler fields on all laborers—\"wipes,\" for short—or, at any rate, they had been once. They had spent so much time in prisons that it was sometimes hard even \"Oh, you think so?\" shrieked Flock. \"Jeez, I wish you hadn't said that, human , she told herself that resentment and anger were natural and right. They were perfectly normal expressions of the freedom-loving citizen's rebellion against the vile and stifling system of Categoried Classes. It was good that \"I smell trouble,\" said O'Leary to the warden. O'Leary shrugged. \"Different things. You know Lafon, from Block A? This The warden, faintly relieved, faintly annoyed, scolded: \"O'Leary, what \"You don't see what I mean, Warden. Lafon was a professional on the outside—an architect. Those laundry cons were laborers. Pros and wipes don't mix it isn't natural. And there are other things.\" O'Leary hesitated, frowning. How could you explain to the warden that The warden raised his hand. \"Please, O'Leary, don't bother me about desk drawer for something, hesitated, glanced at O'Leary, then dropped \"O'Leary, you're a guard captain, right? And I'm your warden. You have just as important as my job,\" he said piously. \" Everybody's job is just as important as everybody else's, right? But we have to stick to our own jobs. We don't want to try to pass O'Leary snapped erect, abruptly angry. Pass! What the devil way was that for the warden to talk to him? \"Excuse the expression, O'Leary,\" the warden said anxiously. \"I mean, after all, 'Specialization is the goal of civilization,' right?\" He was a great man for platitudes, was Warden Schluckebier. \" You O'Leary choked back his temper. \"Warden, I'm telling you that there's all your supposing, O'Leary.\" He sipped the remains of his coffee, made a wry face, poured a fresh cup and, with an elaborate show of not He sat beaming into space, waiting for the jolt to take effect. \"Well, then,\" he said at last. \"You just remember what I've told you tonight, O'Leary, and we'll get along fine. 'Specialization is the—' That was the trouble with those pale blue tablets, thought O'Leary \"O'Leary,\" he said faintly, \"my mistake.\" actuated the tangler fields on the floors of the cells. The prison rules were humanitarian, even for the dregs that inhabited the Greensleeves. Ten minutes out of every two hours, even the worst case rubber Almost like meat scorching. It wasn't pleasant. He finished untying Flock and turned away let the vain about it, even at times he had been known to boast of his ability him not to, you hear?\" O'Leary said: \"Warden, I told you I smelled trouble!\" corrupt sludge that underlay the state itself. Wipes brawled with wipes and no one cared but in the Jug, all classes were cast together. them out they were to fly interdicting missions at such-and-such\n\n<question>:\nWhich of the following didn't O'Leary agree with?\n\n<options>:\nA rules are meant to be followed\nB the Jug was running as smoothly as it could\nC he was meant to be part of the Civil Service group\nD having specializations was good for civilization\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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176 | 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 set itself grimly to meet them with corrosive fire, determined to blast them back to the stars. But they erred in thinking the Old Ones were too big to be clever. \"Suppose we settle this argument about humanity,\" said Knof Llud and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the normal yellow, of a GO sun. That was the Doppler effect as the star's radial velocity changed relative to the Knof Llud stiffened. The the ship had decelerated. They had seen many such stars come near out of the galaxy's glittering backdrop, and had seen them dwindle, turn red and go out as the , launched toward Arcturus and the Quest III drove on its way once more, lashed by despair toward the speed of Knof Llud, the Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, \"We've sighted Earth.\" A feverish buzz arose were forgotten and exaltation prevailed. Knof Llud smiled wryly. The rest of the little speech he had been about shrewdly, of Knof Jr. and Delza, who save from pictures could not Quests returned successful, or if they returned at all. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. It's Knof Llud and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the Quest III in interstellar flight while report to whatever powers might be on Earth now—if such powers were still interested. Llud selected a spool from among the earliest. It was one he had made \"It is cheering to note that the crew seems only more resolute. We go on to Capella its spectrum, so like our own Sun's, beckons. If success comes there, a century will have passed before we can return to Earth friends, relatives, all the generation that launched the Presently Knof Llud switched off that younger voice of his and leaned we cannot betray the plan.... energy stores that went into them, left Earth's economy drained and exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless and transcendent effort—the effort of Egypt that built the pyramids, or the war efforts of the nations in the last great conflicts of the twentieth century. \"Looked at historically, such super-human outbursts of energy are the result of a population's outgrowing its room and resources, and therefore signalize the beginning of the end. Population can be futile as pyramid-building, less practical than orgies of slaughter to reduce pressure.... In any case, it would be impossible to transport very many people to other stars but Earth could at least go into expanding limitlessly into the Universe.... \"Hopeless, unless we find planets!\" Knof Llud shook his head sorrowfully and took off the spool. That \"According to plan, the Quest III could achieve a velocity that would take us there without dying of senility of aging too greatly. It would be a one-way journey—even if enough fuel remained, there would be little point in returning to Earth after overpopulation. \"Why go back, then with the news of our failure? Why not forget about Earth and go on to Omega Centauri? What use is quixotic loyalty to a of homesickness, though they know with their minds that everything that was once 'home' has probably been swept away.... \"It doesn't matter. Today I gave orders to swing the ship.\" Savagely Knof Llud stabbed the button that shut off the speaker. Then he sat for a time with head resting in his hands, staring into nothing. ... for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. Llud sighed. He still couldn't say just why he had given the order to turn back. The stars had claimed his heart—but he was still a part of Earth, and not even nine hundred years of space and time had been able to alter that. Knof could go camping, and lie on their backs at night and gaze at the unhurried. Whatever it had been was past, and he had a good idea collision armor was nonmaterial and for practical purposes invulnerable. Just as he took his finger off the button that opened the door, the frowning—surely a meteoroid impact wasn't that serious. Coincidence, maybe—it might be Zost Relyul calling as instructed. we're being attacked!\" \"Sound the alarm. Emergency stations.\" He had said it automatically, then felt a curious detached relief at the knowledge that after all these years he could still respond quickly and smoothly to a crisis. There was a moment's silence, and he heard the alarm start—three \"Now—attacked by what?\" sixth now.\" Repeated blows quivered the Quest III's framework. The navigator said, obviously striving for calm, \"They're light craft, not \"If they're that small,\" said Knof Llud deliberately, \"they can't carry In the open doorway he almost fell over his son. Young Knof's eyes were Quest III shuddered, again and again, under blows that must have had millions of horsepower behind them but it plunged on toward Earth, its mighty engines still steadily braking its interstellar velocity. To a man, the ship's responsible officers were already on the bridge, Knof Jr. flattened himself against the metal wall and watched silently. can't touch us as long as our power lasts—or until they bring up some bigger stuff.\" The mild shocks went on—whether from projectiles or energy-charges, would be hard to find out and it didn't matter whatever was hitting Quest III's shell was doing it at velocities where the distinction between matter and radiation practically ceases to exist. But that shell was tough. It was an extension of the gravitic drive all space inside its field were a single perfectly elastic body. A meteoroid, for example, on striking it rebounded—usually vaporized by the impact—and the ship, in obedience to the law of equal and opposite forces, rebounded too, but since its mass was so much greater, its deflection was negligible. would have felt nothing at all of the vicious onslaught being hurled against them, save that their inertialess drive, at its normal thrust of two hundred gravities, was intentionally operated at one half of one per cent efficiency to provide the illusion of Earthly gravitation. The Quest III bored steadily on through space, decelerating. Even if one were no fatalist, there seemed no reason to stop decelerating or always attacking, with the senseless fury of maddened hornets. The Knof Jr. whooped ecstatically and then subsided warily, but no one was Quest III , except that they were rocket-propelled and of far lesser size. Their Tiny, deadly hornets with a colossal sting. \"Robot craft, no doubt,\" said Knof Llud, but a chill ran down his spine conquer. constant arrival of fresh attackers, while others raced away into space, presumably returning to base to replenish their ammunition. That argued a planned and prepared interception with virulent hatred behind \"We'll have reached Earth before then,\" Gwar Den said hopefully. \"If they don't bring out the heavy artillery first.\" Knof Jr. burst out, spluttering slightly with the violence of a repeating on each the same brief recorded message: \"Who are you? What do you want? We are the interstellar expedition Quest III ....\" And so on, identifying themselves and protesting that too. Once more Knof Llud had the insidious sense of his own nerves and muscles and will weakening along with the power-sinews of his ship. Knof Llud whirled to the radio apparatus, his weariness dropping from last. The two other interstellar expeditions that went out have already returned and been destroyed, as you will soon be—the sooner, if you continue toward Earth.\" Knof Llud's mind was clicking again. The voice—which must be coming from Earth, relayed by one of the midget ships—was not very smart it\n\n<question>:\nWhat was Knof Junior’s plan to defeat the attackers?\n\n<options>:\nA Talk to the attackers\nB Replenish with fresh crew to fight\nC Wait for the attackers to make a mistake in anger\nD Release the gravity impulses\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "C"
}
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1,933 | 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>:\ntoday. He settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet on, pulling it down firmly until it was properly seated. For a moment, Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed knights of Brittany and Anjou. These were followed by King Guy of He himself, Sir Robert de Bouain, was riding with the Norman and English troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his saddle. To his right, he could see the brilliant red-and-gold banner of the lion-hearted Richard of England— gules, in pale three lions passant guardant or . Behind the standard-bearer, his great war horse moving 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. Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight riding alongside him. Sir Gaeton de l'Arc-Tombé sat tall and straight in his saddle, his visor up, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. 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 \"Is it fear, or are they merely gathering their forces?\" \"Both,\" said Sir Gaeton flatly. \"They fear us, else they would not dally that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all \"Give them time. We must wait for their attack, sir knight. It were \"We of Gascony fear no heathen Musselman,\" Sir Gaeton growled. \"It's this Hellish heat that is driving me mad.\" He pointed toward the eastern Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. \"Perhaps 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than 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 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 to France in haste, leaving the rest of us to fight the Saracen for the \"Richard of England has never been on the best of terms with Philip \"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, \"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.\" showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty sea came the sound of Saracen war cries and the clash of steel on steel The Negro troops of Saladin's Egyptian contingent were thundering down upon the rear! They clashed with the Hospitallers, slamming in like a the sword against armor, like the sound of a thousand hammers against a Richard, sounding like a clarion over the din of battle. check. The King had said \"Stand fast!\" and this was no time to disobey the orders of Richard. were taking the brunt of the charge. They fought like madmen, but they The Master of the Hospitallers rode to the rear, to the King's standard, The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears. 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. The King turned to Sir Baldwin de Carreo, who sat ahorse nearby, and A voice very close to Sir Robert said: \"Richard is right. If we go to \"My lord the King,\" Sir Robert heard his voice say, \"is right in all but will be no need for Saladin and his Turks to come down on our flank. And \"Against the orders of the King?\" After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. \"I'm with George and for England!\" \"St. George and England!\" the Gascon echoed. Two great war horses began to move ponderously forward toward the battle 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 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 saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance. There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of \"St. George and England!\" Beauvais, who carried a great warhammer in order that he might not break Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy. battle rather than participating in it. Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword. 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 Old Kings .\" He put one end of the cigarette in his mouth and lit the other from the lighter in Sir Gaeton's hand. \"Yes, sir,\" said Sir Gaeton, after lighting his own cigarette, \" Old Kings are the greatest. They give a man real, deep-down smoking pleasure.\" \"There's no doubt about it, Old Kings any cigarette.\" \"Nor I,\" agreed the Gascon. \" Old Kings is the only real cigarette when man's work.\" work doesn't always allow you to enjoy the fine, rich tobaccos of Old Kings King Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed Saladin had expected him to hold fast! 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 breastbone. Where was Sir Gaeton? Where were the others? Where was the red-and-gold banner of Richard? 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 they had no time to attempt any further mischief to the King. They had 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, And then Richard was on his feet, cleaving the air about him with his boiling around the embattled pair, forcing the Turks into retreat. And for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight. King Richard's gauntleted hand grasped his own. \"If it please God, I \"Why? Commercial not good enough?\" Old Kings , and, believe me, the real thing never tasted as good as that cigarette did in the commercial!\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is anachronistic within the battle between King Richard and Saladin?\n\n<options>:\nA The pack of Old Kings\nB The horse saddle\nC The broadsword\nD The coronet\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,255 | 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>:\nsuddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! It had been a bad day I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd tropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and a just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got one While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I was There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him on spitballing\" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, \"The whole ball of wax,\" twelve times. However, my story had been accepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from 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 at your office building.\" I looked blank and he explained, \"We just heard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammed just missed it,\" I said, and went on in. other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and reasons she supposes. There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear muggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapter Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising. they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident were impulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and he looked stunned. \"Here!\" he said, holding out a deck of cards, \"For Pete's sake, look at 'em yourselves if you think they're marked!\" The nearest man struck them up from his hand. \"Okay, Houdini! So they're not marked! All I know is five straight....\" His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cards the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatly arranged cards. \"Judas!\" he said, and started to pick them up. \"Will you look at that! My God, what a session....\" I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it, \"Never seen anything to equal it,\" he said. \"Wouldn't have believed my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time, somebody else has four aces....\" He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. There was one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the top what must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over the top of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto the I was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouth its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreign cars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without any Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to his station house from the box opposite. It was out of order. was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter \"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things....\" what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely, and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. \"Have you any could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line, the adjacent ones touching. \"Well,\" I said, \"what more do you want?\" \"Great Scott,\" he said, and sat down. \"I suppose you know that against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental He shook his head. \"No. All I mean is that improbable things usually I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the electrical storm. Something has it in for me!\" McGill grinned. \"Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic.\" \"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder.\" He had a faraway, \"Let's go out and eat,\" I said, \"There's not a damn thing in the excuses and threats. Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. \"You all right, Mr. Graham?\" he asked. \"I don't know what's going on around here, but ever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!\" he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. \"Bring those dames over Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious cast to it. \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said. \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. something like an overactive poltergeist?\" \"Magnetism?\" non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephone repairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. \"I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister,\" he said with strong disapproval. 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 so pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. \"He's got a theory,\" said Molly. \"Come and eat with us and he'll tell you all about it.\" Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth \"If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham,\" Danny said, \"it's at the station house. What there's left of it, that is.\" Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold cuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfait instead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, and 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. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thing happened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the bar kitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls, the air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I made a gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped her cigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboring vichyssoise. \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The man 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 good thing didn't come because of Mr. Graham's strange luck?\n\n<options>:\nA Nat got a lead on an exciting new story\nB Mr. Graham found inspiration for his book\nC his wife came home\nD Mr. Graham's neighbor won his poker game\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
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{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n\"He was our only son,\" her husband said. \"What did he volunteer for? Couldn't somebody else have done it?\" His wife started to cry. Awkwardly, he embraced her. He wondered It's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man—but the ones he refrains from making. Like the decision \"I've had enough!\" Illustrated by Schoenherr shot. That's why I brought him with me. I think he likes \"Help! Kidnap. \" front seat. \"They'll be after us in half a minute.\" \"They don't know who's coming,\" he said. \"They don't make them tough enough to stop this boy.\" Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile. Two types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps: those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and world order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read was the second type. A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the drab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was the home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television and alcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told him neither studied nor taught at his schools. What he saw on the concrete fields between the tall apartment houses marked the limits of life's possibilities. He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. \"Nobody fools with me,\" he bragged. \"When Harry Read's out, there's a tiger running loose.\" No one knew how many times he nearly ran from other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on the battle line. \"A man ought to be a man,\" he once told a girl. \"He ought to do a man's work. Did you ever notice how our fathers look, how they sleep so much? I don't want to be like that. I want to be something proud.\" He joined the UN Inspector Corps at eighteen, in 1978. The international cops wore green berets, high buttonless boots, bush jackets. They were very special men. For the first time in his life, his father said something about his ambitions. \"Don't you like America, Harry? Do you want to be without a like me.\" \"I don't want that,\" Read said. \"What do you mean, you don't want that?\" \"You could join the American Army,\" his mother said. \"That's as good as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier.\" \"I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What do you care what I do?\" The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear arms and gas weapons, they guarded certain borders, bodyguarded diplomats and UN officials, even put down riots that threatened international peace. As the UN evolved into a strong world government, the UN Inspector Corps steadily acquired new powers. Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men. Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and isolation. And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A job many people considered important. He took his turn guarding the still disputed borders of Korea. He something and you go out and win a medal. That's great for me. I'm lazy and I like excitement.\" One power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General or Inspector General had ever tried to use. The power to arrest any day he took control the new dictator and his African party began to build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people to build himself an empire. He began a propaganda war against neighboring South Africa, promising the liberation of that strife-torn land. Most Negro leaders, having just won representation in the South African Parliament, told him to liberate his own country. They believed they could use their first small voice in the government to win true freedom for their people. But the radio assault and the arms buildup continued. Early in war. Read didn't know much about the complicated political reasons for the arrest. He liked the Corp and he liked being in the Corp. He went where they sent him and did what they told him to do. he's in the car.\" \"Don't be certain, corporal. All these strong-arm movements are alike. I'll bet Umluana's lieutenants are hoping he'll become a dead legend. Then they can become live conquerors.\" history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple. battles or after atomic attacks. He had laughed when other recruits complained. \"That's the way this world is. You people with the weak stomachs better get used to it.\" Now he slid against the rear wall of the transmitter booth. men.\" He heard the screams of the wounded, the crack of rifles and machine guns, all the terrifying noise of war. But since his eighteenth year he had done everything his superiors told him to do. out of here. Until it comes, we've got to hold them back.\" Read thought of the green beret he had stuffed in his pocket that morning. He stuck it on his head and cocked it. He didn't need plain clothes anymore and he wanted to wear at least a part of his uniform. Bullets had completely shattered the wall in front of him. He do a good job here, he wasn't the man he claimed to be. This might be the only real test he would ever face. He heard a shout in rapid French. He turned to his right. Men in then try to save ourselves. Once he's gone, I think we ought to surrender.\" the pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A mass frontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill? He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hiding from the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branch above the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body. \"Listen,\" said a German. masks couldn't filter. Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing, mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly. But already the voice of Sergeant Rashid resounded in the murky wants to go hunting with me?\" For two years Read had served under Sergeant Rashid. To him, the devotion to peace had no limits. Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was good enough for the UN they only rejected men whose loyalties might conflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank required something more than a hunger for self-respect. Read had seen the inspector who covered their getaway. He had And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, and pain, had become a part of him. \"I'll take a cocktail, Sarge.\" \"Who else did you expect?\" \"Nobody. Anybody else?\" \"I'll go,\" the Frenchman said. \"Three should be enough. Give us a He heard nothing but the lonely passage of the bullets in the mist. \"I'm a UN man,\" he mumbled. \"You people up there know what a UN man is? You know what happens when you meet one?\" about that. He didn't think about Sergeant Rashid, about the complicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. He had to kill the tank. That was all he thought about. He had decided something in the world was more important than himself, but he didn't know it or realize the psychologists would be surprised to see him do this. He had made many decisions in the last few minutes. He had ceased to think about them or anything else. \"He must have been brave,\" she said. \"We had a fine son.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat does Read's involvement in The Golden Spacemen tell us?\n\n<options>:\nA His lack of dedication to his own country.\nB His propensity for violence.\nC His desire to have a uniform.\nD His need to belong in a group.\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>:\nKrugman's Life of Brian Where it all started: Paul Krugman's \"The Legend of Arthur.\" Letter from John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow Letter from Ted C. Fishman David Warsh's July 3, 1994, Boston Globe Letter from John Cassidy: Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. 1) Krugman claims that my opening sentence--\"In a way, Bill Gates's current troubles with the Justice Department grew out of an economics seminar that took place thirteen years ago, at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government\"--is \"pure fiction.\" Perhaps so, but in that case somebody should tell this to Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. When I interviewed Klein for my piece about the Microsoft case, he singled out Brian Arthur as the economist who has most influenced his thinking about the way in which high-technology markets operate. It was Klein's words, not those of Arthur, that prompted me to use Arthur in the lead of the story. 2) Krugman wrote: \"Cassidy's article tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" I wrote no such thing, and Arthur has never, to my knowledge, claimed any such thing. The notion of increasing returns has been around since Adam Smith, and it was written about at length by Alfred Marshall in 1890. What I did say in my article was that increasing returns was largely ignored by mainstream economists for much of the postwar era, a claim that simply isn't controversial. (As Krugman notes, one reason for this was technical, not ideological. Allowing for the possibility of increasing returns tends to rob economic models of two properties that economists cherish: simplicity and determinism. As long ago as 1939, Sir John Hicks, one of the founders of modern economics, noted that increasing returns, if tolerated, could lead to the \"wreckage\" of a large part of economic theory.) 3) Pace Krugman, I also did not claim that Arthur bears principal responsibility for the rediscovery of increasing returns by economists in the 1970s and 1980s. As Krugman notes, several scholars (himself included) who were working in the fields of game theory and international trade published articles incorporating increasing returns before Arthur did. My claim was simply that Arthur applied increasing returns to high-technology markets, and that his work influenced how other economists and government officials think about these markets. Krugman apart, virtually every economist I have spoken to, including Daniel Rubinfeld, a former Berkeley professor who is now the chief economist at the Justice Department's antitrust division, told me this was the case. (Rubinfeld also mentioned several other economists who did influential work, and I cited three of them in the article.) --John Cassidy Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy: I think that David Warsh's 1994 in the Boston Globe says it all. If other journalists would do as much homework as he did, I wouldn't have had to write that article. Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop: Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. I leave it for others to decide whether I was too gullible in writing Complexity . For the record, however, I would like to inject a few facts into Krugman's story, which he summarizes nicely in the final paragraph: d) But, when I checked the published text, I was chagrined to discover that the critical passage mentioning Krugman wasn't there. e) Only then did I realize what had happened. After I had submitted the manuscript, my editor at Simon & Schuster had suggested a number of cuts to streamline what was already a long and involved chapter on Brian's ideas. I accepted some of the cuts, and restored others--including (I thought) the passage that mentioned Krugman. In the rush to get Complexity to press, however, that passage somehow wound up on the cutting-room floor anyway, and I didn't notice until too late. That oversight was my fault entirely, not my editor's, and certainly not Brian Arthur's. I take full responsibility, I regret it, and--if Simon & Schuster only published an errata column--I would happily correct it publicly. However, contrary to what Professor Krugman implies, it was an oversight, not a breezy disregard of facts for the sake of a good story. --M. Mitchell Waldrop Washington Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop: I am truly sorry that The New Yorker has not yet established a Web presence so that we could include a link directly to the Cassidy piece. However, you can get a pretty good idea of what the piece said by reading the summary of it presented in \"Tasty Bits from the Technology Front.\" Cassidy did not present a story about one guy among many who worked on increasing returns. On the contrary: He presented a morality play in which a lonely hero struggled to make his ideas heard against the unified opposition of a narrow-minded profession both intellectually and politically conservative. As TBTF's host--not exactly a naive reader--put it, \"These ideas were anathema to mainstream economists in 1984 when Arthur first tried to publish them.\" That morality play--not the question of who deserves credit--was the main point of my column, because it is a pure (and malicious) fantasy that has nonetheless become part of the story line people tell about increasing returns and its relationship to mainstream economics. The fact, which is easily documented, is that during the years that, according to the legend, increasing returns was unacceptable in mainstream economics, papers about increasing returns were in fact being cheerfully published by all the major journals. And as I pointed out in the chronology I provided with the article, even standard reference volumes like the Handbook of International Economics (published in 1984, the year Arthur supposedly met a blank wall of resistance) have long contained chapters on increasing returns. Whatever the reason that Arthur had trouble getting his own paper published, ideological rigidity had nothing to do with it. The point is that it's not just a matter of failing to cite a few more people. Your book, like the Cassidy article, didn't just tell the story of Brian Arthur\n\n<question>:\nWhere was John Cassidy’s piece published?\n\n<options>:\nA Simon & Schuster\nB The Boston Globe\nC Handbook of International Economics\nD The New Yorker\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "D"
}
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2,114 | 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>:\nSo I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some of the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction. Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating she said she'd be gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard during her absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk for her favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, and she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which window. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirty because I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San Francisco International Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, it seems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapement it amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me out the window. \"Where are we?\" she asked in a surprised voice. I told her at her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so I contented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think about The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up past the train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my own alarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. 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 soon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm my mouth was dry and my mind napkin. 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 balance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I tried to close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, the like trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could not afford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my hold until it came to a dead stop. \"Anything the matter?\" \"You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head back and forth.\" \"Must have been dreaming,\" I said as I rang for the stewardess. When she came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else, just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammy the landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel would start again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still. I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybe 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 my eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tugging and pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. \"Were you really asleep that time?\" \"Not really,\" I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject to fits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longest minutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel when 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 immobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. stared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presented \"Cab?\" I shook my head. \"Just waiting.\" Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. through my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfied me. I should not have been there, that much I knew 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. whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own business. clock again. \"Can I help you?\" the clerk asked. \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\" I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against the \"Do you have my suitcase?\" 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?\" The girl said, \"Why?\" I was beginning to think it was the only word she I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, \"All right, but—\" range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. \"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?\" she said stiffly. \"My husband.\" I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got control again. \"This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my must have put the—put it in there.\" I said gently, \"Why would he want to do a thing like that?\" \"I don't know.\" She shook her head. \"I just don't know.\" And she was close to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, \"I'm not sure I \"It's all right now?\" she asked. I nodded. \"As long as we don't move it.\" I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd been thinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell the 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. \"We've got to get it deactivated,\" I said, watching the fat man pay for his coffee and leave. \"The sooner the better.\" I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her. I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the other people had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busy for a long while. \"She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried. She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab.\" She smiled a little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was all for me. \"That's where I was going when you caught up with me.\" Julia's bag in his right hand, The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, \"We'd better get over to the office.\" shattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. 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>:\nWhich is the best description of how Julia reacted to the narrator trying to take her bag?\n\n<options>:\nA She was surprised enough by the request that she wasn't quite sure how to react\nB She was unsettled because a strange man had approached her trying to take her things\nC She was nervous because she thought the narrator had figured out her plan and the existence of the bomb\nD She was frustrated with him for further delaying her already postponed trip\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,625 | 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>:\nPLANET of DREAD By MURRAY LEINSTER Illustrator ADKINS The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly. He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew he was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors. system in which human beings belonged had turned out to be infinitely complicated. It had turned out, in fact, to be the ecological system of subtly or glaringly wrong. So mankind distastefully ferried pests as well as useful creatures to its new worlds as they were made ready for settlement. Mosquitos throve on the inhabited globes of the Rim Stars. Roaches twitched nervous antennae on the settled planets of the Coal-sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, and scratched their bites, and humanity spread through the galaxy with an attendant train of insects and annoyances. If they left their pests behind, the total system of checks and balances which make life practical would get lopsided. It system had been a vast glaring disk off to port, with streamers and prominences erupting about its edges. Now it lay astern, and Moran could see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was a cloudy world. There were some dim markings near one lighted limb, but nowhere else. There was an ice-cap in view. The rest was—clouds. The ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planet rotated at a not unreasonable rate. The fact that it was water-ice told . Something had been left out of the seeding of this planet. The element—which might be much. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in the planet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would not a bacterium or a virus or almost anything at all—the element that kept creatures at the size called \"normal\" was either missing or inoperable told about temperature-distribution on the planet. A large cap would have meant a large area with arctic and sub-arctic temperatures, with hydrochloric-acid ice. But the ice-cap was simple snow. Its size, too, allow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid or small temperate and tropical climate-belts. A small one like this meant approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with no reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the four-man crew watched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. Burleigh said encouragingly speaker. It wasn't a voice-signal. It wasn't an identification beacon, such as are placed on certain worlds for the convenience of interstellar skippers who need to check their courses on extremely long runs. This was something else. indefinite distance in an indefinite direction from their last unquestioned at any other space-port and take off again—provided the other space-port was one they had clearance for. Without rigid control of space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences of elaborate observational equipment and tri-di star-charts. But smaller craft had to depend on the Galactic Directory. The process would be to find a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets, and its flora and fauna against descriptions in the Directory. That was the way to find out where one was, when one's position became doubtful. The Nadine needed to make a planet-fall for this. innumerable random noises to be heard in supposedly empty space. \"That's a marker,\" Carol announced. \"I saw a costume-story tape once that had that sound in it. It marked a first-landing spot on some planet or other, so the people could find that spot again. It was supposed to be a long time ago, though.\" signal. Please reply.\" \"I think,\" said Carol, \"that we should land. People have been here. If they left a beacon, they may have left an identification of the planet. had cleared for Loris. That was where it should make its next landing. The little yacht went on. All five of its proper company watched as the planet's surface enlarged. The ice-cap went out of sight around the bulge of the globe, but no markings The emergency-kit contained antiseptics, seeds, and a weapon or two, with elaborate advice to castaways. If somebody were wrecked on an even possibly habitable planet, the especially developed seed-strains would provide food in a minimum of time. It was not an encouraging thought, though, and Moran grimaced. off-planet, and fast. But space-travel regulations are especially designed to prevent such escapes. He'd made a pretty good try, at that. One of the controls on space-traffic required a ship on landing to deposit its fuel-block in planet from which they'd carried away a criminal, even though they'd done it unwillingly. Investigation of such a matter might last for months. surface that the planet-wide cloud-level seemed to begin. From there on down it was pure opacity. Anything could exist in that dense, almost distance, and not at all beyond a quarter-mile or so. vegetation on a planet with a sol-type sun. Harper spoke from the direction-finder \"The signal's coming from that mound, yonder.\" the only considerable landmark within the half-mile circle in which The Nadine checked her downward motion. Interplanetary drive is rugged very much like a small boy trailing a stick against a picket fence, only ash-covered stone on which the rested. The enigmatic, dirty-yellow-dirty-red-dirty-blue-and-dirty-black ground-cover hid spare. And meanwhile we'll take a look at that wreck yonder. There might displayed in every action. planet. They looked dubiously at the scorched, indefinite substance which had been ground before the Nadine stone on which the obvious panic. They popped out everywhere. It was suddenly apparent that the top of the soil, here, was a thick and blanket-like sheet over the whitish stuff. The black creatures lived and thrived in tunnels under it. the galaxy, but that's what they are! \" discovered. It had not been practical for men to move onto new planets and subsist upon the flora and fauna they found there. On some new planets life had never gotten started. On such worlds a highly complex operation was necessary before humanity could move in. A complete grow in the new-made dirt and insects to fertilize the plants so they would multiply, and animals and birds to carry the seeds planet-wide. On most planets, to be sure, there were local, aboriginal plants and animals. But still terrestrial creatures had to be introduced if a colony was to feed itself. Alien plants did not supply satisfactory food. So an elaborate adaptation job had to be done on every planet before native and terrestrial living things settled down together. It wasn't impossible that the scuttling things were truly beetles, grown large and monstrous under the conditions of a new planet. And the ground.... \"This ground stuff,\" said Moran distastefully, \"is yeast or some sort of by reaching forward with its fore-part, securing a foothold, and then harshly to the men with him \"It's not a hunting creature on worlds where it's smaller. It's not likely to have turned deadly here. Come on!\" But above all he raged because he was to be marooned here. He could not altogether blame the others. They couldn't land at any colonized world with him on board without his being detected as an extra member of the crew. His fate would then be sealed. But they also would be investigated. Official queries would go across this whole sector of the galaxy, naming five persons of such-and-such description and such-and-such fingerprints, voyaging in a space-yacht of such-and-such size and registration. The world they came from would claim them as \" Look out! It's coming! Kill it! Kill it—. \" , necessarily accepted as a member of her crew.\n\n<question>:\nWhat, within the context of the passage, is a 'marker'?\n\n<options>:\nA A microchip inserted into a person, designating them as a fugitive\nB A safe space for a spacecraft to land on an alien planet\nC A sound picked up on a radar that reveals the closest habitable planet\nD A location on the alien planet that indicates high predatory activity\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
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2,499 | 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 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. 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. 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. 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.\" 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. \"Cities both exist within nations and transcend nations. Their power lies not just in the extent of de jure autonomy ceded or granted by 'higher' levels of government,\" says Bruce Katz, centennial scholar at the Washington DC thinktank the Brookings Institution. \"Rather, cities have de facto power, the result of larger market and demographic forces and environmental imperatives that value proximity, density, connectivity and quality. Smart nations will see themselves as partners to their cities, setting strong platforms for urban prosperity and devolving powers, where appropriate, to give cities the flexibility to perform… Dumb nations will continue to dictate from above, stifling market activity and urban potential.\" But could we go further? Could cities like London declare independence from the UK? London's economy is larger than that of Scotland and Wales combined. \"States will not vanish or surrender their waning sovereignty,\" says Benjamin Barber. \"But cities will meet across frontiers and work together to solve problems. The objective is not an independent London or New York, but interdependent cities collaborating globally. And that is happening.\" London's voters largely wanted to remain a part of the EU and to maintain the city's status as an entrepôt. There is clearly a widening chasm between urban and rural life at the heart of many nations. Visualisations of Austria's recent presidential election showed the issue clearly: the country's cities voted for the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, while the the rural districts went for right-wing nationalist Norbert Hofer (whose legal challenge to the close result has resulted in a rerun being announced for October). And in the USA in November, it's likely that Trump voters will also come from rural areas and Clinton voters from the cities. City dwellers are finding ever more in common with the world's other city dwellers than with their countrymen 50 miles down the road. 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. Of course, cities seceding from their nation states would provide huge headaches for countries whose biggest economic driver had been removed – as well as likely deepening ideological differences between city and rural dwellers. Moreover, cities need the food the countryside provides. Yet for all the potential pitfalls, city states can thrive. Look at Singapore, Hong Kong, or de facto city states like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. One of the most telling characteristics about these four – all of course former British imperial enclaves – is that they are utterly outward looking. To return to the sky analogy, it's the airlines of each of these (Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Etihad) that open up each respective city to the world in the way that the machinery of the Hanse did on the Baltic Sea 600 years ago. And it's the unions each city makes with other places that also look thoroughly Hanseatic in character. A model for modern city states, then. But is it one that we want? \"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\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the author, what is the major factor that will determine if modern nations will adopt a replica of the Hanseatic League?\n\n<options>:\nA Whether a model can exist without creating further disparities among citizens\nB Whether citizens can avoid war and hording of resources without permanent borders\nC Whether urban areas can accommodate the preferences of rural areas\nD Whether urban and rural denizens can orient goals based on shared values\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
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1,533 | 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>:\nVolpla That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. By WYMAN GUIN Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to He looked at the planet a long time and murmured, \"Venus. Pohtah.\" these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy, sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through maintained, was a cosmic one—till I learned the Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor! had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my ranch and the fun would be on. say -yud.\" Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten the clamp. Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had on the ranch. Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed given me the idea of a flying mutant. through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes waved. Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a Modulating alleles had smoothed the freakish into a beautiful pattern. structures. They were lovely, perfect little creatures. \"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out.\" \"From me, of course.\" \"But you love me just the same.\" I opened a bottle of beer and guzzled from it, blew out my breath and looked across the rolling hills and oak woods of our ranch to where the Pacific shimmered. I thought, \"All this and three volplas, too.\" I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, \"Yes, sir, the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun.\" eccentric mutating colony, there had been a decidedly simian appearance in recent years, a long shift from the garbage-dump rats I had started with. But my first volplas were shockingly humanoid. They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within fur as soft as chinchilla. The faces were appealingly humanoid, except proportion to the body as it is in the human. the spar turned backward sharply and ran alongside the wrist almost to the elbow. Powerful wrist muscles could snap it outward and forward. Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out and forward, the lateral skin that had, till now, hung in resting folds them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and decidedly amorous. pair of breasts. The chin and jaw were humanlike instead of simian and My wife just stared at me. \"Have you been drinking the lab alcohol?\" \"I've been drinking the nectar of the gods. My Hera, you're properly married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus.\" She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. \"Wouldn't you just settle for a worldly martini?\" white men enter these hills. When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends. Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I think, are the funniest. \"Darling, are you listening to me?\" my wife asked with impatient \"For heaven's sake, darling,\" my wife complained, \"I told you about Guy's rocket being a success. The papers are full of it. So are the broadcasts.\" Guy on the shoulder. For just a moment, I thought of telling him about my volplas. But only for a moment. A ball of flame appeared at the base of the rocket. Miraculously, the massive tower lifted, seemed for a moment merely to stand there on a The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at once. I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early infants were females, which sped things up considerably. By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own way. appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised Chronicle motored out into the hills to witness this! Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool. They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed \"Before the red men came, did we live here?\" naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near. The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful strokes. I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla across the sky. The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a little. He veered giddily in the new direction and again dropped like a molten arrow. The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did something I would not have anticipated—he opened his planes and shot lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and stood looking back at us. The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her own. The girl who had raised the birds from the tree volplaned back to us, yammering like a bluejay. strutted in like every human hunter. his wonder. \"You say we came from there?\" language, Pohtah.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow does the volplas' culture differ from traditional human Western culture?\n\n<options>:\nA Volplas have a superior morality.\nB Volplas have larger families.\nC Volplas care for their children.\nD Volplas can be promiscuous.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
2,406 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nTO EACH HIS STAR \"Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. the red rim around it.\" believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken how they would die—not knowing within maybe thousands of light years drifted together, four men in bulbous pressure suits like small 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 if only a man's brain would hold up, Russell thought. The suits were which sent a man a few hundred thousand miles further on toward Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third, knew too, but were afraid to admit it. But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun crazy the four of them had blanked out and nobody could say now how that they were millions of light years from any place he had ever heard about, where the galactic space lanterns had absolutely no more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling optimism—because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and calling their destination Paradise. Russell wanted to laugh, but the last time he'd given way to this of the old man. Sometimes he thought about the ship, lost back there would laugh that high piping squawking laugh of his and say that the When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a 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 had ever been, loaded with treasure that had no name, that no one had ever heard of before. And was, because of that, the richest treasure of all. We all look alike out here in these big rocket pressure suits, Russell thought. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old us. Four suns. You guys see those other three suns all around you, \"So now,\" Johnson said, \"there's two suns with red rims around them.\" \"We're about in the middle of those four suns aren't we, Dunbar?\" \"You're still sure it's the sun up ahead ... that's the only one with \"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!\" \"And none of these other three suns have worlds we could live on, worlds but ashes ... just ashes and iron and dried blood, dried a million years or more.\" I been here. I remember those four suns all spotted to form a perfect all these suns and the worlds that go round 'em. Trust me, boys, and we'll reach the right one. And that one's just like Paradise.\" \"Paradise and there we'll be like gods, like Mercuries with wings flying on nights of sweet song. These other suns, don't let them and pretty and waiting and calling and lying! They make you think of nice green worlds all running waters and dews and forests thick as fleas on a wet dog. But it ain't there, boys. I know this place. I in—that'll be paradise enough for us. But it'll take a long time won't it? And what if it isn't there—what if after all the time we spend hoping and getting there—there won't be nothing but ashes and cracked clay?\" We explored all these sun systems. And I remember it all. The second bobbing neck, his simpering watery blue eyes. But he still had to knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all the time. four of them hurtled along. \"You never know where you'll find people on a world somewhere nobody's ever named or knows about. Places where a lost ship's landed and never got up again, or wrecked itself so far off the lanes they'll never be found except by accident for millions of years. That's what this world is, boys. Must have been a ship load every night of a long long year....\" it's paradise ain't it, compared with that prison hole we were rotting in? We can make it. We have the food concentrates, and all the rest. the old will-power.\" direction. And then someone says maybe they'd better go back the old years or so some lousy insect man from Jupiter comes along and finds inherited from Earth. Then he saw how the other two stars also were beginning to develop red right. That sun to the right, and the one behind us ... now they ALL motion. Dunbar laughed. \"Sure, they all maybe have a touch of red, but it It was something he had had to do for a long time and that made it self-sealing. Nothing appeared to have changed. The four of them \"I did it for the three of us,\" Russell said. \"It was either him or us. don't tell me you guys don't see the red rims around all four suns, all \"How could he see any difference in those four stars?\" Russell said, thought? And up ahead the old man's pressure suit with a corpse inside went on ahead, leading the other three at the front of the does a crazy man's laugh sound so good when you're desperate and don't Russell said, \"I've had a hunch all along that maybe the old man was here before, and that he was right about there being a star here with a hunch all along that the right star was the one to the left.\" matter to me.\" \"How can we tell which of us is right?\" Alvar said. \"It's like none of those suns had red rims, and at other times—like the old man that star to the left—\" \"That's it,\" said Alvar. \"There's three suns that look like they might the chance is three to one against us. But if each of us makes for one star, one of us has a chance to live. Maybe not in paradise like the intelligent life, maybe even a ship, and whoever gets the right star Alvar said, \"We each take the star he likes best. I'll go back the above his own yelling he could hear Johnson's rising laughter. \"Every guy's got a star of his own,\" Johnson said when he stopped laughing. \"And we got ours. A nice red-rimmed sun for each of us to call his sun.\" Someday he'll get to that red-rimmed star of his. Out here in space, aloneness even before Alvar and Johnson used their life-guns and shot red-rimmed sun behind them. Fading, he could hear their voices. \"Each to his own star,\" Johnson closed his eyes. \"Maybe,\" he thought, \"I shouldn't have killed the old man. Maybe one sun's as good as another....\" \"An old man,\" one of them mused. \"A very old man. From one of the lost \"Yes,\" another of them said. \"But what amazes me is that this old man picked this planet out of all the others. The only one in this entire sector that would sustain life.\" \"Maybe he was just a very lucky old man. Yes ... a man who attains such an age was usually lucky. Or at least that is what they say about the lost sectors.\" courage, and that he knew the way. He will be given a burial suitable to his stature, and he will rest here among the brave. the path above which the women will carry him to rest.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the four men seek/value most in a star? That no one had ever heard of it before\n\n<options>:\nA obscurity of location\nB population of women\nC geographical features\nD prevalence of riches\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,112 | 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>:\nGambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. In today's dispatch, we learn how gambling's foes seek to demonize wagering as a pernicious tobaccolike vice. In yesterday's dispatch, gambling's foes learn the folly of having brought their anti-sin crusade to an adult Disneyland. Tuesday's overpowering show of force by the Nevada gambling aristocracy has had at least one audible effect on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Wednesday, even commission Chair Kay Coles James, a gambling skeptic, succumbs to the hideous Vegas euphemism: She begins referring to the \"gaming industry.\" 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. It is starting to become clear what that report will say. The commission won't (and can't) take any grand stand against gambling. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. It will probably propose that casinos and state lotteries fund gambling-addiction research and that casinos take much stronger measures to bar problem gamblers from wagering. The commission may recommend that gaming taxes be used to underwrite treatment of pathological gamblers and that insurance companies be encouraged to cover gambling addiction. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. 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. 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.\" 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. \"My goodness, no politician can withstand their resources,\" Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the commission's leading gambling opponent, tells me. The industry's political clout has emasculated the commission, Dobson continues: \"Our report won't be acted on by the president or Congress. They are too heavily influenced by gambling money. Almost all the leaders of Congress are on the dole.\" It has also become obvious that the commission has too many pro-gambling members to produce a report that recommends taxes or other real penalties on the industry. So the commission's two day visit to Gomorrah has been transformed from a charged political event to a kind of victory lap for gaming. Nevada Gov. Bob Miller and the \"gaming visionaries\" have been planning for these hearings for months, hoping to use them to demonstrate the might and sanctity and goodness of the Nevada gambling industry. The hearings, too, reinforce the Glorious Las Vegas theme. Frank Fahrenkopf, the industry's top lobbyist (who is paid so much he can afford monogrammed shirt cuffs --I saw them), holds forth cheerfully outside the ballroom, celebrating the electoral triumph of freedom over religious moralist tyranny. Inside, the room is packed with more than 600 people in neon lime green T-shirts that read \"Unions and Gaming: Together for a Better Life.\" They are members of the major casino union, here to cheer on their employers and their union. (Most of them, it must be said, are getting paid to do this.) Later in the day, Nevada's senators and both its congressmen appear to chew out the commission for even thinking that Nevada might have a dark side. They pay tribute to Nevada's sophisticated gambling industry, especially its regulation (much stricter than other gambling states) and its use of gambling taxes to fund state services. It is one of the ironies of Nevada politics that its Republican congressmen (Jim Gibbons and John Ensign) end up crediting their state's success to government regulation and corporate taxation. 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.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the author think the casino owners will actively support the gaming commission's recommendations for regulation?\n\n<options>:\nA They'll support the regulations because focusing on compulsive gamblers, makes the problem seem like a medical one.\nB They'll support the regulations because it makes them look good in the eyes of the public.\nC They'll support the regulations so they don't lose their liquor licenses.\nD They'll support the regulations to pacify the Focus on the Family groups.\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "A"
}
] |
1,499 | quality | [
{
"human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMore Bang for the Buck A friend of mine offers a theory about why Bill Clinton's poll numbers stayed so high throughout the Lewinsky scandal: The news made it possible for serious-minded people to spend lots of time--at the office and over lunch--talking about semen stains, vaginal insertions, and blow jobs. And the people were grateful. A woman I know says women's magazines are the best places in America to find sex tips. She's right--go ahead, just try to find a sewing pattern in Redbook . You're much more likely to land on \"Try phone sex, dirty notes, porn videos, fantasy games and sex in new places. ... Try lingerie and no underwear. ... Try talking dirty and silk scarves. Try anything at all,\" or articles such as \"Eight New Games for the Foreplay Challenged.\" An article in the April Cosmopolitan , \"The Six Best Sex Positions,\" seemed more promising than the Redbook playbook. Each position was accompanied by a succinct write-up and a stick-figure diagram. The position we settled on was \"The Butterfly,\" which we had to read three times to comprehend. The man stands, the woman remains supine on a bed or counter-top with her feet up on his shoulders. The whole idea is to produce a pelvic tilt for better access to the G spot. Instead, we experienced an uncomfortable pretzel feeling that stick figures must be immune to. And in general, Cosmopolitan 's exotic sex positions require the sort of body placement you can't remember in the moment of passion and even if you could, for proper alignment, you still might need mood-killing accessories such as a plumb line and a laser pen. Rating: 3 toes curled. Next we tried those \"Better Sex\" instructional videos advertised in the New York Times Book Review. I ordered Better Sexual Techniques , Advanced Sexual Techniques , Making Sex Fun , and Advanced Oral Sex Techniques (priced about $11.95 each, not including shipping and handling). My wife couldn't bear to watch them Wiley's overexplanation of everything two people can do to each other with their mouths raises this question: Do you really need a five-minute video segment on whether or not to swallow? In the great tradition of hotel and travel ads, the guys tend to be markedly less attractive than the women. No way he'd be with her if this wasn't an instructional sex video! The inanity of the experts and the dubious casting make these films about as erotic as ... well, as the New York Times . You could learn more from any randomly selected porn video. Rating: 0 toes curled. Another approach is food. The notion that certain foods, such as oysters or rhino horn, are aphrodisiacs has been pretty much discounted. But it's plausible to think that cooking a meal together and then dining on it, just the two of you, could be erotic. Especially if (like me) your schedule frequently forces you to eat alone and you often find yourself standing in front of the microwave, screaming, \"Come on, goddammit!\" Intercourses , by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge ($24.95, Terrace Publishing, 1997), preaches that for every time of day and every phase of a relationship there is a type of eating experience that will heighten sexual response. (There's also a chart showing which foods are good for eating off which body parts.) Deb and I blocked off a whole Saturday afternoon and evening for the Intercourses experiment, settling on rosemary-scented lamb over pasta (Page 87) followed by frozen coffee almond dessert (Page 31). According to the book, rosemary is sexy because of its fragrance (used in many perfumes) and because of its texture, which, so the text assured, tickles nerve endings. The dessert was mostly coffee, rum, and Kahlua, which has worked before. We each decided to take one pill, clinked our glasses, and gulped. And then what? It felt awkward sitting in our bedroom, knowing that it could take up to an hour for Viagra to \"work.\" I suggested that we play strip poker, something I'd never done. Deb had never even played poker, so I had to explain the rules. I won in about six hands, auspiciously I thought, with three aces. But we still weren't really in the mood yet. So then I got out the other purchase I'd made at A Touch of Romance--\"Dirty Dice\" ($4.95). One of the two pink cubes is marked with these words instead of dots: \"lips,\" \"above waist,\" \"ear,\" \"breast,\" \"below waist,\" and \"?\". The other cube is labeled \"kiss,\" \"squeeze,\" \"lick,\" \"blow,\" \"suck,\" and \"eat.\" We took turns throwing the dice, but the activities generated seemed forced and arbitrary. Finally, as they say at NASA, there was word from the pad that the launch sequence was initiating. It was pretty much like all other sex, except for a slight lightheadedness. Deb said she noticed a remote tingling sensation. On the plus side, there was no priapism and neither of us experienced disruption of our color vision nor a fatal heart attack, which was nice. Overall rating: 5 toes curled. St. Augustine held lust to be a fitting punishment for man's disobedience to God: the body's disobeying of the mind, the will, the spirit, and even of itself. (The paradigm of this for him is the unbidden hard-on.) Jean-Paul Sartre discovered something similar, although celebrating it rather than deploring it: Essential to the erotic is the body's defiance of design and control. (The paradigm of this for him is the jiggle.) Sartre's view yields a sort of sexual Heisenberg principle: There is an inherent tension between physically abandoning yourself to another on the one hand and sexual planning on the other. The more of the one, the less of the other. And this, I discovered, is the chief obstacle to sexual self-help. Getting an erection is sexy. Making one is not. As my wife said about Viagra, \"You start to have a new feeling and then you realize where it came from and then you don't have it so much. ... Anything that makes you think about it like that is just creepy.\" This is not to say there isn't a way out of this conflict between desire and design. With homage to our potent POTUS, there is, I think, a Third Way that's neither sexual complacency nor standard self-help. If the intrusion of consciousness is the problem, then maybe the answer is to block it out. Sure, you could do this the old-fashioned way: with alcohol and drugs. But then you have all the traditional drawbacks, including diminished physical attractiveness and degraded sexual performance. So how about this instead? Go for all the sexual self-help you can, but do it covertly . Watch a sex video (or porn flick) if you want--but by yourself, and then try to share what you learned without sharing how you learned it. Don't tell your partner you took Viagra. Or give each other standing permission to slip it into the odd after-dinner drink, saying nothing. (Of course, when you do it you'll still know, but having an unselfconsciously turned-on partner is a real compensation for that, and next time, your partner can surprise you. And yes, this requires trust. But why would you be having sex with someone you don't trust?) My main conclusion is that contrary to our blabby culture, the key to a better sex life is less communication.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the best description of the author's view on a nightcap?\n\n<options>:\nA Alcohol is just another drug, and intimacy should be limited to natural influences only\nB A drink here and there is fine as long as you don't go overboard\nC Drinking will make it harder to remember the details of your plans for a romantic evening and should be avoided\nD A drink will make you seem more attractive to your partner, and can help you out\n\n<answer>:\n",
"assistant": "B"
}
] |
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