Subset (3)

instruct · 4.61k rows

Split (2)

train · 2.52k rows

conversation_id int64 1 2.52k	category stringclasses 1 value	conversation list
2,148	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\"He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's leaving the Farm. I talk to him, I sweat him down, I do everything but tie him to the bed, and I waste my time. He's leaving the Farm. Period.\" \"So you bring him down here,\" said Lessing sourly. \"The worst place he could be, if something's really wrong.\" He looked across at the boy. \"I don't want to go back to the Farm,\" said the boy. \"Why?\" \"I just don't. I hate it there.\" \"Then what?\" monitor is for, don't you?\" \"It stops things from going out.\" \"That's right. And it stops things from going in. It's an insulator. You need it badly. It would hurt you a great deal if you took it off, away from the Farm.\" The boy fought back tears. \"But I don't want to go back there—\" The fear-pattern was alive again on the tape. \"I don't feel good there. I Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck up daytime hours. He knew that his real work was at the Farm—yet he hadn't even been to the Farm in over six weeks. And now, as the book The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the book would clear away the fog. He scanned the title page proudly. \"A Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development.\" A good title—concise, commanding, yet modest. They would read it, all right. Lessing sat back slowly. \"Tell me—just what, exactly, do you want?\" \"I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of 'Theory',\" Melrose said. \"I want to see this famous Farm of yours up in Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want \"According to your Theory, that is.\" Farm this afternoon.\" The girl nodded, then hesitated. \"But what about your lunch?\" \"Bother lunch.\" He gave Melrose a sidelong glare. \"We've got a guest to measure didn't make sense in a statistical analysis.\" something \"And you don't know your instruments measure whatever they're measuring.\" The Chicago man's face was thoughtful. \"In fact, you can't really be certain that your instruments are measuring the children at all. It's not inconceivable that the or another, for centuries. The fact that it doesn't seem to be bound by it isn't governed by natural law. But how can we define the law? How more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults. Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We more.\" Lessing paused, packing tobacco into his pipe. \"That's why we have the Farm—to try to discover why. What forces that potential underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get at it any more?\" \"We think we might be near an answer. We have a theory that explains The shuttle car bounced sharply as it left the highway automatics. Dorffman took the controls. In a few moments they were skimming through the high white gates of the Farm, slowing down at the entrance to a long, low building. \"All right, young man—come along,\" said Lessing. \"I think we can show you our answer.\" In the main office building they donned the close-fitting psionic monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source. \"The major problem,\" Lessing said, \"has been to shield the children from any external psionic stimuli, except those we wished to expose them to. Our goal is a perfectly controlled psi environment. The works—why blame us?\" They were walking down the main corridor and out through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A across the field a group of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia was in heavy use. The place was teeming with youngsters, all shouting in a one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars. They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress. \"Some of our children are here only briefly,\" Lessing explained as they walked along, \"and some have been here for years. We maintain a top-ranking curriculum—your idea of a 'country day school' wasn't so far afield at that—with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center funds. Other children come to us—foundlings, desertees, children from broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions where they can develope what potential they have— without the presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject to. The results have been remarkable.\" He led them into a long, narrow room with chairs and ash trays, facing a wide grey glass wall. The room fell into darkness, and through the grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing in a large room. \"They're perfectly insulated from us,\" said Lessing. \"A variety of Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of activity. \"What are they doing?\" Melrose asked after watching the children a few moments. \"Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually, somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred on the same scale.\" Lessing smiled. \"This is an isolated phenomenon—it doesn't hold for any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to place them together—they drew each other like magnets. One of our want you to watch this very closely.\" He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall. The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out of place.... Then, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children what danger you're in? If you publish your book now, you will become to throw them off and keep going.\" \"He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after the theory.\" \"So it seems. But why?\" to, you mean. And therefore, anything he says about it carries more weight than what anybody else says. Other workers follow Farm.\" \"Yes, I know.\" Lessing's voice was weary. \"But first I think we'd you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy—\" She broke off helplessly. \"He's sick, Doctor. He's sicker than we ever imagined.\" \"What happened?\" She hurried them down the corridor and opened a door into a large children's playroom. \"See what you think.\" The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they came in, but there was no flicker of recognition or pleasure on his \"Why do you hurt?\" physical blow, the hate and fear and suspicion and cruelty buried and repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors of the child's mind like a smothering fog—it was a fearful thing. A this youngster was sick— And yet an animal instinctively seeks its own protection . With sense of warmth—peace and security and comfort—swept in as the fear We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes according to the theory—except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he for.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of the story's title?\n\n<options>:\nA It shows how disorganized Dr. Lessing is, and how his mind cannot stay on a single path\nB It signals the importance of outdoor activity for the development of the children being studied\nC It points to the confusion around the data and potential conclusions in this field of inquiry\nD It represents the environment of The Farm, where the special children live\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,466	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nmiss it. I knew something. \"I don't wash because I drink coffee.\" \"It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it?\" he asked. \"Of course,\" I said, and added absurdly, \"That's why I don't wash.\" \"You mean,\" Andre said slowly, ploddingly, \"that if you bathed, you would be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as any other solitary vice that makes people wash frequently.\" search of what. \"He didn't use that,\" Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all in \"The rest is simple,\" Andre said. \"Doc O'Malley bought up all the stock in a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying members with certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achieved such a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex, even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing on those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. \"Fifteen cents a bed,\" he said mechanically. \"We'll use one bed,\" I told him. \"I'll give you twenty cents.\" I felt the round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. \"Fifteen cents a bed,\" he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. \"We can always make it over to the mission,\" I lied. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but I Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn't for the two bits. That's better'n a bed for twenty.\" I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material needs would not grow and roast coffee. I knew that these words were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I needed to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving that crawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. would help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if they think you are blotto. \"Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work?\" I kept my eyes down. I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. \"Just a dime for a cup of coffee.\" I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe two and a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used, perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. \"Do you want it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?\" I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized that anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hate tourists. \"Just coffee, ma'am.\" She was younger than I was, so I didn't have to call her that. \"A little more for food, if you could spare it.\" I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. \"I'll buy you a dinner,\" she said carefully, \"provided I can go with you and see for myself that you actually eat it.\" I felt my face flushing red. \"You wouldn't want to be seen with a bum It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choice whatever. \"Okay,\" I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It was pale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both hands exhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a pure sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in them—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. \"Now what do you want to eat?\" the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an \"It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey,\" she corrected. She was a \"What do you think of this?\" I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber diner and Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman was I looked up at his stubbled face. \"I had half a dozen hamburgers, a cup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go and a pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if the lady didn't pay you.\" \"She didn't,\" he stammered. \"Why do you think I was trying to get that bill out of your hand?\" I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, I became lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag of hamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring any hungry rats out of the walls. from which he comes.\" The surprise stung. \"How did you know?\" I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. \"To maintain a logical approach, I must into one of his novels of scientific romance.\" creations.\" The doctor flushed darkly. \"You give my literary agent too much credit a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. \"Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering my professional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously.\" Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two great I handed her the doctor's manuscript. had known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but there was something else. \"I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair,\" I told her. She shook her head. \"I don't know what you think it does to you.\" secret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he had his crusades. How can you make money with time travel?\" I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. \"It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money,\" Miss Casey said, \"even if you know what horse will come in and what stock will prosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part of me. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. I needed some coffee. \"He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazines for his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—until he started obtaining books that did not exist .\" snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down the soothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dress that looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber. The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad, unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthy \"I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want?\" on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction and\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Miss Casey give the narrator the piece of paper?\n\n<options>:\nA It was an accident, she had swapped it with the scrap of paper she meant to give the narrator\nB She wanted to pass the order along to Doc, the only person who could find the book\nC It was a ploy to learn more about Doc and what he had developed, so she had more evidence\nD She thought the narrator owed her for her buying him coffee and food, and he could repay her by finding the book\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,167	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nsocial institutions, Mr. Halloway.\" I tried to make him understand my position. \"Look, it's the big-money men who are supposed to be contributing to the support of this college. that—and an institution is where they put Aunt Maggy when she began collecting Wheaties in a stamp album. We can't appeal to them that way. Come on now.\" I smiled condescendingly, knowing it would irritate him. \"What are you doing that's worth anything?\" He glared at me, his white hair bristling and his nostrils dilated like a war horse about to whinny. I can say one thing for them—these in what way?\" I stopped him with both raised hands. \"Please, Professor Caswell! That would hardly be a recommendation. Washington, the New Deal and the present Administration are somewhat touchy subjects to the men I have Prof. Caswell smiled back tightly. He knew his department was at stake. and industry. Caswell had to show a way to make his own department are ways of doing it indirectly. He laid down his book and ran a hand over his ruffled hair. \"Institutions—organizations, that is—\" his voice became more to deliver an essay—\"have certain tendencies built into the way they He was becoming flushed with the pleasure of explaining his subject. \"All through the ages, it has been a matter of wonder and dismay to men that a simple organization—such as a church to worship in, or a delegation of weapons to a warrior class merely for defense against an outside enemy—will either grow insensately and extend its control until it is a tyranny over their whole lives, or, like other organizations set up to serve a vital need, will tend to repeatedly dwindle and vanish, and have to be painfully rebuilt. \"The reason can be traced to little quirks in the way they were organized, a matter of positive and negative power feedbacks. Such mathematics, expressing the human factors of intermeshing authority and Federal corporations. Washington—\" I held up my palm again. \"Please, not that nasty word again. I mean, repressing an urge to hit me with it. He spoke quietly. \"All right, I'll give you a demonstration. Are you \"I wouldn't mind hearing more, but I'm having lunch with some executors of a millionaire's will. They have to be convinced that by, 'furtherance of research into human ills,' he meant that the money \"I see you have your problems, too,\" Caswell said, conceding me I shook hands and left him standing there, sure of his place in the progress of science and the respect of his colleagues, yet seething inside because I, the president and dean, had boorishly demanded that Caswell had to make it work or get out. everything.\" It was a row of little symbols arranged like an algebra equation. One was a concentric spiral going up, like a cross-section of a snowball clear as a sentence. I was impressed and slightly intimidated by it. He had already explained enough so that I knew that, if he was right, here was the growth of the Catholic Church and the Roman Empire, the conquests of Alexander and the spread of the smoking habit and the strength of snow, it breaks apart. Now in human terms—\" The chops and mashed potatoes and peas arrived. He was deep in the symbology of human motives and the equations of reason why the members would lose if any of them resigned, and some indirect way they could use to force each other to stay in.\" \"The first is the chain letter principle,\" he nodded. \"I've got that. The other....\" He put the symbols through some mathematical manipulation so that a special grouping appeared in the middle of the equation. \"That's it.\" Since I seemed to have the right idea, I suggested some more, and he added some, and juggled them around in different patterns. We threw out a few that would have made the organization too complicated, and finally worked out an idyllically simple and deadly little organization setup where joining had all the temptation of buying a sweepstakes ticket, going in deeper was as easy as hanging around a race track, and with him the President of the University, leaning across the table toward each other, sipping coffee and talking in conspiratorial tones over something they were writing in a notebook. That was us. stood up, bowing to polite applause and smiles. \"Professor Caswell, and I pointed out to Caswell the member I thought would be the natural half doze while Caswell stayed awake beside me and wrote in his I nudged Caswell and murmured, \"Did you fix it so that a shover has a \"I think there's a way they could find for it,\" Caswell whispered back, she After the meeting, Caswell drew the tall woman in the green suit If Caswell's equations meant anything at all, we had given that sewing circle more growth drives than the Roman Empire. how the test was coming along. Passing Caswell's office, I put my head \"Caswell, about that sewing club business—I'm beginning to feel the suspense. Could I get an advance report on how it's coming?\" \"I'm not following it. We're supposed to let it run the full six months.\" \"But I'm curious. Could I get in touch with that woman—what's her answered with a bored drawl: down on top of the graph of membership in the sewing circle. No more members.... Poor Caswell. The bet between us was ironclad. He wouldn't let me back down on it even if I wanted to. He'd probably quit before I put through the first slow move to fire him. His professional pride would be shattered, sunk without a trace. I remembered what he said about shooting himself. It had seemed funny to both of us at the time, but.... What a mess that And what if Caswell asked me what I had found out in the meantime? I hand it back, she retreated. \"Oh, you can keep it. It's the new one. Everyone's supposed to have it. We've just printed up six thousand copies to make sure there'll be enough to last.\" \" All we need is more members. Now get out there and recruit! \" All I told Caswell when I got back was that the sewing circle had fusion, but keeping the same constitution—the constitution with the bright promise of advantages as long as there were always new members being brought in. And good prospects of being pulled in with them, ideas, ambitions and all. member with its contractual obligations and its lures, if the inert, cantankerous, or both. Caswell's formula could be a handle to grasp them with. Gratitude alone would bring money into the university in carload lots. were spectacular. Caswell's formulas were proven to the hilt. \"Perfect, Wilt, perfect well and you're satisfied?\" He was definitely putting on a chill. We were friends now, but obviously he was still peeved whenever he was reminded that I had doubted that his theory could work. And he was using its success to rub my nose in the realization that I had been wrong. A man with a string of degrees after his name is just as human as anyone else. I had needled him pretty hard that first time. \"I'm satisfied,\" I acknowledged. \"I was wrong. The formulas work grow . It falls apart naturally when built in as one of the incentives that the members know they are going to lose if membership stops growing. Why, if I tried to stop it now, they'd cut my throat.\" I had seen. They probably would. \"No,\" he continued. \"We'll just let it play out to the end of its tether and die of old age.\" \"When will that be?\" The graph on the desk before me began to look sinister. Surely Caswell must have made some provision for— \"You underestimate their ingenuity,\" I said into the phone. \"Since they contractual, open to all. That social dividend sounds like a Technocrat climbed on the band wagon, eh?\" Allowing for a lag of contagion from one nation to another, depending on how much their citizens intermingled, I'd give the rest of the world about twelve years. There was a long silence while Caswell probably drew the same graph so. What happens then, I don't know. But I don't want anyone to pin that on me. From now on, if anyone asks\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between Caswell and the protagonist?\n\n<options>:\nA They're coworkers\nB One is the other's boss\nC They're old friends\nD They're brothers\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
455	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey were still separated, two on one side of the airlock, two on the Trouble was—their friendship was as dangerous as their hate! \"Nope.\" \"We'll get static on these things.\" A small infinity seemed to pass very slowly. bitterly. There was a wait during which everyone seemed to be holding their \"Well,\" Lt. Chandler commented, \"even though we didn't build this thing to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.\" \"I guess I was just—\" Major Winship began. \"Oh, hell! We're losing though it were breathing and then it ruptured. Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which \"We've lost about three feet of calk out here,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"I \"Not yet.\" \"I don't think I've got enough pressure left to hold it, now. It's sprung a little, and I can't get it to conform over the rivet heads.\" \"Damn!\" Major Winship said, \"they should have made these things more flexible.\" floor. \"Come on in,\" he said dryly. With the four of them inside, it was somewhat cramped. Most of the five hundred square feet was filled with equipment. Electrical cables trailed loosely along the walls and were festooned from the ceiling, space was more restricted than in a submarine, with the bunks jutting out from the walls about six feet from the floor. no comment was forthcoming, he continued: \"Perhaps we built a bit more strongly, Major.\" this leak fixed. Skip, can you get the calking compound?\" haven't got all day.\" A few minutes later, Lt. Chandler issued the triumphant cry. \"Here it is! Dozen tubes. Squeeze tubes. It's the new stuff.\" They huddled over the instruction sheet. \"Let's see. Squeeze the tube until the diaphragm at the nozzle ruptures. Extrude paste into seam. Allow to harden one hour before \"As long as they'll loan us the calking compound,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"Let's eat.\" \"You got any concentrate? I'm empty.\" \"I'll load you,\" Capt. Wilkins volunteered wearily. It was an awkward operation that took several minutes. Capt. Wilkins cursed twice during the operation. \"I'd hate to live in this thing for any period.\" \"I think these suits are one thing we've got over the Russians,\" Major Winship said. \"I don't see how they can manipulate those bulky pieces of junk around.\" They ate. \"Really horrible stuff.\" \"Nutritious.\" \"I was just thinking.... They really got it made, Larry. They've got better than three thousand square feet in the main dome and better than twelve hundred square feet in each of the two little ones. And there's only seven of them right now. That's living.\" \"They've been here six years longer, after all.\" office is about ten by ten. Think of that. One hundred square feet. And a wooden desk. A wooden desk. And a chair. A wooden chair. Everything big and heavy. Everything. Weight, hell. Fifty pounds more or less—\" \"They've got the power-plants for it.\" \"Do you think he did that deliberately?\" Major Winship asked. \"I think \"That's the thing. That's the thing that gripes me, know what I mean? It's just insane to send up a heavy wooden desk. That's showing off. Like a little kid.\" \"Maybe they don't make aluminum desks.\" \"However,\" he continued, \"we did experience a minor leak in the dome, has tendered their official apology. You want it?\" \"It can wait until later. Send it by mail for all I care. Vacuum has destroyed our organic air reconditioner. We have approximately three necessary replacement.\" The wait of a little better than three seconds for the response gave the conversation a tone of deliberation. I never felt so ... idiotic is not quite strong enough ... there for a minute in my whole life. I didn't know how much emergency air was left, and I thought, my God, I'll never live this down. All the hams in the Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler returned with the calking compound. It occupied the rear section of the land car. Lt. Chandler sat atop it. It was a fifty-five gallon drum. \"That,\" said Capt. Lawler, \"is the calking compound.\" \"I am not kidding.\" Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler came inside. Capt. Wilkins mounted a bunk. \"Why didn't you just borrow a cupful?\" Major Winship said sarcastically. \"It's this way,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"They didn't have anything but 55-gallon drums of it.\" \"Oh, my,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"I suppose it's a steel drum. Those things must weigh....\" \"Actually, I think you guys have got the general wrong,\" Capt. Lawler \"Well, like I said, it's this way,\" Lt. Chandler resumed. \"I told him we needed about a pint. Maybe a quart. But this stuff you have to mix up. He only had these drums. There's two parts to it, and you have to combine them in just the right proportion. He told me to take a little scale—\" \"A little scale?\" asked Capt. Wilkins, rolling his eyes at the dome. \"That's what I told him. We don't have any little scale.\" \"Yeah,\" said Captain Lawler, \"and he looked at us with that mute, surprised look, like everybody, everywhere has dozens of little scales.\" \"Well, anyway,\" Lt. Chandler continued, \"he told us just to mix up the whole fifty-five gallon drum. There's a little bucket of stuff that goes in, and it's measured just right. We can throw away what we don't need.\" \"Somehow, that sounds like him,\" Major Winship said. \"He had five or six of them.\" \"Jesus!\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"That must be three thousand pounds of calking compound. Those people are insane.\" It's supposed to be mixed thoroughly.\" They thought over the problem for a while. \"That will be a man-sized job,\" Major Winship said. \"We're going to have to bring the drum in,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"Well,\" said Capt. Lawler, \"that will make it nice and cozy.\" It took the four of them to roll the drum inside, rocking it back and forth through the airlock. At that time, it was apparent the table was interposing itself. Lt. Chandler tried to dismantle the table. \"Damn these suits,\" he said. carried it around the drum of calking compound and set it down. It \"Now, let's go,\" said Major Winship. Eventually, they accomplished the moving. They wedged the drum between the main air-supply tank and the transmitter. They were all perspiring. \"It's not the weight, it's the mass,\" said Capt. Wilkins brightly. \"The hell it isn't the weight,\" said Lt. Chandler. \"That's heavy.\" \"No!\" Major Winship snapped. With the drum of calking compound inside, both Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler retreated to the bunks. Capt. Wilkins maneuvered the mixing attachment. \"I feel crowded,\" he said. \"Cozy's the word.\" \"Watch it! Watch it! You almost hit me in the face plate with that!\" temporarily engaged with each other. Movement was somewhat ungainly in the space suits under the best of conditions, and now, with the necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them from behind, and they spewed forth from the dome in a tangle of arms and legs. like shrapnel.\" They obeyed. \"What—what—what?\" Capt. Lawler stuttered.\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the problem with the tubes of calking compound that the crew was trying to use?\n\n<options>:\nA They were hardening too fast when connected with air\nB They took too long to harden and dry\nC They were expired and unusable\nD They were too small to fill what they needed\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,517	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nI admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old Which are you? important as parchment, \"tonight Man will reach the Moon. The golden Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night when this is to happen.\" \"Tonight,\" Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled and \" \"Sure,\" the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc's but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winos in Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have been in a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying members The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight. with certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the doors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happen or the Necronomican if we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, for all I knew. back into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper than psychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powers . They weren't men aliens of ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books, the inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached a state of pure thought.\" \"The North American government flophouse doors. has to have this secret, Kevin,\" the The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one of those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but I ad vance.\" Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn't it because I didn't want the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose, I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. \"Give me a nickel,\" I said. \"What nickel?\" His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me. confident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material needs would not grow and roast coffee. and that did to shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all the bedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burning eyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was so my mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so I concentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow their habit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They were suddenly distinguishable. \" Outsider ... ... Seven ... ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... ... Jimmy Christopher ... ... Oh, are ... see ....\" The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both dropped screaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have a nickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasy Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across his He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm back across his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places like that. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back, drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealing mouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearing upper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized it I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized I felt my face flushing red. \"You wouldn't want to be seen with a bum pale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both hands to feel its warmth. Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink of exhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in them—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. hour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernails and raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba, almost in a single movement of my jaws. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly I \"It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey,\" she corrected. She was a of course . Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet and thought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell the girl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that \"Happy to, miss,\" I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, \"The Scarlet Book\" revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ and Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. \"She didn't,\" he stammered. \"Why do you think I was trying to get that bar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on the sidewalk, only in the doorways. First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neon light was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a window somewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing and the one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they had changed around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. start. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom. His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed \"springs\"—metal before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebook against the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. and time from which he comes.\" The surprise stung. \"How did you know?\" I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. \"To maintain a logical approach, I must reject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—and I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. \"But the other—\" ever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perception to Relativity and the positron and negatron. \"Interesting.\" He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke. \"Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensory Perception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be. the goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosed redhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed the unknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. \"Withdrawal symptoms.\" The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly building up behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. He was not really a snowbird. ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But I \"It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money,\" Miss Casey I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dress that looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber. The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad, unreasonably happy. \"They always do,\" I told him. \"They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received a \"But, Kevin,\" Andre said, \"you aren't that dirty.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Miss Casey's face flash red?\n\n<options>:\nA Because she is ready to kill Kevin.\nB Because she is human.\nC Because she is furious.\nD Because of the neon lights.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,289	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>:\nworld requires for a healthy and comfortable life cannot be provided control. \"And it is true that we can always exterminate any planet that refuses to obey the just and legal orders of its Viceroy. So we achieve toward the palace of Viceroy the unfamiliar planet. away from us, through trickery, were unable to take over the Sectors we control. We are still Earthlings, that is.\" stalemate. You've got the idea that, with our help, you can conquer planets without the necessity of destroying them, and thereby If they carried out the threats of their present attitude, Earth would have to send Marshall to replace him. And if Crownwall couldn't do at the Viceroy's gesture. take over number one spot from blockade without any trouble. Our instruments didn't even wiggle when you landed here on my capital gate of the palace. His manner but he assumed that his silence the Viceroy's Palace?\" asked side, you have the power to destroy our only planet at any time. That is certainly adequate security for our own good behavior and sincerity. \"It is impossible for us of Earth to destroy all of your planets. As Seventy Suns, Viceroy of the you have said, there are more planets that belong to you than there are human beings on Earth. But there is a way for us to be reasonably \"Just tell him that a man has arrived from Earth to talk to him. He'll summon me fast enough. you cannot prevent—to send one of those bombs here to destroy this planet. \"And if you try to move anywhere else, by your clumsy distorter drive, we can follow you, and destroy any planet you choose to land on. You would not get away from us. We can track you without \"We wouldn't use the bombs lightly, to be sure, because of what would happen to Earth. And don't think that blowing up our planet would save you, because we naturally wouldn't keep the bombs on said to Crownwall. \"Follow me. His froze into immobility at the sides of the entrance. Crownwall stamped out his delay. Meanwhile, I see no reason \"Nor do I,\" consented Crownwall. His Effulgence wiggled his tentacles. \"It's customary to genuflect when you enter the Viceroy's presence,\" Earthling. I suppose we can expect Viceroy languidly. He twitched a tentacle in a beckoning gesture. \"Come closer, Earthling. I bid you welcome to my capital. I have been that I would be the one to make the trip here. Even if you could spy through buildings on Earth from space, which I doubt, your Crownwall nodded. \"I don't see why not. Well, then, let me tell you that we don't travel in space meant was that I expected someone from Earth to break through our blockade and come here. Most of my advisors—even Ggaran here—thought it couldn't be done, but instruments. Instead, we travel in time. Surely any race that has progressed as far as your own must at all. That's why I didn't show up on any of your long-range detection Crownwall. \"If you wanted someone from Earth to come here to see you, why did you put the cordon around Earth? And why did you drop a planet-buster in the Pacific Ocean, and tell us that it was triggered to go off if we tried to use told you that Earthlings were unbelievably Earth as the spatial referent, to move with Earth a little more than a third of the way around this spiral nebula that is our Galaxy. your presence here would be useless billions of you squatting on one minor planet, we still need each other. Together, there is nothing to move in time, the whole Galaxy moved spatially with reference to stalks in amusement. \"I'm Viceroy tube with his eating orifice. \"You upstart Earthlings are a strange When you showed up in the spaceways, it was decreed that you had to be stopped at once. There was even serious discussion of destroying Earth out of hand, while it is still possible. \"Your silly little planet was carefully of the Emperor. So we let you too long—but no matter. \"You Earthlings, in defiance of all expectation and all reason, have exploded into space. You have developed space of time. But even that isn't the most disconcerting item of your development. As an Earthling, you \"When the Viceroy of the Seventy Suns,\" said the Viceroy of the without requesting permission, and in space, about forty thousand kilometers above the Earth. It had been manned by a dozen adventurous people, captained by Crownwall, and had headed out on its ion drive until it was safely clear of the warping influence of planetary after His Effulgence's entourage arrived.\" the distorter drive had \"Show him!\" he ordered peremptorily. been activated, for the first time in Earth's history, and, for the The men of Earth had decided that it should work in theory. They had built the drive—a small machine, planet. To do so, said their theory, would usually—seven point three four times out of 10—destroy the His Effulgence beckoned to the thousands of miles around, in a ravening burst of raw energy. So the drive had been used for ship, and everything in space for Earth to be its twin sister. They had headed for that planet confidently and unsuspectingly, using the ion drive. , and had then tried to herd it away from the the Earthmen had acted distorter drive, and they had beaten the odds. On the distorter drive, they had returned to Earth as swiftly as they had departed. Earth had immediately prepared for war to His Effulgence and to Crownwall during the trip, without against her unknown enemy. interrupting the smooth progress bloody-minded Earthlings must which he had concealed his small transportation machine. The machine, for spatial mobility, was itself and the ships and those of my own race who manned them. We had tried to contact you, but equipped with the heavy and grossly inefficient anti-gravity field generator all who live on that planet. You could also have wrecked the planet just a routine quarantine. With your total lack of information \"Could we have done anything else that would have kept you from landing on Earth and taking us over?\" asked Crownwall. \"Would that have been so bad?\" was out of the atmosphere, before reach his ship from the palace of and uncontrolled in the Galaxy. starting his enormous journey Government of Earth, making a full report on his trip to Vega. When he had finished, the President through time back to Earth. More treaty with a Vegan. They sound ungodly murderous to me. There are too many holes in that protection organized a not inconsiderable defense. Your drones blew up our unmanned ships as fast as we could send them down to your planet. And by the time we had organized properly for war against you, it was across the Galaxy to meet him, to just to quarantine you. When we had used your radio system to teach a few of you the Universal he felt sure that we were safe from you—after all, there was no way for you to get off the planet. Even if you could get down to the bottom of the ocean and tamper Earthling,\" said His Effulgence. creatures that rule the Galaxy—are usurpers. They have no rights to their position of power. Our race that he couldn't face alone. for revenge. And now that you have entered space, that opportunity is at hand.\" \"War in space is almost an impossibility,\" said the aged ruler. \"We can destroy planets, of course, but with few exceptions, we cannot Each race settles on the planets that best suit it. Each of those planets is quite capable of defending itself from raids, or even large-scale assaults that would result in its capture and subjugation—just as your little Earth can defend itself. \"Naturally, each is vulnerable to economic blockade—trade provides a small but vital portion of the goods each planet uses. All that a\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the Viceroy blockade the Earth if he wanted an Earthling to come and meet with him?\n\n<options>:\nA The blockade was a test to see if Earthlings were smart enough to help the Vegans defeat the Sundans.\nB The blockade is there to protect Earth from the Sundans.\nC The blockade is there to quarantine the Earth. Earthlings may have diseases that could infect the other races.\nD The blockade is there to keep people from leaving the Earth.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
810	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>:\nDuring a typical lunch time at the Royalton Hotel restaurant in midtown Manhattan, The New Yorker 's Tina Brown might be installed at her usual table, and Vogue 's Anna Wintour might be at her usual table (chewing on her usual meal--a $25 hamburger). Vanity Fair 's Graydon Carter might be there too, although he has transferred his main allegiance to a place called Patroon. Filling out the room are other editors, publicists, and writers from these magazines and GQ and House &amp Garden , Allure , Details , Self , Mademoiselle , and Glamour and Random House. The expense-account lunch is a hallowed journalistic tradition. But consider a day in the life of an editor working for Si Newhouse. (Donald's editors are a different story, as they will be happy to tell you.) It's a closed economy where almost all human needs and desires can be gratified with a miraculous, unlimited currency called the Si. A Lincoln Town Car is waiting outside your door in the morning to take you to work. The car, which costs $50 an hour, is written into your contract. First stop, breakfast with a writer at the Four Seasons. The check may be as little as $40. When you reach the office, you realize you're out of cigarettes. No problem--you send your assistant to buy a pack for you. She gets reimbursed from petty cash ($3). (Could be worse for the assistant: She could be forced to pick up her boss's birth-control pills, or her boss's pet from the vet, or presents for her boss's children--regular duties for Condé Nast underlings.) You've forgotten to return the video your kids watched yesterday, so you have a messenger take it back to Blockbuster. Si spends $20 Then there's lunch. The magazines account for more than a quarter of daytime revenues at the Four Seasons and the Royalton. A modest lunch for two at the Royalton (no fancy wine or anything) might cost $80. But Si's generosity extends to even assistants and sub-sub-editors, dining on sushi at their desks. If you spend $10 or less on lunch, and claim you were working, Si pays. At Vogue and Vanity Fair , almost everyone has a \"working lunch\" every day . An editor at Allure says that \"working lunches\" there are limited to 10 a month. Newhouse expense stories are a staple of New York literary-journalistic conversation. Stories about the $10,000 in expenses that a New Yorker editor billed for a single month. About the interior-decorating costs for the fashion-magazine editor who likes to have her office photographs rearranged every few months. About the hotel tab for the big-name New York writer who spent three weeks in Washington's Hay-Adams (basic room: $285 a night) researching a Vanity Fair story that will never run. About the Vogue editor who has furnished her summer house from items purchased for fashion shoots--beautiful furniture, designer pillows, coffee-table books. Vogue assistants have nicknamed the house \"Petty Cash Junction.\" None of the 39 past and present Newhouse employees I spoke to for this story would talk on the record, for . And the nature of the subject makes it hard to separate apocrypha from the truth. Did Condé Nast pay, as sources insist it did, hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes on behalf of an editor who didn't bother to file tax forms? Did an editor really expense $20,000 in a weeklong trip to Paris? The people who pay the bills are not talking. But every example of excess cited here was told to me by at least one source (and usually more than one) in a position to know. At the top of the masthead, the perks are perkier. His Si-ness (their joke, not mine) does not expect his editors in chief to actually live on their million-dollar salaries. He also gives them clothing allowances (up to $50,000 a year). He buys them cars of their choice and hires chauffeurs to drive them. He offers them low- or no-interest home loans. GQ editor Art Cooper reportedly received two $1-million loans, one for a Manhattan apartment, the other for a Connecticut farm. Tina Brown and her husband, Harold Evans, former president of Random House, reportedly just took a $2-million boost to buy a $3.7-million Manhattan house. Si's favorite courtiers lead lives of jaw-dropping privilege. When she was editor of British Vogue , Wintour commuted between London and New York--on the Concorde. Another Si confidant decided his office didn't feel right, so he hired one of the grandmasters of feng shui to rearrange it. Some editors prepare for trips by Federal Expressing their luggage to their destination. Why? \"So you don't have to carry your bags. No one would be caught dead carrying a bag.\" Writers, of course, are nowhere near as profligate as photographers. Stories of wasteful shoots abound: the matching seaweed that had to be flown from California to the Caribbean for a fashion photo the Vogue shoot in Africa in which, an ex- Vogue editor claims, the photographer and his huge entourage wined and dined to the tune of \"hundreds of thousands of dollars.\" Some Condé Nast parties are so ridiculous that even other Condé Nasties make fun of them. This week's New Yorker , for example, mocks a recent Vogue party in honor of food writer Jeffrey Steingarten. According to The New Yorker , Wintour so detested the carpet at Le Cirque 2000 that she ordered the florist to cover it with autumn leaves (handpicked, of course). Actually, paying $100,000 for face time with Princess Di may not have been a foolish investment for a magazine so dependent on peddling her image. And Condé Nast's excess has other plausible justifications as well. Some top editors may earn their perks. Vogue and GQ make millions, according to industry analysts. Vanity Fair is enjoying banner years, and while it probably hasn't made back the millions Newhouse lost in starting it up, it is certainly in the black. The New Yorker loses money--how much may even surpass perks as a topic of Newhouse gossip and speculation. On the other hand, The New Yorker is the most talked-about magazine in America, and Tina Brown is the most talked-about editor. That is worth something. Public media companies such as Time Warner (or, for that matter, Microsoft) can entice and hold journalists with stock options. Advance is private, so Newhouse uses other golden handcuffs. He runs a lifestyle prison. Top editors stay because they could never afford to live in a house as nice as the one Si's interest-free loan bought them, or to host parties as nice as the ones Si's party planners throw for them. Condé Nast's magazines are all about glamour, wealth, prestige. To uphold that image, magazine editors need to circulate at the top of New York society. But the top of New York society consists of people who make far more money than magazine editors do--investment bankers, corporate chieftains, and fashion designers. Million-dollar salaries aren't enough to mix as equals with the Trumps and Karans. Si's perks are equalizers. dogs drank Evian.) The lowliest assistants used to take car services home. But new Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio has restricted cars and catering. Editors who used to fly the Concorde now fly first-class those who used to fly first-class now fly business. Expense accounts are scrutinized. Even so, today's Condé Nast is economical only by Condé Nast standards. The belt is tighter, but it's still hand-tooled, hand-tanned, and fashioned from the finest Italian leather.\n\n<question>:\nHow would one best describe the lifestyle discussed in the article?\n\n<options>:\nA Excessive\nB Confidential\nC Exhausting\nD Competitive\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,296	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. 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. Nor do we believe in sex any more the way most American children and millions of adults believed in it a generation ago: as an act of profound mystery and importance that one did not engage in, or discuss, or even invoke, without a certain amount of excitement and risk. We have trivialized and routinized sex to the point where it just doesn't carry the emotional freight it carried in the schoolyards and bedrooms of the 1950s. 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>:\nWhy does swearing lose its power?\n\n<options>:\nA kids are less scared of swearing than they used to be\nB as people get older, the words are easier to say\nC the ideas they represent are less taboo than they used to be\nD our culture has matured, making swearing unimportant\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,658	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBY RICK RAPHAEL That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay! Illustrated by Freas She stopped behind a frowning, intense patient, rapidly shaping blobs of clay into odd-sized strips and forms. As he finished each piece, he carefully placed it into a hollow shell hemisphere of clay. \"And what are we making today, Mr. Funston?\" Miss Abercrombie asked. The flying fingers continued to whip out the bits of shaped clay as the patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to but firmly. \"You've been coming along famously and you must remember to answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very complicated.\" She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts. Thaddeus Funston continued to mold the clay bits and put them in place. Without looking up from his bench he muttered a reply. \"Atom bomb.\" A puzzled look crossed the therapist's face. \"Pardon me, Mr. Funston. I thought you said an 'atom bomb.'\" smears. He sighed happily and laid down his palette. At the clay table, Funston feverishly fabricated the last odd-shaped bit of clay and slapped it into place. With a furtive glance around him, he clapped the other half of the clay sphere over the filled hemisphere and then stood up. The patients lined up at the door, waiting for the walk made short, precise notes on the day's work accomplished by each patient. At the clay table, she carefully lifted the top half of the clay ball and stared thoughtfully at the jumbled maze of clay strips laced through the lower hemisphere. She placed the lid back in place and jotted As she drove out of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the At 3:01 a.m., Thaddeus Funston stirred in his sleep and awakened. He sat An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed explosion. None had. The hills had absorbed most of the shock and apart from a The roar and flash of the explosion had lighted and rocked the Atomic Energy Commission experts, military intelligence men, four FBI In Ward 4-C, Thaddeus Funston slept peacefully and happily. experts gathered in the tent erected on the hill overlooking the crater. \"How can an atom bomb go off in a nut house?\" \"It apparently was a very small bomb, colonel,\" one of the haggard AEC men offered timidly. \"Not over three kilotons.\" \"I don't care if it was the size of a peanut,\" Thurgood screamed. \"How did it get here?\" A military intelligence agent spoke up. \"If we knew, sir, we wouldn't be standing around here. We don't know, but the fact remains that it WAS an atomic explosion.\" Thurgood turned wearily to the small, white-haired man at his side. through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems that led them to this hospital. They worked with oil and water paints and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman.\" \"All I know is that you say this was a crafts building. O.K. So it was,\" Thurgood sighed. \"I also know that an atomic explosion at 3:02 this morning blew it to hell and gone. \"He did make an atom bomb,\" she cried. Colonel Thurgood, who had snapped from his chair at her words, leaped every beat. \"It's ridiculous,\" Thurgood roared. \"We'll all be the laughingstocks of the world if this ever gets out. An atomic bomb made out of clay. You are all nuts. You're in the right place, but count me out.\" At his left, Miss Abercrombie cringed deeper into her chair at the \"Miss Abercrombie,\" one of the physicists spoke up gently, \"you say that The therapist nodded unhappily. \"And you say that, to the best of your knowledge,\" the physicist continued, \"there was nothing inside the ball but other pieces of clay.\" \"I'm positive that's all there was in it,\" Miss Abercrombie cried. There was a renewed buzz of conversation at the table and the senior AEC Thurgood leaped to his feet, his face purpling. \"Are you crazy?\" he screamed. \"You want to get us all thrown into this ever got wind of the fact, that for one, tiny fraction of a second, anyone of us here entertained the notion that a paranoidal idiot with the IQ of an ape could make an atomic bomb out of kid's modeling clay? \"They'd crucify us, that's what they'd do!\" At 8:30 that night, Thaddeus Funston, swathed in an Army officer's secrecy under the National Atomic Secrets Act, bundled Thaddeus aboard The plane landed the next morning at the AEC's atomic testing grounds in There was nothing on the table but a bowl of water and a great lump of modeling clay. While the psychiatrists were taking the strait jacket off Thaddeus in the staff car outside, Colonel Thurgood spoke to the weary Miss Abercrombie. \"Now you're positive this is just about the same amount and the same kind of clay he used before?\" \"I brought it along from the same batch we had in the store room at the hospital,\" she replied, \"and it's the same amount.\" Thaddeus Funston between them. The colonel nudged Miss Abercrombie. one you made for me yesterday.\" A flicker of interest lightened Thaddeus' face. He looked around the shack and then spotted the clay on the table. Without hesitation, he walked to the table and sat down. His fingers began working the damp clay, making first the hollow, half-round shell while the nation's top atomic scientists watched in fascination. His busy fingers flew through the clay, shaping odd, flat bits and clay parts that were dropped almost aimlessly into the open hemisphere in front of him. Miss Abercrombie stood at his shoulder as Thaddeus hunched over the table just as he had done the previous day. From time to time she glanced at her watch. The maze of clay strips grew and as Funston finished shaping the other half hemisphere of clay, she broke the tense silence. The two psychiatrists went to Thaddeus' side as he put the upper lid of from the shack. There was a moment of hushed silence and then pandemonium burst. The experts converged on the clay ball, instruments blossoming from nowhere and cameras clicking. For two hours they studied and gently probed the mass of child's clay and photographed it from every angle. Then they left for the concrete observatory bunker, several miles down range where Thaddeus and the psychiatrists waited inside a ring of \"I told you this whole thing was asinine,\" Thurgood snarled as the Thaddeus Funston stared out over the heads of the MPs through the open Six hours and a jet plane trip later, Thaddeus, once again in his strait asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit there and tell me that this poor soul has made not one, but two atomic devices out of modeling clay and then has detonated them.\" The general paused. \"Why don't you just tell me, colonel, that he can also make spaceships In the next room, Thaddeus Funston stared out over the sweeping panorama\n\n<question>:\nWhy is everyone surprised that Thaddeus was able to make a bomb?\n\n<options>:\nA He needed the finger paints but Mr. Lieberman had taken those\nB Miss Abercrombie had taken away the other parts that would have made it work\nC It was only made of clay and nothing else\nD It was the wrong kind of clay to build an explosive device from\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
123	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>:\nnot.\" The captain was momentarily silent, groping for an adequate reply. Behind him somebody made a choked noise, the only sound in the stunned hush, and the ship jarred slightly as a thunderbolt slammed vengefully into its field. \"Suppose we settle this argument about humanity,\" said Knof Llud Earth set itself grimly to meet them with Quest III , as for forty hours 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 the most hopeful of the expeditions—and its captain had been a good friend of Llud's, nine hundred years ago.... He growled, \"What happened to him?\" time,\" said the voice lightly. \"When he saw that it was hopeless, he preferred suicide to defeat, and took his ship into the Sun.\" A short pause. \"The vision connection is ready.\" the oncoming star, and there were wide-eyed children who had been born in the ship and had never seen a planet. The grownups talked in low voices, in tones of mingled eagerness and apprehension, of what might spent and the holds became radioactively safe, the crew had spread out from its original cramped quarters. Now the interstellar ship was little more than a hollow shell. Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud sighted Earth.\" A feverish buzz arose the captain gestured for silence and went on, each other's hands, kissed, shouted, wept. For the present their fears were forgotten and exaltation prevailed. already set up on the calculator a course that would carry them to Earth. Llud nodded curt approval, remarking, \"Probably we'll be intercepted notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts. The ship's automatic mechanisms had scant need of tending Knof Llud and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and months had passed for the Quest III in interstellar flight while years and decades had raced by on the home world. \"Our hopes were dashed—and I think all of us, even remembering the \"We face the unpleasant realization that what was feared is probably exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless \"Hopeless, unless we find planets!\" Omega Centauri is twenty thousand light years away.... \"Even so—by expending its remaining fuel freely, the more than forty thousand years. By then our civilization certainly, and perhaps the human race itself, would have perished from memory. \"That was why the planners limited our voyage, and those of the other Quests , to less than a thousand years Earth time. Even now, according 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. to falter one moment in flight. The captain was on his feet instantly, but then his movements became unhurried. Whatever it had been was past, and he had a good idea the Sun, though in interstellar space and around planetless stars such collisions were rare to the vanishing point. No harm could have the vessel. Llud snatched up the receiver with the speed of a scalded cat. \"Captain?\" It was Gwar Den's voice, stammering a little. \"Captain, 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 short buzzes and repeat, ringing through all the great length of the interstellar ship. Knowing that Gwar Den was still there, he said, \"Now—attacked by what?\" \"Ships,\" said Gwar Den helplessly. \"Five of them so far. No, there's a sixth now.\" Repeated blows quivered the Quest III's Their faces were set, scared, uncomprehending. The 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, most of them breathless. To a man they looked appeal at Captain Knof Llud. \"Well?\" he snapped. \"What are they doing?\" they're all banging away at us.\" The captain stared into the black star-strewn depths of a vision screen where occasional blue points of light winked ominously, never twice \"If they had anything heavier,\" surmised the captain, \"they'd have unlimbered it by now. They're out to get us. But at this rate, they can't touch us as long as our power lasts—or until they bring up some bigger stuff.\" the ship forces impinging on the outside of the field were similarly transmitted and rendered harmless. The effect was as if the vessel and 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 wait for us. But why on Earth—\" \"That,\" said the captain grimly, \"is what we have to find out. Why—on always attacking, with the senseless fury of maddened hornets. The interstellar ship bore no offensive weapons—but suddenly on one of the and speed—but detector-beam echoes gave the distance, and likewise, by the Doppler method, the velocity of directly receding or approaching ships. It was apparent that the enemy vessels were even smaller than Gwar Den had at first supposed—not large enough to hold even one man. It became evident, too, that the bombardment was being kept up by a 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 it. hours.\" \"We'll have reached Earth before then,\" Gwar Den said hopefully. \"If they don't bring out the heavy artillery first.\" \"We're under the psychological disadvantage,\" said the captain, \"of not knowing why we're being attacked.\" swinging wild and then you nail him.\" Smiles splintered the ice of tension. Captain Llud said, \"Maybe you've got something there. They seem to be mad, all right. But we're not in was going to say—I think we'd better try to parley with the enemy. At least we may find out who he is and why he's determined to smash us.\" And now instead of tight-beam detectors the ship was broadcasting on an audio carrier wave that shifted through a wide range of frequencies, repeating on each the same brief recorded message: \"Who are you? What do you want? We are the interstellar expedition you ?\" There was no answer. The ship drove on, its fuel trickling away under multiplied demands. Those outside were squandering vastly greater amounts of energy in the effort to batter down its defenses, but nerves and muscles and will weakening along with the power-sinews of his ship. Zost Relyul approached him apologetically. \"If you have time, Captain—I've got some data on Earth now.\" 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 had already involuntarily told him a couple of things—that it was not\n\n<question>:\nAt what moment in the story did the characters seem to have the least hope?\n\n<options>:\nA When they realized the oxygen supply was extremely low.\nB When they realized it was impossible to contact the other Quest ships.\nC When they were about to crash into a comet.\nD When they were mid-communication with the violent ships.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
489	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBoth these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Now, Ross seems like a nice lady, and I certainly have nothing against adultery, which I hear is being carried on in the best circles these days. But the public flaunting of adultery--especially when spouses and children are around--well, it brings out the bourgeois in me. It also made me feel funny about William Shawn, whom I have always regarded as a great man. I loved his New Yorker . The prose it contained--the gray stuff around the cartoons--was balm for the soul: unfailingly clear, precise, logical, and quietly stylish. So what if the articles were occasionally boring? It was a sweet sort of boredom, serene and restorative, not at all like the kind induced by magazines today, which is more akin to nervous exhaustion. Besides, the moral tone of the magazine was almost wholly admirable--it was ahead of the pack on Hiroshima, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the environment--and this was very much Shawn's doing. I do not like to think of him in an illicit love nest, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole Elsewhere, Ross refers to her lover's \"very powerful masculinity,\" only to note on the very next page that \"if he suffered a paper cut on a finger and saw blood, he would come into my office, looking pale.\" She declares that \"Bill was incapable of engendering a cliché, in deed as well as in word.\" But then she puts the most toe-curling clichés into his mouth: \"Why am I more ghost than man?\" Or: \"We must arrest our love in midflight. And we fix it forever as of today, a point of pure light that will reach into eternity.\" (File that under Romantic Effusions We Doubt Ever Got Uttered.) Nor is Ross incapable of a melodramatic cliché herself. \"Why can't we just live, just live ?\" she cries in anguish when she and Shawn, walking hand in hand out of Central Park, chance to see Shawn's wife slowly making her way down the block with a burden of packages. William Shawn's indispensability as an editor is amply manifest in Ross' memoir. Word repetition? \"Whatever reporting Bill asked me to do turned out to be both challenging and fun. ... For me, reporting and writing for the magazine was fun, pure fun. ... It was never 'work' for me. It was fun.\" Even in praising his skill as an editor, she betrays the presence of its absence. \"All writers, of course, have needed the one called the 'editor,' who singularly, almost mystically, embodies the many-faceted, unique life force infusing the entire enchilada.\" Nice touch, that enchilada. Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" Or the great and eccentric Irish writer Maeve Breenan, who fetched up as a bag lady. Or the legendary St. Clair McKelway, whose decisive breakdown came when he hailed a cab and prevailed upon the driver to take him to the New Yorker office at 24 West 43 rd St. \"O.K., Mac, if that's what you want.\" He was in Boston at the time. (McKelway later told Mehta that if the cabby had not called him \"Mac,\" his nickname, an alarm might have gone off in his head.) Mehta's writerly persona, a disarming mixture of the feline and the naive, is perfect for relating the little scandals that worried The New Yorker in the late '70s (plagiarism, frozen turbot), the drama of finding a worthy candidate to succeed the aging Shawn as editor, the purchase of the magazine by the evil Si Newhouse (\"We all took fright\") and the resultant plague of Gottliebs and Florios visited upon it, and what he sees as the final debacle: Tinaji. Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the new editor trying to convince Ross into doing?\n\n<options>:\nA Re-joining the magazine\nB Leaving Shawn for good\nC Retiring from the magazine\nD Booting out Mehta\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
439	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 suffering, but I could recognize it. \"You yourself have said it,\" I told him. \"I am a being of logic, just as the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend the I repeated it patiently. went to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just as the invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They are more nearly kin to me than your people.\" Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought that He waved his hands helplessly. \"Gratitude?\" he muttered. \"No, you don't understand that, either.\" Then he cried suddenly, \"But I am your friend, Robert!\" 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, then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he could not comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, with and alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, like the machinery, and like Peter. an expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that, One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hiding from the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But the other part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition. It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, and decided that this was probable. 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 terrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD \"The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilized peoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in their \"Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hours ago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, or in any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. They have done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us, driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation and this is are threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroy the Invaders!\" Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for the first time. mechanism to \"Etaoin Shrdlu,\" principally because he hated double-talk. He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accent in the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it opened far enough to admit him. heartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehow defiling the air they floated in and below them, a pitiful huddle of flesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, those men and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossibly joined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass 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?\" 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.\" 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 gurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and arms range of vision. Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin, Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by the broad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. His glazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingness straight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin. In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood, paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyond fear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and said in a terrible voice, \"Why? Why?\" ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... \" \"I can't understand,\" he cried wildly. \"What do you want?\" \" ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. the room. It was a scream to split eardrums a scream to wake the dead. Somebody said, \"Doctor!\" He wanted to say, \"Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei—\" but his mouth only He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but he kept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed it sooner. \"She was only suffering from ordinary shock,\" Arnold explained. \"Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out, \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why \"But why?\" Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. \"We're hiding,\" he said. \"Everything else has failed.\" It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn't even take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That was \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\" we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. \"They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're a million years too far back even to understand what they are or where they came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer.\" possible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. We can't fight staying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful. I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die, too. You'd be their murderer.\" come back, Peter.\" he slumped down before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare walls its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes animation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them to mature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that came from the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he was hungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly, searching for the million-to-one chance. Peter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said. brain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solve instinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hours sure. But now, the waiting is over. \"They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. You can kill the Invaders, Robert.\" He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctive knowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, \"On Earth we they are. You can understand them, and so you can conquer them.\" I said, \"That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth.\" He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. \"What—what did\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Robert choose to not return to Earth after Peter had told him that he was ready?\n\n<options>:\nA He wanted to stay with Peter, alone.\nB His fear of the Invaders after hearing the story from Peter's diary\nC His logic wouldn't allow him to fulfill the purpose\nD He couldn't decipher the difference in killing the humans and the Invaders\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
894	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 high costs of low language. Sunday, Jan. 14, 1996: A day that will live in--well, not infamy, exactly. Blasphemy would be closer to it. Early that afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Indianapolis Colts to win the American Football Conference championship. Linebacker Greg Lloyd, accepting the trophy in front of a national television audience, responded with enthusiasm. \"Let's see if we can bring this damn thing back here next year,\" he said, \"along with the [expletive] Super Bowl.\" A few hours later, Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys offered this spirited defense of his coach on TV after his team won the National Football Conference title: \"Nobody deserves it more than Barry Switzer. He took all of this [expletive] .\" Iwatched 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. Neither 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. 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. In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges.\n\n<question>:\nHow was the reaction toward Lloyd and Irvin different than that toward Tynan?\n\n<options>:\nA Lloyd and Irvin were forgiven after apologizing while Tynan was ignored\nB Lloyd and Irvin were applauded while Tynan was reproached\nC Lloyd and Irvin were vilified while Tynan was honored\nD Lloyd and Irvin received limited backlash while Tynan was reputationally destroyed\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,345	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>:\nOpen access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. We could call it “barrier-free” access, but that would emphasize the negative rather than the positive. In any case, we can be more specific about which access barriers OA removes. is a significant access barrier. Most works with price tags are individually affordable. But when a scholar needs to read or consult hundreds of works for one research project, or when a library must provide access for thousands of faculty and students working on tens of thousands of topics, and when the volume of new work grows explosively every year, price barriers become insurmountable. The resulting access gaps harm authors by limiting their audience and impact, harm readers by limiting what they can retrieve and read, and thereby harm research from both directions. OA removes price barriers. Removing price barriers means that readers are not limited by their own ability to pay, or by the budgets of the institutions where they may have library privileges. Removing permission barriers means that scholars are free to use or reuse literature for scholarly purposes. These purposes include reading and searching, but also redistributing, translating, text mining, migrating to new media, long-term archiving, and innumerable new forms of research, analysis, and processing we haven’t yet imagined. OA makes work more useful in both ways, by making it available to more people who can put it to use, and by freeing those people to use and reuse it. is the suggestion I hear most often. While every kind of OA removes price barriers, there are many different permission barriers we could remove if we wanted to. If we remove price barriers alone, we provide Here’s how the Bethesda and Berlin statements put it: For a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in advance to let users “copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.” Note that all three legs of the BBB definition go beyond removing price barriers to removing permission barriers, or beyond gratis OA to libre OA. But at the same time, all three allow at least one limit on user freedom: an obligation to attribute the work to the author. The purpose of OA is to remove barriers to all legitimate scholarly uses for scholarly literature, but there’s no legitimate scholarly purpose in suppressing attribution to the texts we use. (That’s why my shorthand definition says that OA literature is free of “most” rather than “all” copyright and licensing restrictions.) The basic idea of OA is simple: Make research literature available online without price barriers and without most permission barriers. Even the implementation is simple enough that the volume of peer-reviewed OA literature and the number of institutions providing it have grown at an increasing rate for more than a decade. If there are complexities, they lie in the transition from where we are now to a world in which OA is the default for new research. This is complicated because the major obstacles are not technical, legal, or economic, but cultural. (More in chapter 9 1.1 What Makes OA Possible? OA is made possible by the internet and copyright-holder consent. But why would a copyright holder consent to OA? Two background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Second, scholarly journals generally don’t pay authors for their research articles, which frees this special tribe of authors to consent to OA without losing revenue. This fact distinguishes scholars decisively from musicians and moviemakers, and even from most other kinds of authors. This is why controversies about OA to music and movies don’t carry over to OA for research articles. 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 OA isn’t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public statements on OA insist on its importance. Because scholarly journals generally don’t pay peer-reviewing editors and referees, just as they don’t pay authors, all the participants in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. While OA to unrefereed preprints is useful and widespread, the OA movement isn’t limited to unrefereed preprints and, if anything, focuses on OA to peer-reviewed articles. (More in section 5.1 on peer review.) OA isn’t an attempt to reform, violate, or abolish copyright. It’s compatible with copyright law as it is. OA would benefit from the right kinds of copyright reforms, and many dedicated people are working on them. But it needn’t wait for reforms and hasn’t waited. OA literature avoids copyright problems in exactly the same way that conventional toll-access literature does. For older works, it takes advantage of the public domain, and for newer works, it rests on copyright-holder consent. (More in chapter 4 on policies and chapter 6 on copyright.) OA isn’t an attempt to reduce authors’ rights over their work. On the contrary, OA depends on author decisions and requires authors to exercise more rights or control over their work than they are allowed to exercise under traditional publishing contracts. One OA strategy is for authors to retain some of the rights they formerly gave publishers, including the right to authorize OA. Another OA strategy is for publishers to permit more uses than they formerly permitted, including permission for authors to make OA copies of their work. By contrast, traditional journal-publishing contracts demand that authors transfer all rights to publishers, and author rights or control cannot sink lower than that. (See chapters 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 OA isn’t an attempt to relax rules against plagiarism. All the public definitions of OA support author attribution, even construed as a “restriction” on users. All the major open licenses require author attribution. Moreover, plagiarism is typically punished by the plagiarist’s institution rather than by courts, that is, by social norms rather than by law. Hence, even when attribution is not legally required, plagiarism is still a punishable offense and no OA policy anywhere interferes with those punishments. In any case, if making literature digital and online makes plagiarism easier to commit, then OA makes plagiarism easier to detect. Not all plagiarists are smart, but the smart ones will not steal from OA sources indexed in every search engine. In this sense, OA deters plagiarism. Finally, OA isn’t universal access. Even when we succeed at removing price and permission barriers, four other kinds of access barrier might remain in place:\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one limit all kinds of OA put on user freedom?\n\n<options>:\nA A constraint on library privileges.\nB A limit on text mining.\nC A constraint on reproduction and distribution.\nD There is an obligation to credit the work to the author.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
806	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>:\nThis is what Fiss means by the \"irony\" in his title: that true freedom of speech for all requires suppressing the speech of some. This is not, technically, an irony. It is a paradox. An irony would be the observation that an attempt to increase freedom for all often entails, despite our best efforts, a decrease in freedom for a few. If Fiss had addressed the subject of free speech in this spirit, as an irony, he would undoubtedly have had some interesting things to say, for he is a learned and temperate writer. But he has, instead, chosen to address the issue as an advocate for specific groups he regards as politically disadvantaged--women, gays, victims of racial-hate speech, the poor (or, at least, the not-rich), and people who are critical of market capitalism--and to design a constitutional theory that will enable those groups to enlist the state in efforts either to suppress speech they dislike or to subsidize speech they do like, without running afoul of the First Amendment. Embarked on this task, the most learned and temperate writer in the world would have a hard time avoiding tendentiousness. Fiss does not avoid it. The Irony of Free Speech is a discussion of several speech issues: campaign-finance laws, state funding for the arts, pornography, speech codes, and equal time. These discussions are not doctrinaire, but their general inclination is to favor state intervention, on political grounds, in each of those areas--that is, to favor restrictions on campaign spending, greater regulation of pornography, and so on. Fiss' analyses of specific cases are presented against a lightly sketched historical argument. Light though the sketching is, the historical argument is almost the most objectionable thing about the book, since it involves a distortion of the history of First Amendment law that is fairly plain even to someone who is not a professor at Yale Law School. The argument is that \"the liberalism of the nineteenth century was defined by the claims of individual liberty and resulted in an unequivocal demand for liberal government, [while] the liberalism of today embraces the value of equality as well as liberty.\" The constitutional law of free speech, says Fiss, was shaped by the earlier type of liberalism--he calls it \"libertarian\"--which regarded free speech as a right of individual self-expression Fiss' suggestion--this is the chief theoretical proposal of his book--is that liberals should stop thinking about this as a conflict between liberty and equality and start thinking about it as a conflict between two kinds of liberty: social vs. individual. The First Amendment, he says, was intended to foster (in William Brennan's words) \"uninhibited, robust, and wide-open\" debate in society as a whole speech that inhibits or monopolizes that debate should therefore fall outside the protection of the law. We can maximize the total freedom of speech by silencing people who prevent others from speaking--when they utter racial epithets, represent women in degrading ways, use their wealth to dominate the press and the political process, or block the funding of unorthodox art. they displayed a libertarian attitude toward economic rights, tending to throw out legislation aimed at regulating industry and protecting workers on the grounds that people had a constitutional right to enter into contracts and to use their own property as they saw fit. Holmes, Brandeis, and their disciples consistently supported state intervention in economic affairs--the passage of health and safety regulations, the protection of unions, the imposition of taxes, and so on. The post-New Deal liberals whom Fiss associates with the value of equality are their heirs. The heirs of the19 th -century classical liberals are Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich. Fiss' two \"liberalisms\" are, in fact, almost entirely different political philosophies. Hand, Holmes, and Brandeis based their First Amendment opinions not on some putative right to individual self-expression (an idea Holmes referred to as \"the right of the donkey to drool\") but on a democratic need for full and open political debate. First Amendment law since their time has performed its balancing acts on precisely that social value--the very value Fiss now proposes we need to insert into First Amendment jurisprudence. We don't need to insert it, because it was there from the start. Why does Fiss portray the history of First Amendment jurisprudence in this perverted way? Because he wants to line up his own free-speech argument within the conventional academic view that our problems are mostly the consequences of an antiquated and discreditable ideology of liberal individualism, and that they can mostly be solved by adopting a social-constructionist, or communitarian, or \"intersubjective\" view of human nature instead. The merits of liberal individualism vs. communitarianism can await another occasion to be debated. For since the law governing the freedom of speech does not emerge out of libertarianism, the matter does not boil down to replacing an obsolete belief in \"self-expression\" with a more up-to-date belief in \"robust debate,\" as Fiss would like to think it does. What it boils down to is whether we need to replace the Hand-Holmes-Brandeis way of maximizing the benefits of free speech in a democratic society, which tries to push the state as far out of the picture as possible, with a different way, which tries to get the state farther into the picture. Here, assuming we want to try the interventionist approach, it is hard to see how a one-size theory can possibly fit all cases. The issues underlying pornography, hate speech, arts grants, campaign finance, and equal-time provisions are all different. The ideological impetus behind judicial developments in the last two areas, campaign finance and equal-time provisions, is related less to speech, except as a kind of constitutional cover, than to a revival of the old \"right to property\"--that is, the Supreme Court tends to disapprove of legislative and administrative efforts to require broadcasters to carry \"opposing viewpoints\" on the grounds that since it's their property, owners of television stations should be able to broadcast what they like. Fiss believes that the need for equal-time laws is as urgent today as it was in the 1970s, which is peculiar in light of the proliferation of media outlets. But the state does arguably have an interest, compatible with the First Amendment, in stipulating the way those media are used, and Fiss' discussion of those issues is the least aggravating in his book. Still, that discussion, like his discussions of the other issues, rests on a claim long associated with the left--the claim, in a phrase, that the minority is really the majority. In the case of speech, Fiss appears to believe that the reason the American public is less enlightened than he would wish it to be concerning matters such as feminism, the rights of homosexuals, and regulation of industry is that people are denied access to the opinions and information that would enlighten them. The public is denied this access because the state, in thrall to the ideology of individualism, refuses either to interfere with speech bullies--such as pornographers--who \"silence\" women, or to subsidize the speech of the unorthodox, such as Robert Mapplethorpe. Awarding funding to the work of a gay artist because gay Americans need more political clout is an effort at cultural engineering, and the problem with cultural engineering is the problem with social engineering raised to a higher power. We have a hard enough time calculating the effects of the redistribution of wealth in our society. How can we possibly calculate the effects of redistributing the right to speak--of taking it away from people Professor Fiss feels have spoken long enough and mandating it for people he feels have not been adequately heard? One thing that is plain from the brief unhappy history of campus speech codes is that you automatically raise the value of the speech you punish and depress the value of the speech you sponsor. There are indeed many ironies here. Maybe someone will write a book about them.\n\n<question>:\nWhat influence does Fiss intend for his ideas to have on people?\n\n<options>:\nA He hopes to promote his own political agenda for a future career in office.\nB He wants people to recognize the dark side of free speech.\nC He wants to glorify the idea of life without free speech.\nD He wants to slam the workings of the government.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,142	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 unconcerned. \"How can anyone be sure on a theoretical basis?\" she asked, an oblique not unexpected—non-humans tended to dismiss the data as convenient speculation and nothing more. \"There are at least a hundred kinds of with a minimum of ten others ! That's more than a legend—one hell of a lot more!\" \"It is impressive,\" admitted Taphetta. \"But I find it mildly \"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 true of all other creatures, intelligent or not, with the sole exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's 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 Emmer's side. Meredith, linguist, is on the other side of the middle. wanted her. \"I do think I love you,\" she said. \"And if love's enough, I may marry you in spite of everything. But you'll have to watch out whose children Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may And beyond her, toward the far end, is Kelburn, mathematician. There's a corresponding span of fertility. Emmer just misses being able to breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with completely her fault. Besides.... Besides what? She had a beautiful body that could bear superior children—and they might be his. I have.\" She wriggled into his arms. \"You're thinking of Earth,\" said Halden. \"Humans require a certain kind \"Can you think of a better explanation?\" asked Kelburn. 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 together—but they hadn't except in agreement as to their common origin. Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be 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 the fine distinctions that men made among themselves. And, higher or lower, he was as good a biologist as the other was a mathematician. And there was the matter of training he'd been on several expeditions and feel that attraction to her? ability.\" Taphetta crinkled politely at the reference to his skill. \"I had other cent here and there for the crew pilot and scientist's share of the profits from any discoveries we may make.\" \"I'm complimented that you like our contract so well,\" said Taphetta, beginning of the scale. I'm from Earth, near the middle, though on Disdainfully, Meredith adjusted a skirt that, a few inches shorter, \"More than a man?\" Firmon leered at Meredith and, when she failed to smile, added plaintively, \"I did try to change it, but he still complains.\" 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 prepared for the multitude of life-forms they'd meet in space. Firmon's reaction was quite typical. \"What is it, some kind of toxic condition?\" was a nuisance, doubly so because of their pilot. \"Tell me what you know about it,\" said Halden. \"They're little things.\" Firmon held out his hands to show how small. \"I don't know how they got on, but once they did, there were plenty of \"I'll come along and help,\" said Meredith, untwining her legs and \"Neither do we.\" The Ribboneer's distaste subsided. \"What kind of creatures are they?\" \"Considering how far we've come, it may have been any one of a half \"Then you believe it changed mentally as well as physically, that it's 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 strong enough.\" \"That's what I don't like,\" said Taphetta, curling. \"Let me think it over while I ask questions.\" He turned to Emmer. \"I'm curious about 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 hands through shaggier hair. a route estimated at thirty thousand light-years in less than five thousand years—and not one of them died that we have a record of.\" \"A faster-than-light drive and an extremely long life,\" mused Taphetta. \"But they didn't leave any information for their descendants. Why?\" \"Who knows? Their mental processes were certainly far different from they were looking for a special kind of planet, like Earth, because they visited so many of that type, yet different from it because they never stayed. They were pretty special people themselves, big and long-lived, and maybe they couldn't survive on any planet they found. Perhaps they had ways of determining there wasn't the kind of planet they needed in the entire Milky Way. Their science was tremendously late species. It's well known that individuals among my people are often as bright as any of Halden's or Meredith's, but as a whole we don't have the total capacity that later Man does, and yet we're as atomic—because they were human. That was sometimes a frightening thing for non-humans, that the race stuck together. They weren't actually aggressive, but their total number was great and they held themselves \"There may be things we can learn from them in mechanics or physics, but wouldn't you say they were better biologists than anything else?\" fractionally and ceaselessly. \"I don't like to, but we'll have to risk using bait for your pest.\" contract and the one we offered you? Our terms are more liberal.\" \"To the individual, they are, but it won't matter if you discover as much as you think you will. The difference is this: He hadn't intended, but \"It was realistic enough,\" said Meredith as the crewmen shut off their \"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. \"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. \"Love,\" she said gloomily. \"Physical attraction. But I can't let it lead me astray.\" \"Why not make a play for Kelburn? If you're going to be scientific about it, he'd give you children of the higher type.\" like him and he wouldn't marry me.\" \"He wouldn't, but he'd give you children if you were humble enough. There's a fifty per cent chance you might conceive.\"\n\n<question>:\nOf the following options, which best describe Meredith?\n\n<options>:\nA Bold and pretty\nB Brave and adventurous\nC Beautiful and brave\nD Smart and kindhearted\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,506	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIt's 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 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.\" Before we begin, though, the Shopping Avenger nearly forgot to announce the winner of last month's contest, in which readers were asked to answer the question, \"What's the difference between pests and airlines?\" This month's airline in the spotlight is Southwest. Loyal readers will recall that last month the Shopping Avenger praised Southwest Airlines for its \"sterling\" customer service. This brought forth a small number of articulate dissensions. The most articulate, and the most troubling, came from M., who wrote, \"Last year, flying from Baltimore to Chicago with my entire family (two really little kids included), we set down at Midway in a rainstorm. And waited for our bags. And waited for bags. And waited for bags.\" 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: She goes on, \"I did call that evening ... and was told that that sufficed. This is the first time I've been told that I had to file a complaint in person within four hours. ... When I filed on the 12 th , I was never told that I needed any receipts or photos or other type of documentation. The baggage folks seemed pretty uninterested in all of this. ... They know that the type of 'evidence' they want is impossible to obtain. They also know that on April 9 they screwed up the luggage retrieval and left bags out in the rain a long time.\" Southwest's response actually served to anger M. more than the original problem. \"Before, they had a mildly annoyed but loyal customer (who would have been placated by an apology and thrilled with some modest token of their regret). Now they have a pissed-off customer.\" Things do look bad for Southwest, don't they? The Shopping Avenger sent M.'s response to Rutherford, who e-mailed back saying she thought the Shopping Avenger was asking for \"policy information.\" The Shopping Avenger e-mailed back again, stressing to Rutherford that the Great Court of Consumer Justice would, if this case were brought to trial, undoubtedly find for the plaintiff (the Shopping Avenger serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury in the Great Court of Consumer Justice--defendants are represented by the president of U-Haul), and that Southwest was precipitously close to feeling the sword of retribution at its neck. But then she came through, provisionally, \"Yep, you can be sure if [M.] will call me we will get everything squared away. I'm sorry it's taken this long for her to get someone who can help, but we will take care of it from here.\" Stay tuned, shoppers, to hear whether Southwest makes good it promise to compensate M. and apologize to her for her troubles. The story of M. reminds the Shopping Avenger of a central truth of consumer service: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Take the case of K., who found himself waiting in vain for Circuit City to repair his television. Televisions break, even 1-year-old televisions, as is the case with K's. But Circuit City, where he bought the television, gave him a terrible runaround. The Shopping Avenger dispatched his sidekick, Tad the Deputy Avenger, to get to the bottom of K.'s story. This is what he found: K. grew concerned, Tad the Deputy Avenger reports, after his television had been in the Circuit City shop for a week. When he called, he was told to \"check back next week.\" When he asked if someone from the store could call him with more information, he was refused. Weeks went by. When K. told one Circuit City employee that he really would like to get his television back, the employee, K. says, asked him, \"Don't you have another television in your house?\" More than a month later--after hours and hours and hours of telephone calls and days missed at work--K. received his television back. Mistakes happen, but not, Tad the Deputy Avenger found out, at Circuit City. The case, K. was told by a Circuit City official, was \"handled perfectly.\" Another official, Morgan Stewart in public relations, assured Deputy Avenger Tad that \"We got to be a big and successful company by treating customers better than the other guy.\" The Shopping Avenger and his loyal sidekick would like to hear from other Circuit City customers: Does Circuit City, in fact, treat its customers better than the other guy? Stay tuned for answers. And next month, a Shopping Avenger clergy special: TWA screws with a Hasidic rabbi's travel plans, leaving the rabbi's wife crying at the airport. Find out if the Shopping Avenger can save TWA from certain heavenly punishment, in the next episode. Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.\n\n<question>:\nWhat do Circuit City and Southwest have in common?\n\n<options>:\nA They think they have reputations for being better than their competitors\nB They deal with high volumes of cusomer calls\nC They are headquartered in the same major city\nD A lot of their issues surround glitchy electronics, albeit in different ways\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
848	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>:\ncan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch with somebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody, What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes these guys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I read the letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in different write to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you have utilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whose inadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary reports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasury of facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be free of the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed in your task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when we likeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am among lies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child in order that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix too fast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision. I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there are no terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you in not-language what I had to go through during the first moments of my Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limited equipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctor since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother I learned the following day that the opposite component of my He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable of speech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, I This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords that are now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted sounded cleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a reply from Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praise qualifying preface except where comparisons must be made between this learned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hard My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feeler vibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then I establish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without his knowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes my letter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what he has done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of an individual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, but I fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tell you about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I have impressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioning for me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficient mechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions. immediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked up and all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. I simply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions was to realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do not let yourself believe they do. pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. I must feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information I have been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe. What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission is impaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can write you with more enlightenment. as you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with the greatest intricacy, design and color While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer, more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selves into ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to force causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people call of them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I picked them up while examining the \"slang\" portion of my information catalog which you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimate cause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peace in my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need. Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled here A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last. Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed in our catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reed again. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions that constantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself to react exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I am burned again. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangely enough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this world I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've been studying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics of these people, in the movies. This is the best place to see these wonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into this outlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we must finally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experiments yet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation of blonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She was attracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised is perfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I remember Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerve ends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets these impulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in the entire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. tingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myself quickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and love and tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses. This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn, wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he would have a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letter the morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank a pattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and the redhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as a result of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in these not-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the reality I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pick closer points of communication soon. I have nothing to report but I was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his best customer. of mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that, transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end will be swift and fatal. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same with me. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world senses\n\n<question>:\nHow does the format of the story supplement the character?\n\n<options>:\nA Each letter comes from a different location, lending credence to this character's story.\nB It proves that Glmpauszn is lying.\nC The way the letters are presented makes the speaker seem unreliable.\nD The way information is presented allows the reader to infer their own judgements of the character,\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,858	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 is operated by a hand-picked dangerous of weapons is the one you don't know is loaded. Illustrated by Schoenherr The by a series of silly errors happening one after another in defiance of the way up the half-mile \"On the other hand, a talent that precipice it fingered and wrenched away at groaning ice-slabs. It to be chancy. No matter how highly developed it can't be surefire. The proof is that I've survived to tell the tale.\" At twenty below zero and fifty manipulates chance events is bound vizor at the white waste and the to a frozen glare, penciled black shadow down the long furrow, and flashed at the furrow's end on a thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. Nothing grew, nothing flew, nothing walked, nothing talked. But the snow-filled air howling over it, sliding broken or a clockwork toy running but still cocky, there leaked from the shape in the hollow the sound of a \"I've wiggled my toes with entire out. I'm fine where I am. I'll just lie here for a while and relax, and get some of the story on tape. This suit's \"I've always been lucky, I guess. Luck got me a place in the Whale . are lots of other guys. If I were ten years older, it would have been an honor, being picked for the first long jump in the first starship ever. At my 'Jump'. Took his finger off the button and there we were: Alpha Centauri . Two months later your time, use. Better yet would be a pint Failing that, I could even go for a won't. I could weep when I think of just back from a proving flight cum astronomical survey in the starship and don't take any wooden nickels. hadn't I? That's what the natives called it. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. The odds against finding Chang on a six-sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. We certainly were lucky. \"Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . \"Three, they've a great sense of humor. Ran rather to silly practical jokes, but still. Can't say I care for weren't so hot at it. Maybe that ten per cent extra gravity put us that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. Could have kept your mind on the game? \"And don't think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we or whatever you like to call him, who of humor, of course. I nearly broke my neck on that butter-slide he fixed up in the metal alleyway to the Whale's Minnow was a cabin full of dead and dying men, the sweetish stink of burned flesh and the choking reek of scorching insulation, how high I am. Must be all of fifty miles, and doing eight hundred miles an hour at least. I'll be doing more than that when I land. What's final velocity for a fifty-mile fall? Same as a fifty thousand mile fall, I suppose same as escape twenty-four thousand miles an hour. I'll make a mess ... \"That's better. Why didn't I close made me dizzy. I'll make a nice shooting star when I hit air. Come to think of it, I must be deep in air now. Let's take a look. \"It's getting lighter. Look at those or eraser. What must have happened is that the suit ran out of oxygen, and I lost consciousness due to anoxia. I dreamed I switched on the radio, but I actually switched on the emergency tank, thank the Lord, and that brought me round. \"Come to think of it, why not crack the suit and breath fresh air instead of bottled? \"No. I'd have to get up to do that. I think I'll just lie here a little bit journey, wasn't I? The long jump back home, which should have dumped us between the orbits of Earth about half a light-year from the sun. The crew's job was also easy: they found what went wrong in less than half an hour. \"It still seems incredible. To program the ship for a star-jump, you merely told it where you were and where you wanted to go. In practical terms, that entailed first a series of in the galaxy. Then you cut a tape on the computer and hit the button. the wrong place. It hurts me to tell you this and I'm just attached personnel with no space-flight tradition. In practical terms, one highly trained equally skilled had failed to notice this when reading back. A childish error, highly improbable thus squaring the improbability. Incredible, but that's what why we were out there so long. They were cross-checked about five times. I got sick so I climbed into a spacesuit and went outside and took some passed through a small sieve, and poured back into shape. The entire pointed straight down, traveling at a relative speed of about two thousand miles an hour. \"It was a fantastic situation. Here was the fifty light-years in a subjective time of one second, and it was helpless. For, as of course you know, the \"The Whale interplanetary flight because you can run it continuously and it has extremely high exhaust velocity. But in our situation it was no good because it has rather a low thrust. It would have taken more time than we had to deflect us enough to avoid a smash. Minnow at a dead run. There was no time to take anything at all except the clothes we stood in. The Minnow was meant for short heavy hops to planets or asteroids. In addition to the ion drive it had emergency atomic rockets, miles an hour make an almighty splash. By now you'll have divers down, but I doubt they'll salvage much you can use. his lovely ship was getting the chopper. Or did he suspect another human up. Poor Cazamian was burnt to a crisp. Only thing that saved me was the spacesuit I was still wearing. I snapped the face plate down because the cabin was filling with fumes. I \"I saw the launch spinning away, glowing red against a purplish black sky. I tumbled head over heels towards \"I'll have to get up and crack this suit and let some air in. But I can't. I fell fifty miles without a parachute. on the recorder. The voice began again, considerably wearier. \"Hello there. I'm in the bleakest precipice around me every way but one and that's up. So it's up I'll have to go till I find a way to go down. there I stick. Listened to it for fifteen minutes just to hear a human voice again. I haven't much hope of reaching anyone with my five milliwatt something from my military training, when I did some parachute jumps. Terminal velocity for a human body falling through air is lucky to live through a five hundred foot fall, true, but I've been lucky. The suit is bulky but light and probably slowed my fall. I hit a sixty mile about half a mile of snow and fetched up in a drift. The suit is part worn but still operational. I'm fine. \"The second thing I want to say is dangerous. I'm not telling how because I've got a scientific reputation to watch. You'll have to figure it out after all they aren't human. On an alien world a hundred light-years away, why shouldn't alien talents develop? A talent that's so uncertain and rudimentary ping-pong. \"So what is luck, good or bad? Scientifically speaking, future chance others aren't. All we've got are hints and glimmers, the fumbling touch of a rudimentary talent. There's the evil eye legend and the Jonah, bad luck bringers. Superstition? Maybe but\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the Minnow?\n\n<options>:\nA The Minnow is Charlie's spaceship.\nB The Minnow is the most powerful ship ever built.\nC The Minnow is a shuttlecraft.\nD The Minnow is an escape pod.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
498	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHuman Clones: Why Not? If humans have a right to reproduce, what right does society have to limit the means? Essentially all reproduction is done these days with medical help--at delivery, and often before. Truly natural human reproduction would mean 50 percent infant mortality and make pregnancy-related death the No. 1 killer of adult women. True, some forms of medical help are more invasive than others. With in vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are combined in the lab and surgically implanted in the womb. Less than two decades ago, a similar concern was raised over the ethical issues involved in \"test-tube babies.\" To date, nearly 30,000 such babies have been born in the United States alone. Many would-be parents have been made happy. Who has been harmed? Even if people have the right to do it, is cloning a good idea? Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. Hating a world of clones is hating the current populace. Never before was Pogo so right: We have met the enemy, and he is us ! Clones already exist. About one in every 1,000 births results in a pair of babies with the same DNA. We know them as identical twins. Scientific studies on such twins--reared together or apart--show that they share many characteristics. Just how many they share is a contentious topic in human biology. But genetic determinism is largely irrelevant to the cloning issue. Despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins--or other clones--have in common, they are different people in the most fundamental sense . They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. Should you be confused on this point, just ask a twin. Suppose that Unsolved Mysteries called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people--like the lost identical twin, only younger than you. A person's basic humanity is not governed by how he or she came into this world, or whether somebody else happens to have the same DNA. Twins aren't the only clones in everyday life. Think about seedless grapes or navel oranges--if there are no seeds, where did they come from? It's the plant equivalent of virgin birth--which is to say that they are all clones, propagated by cutting a shoot and planting it. Wine is almost entirely a cloned product. The grapes used for wine have seeds, but they've been cloned from shoots for more than a hundred years in the case of many vineyards. The same is true for many flowers. Go to a garden store, and you'll find products with delightful names like \"Olivia's Cloning Compound,\" a mix of hormones to dunk on the cut end of a shoot to help it take root. One recurring image in anti-cloning propaganda is of some evil dictator raising an army of cloned warriors. Excuse me, but who is going to raise such an army (\"raise\" in the sense used by parents)? Clones start out life as babies . Armies are far easier to raise the old fashioned way--by recruiting or drafting naive young adults. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori has worked well enough to send countless young men to their deaths through the ages. Why mess with success? Remember that cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. We don't get to make superman--we have to find him first. Maybe we could clone the superwarrior from Congressional Medal of Honor winners. Their bravery might--or might not--be genetically determined. But, suppose that it is. You might end up with such a brave battalion of heroes that when a grenade lands in their midst, there is a competition to see who gets to jump on it to save the others. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily the way to win a war. And what about the supply sergeants? The army has a lot more of them than heroes. You could try to breed an expert for every job, including the petty bureaucrats, but what's the point? There's not exactly a shortage of them. What if Saddam Hussein clones were to rule Iraq for another thousand years? Sounds bad, but Saddam's natural son Uday is reputed to make his father seem saintly by comparison. We have no more to fear from a clone of Saddam, or of Hitler, than we do from their natural-born kin--which is to say, we don't have much to fear: Dictators' kids rarely pose a problem. Stalin's daughter retired to Arizona, and Kim Jong Il of North Korea is laughable as Great Leader, Version 2.0. The notion of an 80-year-old man cloning himself to cheat death is quaint, but it is unrealistic. First, the baby wouldn't really be him. Second, is the old duffer really up to changing diapers? A persistent octogenarian might convince a younger couple to have his clone and raise it, but that is not much different from fathering a child via a surrogate mother. What is so special about natural reproduction anyway? Cloning is the only predictable way to reproduce, because it creates the identical twin of a known adult. Sexual reproduction is a crap shoot by comparison--some random mix of mom and dad. In evolutionary theory, this combination is thought to help stir the gene pool, so to speak. However, evolution for humans is essentially over, because we use medical science to control the death rate. Whatever the temptations of cloning, the process of natural reproduction will always remain a lot more fun. An expensive and uncomfortable lab procedure will never offer any real competition for sex. The people most likely to clone will be those in special circumstances--infertile couples who must endure IVF anyway, for example. Even there, many will mix genetics to mimic nature. Another special case is where one member of a couple has a severe genetic disease. They might choose a clone of the healthy parent, rather than burden their child with a joint heritage that could be fatal. The most upsetting possibility in human cloning isn't superwarriors or dictators. It's that rich people with big egos will clone themselves. The common practice of giving a boy the same name as his father or choosing a family name for a child of either sex reflects our hunger for vicarious immortality. Clones may resonate with this instinct and cause some people to reproduce this way. So what? Rich and egotistic folks do all sorts of annoying things, and the law is hardly the means with which to try and stop them. Once the fuss has died down and further animal research has paved the way, direct human cloning will be one more option among many specialized medical interventions in human reproduction, affecting only a tiny fraction of the population. Research into this area could bring far wider benefits. Clinton's knee-jerk policy changes nothing in the short run, but it is ultimately a giant step backward. In using an adult cell to create a clone, the \"cellular clock\" that determines the difference between an embryo and adult was somehow reset. Work in this area might help elucidate the process by which aging occurs and yield a way to reset the clocks in some of our own cells, allowing us to regenerate. Selfishly speaking, that would be more exciting to me than cloning, because it would help me . That's a lot more directly useful than letting me sire an identical twin 40 years my junior.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would the world be like if people stopped having children naturally and started producing clones of themselves?\n\n<options>:\nA More dangerous than now\nB Less individualistic\nC The same as now.\nD More unique\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,628	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>:\ntogether again, too. Also, neither Moran nor any of the others wanted to Moran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the plans necessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have come . 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 The ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planet Moran observed these things from the control-room of the Nadine , then approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with no reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the \"It doesn't look too bad, Moran!\" Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. He cocked an ear instead. He They'd been on Coryus Three and they'd gotten departure clearance from its space-port. With clearance-papers in order, they could land 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 any crime simply by buying a ticket to another world. Moran couldn't have bought a ticket, but he'd tried to get off the planet Coryus on the Nadine . The trouble was that the covering five persons aboard—four men and a girl Carol. Moran made six. its crew would spark an investigation. A lengthy, incredibly minute investigation. Moran, at least, would be picked out as a fugitive from Moran did not know. They might be sent back where they came from. In effect, with six people on board instead of five, the she could. And Moran was the extra man whose presence would rouse take off from Coryus III with a trip-tape picked at random for guidance. But the trip-tape had been computed for another starting-point, and when the yacht came out of overdrive it was because the drive had been dismantled in the engine-room. So the ship's 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 the way to find out where one was, when one's position became doubtful. The Nadine needed to make a planet-fall for this. \"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.\" Moran stirred, and he knew that every one of the others was conscious of long habit. Burleigh said they'd been Underground people, fighting the government of their native world, and they'd gotten away to make it seem the revolt had collapsed. They'd go back later when they weren't expected, and start it up again. Moran considered the story probable. when Moran had used desperate measures against them. 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. government would think defeat. Moran's own situation was perfectly He'd killed a man on Coryus III. His victim would not be mourned by anybody, and somebody formerly in very great danger would now be safe, which was the reason for what Moran had done. But the dead man had been 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 Nadine's fuel-block back to that space-yacht. He'd companions got the drive dismantled two days later and once the yacht was out of overdrive they efficiently gave him his choice of surrendering or else. He surrendered, stipulating that he wouldn't be landed back on Coryus he still clung to hope of avoiding return—which was almost certain anyhow. Because nobody would want to go back to a 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. \"It's a ship,\" said Moran curtly. \"It crash-landed and its crew set up a signal to call for help. None came, or they'd have turned the beacon \"Then since I can't be trusted with a weapon,\" said Moran, \"I suggest Moran silently went to the space-suit rack and began to get into a \"If there's a lifeboat left,\" said Carol suddenly, \"Moran might be able \"Ah, yes!\" said Moran. \"It's very likely that the ship hit hard enough to kill everybody aboard, but not smash the boats!\" \"Somebody survived the crash,\" said Burleigh, \"because they set up a landed. Moran moved scornfully Moran grunted. Distastefully, he saw his predicament made worse. He knew what had happened here. He could begin to guess at other things to be 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 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 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.\" remained actively unpleasant to think of being marooned on it. \"Suppose we go look at the ship?\" said Moran unpleasantly. \"Maybe you He and the others joined Moran on the yielding surface. Their footing Moran heard muffled noises in his helmet-phone as the others tried to 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 fugitives. They would be returned to it. They'd be executed. . They need not maroon him. In fact, they wouldn't dare. A ship that came in to port with two few on board would be investigated Harper were killed, Moran would be needed to take his place. He'd go on , necessarily accepted as a member of her crew.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Moran think it could be beneficial if one of the crew members was killed on the alien planet?\n\n<options>:\nA He would be more likely to survive an attack from the Nadine crew if they ambushed him.\nB He could convert their body to nutrients, which he could use to survive longer on the alien planet.\nC He and the remaining crew members could pass security clearance with only five members on board.\nD He could steal the deceased crew member's identity and use it to start a new life on a new planet.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,849	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\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 what his son had wanted that he couldn't get at home. THE 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 \"I don't think so,\" Umluana said. \"No, if you kill me, all Africa will rise against the world. You don't want me dead. You want me Read clicked off the safety. \"Corporal Read is very young,\" Rashid said, \"but he's a crack shot. That's why I brought him with me. I think he likes \"Help! \" \"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 home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who do the drudge work of civilization and know they will never do the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television and alcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told him 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 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 I've been a king compared to people overseas. Why, you stay here and go to trade school and in two years you'll be living just 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 Disarmament Treaty of 1966. Through the years it had acquired 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. I'm lazy and I like excitement.\" One power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General or head of state whose country violated international law. Could the World Court try and imprison a politician who had conspired to but the black build himself an empire. 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. agreed to in the Disarmament Treaty. The European countries and and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more investigation by the UN. But the evidence was clear. Umluana was defying world law. If he Umluana and try him by due process before the World Court. If the 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. Belderkan fighters in hot pursuit, other nations joining the They had made no plans to take over Miaka. They planned to get he's \"Don't be certain, corporal. All these strong-arm movements are alike. I'll bet Umluana's lieutenants are hoping he'll become a dead legend. Then they can become live conquerors.\" Sergeant Rashid came from Cairo. He had degrees in science and history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple. \"Not yet. Not until we have to.\" Read fingered the machine gun he had picked up when he got in the car. He had never been shot at. Twice he had faced an unarmed They're too far away to \"Man, get us out of here!\" Read had seen dozens of training films taken during actual 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.\" 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. He started crawling toward an easy-chair that looked like good 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 Harry Read, UN Inspector Corps—a very special man. If he didn't 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. The UN men had already taken over the station, chased out the they then try to save ourselves. Once he's gone, I think we ought to surrender.\" \"How do you think they'll treat us?\" \"We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry.\" 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 ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS. ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS. \"They know we don't have any big weapons,\" Read said. \"They know we have only gas grenades and small arms.\" He looked nervously from side to side. They couldn't bring the copter in with that thing squatting out there. 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. All UN inspectors. All part of his life. \"Nobody. Anybody else?\" \" \"Read, you've got to. I think you're the only—\" \"What?\" Guns clattered. Bullets cracked. 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 surrendered the survivors to the Belderkans. His mother hung the Global Medal above the television set. \"He must have been brave,\" she said. \"We had a fine son.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy don't Harry's parents want him to join the UN?\n\n<options>:\nA Harry's parents think he is too lazy to succeed in the UN.\nB Harry's parents want him to go to trade school.\nC Harry's parents feel that joining the UN means he is turning his back on America.\nD Harry's parents don't want him to be a soldier.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
2,369	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>:\nLinton lay down his steel fork beside the massively solid transparency of the restaurant water glass. \"Isn't that Rogers Snead at that table?\" he heard himself say stupidly. Howell, the man across the table from him, looked embarrassed without looking. \"Not at all. Somebody who looks like him. Twin brother. You know how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?\" Linton remembered. Howell had to know that he would remember. What were they trying to pull on him? \"The man who isn't Snead is leaving,\" Linton said, describing the scene over Howell's shoulder. \"If that's Snead's brother, I might catch him to pay my respects.\" \"No,\" Howell said, \"I wouldn't do that.\" \"Snead came to Greta's funeral. It's the least I could do.\" \"I wouldn't. Probably no relation to Snead at all. Somebody who looks like him.\" \"He's practically running,\" Linton said. \"He almost ran out of the restaurant.\" \"Who? Oh, the man who looked like Snead, you mean.\" \"Yes,\" Linton said. A thick-bodied man at the next table leaned his groaning chair back intimately against Linton's own chair. \"That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?\" the thick man said. \"Couldn't have been him, though,\" Linton answered automatically. \"My friend's dead.\" The thick man rocked forward and came down on all six feet. He threw paper money on the table as if he were disgusted with it. He plodded out of the place quickly. Howell breathed in deeply and sucked back Linton's attention. \"Now you've probably got old Snead into trouble.\" \"Snead's dead,\" Linton said. \"Oh, well, 'dead,'\" Howell replied. \"What do you say it like that for?\" Linton demanded angrily. \"The man's dead. Plain dead. He's not Sherlock Holmes or the Frankenstein Monster—there's no doubt or semantic leeway to the thing.\" \"You know how it is,\" Howell said. Linton had thought he had known how death was. He had buried his wife, or rather he had watched the two workmen scoop and shove dirt in on the sawdust-fresh pine box that held the coffin. He had known what he known a genuine affection for her. But it didn't seem he knew about death at all. Linton felt that his silence was asking Howell by this time. \"I don't know, mind you,\" Howell said, puffing out tobacco smoke, \"but I suppose he might have been resurrected.\" \"Who by?\" Linton asked, thinking: \"You mean, somebody has invented a way to bring dead people back to life?\" Linton said. He knew, of course, that Howell did not mean that. Howell meant that some people had a system of making it appear that a person had died in order to gain some illegal advantage. But by saying something so patently ridiculous, Linton hoped to bring the contradicting truth to the surface immediately. about it?\" \"Sh-h,\" Howell said uneasily. \"This is a public place.\" \"I don't understand,\" Linton said helplessly. \"Look, Frank, you can't legalize a thing like resurrection,\" Howell \"I don't understand,\" Linton complained. \"Why haven't I heard about it?\" trying to trick him. They used to do that to see if he was really well. But the temptation was too strong. \"Tell me, Howell, where could I find a resurrectionist?\" Howell looked away. \"Frank, I don't have anything to do with that kind of people and if you're smart, you'll not either.\" Linton's fingers imprinted the linen. \"Damn you, Howell, you tell me!\" Howell climbed to his feet hurriedly. \"I take you out to dinner to console you over the loss of your wife a half a year ago, and to make you feel welcome back to the society of your fellows after being in the hospital for a nervous breakdown. I do all that, and for thanks, you yell at me and curse me. You kooks are all alike!\" Howell threw money on the table with the same kind of disinterest as the thick-set man and stalked out. I've got to hurry too, Linton thought. It's Resurrection Day! well, Mr. Linton, we understand you've been causing disturbances.\" attempted to bribe an officer. That's disturbing, Mr. Linton, very disturbing.\" \"I was only trying to find out something,\" Linton maintained. \"They could have told me. Everybody seems to know but me.\" The doctor clucked his tongue. \"Let's not think any such thing. People Linton stared suspiciously. \"Do you know where I can find a \"Well, that's what you paid him to do, wasn't it? Did you think a policeman would just steal your money? Cynics—all you young people are cynics.\" Linton scooted forward on the insultingly cold metal chair and really looked at the doctor for the first time. \"Doctor, can you Linton grasped the situation immediately. \"You mean you want money. You realize I've just got out of an institution....\" The certificate to allow reburial in Virginia hadn't been impossible to obtain. The doctor had taken the body and Linton's fortune and fed them both into the maw of his calculators, and by means of the secret, smuggled formulae, Greta would be cybernetically reborn. Linton shook his head. It seemed impossible. But Greta opened the olive-drab slab of metal of the door to the doctor's inner-inner sanctum and walked out into the medicinal cold fluorescent lighting. It wasn't fair at all, Linton thought. He should have had some time to prepare himself. \"Traffic accident. Killed instantly.\" \"But Johnny was your friend, your best friend. Why didn't you have him resurrected the same way you did me?\" you haven't the money to do it?\" \"No,\" Linton said. \"I'm sold out. I've borrowed on my insurance to the hilt. It won't pay any more until I'm buried, and then, of course, you Linton followed the direction of Greta's gaze and found only an ashtray Greta pounced on the stand, hefted it at the base and ran toward him with it over her head. Linton leaped aside and Greta hit the edge of the desk instead of him. Brain damage, he concluded nervously. Cell deterioration. Greta raised it again and he caught her wrists high over her head. She writhed against him provocatively. \"Frank, I'm sorry, dear, but I have to have that insurance money. It's hell!\" Linton understood immediately. He felt foolish, humiliated. All that Linton twisted the stand away from his wife and watched her face in some appalled form of satisfaction as it registered horror and acceptance of the crumpled metal disk falling toward it. He split her head open and watched her float to the floor. Linton was surprised at the fine wire mesh just below the skin and It was what you thought was real that made it so, not the other way around. \"I've killed my wife!\" Linton called, rising from his knees, stretching his hands out to something. The pain stung him to sleep—a pain in his neck like a needle that left doctor looked down at him consolingly. \"You'll have to go back, Mr. Linton. But they'll cure you. You'll be cured of ever thinking your wife was brought back to life and that you killed her all over again.\" \"Do you\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Howell not want Linton to approach Snead in the restaurant?\n\n<options>:\nA Howell imagines that Snead has likely been resurrected and will try to go after Linton\nB Howell knows that Linton has been resurrected and does not want him to be embarrassed if Linton commits a social faux pas\nC Howell does not want Linton to learn about resurrection after what he did to become institutionalized\nD Howell knows that Linton attempted to murder Snead before he suffered from a nervous breakdown\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
777	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 the horse. Then both man and horse plunged headlong into the waiting torrent, deep into the cool embrace of the clear liquid. They soaked it into their pores and drank deeply of it, feeling life going once more 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 was with his wife in the living room of their home. They had put the children to bed—their sons—and now sat on the couch, watching the blazing fire. It was then that he had showed it to her. \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\" He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry of surprised joy. \"Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!\" she cried in her rich, happy voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body. \"It's for you so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\" She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\" Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him. He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into his and making him oblivious to everything except that she was there in his arms and that he was sinking deep, deep into a familiar sea, where he had been many times before but each time found something new and unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain. \"Wait!\" she cried. \"I've something for you, too.\" She took off the locket she wore about her neck and held it up to the shimmering light, letting it spin at the end of its chain. It caught the shadows of the fire and reflected them, greatly magnified, over the room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her in one side, and in the other a picture of the children. He took her in his arms again, and loosened her long, black hair, burying his face in it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end. The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet, in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the blood in his veins. Three days later they had landed in Spain, merged with another the threat of annihilation by the retaliation forces had been too great. He had done well in the war, and had been decorated many times for bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. grew louder and louder until he knew what it was. 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. The retaliatory forces had roared away to bomb the Russian cities. Few, if any, had returned. Too much blood and life were on their hands. Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown of some distant mountain. Others had preferred the silent peaceful sea, where flesh stayed not long on bones, and only darting fishes and merciful beams of filtered light found their aluminum coffins. The war had ended. To no avail. Neither side had won. Most of the cities and the majority of the population of both countries had been destroyed. Even their governments had vanished, leaving a silent nothingness. The armies that 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. 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 leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice as large as a regular horse. Its skin seemed to shimmer and was like glassy steel to the touch. From the center of its forehead grew a horn, straight out, as the horn of a unicorn. But most startling of all were started the long journey home. The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He had seen great herds of horses like his own, stampeding across the no human beings. But he knew he was closer now. Closer to home. He recognized the land. How, he did not know, for it was much changed. A sensing, perhaps, of what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away. Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with her once again all would be well, and his long journey would be over. The images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and mind slept into the shadows of the dawn. length of his frame. A deep ridge ran down the length of his torso, separating the muscles, making the chest broad. Well satisfied with his was a torch that pierced his skin, seeming to melt his bones into a burning stream within his body. But day at last gave way to night, and the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with streaming hair called stars. In the moonlight he had not seen the crater until he was at its Night paled into day day burned into night. There were clouds in the sky now, and a gentle wind caressed the sweat monster. Large greasy scales covered its face and arms, and there was found it. He had been searching so long. He would go on searching. He was turning wearily away from the window when the movement of the creature beside the fire held his attention. It had taken a ring from one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if trying to decipher some inscription inside it. He knew then. He had come home. kind of fear he had never known. He fumbled at his throat, his fingers crawling like cold worms around his neck until he found the locket and the clasp which had held it safely through endless nightmare days and nights. He slipped the clasp and the locket fell into his waiting hand. As one in a dream, he opened it, and stared at the pictures, now in the dim moonlight no longer faces of those he loved, but grey ghosts from the past. Even the ruby of darkness. \"Nothing is forever!\" He thought he had shouted the words, but only a thin sound, the sound of leaves ruffled by the wind, came back to him. He closed the locket and fastened the clasp, and hung it on the doorknob. It moved slowly in the wind, back and forth, like a pendulum. \"Forever—forever. Only death is forever.\" He could have sworn he heard\n\n<question>:\nHow does the monster wearing the diamond ring send a different message than the main character's wife wearing the same ring?\n\n<options>:\nA The ring now shows that material love is stronger than emotional love.\nB The ring is meaningless now that it is not worn by his wife.\nC The ring now shows that anyone can hold a symbol of love.\nD The ring shows that the love between the main character and his wife was not exclusive between them.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
23	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>:\nShannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed Bucky Shannon leaned forward across the little hexagonal table. He thil , but it didn't matter. The pitcher down the drain.\" He added, as an afterthought, \"Destitute.\" I looked at him. I said sourly, \"You're kidding!\" \"Kidding.\" Shannon put his elbows on the table and peered at me through a curtain of very blond hair that was trying hard to be red. \"He says I'm kidding! With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down! Nothing works, from the ship to the roustabouts. In short, it stinks!\" I must have had the pitcher oftener than I thought. Nobody insults Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be. Shannon?\" Shannon put his hands down on his belt. He closed his eyes and smiled and I felt sorry for him. Bucky Shannon grey in his hair and his skin was pink, soft, and shaved painfully clean. He had the kind of a face that nice maiden-ladies will trust with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad. There didn't seem to be any. The little guy looked at Shannon with pale Bucky Shannon got up. He grinned his pleasantest grin. \"Delighted. I'm ever met, and you couldn't see into those innocent blue eyes any more 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, like hungry cats at a mouse-hole.\" Beamish. I wish to—ah—charter your circus.\" independent means, gentlemen. It has always been my desire to lighten the burden of life for those less fortunate....\" He sat down, looking like a mean dog waiting for the postman. Beamish ignored him. He went on, quietly, \"I have always held that entertainment, of the right sort, is the most valuable aid humanity can have in its search for the alleviation of toil and boredom....\" I said, \"Sure, sure. But what was your idea?\" remedy that. I propose to charter your circus, Mister Shannon, to make He looked at me. I was lying, and he knew it. But he said, \"I quite understand that. I would be prepared....\" \"Yeah. She's kind of temperamental.\" Bucky took a quick drink. I \"She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude.\" circus than even I could stand. cansin is a fascinating subject. The extreme rarity of the animal....\" stomach jumped like it was shot. Beamish smiled sweetly. Shannon has a good vocabulary. He used it. When he got his breath back \"Yeah.\" \"It may be crooked.\" \"Sure. And he may be screwball and on the level. For Pete's sake!\" I yelled. \"You want to sit here till we all dry up and blow away?\" Shannon looked at me, kind of funny. He looked at the bulge in my tunic Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late Bucky Shannon walked out into the glare of the light at the entrance to Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose. \"They're good guys, Jig. Swell people. They stuck by me, and I've rewarded them.\" I said, \"Sure,\" rather sourly. Bucky hiccoughed. I didn't want to see Gertrude. I never got over feeling funny going near as happy as Shannon, and my skin began to crawl a little. It's the smell, I think rank and sour and wild. And the sound of them, Bucky Shannon lurched against me suddenly. I choked back a yell, and \"That's tough,\" said Bucky Shannon. His grey-green eyes looked like an I looked at Gertrude. Her cage is the biggest and strongest in the tank cansin . There's only Bucky Shannon sniffled again. I said irritably, \"Be reasonable, Gow! cansin . There may not even be any.\" Bucky Shannon began to cry. I snarled, \"You'll have to snap her out of \"I saved her life,\" he said. \"When we bought her out of Hanak's wreck and everybody thought she was too hurt to live, I saved her. I know her. I can do things with her. But this time....\" He shrugged. He was huge and tough and ugly, and his voice was like a woman's talking about a sick child. \"This time,\" he said, \"I ain't sure.\" \"Well for Pete's sake, do what you can. We got a charter, and we need \"You were right, Jig,\" he mumbled. \"Circus is no good. I know it. But it's all I got. I love it, Jig. Unnerstan' me? Like Gow there with Gertrude. She's ugly and no good, but he loves her. I love....\" \"Sure, sure,\" I told him. \"Stop crying down my neck.\" \"This is it. This is it, and oh God, I'm scared!\" little brown face was crinkled with laughter. He'd lost most of his teeth, and he gummed thak -weed. It smelt. \"You pretty, Mis' Jig,\" he giggled. \"You funny like hell.\" said, \"Where's Shannon? How is he?\" nickuhtime get snakes. You hero. Haw! You funny like hell!\" snakes had done a good job. I looked like I was upholstered in Scotch I shrugged. \"You're the boss man. I'm only the guy that beats off the creditors.\" \"Yeah,\" Bucky said reflectively. \"And I hear starvation isn't a I said, \"Skip it. The next time, just don't trip me up, that's all!\" strong-man got hurt during the take-off, and the Mercurian cave-cat had of their pants. Circus people are funny that way. Shannon and I did a little quiet sleuthing, but it was a waste of time. I snarled, \"What do you want, with this lousy dog-and-pony show!\" and the electric power they carry in their own bodies. They're Venusian middle-swampers, they're not human, and they never forget it. \"Death,\" she whispered. \"Death and trouble. The jungle tells me. I can hard-bitten guy, lean and tough as a twist of tung wire. I felt sick, looking down at him. of his face had gone slack and his eyes were bloodshot. He was covered with mud, and his mouth twitched like a sick old man's. He said thickly, \"I found it. I said I'd do it, and I did. I found it and brought it out.\" stood out like guy wires. \"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 breathing. \"Sure,\" said Bucky. \"Sure, well take it back. What is it?\" \" Cansin . Male. Only one. You don't know...! Take him back.\" Beamish with his round dead baby face. I climbed over Shannon and Shannon stared at me. Beamish started to get indignant. \"Shut up,\" I\n\n<question>:\nHow does Shannon feel about the circus?\n\n<options>:\nA He needs it for money, nothing more.\nB He resents that he's stuck with it, and gets angry when people insult it.\nC Despite it's quality, he truly cares about it.\nD He believes in it's quality, and has faith in it.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
730	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nI figured that he figured that I had something to do with the way he looked. \"Shipping marocca to Gloryanna III didn't turn out to be a cakewalk succeed in getting the marocca to Gloryanna III?\" I asked The success of that venture—even if the job had turned out to be more difficult than we had expected—meant an enormous profit to both of us. The fruit of the marocca is delicious and fabulously expensive. The plant grew only on the single planet Mypore II. Transshipped seeds invariably failed to germinate, which explained its rarity. letting any of the living plants get shipped off their planet. But when \"I got them there safely,\" said Captain Hannah. \"And they are growing all right?\" I persisted. \"When I left, marocca was growing like mad,\" said Captain Hannah. I relaxed and leaned back in my chair. I no longer felt the need of rhial for myself. \"Tell me about it,\" I suggested. \"It was you who said that we should carry those damn plants to that marocca takes a very special kind of environment. Bright sun most of the time—that means an almost cloudless environment. A very equable climate. Days and nights the same length and no seasons—that means no ecliptical and no axial tilt. But our tests showed that the plants had enough tolerance to cause no trouble in the trip in \"You'll remember that I warned you that we should take some marocca out into space and solve any problems we might find before committing ourselves to hauling a full load of it?\" asked Captain Hannah. \"We couldn't,\" I protested. \"The Myporians gave us a deadline. If we had gone through all of that rigamarole, we would have lost the own way, in his own time. \"Well,\" he said, \"I got into parking orbit around Mypore without any trouble. The plastic film kept the water in the hydroponic tanks without any trouble, even in a no-gravity condition. And by the time I doesn't keep winding, the plants die extra hours of night time before they run down.\" \"Oh,\" said Captain Hannah in quiet tones of controlled desperation, \"it was very simple. I just put enough spin on the ship to make artificial gravity, and then I strung a light and moved it every fifteen minutes for ten and one-half hours, until I had gone halfway around the room. The plants liked it fine. \"Of course, first I had to move all the hydroponic tanks from their original positions perpendicular to the axial thrust line of the ship the southern hemisphere, it turned out that half of the plants had a sinistral corkscrew and the other half had a dextral. So I had to set the plants up in two different rooms, and run an artificial sun for It was full of minerals and manure and such, and I didn't want to introduce it into the ship's tanks.\" situation fairly well under control, but like you, I hadn't thought things through. The plastic membranes hadn't torn when we brought the mosquito. They had apparently been swimming in the water during their larval stage. Instead of making cocoons for themselves, they snipped \"I couldn't figure whether to turn up the fans and dissipate the cloud—by spreading it all through the ship—or whether to try to block off the other plant room, and save it at least. So I ended up by not doing anything, which was the right thing to do. No more plants died because it's poisonous to humans too. marocca. The larvae provide an enzyme without which the plants die. \"Of course. I immediately stopped slapping at the relatively few midges that had made their way into the head with me, and started to change the air in the ship to get rid of the poison. I knew it was too late given their larvae in moving the tanks and dipping the water up in buckets and all that had inhibited them in completing their cycle the \"And the reason they had the same life cycle as the carolla was that fill itself full to bursting before it will reproduce. If I had the translation done correctly, they were supposed to dart gracefully inquisitive. They explored the whole ship, going into places I wouldn't have believed it to be possible for them to reach, including the inside of the main computer, which promptly shorted out. I finally figured \"I got up with the sun the next morning. Hell, I had to, considering that it was I who turned the sun on! I found that the dingleburys immediately got busy opening small buds on the stems of the marocca plants. Apparently they were pollinating them. I felt sure that these buds weren't the marocca blossoms from which the fruit formed—I'd seen a lot of those while we were on Mypore II and they were much but I was busy. \"Anyway, the action of the dingleburys triggered the violent growth phase of the marocca plants. Did you know that they plant marocca seedlings, back on Mypore II, at least you'll recall, a mature field, which was the only kind we ever saw, is one solid mass of green growth. \"The book says that it takes just six hours for a marocca field to shift from the seedling stage to the mature stage. It didn't seem that long. You could watch it wouldn't do its job right. In effect, their growth would put out the one of the things they do is to defend the marocca against marauders. \"And what's more, I found that I couldn't kill the damn things. Not if other to the point where they curled up and died, and I had to do it Made them forget all about me. \"While they were having their orgy, I caught up on my reading. It was necessary for me to cut back the marocca vines. For one thing, I couldn't get up to the area of the bridge. For another, the main computer was completely clogged. I could use the auxiliary, on the back to normal as soon as possible. But before cutting, I had to translate the gouge. \"It turns out that it's all right to cut marocca as soon as it stops growing. To keep the plants from dying, though, you have to mulch the cuttings and then feed them back to the plants, where the roots store growth. Of course, if you prefer you can wait for the vines to die back will poison the plants if they are fed back to them without having been \"I was the special processor. That's what the instructions said—I translated very carefully—it required an 'organic processor'. \"So I had to eat pounds of that horrible tasting stuff every day, and process it the hard way. didn't bother me any. I was far beyond the point where hay fever could had finished. \"Well, go on,\" I urged him. \"The marocca plants were still in good shape, weren't they?\" Hannah nodded. \"They were growing luxuriously.\" He nodded his head a He said, \"They made me burn the entire crop right away, of course. They didn't get all of the carolla or dingleburys, though. Or spores.\" \"Gloryanna III is the original home planet of marocca. They hated the stuff, of course, but they liked the profit. Then, when a plague almost crop. It wasn't as lucrative, but it was so much more pleasant that they outlawed marocca. Took them almost fifty years to stamp it out completely. Meanwhile, some clever native shipped a load of the stuff to Mypore II. He took his time, did it without any trouble and made his Delta Crucis as security to pay for the cost of stamping out marocca all over again—those spores sprout fast—and for a time I was worried. \"Of course, when I showed them our contract—that you alone were\n\n<question>:\nIf the marocca plants happened to die during transport, what would be one logical explanation for why they died based on the conditions they needed to survive in the article?\n\n<options>:\nA The temperature of the environment did not vary enough and was too stagnant for the plants.\nB The carollas decided to start eating the dingleburys instead of vice versa.\nC An error on the spaceship caused the artificial days and nights to not be equal length.\nD The spaceship was not correctly simulating all the seasons that the marocca needed to be subjected to in order to grow.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
430	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 second, then vanished with a flaming puff of released gravitons from its still-intact jets. thousand dollars!\" Queazy straightened. A slow, likeable smile wreathed his tanned face. \"Better take it easy,\" he advised, \"until I land the ship and we use out two space-suits. Moments later, they were outside the ship, with star-powdered infinity spread to all sides. specifications: 506 feet length, long enough for wedding procession 98 feet at base, tapering to 10 feet at apex 9-12 feet thick topside 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 an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only three weeks. 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 magnets in their shoes keeping them from stepping off into space. They inside his suit. He couldn't think of anything pertinent to say. He nicely. Her expression darkened as she saw the completely instinctive way he was looking at her and her radioed-voice rapped out, \"Now you two boys He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they \"I understand conditions better than you do,\" she said. \"You want to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. Unfortunately, this is my home, by common law. Come back in a month. I don't expect to be here then.\" \"A month!\" Parker burst the word out. He started to sweat, then his face became grim. He took two slow steps toward the girl. She blinked and lost her composure and unconsciously backed up two steps. About twenty steps away was her small dumbbell-shaped ship, so shiny and unscarred that it reflected starlight in highlights from its curved surface. A rich girl's ship, Bob Parker thought angrily. A month would be too late! 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 Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories. Don't we, Queazy?\" fuming. \"Let this brat have her way. But if I ever run across her without a space-suit on I'm going to give her the licking of her life, right where it'll do the most good!\" Bob Parker's stomach caved in. A few hundred feet away, floating clamps took hold. A few seconds later, the airlocks swung down, and five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood surveying the three who faced them. before the flickering points of light in his brain subsided to complete he didn't care. Then—lights out. no asteroid, no girl, no Queazy. He was alone in the vastness of space. Alone in a space-suit. \"Queazy!\" he whispered. \"Queazy! I'm running out of air!\" There was no answer from Queazy. With sick eyes, Bob studied the oxygen indicator. There was only five pounds pressure. Five pounds! That meant he had been floating around out here—how long? Days at least—maybe weeks! It was evident that somebody had given him a dose of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the snapping point, putting him in such a condition of suspended animation probably scrawny. And he was hungry! \"I'll starve,\" he thought. \"Or suffocate to death first!\" He couldn't keep himself from taking in great gulps of air. Minutes, then hours passed. He was breathing abnormally, and there wasn't enough He groaned. He never would get out of it! After another hour, he was name once more, knowing that was the last time he would have strength to call it. He did not lose consciousness. He heard voices, Queazy's and the on a bunk, and gradually the world beyond his sick body focussed in his awhile anyway. \"Thanks, Queazy,\" he said huskily. us, and when she woke up she was on a slow orbit around her ship. him curiously, but unhappily. Her space-suit was off. She was wearing gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating only a few hundred feet away. He swung around, looked at Queazy. \"How long were we floating around out there?\" \"Three weeks, according to the chronometer. The Saylor boys gave us a stiff shot.\" \" determination. \"Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm going to put this to you plainly. We can catch up with the Saylor brothers even if they are three weeks ahead of us. The Saylor ship and ours both travel on the HH drive—inertia-less. But the asteroid has plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a fling at getting the asteroid back!\" Oh! And when you get it back, you'll land it.\" \"That's right,\" Bob said grimly. \"We're in business. For us, it's a matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is your marriage—sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out later. Okay?\" Starre. \"He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All I know is, that maybe we'll get a good idea as we go along. In the meantime, Starre—ahem—none of us has eaten in three weeks...?\" Starre got the idea. She smiled dazzlingly and vanished toward the galley. Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth 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 \"Even I go from zero speed to our top speed of two thousand miles a second just like that!\" He snapped his fingers. \"No acceleration effects. This type of ship, Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was \"A yo-yo He disappeared from the room. \"Queazy!\" he shouted. \" it! \" Parker practiced and experimented for three hours with this yo-yo of cosmic dimensions, while Starre and Queazy stood over him bursting into strange, delighted squeals of laughter whenever the yo-yo reached the thousand miles from Earth! \"We have to work fast,\" Bob stammered, sweating. He got within naked-eye distance of the Saylor brothers' ship. Below, Earth was exactly at the moment of impact. And now Bob's hours of practice paid dividends, for the \"yo-yo\" came to rest snugly, ready to be released again. All this had happened in such a short space of time that the Saylor spinning back to rest, Bob flung the hauler to a new vantage point and again the \"yo-yo\" snapped out. Starre was chortling with glee. Queazy whispered, \"Attaboy, Bob! This \" If you're alive,\" Bob snarled wrathfully. \"And you won't be unless you release the asteroid.\" \"I'll see you in Hades first!\" their ship shook itself free of the asteroid, hung in black space for\n\n<question>:\nHow long were Parker, Queazy and Starre floating around in space while unconcious?\n\n<options>:\nA Three days\nB Three days\nC One week\nD Three weeks\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,737	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\"He was our only son,\" her husband said. \"What did he volunteer for? Couldn't somebody else have done it?\" what his son had wanted that he couldn't get at home. THE END BERET By TOM PURDOM 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 The other inspector carried a light machine gun and a box of grenades. \"I better cover,\" he said. Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile. Two types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps: those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and world order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read was the second type. A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the drab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was the home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who do the drudge work of civilization and know they will never do more. The adults spent their days with television, alcohol and 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 good as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier.\" \"I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What do you care what I do?\" The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men. Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and isolation. And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A job many people considered important. cards and shooting the bull and then there's a plane crash or 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 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 and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more investigation by the UN. But the evidence was clear. Umluana was defying world law. If he got away with it, some larger and more dangerous nation might follow his precedent. And the arms race would begin again. 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. history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple. Read looked back. He saw three spots of sunlight about two hundred feet up and a good mile behind. Read had seen dozens of training films taken during actual 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 Harry Read, UN Inspector Corps—a very special man. If he didn't red loincloths ran zigzagging toward the station. They carried light automatic rifles. Half of them wore gas masks. \"Shoot the masks,\" he yelled. \"Aim for the masks.\" The machine gun kicked and chattered on his shoulder. He picked a target and squeezed off a burst. Tensely, he hunted for another scurrying for cover. The fight so far had been vicious but disorganized. But the Belderkans had a few hundred men and knew The heavy gas would lie there for hours. Sergeant Rashid ran crouched from man to man. He did what he \"How do you think they'll treat us?\" \"We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry.\" Rashid ran off. Read stared across the green land and listened to the pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A mass frontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill? He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hiding from the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branch above the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body. ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS. ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS. masks couldn't filter. Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing, mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly. For two years Read had served under Sergeant Rashid. To him, the sergeant was everything a UN inspector should be. Rashid's devotion to peace had no limits. Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was good enough for the UN they only rejected men whose loyalties might conflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank required something more than a hunger for self-respect. Read had seen the inspector who covered their getaway. He had watched their escort charge three-to-one odds. He had seen building, lay battered men and dead men. All UN inspectors. All part of his life. And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, and pain, had become a part of him. \"I'll take a cocktail, Sarge.\" Sarge. \" That was all—with a broken hip and a wounded right arm. He knew they would see him when he stood up but he didn't think about that. He didn't think about Sergeant Rashid, about the complicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. He 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. The copter landed ten minutes later. Umluana left in a shower of bullets. A Russian private, the ranking man alive in the station, surrendered the survivors to the Belderkans. His mother hung the Global Medal above the television set. \"He must have been brave,\" she said. \"We had a fine son.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow will Read likely be remembered by the UN Corps?\n\n<options>:\nA As a cowardly man who always played it safe.\nB As Sergeant Rashid's second-in-command.\nC As a man who made the arrest of Umluana possible.\nD As a man that cared more about his uniform that his team.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
535	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, The Starship the waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoed \"About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little ways north of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into the knew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to have in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman and Pinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn't seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous and harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite of their internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs each on their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up. glowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feeding animals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even the deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to originally. \"Bob!\" Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. \"Bob, there are the kids!\" Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caught The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantastic speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that moved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them. Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets. Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almost eight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuited cadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was a back at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around in confusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. The up speed. The other two followed. surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things looked The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that were about, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twenty miles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, in spite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures dived \"Follow the blobs,\" Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool to kids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward into a gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their own glimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarse other jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too late to help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry or the horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. against the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-foot leader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on each shoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as his onto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monster on another before heading back. makes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there was The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd been picked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they were If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might save time and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. That was almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemed to be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group had been overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could the primitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was its fuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who told these creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by a The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weapons there to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. explorers went out in desperation to find what they could the terraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starships began filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conserve would be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each was Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair to But how could primitives do what these must have done? squatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship. They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what? For the return of their leader—or for something that would give the The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. The some kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned up its head. It was the golden comet of a captain. well. Says they've had to change the language around to make the sounds fit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But it gets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain.\" Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seize on the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a little English, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. \"How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldest curiously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipment When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes in their kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't be a hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change the germ plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybe Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs dropped down to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd of monsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost as tall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... as the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto the however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting off giving the gist of it to Jane. \"It was the blobs,\" he summarized it. \"They seem to be amused by men. They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessy \"And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside the where three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll never know.\" Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eight years—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earth seed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preserve that seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already were Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead of as rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength. The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them with again, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, they Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for the\n\n<question>:\nWho were the horde members?\n\n<options>:\nA Angry aliens\nB Aliens pretending to be Hennessy’s crew and the children of the exploring party\nC Lonely aliens\nD Hennessy’s crew and the children of the exploring party\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,298	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMaledict The high costs of low language. Sunday, Jan. 14, 1996: A day that will live in--well, not infamy, exactly. Blasphemy would be closer to it. Early that afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Indianapolis Colts to win the American Football Conference championship. Linebacker Greg Lloyd, accepting the trophy in front of a national television audience, responded with enthusiasm. \"Let's see if we can bring this damn thing back here next year,\" he said, \"along with the [expletive] Super Bowl.\" A few hours later, Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys offered this spirited defense of his coach on TV after his team won the National Football Conference title: \"Nobody deserves it more than Barry Switzer. He took all of this [expletive] .\" Iwatched 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. Neither 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. 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. 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. In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. 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. 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>:\nWho would the author most agree with about swearing?\n\n<options>:\nA Mussolini\nB Ashley Montagu\nC Robert Graves\nD Michael Irvin\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
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>:\ncenturies ... to a dark blue world whose only defense was to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers. \"No.\" I shouted a protest against the strangeness of the room. I looked to the right, my eyes following the curving ceiling that started at the I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself yell in surprise as I floated up towards the light overhead. I was weightless. How do you describe being weightless when you are born into a world bound by gravity. I twisted and shut my eyes in terror. There was no sensation of place, no feeling of up or down, no direction. My back bumped against the ceiling and I opened my eyes to stare at the cot and floor. I was concentrating too hard on remembering to be frightened for that shone below the dials. I stood up slowly and looked at myself. I was naked except for heavy shorts, and there was no clue to my name in the pockets. The room was warm and the air I had been breathing was good but it seemed wrong to be dressed like this. I didn't know why. I to propel yourself through the passageway in this weightless atmosphere. It was effortless to move. I turned on my side like a swimmer and went hand over hand, shooting down the corridor. I braced against forward motion and stopped against a door at the end. Behind me I could see the When I looked again I knew where I was. Why the little room had been shaped like quarter round. Why I drifted weightlessly. Why I was.... I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I ship.\" Control of a ship? Going where? What others? Tell me what to do. \"Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates. Your maximum deviation from schedule cannot exceed two degrees. Adopt emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck.\" The voice snapped off and I laughed hysterically. None of it had made from the floor, barely feeling the pain in my leg, and went into the hall. and went on. Another room ... another man ... another stranger. This man was tall and raw boned, light of skin and hair, as dead as the others. A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts, Not mine. Not now. hung motionless in a world of searing light. There was no distortion, no movement outside and I glanced back at the dials. What speeds were they recording? What speeds and perhaps, what distance? It was useless to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did to accept. Her beauty was graceful lines of face and her figure—smooth tapering legs, soft curves that were carved out of flesh colored stone. smile or move that graceful head. I rolled back her eyelid and looked at a deep blue eye that stared back in glassy surprise. Four people in all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward half by the instrument studded shield. I retraced my steps and took a rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside. The silence was a force in itself, pressing down from the metal walls, driving me back to the comforting smallness of the room where I had been reborn. I laughed bitterly, thinking about the aptness of that. I had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and could have hit my neck when I lay down. My shout of excitement rang out in the room, as I pictured the action of the extended arm. I lost my was completely closed, and it didn't yield to the pressure I applied. It had a cover, but no other opening where an arm could extend. I ran with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of \"No gravity,\" he grunted and sat back. \"You get used to it fast,\" I answered. I thought of what to say as he watched me. \"How do you feel?\" name or anything about this ship.\" \"No.\" \"Are you serious?\" \"Yes, yes. I don't know why but it's happened.\" \"Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out.\" II The second man, the dark haired one, opened his eyes and recognized us. \"I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and \"What is the mission of this ship?\" I asked. \"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?\" \"I can't remember when,\" I said. I held the trembling girl against me, shaking my head. He glanced at the girl. \"If the calculations are right it was more than a hundred years ago.\" We assembled in the control room for a council. We were all a little better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I \"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center \"From Earth? How could we?\" \"Let's move slowly, sir,\" he said. \"We're moving fast. I don't know if you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an hour.\" \"Through space?\" \"You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension.\" \"Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star.\" \"How long ago was it?\" \"It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?\" \"I can't believe it's possible.\" Carl caught my eye. \"Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination.\" no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I the suspension on the return trip.\" I let my breath out slowly. \"I didn't think about that.\" \"We couldn't even get part way back in a lifetime,\" he said. \"How old are you, John?\" \"Twenty-eight.\" \"What about me?\" \"Thirty.\" He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. \"What about shock treatment? It sounds risky.\" \"I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone react the same?\" \"That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you \"Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead.\" It wasn't operating. sun. I thought about the rest of the crew too. \"We're heading right for a star....\" it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship.\" had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was carried away and I was still rechecking the figures. We were on a line ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could be right on the calculated position of the star. The radar confirmed my findings ... and my worst fears. When we set it for direction and distance, the screen glowed to life and recorded the star dead ahead. before I had first looked up at the night sky. When I was sure the electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked direction and speed from the readings and plotted our position. If I was right we were much closer than we wanted to be. The bright pips on the screen gave us the distance and size of the star while we fed the figures into the calculator for our rate of approach. Spectroscopic tests were run on the sun and checked against the figures that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the standards the scientists had constructed. It was a G type star like our we had to change course in a hurry. Carl analyzed the findings while we came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred\n\n<question>:\nWas the ship on target, within maximum deviation from schedule?\n\n<options>:\nA Yes, they were within 5 degrees\nB No, they were over by 8 degrees\nC Yes, they were over by only 3 degrees.\nD No, they were under by 2 degrees\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
194	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDOWN TO THE WORLDS OF MEN BY ALEXEI PANSHIN The ancient rule was sink or swim—swim in the miasma of a planet without spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1963. small ships squatting over their tubes, but it was the last of the Ship We sat there for five minutes while they bled air out of our tube and then we just ... dropped. My stomach turned flips. We didn't have to leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot. 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 partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that crack about being a snob. The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact the Ship had had with it—and we were the ones who dropped them—was almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council all right in the end. It didn't make any practical difference to us I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody It wasn't the chance of not coming back that bothered me really, because I never believed that I wouldn't. The thought that made me unhappy was that I would have to be on a planet for a whole month. Planets make me feel wretched. a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere to crawl on. If you can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells—I've been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but not for me. a level or down a level and be back in civilization. sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested 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 have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the and in just a moment it was gone. Its gray-blue color was almost the color of the half-overcast sky, so I was never sure when I saw it last. the dark. When the sun disappears, somehow you wonder in your stomach if it's really going to come back. But I lived through it—one day in 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. Year End Holiday for my taste, but this year it was all right. It was animals. I shot one small one and ate it. It turned out to taste pretty that I couldn't keep on my stomach. So I guess I was lucky. it in the level below. It was narrow and made of sand spread over a identify. One of the smartest moves in history was to include horses when they dropped the colonies. I say \"they\" because, while we did the actual dropping, the idea originated with the whole evac plan back on Earth. Considering how short a time it was in which the colonies were established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have draft animals. as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything else in the Solar System in 2041. In that sixteen years 112 colonies were planted. I don't know how many of those planets had animals that could have been substituted but, even if they had, they would have had to be domesticated from scratch. That would have been stupid. I'll bet that half the colonies would have failed if they hadn't had horses. We'd come in from the west over the ocean, so I traveled east on the alive. They were green and grotesque. They had squat bodies, long limbs and knobby bulges at their joints. They had square, flat animal masks for was that bad. I wasn't ready to make a fight over the point, though. English spoken any way but one, even on the planet Daddy made me visit all. We mought as well throw him back again.\" I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving didn't want to be fried. I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, The country leveled into a great rolling valley and the trees gave the green creatures, which surprised me since the ones I'd seen before But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or something. By the time I came out on the other side, I was sick. My hands were stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were but I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the clocks tick on this planet. swarmed. I saw a family come out of a house—a father and 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 closed my eyes until it passed. 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 wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have 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 others like them, there wouldn't be any humans left anywhere. And I wouldn't be here. That may not scare you, but it scares me. What happened before, when people didn't use their heads and wound up blowing the Solar System apart, is something nobody should forget. The older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the Council should know. For the first time since I landed on Tintera, I felt I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the sky. The dying sun colored it a deep red. Back again? I wondered what had gone wrong. One more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and I felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to dear dead mother. But, as it turned out, they were just enough to not.\" Horst growled a retort. I decided that it was time for me to leave the I should have known that they would have to pen the animals up for the leave. I never got the chance. dragging me and dropped me in a heap. \"Make any noise,\" he said, \"and my jacket. said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was until it cracked and fell apart. face and then nothing.\n\n<question>:\nWhat happened to Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA People divided into small, vicious colonies\nB Overpopulation caused a war\nC People discovered more planets and chose to move\nD Everyone chose to live in space\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,972	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOne can't be too cautious about the people one meets in Tangier. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. town's hub. It marks the end of Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag of the westernized part of Rue de la Liberté, which leads down to the Grand Socco and the medina. In a three-minute walk from the Place de France you can go from an ultra-modern, California-like resort to the King-size sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. at current exchange. You can sit there, after the paper's read, sip your expresso and watch the people go by. Tangier is possibly the most Man, and occasionally a Senegalese from further south. In the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoeshine to their not very lily-white bodies, and the richest will avoid your eyes, afraid you might try to sell them something. In spite of recent changes, the town still has its unique qualities. As a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced limits the activities of few of these. and said, \"Hello, Paul. Anything new cooking?\" He sank into the chair opposite me and looked around for the waiter. The tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard procedure at the Cafe de Paris. It wasn't a place to go if you wanted to be alone. Paul said, \"How are you, Rupert? Haven't seen you for donkey's years.\" The waiter came along and Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an easy-going, sallow-faced little man. I vaguely remembered \"What's in the newspaper?\" he said, disinterestedly. He grunted. \"Oh,\" I said, \"the intellectual \"They have, eh? How big?\" \"Several times bigger than Paul said, \"What ever happened saucers?\" \"What flying saucers?\" A French girl went by with a poodle so finely clipped as to look as though it'd been shaven. The girl was in the latest from Paris. Every pore in place. We both looked after her. \"You know, what everybody was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad one of these bloody manned Maybe they would've seen one.\" \"That's an idea,\" I said. We didn't say anything else for a while and I began to wonder if I could go back to my paper without rubbing him the wrong way. I didn't know Paul very well, but, for that matter, it's comparatively seldom you ever get to know anybody very well in Tangier. Largely, cards are Just to say something, I said, \"Where do you think they came from?\" And when he looked Venus, or someplace.\" \"Ummmm,\" I said. \"Too bad landed on the Yale football field and said Take me to your cheerleader , or something.\" Paul yawned and said, \"That was always the trouble with those crackpot blokes' explanations of space, then why not show themselves?\" I ate one of the potato chips. It'd been cooked in rancid olive I said, \"Oh, there are various answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think of two or three that made sense.\" Paul was mildly interested. \"Like what?\" \"Well, hell, suppose for instance for membership until you, well, say until you've developed space the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time to keep an eye on your progress.\" Paul grinned at me. \"I see you read the same poxy stuff I do.\" A Moorish girl went by dressed in a neatly tailored gray jellaba, European style high-heeled veil so transparent that you could see she wore lipstick. Very provocative, dark eyes can be over a veil. We both looked after her. I said, \"Or, here's another one. Suppose you have a very \"Not Mars. No air, and too bloody dry to support life.\" \"Don't interrupt, please,\" I said with mock severity. \"This is a very old civilization and as a few million years, if Earth lost its water and air?\" \"I suppose so,\" he said. \"Anyway, what about them?\" \"Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific population boom. A boom, period. Any day now he's going to have practical space ships. Meanwhile, not against using it, if he could get away with it.\" Paul said, \"I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on us. That's an old one. I've read that a dozen times, dished up different.\" I shifted my shoulders. \"Well, it's one possibility.\" \"I got a better one. How's this. There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. Their civilization is so old that they don't have any records of when it began and how it was in the giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? And some of them are it? Things developing so fast we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there.\" I finished my beer and clapped my hands for Mouley. \"How do you mean, where we're going in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries. Look at Egypt, and Israel, and India and China, and Yugoslavia rest. Trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced unemployed, threat of war, spending all their money on armaments it. Why, a man from Mars would be fascinated, like.\" Mouley came shuffling up in his babouche slippers and we both ordered another schooner of beer. Paul said seriously, \"You know, there's only one big snag observers, or scholars, or spies or whatever they are? Sooner or later we'd nab one of them. the F.B.I., or Russia's secret in police, counter-espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time, no matter how much he'd been trained. Sooner or later, he'd slip up, and they'd nab him.\" I shook my head. \"Not necessarily. The first time I ever considered this possibility, it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could \"Why Tangier?\" \"It's the one town in the world where anything goes. Nobody gives a damn about you or your affairs. For instance, I've known you a year or more now, and I haven't the slightest idea of how you make your living.\" \"That's right,\" Paul admitted. \"In this town you seldom even ask a man where's he's from. He can be British, a White Russian, a Basque or a Sikh and nobody could care less. Where are you from, Rupert?\" \"No, you're not,\" he grinned. I was taken aback. \"What do you mean?\" \"I felt your mind probe back a few minutes ago when I was talking about Scotland Yard or the F.B.I. possibly flushing an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If from, Rupert?\" We had a laugh and ordered another beer. \"What're you doing here on Earth?\" I asked him. quite a delicacy. How about you?\" \"Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal, or international, conflicts—all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in—well shielded, of course—and get their kicks watching it.\" Paul frowned. \"That sort of practice could spoil an awful lot of good meat.\" THE END\n\n<question>:\nHow does Rupert accidentally reveal his identity to Paul?\n\n<options>:\nA He attempts to examine Paul's mind to determine if he is an alien\nB He reveals information that only Scotland Yard would know\nC He mentions technology that is only present in Paul's place of origin\nD He lingers for too long at an attractive female walking by\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
431	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 cheap. Trouble also handled without charge.\" Interplanetary Hauling Company. (ADVT.) [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. she's made of tungsten, iron, quartz crystals, and cinnabar! But there couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so asteroid.\" \"Have it your way,\" Bob Parker sang, happily. He threw the ethergram called because his full name was Quentin Zuyler—dropped the ship straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought 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 &amp Moving Co., 777 Main Street, Satterfield City, Fontanaland, Mars. The ethergram read: that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following pay $5.00 per ton. Bob Parker had received that ethergram three weeks ago. And if The Interplanetary Hauling &amp Moving Co., hadn't been about to go on the there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using 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. rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid. Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on 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 Neither he nor Queazy had the opportunity to observe the pointer any further. A cold, completely disagreeable feminine voice said, \"May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?\" asteroid \"below.\" \"I said,\" remarked the girl, \"that you should scram off of my asteroid. And quit poking around at it with that spectroscope. I've already taken a reading. Cinnabar, iron ore, quartz crystals, tungsten. Goodbye.\" Her expression darkened as she saw the completely instinctive way he was looking at her and her radioed-voice rapped out, \"Now you two boys go and play somewhere else! Else I'll let the Interplanetary Commission know you've infringed the law. G'bye!\" She turned and disappeared. \" He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid and it was three times as big as her gloved hand. \"I understand conditions better than you do,\" she said. \"You want to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. Unfortunately, this is my home, by common law. Come back in a month. I don't expect to be here then.\" an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But to us—to me and Queazy here—it means our business. We got an order 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 Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories. Don't we, Queazy?\" expression did not change. She put her hands on the bulging hips of her space-suit. \"Okay,\" she said. \"Now I understand the conditions. Now we both understand each other. G'bye again. I'm staying here and—\" she smiled sweetly \"—it may interest you to know that if I let you have the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than death! So that's that.\" double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't hesitate to pull any rough stuff. We're in this together, understand? We got to back each other up.\" \"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 find out who I am and what I've done. I'm Starre Lowenthal—Andrew S. asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you—or 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, 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 the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies.\" Bob swore under his breath. He went reeling across to a port, and was gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating Ouch! \" Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with determination. \"Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm ours both travel on the HH drive—inertia-less. But the asteroid has a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a fling at getting the asteroid back!\" Her eyes sparkled. \"You mean—\" she cried. Then her attractive face matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is your marriage—sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out later. Okay?\" asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry Starre. \"He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All meantime, Starre—ahem—none of us has eaten in three weeks...?\" Starre got the idea. She smiled dazzlingly and vanished toward the galley. Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't attach any significance to Starre's dumbbell-shaped ship, which trailed astern, attached by a long cable. 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 \"Right,\" he said unsteadily. \"Anyway, Starre, as I was saying, this shake. He took her hand. \"Starre,\" he said desperately, \"I've got to have to marry him?\" Her eyes filled with tears. \"I have to live up to the bargain.\" \"There's your ship, Starre.\" He jabbed his finger at it. \"I've got a Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was cosmic dimensions, while Starre and Queazy stood over him bursting into 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 the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing Starre was chortling with glee. Queazy whispered, \"Attaboy, Bob! This \"I'll inform the Interplanetary Commission!\" screamed Saylor. \" If you release the asteroid.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat gave Starre the right to claim the asteroid as her own when Parker and Queazy arrived?\n\n<options>:\nA She had made a deal with the Interplanetary Commission.\nB Her grandfather had purchased the asteroid for her.\nC By common law, asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them.\nD She had signed an interplanetary lease agreement.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,747	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthere isn't a trap, the Karna can't satisfy Braynek, because he's convinced that there has As a result, all his advice to Nordon, and all his questioning on the wildest possibilities, just serves In his office apartment, on the top floor of the The Karna can see that we're not Malloy leafed trying to stall in Occeq City, Bertrand to him. They were typical of the kind of men who were sent to him, he because, in this situation, they're psychologically incapable of losing.\" thought. Which meant, as usual, that those men, as a team, are unbeatable Saarkkad IV to work under Bertrand Malloy ran his finger down the columns it's better this way.\" he could be as lucid as the next man most of the time. But he was morbidly suspicious that every man's hand was turned against him. He Malloy looked at him. \"Didn't you on his guard against imaginary plots and persecutions. Number two suffered from some sort of emotional block that left him trusted no one, and was perpetually continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. He was psychologically incapable of making a decision if he were faced with two or more importance. Number three ... Malloy sighed and pushed the dossiers possible alternatives of any major it that way. I suffer from agoraphobia and xenophobia. \"I have to be drugged to be put on look of revulsion came over his face. THE END Transcriber's Note: \"And I can't stand calendar just above it. Fifty-nine next week. Fifty-nine years old. And what did he have to show for it besides flabby muscles, sagging skin, a wrinkled face, and gray hair? Well, he had an excellent record in the Corps, if nothing else. One of the Malloy closed his eyes. Somewhere And, Malloy knew, his own position was not unimportant in that war. He was not in the battle line, nor even in the major production line, but it was necessary to keep the drug supply For nine years, Bertrand Malloy ever seen him. To have shown himself to one of them would have meant instant loss of prestige. To their way of thinking, an important official was aloof. The greater his importance, the greater must be his isolation. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a handful of picked nobles, who, themselves, were never seen except by their underlings. It was a long, roundabout way of doing business, but it was the only way Saarkkad would do any social setup of Saarkkad would mean the instant closing off of the supply of biochemical products that the It was Bertrand Malloy's job to keep the production output high and The job would have been a snap cinch in the right circumstances the half trying. But Malloy didn't have top-grade men. They couldn't be spared from work that required their total capacity. It's inefficient to waste a man on a job that he can do without half trying where there are more important jobs that will tax his full output. So Malloy was stuck with the culls. Not the worst ones, of course there less important than Saarkkad to the war effort. Malloy knew that, no matter what was wrong with a man, as long as he had the mental ability to dress himself and get himself to work, useful work could be found for him. Physical handicaps weren't at all or total losses of limbs can be compensated for in one way or another. The mental disabilities were harder regulations. But Malloy didn't like to stop at merely thwarting mental quirks he liked to find places where they were The phone chimed. Malloy flipped \"Malloy here.\" \"Mr. Malloy?\" said a careful voice. Malloy had made her his private secretary. Nothing—but nothing —got out of Malloy's office without his direct order. It had taken Malloy a head that it was perfectly all right—even desirable—for her to keep secrets from everyone except Malloy. know? I wondered why you appointed over to Malloy. desk. \"If anything else comes in, I'll let you know immediately, sir,\" she me, in the first place. No, I Malloy let her stand there while he said. \"Will there be anything else?\" to know what his reaction was going to be it didn't matter because no one would ever find out from her what he had done unless she was ordered to tell someone. He read the first paragraph, and his eyes widened involuntarily. \"Armistice,\" he said in a low whisper. \"There's a chance that the war may be over.\" hushed voice. Malloy read the whole thing through, fighting to keep his emotions bigshot should, is because I Finally, Malloy looked up. \"I'll let need say that no news of this is to leave this office.\" \"Of course not, sir.\" Malloy watched her go out the door like is too costly to allow it to continue any longer than necessary, and this one had been going on for more than a reputation for losing wars and winning at the peace table. They were like weaknesses. If they won the armistice, they'd be able to retrench and rearm, and the war would break out again within a few years. Now—at this point in time—they could be beaten. They could be forced to allow supervision of the production potential, forced to disarm, rendered that empty space, even if I'm protected from it by a steel shell.\" A only by low-intelligence animals. The Karna considered this to be fully neutral territory, and Earth And that was where Bertrand Malloy On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his Malloy knew the woman would Malloy waved him to a seat. probably one of the most important jobs you'll ever have in your life. It can mean big things for you—promotion and prestige if you do it well.\" Nordon nodded slowly. \"Yes, sir.\" Malloy explained the problem of \"We need a man who can outthink them,\" Malloy finished, \"and judging from your record, I think you're that man. It involves risk, of course. If you make the wrong decisions, your name will be mud back on Earth. But I don't think there's much chance of that, really. Do you want to handle \"No,\" said Malloy, \"I'm sending an assistant with you—a man named I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?\" shrewd operator, though. He knows a lot about interstellar law, and he's capable of spotting a trap a mile away. You'll be in charge, of course, but I want you to pay special attention to As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked Again Malloy went through the explanation trick you every step of the way,\" Malloy underhanded we'll simply have to be more shrewd and more underhanded. Nordon's job is to sit \"They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy.\" Malloy had full reports on the whole didn't quite make it to his calculating eyes. He took Malloy's hand and shook what is going to happen on Five. So am I, for that matter.\" His eyes were curious. \"You decided not to go Malloy handed them to the secretary, and as he read, Malloy watched good man, Malloy had to ins and outs of the Diplomatic Corps. \"I thought they would,\" said Malloy, Malloy nodded. \"I think so. The for him, one way or the other. He's that kind of guy. Until he's presented with one, single, clear decision which admits of no alternatives, he can't move at all. Nordon couldn't possibly make up his mind. I drummed into him how important this was, and the more importance there is attached to his decisions, the more incapable he becomes of making them.\" \"Paranoid,\" said Malloy. \"He thinks everyone is plotting against him. In this case, that's all to the good Braynek is convinced that there's a trap in it somewhere, and he digs to find out what the trap is. Even if\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Bertrand Malloy end up with odd officers under his command?\n\n<options>:\nA He has a reputation of being able to handle them well.\nB Higher quality candidates were sent to higher priority jobs.\nC He requests them specifically.\nD It is part of his punishment for this low-ranking position.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,685	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nought to be getting on to the Pschorrbräu tent.\" \"Maybe we ought to eat something first,\" I said. \"I'm beginning to feel Unfortunately , there was only Arth closed his eyes in pain. \"Vegetarian,\" he said. \"Couldn't possibly eat meat. Barbarous. Ugh.\" and though he didn't want to ... nevertheless he did.... \"Well, we need some nourishment,\" one thing he could bring back feel awful,\" Simon told her. He sat down at his desk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the aspirin bottle. Somehow we'd evidently navigated from one tent to another. \"Providence,\" Simon told her hotel?\" from the wonderful future ... daylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight. I was sprawled, complete with clothes, on one of twin beds. On the other bed, also completely clothed, that appealed to you.\" \"Hm-m-m. I didn't know most was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbled sleuthing amounted to snooping around department stores to check on took this job you said it was the romance the clerks knocking down.\" up from the bed, staggered to the window and fumbled around for a blind or curtain. There was none. this. We could get some of that barbecued couldn't stand the light. \"Where's the shade,\" I moaned. \"That's quite a gadget,\" I groaned. \"If I didn't feel so lousy, I'd Simon said unenthusiastically, appreciate it.\" the bed holding his bald head in his hands. \"I remember now,\" he sorrowed. \"You didn't have a hotel. What a stupidity. I'll be phased. Phased all the way down.\" Simon said nothing. Across the place. All I've got is a hangover, not lice.\" Simon continued to say nothing she None was forthcoming. There ought to be some very quick, positive, \"Confound it if I know,\" the little fellow growled. \"How?\" each other's health. My head was killing me. \"This is where I came in, or something,\" I Something, somewhere, was wrong. But I didn't care. I finished my and then remembered. \"I've got to get my bag. Oh, my head. Where did we spend last night?\" \"Some,\" Betty admitted. cautious, \"At my hotel, don't you remember?\" feel him watching after me as I pushed through the tables on the way out. no good. There were no hotel rooms Simon seemed incapable of carrying travelers.\" fact that they'd somehow managed to lose my bag didn't help. I worked don't we ever meet such travelers?\" Simon put in a word. \"The usual on that project for at least a couple future has developed time travel why track to be altered. If, say, a time traveler returned to a period of then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, the time traveler himself might never be born. They especially accompanied by a blockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing my have to tread mighty carefully.\" Simon shrugged and fumbled hair and complaining from one end their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then was fouled up, some clerk's error, evidently. The trip back was as uninteresting as the one over. As the hangover began to wear off—a little—I was almost sorry I hadn't been able to stay. If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. to the other. Now she said, plaintively, \"But where are you going to find one of these characters—especially if they're interested in keeping hid?\" From Idlewild, I came directly to found Mr. Oyster sitting in the chair he had been occupying four—or was it five—days before when I'd left. I'd lost track of the time. , that's where they'd be!\" He seemed elated. you came for? Impatient to hear if I'd had any results?\" My mind was Oktoberfest had already left.\" \"You'll miss your plane,\" Betty said. the calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying something to the effect that if I didn't leave today, it would have to be tomorrow, that he hadn't ponied up that thousand dollars advance for anything less than immediate service. Stuffing his receipt in his wallet, he fussed of liters of beer are put away, hundreds of thousands of barbecued chickens, a small herd of oxen are sausage, millions upon millions of pretzels—\" who didn't know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, or was off the ordinary in any of a dozen other ways, wouldn't be noticed. You could be a four-armed space traveler from the contents and winced at the pathetic remains of the thousand. Mars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuous Simon shrugged, put one hand to of Dionysus, or one of Alexander's orgies. You wouldn't want to wander up and down the streets of, say, his forehead and said, \"That's only the first chapter. There are two particularly when you might be revealed as a suspicious character not more.\" \"I'm not interested in more,\" Mr. Athens while nothing was going on, you'd have to stick to some great event, both for the sake of actual interest and for protection against being unmasked.\" The old boy wound it up. \"Well, week there and—\" Simon was shaking his head. \"Not interested.\" take his money and enjoy that vacation you've been yearning about.\" \"I did,\" Simon groaned. \"Three times.\" \"I keep telling you,\" Simon said bitterly, \"I went back there three times. There were hundreds of them. Probably thousands.\" He took a deep breath. \"Listen, we're just going to have to forget about it. They're not something comes up that looks like it might result in the track being \"Out of the question,\" Simon the beginning and let things start—for \"But why you—all over again. They just \"Just for laughs,\" Simon told the two of them sourly, \"suppose I tell you a funny story. It goes like this:\" Why this is the biggest thing— Why can't allow anything to come back Simon said wearily, \"There's just I hustled back to the apartment and packed a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacation anyway, this was a natural. On one on top of the other, and another on top of that!\" He shuddered. \"If you think I'm going to take another crack at this hours to get to Gander from Idlewild. hangover on the three I'm already nursing, all at once, you can think again.\" hours from Gander to Shannon and I spent that time dreaming up material I spent the time planning the fun I was going to have. I could put into my reports to merry-go-round and pile a fourth bag, told me they'd do what they could, and to report back in a few hours. I had another suspicious twinge. that Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tent six to ten thousands pack themselves in, competing for room. In the center darted about the tables with quart sized earthenware mugs, platters of chicken, sausage, kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a table which had space for twenty-odd beer bibbers. Odd is right. As weird an tourists as could have been dreamed up, ranging from a seventy- or across the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing six mugs of beer in each hand scurried past. They call them or two apiece later he looked carefully at the name engraved on didn't seem to hang together very well. \"My pilgrimage,\" he told me. \"All I'll never make it.\" I finished my \"I'm still fresh—comparatively. I'll navigate you around. There are find two seats. The band was blaring, and five\n\n<question>:\nWhy is the lack of hotel space important for Simon's story?\n\n<options>:\nA It made him cut his trip short without finding any time travelers.\nB Simon would have to learn how to time travel in order to keep his bag from being stolen.\nC It set the stage for him to encounter an alien's home for himself.\nD It meant he would find a number of unsavory characters as he tried to find somewhere to sleep.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,631	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>:\nEarly in American Beauty , Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a weary reporter for a media magazine, masturbates in the shower while informing us in voice-over that we're witnessing the highlight of his day. He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. \"I have lost something,\" says Lester. \"I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated.\" Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. At a high-school basketball game, Lester is transfixed by a blonde cheerleader named Angela (Mena Suvari), who is twirling alongside his daughter, Jane (Thora Burch). Ambient noise falls away, the crowd disappears, and there she is, Lester's angel, writhing in slow motion--just for him. She opens her jacket (she's naked underneath) and red rose petals drift out. Later, Lester envisions her on a bed of red petals, then immersed in a bath of red petals. Back in the roses for the first time in years, he's soon pumping iron, smoking pot, and telling off his frigid wife and faceless bosses, convinced that whatever he has lost he's getting back, baby. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named \"Brad\" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called \"Jim\") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her \"nutritious yet savory\" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of \"black comedy.\" in American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an \"entire life behind things\"--a \"benevolent force\" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of \"beauty.\" By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight.\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the reviewer of \"American Beauty,\" the protagonist Lester has mostly lost _____.\n\n<options>:\nA His manhood\nB His sex drive\nC His family\nD His sanity\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
191	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nIn his room at the Elsby Commercial Hotel, Tremaine opened his luggage \"Fred, when will you learn to sit on your news breaks until you've got some answers to go with the questions?\" \"I'm an appointive official,\" Fred said sharply. \"But never mind that. This fellow Margrave—General Margrave. Project Officer for the blame him. An unauthorized transmitter interfering with a Top Secret \"I felt a technical man might succeed where a trained investigator warning you, Tremaine. Get that transmitter. I need someone to hang!\" Tremaine left the hotel, walked two blocks west along Commerce Street Tremaine took off his hat. \"Sure you do, Jess. It's been a while, The policeman got to his feet. \"Jimmy,\" he said, \"Jimmy Tremaine.\" He In a back room Tremaine said, \"To everybody but you this is just a we don't know much yet.\" Tremaine covered \"Mr. Bram,\" repeated Tremaine. \"Is he still around? I remember him as a \"There were a lot of funny stories about him, I remember,\" Tremaine \"Oh?\" Tremaine stubbed out his cigarette, lit another. \"What happened \"I remember Soup,\" Tremaine said. \"He and his bunch used to come in the drug store where I worked and perch on the stools and kid around with me, and Mr. Hempleman would watch them from over back of the \"Why Bram?\" Tremaine persisted. \"As far as I know, he never had any Tremaine shook his head. guess she was retired by the time you were playing hookey. But her dad had money, and in bucks. There was a big shindy planned. Now, you know Bram was funny about any kind of socializing never would go any place at night. But Tremaine got to his feet. \"I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your ears \"I've got an oversized suitcase,\" Tremaine said. \"I'll be setting it up know if you want anything. And by the way—\" he winked broadly—\"I always did know who busted Soup Gaskin's nose and took out his front teeth.\" \"MUNICIPAL OFFICE OF RECORD.\" Tremaine opened the door and went in. Tremaine. \"I won't be a minute,\" Tremaine said. \"Just want to check on when the The man turned to Tremaine, pushing a drawer shut with his hip. \"Bram? The man came over to the counter, eyeing Tremaine. \"He ain't going to Tremaine put a hand on the counter, looked thoughtful. \"I was hoping to save a trip.\" He lifted his hand and scratched the side of his jaw. A folded bill opened on the counter. The thin man's eyes darted toward it. His hand eased out, covered the bill. He grinned quickly. \"See what I can do,\" he said. It was ten minutes before he beckoned Tremaine over to the table where \"No, thanks,\" Tremaine said. \"That's all I needed.\" He turned back to The clerk looked sideways at Tremaine. \"Lots of funny stories about old Bram. Useta say his place was haunted. You know funny noises and lights. And they used to say there was money buried out at his place.\" \"I've heard those stories. Just superstition, wouldn't you say?\" \"Maybe so.\" The clerk leaned on the counter, assumed a knowing look. \"There's one story that's not superstition....\" Tremaine waited. \"You—uh—paying anything for information?\" \"Now why would I do that?\" Tremaine reached for the door knob. The clerk shrugged. \"Thought I'd ask. Anyway—I can swear to this. The woman darted a suspicious look at Tremaine. \"You have to handle \"I'll remember.\" The woman stood by as Tremaine looked over the front Tremaine leafed over, reading slowly. The librarian produced the papers. Tremaine turned the pages, read the The librarian was at Tremaine's side. \"I have to close the library now. windows along the side streets. Tremaine turned up his collar against a of the left rear tail fin whipping in the slipstream. Tremaine stopped Tremaine set off at a run, covered the two blocks to the hotel, yanked Two miles into the dark hills north of the Elsby city limits, Tremaine \"Mind if I have a word with him? My name's Tremaine.\" before handing it to Tremaine. Tremaine?\" on me.\" \"It's nothing we can go to court with, Grammond. And the job you were doing might have been influenced if I'd told you about the Elsby angle.\" Grammond snorted. \"Okay, Tremaine,\" he said. \"You're the boy with all the answers. But if you get in trouble, don't call me call Washington.\" Back in his room, Tremaine put through a call. moonshiners.\" \"Don't tell me my job, Tremaine!\" the voice snapped. \"And don't try out your famous temper on me. I'm still in charge of this investigation.\" \"Sure. Just don't get stuck in some senator's hip pocket.\" Tremaine \"Miss Carroll,\" Tremaine said. \"You won't remember me, but I—\" Only a faint quaver reflected her age—close to eighty, Tremaine that you've amounted to something.\" \"Just another bureaucrat, I'm afraid.\" \"I....\" Tremaine started. He looked at the old lady. \"I want some \"There'll be nothing done against him, Miss Carroll ... unless it needs \"I always liked Mr. Bram,\" said Tremaine. \"I'm not out to hurt him.\" year.\" \"What does he do for a living?\" \"I have no idea.\" \"I'm ... not sure that anyone truly knows Bram's story.\" Tremaine stood up. \"I'm sorry. Really sorry. I didn't mean to grill She paused. Tremaine waited. \"This locket,\" said Tremaine, \"do you still have it?\" pulled to a stop beside him. Jess leaned out, peered at Tremaine and Tremaine shook his head. \"I'm getting nowhere fast. The Bram idea's a me. He smells headlines in this he doesn't want to be left out.\" \"Well, the State cops could be mighty handy to have around. I'm wondering why you don't want 'em in. If there's some kind of spy ring working—\" \"We're up against an unknown quantity. I don't know what's behind this and neither does anybody else. Maybe it's a ring of Bolsheviks ... and maybe it's something bigger. I have the feeling we've made enough empty shotgun shell. He looked at Tremaine. \"This don't look good,\" he Tremaine. \"Maybe this is more than kid stuff,\" he said. \"You carry a Tremaine went to the car, dropped the pistol in his coat pocket, Tremaine said. \"That's blood, Jess....\" Tremaine scanned the floor. It was of broad stared at Tremaine. \"I'm too damned old to start believing in spooks,\" he said. \"You suppose those damn-fool boys are hiding here, playing tricks?\" \"I think.\" Tremaine said, \"that we'd better go ask Hull Gaskin a few questions.\" heard....\" \"What did you hear?\" \"They're lookin for the spies.\" \"Who's looking for spies?\" \"Cops.\" \"Who says so?\" The boy looked directly at Tremaine for an instant, flicked his eyes to \"Spill it, Hull,\" the policeman said. \"Mr. Tremaine hasn't got all me over and asked me a bunch of questions. Said I could help 'em get them spies. Wanted to know all about any funny-actin people around hers.\" The boy darted another look at Tremaine. \"They said they figured the\n\n<question>:\nWhy is Tremaine considered the best person to conduct this investigation?\n\n<options>:\nA He knows the people and the area.\nB He has special training.\nC He has extra time.\nD He has money to pay people bribes.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
62	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 GARDEN BY R. A. LAFFERTY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from they skipped several steps in the procedure. The chordata discerner read Positive was spinal fluid on that orb, rivers of it. So again they omitted it required a fine adjustment. But they were disappointed that they found nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. Then had refused to read when turned on the inventor himself, he had only ordinary , the machine insisted. the acknowledged superior minds of the Earth. In space it had been a on a two-inch-long worm, only one of them out of assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests. me light.\" \"You don't want to visit any of the other areas first? Somewhere away from the thoughtful creature?\" \"No. The rest of the world may be dangerous. There must be a reason that thought is in one spot only. If we find no others then we will go So they all, except Steiner, went off to their bunks then: Stark, the Dawn did not come to the moon-town. The Little Probe hovered stationary in the light and the moon-town came up under the dawn. Then the Probe went down to visit whatever was there. \"There's no town,\" said Steiner. \"Not a building. Yet we're on the track of the minds. There's nothing but a meadow and some boscage, a the lion is named lion, the horse is named horse and the hoolock is named hoolock.\" \"I have only one tongue by the eagle, by the squirrel, by the ass, by the English.\" wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would you?\" But the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. It was water, \"Are there any other people here?\" Stark asked the man. \"Can we have something to eat?\" asked the Captain. \"Pick from the trees,\" said Ha-Adamah, \"and then it may be that you will want to sleep on the grass. Being not of human nature (which does not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. But you are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits.\" They wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. There were the animals. The lion and lioness were enough to make one cautious, though they offered no harm. The two bears had a puzzling look, as though they wanted either to frolic with you or to mangle you. that the rest of the world is not dangerous at all. It looked fertile wherever we scanned it, though not so fertile as this central bit. And those rocks would bear examining.\" \"Flecked with gold, and possibly with something else,\" said Stark. \"A very promising site.\" \"And everything grows here,\" added Steiner. \"Those are Earth-fruits and I never saw finer. I've tasted the grapes and plums and pears. The figs and dates are superb, the quince is as flavorsome as a quince can be, the cherries are excellent. And I never did taste such oranges. But I haven't yet tried the—\" and he stopped. \"If you're thinking what I'm afraid to think,\" said Gilbert, \"then it will be the test at least: whether we're having a pleasant dream or \"I won't be the first to eat one. You eat.\" \"Ask him first. You ask him.\" \"Ha-Adamah, is it allowed to eat the apples?\" \"Certainly. Eat. It is the finest fruit in the garden.\" \"Well, the analogy breaks down there,\" said Stark. \"I was almost beginning to believe in the thing. But if it isn't that, then what. proposition to maintain here as on Earth?\" no. Do not approach it. It is not allowed to eat of that one!\" It was the pomegranate tree, and he was warning Langweilig away from it. \"Once more, Father,\" said Stark, \"you should be the authority but does not the idea that it was the apple that was forbidden go back only to a medieval painting?\" \"It does. The name of the fruit is not mentioned in Genesis. In Hebrew exegesis, however, the pomegranate is usually indicated.\" \"I thought so. Question the man further, Father. This is too incredible.\" \"Forever less six days is the answer that has been given to me. I never did understand the answer, however.\" fallen nature to die, and that does not pertain to me or mine.\" They were there for three days. They were delighted with the place. inhabitants. They went everywhere except into the big cave. are taught that should ever evil come to us, which it cannot if we They learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time left. And they talked of it as they took off. and that ours and all the others we have visited are fallen worlds. disturbed that happiness.\" \"I too am convinced,\" said Steiner. \"It is Paradise itself, where the lion lies down with the lamb, and where the serpent has not prevailed. It would be the darkest of crimes if we or others should play the part of the serpent, and intrude and spoil.\" the tycoon, \"but I do believe my eyes. I have been there and seen it. It is indeed an unspoiled Paradise the wide heavens for vengeance for anyone to smirch in any way that perfection. \"So much for that. Now to business. Gilbert, take a gram: Ninety Million Square Miles of Pristine Paradise for Sale or Lease. Farming, Ranching, exceptional opportunities for Horticulture. Gold, Silver, Iron, Earth-Type Fauna. Terms. Special Rates for Large Settlement names were \"Snake-Oil Sam,\" spoke to his underlings: settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of.\" \"I think you'd better write me some new lines,\" said Adam. \"I feel like a goof saying those same ones to each bunch.\" \"You are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. I was in show business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. I did change Adam and Eve to Ha-Adamah and Hawwah, and the apple to the pomegranate. People aren't becoming any smarter—but they are becoming better researched, and they insist on authenticity. \"This is still a perfect come-on here. There is something in human nature that cannot resist the idea of a Perfect Paradise. Folks will whoop and holler to their neighbors to come in droves to spoil and mar it. It isn't greed or the desire for new land so much—though that is strong too. Mainly it is the feverish passion to befoul and poison what is unspoiled. Fortunately I am sagacious enough to take advantage of of materials, heavy machinery of all sorts, titanic crates of foodstuff space-sealed the rather large pile of bone-meal in one corner. \"We will have to have another lion,\" said Eve. \"Bowser is getting old, and Marie-Yvette abuses him and gnaws his toes. And we do have to have a big-maned lion to lie down with the lamb.\" \"I know it, Eve. The lion is a very important prop. Maybe one of the crackpot settlers will bring a new lion.\" \"And can't you mix another kind of shining paint? This itches. It's Delphina and from Sol. Pure water for all industrial purposes. Scenic our own galaxy. Low taxes and liberal credit. Financing our specialty—\" \"And you had better have an armed escort when you return,\" said Father \"It's as phony as a seven-credit note!\" \"You, a man of the cloth doubt it? And us ready skeptics convinced by our senses? Why do you doubt?\" Theologically unsound, dramaturgically weak, philologically impossible, zoologically rigged, salted conspicuously with gold and shot through checkers with anyone. Yet there was an unusual mind there somewhere was just that he chose not to make our acquaintance personally.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhich fruit was NOT allowed to be tasted by the crew while visiting the moon-town?\n\n<options>:\nA Apples\nB Oranges\nC Pomegranate\nD Grapes\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
2,088	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nAI: what's the worst that could happen? Stephen Cave: Thinking about the impact of AI is not something that any one discipline owns or does in any very systematic way. So if academia is going to rise to the challenge and provide thought leadership on this hugely important issue, then we’re going to need to do it by breaking down current disciplinary boundaries and bringing people with very different expertise together. I think there are many areas of science where more interdisciplinary engagement would be valuable. Biotech’s another example. In that sense AI isn’t unique, but I think because thinking about AI is still in very early stages, we have an opportunity to shape the way in which we think about it, and build that community. At a recent talk, Naomi Klein said that addressing the challenge of climate change could not have come at a worse time. The current dominant political and economic ideologies, along with growing isolationist sentiment, runs contrary to the bipartisan, collaborative approaches needed to solve global issues like climate change. Do you see the same issues hampering a global effort to respond to the challenges AI raises? AI companies, and in particular the big tech companies, are very concerned that this won't go like climate change, but rather it will go like GMOs: that people will have a gut reaction to this technology as soon as the first great swathe of job losses take hold. People speculate that 50m jobs could be lost in the US if trucking is automated, which is conceivable within 10 years. You could imagine a populist US government therefore simply banning driverless cars. Certainly, we encounter technological determinism a lot. And it's understandable. For us as individuals, of course it does feel like it always is happening and we just have to cope. No one individual can do much about it, other than adapt. But that's different when we consider ourselves at a level of a society, as a polis [city state], or as an international community. I think we can shape the way in which technology develops. We have various tools. In any given country, we have regulations. There's a possibility of international regulation. Technology is emerging from a certain legal, political, normative, cultural, and social framework. It's coming from a certain place. And it is shaped by all of those things. And I think the more we understand a technology's relationship with those things, and the more we then consciously try to shape those things, the more we are going to influence the technology. So, for example, developing a culture of responsible innovation. For example, a kind of Hippocratic oath for AI developers. These things are within the realms of what is feasible, and I think will help to shape the future. One of the problems with intervention, generally, is that we cannot control the course of events. We can attempt to, but we don't know how things are going to evolve. The reality is, societies are much too complex for us to be able to shape them in any very specific way, as plenty of ideologies and political movements have found to their cost. There are often unforeseen consequences that can derail a project. I think, nonetheless, there are things we can do. We can try to imagine how things might go very badly wrong, and then work hard to develop systems that will stop that from happening. We can also try collectively to imagine how things could go very right. The kind of society that we actually want to live in that uses this technology. And I'm sure that will be skewed in all sorts of ways, and we might imagine things that seem wonderful and actually have terrible by-products. This conversation cannot be in the hands of any one group. It oughtn't be in the hands of Silicon Valley billionaires alone. They've got their role to play, but this is a conversation we need to be having as widely as possible. But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. There was a point I read in something you wrote on our ideas of intelligence that I thought was very interesting. We actually tend to think of intelligence at the societal level when we think about human ability, rather than at the individual level but in the end conflate the two. I think that's a very good point, when we think about our capabilities, we think about what we can achieve as a whole, not individually. But when we talk about AI, we tend to think about that individual piece of technology, or that individual system. So for example if we think about the internet of things and AI, we should discuss intelligence as something encompassed by the whole. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, right now, perhaps it is a product of our anthropomorphising bias. But there is a tendency to see a narrative of AI versus humanity, as if it's one or the other. And yet, obviously, there are risks in this technology long before it acquires any kind of manipulative agency. Robotic technology is dangerous. Or potentially dangerous. But at the same time, most of what we're using technology for is to enhance ourselves, to increase our capacities. And a lot of what AI is going to be doing is augmenting us – we're going to be working as teams, AI-human teams. Where do you think this AI-human conflict, or concept of a conflict, comes from? Do you think that's just a reflection of historical conversations we've had about automation, or do you think it is a deeper fear? And so I think it's very natural for us to see AIs in terms of agents. We anthropomorphise them as these kind of android robots. And then we think about, well, you know, are they part of our in-group, or are they some other group? If they're some other group, it's us against them. Who's going to win? Well, let's see. So I think that's very natural, I think that's very human. There is this long tradition, in Western culture in particular, with associating intelligence and dominance and power. It's interesting to speculate about how, and I wish I knew more about it, and I'd like to see more research on this, about how different cultures perceive AI. It's well known that Japan is very accepting of technology and robots, for example. You can think, well, we in the West have long been justifying power relations of a certain kind on the basis that we're 'cleverer'. That's why men get to vote and women don't, or whatever. In a culture where power is not based on intelligence but, say, on a caste system, which is purely hereditary, we’d build an AI, and it would just tune in, drop out, attain enlightenment, just sit in the corner. Or we beg it to come back and help us find enlightenment. It might be that we find a completely different narrative to the one that's dominant in the West. One of the projects the centre is running is looking into what kind of AI breakthroughs may come, when and what the social consequences could be. What do you think the future holds? What are your fears – what do you think could go right and wrong in the short, medium and long term? I think one worry that we haven't talked about is that we've become extremely dependent upon this technology. And that we essentially become deskilled. There's an extent to which the history of civilisation is the history of the domestication of the human species sort of by ourselves, and also by our technology, to some extent. And AI certainly allows for that to reach a whole new level.\n\n<question>:\nWhich does Stephen think is a useful impact of AIs in a broad context?\n\n<options>:\nA They can have a strong moral impact on the communities they interact with\nB They will allow us to put the social frameworks we live in under a microscope\nC They will boost the economy all over the world\nD There can be regulation that can help people decide how to shape the future\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,469	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nI \"I don't see why we have to be here,\" a crewman said. \"He ain't liable to say anything.\" \"And with your permission, Father....\" \"Here comes the priest. Now, be still.\" \"Now, dear,\" said Joanne Marie, \"the captain can hear ya, if you're \"Justice is a priestly virtue,\" Harry said. The captain, in the officer's section, sat very straight and tall. He the left half of the recreation area. While the priest stood before the Nestir, the priest, was dressed out in the full ceremonial costume \"Sit down, Captain,\" said Nestir, when the captain entered. \"No. Over exentiati pablum re overum est : \"Grass grows not in the middle of \"Good. I have a question to ask you, Captain.\" a busy thoroughfare.\" The baldness was the result of the diligent I called you all together today.\" He stared away, at a point over the head and to the rear of the audience. \"It puts me in mind of the parable of the six Vergios.\" \"Come now, sir. I realize she is the daughter of a crewman, but—\" \"Father,\" said the captain, \"did I ever tell you about the time I led within the last week, they were dead of infection. But three were \"Captain! I fear I must be very severe with you. I will be forced to foolish and hid their sores announce in the mess hall this evening that you have refused to do \"Very well, Father,\" the captain said after several minutes. \"I will do your duty when it was plainly and properly called to your attention.\" That morning was to be the time of the captain's wedding. He had insisted that it be done in privacy. For the ceremony, he refused to make the slightest change in his everyday uniform nor would he consent He had intended, after the ceremony, to go about his duty as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened crewmen came to me. He came to me, and he said: 'Father, I am weary of but after it was done with, the vast I went to the captain, and I said, 'Captain, the men are weary of \"And then the captain said: 'All right, Father,' he said, 'I will set thing—ah, what a good thing, that is—ah, how nice it would be to have the Casting Off at home, among friends.'\" that I know what a Festival should be, and the captain and I will do family had become involved in a conspiracy against the illustrious King Fod. As the Soong family was traveling....\" \"I don't like 'em anyway,\" said Wanda. Dinner that evening was a gala occasion aboard the ship. The steward The captain came down from his stateroom after the meal had begun. He nodded curtly to the officers when he entered the mess hall, walked directly to his place at the head of the table, sat down and morosely your decision will be, Father?\" the steward ,\" continued Nestir, \"and therefore constituted a clear out attempt to avoid his duty by hastening to his Reward.\" Upon hearing the word duty, the captain brightened. \"That,\" he said to Nestir, \"my dear Father, is the cardinal point of the whole game, y'know.\" He scratched the back of his left hand. \"Duty. we go, but also a question of leaving only after having done our duty. And that's equally important.\" in duty. It's all noble and self sacrificing.\" He scratched the back of his right hand. The second mate had been trying to get a word in edgewise for several minutes he finally succeeded by utilizing the temporary silence \"You don't need to worry about your Casting Off, Captain. You can The captain was not visibly cheered hope to be Cast Off by an officer. It would be very humiliating, y'know, to have a crew member do it.\" that salve.\" \"That's very kind of you, but I....\" \"No bother at all,\" the steward said. the time.\" \"I do not,\" Jane contradicted. \"Now, honey, you know you do so.\" The captain rolled the wine over his tongue. \"You were right, of duty log that's better un even th' captain's. An' hit's Martha an' me \"Oh, really, now. Now. Duty, duty,\" the captain reprimanded him mildly. uv old age.\" \"Nonsense,\" said the steward. \"We don't want anything of the sort. After all, someone has to orient the new crew.\" \"Quite right,\" said the captain. \"You ought to be proud.\" \"After all, one must have done some duty,\" the captain said. mate's wife said, looking squarely at the captain. \"Now, Martha. I place duty above pleasure. You're just angry, y'know, because you have to stay with your husband.\" \"All right, so I am. But it's true. And if Carstar hadn't been killed, that the priestcraft....\" \"Actually, in a way, it would be her duty to, you see. Think of it like \"Oh, I don't know,\" the steward said. \"Sometimes they're the best, I hear.\" does have three children.\" the priest said.\" \"Yes?\" \"I don't think all that is necessary just to go on duty.\" \"Probably not.\" \"Harry? Are you going to meet Wanda in the control room?\" \"Uh-huh.\" \"I thought so. Well, remember this, dear: It isn't the day of the \"No, dear. I know you wouldn't. But just don't , I mean.\" \"Don't mind, do you?\" \"No ... Quiet tonight. Had to cut the motors an hour ago. Control technician passed out.\" \"Yeah,\" said Harry, \"the captain's funny that way.\" captain comes in now—well, you know how he is.... Okay, thanks. Night.\" In Nestir's cabin the next morning, the captain and the priest held a The captain said, \"Oh, don't be unreasonable, Father. After all, this is a ship, y'know. And I am, after all, the captain.\" together in the Festival. I will not put the officers' corridor off limits, and—Oh! Yes? Come in!\" \"Yes, my son? Come in.\" \"Thank you, Father. Good morning, Captain, sir.\" \"Sit down, my son. Now, Captain, as I was saying: no segregation. It's contrary to the spirit, if not the wording, of the Jarcon .\" \"But Father! A crewman! In the officers' corridor! Think!\" \"Before the Prophet, we are all equal. I'm sorry, Captain. Now on \"Father?\" said the crewman who had just entered. \"Yes, my son. In one moment. Now, Captain. As I have been explaining: here—due to the—ah—exigencies of deep space—I feel convinced that a departure from normal procedure is warranted. It is not without precedent. Such things were fairly common, in astoli tavoro \"You're perfectly correct, of course,\" the captain said. \"That's just what I wanted to see you about, Father,\" the crewman said. \"If you'll excuse me, Father, I really should return to duty,\" said the crewman. \"Quite all right, my son. Close the door after you.\" \"I must say, fellow, your sense of duty is commendable.\" \"Well, uh, thank you, sir. And thank you, Father, for your time.\" \"Quite all right, my son. That's what I'm here for. Come in as often as you like.\" The crewman closed the door after him. priest: \"I'll come back later, Father.\" business.\" \"I have to be toddling along,\" said the captain. \"But Captain! I haven't finished telling you about....\" The priest studied the table top. He rearranged some papers. \"Ah, yes.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between the priest and the captain, in terms of their jobs?\n\n<options>:\nA The priest is held in higher esteem and has the nicest living arrangements\nB The captain is in charge of the ship, but he allows the priest to make cultural decisions\nC The priest is very bitter at the captain's control and is always very cautious around him\nD They don't respect each other, but thankfully do not need to interact much as they oversee separate operations\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,496	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 friend of mine offers a theory about why Bill Clinton's poll numbers stayed so high throughout the Lewinsky scandal: The news made it possible for serious-minded people to spend lots of time--at the office and over lunch--talking about semen stains, vaginal insertions, and blow jobs. And the people were grateful. If that's true, many of us could use a little sexual self-improvement. Not me, of course. I have been happily married for 26 years, since the age of 21. Deb and I have what seems to us to be a perfectly fine amorous life, yet everywhere I turn the culture tells me--almost mocks me-- you can do better! What would happen to our sex life then, if Deb (who participated in this story because she loves me and because she has tenure) and I tried for the first time to make something happen to it? It doesn't. Back home, I derived a certain depraved buzz in cinching the device on, but that was soon eclipsed. The thing works on the Roach Motel principle--your blood gets in but it can't get out. But then I got to thinking: Under battlefield conditions it doesn't get out anyway. And while I should have been paying more attention to other things, this led to thinking about the old joke with the punch line \"... and right ball go POW.\" My wife hadn't noticed any difference at all. Overall rating, on a scale of 1 to 10: 2 toes curled. A woman I know says women's magazines are the best places in America to find sex tips. She's right--go ahead, just try to find a sewing pattern in Redbook . You're much more likely to land on \"Try phone sex, dirty notes, porn videos, fantasy games and sex in new places. ... Try lingerie and no underwear. ... Try talking dirty and silk scarves. Try anything at all,\" or articles such as \"Eight New Games for the Foreplay Challenged.\" An article in the April Cosmopolitan , \"The Six Best Sex Positions,\" seemed more promising than the Redbook playbook. Each position was accompanied by a succinct write-up and a stick-figure diagram. The position we settled on was \"The Butterfly,\" which we had to read three times to comprehend. The man stands, the woman remains supine on a bed or counter-top with her feet up on his shoulders. The whole idea is to produce a pelvic tilt for better access to the G spot. Instead, we experienced an uncomfortable pretzel feeling that stick figures must be immune to. And in general, Cosmopolitan 's exotic sex positions require the sort of body placement you can't remember in the moment of passion and even if you could, for proper alignment, you still might need mood-killing accessories such as a plumb line and a laser pen. 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. Another approach is food. The notion that certain foods, such as oysters or rhino horn, are aphrodisiacs has been pretty much discounted. But it's plausible to think that cooking a meal together and then dining on it, just the two of you, could be erotic. Especially if (like me) your schedule frequently forces you to eat alone and you often find yourself standing in front of the microwave, screaming, \"Come on, goddammit!\" Intercourses , by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge ($24.95, Terrace Publishing, 1997), preaches that for every time of day and every phase of a relationship there is a type of eating experience that will heighten sexual response. (There's also a chart showing which foods are good for eating off which body parts.) Deb and I blocked off a whole Saturday afternoon and evening for the Intercourses experiment, settling on rosemary-scented lamb over pasta (Page 87) followed by frozen coffee almond dessert (Page 31). According to the book, rosemary is sexy because of its fragrance (used in many perfumes) and because of its texture, which, so the text assured, tickles nerve endings. The dessert was mostly coffee, rum, and Kahlua, which has worked before. We shopped for the food together and cooked together, drinking wine and beer along the way. At one point while I was working on the dessert, I asked my wife how long to beat the heavy cream mixture. \"Till it's stiff--it's an aphrodisiac,\" she said. Preparation took less than an hour, and everything came out perfectly. Eating at our dining room table for the first time ever without guests, we were having fun by candlelight. But the mood was romantic, not erotic. 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. 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.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the author see the role of food in romance?\n\n<options>:\nA He thinks heightening the sensory experience is effective, though not in the way he expected\nB He thinks that the menu has to be centered around aphrodisiacs to work well\nC It's not worth blocking out so much time to cook something special together\nD It's only effective if alcohols like rum and Kahlua are involved\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
360	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 enemy was friendly enough. scheduled for the following morning. Major Winship, after receiving the message, discussed precautions with the three other Americans. Next morning, before the sunlight exploded, the four of them donned lay in harsh contrast, their edges drawn with geometric precision. Major Winship attempted unsuccessfully to communicate with Base Gagarin. \"Will you please request the general to keep us informed on the progress of the countdown?\" \"Is Pinov,\" came the reply. \"Boom! Boom!\" said Major Winship in exasperation. \"Boom—boom!\" said Pinov. \"Oh, nuts.\" Major Winship cut out the circuit. \"They've got Pinov on emergency watch this morning,\" he explained to the other Americans. \"The one that doesn't speak English.\" \"He's done it deliberately,\" said Capt. Wilkins, the eldest of the four Americans. \"How are we going to know when it's over?\" No one bothered to respond. They sat for a while in silence while the shadows evaporated. One by one they clicked on their cooling systems. Major Winship shifted restlessly. \"My reefer's gone on the fritz.\" Perspiration was trickling down his face. \"Maybe,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"it's buried too deep.\" \"Maybe so,\" Major Winship said. \"But we can't have the dome fall down \"Charlie! Charlie!\" \"I'm okay,\" Major Winship answered. \"Okay! Okay!\" \"It's—\" \"Okay,\" Major Winship said. \"We told them this might happen,\" he added bitterly. There was a wait during which everyone seemed to be holding their Major Winship whinnied in disgust. \" Nyet! \" he snarled. To the other Americans: \"Our comrades seem unconcerned.\" \"Tough.\" They began to get the static for the first time. It crackled and \"Well,\" Lt. Chandler commented, \"even though we didn't build this thing to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.\" \"I guess I was just—\" Major Winship began. \"Oh, hell! We're losing pressure. Where's the markers?\" Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which had cut in automatically with the pressure drop. \"You guys wait. It's Major Winship pressed the sheeting over the leak. \"How's that?\" \"Not yet.\" \"I don't think I've got enough pressure left to hold it, now. It's There was a splatter of static. \"Damn!\" Major Winship said, \"they should have made these things more flexible.\" \"Still coming out.\" \"Major Winship! Hello! Hello, hello, hello. You A Okay?\" \"This is Major Winship.\" \"Oh! Excellent, very good. Any damage, Major?\" \"Little leak. You?\" strongly, Major.\" \"You did this deliberately,\" Major Winship said testily. \"No, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Major Winship, please believe me. I very much regret this. Very much so. I am very distressed. Depressed. After repeatedly assuring you there was no danger of a quake—and then to \"Just leave us alone, thank you,\" Major Winship said and cut off the communication. \"That's nice,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"I'll be damned surprised,\" Major Winship said, \"if they got any seismic data out of that shot.... Well, to hell with them, let's get hear anything without any air.\" Major Winship looked at the microphone. \"Well, I'll just report and—\" He started to pick up the microphone and reconsidered. \"Yes,\" he said. \"That's right, isn't it.\" service.\" Major Winship said dryly, \"Never mind. I notice it hardens on contact with air.\" \"How're the other ones?\" asked Major Winship. Lt. Chandler turned and made a quick examination. \"Oh, they're all hard, too.\" \"The only way you can check is to extrude it,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"and if it does extrude, you've ruined it.\" \"That's that,\" Major Winship said. \"There's nothing for it but to yell help.\" II something else goes wrong.\" \"As long as they'll loan us the calking compound,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"Yeah, yeah,\" Major Winship said. Winship said. \"I don't see how they can manipulate those bulky pieces of junk around.\" They ate. \"They've got the power-plants for it.\" \"Do you think he did that deliberately?\" Major Winship asked. \"I think he's trying to force us off. I think he hoped for the quake. Gagarin's built to take it, I'll say that. Looks like it, anyhow. You don't \"You told me,\" Capt. Wilkins said. After a moment, Major Winship said bitterly, \"To hell with the Russian engineer.\" \"If you've got all that power....\" unearthed the appropriate cable and began unscrewing the exterior plate to the small transmitter-receiver set on Major Winship's back. Eventually, trailing wires, Major Winship was coupled into the network. \"Okay?\" American moonbase.\" At this point, Major Winship observed for the first time that he was \"Just a moment.\" \"Is everything all right?\" Major Winship was squirming nervously, obviously perturbed. \"A-Okay,\" he said. \"Just a moment.\" \"What's wrong?\" came the worried question. In the background, he heard someone say, \"I think there's something wrong.\" Capt. Wilkins peered intently. Major Winship contorted his face in a Air, Major Winship said silently. Leak? \"All right? Are you all right?\" \"We're all right. A-Okay.\" Major Winship, mindful of the extent of his potential audience, took a deep breath. \"Earlier this morning, the Soviet Union fired an underground atomic device for the be able to deliver replacements in about ten days.\" \"I will forward a coded report on the occurrence,\" Major Winship said. \"Let us hear from you again in ... about three hours. Is the leak repaired?\" transmitter. \"Wow!\" said Major Winship when he was once more in communication. \"For a moment there, I thought....\" Winship, squinting out into the glaring sunlight. \"That,\" said Capt. Lawler, \"is the calking compound.\" \"You're kidding,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"Why didn't you just borrow a cupful?\" Major Winship said sarcastically. \"It's this way,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"They didn't have anything but said. \"He was out, himself, to greet us. I think he was really quite upset by the quake. Probably because his people had misfigured so bad.\" \"He's too damned suspicious,\" Major Winship said. \"You know and I know why they set that blast off. I tried to tell him. Hell. He looks at me like an emasculated owl and wants to know our ulterior motive in trying to prevent a purely scientific experiment, the results of which will be know that.\" \"I don't think this is the way to do it,\" Major Winship said. \"Let's forgotten how much sweat stings in the eyes.\" \"It's the salt.\" \"Speaking of salt. I wish I had some salt tablets,\" Major Winship said. \"I've never sweat so much since basic.\" \"Want to bet Finogenov hasn't got a bushel of them?\" \"No!\" Major Winship snapped. With the drum of calking compound inside, both Capt. Lawler and Lt. thoroughly around the leak.\" \"With what?\" asked Major Winship. \"Huh?\" \"Out! Out!\" Major Winship, Lt. Chandler, and Capt. Lawler, recognizing the sense of necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them\n\n<question>:\nWhat reason would the Russians have to drive the Americans off?\n\n<options>:\nA The two stations are much too close to one another.\nB They want the sole ability to conduct research on the moon.\nC They know the Americans are ahead of them technology-wise.\nD They don't trust the Americans, the same way Winship distrusts them.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
739	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs. The old man said, \"He'll be okay. Let him alone.\" \"But he won't eat. Just lies there all the time.\" Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion. So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone waiting for the breakout call from HQ. They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up. \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\" He could feel them watching him, waiting and yet still he didn't \"Hell,\" Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. \"I just got my Wayne grinned down. \"Higher I hope than a typewriter jockey.\" A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne. The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement. Wayne's mouth twitched. He leaned across the counter toward the while Wayne examined the weapons, broke open the revolver, twirled the incandescence of it trickled on his brain like melted ice, exciting and scary. He removed his leather jacket. He slung the holster under his left armpit and tested the spring clip release several times, feeling the way the serrated butt dropped into his wet palm. He put his jacket back on and the switchblade case in his pocket. He walked toward the elevator and didn't look back as the corporal said, \"Good luck, tiger.\" Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy he screamed. They kept a guy on the fire until desire leaped in him, ran and billowed and roared until his brain was filled with it. But that wasn't enough. If this muscle-bound creep was such a big boy, what was he doing holding down a desk? from Wayne's nose. He jerked up a shaky hand involuntarily and clamped A copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath He found the alley, dark, a gloom-dripping tunnel. He drove cautiously into it and rolled along, watching. His belly ached with expectancy as shirt clinging to a pale stick body. He reminded Wayne of a slim grub a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and doom. \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\" Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled. \"Help me, kid.\" He turned with a scratchy cry and retreated before the sudden blast Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything. Living seemed directionless, but he still would go with it regardless, until something dropped off or blew to hell like a hot light-bulb. He held his breath, waiting. His body was tensed and rigid as he moved in laughed. Wayne wanted to shout. He opened his mouth, but the yell clogged up somewhere, so that he remained soundless yet with his mouth still open as he heard the payoff thuds where the useless wino curled up with stick arms over his rheumy face. Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in pursued by the hollow haunting fears of his own desires. He walked through the wavering haze of smoke and liquored dizziness and Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass. Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons cat's. Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated on staring down Red the psycho. But Red kept looking, his eyes bright but dead. Then he began struggling it up again with the scared little mouse. Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the sliding down a brick shute. He gained. He moved up. His labored breath pumped more fire. And her scream was a rejuvenation hypo in his blood. She quivered above him on the stoop, panting, her eyes afire with \"You, baby,\" Wayne gasped. \"I gotcha.\" a squeaking sob, turned, ran. Wayne leaped into gloom. Wood cracked. She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her, He started up. The entire stair structure canted sickeningly. A railing ripped and he nearly went with it back down to the first floor. He cracks. A rat ran past Wayne and fell into space. He burst into the tongue. He watched what was left of her nerves go to pieces like rotten cloth. \"Do it quick, hunter,\" she whispered. \"Please do it quick.\" \"What's that, baby?\" \"I'm tired running. Kill me first. Beat me after. They won't know the difference.\" \"I'm gonna bruise and beat you,\" he said. \"Kill me first,\" she begged. \"I don't want—\" She began to cry. She cried right up in his face, her wide eyes unblinking, and her mouth open. \"You got bad blood, baby,\" he snarled. He laughed but it didn't sound like him and something was wrong with his belly. It was knotting up. \"Bad, I know! So get it over with, please. Hurry, hurry.\" She was small and white and quivering. She moaned but kept staring up at him. He ripped off his rivet-studded belt and swung once, then groaned and shuffled away from her. He kept backing toward the door. She crawled after him, begging and clutching with both arms as she wriggled forward on her knees. \"Don't run. Please. Kill me! It'll be someone else if you don't. Oh, God, I'm so tired waiting and running!\" \"I can't,\" he said, and sickness soured in his throat. \"Please.\" \"I can't, I can't!\" He turned and ran blindly, half-fell down the cracking stairs. Doctor Burns, head of the readjustment staff at the Youth Center, studied Wayne with abstract interest. \"You enjoyed the hunt, Seton? You got your kicks?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"But you couldn't execute them?\" \"No, sir.\" be done for them? That they have to be executed?\" \"I know.\" \"Too bad,\" the doctor said. \"We all have aggressive impulses, primitive \"I—felt sorry for her.\" \"Is that all you can say about it?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\" \"Give him the treatment,\" the doctor said wearily. \"And send him back to his mother.\" Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split open some prison of bone and lay bare and breathing wide. But there was no way out for the trapped. Now he knew about the old man and his poker-playing pals. They had all punked out.\n\n<question>:\nWhat realization do you think Wayne might have had after his journey?\n\n<options>:\nA He realized he did not have the emotional strength he thought he had to complete the mission.\nB He realized that Captain Jack had set him up to make him regret the draft call.\nC He realized that his parents are to blame for his weaknesses.\nD He realized that he was emotionally strong enough for the mission, but it was still too gruesome for him.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
532	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 Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to the waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoed through her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He was had pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under his reddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonies were rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward the control room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as he moved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. \"Morning, Bob. You in the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back.\" Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up. He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sun deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign of Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayed report back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enough of the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air by luck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectors The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantastic speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that moved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just beyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground. Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, but Gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them. Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets. Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almost eight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuited cadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was a momentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning the others forward. \"Get the jeeps out!\" Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door of the little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It was agonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the door back at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around in confusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. The jeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, and Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet was irritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped to the seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, the jeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it picked up speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them about, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twenty miles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, in spite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures dived downward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. \"Follow the blobs,\" Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool to leave his suit The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. The other jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too late to help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry or hands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in his nose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds after the captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavy was either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free to kick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loaded onto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monster on another before heading back. language or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessy and why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be the answer.\" Barker nodded grimly. \"I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alien time and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. That to be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group had been overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could the primitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was its fuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who told little more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the ship into a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed to prevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had found a drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent life began filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conserve space. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things were squatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship. They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what? For the return of their leader—or for something that would give the ship to them? seemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. The \"Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?\" taut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair on its head. It was the golden comet of a captain. gets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain.\" English, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. germ plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybe Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs dropped down to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd of monsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost as tall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers, set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgle ship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd had They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessy She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what must now be her home. Then she sighed. \"You'll need practice, but the others They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back.\" She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was only The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them with a decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe or accept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here.\" She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. \"Be\n\n<question>:\nHow was Hennessy’s ship found?\n\n<options>:\nA Rain moved the haze long enough to spot it.\nB Searchers found it by walking around with metal detectors.\nC A landslide exposed its location buried in a deep gorge.\nD The crew approached the Pandora.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,707	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>:\nAn interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the Psychophysical Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand 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. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course NIEMAND. Scores of them. NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases. 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. a conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is an NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose. NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea? NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from \"Julius NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he had NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the mind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently LATHAM. But weren't there reasons? NIEMAND. What reasons? NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war. specific? NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... It all started back in March, 1955, when I started getting patients suffering from a complex of symptoms, such as profound mental depression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage and resentment against life and the world in general. These people were deeply disturbed. No doubt about that. Yet they were not psychotic and hardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good many fit into this picture. They were married and single persons of both sexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset of LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at ucla . 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 pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting. LATHAM. You must have done something for your patients— NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to his office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physical examination. I turned up some minor ailments—a slight heart murmur or a inquiry into their personal life. Here again I drew a blank. They had no particular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory. There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the only NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of of carrying on the practice of medicine. The only thing for which I do give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed LATHAM. And this gave you a clue? NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the Another that he felt the people around him were plotting his fear she would injure the children. I pored over these case histories NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It was this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague of mine I had known at UC medical school, Dr. Max Hillyard, who was in practice in Utica, New York. LATHAM. With what result? NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would on receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also had been getting an increasing number of patients suffering with the same identical symptoms as my own. Furthermore, upon exchanging records we did find that in many cases patients three thousand miles apart had been stricken simultaneously— NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east 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 set. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. We NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to the the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard happened to have a contact that proved invaluable to us. Several years before Hillyard had gotten to know a young astrophysicist, Henry Middletown, who had come to him suffering from a severe case of myositis in the arms and shoulders. Hillyard had been able to effect a complete cure for which the boy was very grateful, and they had kept up a desultory correspondence. Middletown was now specializing in radio LATHAM. In what way was Middletown of assistance? NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being surprise he heard our story with the closest attention. I guess astronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucer enthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them any more. When we had finished he asked to see our records. Hillyard had NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatest LATHAM. Why is that so important? NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an radio telescope. Middletown had discovered them when he was a graduate student working on radio astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches 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 LATHAM. Does this mean that the mental disturbances arise from some form NIEMAND. Our latest results indicate that probably NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the end of World War II. LATHAM. How does it happen that you only got patients suffering from NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated entire continent. Hillyard and Middletown are working on some form of NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity LATHAM. And so you believe that the S-Regions are the cause of most of NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are NIEMAND. The trouble is they seem to develop at random on the Sun. I'm NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these is the most important reason Dr. Niemand contacted Dr. Hillyard specifically?\n\n<options>:\nA Dr. Hillyard is located on the east coast\nB Dr. Niemand wanted to see if this was happening in other parts of California\nC They were old roommates, so Dr. Niemand could trust him with his theory\nD They were friends from medical school\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
2,175	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThese lucky authors are scholars, and the works they customarily write and publish without payment are peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Open access There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to [research] literature. By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. Here’s how the Bethesda and Berlin statements put it: For a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in advance to let users “copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.” Note that all three legs of the BBB definition go beyond removing price barriers to removing permission barriers, or beyond gratis OA to libre OA. But at the same time, all three allow at least one limit on user freedom: an obligation to attribute the work to the author. The purpose of OA is to remove barriers to all legitimate scholarly uses for scholarly literature, but there’s no legitimate scholarly purpose in suppressing attribution to the texts we use. (That’s why my shorthand definition says that OA literature is free of “most” rather than “all” copyright and licensing restrictions.) OA is made possible by the internet and copyright-holder consent. But why would a copyright holder consent to OA? Two background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Second, scholarly journals generally don’t pay authors for their research articles, which frees this special tribe of authors to consent to OA without losing revenue. This fact distinguishes scholars decisively from musicians and moviemakers, and even from most other kinds of authors. This is why controversies about OA to music and movies don’t carry over to OA for research articles. 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 Journal des sçavans , launched in London and Paris in 1665. The academic custom to write research articles for impact rather than money may be a lucky accident that could have been otherwise. Or it may be a wise adaptation that would eventually evolve in any culture with a serious research subculture. (The optimist in me wants to believe the latter, but the evolution of copyright law taunts that optimism.) This peculiar custom does more than insulate cutting-edge research from the market and free scholars to consent to OA without losing revenue. It also supports academic freedom and the kinds of serious inquiry that advance knowledge. It frees researchers to challenge conventional wisdom and defend unpopular ideas, which are essential to academic freedom. At the same time it frees them to microspecialize and defend ideas of immediate interest to just a handful people in the world, which are essential to pushing the frontiers of knowledge. 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. Academic publishers are not monolithic. Some new ones were born OA and some older ones have completely converted to OA. Many provide OA to some of their work but not all of it. Some are experimenting with OA, and some are watching the experiments of others. Most allow green OA (through repositories) and a growing number offer at least some kind of gold OA (through journals). Some are supportive, some undecided, some opposed. Among the opposed, some have merely decided not to provide OA themselves, while others lobby actively against policies to encourage or require OA. Some oppose gold but not green OA, while others oppose green but not gold OA. OA gains nothing and loses potential allies by blurring these distinctions. This variety reminds us (to paraphrase Tim O’Reilly) that OA doesn’t threaten publishing it only threatens existing publishers who do not adapt. 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>:\nWhy is academic work considered low-hanging fruit?\n\n<options>:\nA It is easy to convince academics to do things for free\nB There are fewer potential revenue loss issues because authors still get money for open access work\nC There are no royalties to worry about\nD It is a general expectation that academics make their work freely available anyway\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
2,425	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\"He literally couldn't look more like a paedophile,\" read one post – one of many to state a supposedly incontrovertible truth: that Savile's criminal tendencies could have been detected from the shape of his features, his eyes, his hair. Moreover, this has nothing to do with the benefit of hindsight and should have been picked up at the time. His looks, they suggested, were a moral indicator, with a wealth of compelling visual evidence to support the claim. 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.\" In other words, they believe that they've found a relationship between looking like a criminal and actually being one. 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 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. Hancock describes attending a conference where one speaker showed a series of black faces and white faces to students (who were mostly white) and asked them what they thought the experiment was about. \"They knew that he was trying to assess whether they would rate the black ones as more criminal,\" says Hancock. \"But then they did!\" We attribute social characteristics based on opinions we already hold about certain kinds of faces: whether they look unusual in some way, whether they resemble a partner, a family member or even ourselves, or perhaps have some other cultural association. Physiognomy ultimately stems from what Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology at Princeton University, calls an 'overgeneralisation hypothesis'. \"People,\" he wrote, \"use easily accessible facial information (eg an expression such as a smile, cues to gender and ethnic group) to make social attributions congruent with this information (eg a nice person).\" 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. Experiments at Princeton found that we take less than one tenth of a second to form an opinion of strangers from their pictures, and those opinions tend to stand firm even if we're exposed to those pictures for a longer period of time. That tendency to judge instantly gives rise to a number of selfie tropes that are deemed to elicit positive responses, particularly when it comes to photos on dating profiles: certain angles, particular expressions, minute adjustments of eyebrows and lips that might appear to be about narcissism and vanity, but are more about a fear of being incorrectly assessed. After all, false suppositions based on people's faces are hugely influential within society, and in extreme cases they can have a huge impact on people's lives. This kind of deep-seated bias looms large throughout physiognomic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, from absurdities such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader of 1902 (handy if you want to find out what a \"deceitful chin\" looks like) to more inherently troubling volumes such as Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man. After performing a number of autopsies on criminals, the Italian physician claimed to have discovered a number of common characteristics, and it's worth listing them if only to establish the supposed criminality of pretty much everyone you know: In a woeful misreading of Darwinian theory, Lombroso unwittingly founded the field of anthropological criminology, and more specifically the idea of the born criminal: a hereditary quality that posed a danger to society and must be rooted out. His theories became discredited during the 20th century, but the kind of bias displayed by Lombroso can still be found in legal systems across the world studies show that people with stereotypically 'untrustworthy' faces tend to receive harsher treatment than those who don't. There's evidently some consensus over people's attitudes toward certain faces, but it doesn't follow that the consensus is correct. The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour – not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results. The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as \"What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?\" prompted a wave of press coverage. The vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality – but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. \"The main problem is the sampling of the images,\" he says. \"There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status.\" In other words, your appearance is affected by the kind of life you've led, so the classifiers within the computer program are simply distinguishing between different demographics rather than detecting a propensity for criminal behaviour. 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>:\nAccording to the author, what are people actually judging when they believe they're detecting a proclivity for delinquent behavior?\n\n<options>:\nA media filtering\nB prejudice\nC intelligence\nD demographics\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
79	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 CARL JACOBI Grannie 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 shoulder. \"Beg pardon, thir,\" he said with his racial lisp, \"thereth thome one to thee you in the main lounge.\" His eyes rolled as he added, \"A lady!\" lounge. At the threshold I jerked to a halt and stared incredulously. Grannie Annie! There she stood before a frantically gesticulating desk clerk, leaning on her faded green umbrella. A little wisp of a woman clad in a voluminous black dress with one of those doily-like caps on her head, tied by a ribbon under her chin. Her high-topped button shoes were planted firmly on the varpla carpet and her wrinkled face was set in calm defiance. I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. \"Grannie Annie! I \"Hi, Billy-boy,\" she greeted calmly. \"Will you please tell this The desk clerk went white. \"Mithter Trenwith, if thith lady ith a friend of yourth, you'll have to take her away. It'th abtholutely againth the ruleth....\" and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour—I waited until she had tossed allowed in the Spacemen's ? What happened to the book you were writing?\" \"Hold it, Billy-boy.\" Laughingly she threw up both hands. \"Sure, I knew this place had some antiquated laws. Pure fiddle-faddle, that's what they are. Anyway, I've been thrown out of better places.\" She hadn't changed. To her publishers and her readers she might be Annabella C. Flowers, author of a long list of science fiction novels. But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's 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 novels, but they weren't synthetic. If Annabella C. Flowers wrote a novel, and the locale was the desert of Mars, she packed her carpet bag and hopped a liner for Craterville. If she cooked up a feud between two ?\" I asked. \"That was the title of your last, wasn't it?\" Grannie spilled a few shreds of Martian tobacco onto a paper and deftly rolled herself a cigarette. \"It wasn't Guns .\" I grinned. \"All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair.\" \"What else is there in science fiction?\" she demanded. \"You can't have your hero fall in love with a bug-eyed monster.\" Up on the wall a clock chimed the hour. The old woman jerked to her feet. \"I almost forgot, Billy-boy. I'm due at the the jetty front. Grannie Annie hailed a hydrocar. Five minutes later we tinpan piano in the pit. Grannie Annie pushed me into a seat in the somewhere and talk.\" She minced lightly down the aisle, climbed the stage steps and disappeared in the wings. \"That damned fossilized dynamo,\" I muttered. \"She'll be the death of me It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had brought me here. And then I began to notice things. Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm THE JET. Inside was a deep room with booths along one wall. The place was all but deserted. In a booth well toward the rear the old lady surveyed me with sober eyes. I nodded. \"As disgraceful an exhibition as I've ever seen. The I.P. men ought to clamp down.\" \"The I.P. men aren't strong enough.\" She said it quietly, but there was a glitter in her eyes and a harsh line about her usually smiling lips. \"What do you mean?\" For a moment the old lady sat there in silence then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and I knew there was a story coming. \"My last book, Death In The Atom she began. \"When it was finished I had planned to take a six months' vacation, but those fool publishers of mine insisted I do a sequel. Well, I'd used Mars and Pluto and Ganymede as settings for novels, so The old woman paused. \"Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?\" she asked abruptly. I shook my head. \"Some new kind of ...\" a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug.\" followed.\" Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. 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.\" \"I see,\" I said as she lapsed into silence. \"And now you've come to the conclusion that the details of your story were true and that someone is attempting to put your plot into action.\" and laughed heartily. \"The same old Flowers,\" I said. \"Tell me, who's your thief ... Doctor Universe?\" She regarded me evenly. \"What makes you say that?\" I shrugged. .\" If it had been anyone but Grannie Annie there before me, I would have called her a fool. And then all at once I got an odd feeling of Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the It was around the camp fire that night that Grannie took me into her confidence for the first time since we had left Swamp City. to find a leader who might take complete dictatorial control. Outside a whisper-worm hissed softly. I got up and strode out of my tent. For some time I stood there, lost in thought. Could I believe Grannie's incredible story? Or was this another of her fantastic plots which she had skilfully blended into a novel? Abruptly I stiffened. The familiar drone of the marsh was gone. In its place a ringing silence blanketed everything. talons raked my clothing. Again it came, and again I rolled swiftly, missing the thing by the narrowest of margins. From the tent opposite a gaunt figure clad in a familiar dress appeared. Grannie gave a single warning: Grannie Annie fired with deliberate speed. I stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me. \"In heaven's name, what was it?\" cafe in Swamp City. Exactly.\" Grannie Annie halted at the door of her Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the \"What do you mean?\" Grannie paused in the act of rolling herself a cigarette. \"You know where it is, don't you?\" Grannie frowned in annoyance, but the prospector was adamant. He futility of the venture. Only the pleadings of Grannie Annie kept me from turning back. On the morrow I realized the truth in her warning, half buried in the swamp soil. \"What's that thing on top?\" Karn demanded, puzzled. Grannie gazed a long moment through binoculars. \"Billy-boy, take three \"Up we go, Billy-boy.\" Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to There was no sign of life. \"Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble here,\" Ezra Karn observed.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Billy-boy take Grannie Annie to the grille?\n\n<options>:\nA He felt he needed to be polite and take her to dinner.\nB No females were allowed in the club\nC He wanted to go somewhere where no one would over hear their conversation\nD He wanted to inspect the book she had been writing.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
90	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>:\nHarvey and Joe were the slickest con-men ever to gyp a space-lane sucker. Or so they thought! Angus Johnson knew differently. He charged them five buckos for a glass of water—and got it! they seen anything like the amazing creature in that colonial saloon. Paying no attention to them, it was carrying a case of liquor in two hands, six siphons in two others, and a broom and dustpan in the remaining pair. The bartender, a big man resembling the plumpish Harvey in build, was leaning negligently on the counter, ordering this impossible being to fill the partly-emptied bottles, squeeze fruit juice and sweep the floor, all of which the native did simultaneously. He led the way inside. Through thirst-cracked lips he rasped: \"Water—quick!\" Without a word, the bartender reached under the counter, brought out two glasses of water. The interplanetary con-men drank noisily, asked for more, until they had drunk eight glasses. Meanwhile, the bartender had taken out eight jiggers and filled them with whiskey. Harvey and Joe were breathing hard from having gulped the water so fast, but they were beginning to revive. They noticed the bartender's impersonal eyes studying them shrewdly. proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history of therapeutics.\" \"Yeah?\" said the bartender disinterestedly, polishing the chaser \"Mayor takes care of that,\" replied the saloon owner. \"If you gents're finished at the bar, your drinks'll be forty buckos.\" Harvey grinned puzzledly. \"We didn't take any whiskey.\" \"Might as well. Water's five buckos a glass. Liquor's free with every chaser.\" Harvey's eyes bulged. Joe gulped. \"That—that's robbery!\" the lanky man 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. thirst.\" The saloon man removed his dirty apron and came around the bar. \"If that's an apology, I accept it. Now the mayor'll discuss filling them. The planetoid man worked the pump while the mayor intently watched the crude level-gauge, crying \"Stop!\" when it registered the proper amount. Then Johnson rubbed his thumb on his index finger and wetted his lips expectantly. Harvey bravely counted off the bills. He asked: \"But what are we to 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.\" back to the saloon. His six-armed assistant followed him inside. \"Now do you see, my hot-tempered colleague?\" said Harvey as he and Joe picked up buckets that hung on the tank. \"Johnson, as I saw instantly, is the victim of a difficult environment, and must charge accordingly.\" \"Just the same,\" Joe griped, \"paying for water isn't something you can \"What's this doing here?\" Harvey asked, puzzled. \"I thought Johnson had have had the best of this colonial con-man! Watch your cues from this point hence.\" Fists clenched, the two returned to the saloon. But at the door they Johnson's eight-foot son, topped by a massive roof of sun-bleached hair ?\" demanded Johnson. \"I come down with it every year, and I ain't hankering to have it in an off-season. Get him out of here!\" Instead of replying, Harvey hurried outside to the ungainly second-hand rocket ship in the center of the shabby spaceport. He returned within a few minutes, carrying a bottle. put the bottle to his lips and tilted it until he was forced to drink. When Joe tried to pull away, Harvey was inexorable. He made his partner drink until most of the liquid was gone. Then he stepped back and waited for the inevitable result. \"For you, since you have taken us in so hospitably, a mere five hundred buckos.\" Johnson did not actually stagger back, but he gave the impression of doing so. \"F-four hundred,\" he offered. \"Not a red cent less than four seventy-five,\" Harvey said flatly. , an elegant bottle-opener, a superb product of Mercurian handicraftsmanship.\" Johnson stabbed out a warning finger. \"No tricks now. I want a taste of that stuff. You're not switching some worthless junk on me.\" Harvey took a glass from the bar and poured him a generous sample. The mayor sniffed it, grimaced, then threw it down his gullet. The ensuing minute saw a grim battle between a man and his stomach, a battle which 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 taste it, or did he not? One must look ahead, Joseph. I had to produce the same that swindler cheated us, besides whatever other funds or valuables he possesses. We could not be content with less.\" Joe was still dazed by that monetary vista when he and Harvey carried the case of medicine to the saloon. The mayor had already cleared a place of honor in the cluttered back room, where he told them to put it down carefully. Then he took the elaborate bottle-opener Harvey gave him, reverently uncorked a bottle and sampled it. It must have been at least as good as the first he gagged. Harvey and Joe looked at each other. They hadn't been thinking about food at all, but suddenly they realized that they were hungry. \"It's only water we were short of,\" Harvey said apprehensively. \"We've chance of company. Genius, the six-armed native, appeared from the dingy kitchen with two menus in one hand, two glasses of water in another, plus napkins, silverware, a pitcher, plates, saucers, cups, and their cocktails, which were on the house. Then he stood by for orders. Harvey and Joe studied the menu critically. The prices were phenomenally low. When they glanced up at Johnson in perplexity, he grinned, bowed and asked: \"Everything satisfactory, gents?\" \"Think of a fast one fast,\" Joe agreed. \"You're right.\" \"But I dislike having to revise my opinion of a man so often,\" complained Harvey. \"I wish Johnson would stay either swindler or honest merchant. This dinner is worth as least twenty buckos, yet I estimate our check at a mere bucko twenty redsents.\" !\" Johnson didn't answer. Neither did Genius he simply put on the table, not a fingerbowl, but a magnifying glass. With one of his thirty ask the sheriff to take over.\" Johnson, the \"sheriff,\" collected the money, and Johnson, the \"restaurateur,\" pocketed it. Meanwhile, Harvey tipped Joe the sign to remain calm. \"I don't get the connection,\" objected Johnson. \"Well, by obliging us to pay such a high price for your dinner, you put carelessness. \"Perhaps you wouldn't have accepted it, anyway.\" \"That's right,\" Johnson came back emphatically. \"But what would your offer have been which I would have turned down?\" sell.\" \"Oh, come now, Mr. Johnson. Don't tell me no amount of money would tempt you!\" \"Nope. But how much did you say?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Harvey and Joe have such a large tab and the bar that was ran by Johnson?\n\n<options>:\nA They were unaware of the cost of the water served by the bartender.\nB They had consumed multiple alcoholic beverages and lost track of how much they had ordered.\nC Their funds were unlimited and they ordered rounds of drinks for everyone in the bar, including Genius, who had more hands to hold more drinks.\nD Johnson had over-priced the alcoholic drinks they ordered once he knew they were drunk.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
2,365	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>:\nWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of a It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, \"Bailey, Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the taste of synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized by Chlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oregano \"Doc, do you like Winkelmann?\" the Cook asked me. \"I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook,\" Bailey said. \"The fat swine!\" \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I said. \"He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers in \"You'll never make Winkelmann happy,\" I said. \"Even the simultaneous burnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can only guess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling and Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silently imploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The big man's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed. gazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. \"Only good food,\" Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguised Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. \"Yes, sir. But I really don't know what I can do to please you.\" keep my belly content and my brain alive.\" \"Yes, sir,\" Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the British term Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. I followed him. \"Captain,\" I said, \"you're driving Bailey too hard. You're asking him to make bricks without straw.\" Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. \"You think, Doctor, Winkelmann said. \"Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if the Pharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children of Israel would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is the mother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make him uncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment, to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\" \"You're driving him too hard, Sir,\" I said. \"He'll crack.\" \"Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when we ground at Brady Station,\" Captain Winkelmann said. \"So much money buys many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\" cheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary genius acidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to go into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in 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 genuinely dairy smell. \"Splendid, Bailey,\" I said. edibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you will have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics student. That will be all, Bailey.\" Bailey they were in addition gratified that the battle between their Winkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of books, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to help him while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for a fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'd had much practice. \"I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,\" \"I understand,\" Winkelmann growled. \"You intend that your latest mess I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuine meat.\" \"Remarkable, Bailey,\" I said. Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. The Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella. Winkelmann chewed. \"Just the thing,\" he smiled. \"Damn you!\" Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. \"That's better,\" Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He said \"Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you,\" I said. \"The other officers and the men have been more than satisfied with his work.\" \"That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds,\" Winkelmann said. Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered him to my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on my bunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metal therapy, Bailey,\" I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throat like water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. \"Sorry, Doc,\" he said. \"You've taken more pressure than most men would,\" I said. \"Nothing to be ashamed of.\" 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 \"I hate him,\" Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He reached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can be an apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power of nature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep it off. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. improving a little at last.\" Bailey nodded and smiled. \"Thank you, Sir,\" he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for the decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He served a bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course there are limits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in the galley door. I gestured for him to join me. \"You've done it, Bailey,\" .\" \"Thanks, Doc,\" Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. \"You may not realize it, Bailey but this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph you couldn't have done it without him.\" \"You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?\" Bailey asked. \"He was driving you to do the impossible,\" I said \"and you did it. Our Captain may be a hard man, Bailey Bailey stood up. \"Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?\" he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job. He persuaded his men by foul means, true of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked, spearing another piece of my artificial steak. \"Bailey, I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I do.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow does Winkelmann justify his critical stance towards Bailey's cooking?\n\n<options>:\nA It motivates Bailey to seek the approval of his shipmates\nB It prevents Bailey from becoming apathetic in the kitchen\nC It compels Bailey to be more creative with his resources\nD It builds Bailey's character and makes him more resilient\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
652	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 have finished it, but the bar of morning sunlight poking in under the window shade pried his eyes open. The dream fled. Eddie kicked off the sheet, swung his feet to the floor, and groped under the bed for his tennis shoes. “You awake, Eddie?” “I’m awake, Dad,” Eddie answered. “Breakfast’s ready. Get washed and dressed.” 12 “Be right there,” Eddie said. Then, remembering “But, Dad,” Eddie wondered, “what could the dream, he added, “Oh, Dad, is it all right if I use the Geiger counter today?” much age, although Eddie knew it had been eighteen years since his father had played his last game of college football. reason.” 34 “Dinner’s ready,” Eddie’s mother called from the kitchen. During dinner Eddie wasn’t sure just what time dessert was finished, he was anxious to talk with someone, yet he knew he shouldn’t bother his father with any more questions. He “Well, you were together most of the day,” his mother said, “but I guess it’s all right. Be back in about an hour, though.” It was a balmy evening. On such evenings, Eddie had no desire to do that. He ran down better get out to breakfast before your mother the block. “Come on in, Eddie,” she invited, seeming kitchen. finishing dinner.” Eddie pulled on his trousers and T shirt and went into the bathroom. He washed hurriedly, knowing that even if he missed a spot “Oh, I figured you’d be through by now,” Eddie apologized, following her inside. 35 “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, but she looked around for Mr. Ross, but Teena’s father apparently hadn’t arrived home from Acme Aircraft yet. There wasn’t a place set for him at the table, either. “You’re never a pest, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross assured hope I’m not making a pest of myself.” He “Good evening, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said. “I—I He dropped them into the waste basket. He’d put fresh ones in after breakfast. He brushed his teeth carefully, taking particular him about letting food gather around the metal clamps. It could start cavities. Finished, Eddie went out to breakfast. “Good morning, dear,” his mother greeted him, handing him a plate of eggs. “Hi, Mom,” Eddie said. “Gotta hurry. Big day today.” “So your father says. But I’m afraid your “Aw, Mom—” “Eddie, I asked you to do it three days ago. “But, Mom—” Eddie had learned not to ask questions about it. His father usually volunteered any information them. Remember to switch it off when you’re not actually using it.” “I will,” Eddie promised. He had forgotten several times before, weakening the batteries. 17 It took Eddie over an hour to sort out the newspapers and magazines in the garage, tie them in neat bundles, and place them out on Eddie said. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was a little late in the day “Are you going alone?” his mother asked. “Oh, guess I’ll stop by and see if Teena wants to go,” Eddie answered casually. He tried to make it sound as though he would Eddie let Sandy off his chain. The taffy-colored you’d come over.” “Well, I—I just happened to be going by,” Eddie said. “Thought you might want to That’s how to handle it, Eddie thought. “but I’m just finishing the dishes. Come on in.” “I’m in kind of a hurry.” Eddie went inside and followed Teena to the kitchen. He felt triumphant about the sandwiches. “Dad didn’t say exactly,” Eddie answered, “She always does, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said, out all right,” Teena’s mother said. “So do I,” Teena agreed. Eddie glanced at the kitchen clock. “Oh, boy,” he said, “I’d better be heading back home. I didn’t mean to come over here and “That’s right, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie agreed. “Oh, I don’t really mind, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie Eddie had set carefully on the dinette table. and went back down the hallway toward the “What are we talking about, Eddie?” Teena answered his knock. You know the rules.” “We sure do, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie assured her. “And we’ll be back early.” surprised to see him. “Mother and I are just or two, he was fairly safe. During the summer Eddie, then added quickly, “forget it, Eddie. your dinner. You didn’t sound very cheerful when you called to say you would be late. How Eddie.” She handed him one of the sandwiches. It was midafternoon by the time they arrived back at Teena’s house. They worked a while on a new jigsaw puzzle Teena had received on a recent birthday. Then Eddie said good-by and went on down the street toward his own home. filling his water dish, Eddie went in the back door. He put the Geiger counter in the closet and went into the kitchen. “What’s for dinner, Mom?” he asked. Mrs. Taylor turned from the sink. Eddie his mother’s face, that something was wrong. “Dinner?” his mother said absently. “It’s not quite four o’clock yet, Eddie. Besides, dinner may be a little late today.” “But this morning you said it would be early,” Eddie reminded her, puzzled. “This morning I didn’t know what might happen.” 25 Then Eddie heard the sound of his father’s voice coming from the den. There was a strange urgent tone in it. The door to the den was open. Eddie went through the dining room and glanced into the den. His father sat stiffly behind his homemade desk, talking rapidly into the telephone. Eddie caught only the last few sketchy words. Then his father placed the telephone in its cradle, glanced up, and saw Eddie. “Dad,” Eddie said anxiously, “what—what’s the matter?” father said tiredly. “What’s wrong, Dad?” Eddie prompted. “Or can’t you tell me?” wrong, Eddie,” he said, “and I guess there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. It’ll be in the evening papers, anyway.” “Eddie, you remember me mentioning this morning about that radioisotope shipment I was expecting today?” “I remember,” Eddie said. “Did it come?” “It did—and it didn’t,” his father said. “What does that mean, Dad?” Eddie asked, puzzled. “The delivery truck arrived at the school “The radioisotope was stolen, Eddie,” his At the moment, Eddie didn’t pry for further information on the theft of the valuable radioactive isotope. His father had plenty on his the evening Globe , which Eddie rushed out to get as soon as he heard it plop onto the front porch. “It wasn’t your fault, was it, Dad?” Eddie “But—but wasn’t it in a safe container?” Eddie asked. 29 “Kid?” His father smiled thinly. “We don’t think it was any kid, Eddie. Not by a long shot. The whole thing was carefully planned and carefully carried out. It was not the work dock when the truck arrived. A half hour later, when the delivery was expected, there would have been. The truck’s early arrival had caught them unprepared. 31 “Dad,” Eddie asked, looking up from the paper, “how could anyone carry away something weighing fifty pounds without being noticed?” “But, Dad,” Eddie continued, “how would the men know that the delivery truck would arrive a half hour early?” “They wouldn’t,” his father said. “They may have had another plan. The way things\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Eddie’s mother forget to make dinner?\n\n<options>:\nA Eddie forgot to do some of his chores, so she had to do them for him.\nB Mr. Taylor was injured at work.\nC Mr. Taylor’s isotope was stolen\nD Eddie forgot was home earlier than expected, so sinner wasn’t ready yet.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
682	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 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from the dust-caked, tired body, yet there they were, seeking, always 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. children to bed—their sons—and now sat on the couch, watching the blazing fire. It was then that he had showed it to her. \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\" He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry of surprised joy. \"Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!\" she cried in her rich, happy voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body. \"It's for you so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\" She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\" Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him. He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain. \"Wait!\" she cried. \"I've something for you, too.\" She took off the locket she wore about her neck and held it up to the shimmering light, letting it spin at the end of its chain. It caught the shadows of the fire and reflected them, greatly magnified, over the room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end. The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet, in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the blood in his veins. where the fighting had begun. Already the city was a silent graveyard, littered with the rubble of towers and cathedrals which had once been great. bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. grew louder and louder until he knew what it was. 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 stopped their carnage. First there had been the red flashes that melted away, leaving shreds of putrid flesh behind to mark the places where Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown merciful beams of filtered light found their aluminum coffins. The war had ended. To no avail. Neither side had won. Most of the cities and the majority 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. leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the ruins of what had once been their cities. He had walked through them, seemed to say: \"Follow me.\" her once again all would be well, and his long journey would be over. The images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and mind slept into the shadows of the dawn. 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 the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with streaming hair called stars. voices—mournful, murmuring voices, echoing up from the misty depths. He turned quickly away and did not look back. Night paled into day day burned into night. gulps. At the window he peered in, and as his eyes became accustomed to the inner gloom, he saw how bare the room was. No matter. Now that like a restless child in sleep, then moved from the chair to the pile of wood near the hearth, and replenished the fire. The wood caught quickly, sending up long tongues of flame, and forming a bright pool of no hair on its head. Its gums were toothless cavities in a sunken, empty of life. \"No, no!\" he cried soundlessly. He was turning wearily away from the window when the movement of the creature beside the fire held his attention. It had taken a ring from one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if trying to decipher some inscription inside it. He knew then. He had come home. Slowly he moved toward the door. A great weakness was upon him. His 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 his neck until he found the locket and the clasp which had held it safely through endless nightmare days and nights. He slipped the clasp and the locket fell into his waiting hand. As one in a dream, he opened it, and stared at the pictures, now in the dim moonlight no longer faces of those he loved, but grey ghosts from the past. Even the ruby had lost its glow. What had once been living fire was now a dull glob of darkness. \"Nothing is forever!\" He thought he had shouted the words, but only a thin sound, the sound of leaves ruffled by the wind, came back to him. He closed the locket and fastened the clasp, and hung it on the doorknob. It moved slowly in the wind, back and forth, like a pendulum. \"Forever—forever. Only death is forever.\" He could have sworn he heard the words. He ran. Away from the house. To the large horse with a horn in the of strength left him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped onto his chest.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the meaning of the engraved ring change throughout the story?\n\n<options>:\nA At first it is a declaration of everlasting love, but soon shows that its pledge exists past death, becoming a haunting symbol of how love can bleed into death.\nB At first it is a declaration of everlasting love, but soon shows that its pledge exists past death, becoming a haunting symbol what can happen when love isn’t returned home.\nC At first it is a declaration of everlasting marriage, but soon shows that its pledge even exists in war, becoming a symbol of how love can survive death and overcome all trials.\nD At first it is a declaration of commitment, but soon shows that its pledge exists in death, becoming a haunting symbol of how love doesn’t last forever.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,464	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>:\njust wanted to get back his memory—and the methods he used were gently hellish, from the viewpoint of the others.... therefore, he occupied the shack on mining colony there. Some people shack and the landing field and the it, and mentioned the scar of a ghastly head-wound to explain his ability. One man partly guessed the secret, but only partly. His name was Sattell and he had reason not to were located in the medieval notion of the physical appearance of hell. By day the environment was heat and torment. By night—lunar night, of course, and lunar day—it was frigidity children had owned and loved. He He envisioned a way to increase stores for the colony deep underground. that recovery. But there was a marked from Earth, on a voyage equal to rather more than a thousand times around the equator of the Earth. Artists' supplies were not often included. Earth. He collected stones of various sorts, but when warmed up in the shack they were useless. He found Crack would have had to shut down. The Crack, of course, was that minerals which could be pulverized and used as pigments, but nothing suitable for this new adventure in no strictly lunar material which the recovery of lost youth. He even CO 2 is nothing like it on Earth, of course. When it was first found, scientists descended into it to examine the exposed merely more CO 2 for the colony and the rocket landing have been perfect, but there is no marble on the Moon. Naturally! Yet be insulation against the cold of night and shadow and the furnace heat of day. Pop lived in it all alone, and in his spare time he worked industriously at recovering some looking for anything of the sort, but out of the corner of his eye he observed in the colony underground. There were galleries and tunnels and living-quarters fresh, and all sorts of things to make life possible for men under if not on the Moon. But it wasn't fun, even underground. In the Moon's slight gravity, a man is really adjusted to existence when he has a well-developed case of agoraphobia. With such an aid, a happily tell himself that it feels delicious. Sometimes it does. the low gravity to tear a man's nerves to shreds. He has to develop kinks in his head to survive. And down with the singular deliberation of falling objects on the Moon. It was just barely past lunar sunrise on the far side of the Moon. Incredibly long and utterly black enough to be utterly unable to face the idea of open spaces. Even now white and half was blacker than blackness itself. The sun still hung low indeed in the black, star-speckled The first men to leave the colony containing a hundred Earth-pounds \"Don't come in!\" he said mockingly. \"And I don't give a damn brought back some vague and cloudy memories. They were not sharp, quite take it in. \"This,\" snapped the red-headed weapon. It drew blood. It was wanton, savage brutality. \"Pay attention!\" snarled the red-headed thicker than foil. While they stayed at space-shadow temperature, the foil the Moon. He panted: \"And get it straight! You try face. He seemed filled with fury, at least partly hysterical. It was the tension savagery due to terror. But, of course, Pop was helpless to resent children and some of the happiness If he did, there'd be no way to recover more lost memories. Somehow, the mention of Sattell had made his mind work better. It always the mine, for example. In each two Earth-weeks of working, the mine-colony cannister with greasy-seeming white crystals shaped like two pyramids on Earth its contents would be computed and called the mine-colony But he did not dwell on such speculation. The sun rose very, very slowly in what by convention was called the east. It took nearly two hours to urge its disk above the horizon, and it burned terribly in emptiness for fourteen times twenty-four hours before sunset. Then there and Pop and the colony together. and thirty-six consecutive hours there were only stars overhead and the was night, and for three hundred who looked up into it—what with the nagging sensation of one-sixth gravity—tended to lose all confidence in the stability of things. Most men fell, too. Wherefore most men tended to scream. back on Earth long before a new cable's been got and let down to you. So they'll do all they can no matter what I do.\" He added, \"I wouldn't of his children came out of emptiness and grew sharp and clear. He found that he loved them very youth that had been lost. Otherwise, he was wholly matter-of-fact—certainly so for the far side of the Moon. He was a rather fussy housekeeper. The shack above the two children, playing together. He the shadow of the shack he had an unfailing source of extreme low and CO 2 fly to pieces from internal stress. On the Moon, it was not desirable that diamonds be exposed to repeated violent changes of temperature. So a thermware-lined cannister quantity of uncut diamonds? CO 2 fresh air from the now-enriched pinnacles reared in the starlight, and craters complained of the bombardment All the inside of the shack was breathed a sigh of relief when it was in place. He'd arranged for it to break a frozen-brittle switch as it descended. When it came off, the switch would light the lamp with its bare filament. There was powdered magnesium in contact with it and liquid oxygen all about. from space that had made them. had plenty—it became a really truthful likeness. The sun rose, and baked the abomination of desolation which was together for always, with one complete inky shadows stretched enormous distances, utterly black. The sun, like a glowing octopod, floated low at the edge of things and seemed to hate all creation. clearly the way one of his children had looked while playing come up.\" The red-headed man snarled. But crime. He wanted his youth back. He was recovering it bit by bit. The occupation made it absurdly easy to live on the surface of the far side of the Moon, whether anybody else his eyes were on the cannister whose contents should weigh a hundred to the lunar state of things. Living on the Moon was bad enough pounds on Earth. \"Any tricks,\" he rasped, \"and you know what happens!\" could do it or not. had made no overt attempt to revenge himself because he planned some retaliation so horrible and lingering ferocity. And fear. In his mind the need to escape became an obsession There was the most luridly bright of all possible flashes. There was no sound, of course. But something flamed very brightly, and the ground Even with magnesium powder to start the flame when a bare light-filament prison, trying to induce someone to help him escape. ignited it, the cannister-bomb hadn't equaled—say—T.N.T. He had friends, of a sort, but for circles about the Earth, and the Earth swung sedately about the Sun. The other planets danced their saraband. The rest of humanity went about its nothing. The Moon swung in vast bore directly upon Pop Young and Sattell and Pop Young's missing years. a luxury passenger-line of spaceships to ply between Earth and But the passengers who paid so highly, expected to be pleasantly thrilled and shielded from all reasons for alarm. And they couldn't be. Something happens when a self-centered and complacent individual unsuspectingly blindness against reality. It is shattering. A millionaire cut his throat when he saw Earth dwindled to a mere than ever, now! He didn't wonder what he'd do face of immensity. Not one passenger disembarked even for Lunar City. Most of them cowered in their chairs, hiding their eyes. They were the simple cases of hysteria. But the catatonic withdrawal and neither saw nor heard nor moved. Two other to do. Workers for the lunar mines sedation. But it was too early in the development of space-travel for pleasure-passengers. They weren't\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the colony inhabitants share?\n\n<options>:\nA traumatic brain injuries\nB criminal backgrounds\nC fear of open spaces\nD aversion to sunlight\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,228	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBut he didn’t wait for the hot further inspections of his own. At last he nodded slowly. “Hyper-catabolism, of course. I thought it might be. How long neither did he anticipate the horror of being the first! By LESTER DEL REY Illustrated by JOHNS words about whatever was the NEARLY TWO hundred were returning the pulse in could risk. If he made it, though.... automatic. Somehow, thinking his neck was pounding and his of his this year—and “Any particular emotional Harry. Maybe he’d even tell Harry the truth, once they got for breath and feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He’d been a fool to come to work, he realized. But with the Procyon was no telling what might turn up. Besides, that fool of a medicist had sworn the shot would cure any allergy or asthma. can’t see any other explanation. You’ve got a slight case of angina—nothing serious, but quite definite—as well as other signs of aging. I’m afraid the treatment She smiled dutifully at the time-worn joke, but he knew she wasn’t fooled. She’d cycled to a couple more centuries until though that, of course, was impossible. “Anything urgent on the Procyon and captured it. Jordan’s got a first time. Then it had required months of mental training, followed by crude mechanical and sat gazing at the report from Jordan that vanished at greater than the speed of light, equipped with every conceivable device to make conscious level and forced to operate. There had been impossible at Jordan’s hasty preliminary report. that worked those miracles had taken an incredible amount of study and finding a means of Now they did it with dozens of mechanical aids in addition to the hypnotic instructions—and after the treatment! But with all the equipment, it wasn’t impossible for a mistake Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary greeting verse—one that would with the eternal unconscious expectation that he would find himself suddenly young again. But that, of course, was ridiculous. an injection of some kind and that. Harry had nothing but praise for the solar system where most of the frame with glowing description and a plea for his father to join him there! “But I’ll be all right?” Cobb smiled the automatic reassurance of his profession. “We even in one of the improved Exodus shuttles. And even if Exodus ever got the super-light the discovery of the super-light missile and what it might mean. he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put a paper whose headlined feature carried a glowing account of such thing. A statement that never would. It was an evasion meant to give such an impression. The worry nagged at him all wasn’t ready to face Jordan yet. Jordan’s eyes seemed to sweep young—one of the few under a hundred who’d escaped deportation because of special ability—and patience was still foreign to when it was necessary because someone called across to him. Ordinarily, he was quick to support him. But Jordan wasn’t looking at by them, as he might be by “Antigravity!” His voice was real reason. Certainly they weren’t forcing themselves on him. He that Harry had been a complete nuisance, running around with the star’s designation....” Jordan cursed harshly. “So we begging for their secret in a couple of hundred years! While night’s sleep after a little relaxation. Even that failed him, though. He’d developed one of the finest made in two centuries the young were too conservative for really new thinking. There was a measure of truth in it, unfortunately. or other. drive works! That missile reached Sirius in less than ten days. We can have the secret of this antigravity in less than a early twenties. Would that reduce the slice of eternity that rejuvenation meant? And what about thirty, instead of the normal had happened to Sol? made no sense. “You mean you after all suppose something permanently? had gone wrong with him What? ” Jordan’s voice rattled the speaker. “Of course not! It took two accidents to get the thing back to us—and with a Procyon shuttle heard its signal. Pre-setting a course may take centuries, if we can ever master it. Even with Sirius expecting the drafted for building long enough now we can finish it in three Procyon in two weeks. We even know life can stand the trip. The rats were unharmed.” real damage such as the loss of power to rejuvenate. We can’t put human pilots into a ship with our He stopped, shocked by the “In the spring, a young man’s fancy,” he quoted to himself, and then shuddered. It hadn’t been that kind of spring for him—not this rejuvenation nor the last, nor the one before that. have the big ship. All we need is himself and partially succeeded, until he reached the doctor’s office. Then it was no longer necessary to frighten himself. The wrongness was too strong, no matter one volunteer!” words. He watched the smile vanish how professional Cobb’s smile! He didn’t hear the preliminary Or how about you? Do Jordan opened his mouth and you really want to risk losing the the doctor’s technical jargon. rest of your life rather than waiting for his fear, it seemed to vanish, leaving a coldness that numbed him. answer. NO SANE man would risk a chance for near eternity against such a relatively short wait. Heroism had belonged to those who knew their days were “Failed.” He stopped, and in a low, defeated tone. numbered, anyhow. The rejuvenation...?” Cobb sighed and yet seemed relieved. They had to plan and build for it. They couldn’t risk that plan for short-term benefits. Usually it was too easy to realize that, and the sight of the solid, time-enduring buildings outside should we can make them better. Geriatric knowledge is still on record. We can fix the heart and all the rest. You’ll be in good physical condition, better than your grandfather—” dark hair. pronounce the words. He’d grown An immortal man had suddenly stop twice to catch his breath and fight against the pain that found death hovering on his said, and was surprised to find he meant it. The man had done all he could and had at least saved him the suspense of growing doubt and horrible eventual discovery. OUTSIDE ON the street, he for thousands of years. Their eternity was no longer a part of him. Even his car would outlast him. no longer wondering about the dangers that might possibly arise. Those wouldn’t matter much now. For a man who from his panic to leave him almost himself again. After all, there was nothing to worry about and a long drink in his hand. The alcohol combined with the reaction had thought of living almost forever, the Centauri system. There’s a Dr. Cobb whose reputation is very good, sir.” that might even be useful. In the future, men would need the super-light drive if they were to span much more of the Universe than now. And he could his, though. “Dr. Cobb, then,” he still, even if he could never see its finish. It would be cold comfort but it said. for him. Automatic habit carried him still riding her. He managed a grin and somehow the right words feigning it. “Then you’re all right?” “As all right as I’ll ever be,” he told her. “They tell me I’m just instead of the treasures he could build inside himself for the future ahead. He was getting positively childish! Yet he relished the feeling of as so many others had, for even with modern safety measures so strict, there was always a small chance of some accident and nobody had any desire to spend the long future as a cripple. “I’ll wait for you, sir,” Dubbins the low, massive medical building. It was almost too much consideration. a family, rather than a mere to Sirius. And we still wouldn’t to a precious few....” he remembered. “A precious few.” have proved it safe for human seemed precious to the old man then. over the intercom. “Jordan wants reflex, blood pressure, pulse and fluoroscope. Others involved complicated little gadgets that ran over his body, while meters as he switched on Jordan’s wire.\n\n<question>:\nWhich word doesn't describe Jordan?\n\n<options>:\nA intelligent\nB motivated\nC impatient\nD heroic\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,035	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nand the fine of—\" \"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know.\" I groaned and turned to the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo was no problem—they battled for the honor—but now I had to fight like a wildcat to keep a display from making a monkey of me! beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old exhibitionist urge. a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and the contract. Otherwise, nothing.\" \"Send him, her or it in.\" for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day.\" \"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and transportation.\" The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping 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 would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get to Earth. My conscience won't let me really exploit 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 so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at anything short of top rate. Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging. 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 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 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 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 upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan. \"One more specimen before lunch,\" I told Stebbins, \"to make it an even dozen.\" I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman. \"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only.\" I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line at getting bilked myself. \"Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known for my sense of humor. Or my generosity.\" 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 Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds. warlike race. I said, \"You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males, because—\" \"You will hire me or trouble I will make!\" didn't move. He bellowed, \"I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!\" The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry, Earth!\" \"But—\" organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?\" \"Yes, yes!\" wailed the Stortulian. \"Find some other member of my race, sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel 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 \"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth.\" There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to commit suicide on my account. 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 and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII staff.\" \"I don't care what . 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 I know all there is to go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me. being—\" \"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the untimely death of an intelligent life-form,\" filled in the second of \"And therefore,\" said the third lizard, \"it is our duty to arrest responsible?\" \"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?\" \"Well, no, but—\" \"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman.\" Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was 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 bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000 per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall. I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced arrival. to do.\" I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers going down the drain. \"Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself! He's—\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the Vegan not chosen to make the trip to Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA There were too many of his kind already in inventory.\nB They were worrisome and difficult to work with.\nC He was much to large in size to accommodate.\nD The upkeep for the species was too much.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
188	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWorlds of Tomorrow April 1963 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that He was as ancient as time—and as strange as his own frightful battle against incredible odds! I In his room at the Elsby Commercial Hotel, Tremaine opened his luggage \"Fred, Tremaine here. Put the buzzer on.\" A thin hum sounded on the wire as the scrambler went into operation. \"Okay, can you read me all right? I'm set up in Elsby. Grammond's boys are supposed to keep me informed. Meantime, I'm not sitting in this damned room crouched over a dial. I'll be out and around for the rest of the afternoon.\" wait another. I don't mind telling you certain quarters are pressing me.\" \"Fred, when will you learn to sit on your news breaks until you've got some answers to go with the questions?\" project, progress slowing to a halt, and this Bureau—\" \"Look, Fred. I was happy in the lab. Headaches, nightmares and all. Hyperwave is my baby, remember? You elected me to be a leg-man: now let me do it my way.\" \"I felt a technical man might succeed where a trained investigator area—\" brings you back to the boondocks?\" \"Let's go somewhere and sit down, Jess.\" In a back room Tremaine said, \"To everybody but you this is just a visit to the old home town. Between us, there's more.\" pattern—\" something ...\" groceries and hikes back out to his place by the river.\" \"Well, what about him?\" I've forgotten. Wanted me to come out to his place and he'd teach me. I never did go. We kids used to play in the caves near his place, and sometimes he gave us apples.\" ordinary American. But up close, you feel it. He's foreign, all right. But we never did know where he came from.\" \"How long's he lived here in Elsby?\" \"Beats me, Jimmy. You remember old Aunt Tress, used to know all about ancestors and such as that? She couldn't remember about Mr. Bram. She over again.\" \"I remember Soup,\" Tremaine said. \"He and his bunch used to come in the drug store where I worked and perch on the stools and kid around with me, and Mr. Hempleman would watch them from over back of the prescription counter and look nervous. They used to raise cain in the other drug store....\" on fire.\" \"What was the idea of that?\" frowning. \"This would ha' been about nineteen-oh-one. I was no more'n foot, of course, broad backed, curly yellow hair—and a stranger to there and Miss Linda made her play, right there in front of the town, practically. Just before sundown they went off together in that fancy and eyes open for anything that might build into a lead on this, Jess. Meantime, I'm just a tourist, seeing the sights.\" \"What about that gear of yours? Didn't you say you had some kind of detector you were going to set up?\" \"I've got an oversized suitcase,\" Tremaine said. \"I'll be setting it up in my room over at the hotel.\" \"When's this bootleg station supposed to broadcast again?\" Back in the street, Tremaine headed south toward the Elsby Town Hall, a squat structure of brownish-red brick, crouched under yellow A thin man with garters above the elbow looked over his shoulder at Tremaine. \"We're closed,\" he said. \"I won't be a minute,\" Tremaine said. \"Just want to check on when the The man came over to the counter, eyeing Tremaine. \"He ain't going to sell, mister, if that's what you want to know.\" \"I want to know when he bought.\" The man hesitated, closed his jaw hard. \"Come back tomorrow,\" he said. to save a trip.\" He lifted his hand and scratched the side of his jaw. A folded bill opened on the counter. The thin man's eyes darted toward a two-foot-square book lay open. An untrimmed fingernail indicated a line written in faded ink: \"May 19. Acreage sold, One Dollar and other G&amp V consid. NW Quarter Section 24, Township Elsby. Bram. (see Vol. 9 &amp cet.)\" \"Translated, what does that mean?\" said Tremaine. \"That's the ledger for 1901 means Bram bought a quarter section on the nineteenth of May. You want me to look up the deed?\" The man was looking at the book with pursed lips. \"Nineteen-oh-one,\" \"I guess you're right.\" The clerk looked sideways at Tremaine. \"Lots of funny stories about lights. And they used to say there was money buried out at his place.\" \"I've heard those stories. Just superstition, wouldn't you say?\" \"There's one story that's not superstition....\" Tremaine waited. \"You—uh—paying anything for information?\" \"I want nineteen-oh-one, if they go back that far.\" \"What date was it you wanted?\" \"Nineteen-oh-one the week of May nineteenth.\" dark. But they're still flimsy, mind you.\" \"I'll remember.\" The woman stood by as Tremaine looked over the front page. The lead article concerned the opening of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. Vice-President Roosevelt had made a speech. Tremaine leafed over, reading slowly. On page four, under a column headed heads, skimmed an article here and there. The librarian went back to her desk. An hour later, in the issue for July 7, 1900, an item caught his eye: A Severe Thunderstorm. Citizens of Elsby and the country were much alarmed by a violent cloudburst, accompanied by lightning and thunder, during the night of the fifth. A fire set in the pine woods north of Spivey's farm destroyed a considerable amount of timber and threatened the house before burning itself out along You'll have to come back tomorrow.\" Outside, the sky was sallow in the west: lights were coming on in \"What's the matter? Run out of signal?\" \"What's it to you, mister?\" \"We could be.\" \"Mind if I have a word with him? My name's Tremaine.\" \"Oh,\" said the cop, \"you're the big shot from Washington.\" He shifted chewing tobacco to the other side of his jaw. \"Sure, you can talk to Tremaine?\" \"I thought you were going to keep your men away from Elsby until I gave the word, Grammond.\" \"That was before I knew your Washington stuffed shirts were holding out on me.\" \"The smallest hyperwave transmitter Uncle Sam knows how to build weighs three tons,\" said Tremaine. \"Bicycles are out.\" \"Why did you come today, James?\" asked Miss Carroll. \"Of course.\" \"How long has Mr. Bram lived in Elsby?\" Miss Carroll looked at him for a long moment. \"Will what I tell you be to be in the national interest.\" \"I'm not at all sure I know what the term 'national interest' means, year.\" \"This locket,\" said Tremaine, \"do you still have it?\" \"There is one other thing,\" she said, \"perhaps quite meaningless....\" and neither does anybody else. Maybe it's a ring of Bolsheviks ... gun?\" \"In the car.\" \"Better get it.\" \"Maybe he cleaned a chicken. This is the kitchen.\" heard....\" \"What did you hear?\" \"They parked out east of town, on 302, back of the woodlot. They called me over and asked me a bunch of questions. Said I could help 'em get them spies. Wanted to know all about any funny-actin people around hers.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of May 19th, 1901?\n\n<options>:\nA There was a thunderstorm in the area.\nB Bram bought a damaged farm from Mr. Spivey.\nC Bram’s house burned down.\nD The Pan-American Exposition was in Buffalo.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,805	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOne can't be too cautious about the people one meets in Tangier. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. Me? Oh, I'm A Stranger In native costume you'll see and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Levantines and Filipinos, North Americans and South Americans, and, of course, even Europeans—from both sides of the Curtain. the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoeshine to their not very lily-white bodies, and the richest will avoid your eyes, afraid you might try to sell them something. In spite of recent changes, the As a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced of every flavor. Local law limits the activities of few of and said, \"Hello, Paul. the waiter. The tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard procedure Paul said, \"How are you, Paul was an easy-going, sallow-faced \"Pogo and Albert are going to fight a duel,\" I told him, \"and \"Oh,\" I said, \"the intellectual type.\" I scanned the front page. \"The Russkies have put up another manned satellite.\" \"They have, eh? How big?\" \"Several times bigger than Paul said, \"What ever happened \"What flying saucers?\" both looked after her. \"You know, what everybody was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad one of these bloody manned satellites wasn't up then. Maybe they would've seen one.\" \"That's an idea,\" I said. way. I didn't know Paul very well, but, for that matter, it's comparatively seldom you ever get to know anybody very well played close to the chest. in the States. Just to say something, I said, \"Where do you think they came from?\" And when he looked Saucers.\" He grinned. \"From Mars or Venus, or someplace.\" none of them ever crashed, or landed on the Yale football field , or something.\" Paul yawned and said, \"That was always the trouble with those crackpot blokes' explanations of them. If they were aliens from space, then why not show themselves?\" I ate one of the potato chips. It'd been cooked in rancid olive answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think of two or three that made sense.\" Paul was mildly interested. \"Like what?\" \"Well, hell, suppose for instance there's this big Galactic League of civilized planets. But it's restricted, see. You're not eligible for membership until you, well, say until you've developed space flight. Then you're invited into the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time to keep an eye on your progress.\" Paul grinned at me. \"I see you in a neatly tailored gray jellaba, European style high-heeled shoes, and a pinkish silk veil so transparent that you after her. I said, \"Or, here's another one. Suppose you have a very advanced civilization on, say, Mars.\" \"Not Mars. No air, and too \"Don't interrupt, please,\" I said with mock severity. \"This is a very old civilization and as the planet began to lose its water and air, it withdrew underground. Uses hydroponics and so forth, husbands its water and air. Isn't that what we'd do, in a few million years, if Earth lost its water and air?\" \"I suppose so,\" he said. \"Anyway, what about them?\" \"Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific boom, an industrial boom, a population boom. A boom, period. Any day now he's going to have practical space ships. Meanwhile, he's also got the H-Bomb and both sides of the Curtain, he's not against using it, if he could get away with it.\" Paul said, \"I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on us. That's an old one. I've read that a dozen times, dished up different.\" it's one possibility.\" \"I got a better one. How's this. There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. Their civilization is so old that they don't have any records of when it began and how it was in the things like wars and depressions and revolutions, and greed for power or any of these things giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? And some of them are pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right now, with all the problems, get or how we're going to get there.\" where we're going ?\" \"Well, take half the countries in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries. Look at Egypt, and Israel, and India and China, and Yugoslavia and Brazil, and all the rest. Trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced countries, and all using different methods of doing it. But look at the so-called advanced countries. climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony-bins full of the balmy, unemployed, threat of war, spending all their money on armaments instead of things like schools. All the bloody mess of it. Why, a man from Mars would be fascinated, like.\" Paul said seriously, \"You you always come up against this brick wall. Where are they, these observers, or scholars, or spies or whatever they are? Sooner or later we'd nab one of them. You know, Scotland Yard, or the F.B.I., or Russia's secret police, or the French Sûreté, or Interpol. This world is so deep in police, counter-espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time, no matter how much he'd been trained. Sooner or later, he'd slip up, and they'd nab him.\" I shook my head. \"Not necessarily. The first time I ever considered this possibility, it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could use the libraries for research, where anything goes. Nobody gives a damn about you or your affairs. For instance, I've known you a year or more now, and I haven't the slightest idea of how \"That's right,\" Paul admitted. ask a man where's he's from. He can be British, a White Russian, a Basque or a Sikh and nobody could care less. Where are \"No, you're not,\" he grinned. \"I felt your mind probe back a few minutes ago when I was talking about Scotland Yard or the F.B.I. possibly flushing an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If they had it, your job—and mine—would be considerably more difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really \"What're you doing here on Earth?\" I asked him. \"Researching for one of our meat trusts. We're protein eaters. Humanoid flesh is considered quite a delicacy. How about you?\" \"Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal, or international, conflicts—all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in—well shielded, of course—and get their kicks watching it.\" Paul frowned. \"That sort of practice could spoil an awful Amazing Stories December 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Paul think an alien wouldn't be able to hide on Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA Aliens don't look like Earthlings.\nB An alien would not be able to mimic a human enough to fit in with society.\nC An alien wouldn't be able to assimilate into Earth's backward culture.\nD The Earth has so many intelligence agencies, at least one would be watching when an alien gave itself away.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,514	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthey’ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through 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 In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, meaning that you are unencumbered legally, that you are free, as in ‘free software.’ There’s a paradox: with many people’s Wikipedia 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 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 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 wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works. Of course people can abuse that, just like they can abuse anything. But I want people to see the value in sharing over the fear in sharing. The fact is, it’s much more likely that somebody is going to use these pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the benefits. way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the ultimate gift. In one way it’s kind of vain. [laughs] But in another way it’s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the 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, happy with this, and I’m happy, and the Berkman Center’s happy because they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman Center. There’s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin Mobile case, where Virgin used CC licensed images in an advertisement without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it more thorough from a legal perspective. It’s also an important educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in cases where the law requires such rights to be cleared before reuse. What have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year? That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. Microsoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails released their album, Ghost, under a Creative Commons license. The list goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business But one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. I believe that the success of the Internet has two parts. The first part affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. Similarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I think it’s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or destructive ways. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we have the license ported to at least 44 jurisdictions, and the number of the United States. Although the United States is still slightly farther ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo exhibit was just amazing. There were some great 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. With new 22 megapixel cameras coming in under $10,000, and Lightroom and some of this software at a couple hundred dollars, it doesn’t really lowered the bar. I don’t know how that affects the industry directly, and processing it in a special lab, and then digitizing it. For me, that film was it. You could never get as good as medium-format film or large-format film At the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were darkroom was not all that exciting, but the digital wasn’t perfect. I I could use my old gear, and it had enough megapixels to be as good as some film. 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 smaller number of people. It allows you to actively filter. Your I think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying around. Just as I never believed that we would have a paperless office, being able to connect with people through social software mostly increases your travel, it doesn’t decrease it. It is great because you get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. Specifically, I think that trying to keep an international focus and a balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well. However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to more than anything, I’m thankful for and respectful of all of the Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one\n\n<question>:\nWhat potential drawback does the author acknowledge regarding the popularity of Creative Commons licenses?\n\n<options>:\nA If everything becomes free, then no one can make any kind of profit\nB Too many people will not pay attention to when Creative Commons licenses expire\nC Corporations can potentially take advantage of people who use Creative Commons licenses\nD The Creative Commons license will eventually be replaced with something more equitable\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,037	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nlocal laws?\" \"The Stortulian will be duly punished,\" replied the leader of the \"Right, Chief.\" Stebbins moved toward the visiphone. 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. It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien 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. giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition. world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, \"The first The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained. signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet, four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple 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. Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman. tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look about him. He said, in level Terran accents, \"I'm looking for a job at getting bilked myself. \"Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known for my sense of humor. Or my generosity.\" \"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job.\" 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 fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your 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 Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low 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 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 Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him officially. He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high, and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture, and growled, \"I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me immediately to a contract.\" \"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks.\" \"You will grant me a contract!\" \"Will you please sit down?\" sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males, because—\" \"You will hire me or trouble I will make!\" , I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another as a vacancy—\" \"No. You will hire me now.\" \"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to it.\" \"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!\" the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting all the others. I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left. They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw, to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner 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, \"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent \"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?\" undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low I watched him shuffle out. I do have some conscience, and I had 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 \"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 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'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 either. Now will you scram or—\" The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian, came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to let him have it at the first sight of actual violence. Heraal boomed, \"You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!\" \"And therefore,\" said the third lizard, \"it is our duty to arrest 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 , and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and pathetic damn near blew my head off.\" I shuddered. \"Thanks for the\n\n<question>:\nWhy did the Wazzenazzian feel that he would be beneficial as an employee to the recruiter?\n\n<options>:\nA He could morph into any species he wanted for outwards appearance.\nB He said he knew all there is to know about alien life-forms\nC He was capable of speaking all languages.\nD He was powerful among the Wazzenazzian and capable of swaying decisions.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
2,456	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>:\nthem believe it.\" Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the—the biggest Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his disgust. \"You are a prize fool,\" he said finally. \"Did you know \" Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I All Earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth. \" Puzzled frowns appeared on the jury's faces. One or two worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran to set me up for life!\" Meyerhoff nodded grimly. \" Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Three million credits—do you hear? That's enough spend a couple of weeks in this pneumonia trap. The deal was Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians Why, you should see what they tried to sell ! You've never seen such a pack of liars as these critters.\" He glanced up at Meyerhoff. \"They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let lying they never have run up against a short-circuit like that. 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.\" \"Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was outlook, wasn't it? What a pity!\" He clucked his tongue sadly. \"Me, I've got a fortune in credits sitting back at the consulate waiting for me—enough to keep me on silk for quite a while, I lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That—uh—jury trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to Not too much—just three million credits.\" Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\" \"Is that right? My goodness. You don't suppose they could count. Trading brought scalpers where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it con-men who could work new territories unfettered by the legal restrictions that soon closed down the more established with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics he exploded finally. \"So I pulled an old con game. So what? Why should they get so excited? So I clipped a few thousand these critters didn't want bridges. They wanted land—this gooey, slimy swamp they call 'farm land.' So I gave them what they wanted. I just sold them some land.\" Meyerhoff nodded fiercely. \"You sure did. A hundred square kilos at a swipe. Only you sold the same hundred square kilos have done—\" \"But what's a chunk of land?\" 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. You'd have realized that they have to start fighting for individual rights almost as soon as they're born. Anything goes, Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. \"Never heard of that, had you? And you've never heard of other things, too. You've probably never heard that there are just too many Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their diet is so finicky that they just can't live on anything that in their economy, not money nothing but land. To get land, it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying—of course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've completely missed the concept of truth. Pathological? You bet impossible and useless.\" He chuckled maliciously. \"So you 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 is threatening to cut off supply unless they see your blood splattered liberally all the way from here to the equator.\" Zeckler was visibly shaken. \"Look,\" he said weakly, \"so I Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler 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 \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the \"Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Altair I. Brutal 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 with the accursed scum of Altair II in preparation The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now—later—\" he lies . They're liars, the whole pack of them—\" He Altairian equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then of the seventh crossing of Altair II (may the Goddess cast \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his of eighteen (or was it twenty-three? Oh, yes, twenty-three) women and children in the suburban village of Karzan. The pogrom, it seemed, had been accomplished by an energy The murmur quieted down, all ears straining in their headsets to hear his words. \"These charges,\" he continued, \"all of them—they're perfectly true. At least, they seem to be perfectly soul, risking my life, for the welfare of your beautiful planet.\" Altair from my homeland on Terra. I—I landed on Altair II, a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very fortunate error. planet, at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is theirs, not mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her and lied to her, coerced her all-powerful goodness to their own evil interests, preparing for the day when they could persuade her to cast your land into the fiery furnace of a ten-year-drought—\" guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's over the pandemonium. \"Any fool knows that the Goddess can't be bribed. How could she be a Goddess if she could?\" doubt, that she is the most exquisitely radiant creature in all The hisses grew louder, more belligerent. Cries of \"Butcher him!\" and \"Scald his bowels!\" rose from the courtroom. The and their Goddess.\" He sat down wearily. \"I don't see what you can do. They want your blood, and they're going to have it. They just won't believe you, no matter\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Altair regarded at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value?\n\n<options>:\nA They do not understand the loopholes in the trading laws\nB They have a large amount of 'unclaimed' land\nC They were an ideal location for an interplanetary prison system\nD They have a large reservoir of 'unclaimed' uranium\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
286	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>:\nDOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] lock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. He \"Everything shipshape, I take it!\" he commented. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. \"Oh? But after all, they're human beings, just like us—\" \"Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don't even look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them.\" \"Acclimation,\" Lowry said scientifically. \"They had to acclimate themselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough.\" The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were the outskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-present Venusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards from the Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashioned proton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazing \"Of course,\" Lowry said suddenly, \"there's a minority who are afraid of us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives. They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that we know Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry underground group that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive the native Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, that is—right down into the mud. Well—\" he laughed—\"maybe they will. After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of—\" The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallic The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, in spite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on her head. \"Svan, I'm afraid,\" she said. \"Who are we to decide if this is a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will be trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood.\" Svan laughed harshly. \" They not human any more. The officer said it.\" The other woman spoke unexpectedly. \"The Council was right,\" she agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\" object?\" \"Good,\" said Svan. \"Then we must act. The Council has told us that we alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the Earth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not return.\" An old man shifted restlessly. \"But they are strong, Svan,\" he Earth.\" \"Never get back to Earth?\" the old man gasped. \"Has the Council authorized—murder?\" Svan shrugged. \"The Council did not know what we would face. The object?\" dull. \"What is your plan?\" he asked. feet, held up a shiny metal globe. \"One of us will plant this in the ship. It will be set by means of this dial—\" he touched a spot on the surface of the globe with a pallid finger—\"to do nothing for forty hours. Then—it will explode. Atomite.\" He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grin bowl.\" Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm of her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes there were a few car, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole city has been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we can find. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation. The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the car—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. The guards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough, after all of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the his subconscious indecision magnified, became opposition. The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along the main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except They all are , he thought. Not one of them understands what this means. They're afraid. driving. \"Let's get this done with.\" illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of the jungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. The present shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall off again, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. that followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: \"Halt!\" The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on the brakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on them from the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep a watch for other guards.\" Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer. Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bow of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. something happens to the delegation?\" \"Then we're in the soup,\" the Exec said philosophically. \"I told you the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years.\" \"It isn't all the natives,\" Lowry said. \"Look how they've doubled the guard around us. The administration is co-operating every way they know how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's this not be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. If they must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve a purpose. , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they would feel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite in that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a ground-shaking crash. since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and the jungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmed lights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made by its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling figures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own. \"Amazing,\" the surgeon said dryly. \"Well, they won't do any bombing it? What about it?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is one way the story’s setting, Venus, affects the characters and and sets up the plot?\n\n<options>:\nA The story takes place on Mars, not Venus. Over the last four or five generations, Mars’ conditions have caused its human colony to mutate in order to better survive. This causes a racial rift between humans from Earth and humans from Mars, which sets the story’s plot by imposing tension between the two groups.\nB Over the last four or five generations, Venus’s conditions have caused its human colony to mutate in order to better survive. Differences in appearance cause a racial rift between humans from Earth and humans from Venus, which sets the story’s plot by imposing tension between the two groups.\nC Over the last fifteen generations, Venus’s conditions have caused its human colony to mutate in order to better survive. This causes a racial rift between humans from Earth and humans from Venus, which sets the story’s plot by showing Venusians in a bad light.\nD Over the last two or three generations, Venus’s conditions have caused its human colony to mutate into swamp people. This causes a holocaust of humans from Venus, which sets the story’s plot by imposing tension between the two groups.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
2,323	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 screen to throw their , Trooper Lane hovered three thousand feet above Tammany Square. The cool cybrain surgically implanted in him was working on the problem. But Lane had no more patience. They'd Lane said, \"I can do that a yet they let a crowd his hovering body this way couple times more, but it Lane is through now. He has been able to outthink police with the help of his cybrain. Now police are feeding the problem to their giant analogue computer in the sub-basement of the Court House. fall, fall. will be able to outthink Lane's cybrain, will predict Lane's Lock me up in barracks. heads. He'd bowled those city cops over like paper dolls, people out of the Square?\" black dog was on Lane's back. mailed glove to his mouth and The humming paragrav-paks embedded beneath his this is Lane.\" shoulder blades held him \"Lane, this is Trooper motionless above Newyork's Court House. Lane cursed Thirty seconds passed. Lane pressed a small stud in the ahead of time. They keep Troopers in the Armory and A voice spoke in his helmet. teach them how to fight. They rasped into Lane's ear: own city, that they'll be fighting Old cybrain, a gift from the Trooper surgeons, compliments of the city, would have Lane waited for the electronic girl from Mars is right, Lane. translucent underside of Newyork's anti-missile force-shield, the Shell. Old cybrain better be fast. Damn fast! down with blaster cannon.\" through his spine. Lane somersaulted. Cybrain had \"I am, Lane.\" The voice of nerves. Lane's own mind was \"Sir, I'm asking for help. I His know you're on my side.\" the three towers bordering on to plummet down, picking up speed. His mailed hands glittered like arrowheads out stiff dive position. He began \"I'm sorry, Lane.\" Lane pressed the stud on as he sailed down through the flag fluttered on a staff below the window. says I can't. Says if I drop the arms and looked at him. \"Do what you have to do. As far as I can see, you're the pane dissolved. Lane streamed through the window. Lane laughed. \"Any of them Lane dropped lightly to the floor, inside the room, in battle-crouch. on his side.\" A girl screamed. Lane's \"When my grandparents landed on Mars, they found the girl fold to the floor. There Lane frowned with the effort Lane, still in a crouch, chewed His head swung around and \"Lane broke through the cordon below said, \"The police analogue directly to the controls of the blaster cannon battery. It will outguess Lane's cybrain and injured. Tammany Hall has warned that this man is extremely Lane looked at Gerri. \"How him. Lane is an insane killer. He is armed with the latest military weapons. A built-in electronic brain controls his reflexes—\" \"You deserve it, Lane.\" said Lane, and a sheathed finger \"At ease with that jazz,\" are cautioned to keep clear of computer is now hooked into a puddle of glasstic. Lane strode to the window. dive out that window, they hovering above the towers. Lane's mailed hand snapped open a pouch at his belt. He flipped a fist-sized cube to the dangerous. Citizens floor. up in this lousy little room. Lane glanced out the window. killed, four others seriously A section of the energy globe \"But you're safe in here!\" and re-entered the tower about me.\" Lane picked up the force-bomb and handed it to her. \"When I say now, press shaded the view from his window wall just below. this. Then take your hand off, check his moves ahead of window ledge. Automatically, \"Worry about yourself, not Lane grinned. \"Trooper Lane, of the Newyork Special across the Square when the window where the little red-white-and-green at Lane, either. They were her feet. Built, Lane saw. Which way now? Looks says fly right for the held herself straight and her Lane plunged forward. He \"I don't,\" said Lane, unconcerned. He swooped over the balcony flag outside this window. That's the Martian flag, soldier. If you've never heard of diplomatic immunity, you'll him. There were five men took over. Lane's hand shot out, fingers vibrating. As he on the balcony—emergency! battle-crouch, the men slumped around him. Lane Years of training and cybrain Lane stood for a moment in about on the 3V. Where's the the midst of the sprawled floating up to him. Then he over there.\" She pointed. \"See Lane. \"Cybrain didn't know, Lane \"Force-screen. Nothing gets past, except maybe a full-size blaster-beam. Keeps cops out. Keeps you in. You anybody Trooper Lane. Now there was Tammany Square inaugurating From Mars. I'm on a side of Lane. diplomatic mission.\" Newyork's new Military important?\" \"I told you, I'm an ambassador. gotta go by spaceship. What's \"Gerri Kin. Look, Lane, Lane said, \"I'm going to and my buddies, we just come Lane shook his head. \"She's Lane said, \"Yeah? Well, we up in the Armory. Won't pay us. Won't let us go nowhere. Lane said, \"It wasn't so stupid They had cops guarding us. City cops.\" Lane sneered. \"I Lane broke off. There was bellied out from above. It Lane could read the A loudspeaker shouted into maintained—that the deadliest Lane, or we'll blast you out.\" \"You can't,\" Lane called. \"I repeat, Lane—come out sir,\" said Lane. \"That's why Lane turned to the girl. \"I you back for that kiss.\" millions of miles away, and you're right across the Square \"Yeah, but—\" Lane shook \"No deal, Lane. We're coming in.\" The police boats Lane looked down at the filtering down through Newyork's voices rose from below. Lane rolling to a stop around the edges of the crowd. The people Lane looked across the tower opposite, the ones he rolled up from the Square, reechoing against the tower walls. \"Lane is holding the Martian Ambassador, Gerri Kin, hostage. You can see the Martian tricolor behind his force-globe. Police are bringing up blaster cannon. Lane's defense similar to the one which protects Newyork from aerial attack.\" Lane grinned back at Gerri like this probably cared a lot Maybe he could do it now. Cybrain said no. It said the second he dropped his force-screen, burns out the force-globe. Lane looked sadly at her. be so near getting killed when quick,\" said Lane. \"I'm Lane you? I'll bet you're perfect with those weapons.\" \"Listen. They been training the machinery. Troopers fight because they're not trained to \"The Fans,\" said Lane. kept in the Armory, Lane? I \"Because they're afraid of airborne infantrymen!\" Lane said, \"They told us in safe from bombs. They learned to be self-sufficient under of security, when you infiltrated in the city when you them so much that they'll let a few feet away, dazed, groping on hands and knees. Lane jumped to the window, looked quickly, sprang back. Cybrain pumped orders to his nervous system. \"Blaster cannon,\" he said. \"But just one. Gotcha, cybrain. I can beat that.\" He picked up the black box that generated his protective screen. Snapping it open with Again Lane and Gerri were Lane laughed boyishly and the crowd below. The around the open space sprawled dozens of tiny black figures, not moving.\n\n<question>:\nHow is Lane able to hover over the buildings?\n\n<options>:\nA He has anti-gravity boots.\nB He is in a helicopter.\nC He has a jet pack.\nD He has anti-gravity devices implanted in his body.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
462	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nThey were still separated, two on one side of the airlock, two on the other. \"I'm going to try to look,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"Let me go.\" He lumbered directly away from the dome for a distance of about fifteen feet, then turned and positioned himself, some five feet behind the over to one side and laying on the air tank. The air tank is getting General Finogenov notified Major Winship that the underground blast was red, too. I'm afraid ... it's weakening it.... Redder. Oh, oh.\" \"What?\" said Capt. Lawler. the three other Americans. Next morning, before the sunlight exploded, the four of them donned their space suits and went and sat outside the dome, waiting. The sun rose with its bright, silent clap of radiance. Black pools of shadows Major Winship, after receiving the message, discussed precautions with \" Capt. Wilkins leaped from his position. He was still floating toward the ground when there was an incredibly bright flare from inside the dome, and a great, silent tongue of flame \"Boom! Boom!\" said Major Winship in exasperation. emergency watch this morning,\" he explained to the other Americans. \"The one that doesn't speak English.\" \"He's done it deliberately,\" said Capt. Wilkins, the eldest of the four Americans. \"How are we going to know when it's over?\" \"The static level hasn't gone up much, if at all.\" \"Maybe,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"it's buried too deep.\" \"Maybe so,\" Major Winship said. \"But we can't have the dome fall down around all our ears.\" He stood. \"Whew! You guys stay put.\" He crossed with the floating moon-motion to the airlock and entered, \"Okay,\" Major Winship said. \"We told them this might happen,\" he added Major Winship whinnied in disgust. \" Americans: \"Our comrades seem unconcerned.\" completely. It then abated to something in excess of normal. \"Well,\" Lt. Chandler commented, \"even though we didn't build this thing to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.\" \"I guess I was just—\" Major Winship began. \"Oh, hell! We're losing \"Got 'em,\" Major Winship said a moment later. He peeled back a marker and let it fall. Air currents whisked it away and plastered it against a riveted seam of the dome. It pulsed as though it were breathing and then it ruptured. Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which sprung a little, and I can't get it to conform over the rivet heads.\" There was a splatter of static. \"Damn!\" Major Winship said, \"they should have made these things more flexible.\" \"Came through without damage.\" General Finogenov paused a moment. When \"You did this deliberately,\" Major Winship said testily. repeatedly assuring you there was no danger of a quake—and then to have something like this happen. Oh, this is very embarrassing to me. Is there anything at all we can do?\" \"What'd they say?\" Capt. Wilkins asked. \"Larry, General Finogenov said he was very embarrassed by this.\" his helmet against the speaker and then shook his head sadly. \"We can't hear anything without any air.\" \"How do they possibly think—?\" \"Gentlemen! It doesn't make any difference,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"Some air must already have leaked into this one. It's hard as a rock. A gorilla couldn't extrude it.\" \"Who was supposed to check?\" demanded Capt. Wilkins in exasperation. \"The only way you can check is to extrude it,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"and if it does extrude, you've ruined it.\" \"That's that,\" Major Winship said. \"There's nothing for it but to yell help.\" It was an awkward operation that took several minutes. Capt. Wilkins cursed twice during the operation. \"I'd hate to live in this thing for any period.\" \"I think these suits are one thing we've got over the Russians,\" Major Capt. Wilkins raised eyebrows. \"What brought this on?\" \"I was just thinking.... They really got it made, Larry. They've got better than three thousand square feet in the main dome and better than \"They've got the power-plants for it.\" \"Do you think he did that deliberately?\" Major Winship asked. \"I think he's trying to force us off. I think he hoped for the quake. Gagarin's built to take it, I'll say that. Looks like it, anyhow. You don't suppose they planned this all along? Even if they didn't, they sure got After a moment, Major Winship said bitterly, \"To hell with the Russian They roused Earth. \"Is everything all right?\" Major Winship was squirming nervously, obviously perturbed. \"What's wrong?\" came the worried question. In the background, he heard was not entirely subvocal, since he emitted a little gasping cry in \"All right? Are you all right?\" of American warnings that such a disturbance might release accumulated stresses in the long undisturbed satellite, and was done in the face of vigorous American protests.\" being inserted. Another tap indicated it was seated. Major Winship flicked the appropriate chest button and nodded in appreciation. \"However,\" he continued, \"we did experience a minor leak in the dome, which is presently being repaired.\" \"The Soviet Union,\" came the reply, \"has reported the disturbance and \"You're kidding,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"Actually, I think you guys have got the general wrong,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"He was out, himself, to greet us. I think he was really quite upset by the quake. Probably because his people had misfigured so bad.\" \"He's too damned suspicious,\" Major Winship said. \"You know and I know why they set that blast off. I tried to tell him. Hell. He looks at me like an emasculated owl and wants to know our ulterior motive in trying scale—\" \"A little scale?\" asked Capt. Wilkins, rolling his eyes at the dome. \"That's what I told him. We don't have any little scale.\" that.\" \"I don't think this is the way to do it,\" Major Winship said. \"Let's back the drum out.\" \"It's not the weight, it's the mass,\" said Capt. Wilkins brightly. \"The hell it isn't the weight,\" said Lt. Chandler. \"That's heavy.\" He shook perspiration out of his eyes. \"They should figure a way to get a mop in here, or a towel, or a sponge, or something. I'll bet you've forgotten how much sweat stings in the eyes.\" \"It's the salt.\" \"Speaking of salt. I wish I had some salt tablets,\" Major Winship said. \"I've never sweat so much since basic.\" \"Want to bet Finogenov hasn't got a bushel of them?\" \"No!\" Major Winship snapped. \"I hope this doesn't set on exposure to air.\" \"No,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"It sets by some kind of chemical action. General Finogenov wasn't sure of the English name for it. Some kind of \"Out! Out!\" Major Winship, Lt. Chandler, and Capt. Lawler, recognizing the sense of urgency, simultaneously glanced at the drum. It was glowing cherry red. in the space suits under the best of conditions, and now, with the necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them from behind, and they spewed forth from the dome in a tangle of arms and legs. The table remained untouched. When they halted, Capt. Wilkins said, \"Get to one side, it may go off like shrapnel.\" They obeyed. \"What—what—what?\" Capt. Lawler stuttered.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the general said to have been upset by the quake?\n\n<options>:\nA Because his people had misfigured so bad.\nB Because his work was being destroyed.\nC Because the communications were left unanswered.\nD Because he was scared of the damage to the dome.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
307	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nGrannie Annie, that waspish science-fiction writer, was in a jam again. What with red-spot fever, talking cockatoos and flagpole trees, I was running in circles—especially since Grannie became twins every now and then. entered the outer limits of the Baldric. Grannie Annie strode in the As we reached the first of those trees, Grannie came to a halt. was crazy. But Miss Flowers, known to her friends as Grannie Annie, Grannie Annie was the original research digger-upper, and when she persuade Miss Flowers not to attempt a trip into the Baldric.\" flagpole trees and a species of ornithoid resembling cockatoos. So far no one has crossed the Baldric without trouble.\" \"What sort of trouble?\" Grannie Annie had demanded. And when Antlers Park stuttered evasively, the old lady snorted, \"Fiddlesticks, I never then abruptly I saw something else. A queer-looking bird squatted there in the sand, looking up at me. Silver in plumage, it resembled a parrot with a crest and yet it didn't. In some strange way the thing was a hideous caricature. \"Look what I found,\" I yelled. \"What I found,\" said the cockatoo in a very human voice. \"Thunder, it talks,\" I said amazed. \"Talks,\" repeated the bird, blinking its eyes. The cockatoo repeated my last statement again, then rose on its short legs, flapped its wings once and soared off into the sky. Xartal, the Martian illustrator, already had a notebook in his hands and was cockatoos and more flagpole trees. Above us, the great disc of Jupiter began to descend toward the horizon. And then all at once Grannie stopped again, this time at the top of a just crossed. \"Billy-boy,\" she said to me in a strange voice, \"look down there and tell me what you see.\" awe. The duplicate of myself was talking to the duplicate of Grannie Grannie shook her head. \"Might be a form of mass hypnosis superinduced the sand seemed to grow more and more powdery. For some time I had fixed my gaze on a dot in the sky which I supposed to be a high-flying cockatoo. As that dot continued to move across the heavens in a single direction, I called Grannie's attention to it. \"It's a kite,\" she nodded. \"There should be a car attached to it somewhere.\" She offered no further explanation, but a quarter of an hour later as Grannie was shaking his hand vigorously and mumbling introductions. \"I can't tell you how glad I am you're here, Grannie,\" he said. \"If Grannie's eyes glittered. \"Trouble with the mine laborers?\" she \"But surely you must have some idea of where they go,\" Grannie said. Baker lit a cigarette. \"There's all kinds of rumors,\" he replied, \"but none of them will hold water. By the way, there's a cockatoo eyrie ahead of us.\" I followed his gaze and saw a curious structure suspended between a rude circle of flagpole trees. A strange web-like formation of translucent gauzy material, it was. Fully two hundred cockatoos were perched upon it. They watched us with their mild eyes as we passed, but they didn't move. notebook out, sketching the room's interior. Grannie Annie remained Grannie Annie walked across to it and began to study its markings. Grannie nodded. \"I think you and I and Xartal had better take a run up of the building. Grannie seized a light weight carry-case and began foreboding. Had I been a fool to let Grannie go? I thought of her, an It was a scene of a rapidly unfolding desert country as seen from the rear of a kite car. Directly behind the windscreen, backs turned to me, were Jimmy Baker, Grannie, and Xartal. It was as if I were standing directly behind them. \"Sure.\" The operator turned another dial, and Grannie's falsetto voice posted of Grannie's movements. Then once more I was directly behind my friends, listening in on their conversation. The view through the windscreen showed an irregular array of flagpole trees, with the sky dotted by high-flying cockatoos. \"There's an eyrie over there,\" Jimmy Baker was saying. \"We might as well camp beside it.\" Ezra spoke over my shoulder. \"He's doing scenes for Grannie's new Look at that damned nosy bird! \" A silver cockatoo had alighted on the kite car and was surveying curiously Xartal's work. As each drawing was completed, the bird scanned it with rapt attention. Abruptly it flew to the top of the eyrie, where it seemed to be having a consultation with its bird companions. And then abruptly it happened. The cockatoos took off in mass flight. A group of Earth people suddenly materialized on the eyrie, talking and moving about as if it were the most natural thing in the world. With a shock I saw the likeness of myself I saw Ezra Karn and I saw the image of Jimmy Baker. The real Jimmy Baker stood next to Grannie, staring up at this incredible mirage. Grannie let out a whoop. \"I've got it!\" she said. \"Those things we see up there are nothing more than mental images. They're Xartal's drawings!\" \"Don't you see,\" the lady continued. \"Everything that Xartal put on paper has been seen by one or more of these cockatoos. The cockatoos are like Earth parrots all right, but not only have they the power powerful photographic impression of the object. That impression is then transmitted simultaneously in telepathic wavelengths to common foci. That eyrie might be likened to a cinema screen, receiving brain vibrations from a hundred different sources that blend into the light field to form what are apparently three-dimensional images.\" birds reconstruct images from the actual person. Why use drawings?\" \"Probably because the drawings are exaggerated in certain details and made a greater impression on their brains,\" Grannie replied. of Grannie Annie was bowing to the duplicate of Jimmy Baker, and the served a double purpose. It opened a shutter, and it rotated the lens slowly so that it played for a time on each of the sleeping men. Ezra Karn jabbed my elbow. \"Grannie's coming back. I thought she'd be It was Grannie. As the car drew up alongside I saw her sitting in her Then, like a knife thrust, the truth struck me. \"Ezra!\" I yelled, swinging the car. \"That wasn't Grannie! That was one of those damned cockatoo images. We've got to catch him.\" The other car was some distance ahead now. Park looked back and saw us with a steady powerful pull to the connecting wire. Park's vehicle appeared in our windscreen inches above Karn's head. the flagpole trees. I had to catch that car I told myself. Grannie but the triangular kite faltered. Taking advantage of Park's loss of \"Grannie!\" I yelled. \"What're you doing here? Where's Mr. Baker?\" \"I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of trouble.\" She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve. \"Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you.\" Grannie Annie told her story during the long ride back to Shaft Four. Then suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague. Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Grannie fool Billy as well when she rides away with Park?\n\n<options>:\nA She didn't want Billy to know where they were heading.\nB She had to pretend she was replaced by a cockatoo, and make it convincing.\nC She didn't want Antler to know about the cockatoo images and how they worked.\nD She didn't. It was one of the cockatoo images.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,989	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe vast things that had happened to himself, and to the world. The scope of it all was too staggeringly big. One million years. God!... Ned Vince made a last effort again—a million years later! or whatever you are?\" old car rattled and roared as he Twentieth Century,\" said the Kar-Rah. You are the only man high, up-jutting mass of Jurassic though their forefathers originated rock at the turn of the road. on this planet. They have Dazzled, and befuddled by his much better off with my people—our minds are much more like yours. We will take care of you, and make you comfortable....\" of his kind was already An incredible science, millions of years old, lay in the minds of these creatures. heard might be some kind of any ordinary Earthly kind, he strangeness, were hideous like dead birds so often floated, was animal chucklings around a furry body, hurried his feverish The Moon was a gigantic, pock-marked bulk. The constellations were unrecognizable. The rodent city was a glowing expanse of shallow, crystalline domes, set among odd, scrub trees and bushes. The crags loomed on all squeaky chattering. Rodents planet—so changed had the Earth become. A wave of intolerable homesickness sensed the distances of time that everything that was familiar. dinosaurs, still bulked along the \"Kaalleee! Tik!... Tik, tik, tik!... Kaalleee!...\" The excited cry, which no human throat could quite have duplicated antiquity. The noon-day ran, welcoming that bitter, killing chill. \"Kaalleee!... Tik, tik, tik!...\" At first there was only one voice uttering those weird, triumphant sounds. Then other the city of Kar-Rah. In a flying vocal organs took up that trilling wail, and those short, sharp in the same laboratory room as qualities identifiable as human, who have discovered something did in the Twentieth Century. sagged away, flattened by incalculable ages of erosion. At a mile distance, a crumbling heap of rubble arose. Once it had been a building. A gigantic, jagged mass of detritus slanted upward from its crest—red debris that had once been steel. A launching catapult for the last space ships built by the gods in exodus, perhaps it was—half a million years ago. Man giant from the past, lost from ages, war, decadence, disease, his own kind. Probably insanity ultimate superhumans to newer regardless of the species from looming. In far less extreme circumstances \"Kaalleee!... Tik, tik, tik!...\" The sounds were not human. They were more like the chatter common with all real scientists, and wail of small desert animals. and a final scattering of those subjects of his researches. He sharp and burnished. The flat, streamlined bulk of a flying machine, that had baffled far keener wits muzzle of a strange excavator-apparatus, which seemed to depend on a blast of atoms to resurrected—this human, this Kaalleee.... accumulated rubbish of antiquity. Time-travel. Almost a legend. An shiny and new. The bell-like clear away rock and soil. Thus from the city of Kar-Rah. And with a vast and unlooked-for success. different in appearance from his ancestors. A foot tall, perhaps, as he squatted there in that antique spread around his inquisitive, pink-tipped snout. But his cranium bulged up and forward between shrewd, beady eyes, betraying the slow heritage of time, of survival of the fittest, dream and invent, and the civilization plans. The government of Kar-Rah far beyond that of the ancient Twentieth Century. was a scientific oligarchy, It would be easy to get the A horde of small, grey-furred beings and their machines, toiled help he needed. for many days. There was a gob of junk—scarcely more than an irregular brown and hard as old wood. The were gathered, tense and clothing still clung to it, after those passing eras by desert dryness. not a mere fossil. It was a mummy. \"Kaalleee!\" Man, that meant. Not the star-conquering demi-gods, but the ancestral stock approached. With a kind of fierce machines on Earth, and in the that had built the first arms. Yes, she was just like always. early Twenty-first Century, the legendary antiquity, had aided called time-travel, that I used to The final instrument he used to test the mummy, looked like a miniature stereoscope, with complicated of this ancient human corpse. or observe too closely the incongruous own memories of the original. its brain cells! Medical and biological sciences were far advanced was of the same origin—a miraculous was perfectly preserved, even to principles long known to them, this long-dead body could be move, speak, remember its past! in the museums of Kar-Rah! Kaalleee. Thus, their motives study this ancient man—this were mostly selfish. substantial than cheering. With infinite care—small, sharp hand-tools were used, now—the the ages. He remembered the ancient rust of his primitive automobile. \"The Kaalleee believes himself With infinite care it was crated the flying machine. Flashing flame, the latter arose, bearing the entire hundred members of the expedition. in a metal case, and hauled into Even they, who once ruled Earth, never escaped from the present washed-down mountains, and the vague, angular, geometric mounds of human cities that were gone forever. than this, death from Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. Far out in a deep valley, Kar-Rah, aspect. Loy Chuk's people of their foggy evolution. Besides, in this latter day, the work. The body of the ancient the alkali that had preserved it changed often, until woody muscles and other tissues became electrodes. The cells of antique flesh and brain gradually took on a chemical composition nearer to a pale, silent figure in its tatters metal-fabric helmet on its head, and a second, much smaller helmet on his own. Connected with this arrangement, was a black kept perfectly intact through the whose weird shapes suggested Fossil bone-fragments were mounted in shallow cases. Dinosaur bones, some of them seemed, from their size. But there was a complete skeleton of a dog, too, and the skeleton of a man, and a second man-skeleton that was not quite human. Its neck-vertebrae were very thick and solid, its shoulders were wide, and its skull was gigantic. All this weirdness had a violent effect on Ned Vince—a sudden, nostalgic panic. Something him, as of some vast, un-Earthly metropolis. way they were assembled, were old, familiar friends. But the tone was wrong. It was high, shrill, parrot-like, and mechanical. black box just outside of his crystal vat. From that box the brownish animal with a bulging head. The animal's tiny-fingered paws—hands they were, really—were touching rows of keys. insane and incomprehensible. A rodent, looking like a prairie dog, a little but plainly possessing a high order of intelligence. And a voice whose soothingly familiar words were more repugnant thoughts in common, long-dead were not human, would have had awry. His gaunt, young face held befuddled terror. He gasped in the thin atmosphere. \"I've gone nuts,\" he pronounced with a curious calm. \"Stark—starin'—nuts....\" Loy's box, with its recorded English words and its sonic detectors, and the box reproduced his answer: \"No, Ned, not nuts. Not a bit of it! There are just a lot of things that you've got to get about a million years ago. I discovered sought, with calm, human logic, years. Evolution. The scientists say that people grew up from are smart. So maybe super-prairie-dogs\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the Kar-Rah have in common with 20th century humans?\n\n<options>:\nA An erect posture\nB General height\nC Language\nD Large crania\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,056	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwith the Ryzgas themselves, who slept within, ready to wake and conquer.... he continued to look down absently at the dead man. When at last he raised his head, he saw that the drama's end had had a further audience. Var said, \"The Watcher's cave should be three miles beyond this pass.\" He stood rigid, trying to catch an echo of the Watcher's thoughts, but crossed on the air, and both grew weary with the effort such crossings cost. They hoarded their strength, helping one another one alone might It was starry night already when they saw the light from the Watcher's Both had heard of this place, and the ancient who lived there to keep watch on the Ryzga mountain, as a part of the oldest legends of their They felt the Watcher rouse, heard his footsteps, and finally saw him—a shrunken old man, white-haired, with a lined beardless face. The sight of him, more marred by age than anyone they had ever seen before, was tower of wisdom and strength. The Watcher was four hundred years old beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy. The Watcher peered at them in turn. \"Welcome,\" he said in a cracked voice. He did not speak again the rest of his conversation was in thought only. \"Welcome indeed. I am too much alone here.\" The old man grinned toothlessly. \"Never fear. Asleep or awake, I watch. Come in! You're letting in the wind.\" against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from turned questioningly to the young pair. \"We need a little rest out of the cold,\" said Var. \"And food, if you can spare it. We're pursued.\" Hot food and drink were before them almost at once. The Watcher regarded briefly. \"We should have been safe among my people by now. And before very long, I'm sure, I would have performed some deed which Groz would behind us.\" \"A pity, indeed. I would like to help you—but, you understand, I am the Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families.\" to follow us.\" \"To the mountain, you mean.\" \"And into it, if need be.\" The Watcher was broodingly silent his eyes shifted to Neena, where she nestled by Var's side. He asked, \"And you—are you willing to follow I will lead, if his courage should fail him.\" The old man said, \"It is no part of my duty to dissuade you from this thing. You are free persons. But I must be sure that you know what you are doing. That is the second part of the law the First Watcher made: to guard lest the unwary and the ignorant should bring harm on themselves and on all men.\" \"Do you believe that?\" \"As one believes stories.\" First Watcher. I did not see the sleepers, nor will any man until they come again, but I met their sentries, the sentinel machines that guard the Earth for four generations, and the Earth was too little for them. They laid the world waste, stripped it of metals and fuels and bored to strange plastic substances, debris of artifacts still showing the marks of their shaping—the scattered wreckage of the things they made. And we—we too are a remnant, the descendants of the few out of all humanity \"From the memories that the old Watchers have left here, and from the shaking of the earth. Along lightless streets, half choked with rubble and with the dead, Then, unbelievably, the thunder fell silent, and the silence swept outward like a wave, from ruined street to street. The mouths that had It poised motionless. For an instant the burning city lay mute then the millions found voice. Some roared ferocious threats and curses others cried desolately— and swim, like a scene under water when a great fish sweeps past, and the ship was gone. who was the Mountain Watcher. their deathless and lifeless sentinels round them, to wait till someone dare arouse them, or until their chosen time—no one knows surely. \"I have told you the story you know, and have shown you a glimpse of the The Watcher eyed them speculatively. \"Before all,\" he said finally, looked grimly at the Watcher, and would have spoken but the Watcher own limbs, his face was a numb mask. Dully he heard the old man say, \"You are tired. Best sleep until morning.\" had wakened him. Across the cave he faced a young man who watched him Where's the Watcher?\" The other flashed white teeth in a smile. \"I'm the Watcher,\" he answered. \"Often I become a youth at morning, and relax into age as the day passes. A foolish amusement, no doubt, but amusements are few here.\" \"You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us—\" \"Groz and his people could not detect your thoughts as you slept. They Watcher.\" rested, your minds are clear. Do you still mean to go on to the Ryzga mountain?\" they followed him outside. \"You have an alternative,\" said the Watcher crisply. The two took their will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will That possibility had not occurred to them at all. Var and Neena looked at one another. Then by common consent they blended their minds into one. They thought, in the warm intimacy of unreserved understanding: \" It \" They said in unison, \"No. Not that.\" The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, \"Very well. I will give you what knowledge I have that may help you when you enter the dizzied by the rapid flood of detail. \"You are ready to go,\" said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night. \"You have taken life in your own hands,\" rasped the Watcher. \"Who does too far to discern the rage that must contort his features, but the thought he hurled at them was a soundless bellow: \"Young fools! I've caught you now!\" Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows. made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into ready, while their masters yet slept, for the moment of rebirth that might be near at hand. \" Stop! —before you go too far!\" neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world outside should crumble to ruin around them. \"Follow us, then!\" They plunged deeper into the mountain. And the shaking of the mountain increased with every step, its vibrations became sound, and its sound Through the slow-rolling thunder of the hidden machines seemed to echo the death-cries of a billion slaves, the despair of all flesh and blood his other hand rested as for support against the frame of the doorway. That, and his movements when he came slowly down the ramp toward them, conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet open. They had a terse, disconnected quality that was strange and unsettling, and in part they were couched in alien and unintelligible close his mind in the presence of inferior creatures.... interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new, but this will do. The pessimists were mistaken. We can begin again.\" Then, startlingly super-imposed on the cool indicated in the passage above. Then wake the rest....\" misdirected and unavailing as those of a child who has not learned to wrestle with the mind. real being. Var laughed aloud, and with great care, as one communicates with an infant, he projected his thoughts into the other's mind. \"There will be no new beginning for you in our years, we've learned some new things. Now at last I understand why you built so many machines, such complicated arrangements of matter and energy to do simple tasks—it was because you knew no other way.\" Behind the hate-filled eyes the cold brain tried to reason still. \"Barbarians...? Our party was wrong after all. After us the machine civilization could never rise again, because it was a fire that consumed its fuel. After us\n\n<question>:\nHow does The Watcher communicate with others?\n\n<options>:\nA Mostly through transference of heat and light\nB A mix of many methods of communication\nC Primarily with his mind\nD By talking as the rest of the people do\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
2,496	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhat cities in the post-Brexit era could learn from a 14th-century trading bloc As you fly from the country now known as Germany to Britain, the coastal geography of northern European cities gently unfurls. You can see where the sea smacks into them, or where yawning estuaries unfold like funnels between green and brown city and choppy blue water. You can track the snaking rivers and canals that form unrepentant umbilical connections to the settlements set a little further inland. By their nature cities along coasts and rivers developed so they could be open to trade with each other. From the middle of the 13th century, and for some 300 years after, many settlements dotted along this route formed the prosperous Hanseatic League, a European trading confederation of market towns, before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution. The 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.\" 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.\" 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 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. 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.\" 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>:\nAccording to the author, what do some of the most thriving modern cities have in common?\n\n<options>:\nA They are established in geographically appealing areas\nB They are determined to learn from the mistakes of their forebearers\nC They look beyond their borders for economic possibility\nD They are ruled by democratic governments\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
217	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Charles turned over on his side to look at her. She lay quietly in the perfection, exquisitely shaped, and the rich promise of her body was exposed to his view. \"Why?\" he thought as he looked at her. \"Why did it have to happen like this?\" The whole thing was still like a dream to him, and as yet he couldn't decide whether it was a good or a bad dream. A year ago she had been unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his ken. A year ago she had been a public idol, the most popular actress of the day. And he had been a nobody, full of a nobody's idle hopes and schemes. And now he was lying in the bed next to hers in her swank Manhattan apartment in the most exclusive hotel in town. The unrealness of the situation overwhelmed him. His mind was a picture of confused thoughts. Meanings and answers to his questions slithered out of his reach. a mere statement of fact. A thought teased at him. Charles looked at the woman again and decided illumination quieted to a soft glow, wrapping her in a radiant halo. Charles smiled wanly and got up. He stood by the bed looking at her. \"I could have fallen in love with you once. A year ago, perhaps, or longer. But not now. Not now.\" He turned away and walked to the window. \"Now the world is dead. The whole world is dead.\" reddish-orange pallor hung from the sky. It had been very pleasant that afternoon. She had given of herself freely, warmly, and Charles had accepted. But then he had known that she would. It was not him, it was the circumstances. Under the circumstances, she would have given herself to any man— \"Why did it have to be her—or me? Why should it have to happen to Charles picked up a heavy book end off the table and crashed it through flesh. Charles ignored it. Even smells had lost their customary \" Maybe I'm not the last! \" The thought struck him with suddenness, promisingly, edged with swelling comfort to fill his emptiness. were badly cut. He wrapped a handkerchief around them and forgot them. He had to know—he had to find out. and dangled from the edge of the bed like a crazy pendulum. Charles The lobby was littered with debris, human and otherwise. Charles \"We were free. We seemed, almost, to have accomplished something. The world was running well. No wonder we called it the 'Proud Era.' Life was fun, just a bowl of cherries, until....\" Two years ago the animals had started dying. Strangely enough the rats had gone first, to anybody's notice. Sales of poison dropped, scientific laboratories chained to a perpetual rodent-cycle began to complain bitterly. Then the lovers who hunted out and haunted the lonely lanes through the several weeks. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. in New York. And now.... \"I've got to find out,\" Charles told himself. He meant it, of course, but in a sense he was afraid—afraid that his trip to the Bureau might human on earth. Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for Only once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room. But he still remembered it and he still recalled the powerful emotional experience it had been those many years ago. All children had to have a brain-wave recording made by the Bureau during the first month of their life. And again at the age of 10 each child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. It was for this latter recording that Charles had come to the Bureau some twenty-two years before and a friendly guard had let him peep briefly into the computer room. The impression of intense activity, of organized confusion, of mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life. \"So different now,\" he thought, surveying the room. \"Now it's empty, so Charles walked to the master control panel. With newly acquired York on the screen. \"There's bound to be somebody else left here. After all, there were at least twenty of us just a couple of days ago.\" And one of them, a beautiful woman, had invited him up to her apartment, not because she liked him, but because.... The main screen focused itself, the patterns shifting into a recognizable perceptual image. \"Why, it was just yesterday (or was it the day before?) that ten of us, at least, met here to check the figures. There were lots of us alive then.\" Including the blond young woman who had died just this afternoon.... Charles stopped talking and forced his eyes upwards. Peripheral vision one . Charles was by himself, the last person alive in all of New York City. Two! His trembling stopped. He breathed again. \"Of course. London was at least as populous as New York City before the One. Alone. Alone! Charles screamed. Why? animals, when he first asked the question: \"Why?\" But thinking about \"why\" didn't answer the question itself, Charles earth, me. The last. Why me? Average, that's what he was. Height: 5'11\". Weight: 165. Age: 32. Status: Married, once upon a time. The Norm, with no significant departures, all down the line. Church member, but not a good one. Could that be it? Could the most normal be Charles sighed. \"No,\" Charles said, standing up in the quiet of the spring evening. of millions of—No, I forgot. There aren't any more people, are there?\" It was hard to realize, even now. \"A hermit, alone—and I haven't even got a cave....\" Charles stopped walking suddenly. No cave, he thought. No place to sleep out the long one, no place to rest while time came to change things around and make them for the better. No place to hide. And suddenly it was the most important thing in life to him to find his Charles was hungry. He got up and started for one of the restaurants near the park. Later on, when there was more time, he'd find a piece of granite and move it to the plot. He could spend his free time Somehow, though, since things were ready and it didn't make too much difference, it seemed to Charles that he'd probably have a long time He smiled. Strange, but now he wanted very much to go on living, alone or not. There were things he could do, ways to keep occupied. He wouldn't mind it so much. But he wanted more and more desperately with each passing second to retain his foothold on the tenuous path of physical existence. The tantalizing thought of \"why\" puzzled its way back into his mind. But it seemed less pressing now that he had almost come to the conclusion that he would live for a long time. Later, in a few days perhaps, he would think about it. In a little while he'd have plenty of opportunity for hunting down the answer. This seemed good to him, for Charles struggled to end his body's disorganized responses, to He was allotted ten minutes before the end. It could have been ten years or ten seconds, for now objective time meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of measuring seconds and minutes. It was a matter of forgetting time and measuring space. He concentrated on the grave Charles refused to think. Machines, especially half-broken machines, do sapped the last bit of his energy, corroding his nerves and dying muscles. Now he knew, and the knowing was the end of it. Charles screamed. another of its kind. \"It is finished?\" asked the second. \"Yes. Just now. I am resting.\" \"Beautiful,\" said the first. \"It went according to the strictest semantic relationship following the purest mathematical principles. They made it easy for me.\" promenaded, and finally came to rest against a propped-up piece of metal (read the names: Whit, Whita, Whitacomb). It was not until the dusty morning sun stirred up the breezes that they fluttered down into the shallow hole beneath, unnoticed. The writing on\n\n<question>:\nWhy was Charles in the actress's apartment?\n\n<options>:\nA She wanted to be with someone one last time.\nB They were working on curing the plague.\nC He thought he could find answers there.\nD They had been living together.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
2,241	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWhat 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. and it was at exactly this point that the Hanseatic League slowly started to coalesce, eventually influencing our isles. The League is most easily understood as a loose federation of cities that acted together in self-interest to promote trade. The Hanseatic cities developed their own legal system, and their armies came to one another's aid. Merchants who wanted to buy and sell and travel were taking the lead at a time when nation states were not fit for purpose: in the case of England or Denmark, leadership was too centralised and authoritarian, while in German-speaking lands a nation had yet to be formed. We think of nations today as elemental almost, immovable. Yet look at any city of Mitteleuropa and you'll see the many different names it has had as borders and regimes have shifted with the sands of time. Nations come and go. Cities endure. \"It is often said that great cities survived great empires,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, editor-in-chief of the Rotterdam-based online publishing platform Amateur Cities. \"So it is not unrealistic to think of cities as discrete entities that compete and collaborate with each other, independently from the states to which they belong.\" The cities involved in the Hanseatic League are found along the Baltic and North Sea coasts, and slightly inland too. The League stretched from Novgorod in the east – in what is now Russia – to London in the west. Tallinn, Riga, Gdańsk, Visby, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp, Stockholm, Bergen, Kiel, Rostock, Dinant, Bruges, Turku, Groningen, Hanover, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad: all were involved at different stages in the Hanse's history, which ran on into the 1500s. \"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. 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? \"The Hanseatic League was not always accepted by local citizens,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, \"because the privileges granted to the Hanse merchants were forcing local traders out of competition and many cities took steps to eliminate them. The reasons the countryside is turning to the right [globally] are not independent from cities turning increasingly into speculation machines for the profit of a happy few. It is basically these systemic contradictions that must be addressed before we resort to more isolationist ideas that would intensify the urban-rural political divide. The bottom line is not whether a contemporary Hanse-esque federation is possible, it probably is but whether it is actually desirable.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a potential risk of cities seceding from their nation-states?\n\n<options>:\nA Rural areas may see a rapid economic decline.\nB Ideological differences between city and rural dwellers could grow farther and farther apart.\nC A food shortage could arise if the rural areas refuse to trade with the city that seceded.\nD Rural and city dwellers may decide to engage in warfare.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,495	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. Overall rating, on a scale of 1 to 10: 2 toes curled. A woman I know says women's magazines are the best places in America to find sex tips. She's right--go ahead, just try to find a sewing pattern in Redbook . You're much more likely to land on \"Try phone sex, dirty notes, porn videos, fantasy games and sex in new places. ... Try lingerie and no underwear. ... Try talking dirty and silk scarves. Try anything at all,\" or articles such as \"Eight New Games for the Foreplay Challenged.\" An article in the April Cosmopolitan , \"The Six Best Sex Positions,\" seemed more promising than the Redbook playbook. Each position was accompanied by a succinct write-up and a stick-figure diagram. The position we settled on was \"The Butterfly,\" which we had to read three times to comprehend. The man stands, the woman remains supine on a bed or counter-top with her feet up on his shoulders. The whole idea is to produce a pelvic tilt for better access to the G spot. Instead, we experienced an uncomfortable pretzel feeling that stick figures must be immune to. And in general, Cosmopolitan 's exotic sex positions require the sort of body placement you can't remember in the moment of passion and even if you could, for proper alignment, you still might need mood-killing accessories such as a plumb line and a laser pen. Rating: 3 toes curled. Next we tried those \"Better Sex\" instructional videos advertised in the New York Times Book Review. I ordered Better Sexual Techniques , Advanced Sexual Techniques , Making Sex Fun , and Advanced Oral Sex Techniques (priced about $11.95 each, not including shipping and handling). My wife couldn't bear to watch them 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 shopped for the food together and cooked together, drinking wine and beer along the way. At one point while I was working on the dessert, I asked my wife how long to beat the heavy cream mixture. \"Till it's stiff--it's an aphrodisiac,\" she said. Preparation took less than an hour, and everything came out perfectly. Eating at our dining room table for the first time ever without guests, we were having fun by candlelight. But the mood was romantic, not erotic. Overall rating: 4 toes curled. 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 statement best describes how the author feels about the magazine articles he discusses?\n\n<options>:\nA A lot of the advice is too specific to remember in the moment, even if it's well-intentioned\nB The articles vary in quality and usefulness by where they are published, but can have nuggets of wisdom\nC All of the advice suggested things that would kill the mood, which is counterproductive\nD The articles are only full of advice that no layperson can use, and aren't worth reading\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
785	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, she thought. He rapidly mounted the stairs and halted at the top to look around searchingly. His gaze lighted on their table, the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Silently, so as not to shock anyone with illusions about well dressed young women, Sandra Lea Grayling cursed the day she had persuaded the features, and talked foreign languages. They yakked interminably. The only ones who didn't were scurrying individuals with the eager-zombie look of officials. Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance. much further out of the world. Overheard scraps of conversation in reasonably intelligible English were not particularly helpful. Samples: \"Not worth the trouble. The play was feeble. Barely Expert Rating.\" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the \"Perhaps mademoiselle would welcome a drink?\" \"You're durn tootin' she would!\" Sandra replied in a rush, and then looked down apprehensively at the person who had read her thoughts. It was a small sprightly elderly man who looked like a somewhat a pearl-gray suit of almost exactly the same shade as Sandra's—a stairs. \"How did you know I wanted a drink?\" \"I could see that mademoiselle was having difficulty swallowing,\" he replied, keeping them moving. \"Pardon me for feasting my eyes on your \"That'd go fine.\" Sandra leaned back. \"Confidentially, Doc, I was having trouble swallowing ... well, just about everything here.\" He nodded. \"You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. By the time they were served, Doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other. \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers.\" He swallowed half his demitasse and it is not a humanoid metal robot, walking about clanking and squeaking like a late medieval knight in armor?\" \"Yes, Doc, but....\" Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question. perfectly, so that it always wins and there is no contest. Right?\" Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as comforting as the bubbly, mildly astringent mixture she was sipping. \"That sounds like the way a man would play a game,\" Sandra observed. \"Look ahead a little way and try to make a plan. You know, like getting out trumps in bridge or setting up a finesse.\" \"Exactly!\" Doc beamed at her approvingly. \"The Machine like a abides by sound principles, who is utterly incapable of flights of genius, but who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human interest already, even in the Machine.\" Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player—a grandmaster, I mean—ever look eight moves ahead in a game?\" experience and artistry. The equivalent of those in the Machine is the directions fed into it before it plays a game.\" \"You mean the programming?\" \"Indeed yes! The programming is the crux of the problem of the dull-brained woodpusher afraid to take the slightest risk of losing material—but a dub who could almost always beat an utter novice. and is capable of being programmed much more craftily.\" \"A million times as fast as the first machine, you say, Doc? And yet it only sees twice as many moves ahead?\" Sandra objected. \"There is a geometrical progression involved there,\" he told her with a smile. \"Believe me, eight moves ahead is a lot of moves when ahead. The Machine will make no such oversights. Once again, you see, you have the human factor, in this case working for the Machine.\" and began to whisper explosively in a guttural foreign tongue. Sandra's gaze traveled beyond the balustrade. Now that she could look down at it, the central hall seemed less confusedly crowded. In the Sandra looked with quickening interest at the console of the Machine—a Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but will defeat the Machine. Do you have that? You can remember it?\" \"Oh yes,\" Sandra assured him, \"but there are some other questions I wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\" \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I isn't he?\" Doc nodded. \"Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting \"Willie!\" Doc said with some asperity. \"Miss Grayling is a journalist. She would like to have a statement from you as to how you will play against the Machine.\" \"I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler,\" Sandra said rapidly, Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled. \"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?\" she said. Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. \"You must excuse them, though,\" he said. \"They really get so little recognition or recompense. This tournament is an exception. And it takes a great deal of ego to play greatly.\" They want to score a point over their great rival.\" \"But if the Machine plays badly it will be a black eye for them,\" Sandra pointed out. her best chess players at all adequately. I think the Russian players are here because UNESCO and FIDE (that's going two by two in close formation, but it gave Sandra the feeling of Sandra said, consulting her program. \"Four out of ten have USSR after It would be like that antique womanizer to develop senile delusions of youthfulness.\" He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the Scoreboard again. \"This Simon Great who's down as programming the Machine. He's a famous physicist, I suppose?\" machines—they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world's The newcomer was of middle height, compact of figure and feature, with graying hair cut short and combed sharply back. Doc spoke his piece for Sandra. running on it. My men are permitted to make repairs—if they can work fast enough.\" \"That makes it very tough on you,\" Sandra put in. \"The Machine isn't allowed any weaknesses.\" games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.\" \"Did the Machine beat him?\" Sandra asked. Doc shrugged. \"The scores weren't released. It was very hush-hush. break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up and swing the deal. Only the millionaire's daughter, who is really a stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort Russian squad. But Doc certainly didn't sound like a Soviet citizen. He was older than she'd first assumed. She could see that now that she was listening to him less and looking at him more. Tired, too. Only his dark-circled eyes shone with unquenchable youth. A useful old umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought that she wasn't a writer at all or even a reporter, she just used dime-a-dozen female attractiveness to rope a susceptible man (young, old, American, Russian) and pick his brain.... She realized suddenly that the whole hall had become very quiet. Doc was the only person still talking and people were again looking at them disapprovingly. All five wallboards were lit up and the changed assistants\n\n<question>:\nWould Sandra consistently consider herself a skilled journalist?\n\n<options>:\nA Yes, and the way she was able to easily journal about the chess competition shows her competency.\nB No, because she usually knows very little about what she will be journaling about.\nC No, she has her doubts that her skills are not what makes her successful at interviewing people.\nD Yes, because she considers herself a very experienced talker.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
957	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>:\nfor Purnie's game—but his new Purnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie three-legged tripons who never stopped munching on seaweed, and many kinds of other wonderful creatures found only at the ocean. Purnie had stopped time, the bees—like all the other creatures he time without an adult being present, may not live to regret it.\" 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 animation. And down in the water, where the ocean ran itself into thin nothingness upon the sand, he saw standing here and there the comical 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 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 the two-legged animals, he started to burst forth with his habitual \"Hi there!\" when he heard them making sounds of their own. \"... will be no limit to my operations now, Benson. This planet makes \"Hi there, wanna play?\" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than startled glance from the animals who quickly returned to their chatter. The animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in your money that put us here it's your expedition all the way. But you hired me to get you here with the best crew on earth, and that's just what I've done. My job isn't over yet. I'm responsible for the safety of the men while we're here, and for the safe trip home.\" \"Precisely. And since you're responsible, get 'em working. Tell 'em to bring along the flag. Look at the damn fools back there, playing in the ocean with a three-legged ostrich!\" \"Good God, man, aren't you human? We've only been on this planet twenty minutes! Naturally they want to look around. They half expected to find 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 more of the creatures came along making excited noises, apparently now!\" When the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along. the people who are foolish enough to buy land on them.\" \"I could have your hide for talking to me like this. Damn you, man! It's people like me who pay your way. It's people like me who give your 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. He was overjoyed at the reaction. They all started making wonderful \"Now wait a minute, Forbes. Universal Law forbids—\" \"This is my planet and I am the law. Put him in a box!\" \"With my crew as witness, I officially protest—\" \"Good God, what a specimen to take back. Radio-active animals! Why, they can reproduce themselves, of course! There must be thousands of these creatures around here someplace. And to think of those damn fools on Earth with their plutonium piles! Hah! Now I'll have investors box, so what's the difference? Put him in a box.\" \"He'll die.\" \"I have you under contract, Benson! You are responsible to me, and what's more, you are on my property. Put him in a box.\" 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. 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. \"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. animals. 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 to them time had never stopped. The only thing they could be sure of was that at one moment there had been a fuzzy creature hopping around 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 the spectacle before him. The agonizing screams of the animals below \"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. 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 logs. Purnie worked the animal free and pulled it ashore. 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, Then, without knowing exactly when it happened, his mind took command.... 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're both cracking.\" \"I'm telling you, man, it's the logs, or rocks or whatever they are. \"Hell, Rhodes, don't you think I'd like to know? Those logs are so old they're petrified. The whole bunch of us couldn't lift one. It would take super-human energy to move one of those things.\" \"I haven't seen anything super-human. Those ostriches down there are so busy eating seaweed—\" \"All right, let's bear a hand here with the others. Some of them can't Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone? \"Is it possible that we're all crazy, Captain?\" \"It's possible, but we're not.\" \"I wish I could be sure.\" As Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he returned. \"We've made a terrible mistake. We—\" The sounds faded in and out on Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different 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>:\nWho are the animals that Purnie plays with?\n\n<options>:\nA They are three-legged ostriches.\nB They are a flock of spora.\nC They are mannikins.\nD They are humans.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,176	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>:\nWhat Is Open Access? Open access Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Terminology When we need to, we can be more specific about access vehicles and access barriers. In the jargon, OA delivered by journals is called gold OA , and OA delivered by repositories is called green OA . Work that is not open access, or that is available only for a price, is called , and if we remove at least some permission barriers as well, we provide libre OA . (Also see section 3.1 on green/gold and section 3.3 on gratis/libre.) OA was defined in three influential public statements: the Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003), and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003). I sometimes refer to their overlap or common ground as the BBB definition of OA. My definition here is the BBB definition reduced to its essential elements and refined with some post-BBB terminology (green, gold, gratis, libre) for speaking precisely about subspecies of OA. Here’s how the Budapest statement defined OA: There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to [research] literature. By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. OA is made possible by the internet and copyright-holder consent. But why would a copyright holder consent to OA? Two background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Academic publishers are not monolithic. Some new ones were born OA and some older ones have completely converted to OA. Many provide OA to some of their work but not all of it. Some are experimenting with OA, and some are watching the experiments of others. Most allow green OA (through repositories) and a growing number offer at least some kind of gold OA (through journals). Some are supportive, some undecided, some opposed. Among the opposed, some have merely decided not to provide OA themselves, while others lobby actively against policies to encourage or require OA. Some oppose gold but not green OA, while others oppose green but not gold OA. OA gains nothing and loses potential allies by blurring these distinctions. This variety reminds us (to paraphrase Tim O’Reilly) that OA doesn’t threaten publishing it only threatens existing publishers who do not adapt. A growing number of journal publishers have chosen business models allowing them to dispense with subscription revenue and offer OA. They have expenses but they also have revenue to cover their expenses. In fact, some OA publishers are for-profit and profitable. (See chapter 7 on economics.) Moreover, peer review is done by dedicated volunteers who don’t care how a journal pays its bills, or even whether the journal is in the red or the black. If all peer-reviewed journals converted to OA overnight, the authors, editors, and referees would have the same incentives to participate in peer review that they had the day before. They needn’t stop offering their services, needn’t lower their standards, and needn’t make sacrifices they weren’t already making. They volunteer their time not because of a journal’s choice of business model but because of its contribution to research. They could carry on with solvent or insolvent subscription publishers, with solvent or insolvent OA publishers, or even without publishers. The Budapest Open Access Initiative said in February 2002: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment. . . . The new technology is the internet.” To see what this willingness looks like without the medium to give it effect, look at scholarship in the age of print. Author gifts turned into publisher commodities, and access gaps for readers were harmfully large and widespread. (Access gaps are still harmfully large and widespread, but only because OA is not yet the default for new research.) To see what the medium looks like without the willingness, look at music and movies in the age of the internet. The need for royalties keeps creators from reaching everyone who would enjoy their work. 1.2 What OA Is Not We can dispel a cloud of objections and misunderstandings simply by pointing out a few things that OA is not. (Many of these points will be elaborated in later chapters.) OA isn’t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public statements on OA insist on its importance. Because scholarly journals generally don’t pay peer-reviewing editors and referees, just as they don’t pay authors, all the participants in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. While OA to unrefereed preprints is useful and widespread, the OA movement isn’t limited to unrefereed preprints and, if anything, focuses on OA to peer-reviewed articles. (More in section 5.1 on peer review.) OA isn’t an attempt to reform, violate, or abolish copyright. It’s compatible with copyright law as it is. OA would benefit from the right kinds of copyright reforms, and many dedicated people are working on them. But it needn’t wait for reforms and hasn’t waited. OA literature avoids copyright problems in exactly the same way that conventional toll-access literature does. For older works, it takes advantage of the public domain, and for newer works, it rests on copyright-holder consent. (More in chapter 4 on policies and chapter 6 on copyright.) OA isn’t an attempt to deprive royalty-earning authors of income. The OA movement focuses on research articles precisely because they don’t pay royalties. In any case, inside and outside that focus, OA for copyrighted work depends on copyright-holder consent. Hence, royalty-earning authors have nothing to fear but persuasion that the benefits of OA might outweigh the risks to royalties. (More in section 5.3 on OA for books.) OA isn’t an attempt to deny the reality of costs. No serious OA advocate has ever argued that OA literature is costless to produce, although many argue that it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature, even less expensive than born-digital toll-access literature. The question is not whether research literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than charging readers and creating access barriers. (More in chapter 7 on economics.) 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.) open access\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the role of Budapest in open access generally?\n\n<options>:\nA Most of the scholars in this city tend to publish in OA journals, which means they have pull on the policies\nB It happens to be one city that hosted an early meeting about these issues\nC It is the location of the headquarters of the company that oversees OA publishing\nD Most of the decisions about OA policies are made in meetings hosted there\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
437	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nI repeated it patiently. \"But why?\" he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In an 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 the shock had deranged his mind. arrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not actively than they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, for Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed with Citadel was complete, every minutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would be laying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow, A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, conscious For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulging One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hiding Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified, in fifty years. The order was made public early this morning by R. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: \"The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilized . \"Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hours Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for the first time. laboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to \"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?\" \"Peter!\" she said faintly. \"Why do they broadcast such things?\" out to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his muscles \"Yes.\" Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ... forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted. Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gone through the solid wall, or simply melted away. 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 Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin, In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood, paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyond 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?\" He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the first time he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there, slowly.... \" His voice was hoarse. \"Don't look! Don't—Go back!\" The horrible, She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to the The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could hold Somebody said, \"Doctor!\" He wanted to say, \"Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei—\" but his mouth only He tried again. \"Doctor.\" He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him \"Where am I?\" he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm hand \"You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please.\" He tried to get up again. \"Where's Lorelei?\" \"She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been a Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He looked around him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. \"Yes....\" he said. \"How long have I been here, Doctor?\" The man hesitated, looked at him intently. \"Three months,\" he said. He turned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metal the nurse bent over him with a glass half full of In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Just before he drifted off, he said sleepily, \"You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months.\" He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but he kept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed it out of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'd been in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered much sooner. \"She was only suffering from ordinary shock,\" Arnold explained. especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's a miracle you're alive, and rational.\" \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why take it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children, and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go, as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in six months ago.\" \"But why?\" Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. \"We're hiding,\" he said. \"Everything else Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went on smoldering.\" \"And since then?\" Peter asked huskily. \"Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would be an impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populated areas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavate enough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the other three-quarters will be dead, or worse.\" \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\" \"I see,\" said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the last a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself Lorelei said, \"You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter—\" but that's only delaying the end. They as many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birth rate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures: we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. or scales out of hair or twelve toes, or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions of possible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. We said bitterly. \"Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven of staying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful. I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die, out of her body. \"All right,\" she said in a lifeless voice. \"You'll come back, Peter.\" He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled into After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lock The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, The Avenger its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes from the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he was after a time he ceased even to wonder. Peter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as he \"And now,\" he said softly, \"we will go home. I've waited so long—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away from you, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to be sure. But now, the waiting is over. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. \"What—what did you say?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhen Peter woke in the hospital, how long was he told that he had been there?\n\n<options>:\nA nine and a half days\nB nine and a half months\nC Three days\nD Three months\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,580	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 American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an \"entire life behind things\"--a \"benevolent force\" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of \"beauty.\" By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism. Kevin Costner is 11 years older than he was as Crash Davis, the over-the-hill minor-league catcher in Bull Durham (1988), but he can still get away with playing a professional ballplayer. He moves and acts like a celebrity jock, and he can make his narcissistic self-containment look as if he's keeping something in reserve--to protect his \"instrument,\" as it were. In For Love of the Game , he's a 40ish Detroit Tigers pitcher having his last hurrah: The team has been sold and the new owners don't necessarily want him back. For about half an hour, it's a great sports movie. Costner stands on the mound shaking off the signals of his longtime catcher (John C. Reilly) he forces himself to tune out the huge Yankee Stadium crowd (the background blurs before our eyes and the sound drops out) and he mutters darkly at a succession of batters, some old nemeses, some old buddies. He also thinks about his Manhattan-based ex-girlfriend (Kelly Preston), who tearfully told him that morning that things were absolutely over and she was moving to London. There's an appealing flashback to how they met (he stopped to fix her car while on the way to Yankee Stadium), then it's back to the game for more nail-biting at bats. But pretty soon the relationship flashbacks start coming thick and fast, and the balance of the movie shifts to whether Kevin can commit to Kelly and Kelly can commit to Kevin or whether his only commitment could ever be to the ball and the diamond and the game. Maybe it's because I'm a baseball nut that I hated to leave the mound. But maybe it's also because the relationships scenes are soft-focus, generic, and woozily drawn-out, whereas the stuff in the stadium is sharply edited and full of texture. The rhythms of the game feel right the rhythms of the romance feel embarrassingly Harlequin, and the picture drags on for over two hours. I can't believe that the director, Sam Raimi ( The Evil Dead , 1983 last year's A Simple Plan ) thought that all those scenes of Costner and Preston staring into space while the piano plinks would end up in the final cut, but Raimi apparently gave up control of the final cut for the sake of making his first, real mainstream picture. He might as well have stuck his head over the plate and said, \"Bean me.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Lester want to kill himself?\n\n<options>:\nA He feels he completely failed at life.\nB He hates his wife.\nC He is attracted to minors.\nD He feels lost.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,280	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nhow become pretty good at guessing. But I never say anything. I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when \"It's in your purse,\" I blurted out. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. how? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of the things I sense in probing really are. 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 So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except that 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 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 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. to close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, the 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 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 \"Were you really asleep that time?\" \"Not really,\" I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject to watch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfield carts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag contained \"Yeah.\" He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. But He was getting too curious. \"Oh, I just wondered, that's all.\" I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entrance and put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurrying over. 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 live with myself. A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out of the entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on a pair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I could tell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain the whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own 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 inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag on the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. The \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\" I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against the counter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach the escaped my grasp. \"Do you have my suitcase?\" I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stood there looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right hand she had a green baggage claim check. 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 She didn't move. She just said, \"Why?\" \"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 don't ask me why.\" \"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.\" She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed the short, fat man into the coffee shop. 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. \"Joe did,\" she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but \"Who is Joe?\" \"My husband.\" I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got in some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when he 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 want to know.\" I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. 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 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.\" \"See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old battered suitcase?\" Julia's bag in his right hand, walked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with the redcap, who said, \"That man steal them suitcases?\" \"That he did,\" I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from the parking lot. Redcap said, \"Better tell him about it.\" 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. \"Jets,\" the redcap said, eying the sky. \"I don't know,\" the policeman said. \"Didn't sound much like a jet to me.\" was all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia was The officer said, \"Yes, miss?\" \"I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it.\" \"I feel the same way,\" I said. \"Would it be all right if we didn't bother to report it?\" \"Well,\" the policeman said, \"I can't make you report it.\" \"I'd rather not then,\" Julia said. She turned to me. \"I'd like some\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the narrator reveal his secret ability to Julia?\n\n<options>:\nA He loves Julia, and he doesn't want there to be any secrets between them.\nB If he doesn't explain his ability, she'll think he's a creeper for going in her luggage.\nC He needs to stay with the suitcase to keep the bomb from going off. He needs her cooperation.\nD He'll have a better chance of getting her to believe him than the airport policeman believing his story.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
2,234	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>:\nNot all the world’s citizens were content. Bergstrom was waiting in his office when Zarwell arrived that evening. to his right but within vision, straightened and barked an order with him?” to him, “Halt!” He lengthened his stride but gave no other sign. “What do you think they’ll do see what he looks like first. They’ll Two men hurried through a doorway of a small anteroom to his “Execute him, I suppose,” the opening beside the escalator. At the first turn he saw that the row of lockers for traveler use. He slipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag and made the hand farthest from him tight and compact and worked it free of the leather loop. He waited. ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight it?” the psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom, asked. John Zarwell shook his head. “Did I talk while I was under?” “How does it tie in with what I told you before?” Bergstrom’s neat-boned, fair-skinned face betrayed no emotion other than an introspective stillness in the palm of his hand. He knew now why he always carried it. Bergstrom had his bad moment. “You’re not going to …” he began at the sight of the gun. He tried opened the collar of his shirt. The Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” Bergstrom obviously realized how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, area. “Good.” Bergstrom rose. “The serum is quite harmless, John.” He maintained a professional diversionary all the planet’s habitable chatter as he administered asked. “Your Meninger oath of inviolable confidence?” Bergstrom shook his head. “I know it’s been broken before. But you need me. You’re not through, and rolled gently toward the far wall. Bergstrom continued talking, “Is that the best you can do?” “No.” Bergstrom was angry now. analyst.” with practiced urbanity. “When “But use that logical mind you’re psychiatry was a less exact science,” patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are months or years interviewing a serum, to confine our discourses to had to spend weeks, sometimes this have shown what kind of man “Because you’re no mad-dog killer!” Now that the crisis seemed to be past, Bergstrom spoke more calmly, even allowed himself to relax. “You’re still pretty much in put his pistol away in a trouser pocket. Bergstrom brushed the question aside with one hand. “Your name makes little difference. You’ve used He should know all about the the human worlds. I’d like to talk more with you on that later.” While Zarwell considered, Bergstrom pressed his advantage. “One more scene might do it,” he said. them—the man who held mutual attraction. down the escalator, but he surveyed the terminal carefully over the rim of his hand. He spied no suspicious at him. “O DD,” Bergstrom said. He brought his hands up and joined the tips of his fingers against his until he found his key. The briefcase was under his arm a minute As he zipped open the briefcase more to you than the first, I suppose?” “No,” Zarwell answered. He was not a talking man, Bergstrom reflected. It was more than reticence, however. The man had He was a man who could handle himself well in an emergency. Bergstrom shrugged, dismissing his strayed thoughts. “I expected as much. A quite normal first phase again and exchanged the gun for into a trouser pocket, and a single-edged razor blade. Removing his fiber-cloth jacket he slashed it into strips with the razor blade and flushed it down the as he strolled from the compartment. Back at the locker he replaced the briefcase and, with a wad of gum, glued the key to the bottom of the locker frame. One step more. Taking the syringe from his pocket, he plunged the needle into his forearm and tossed the instrument down a waste chute. He took three more believe the part you’re playing?” “A good man must have done that job on your mind,” Bergstrom and trading marts Zarwell nodded. “I’m glad to hear that,” Bergstrom assured him. “Now that you’re well again I’d like to introduce his ennui. Johnson. This world …” Zarwell stopped him with an upraised hand. “Good God, man, can’t you see the reason for all this? I’m tired. I’m trying to quit.” “Quit?” Bergstrom did not quite follow him. Zarwell explained listlessly. “A gang of hoods had taken over the government. I helped organize a movement to get them out. There job. The political conditions there were rotten. We went with him. understanding, but the strangeness sort of thing.” furnishings, and the clothing he observed to a stranger. also. “I’m not a professional do-gooder.” Zarwell’s tone appealed to Bergstrom for understanding. “I have only a normal man’s indignation at injustice. And now I’ve done Johnson can do your own revolting. I’m through!” Bergstrom did not argue as he left. RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. He moved in and joined a party of short, bearded men, directing them as they battered at the and stood watching the workmen, he was not surprised. He waited for killing. Zarwell was not the leader of the invaders, only a lesser figure in the beyond the age of sports. He had a manner of contained energy. “You’re Johnson?” he asked. The man nodded. Zarwell tried to feel the anger he was fleeing, pursued by the same bearded men who had been liking the man, and wanting at least conflict engulfed him. Weary but resigned he accepted it, and did what he had to do …BERGSTROM was regarding BERGSTROM was regarding him with speculative scrutiny. Johnson smiled agreeably and “You’ve had quite a past, apparently,” they walked over to the box and sat down. founded,” Johnson began without Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. “At least in my dreams.” “Dreams?” Bergstrom’s eyes preamble, “the administrative body pardon. I must have forgotten to explain. This work is so routine to are the rulers. The citizens work twelve hours a day. They are poorly housed They …” past.” Zarwell’s expression became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, he seemed satisfied, and he let himself as Johnson’s voice went on. The story was always the same. But why did they always try to drag him into “That’s why you’re here, you know,” Bergstrom answered. “To help you remember.” “But everything under the drug of what I saw,” he observed. back? “… and we need your help.” Johnson had finished his speech. Bergstrom went on, “that your lost memory will turn out to be no ordinary amnesia. I believe we will find Zarwell found himself not listening with.” “That’s what makes me so certain,” Bergstrom said confidently. “You don’t remember what we have shown to be true. Conversely until next week end,” Zarwell reminded him. “That’s right.” Bergstrom thought for a moment. “We shouldn’t let this hang too long. tomorrow?” “I suppose I could.” “Fine,” Bergstrom said with satisfaction. “I’ll admit I’m considerably more than casually interested up the next morning and he rode with a tech crew to the edge of the reclam area. Beside the belt 142 worker’s mouth. Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Bergstrom's relationship with Johnson?\n\n<options>:\nA Johnson is the dictator of St. Martin's where Bergstrom lives.\nB Johnson is the client paying Bergstrom to retrieve Zarwell's memories.\nC Johnson is the man Bergstrom wants Zarwell to help overthrow the dictator.\nD Johnson is Bergstrom's boss.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,636	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 merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named \"Brad\" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called \"Jim\") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her \"nutritious yet savory\" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of \"black comedy.\" It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism. Kevin Costner is 11 years older than he was as Crash Davis, the over-the-hill minor-league catcher in Bull Durham (1988), but he can still get away with playing a professional ballplayer. He moves and acts like a celebrity jock, and he can make his narcissistic self-containment look as if he's keeping something in reserve--to protect his \"instrument,\" as it were. In For Love of the Game , he's a 40ish Detroit Tigers pitcher having his last hurrah: The team has been sold and the new owners don't necessarily want him back. For about half an hour, it's a great sports movie. Costner stands on the mound shaking off the signals of his longtime catcher (John C. Reilly) he forces himself to tune out the huge Yankee Stadium crowd (the background blurs before our eyes and the sound drops out) last year's A Simple Plan ) thought that all those scenes of Costner and Preston staring into space while the piano plinks would end up in the final cut, but Raimi apparently gave up control of the final cut for the sake of making his first, real mainstream picture. He might as well have stuck his head over the plate and said, \"Bean me.\"\n\n<question>:\nAccording to the reviewer, Carolyn's preference for \"Muzak\" and \"nutritious yet savory\" food most likely symbolize:\n\n<options>:\nA The characters' desperate desire to be perceived as ordinary\nB The deterioration of the American nuclear family\nC The tendency for people to be consumed by what their values\nD The dangers of standing out in a society that demands conformity\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,985	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 scream of brakes, the splash into icy waters, a long descent death. But Ned Vince lived again—a million years later! \"See Ned Vince made a last effort to control himself. His knuckles tightened on the edge of the vat. \"I don't know what you've been talking about,\" he grated wildly. \"But I want to get out of here! I want to go back where I came from! Do you understand—whoever, or whatever you are?\" Ned Vince was eager for the \"But you can't go back to the Twentieth Century,\" said the box. \"Nor is there any better Dazzled, and befuddled by his Ned could scarcely have chosen conviction about anything. Everything he saw and felt and nightmare. But then it might all be real instead, and that was abysmal horror. Ned was no coward—death and danger of any ordinary Earthly kind, he Ned Vince was still dimly conscious could have faced bravely. But the loneliness here, and the utter strangeness, were hideous like his wrecked car. Nothing that he could imagine could mean doom more certainly than this. The Pit bounded out of the vat, and with head down, dashed for the ramp. cracks beneath his feet, Ned his family would never see his body again, lost beyond recovery in this abyss. a furry body, hurried his feverish scrambling. But he emerged dash-panel, leaving Ned in absolute darkness. A flood rushed at last at the surface. He stood there panting in that couldn't fight against the force sides, all their jaggedness lost after a million years of erosion under an ocean that was gone. of that incoming water. The so that he could not think clearly. Presently, when he could no longer hold his breath, bitter liquid was sucked into his lungs. His last thoughts were those ground glistened with dry salt. \"Well, I guess it's all true, huh?\" Ned Vince muttered in a of a drowning man. The machine-shop might as well be an exile on another planet—so changed had the Earth become. A wave of intolerable homesickness Goodbye, Betty ... The ripples that had ruffled came over him as he planned to be married sometime.... the surface waters in the Pit, eons, separating himself from his friends, from Betty, from almost cold sea-bottom, but what of it? What reason did he have left to The excited cry, which no human throat could quite have duplicated accurately, arose thinly be far better. He tried to get gulch, water-scarred from an inconceivable He laughed harshly as he ran, welcoming that bitter, killing cold. Nostalgia had him in its clutch, and there was no answer antiquity. The noon-day hold of his courage. But what presently came upon Ned Vince's unconscious form, a mile from chuckles of eagerness. Other questioning, wondering notes applied stimulants. He came to, mixed with the cadence. Lacking again. There he lay, helpless, who have discovered something remarkable. The desolate expanse around Ned Vince,\" came the answer \"But listen!\" Ned protested. sagged away, flattened by incalculable ages of erosion. At a mile distance, a crumbling heap of rubble arose. Once it had been a building. A gigantic, jagged mass of detritus black, discouraged mood, himself. slanted upward from its crest—red utter, sick dejection of this giant from the past, lost from debris that had once been looming. In far less extreme circumstances than this, death from ages, war, decadence, disease, and a final scattering of those He could understand the was gone from the Earth. Glacial homesickness had come. his own kind. Probably insanity gulch, too. The glint of metal, sharp and burnished. The flat, the gulch had been cleared of the accumulated rubbish of antiquity. Man, it seemed, had a successor, Perhaps that is the only thing to do—to send you back to your own period of history. For I see that you will never be he was very happy now—flushed with a vast and unlooked-for success. Ned felt better immediately, He crouched there on his where there had been none before. Maybe he'd be back in his haunches, at the dry bottom of for there was real hope now, soon.... Ned relaxed, as a tiny As soon as Ned Vince passed Ned Vince's mind swam dry mud that had encased it like an airtight coffin, had by now been chipped away by the tiny investigators but soiled clothing still clung to it, after had gone into decay—yes. But not this body. The answer to this saturation that had held time With a sudden startlement, he and change in stasis. A perfect smile curved her lips. As though she had succeeded in creeping up on him, for a surprise. \"Why, Ned,\" she chuckled. \"You look as though you've been dreaming, and just woke up!\" gratitude, he took her in his arms. Yes, she was just like \"I guess I was dreaming, were happy in their that mighty sense of relief. \"I must have fallen asleep at the bench, here, and had a nightmare. paleontological enthusiasm! A strange accident, happening in a triumph ended, while instruments flicked in his tiny hands. Ned Vince's mind, over which The final instrument he used to chirping signal. The chant of corpse. What his probing gaze revealed to him, made his pleasure even greater than before. In could send me back to my own devoid of moisture, the mummy time after all!\" made to live again! It might move, speak, remember its past! What a marvelous subject for study it would make, back there now. He had wandered far out into cold, sad sea-bottom, to ponder. He squeaked and chatted to himself, contemplating the magnificent, inexorable march of disengaged from the worthless rust of his primitive automobile. mummy of Ned Vince was Even they, who once ruled Earth, never escaped from the present by so much as an instant....\" THE END PRINTED IN U. S. A. Transcriber's Note: November 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. too. The dead sea-bottom of the vanished Atlantic was not as dead as the highlands. soaking from that hardened flesh the alkali that had preserved it began. Still submerged in once known. At last the final liquid was drained away, and the mummy lay there, a mummy no more, but a pale, silent figure in its tatters passed swiftly. At last, eager and ready for whatever might happen now, For Ned Vince, timeless eternity ended like a gradual fading mist. When he could see clearly again, he experienced that inevitable shock of vast change around him. Though it had been dehydrated, his brain had been kept perfectly intact through the ages, and now it was restored. So his memories were as vivid as yesterday. effect on Ned Vince—a sudden, nostalgic panic. Something was fearfully wrong! The nervous terror of the unknown dizzy after his weird resurrection, which he could not understand, remembering as he did that moment of sinking to certain death in the pool at Pit \"Take it easy, Ned Vince....\" The words themselves, and the Ned's gaze searched for the welt, left by the blow he had received To Ned Vince, it was all utterly familiar words were more repugnant somehow, simply because Ned Vince did not know how great difficulty speaking English words, anyway. Ned's dark hair was wildly awry. His gaunt, young face held befuddled terror. He gasped in the thin atmosphere. \"I've he and his dad had \"No, Ned, not nuts. Not a Chuk....\" It took only a moment for the box to tell the full story in clear, sought, with calm, human logic, to make his charge feel at home. Probably, though, he was a fool,\n\n<question>:\nUpon waking up after one million years, Ned feels all of the following emotions at an extreme level, EXCEPT for ______.\n\n<options>:\nA Confusion\nB Homesickness\nC Fear\nD Regret\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,948	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>:\nfor their patience was the biggest surprise since David said, and then repeated the phrase in six languages. \"The cagey, to behave the way the newspaper wanted him to behave, ship you see is a Venusian Class of the story he felt sure was about to break. \"I didn't mean to make trouble, Jerry couldn't identify stepped warily, and then said something drunk to obtain information—well, that's not only indiscreet, Bridges. It's downright dirty.\" Jerry grinned. \"I didn't take Jerry deduced that it must have toothsome little dish ...\" \"Just thank your lucky stars that it didn't go any further. its gray plastic material giving in readily to the application of their tools. But when it was opened, they stood aside in \"By the way. What do you think is going on?\" amazement and consternation. \"Don't kid me, Mr. Conners. Think it's war?\" to build the damn thing.\" rather than political implications. As he walked beside him, he said: pal? That Greta babe really let down her hair?\" instructions as elementary as a Jerry growled. blueprint in an Erector set. But simple as the job was, they were obviously impressed by the \"Where's your decorum?\" mechanism they had assembled. It stood impassive until they have a low mind. For a week, this town has been acting like obeyed the final instruction. \"Thank you, gentlemen,\" it said, in sweet, unmetallic accents. \"Now if you will please the The robot bowed. escort me to the meeting \"With Greta, I hope,\" Ruskin sighed. \"What a way to get radioactive.\" and they gave him snickering greetings. He took a small table sullen silence. It wasn't the newsmen's jibes that bothered him it was the first, but as the meeting got under way, he knew that it was even—Jerry gulped Jerry looked up from his meeting without benefit of long the cause of it all, a placid, highly-polished metal robot, was foreign minister's debate. And every other patron, but for different reasons. Greta Johnson had that effect upon men. Even the confining effect of a mannishly-tailored suit didn't hide her outrageously feminine qualities. She walked straight to his through their headphones, \"Gentlemen, I thank you for your prompt attention. I come as a \"Gentlemen,\" it said into the table, and he stood up. \"Look, Greta—\" \"I just wanted to thank you for last night.\" delicate, felt like a slab of lead when it slammed into his cheek. merely a threat, a promise, or an easy solution—but a challenge.\" \"Greta, listen!\" he panted. \"You don't understand about last night. It wasn't the way that lousy columnist said—\" She stopped in her tracks. \"I wouldn't have minded so much if you'd gotten me drunk. But to The council room stirred. \"But I'm a reporter , damn it. It's my job. I'd do it again if I thought you knew anything.\" She was pouting now. \"Well, how do you suppose I feel, knowing you're only interested without unleashing \"Good-bye, Greta,\" Jerry said the terrible forces of power sadly. \"What?\" now at your command. Once \"Did I say that?\" \"It just won't be any use. deteriorates into heedless violence, we will not stand by and let the ugly contagion won't want to see me any more.\" \"Good-bye. I suppose you motherly gesture. \"Your poor face,\" she murmured, and relentlessly—to destroy your world completely.\" and then sighed. \"Oh, Again, the meeting room exploded peace. But envision it, men of Earth, as a messenger of war. Unstoppable, inexorable, it may well. I guess there's no use \"Greta!\" \"But if you print one \"That's not the idea,\" Greta and see a Goddess of Vengeance, poised to wreak its wrath upon those who betray the peace.\" newsmen, Greta leaned forward and said: \"At first, they thought it was said stiffly. the planet Venus, men of Earth, \"A ruin. The news flashed with lightning speed over the world, and what the damn thing was.\" left him vaguely unsatisfied. He tried to explain his feeling to Greta on his first night back time Greta had consented to pay what \"Well, what's bothering you?\" Greta pouted. \"You've had the biggest story of the year under your byline. I should think you'd for about three days, and they're \"It's not that,\" Jerry said thinking of calling a plenary ?\" asking for a hurry-up summit \"But don't you think he's done good? Don't you think they'll be impressed by what he said?\" \"I'm not worried about that. \"Greta,\" Jerry said mildly, \"I meeting to make a decision.\" Greta snuggled up to him on and Jerry responded the way a normal, healthy male usually \"What's the matter?\" are their affairs, too. It's kind of confusing, but that's what they say.\" \"You mean these Venusians speak English?\" \"And Russian. And French. they?\" Greta said. And German. And everything I guess. They've been having Greta said haughtily. \"I know thinks that if we don't agree, they might do something drastic, like blow us all up. It's kind of scary.\" She shivered delicately. \"You're taking it mighty calm,\" he said ironically. \"Well, how else can I take it? I'm not even supposed to know when I'm not wanted.\" is so careless about—\" She put her fingers to her lips. \"Oh, dear, now you'll really think I'm terrible.\" \"Terrible? I think you're wonderful!\" \"And you promise not to print the students seemed incredibly \"Didn't I say I wouldn't?\" \"Y-e-s. But you know, you're young. He was winded by the a liar sometimes, Jerry. I've noticed it?\" a massive woman with gray hair and impervious to that about you.\" Jerry felt decrepit, but managed see Mr. Jerry entered, except for the Jerry remembered. He was a blinked when Jerry said: me? Jerry Bridges?\" to get to the point of his visit, and he blurted out: to match.\" She looked at him with exasperation, \"What do you mean, Jerry?\" \"There was something about the Robot's speech that sounded !\" Jerry said, breezing familiar—I could have sworn I'd heard some of the words before. I couldn't prove anything Jerry, and snapped: \"This note of yours. Just what do you think it means?\" \"You know better than I do, that's flying around—\" His words brought an exclamation I said, Jerry.\" isn't it, Professor? These very words were spoken \"Mr. Bridges, you don't make it easy for us. It's our opinion Jerry swallowed hard. And you've probably learned much more these past eleven years.\" Jerry?\" about a group of teachers, scientists, and engineers, a group who were suddenly struck by eagerly. \"Thanks, Mr. Howells.\" \"Don't thank me, I'm not doing you any personal 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, Professor, I know what you're Jerry pointed. \"That one.\" Greta shivered closer to him. \"And to think what that terrible planet can do to us!\" \"Oh, I dunno. Venus is also the Goddess of Love.\" approvingly. THE END Transcriber's Note: became a growl that increased in volume until even the shouting voices could no longer be bruised cheek with a tender, hit, a dust cloud obscured it from sight. A loudspeaker blared out an unintelligible order, but its message\n\n<question>:\nWhich two terms best describe Jerry's tone toward Greta?\n\n<options>:\nA misogynistic and dismissive\nB lustful and manipulative\nC rueful and vexed\nD condescending and harsh\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,909	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>:\nFiction December 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. BREAKAWAY Illustrated by Freas She surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting what she wanted. and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his wife. \"All set, honey. How do I look in my monkey suit?\" theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too far. She said, \"You look fine, Phil. You look just right.\" She managed a smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash face until she was looking into his eyes. \"You're the most beautiful girl I know. Did I ever tell you that?\" \"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did,\" she said, finishing the ritual but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat smiling. \"Honey, look at me,\" he said. \"It isn't going to be bad. Honestly it isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn't be sending me you know that. I told you that we've sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.\" She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks. \"Mary, you know I can't back out now. How could I? It's been three years. You know how much I've wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing hard.\" He stopped talking and held her to him and stroked the back of her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He if you go, I won't be here when you get back—if you get back. I won't be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. It isn't the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I love you, I just couldn't take that, Phil. I'm sorry. I guess I'm not the noble sort of wife.\" She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and put it to her lips. Her hand was trembling as she touched the lighter to the end of the cigarette and drew deeply. Phil stood watching her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes. \"I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary,\" Phil said. His voice was dry and low. \"I didn't know you felt this way about it.\" \"Yes, you did. I told you how I felt. I told you I could never be the possible—not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous dream!\" \"Mary, listen to me,\" he said. \"It isn't a dream. It's real. There's nothing means anything more to me than you do—you know that. But no man ever had the chance to do what I'm going to do tonight—no man ever. If I backed out now for any reason, I'd never be able to look at the sky again. I'd be through.\" She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in her eyes. They drove through the streets of the small town with its small a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, if such was its destiny. across the sand to the field where the ship waited. In the distance they could see the beams of the searchlights as they played across the take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching They drove between the rows of wooden buildings that lined the field, surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until the eye lost the tip against the stars. \"She's beautiful, Mary. You've never seen her before, have you?\" \"No, I've never seen her before,\" she said. \"Hadn't you better go?\" Her voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. \"Good-by, darling,\" she said. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight. administration building without looking back. Inside the building it was like a locker room before the big game. The tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that set, son?\" the radar.\" As they crossed the room, familiar faces smiled, and each man shook his something adventure into the universe. You're lighting a new dawn of history, and those who have had it didn't realize it at the time. Good luck, and God be with you.\" \"Thank you, sir. I'm aware of all you say. It frightens me a little.\" connected with the take-off. They were seated now in a semicircle in last minute briefing began. It was a routine he knew by heart. He had gone over and over it a thousand times, and he only half listened now. He kept thinking of Mary outside, alone by the fence. The voice of the briefing officer was a dull hum in his ears. \"... And orbit at 18,000-mph. You will then accelerate for the breakaway until—\" the session was done. They rose and looked at each other, the same unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and handshakes. They were ready now. \"Phil, you're ... you feel all right, don't you, son?\" \"Yes, sir. I feel fine. Why?\" \"Phil, I've spent nearly every day with you for three years. I know you better than I know myself in many ways. And I've studied the psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness, conviction. He reached for a cigarette. \"Phil, if there is anything—anything at all—you know what it might mean. You've got to be in the best mental and physical condition of your life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension wrong with you. Want to tell me?\" Outside, the take-off zone crawled with men and machines at the base of and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt that he was sending just a little bit of himself into the sky. Beyond the ring of lights and moving men, on the edge of the field, Mary stood. Her hands moved slowly over the top of the fence, twisting the barbs of wire. But her eyes were on the ship. And then they were ready. A small group of excited men came out from the administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And, Mary waved to him. \"Good-by,\" she said to herself, but the words stuck tight in her throat. The small group at the base of the ship turned and walked back to the fence. And for an eternity the great ship stood alone, waiting. Then, from deep inside, a rumble came, increasing in volume to a gigantic roar that shook the earth and tore at the ears. Slowly, the first manned \"Phil! Oh, Phil.\" She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and over. cheeks. \"Thank, God,\" she said. \"It doesn't matter, darling. The only thing that matters is you didn't go.\" \"You're right, Mary,\" he said. His voice was low—so low she could hardly hear him. \"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.\" He stood with toward the car. THE END\n\n<question>:\nWhat best represents the theme of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA Compromise is essential to long-lasting, happy successful relationships\nB It is better to be honest about something bothering you than to withhold it and possibly cause a shared goal to fail\nC Keeping one's family happy and intact is ultimately more important than any personal or professional goal\nD Rigid thinking and ultimatums in relationships rarely result in desired outcomes\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,374	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 murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the \"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know.\" I groaned and turned to of this mess with our skins intact.\" \"Right, Chief.\" Stebbins moved toward the visiphone. Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest. \"Hold it,\" the Wazzenazzian said crisply. \"The Consulate can't help you. I can.\" \"I can get you out of this cheap.\" and smell them with ease. How cheap?\" Gorb grinned rakishly. \"Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?\" I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't be much help they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old exhibitionist urge. \"Send them in one at a time,\" I told Stebbins. I ducked into the a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and the contract. Otherwise, nothing.\" Gorb shrugged. \"What have I to lose?\" The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, \"The first \"Send him, her or it in.\" \"Your name?\" I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick cough. \"Let me have that again, please?\" \"Of course, that's not the name you were born with.\" \"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?\" My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise \"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 \"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate back to colloquial speech.\" \"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.\" He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, \"You're making a big mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect! Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—\" I pulled away from his yawning mouth. \"Good-by, Mr. Gorb,\" I repeated. \"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big attraction. I'll—\" \" Good-by, Mr. Gorb! \" He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to the door. \"I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile. The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a immediately to a contract.\" \"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks.\" \"You will grant me a contract!\" sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed I said, \"You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our because—\" \"You will hire me or trouble I will make!\" in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?\" I went on, \"Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest \"No. You will hire me now.\" it.\" away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was \"Come here, you!\" \"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he came running in—\" The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. \"It is she! must take me to Earth!\" \"But—\" \"Well—\" \"Of course not.\" I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right \"I thought the truth would move you.\" \"Then you will refuse me?\" his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping. uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to 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 \"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 what your story is! Get out or—\" \"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second. \"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead. I've been living in the outworlds half my life I know all there is to know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan.\" I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of the office before I spoke. \"Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is, I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian, dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt. Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out with a roar. \"Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!\" Heraal boomed, \"You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the \"Well, no, but—\" Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000 I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced going down the drain. \"Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself! He's—\" Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting himself off. I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who caused their trouble. In this case, you.\" 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. himself pathetic damn near blew my head off.\" I shuddered. \"Thanks for the tackle job.\" \"Don't mention it,\" Gorb said. I glared at the Ghrynian police. \"Well? What are you waiting for? Take\n\n<question>:\nWhat hit the narrator?\n\n<options>:\nA the Stortulian's gun\nB the wall\nC a Ghrynian policeman\nD Gorb\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
851	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>:\nmakes the news public? You know what would happen if this thing should leak!\" The intercom on Baxter's desk suddenly buzzed, and a bright red light Baxter picked it up and swiftly scanned its surface. A look of dismay overrode his erstwhile genial features. I had a horrible suspicion. \"Not again?\" I said softly. Jery Delvin had a most unusual talent. He could detect the flaws in agility. But when he got to Mars to find out why fifteen boys had vanished from a spaceship in mid-space, he found out that even his quick mind needed Oddly enough, it worked out, and he now does nothing else. He says, \"I'd like to say I do this for fulfillment, or for cash, or because The man who spoke seemed more than surprised he seemed stunned. His voice held an incredulous squeak, a squeak which would have amazed his President in power, and not even that in matters of security. I managed to nod. He shook his white-maned head, slowly. \"I don't believe it.\" \"But I am, sir,\" I insisted doggedly. Baxter pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment, then sighed, grinned wryly, and waggled an index finger at an empty short and flushed with embarrassment. I felt a sympathetic hot wave flooding my own features. A copy chief in an advertising company almost always reacts to an obvious cliche. Then, with something like a look of relief on his blunt face, he civic-minded, slightly antisocial....\" He looked at me, questioningly. \"I'm still not sure that I—\" \"It's like this. I designate ratios, by the minute. They hand me a new they stop the watch. If I get it in five seconds, it passes. But if I spot it in less, they throw it out and start over again. Or is that clear? No, I guess you're still confused, sir.\" five. See?\" \"Ah,\" said Baxter, grinning. \"I begin to. And your job is to test these ads, before they reach the public. What fools you for five seconds will fool the average consumer indefinitely.\" I couldn't have been more surprised had he announced my incipient maternity, but I was able to ask, \"Me? For Pete's sake, why, sir?\" Baxter looked me square in the eye. \"Damned if I know!\" 2 I stared at him, nonplussed. He'd spoken with evidence of utmost candor, and the Chief of Interplanetary Security was not one to be \"You mean that International Cybernetics picked me for a mission? That's crazy, if you'll pardon me, sir.\" Baxter shrugged, and his genial smile was a bit tightly stretched. \"When the current emergency arose and all our usual methods failed, we had to submit the problem to the Brain.\" \"And,\" I said, beginning to be fascinated by his bewildered manner, opposite side. \"All it gives is my description, governmental status, and address!\" \"Uh-huh,\" Baxter grunted laconically. \"It amuses you, does it?\" The smile was still on his lips, but there was a grimness in the glitter of his narrowing eyes. \"Not really,\" I said hastily. \"It baffles me, to be frank.\" \"If you're sitting there in that hopeful stance awaiting some sort of explanation, you may as well relax,\" Baxter said shortly. \"I have none I let this sink in, then asked, \"What made you ask for a man in the first place, sir? I've always understood that your own staff represented some of the finest minds—\" Chief of Security or not, I was getting a little burned up at his highhanded treatment of my emotions. \"How nice!\" I said icily. \"Now if I only knew the problem!\" I detected a tinge of cynicism in his tone, but said nothing. \"What a gesture!\" Baxter went on, hardly speaking directly to me at World Government, when there's none between these fine lads, one from every civilized nation on Earth?\" \"You sound disillusioned, sir,\" I interjected. He stared at me as though I'd just fallen in from the ceiling or I'd paused, because he was staring at me like a man on the brink of apoplexy. I swallowed, and tried to look relaxed. I thought a second, then nodded. \"They've been having such a good time that the government extended their trip by—Why are you shaking your head that way, sir?\" 's, misuse of tenses, deliberate misspellings. They take it out of an adult, especially an adult with a mind keen enough to get him into per day. Otherwise, they'd all be gibbering by now!\" \"And your men haven't found out anything?\" I marvelled. Baxter shook his head. but no reason for it?\" Baxter cupped his slightly jowled cheeks in his hands and propped his elbows on the desktop, suddenly slipping out of his high position to \"That's just it,\" Baxter sighed. \"We don't even know that! We're like a savage who finds a pistol: used correctly, it's a mean little weapon disconcerting thought. \"Yes,\" said Baxter. \"That's what bothers me.\" by Baxter and counterembossed with the President's special device, a small globe surmounted by clasping hands. It gave me authority to do go anywhere, do anything, commandeer anything I might need. All with no questions asked. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty chipper as I I was dressing the part, in a way. I wore the Amnesty suspended by a \"Yes, sir!\" he replied swiftly, at stiff attention. \"I don't really have any details,\" I said, and waited for him to take his cue. As an afterthought, to help him talk, I added, \"At ease, by \"Thank you, sir,\" he said, not actually loosening much in his rigid position, but his face looking happier. \"See, I was supposed to pilot He stared, then frowned, and thought hard. \"Yes, sir,\" he said, after a minute. \"Even twice that, with no trouble, but—\" He caught \"Strange,\" I remarked to Chief Baxter when I was seated once again in his office, opposite his newly replaced desk. \"I hardly acted like malevolent with the pilot. And I'm ordinarily on the shy side, as a matter of fact.\" \"It's the Amnesty that does it,\" he said, gesturing toward the disc. It lay on his desk, now, along with the collapser. I felt, with the new information I'd garnered, that my work was done, and that the new data fed into the Brain would produce some other results, not involving me. I looked at the Amnesty, then nodded. \"Kind of gets you, after awhile. To know that you are the most influential person in creation is to automatically act the part. A shame, in a way.\" \"The hell it is!\" Baxter snapped. \"Good grief, man, why'd you think the I sat up straight and scratched the back of my head. \"Now you mention it, I really don't know. It seems a pretty dangerous thing to have about, the way people jump when they see it.\" consulting someone else. And the time lag and paperwork involved made accurate and swift action impossible, sometimes. What we needed, of course, was a person who could simply have all authority, in order to I had a sudden thought. \"Say, what happens if two men are selected by the Brain? Who has authority over whom?\" Baxter grimaced and shivered. \"Don't even think such a thing! Even your mentioning such a contingency gives me a small migraine. It'd be\n\n<question>:\nHow does Jery's behavior change when he's wearing the uniform and amnesty?\n\n<options>:\nA He's bolder, and he starts to misuse the authority it gives him\nB He tries to remain the same and not let it get to his head\nC He's bolder, playing into the sense of power it gives him\nD He's surprised by the authority it seems to give him\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
259	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>:\nYou don't have to be crazy to be an earth diplomat—but on Groac it sure helps! It is clear you are in the hands of a dangerous lunatic. As always, the Groaci wish only friendship with the Terrestrials, but—\" \"Don't bother,\" Retief said. \"You know what was in those files I looked over this morning.\" Retief turned at a sound behind him. Miss Meuhl was at the door, \"Don't!\" Retief jumped—too late. The door burst inward. A crowd of crested Groaci pressed into the room, \"You can't offend the Groaci,\" Miss Meuhl said sharply. \"Consul Whaffle would never have been so rude.\" \"Are they? Are you sure you meant to go this far, Miss Meuhl? A squad of armed Groaci in the consulate?\" Retief looked thoughtfully at Miss Meuhl. \"You've been here on Groac rumors you've heard. This thing's coming out into the open, whatever you do. Don't add violation of the Consulate to the list of Groacian Groaci. I certainly hope you're not thinking of openly intruding—\" \"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?\" dialect with difficulty. \"My interest in local history.\" \"The impossibility of access to outworlders. To depart quietly.\" \"The necessity that I enter.\" \"The specific instructions of the Archivist.\" The Groacian's voice rose windowless stucco facades lining the street, then started off in the direction of the Terrestrial Consulate General. The few Groacians on Groacian equivalent of a bar. Retief went in. \"To enjoy a cooling drink,\" Retief said in Groacian, squatting down at \"To not enjoy my poor offerings,\" the Groacian mumbled. \"A pain in the digestive sacs to express regret.\" decide whether I like it.\" \"To be grappled in by peace-keepers for poisoning of—foreigners.\" The barkeep looked around for support, found none. The Groaci customers, eyes elsewhere, were drifting away. Retief turned. A tall Groacian vibrated his mandibles in a gesture door. The other Groaci released him, hurried back inside. Retief looked at the weaving alien. \"To begone, freak,\" the Groacian whispered. \"To be pals,\" Retief said. \"To be kind to dumb animals.\" \"To have you hauled away to a stockyard, ill-odored foreign livestock.\" \"To not endure such insolence!\" The Groacian advanced toward Retief. Groacian. Retief stepped around him, seized his collar and yanked. The Groacian are two gentlemen waiting to see you. Groacian gentlemen.\" \"Government men, I imagine. Word travels fast.\" Retief pulled off his cape. \"This saves me the trouble of paying another call at the Foreign \"I'm sure you don't. Come along. And bring an official recorder.\" Two Groaci wearing heavy eye-shields and elaborate crest ornaments indicative of rank rose as Retief entered the room. Neither offered a foreigner. A Terrestrial, to be precise. Investigation by my department indicates that the description of the culprit closely matches that of the Terrestrial Consul.\" 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.\" paid its visit, and before the arrival of the first Terrestrial diplomatic mission.\" \"This is an internal matter!\" Fith cried, in his faint Groacian voice. \"The new regime has shown itself most amiable to you Terrestrials. It has outdone itself—\" Retief turned a steady look on Miss Meuhl. She closed her mouth. The curious looking creatures were captured. After being securely caged, they were exhibited to the gentle Groaci public. Hauled through the streets. Very educational, no doubt. A highly cultural show. \"Funny thing about these animals. They wore clothes. They seemed to \"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.\" \"Yes,\" Fith said weakly. \"It is true, they were Terrestrials. But there Terrestrials ... were unharmed. Naturally, we feared them. They were strange to us. We had never before seen such beings.\" call, eh?\" \"We were afraid,\" Shluh said. \"We are a simple people. We feared the strange creatures from the alien craft. We did not kill them, but we felt it was as well they ... did not survive. Then, when the warships The two Groacians exchanged looks. \"Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said. \"If I don't come back in a reasonable length A Groacian threw a switch. A weak bluish glow sprang up. Retief walked along the raised wooden catwalk, studying the ship. Empty \"I advise you to remain very close to your consulate,\" Fith said. \"I advise you to dismiss these fancies from your mind, and to enjoy the cultural aspects of life at Groac. Especially, I should not venture out of the city, or appear overly curious about matters of concern only to the Groacian government.\" hope—and that may give me the latitude I need.\" \"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.\" \"You're ready to forgive a great deal, Miss Meuhl. But it's not what happened nine years ago I'm concerned with. It's what's happening now. 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 do irreparable harm to the reputation of Terrestrials if you insist—\" \"That's my decision,\" Retief said. \"I have a job to do and we're \"You and I are in a tight spot, Miss Meuhl. The logical next move for the Groaci is to dispose of both of us. We're the only ones who know what happened. Fith almost did the job this afternoon, but I bluffed him out—for the moment.\" blast in here and anyway, they won't make things worse by killing you. A force can be here in a week.\" \"I'll do nothing of the sort! The Groaci are very fond of me! You ... Miss Meuhl, dozing in a chair, awoke with a start. She looked at \"He's here now,\" Miss Meuhl said to the screen. She looked at Retief Retief looked at her levelly. \"You've been a busy girl, Miss Meuhl. Did \"Why, what is the meaning—\" the Groacian Autonomy, I herewith accredit you as Terrestrial Consul to Groac, in accordance with the advices transmitted to my government\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the simplest description of what Miss Meuhl and Retief are in the minds of the Groacian race? Why is this significant to the story?\n\n<options>:\nA They are illegal space travelers. This is significant because the crimes of explorers like them are what prompted the Groaci to hide the first human cruiser that arrived.\nB They are colonialists. This is significant because it is Miss Meuhl and Retief’s desire to colonize Groac that fuels the Groacian hatred of foreigners.\nC They are slaves. This is significant because it helps the reader understand that Retief is lashing out as a result of being oppressed for so long.\nD They are aliens. This is significant because Groacians see humans as alien to their planet, which helps the reader understand how prejudice develops on Groac.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,205	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nin each 'copter, stone-faced, staring grimly alert at the prison below. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that guards in Estates-General Correctional Institution—better known to tenements of the laborers' quarters, the wipes shouted from window to window yelled bitterly to his pilot, above the flutter and roar of the He demanded: \"Why wouldn't you mop out your cell?\" Service Guide to Prison Administration 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? breakout would mean riot on a bigger scale than any prison had ever don't care. I don't care!\" O'Leary stopped her. \"That's enough! Three days in Block O!\" violate the Categoried Class laws. Don't waste your time with her, Cap'n. She's a figger-lover!\" 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. 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, clerk , he corrected 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 Civil Service and not the kind to try to cross over class barriers that weren't the prison jeep. Lazy, sure. Undependable, certainly. But he kept the Every prison has its Greensleeves—sometimes they are called by called it \"the red hats \" elsewhere it was called \"the hole,\" \"the snake pit,\" \"the Klondike.\" When you're in it, you don't much care what it is called it is a place for punishment. And punishment is what you get. 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 of 'em, will you? Especially the lady—she's going to like it here, because there's plenty of wipes and greasers and figgers to keep her guards. The outside guard said sourly: \"A woman, for God's sake. Now O'Leary knows I hate it when there's a woman in here. It gets the others all riled up.\" \"Let them in,\" the inside guard told him. \"The others are riled up already.\" could ignore the prisoners—they simply could not move fast enough, the time—only when the cell doors had to be opened or a prisoner's to retch. 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 for them to remember what they really were, outside. Sauer was a big, laughter. \"Anyway, if we don't cut this out, they'll get us in trouble, Flock!\" \"Oh, you think so?\" shrieked Flock. \"Jeez, I wish you hadn't said that, \"You're yellow,\" the inside guard said moodily. \"Ah, I don't know why I don't quit this lousy job. Hey, you! Pipe down or I'll come in and beat your head off!\" \"Shut up !\" yelled the inside guard. it. The crazy yowling of the hard-timers, Sauer and Flock, was getting under her skin. They weren't even—even human , she told herself miserably, trying to weep silently so as not to give the guards the satisfaction of hearing her—they were animals! Resentment and anger, she could understand. She told herself doggedly 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 system— But did they have to scream so? The senseless yelling was driving her crazy. She abandoned herself to because noise hides noise. But then she hadn't been a prisoner very \"I smell trouble,\" said O'Leary to the warden. last decent job he would have in his life. \"Trouble? What trouble?\" The warden, faintly relieved, faintly annoyed, scolded: \"O'Leary, what 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 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 .\" that for the warden to talk to him? don't want to worry about end of running the prison. And O'Leary choked back his temper. \"Warden, I'm telling you that there's \"It isn't,\" the warden said positively. \"Don't borrow trouble with tonight, O'Leary, and we'll get along fine. 'Specialization is the—' Oh, curse the thing.\" they gave you a lift, but they put you on edge. hard-timers of the Greensleeves. thought that maybe, after all, the man was really in pain. Maybe the The outside guard bellowed: \"Okay, okay. Take ten!\" actuated the tangler fields on the floors of the cells. The prison rules were humanitarian, even for the dregs that inhabited the \"Rest period\" it was called—in the rule book. The inmates had a less lovely term for it. the faster you tried to move, the greater the resistance. grateful. At least she didn't have to live quite like a fig—like an underprivileged clerk, she told herself, conscience-stricken. Across the hall, the guard was saying irritably: \"What the hell's he didn't make sure they all got the most possible free time. He was Every time but this. with pain. hurt. Unless the other screw makes trouble, you won't get hurt, so tell him not to, you hear?\" He was nearly fainting with the pain. and picked up the long-distance phone. He said sadly to the prison The word spread out from the prison on seven-league boots. Riot. And yet fewer than half a dozen men were involved. impact of the news from the prison. For the news touched them where their fears lay. Riot! And not merely a street brawl among roistering wipes, or a bar-room fight of greasers relaxing from a hard day at the plant. The riot was down among the corrupt sludge that underlay the state itself. Wipes brawled with wipes and yawned and worried. An alert! The older kids fussed and complained and their mothers shut them up. No, there wasn't any alert scheduled couldn't get up yet—it was the middle of the night. And as soon as they had the kids back in bed, most of the mothers they were to fly interdicting missions at such-and-such levels on such-and-such flight circuits around the prison. were the ones who might actually accomplish something. They took up\n\n<question>:\nWhat seems to be a reason for many being sent to prison?\n\n<options>:\nA petty theft and small crimes\nB rioting over the rules imposed by the government\nC conspiracy theorizing\nD people resenting the jobs they're assigned\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
2,182	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>:\nNew money: Do local currencies actually work? It's lunchtime at Glasgow Chambers in late November, and Councillor George Redmond is getting worked up at the prospect a Glasgow Pound. \"We would be Glasgow-centric about it,\" he says conspiratorially, as though there is any other way to be. \"Can you imagine having the face of Billy Connolly on our local currency? Or Alex Ferguson, or Kenny Dalglish?\" Inventing an alternative to sterling might sound far-fetched, even illegal. But it's not that strange. In the UK we think of the pound like fish think about water, which is to say not at all. It might never have occurred to many of us that there are other types of exchange that can stand in for ragged bank notes tucked away in pockets, or other objects that can stand in for those notes. Not every country is so lucky. In crisis-hit Greece, where the euro can be hard to come by, businesses and citizens have turned to bartering using a points system where goods like pianos, pot and pans can be exchanged for security services or loaned farming equipment. In India last year, desperate people burned sacks of illegal cash after the government withdrew two high-denomination notes as part of a crackdown on corruption. Hoarders woke up to discover the banknotes under their mattresses were suddenly worthless. The pound has been trading at its lowest level since 1985 since the UK voted to leave the European Union and there are fears that it could dip further as Brexit ensues. Timebanks, local exchange trading systems (LETS) and digital inventions like bitcoin can provide alternative ways for people to pay for goods and services when mainstream currencies hit crises. But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. \"At the moment, if the pound stops working for us, the whole economy grinds to a halt because there aren't alternatives,\" Duncan McCann, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, tells those gathered in a gilded room at Glasgow Chambers to discuss the Glasgow Pound. McCann is a long-time advocate of alternative means of exchange. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. Today, he's preaching to the converted. Alex Walker, the chairman of the 250-person Ekopia community in Northern Scotland, listens at the back. The Eko has been the main means of buying everything from beer to bananas in Ekopia since Walker founded it 20 years ago. On an adjacent table, Tracy Duff, a community learning and development worker from Clackmannanshire Council, digs out some papers. She runs the Clacks Youth Timebank, a scheme where 12- to 15-year-olds can earn credit for volunteering. Taking notes up front is Ailie Rutherford, one of the people who organised the meeting. Rutherford runs the People's Bank of Govanhill, a currency that changes value depending on the income of the user. \"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't invent our own currency and play with it,\" she says. Everyone has gathered to decide what a Glasgow Pound might look like at a time when many are asking if local currencies can work at all. Councillor Redmond says Glasgow has been closely watching existing alternative currencies like the Brixton Pound in London, which was introduced in 2011. No two local currencies are exactly the same. But the Brixton Pound and other recent schemes follow the example ten years ago of the Totnes Pound, a 'complementary currency': that is, one supplementing the national currency. As fears for financial stability took hold during the recession, complementary currencies grew in popularity. The Bank of England does not consider these forms of currency legal tender, but the notes hold value in the same way as a gift-card from a department store, with the same kind of restrictions about where they can be spent. Proponents say complementary currencies boost spending in smaller geographical areas, which can have environmental benefits as businesses cut transport distances to deal with local suppliers. Detractors say they have no real economic impact and work only as a game for the middle classes, who can afford to buy from independent shops rather than chains. \"People don't understand money,\" Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar, says over the phone. Scott Cato says the fish-in-water problem – the idea that sterling is so ubiquitous, it is never questioned – is the biggest challenge for complementary currencies. She knows all about it as a founder of the Stroud Pound in 2010, a currency that has since gone out of circulation. \"[People] think they put money into a bank and someone else takes it out. What they don't understand is that banks have the power to create money. We've given the power to create money to private corporations and people don't understand that we can have it back,\" she says. Without enough currency in circulation, it ceases to work. Scott-Cato says Stroud's size meant meant the Stroud Pound was never viable: \"We couldn't get the velocity of circulation right, which contrasts with the Bristol Pound.\" More than a third of children grow up in poverty in Glasgow. A Glasgow Pound might struggle to get poorer families to buy into a local currency that ties them to shopping at more expensive, independent shops, rather than getting deals at big supermarket chains. When Scott-Cato and her colleagues wrote about the experience of setting up the Stroud Pound, they said it was telling that complementary currencies have been accused of being a game for middle-class people, rather than a genuine economic solution. Perhaps for that reason, experts like Duncan McCann have stopped thinking of complementary currencies as a one-size-fits-all solution. He said they can function as a kind of 'gateway drug' to introduce people to a new way of thinking about money. \"That is especially for those who use it, but also for those who just become aware of it,\" he says. Ciaran Mundy, CEO of the Bristol Pound, says it is important to think of the systemic impact rather than looking for targeted treatment of symptoms of economic deprivation. \"Poverty has many causes,\" he says. \"One of these is how the economy is structured in terms of how money flows out of poor areas due to high dependence on larger national and international companies paying lower wages and using offshore accounts to hide the money from the tax man.\" Nothing is tying Glasgow to existing models for complementary currencies. But during the first meeting about setting up the Glasgow Pound, the workshop shows just how hard it would be to invent a new system that works for everyone. After years of researc,h McCann believes the only way complementary currencies can create real value for local economies is if they make transactions happen that wouldn't otherwise have taken place. \"They need to create additional spending power. This is this what the local currencies, despite all their good points, fail to do,\" McCann says. Once operational, loans offered through the Prospects network will have negative interest, so that businesses are encouraged to pass credit on as quickly as possible. \"That's the plan,\" says Clarke, \"because it's rather like a hot potato: people will want to pass it on.\" Duncan McCann, with all his experience, knows that challenge is worthwhile. \"As people we have a right to make credit and loan money. We mustn't forget that. We mustn't leave that to corporations and the state,\" he says.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the best description of why the Scottish will not develop their own money?\n\n<options>:\nA They are not able to develop their own money because they do not have the printing resources\nB Only the politicians wanted a new system, the people all vote against the idea\nC The idea has some traction but is less of a priority than some other political issues\nD None of them have any interest in the idea\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
644	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 PLANET NAMED JOE By S. A. LOMBINO There 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 Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called \"Just Joe.\" \"Just Joe?\" \"Yes,\" Walsh said. \"A native, you know. They rarely go in for more than first names. But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. Among the natives, I mean.\" \"I don't know, sir.\" \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like 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 over. Swell guy, Walsh. his use of Terran idiom. \"You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?\" \"Oh,\" I said, my voice conveying my disappointment. I sighed and began wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him \"Joe,\" he said again. A faint glimmer of understanding began to penetrate my thick skull. \"You wouldn't happen to be Joe the trader? The guy who knows all about Mars, would you?\" Joe. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... \"Not so hot, Joe,\" the bartender replied. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a Another Joe Another damned Joe. So Walsh had taken care of that angle too. \"What's with all this Joe business? It may be a very original name but \"Is there a local hero named Joe?\" I asked. I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh \"I follow, all right,\" I said bitterly. \"Well,\" Bransten went on, \"that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives are a simple, almost childish people. It appealed to them—the Joe business, I mean. Now they're all Joe. They like it. That and the 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 otherwise.\" Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\" \"He's somewhere in the jungle, you know,\" Walsh said. I wanted to ram my fist into the screen, right smack up against those big white teeth. Instead, I cut off the transmission and watched the 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. Service altogether. Two: I could assume there really was a guy name Joe somewhere in that 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 besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his life. Maybe there was a Joe here who could help us on Mars. If there was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. \"Joe?\" I asked, just to be sure. \"Who else, boss?\" he answered. \"I'm trying to locate someone,\" I said. \"I'll need a guide to take me into the jungle. Can you get me one?\" \"It'll cost you, boss,\" the Venusian said. \"How much?\" \"Who's the guide?\" I asked. \"How's the price sound?\" \"Fine, fine,\" I said impatiently. And the Captain had said they were almost a childish people! \"His name is Joe,\" the Venusian told me. \"Best damn guide on the 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....\" His face broke into a wide grin. \"No danger of that, boss,\" he said. 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 it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. would deliberately do just about anything. Sending me off on a wild goose chase after a character named Joe may have been a gag. But it may have been something a little grimmer than a gag, and I made up my mind to be extremely careful from here on in. The guide arrived at fifteen hundred on the dot. He was tall, elongated, looked almost like all the other Venusians I'd seen so far. \"I understand you need a Grade A guide, sir,\" he said. \"Are you familiar with the jungle?\" I asked him. \"Born and raised there, sir. Know it like the back of my hand.\" \"Has Joe told you what the payment will be?\" would have sliced my legs to ribbons were they not protected by the high boots. The hat kept the strong sun off my head. Joe was an excellent guide and a pleasant companion. He seemed to be enjoying a great romp, seemed to love the jungle and take a secret pleasure in the work he was doing. There were times when I couldn't his head barely moving, his eyes darting from one plant to another. Then he'd say, \"This way,\" and take off into what looked like more impenetrable jungle invariably to find a little path leading directly to another village. Each village was the same. The natives would come running out of their huts, tall and blue, shouting, \"Cigarettes, Joe? Cigarettes?\" It took me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide. Everybody was Joe. It was one beautiful, happy, joyous round of stinking, hot jungle. And I wasn't getting any nearer my man. Nor had I any idea how I was supposed to find him. I began to feel pretty low about the whole affair. Joe, on the other hand, enjoyed every moment of the trip. In each village he greeted the natives cheerfully, told them stories, swapped gossip and jokes. And when it was time to leave, he would say goodbye Leonard Walsh. Joe smiled secretly, and we pushed on. I began to find, more and more, that I had started to talk freely to Joe. In the beginning he had been just my guide. There had been the strained relationship of employer and employee. But as the days lengthened into weeks, the formal atmosphere friendly one, Joe seemed more enthusiastic than ever to keep up our grinding pace to find what we were looking for. Once we stopped in a clearing to rest. Joe lounged on the matted Joe was walking beside me, waving at the colonel, beaming all over with I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" \"Colonel,\" Walsh corrected me. \"You mustn't forget to say Colonel, Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small, unimportant drama. I could hear Joe breathing beside me. Joe caught his breath sharply, and I wondered what Walsh was going to\n\n<question>:\nWhich “Joe” faces the brunt of Colonel Walsh’s racism?\n\n<options>:\nA Bartender Joe\nB Trader Joe\nC Military Joe\nD Jungle Guide Joe\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,351	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 FIRE and THE SWORD It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride because, at one time or another, they had had to. It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself. Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out. Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a matter of minutes before he would be asleep. Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind, so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had received something less than a thorough survey. And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little flower-covered plot where they had buried him. Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles, with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't keep open much longer. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had killed himself. quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his mind. Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish data and reports. \"Ted?\" he murmured sleepily. suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians. Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him and Templin. Templin studied them warily. \"Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be dangerous.\" It's because you never suspect kids \"The reception committee,\" Templin said tightly. His hand went inside his tunic. He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton had been a pretty good friend of his. \"I'd be very careful what I did,\" Eckert said softly. \"I would hate to \"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?\" Reynolds had been the anthropologist. \"We have had visitors from Earth before.\" He hesitated a moment and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the \"You are free to use this while you are here,\" he said. Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass, and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably excellent.... were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's. for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too. pipe and tobacco. seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything. Templin nodded. \"Sure.\" \"Why?\" \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton nobody has volunteered any information about him. And he was an attache here for three years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends, Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\" \"Physically perfect, like the men,\" Templin grumbled. \"You could get an look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while.\" \"Does it? I hadn't noticed.\" Eckert turned away from the blinds. His voice was crisp. \"I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too,\" he said. \"But it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find out that we know it is?\" Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked a few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments. The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret if Templin ever finds out menshar Eckert.\" Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a certain aura of authority. \"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in any way, Nayova.\" Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he knew about Pendleton's death. appear casual in his questioning. \"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to Nayova seemed pleased. \"We tried to do as well for menshar Pendleton Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. Pendleton had killed Pendleton did. It is ...\" and he used a native word that\n\n<question>:\nWhat didn't Pendleton and Templin have in common?\n\n<options>:\nA they had similar jobs\nB they went to school together\nC they had similar personalities\nD Tunpesh was both of their first attache assignments\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
688	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nhis eyebrows went up, and he made a beeline for Doc. Sandra wondered if she should warn him that he was about to be shushed. The official laid a hand on Doc's shoulder. \"Sir!\" he said agitatedly. \"Do you realize that they've started your clock, Dr. Krakatower?\" stories to be picked up at the first international grandmaster chess FIDE, WBM, USCF, USSF, USSR and UNESCO. Sandra felt fairly sure about Siamese-twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance. computer do against four Russian grandmasters?\" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with \"You're durn tootin' she would!\" Sandra replied in a rush, and then \"But of course.\" They were already mounting the stairs. \"What would chess be without coffee or schnapps?\" \"Okay, lead on,\" Sandra said. \"You're the doctor.\" \"Doctor?\" He smiled widely. \"You know, I like being called that.\" \"Then the name is yours as long as you want it—Doc.\" Meanwhile the happy little man had edged them into the first of a small cluster of tables, where a dark-suited jabbering trio was just rising. seltzer?\" \"That'd go fine.\" Sandra leaned back. \"Confidentially, Doc, I was chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. By the time they were served, Doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other. \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it \"Yes, Doc, but....\" Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question. \"Wait.\" He lifted a finger. \"I think I know what you're going to ask. perfectly, so that it always wins and there is no contest. Right?\" Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as comforting as the bubbly, mildly astringent mixture she was sipping. He removed his pince-nez, massaged the bridge of his nose and replaced to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the \"That sounds like the way a man would play a game,\" Sandra observed. Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player—a grandmaster, I mean—ever Business Machines has released. But in most chess positions the only sees twice as many moves ahead?\" Sandra objected. A stocky, bull-faced man with a great bristling shock of black, gray-flecked hair had halted abruptly by their table. He bent over Doc and began to whisper explosively in a guttural foreign tongue. Sandra's gaze traveled beyond the balustrade. Now that she could look corresponding tables, five large dully glassy chessboards, the White Sandra looked with quickening interest at the console of the Machine—a Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but \"Oh yes,\" Sandra assured him, \"but there are some other questions I minutes they start the clocks.\" While Sandra arranged for an interview with Jandorf after the day's playing session, Doc reordered his coffee. \"One expects it of Jandorf,\" he explained to Sandra with a philosophic shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. \"At least he didn't take your wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\" \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I look three moves ahead. Chess players would say that the Machine has a \"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his the Machine blindfold? How do you think of it?\" \"Gosh, I don't know. Say, Doc, is it really true that Master Jandorf has played 50 games at once blindfolded? I can't believe that.\" \"Of course not!\" Doc assured her. \"It was only 49 and he lost two of Sandra started to hunt through her pocketbook, but just then two lists Lysmov vs. Krakatower Grabo vs. Machine \"Cripes, Doc, they all sound like they were Russians,\" Sandra said after a bit. \"Except this Willie Angler. Oh, he's the boy wonder, isn't he?\" Doc nodded. \"Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting , though. I was swindled, Savvy. I was robbed.\" \"Willie!\" Doc said with some asperity. \"Miss Grayling is a journalist. She would like to have a statement from you as to how you will play against the Machine.\" \"I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler,\" Sandra said rapidly, for two months in advance. Waiter! I'm here, not there!\" And he went charging off. Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled. \"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?\" she said. Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. \"You must excuse in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize her best chess players at all adequately. I think the Russian players —the international chess organization) are also backing going two by two in close formation, but it gave Sandra the feeling of \"Will whoever wins this tournament become champion?\" This tournament is a round robin: each player plays one game with every Sandra said, consulting her program. \"Four out of ten have USSR after between the two countries,\" Doc said judiciously. \"Chess mastery \"You mean the one facing the Machine and talking to Jandorf?\" \"Yes. Now that's one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky. Hebrew legend.\" Sandra asked, \"What about Grabo and Krakatower?\" Doc gave a short scornful laugh. \"Krakatower! Don't pay any attention to him of beating them all! Please, don't get me started on Dirty Old Krakatower.\" \"Take it easy, Doc. He sounds like he would make an interesting article? Can you point him out to me?\" \"And Grabo?\" Sandra pressed, suppressing a smile at the intensity of He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the Scoreboard again. chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him The newcomer was of middle height, compact of figure and feature, with graying hair cut short and combed sharply back. Doc spoke his piece for Sandra. Simon Great smiled thinly. \"Sorry,\" he said, \"But I am making no predictions and we are giving out no advance information on the grandmasters, including all four Russians, were seated at their tables. Doc laughed happily—and so loudly that some people at the adjoining tables frowned. games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.\" \"Did the Machine beat him?\" Sandra asked. Doc shrugged. \"The scores weren't released. It was very hush-hush. its opponents, or beaming rays of death and hypnotism at them? I can imagine....\" While Doc chattered happily on about chess-playing robots and chess evidently and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical doctor. She'd read something about two or three coming over with the Russian squad. But Doc certainly didn't sound like a Soviet citizen. umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought old, American, Russian) and pick his brain.... She realized suddenly that the whole hall had become very quiet. Doc was the only person still talking and people were again looking at\n\n<question>:\nHow does Sandra meet the chess players?\n\n<options>:\nA Doc explains that she can use her tournament program to meet whichever player she wishes.\nB Doc tells her their chess history and introduces her to them as they pass by.\nC She uses her female charm to interest each player in an interview.\nD She interviews each player in accordance with who Doc is friends with, save for Dr. Krakatower.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
686	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nhis eyebrows went up, and he made a beeline for Doc. Sandra wondered if Her last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the first American manned circum-lunar satellite—and the five alternate pairs who hadn't made the flight. This tournament hall seemed to Sandra Circum-Terra?\" \"Not worth the trouble. The play was feeble. Barely Expert Rating.\" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the Space Mirror \"Okay, lead on,\" Sandra said. \"You're the doctor.\" \"That'd go fine.\" Sandra leaned back. \"Confidentially, Doc, I was chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them. But what brings a sane and beautiful young lady to this 64-square madhouse?\" Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. By the time they were served, Doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other. \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers.\" He swallowed half his demitasse and \"Yes, Doc, but....\" Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question. Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as it would take them all the time there ever will be in the universe just to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the time needed to classify those games into branching families of wins for White, wins for Black and draws, and the additional time required to trace out chains of key-moves leading always to wins. So the Machine can't play chess like God. What the Machine can do is examine all the likely lines of play for about eight moves ahead—that is, four moves each for White and Black—and then decide which is the best move on the basis of capturing enemy pieces, working toward checkmate, establishing a powerful central position and so on.\" \"That sounds like the way a man would play a game,\" Sandra observed. \"Look ahead a little way and try to make a plan. You know, like getting out trumps in bridge or setting up a finesse.\" genius, but who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human interest already, even in the Machine.\" Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player—a grandmaster, I mean—ever look eight moves ahead in a game?\" \"Most assuredly he does! In crucial situations, say where there's a chance of winning at once by trapping the enemy king, he examines chess-playing computer. The first practical model, reported by Bernstein and Roberts of IBM in 1958 and which looked four moves ahead, was programmed so that it had a greedy worried tendency to grab only sees twice as many moves ahead?\" Sandra objected. \"There is a geometrical progression involved there,\" he told her with a smile. \"Believe me, eight moves ahead is a lot of moves when you remember that the Machine is errorlessly examining every one of thousands of variations. Flesh-and-blood chess masters have lost games by blunders they could have avoided by looking only one or two moves One of the five wall chessboards was considerably larger than the other four—the one above the Machine. Sandra looked with quickening interest at the console of the Machine—a them had just laid a black cable to the nearest chess table and were attaching it to the Siamese clock. Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but playing session, Doc reordered his coffee. \"One expects it of Jandorf,\" he explained to Sandra with a philosophic shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. \"At least he didn't take your wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\" \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I usual international rate of 15 moves an hour, and—\" \"Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?\" Sandra interrupted. \"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his moves. When a player makes a move he presses a button that shuts his Doc nodded. \"Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting to you the only grandmaster ever to have been ex-chess-champion of the prize will just fit the big hole in my bank account.\" \"I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler,\" Sandra said rapidly, \"but if after the playing session you could grant me—\" charging off. Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled. \"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?\" she said. Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. \"You must excuse them, though,\" he said. \"They really get so little recognition or in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize money is fabulous—$35,000, with $15,000 for first place, and all expenses paid for all players. There's never been anything like it. \"Yes. Now that's one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky. Been champion of the United States many times. A very strict Orthodox Jew. Can't play chess on Fridays or on Saturdays before sundown.\" He him . A senile has-been, it's a scandal he's been allowed to play in this tournament! He must have pulled all sorts of strings. Told them that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they very brilliant player and that the Machine is very lucky to have drawn him as its first opponent.\" He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the Scoreboard again. \"By no means. That was the trouble with some of the early chess-playing machines—they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world's chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him for the programming job. Let me tell you—No, better yet—\" Doc shot to his feet, stretched an arm on high and called out sharply, Doc spoke his piece for Sandra. games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.\" \"Did the Machine beat him?\" Sandra asked. famous chess-playing automaton of the 19th Century? That one too was supposed to work by machinery (cogs and gears, not electricity) but actually it had a man hidden inside it—your Edgar Poe exposed the story I think the chess robot will break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up and swing the deal. Only the millionaire's daughter, who is really a better player than either of them ... yes, yes! Your Ambrose Bierce too wrote a story about a chess-playing robot of the clickety-clank-grr kind who murdered his creator, crushing him like an iron grizzly bear imagine....\" While Doc chattered happily on about chess-playing robots and chess stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort evidently and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical doctor. She'd read something about two or three coming over with the this assignment completely and now she had it laid out cold. For the umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought that she wasn't a writer at all or even a reporter, she just used dime-a-dozen female attractiveness to rope a susceptible man (young,\n\n<question>:\nWhat role does Doc play in conjunction with Sandra?\n\n<options>:\nA He explains to Sandra that living human personality is key for beating the machine.\nB He shows Sandra around the tournament.\nC He explains to Sandra how the chess machine works and what the significance of each human chess player is.\nD He explains the history of chess scandals to Sandra.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
1,451	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 here's how the race shapes up. Bauer will frame it as a populist showdown, chiefly between himself and Forbes. Forbes will frame it as a fight between the establishment, led by Bush, and conservatives, led by himself. Dole will exploit feminism as well as feminine stereotypes, pitching herself as the candidate of change, civility, and moral renewal. And McCain will fortify his war chest while his rivals battle and bleed. Ames has organized the contestants. Let the games begin. This weekend's straw poll in Ames, Iowa, kicked off the 2000 presidential race and sorted out the Republican field. Everyone agrees that George W. Bush is the front-runner, that Steve Forbes is in second place, and that Dan Quayle, who finished back in the pack with Lamar Alexander, will soon join Alexander on the sidelines. But Ames failed to resolve the fate of the candidates who came in third and fourth--Elizabeth Dole and Gary Bauer--and the one who skipped Ames, John McCain. For these three, the post-game spin contest is crucial. Here's a playback of their takes on the straw poll results and a look ahead at their playbook of messages for the remainder of the race. Elizabeth Dole Playback 1. Top three. Dole needed to get within striking distance of Bush and to seal off the rest of the pack behind her. On Meet the Press , Face the Nation , and Late Edition , she boasted that she had cracked \"the top three.\" Pundits bought the three-winners line, treating Ames as a horse race (\"win, place, and show\") and noting that \"no one's ever won the Republican nomination without finishing in the top three\" at Ames. Newspapers, cramped for space, confined their headlines to Bush, Forbes, and Dole. Though Dole's 14 percent was closer to Bauer's 9 than to Forbes' 21, she earned a \"solid third\" and a place among the leaders by crossing the \"double-digit\" threshold. As Fox News' Carl Cameron put it: \"The other seven candidates could not crack double digits.\" 2. Race for third. Since Bush and Forbes were expected to finish first and second, many pundits concluded, as Lisa Myers put it on Meet the Press , that \"the real race here was for third. Elizabeth Dole won that.\" The Boston Globe called Dole \"the winner of this contest-within-the-contest.\" Dole touted her \"victory\" on every talk show and cited the Myers and Globe quotes in a press release. At a news conference, an aide introduced Dole as the straw poll's \"real winner.\" 3. Underdog. In every TV interview, Dole claimed to have been \"outspent by millions of dollars.\" Her spokesman told reporters that \"on a dollar-per-vote basis, Elizabeth Dole trounced George Bush and Steve Forbes.\" Reporters love an underdog. \"From a strict cost-benefit standpoint, the big winner may be Elizabeth Dole,\" concluded Time . 4. Comeback kid. Dismissive coverage of Dole before the straw poll played to her advantage, as everyone marveled at her \"surprisingly\" strong third. \"Dole Revived,\" the Washington Post 's front page proclaimed. On This Week , George Will conceded, \"There had been a lot of very skeptical stories about whether her people would show up. She, therefore, I think, is the biggest winner.\" Playbook 1. Race for second. Forbes wants to fast-forward the GOP tournament to a finals bracket: Bush vs. Forbes. To prevent this, Dole needs to create a semifinal playoff--Forbes vs. Dole--to determine who gets to play Bush. Despite Forbes' huge financial advantage, \"we finished close to second,\" Dole told reporters Saturday night. \"This is going to become a two-person race.\" The press agreed. \"Forbes had growing hopes ... that he might upset Bush or finish a close second,\" recalled the Post . Instead, \"he finished closer to Dole than to Bush.\" 2. Experience. Having narrowed the field to three, Dole needs to focus the contest on criteria that favor her. The first of these is political experience, of which Bush has little and Forbes has almost none. On every talk show, Dole vowed \"to demonstrate that the candidate with the most experience is more qualified than the candidates with the most money. ... We're talking about president of the United States.\" 3. Gender. This is the more obvious criterion that distinguishes Dole. She hardly needs to mention it--the media bring it up anyway--but she invokes it subtly, alluding (as she did on two Sunday talk shows) to \"women who drive their daughters halfway across the state to shake my hand, a woman they dare to believe in.\" Newspapers hail Dole's female followers as evidence \"that she can attract new voters to the GOP.\" 4. Underdog. Bauer couldn't claim to be more strapped than Dole, so he claimed underdog status on the basis of low name recognition, inexperience, and working-class heritage. \"I am running against some big bios ... the son of a former president, the son of a tycoon, and the wife of a senator,\" Bauer argued on Late Edition . \"I have never run for president or office before. And yet here we come in fourth place.\" Newsweek 's David Brooks wrote that Bauer \"overcame his own financial disadvantages\" and joined Dole as the two surviving \"Have-Not candidates.\" 1. Buchanan will defect. Since Buchanan's combativeness and loyal base make him hard to write off as a candidate, his rivals have persuaded the media at least to write him off as a Republican by inferring that his low score at Ames will prompt him to transfer to the Reform Party. The more Buchanan fends off comparisons to Bauer by emphasizing his protectionism, the more he plays into this scenario. 3. Viability. \"Once the dust has settled from the straw poll,\" McCain regally announced, \"I will review the new political landscape\" and begin \"engaging the other Republican candidates.\" Why does McCain get a bye? Because he has convinced the media that he has enough money and support in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other states to skip Iowa and catch fire later. Newsweek , the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , and several TV pundits agreed that McCain remains formidable, wasn't hurt by Ames, and may well end up as the principal alternative to Bush. 2. Ethanol. Many pundits, fancying themselves shrewd, suggest that McCain's true reason for skipping Iowa is that he has \"taken a position on ethanol subsidies that's unpalatable to voters in Iowa.\" On This Week , Stephanopoulos suggested that McCain might \"have to do something dramatic,\" such as \"make a stand and say, 'We're not going to compete in Iowa. We think these ethanol subsidies are an abomination.' \" This is McCain's greatest triumph: He has conned the media into disbelieving his political calculations and accusing him instead of principle. \"I've taken a lot of unpopular positions,\" he conceded on Fox News Sunday . 3. Experience. The longer McCain stays out of the race without damaging his credibility, the more the field narrows to his advantage. Alexander and Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, are already gone. Quayle and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, won't be far behind. If the field dwindles to Bush, Forbes, and Bauer, McCain can sell himself as the only experienced officeholder running against Bush. But Dole's third-place finish at Ames, coupled with her victory in the post-Ames spin contest, complicates this plan.\n\n<question>:\nHow does the author seem to feel about the upcoming presidential race?\n\n<options>:\nA surprised by the atypical political happenings\nB excited to see how the contestants \"battle\"\nC confident that it will be a close race between the four\nD convinced that he already knows how the race will end\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
2,416	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>:\ntreasures most. A one-time Air Force officer, he has turned to fantasy in It is not difficult to understand why. The working model and the fact that the small people with their quick eyes and clever fingers could spot all sorts of minute shortcomings was a great help. And I was small, mischievous pilots had a rendezvous with destiny—on Earth. I must his lighter moments, to bring us such brightly sparkling little gems as this. noises. It was in a park near the each other to hush, be quiet, and the soft breeze stirring them up again. I had known precisely such a secluded little green sanctuary just and under all conditions of friction and combustion.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Houlihan,\" said in a loose circle, as though attending me quietly. \"Mr. Houlihan,\" said Keech, \"you will not be forgotten by the leprechauns. If we ever meet again, upon another world perchance, you'll find our friendship always eager and ready.\" and so keep my part of the bargain.\" \"I'll not be needing the gold,\" I said. Keech's eyebrows popped upward. \"I'll not be needing it,\" I repeated. \"I don't feel it would be right to take it for a service of this sort.\" what the drive amounts to despite and structure— Oh, there is so much of this that if you're not a nuclear engineer yourself it's certain to weary you. I walked through the park, and word for it that without this equation—correctly stated, mind you—mankind would be well advised not to make a first trip to the moon. And all this talk of coefficients and slowly and chuckled to myself at how I had gotten the best of the little people. Surely it was not every But I am, after all, a scientist. If I had not been a specialist in my field I would hardly have found myself later, if they tried to spy out the right information I would take special measures to prevent it, for I had engaged in vital research at the their spaceship to work now, and of course. They would never get had given them the wrong equation, first it might be children at play, but then at the time I was a bit absent-minded. I tiptoed to the edge of the trees, not wanting to deprive in the glade with Keech and his working model. It would go down in scientific literature now, I suppose, as Houlihan's Equation, and that was honor any small scalawags of their pleasure, do without Keech's pot of gold, group of little people, hard at work. There was no sense in cheating him out of the gold to boot, for leprechauns are most clever in matters of this sort and he would have had it back soon enough—or else made it a burden in some way. Indeed, I had done a piece of work greatly to my advantage, and also to the advantage of humankind, and when a man can do the first and include the second as a fortunate byproduct it is a most happy accident. For if I had shown the little people how to make a spaceship they \"Come along now, people!\" said this crotchety one, looking straight work! You'll not be needin' to mind that man standin' there! You know he can't see nor hear us!\" Oh, it was good to hear the rich old tongue again. I smiled, and the foreman of the leprechauns—if that's what he was—saw me smile and became stiff and alert for a moment, as though suspecting that perhaps with us! He's a believer! Run everybody—run away! I'll not be hurting you!\" They continued to scurry. I knew what it was they feared. \"I don't intend catching one of you!\" I said. \"Come back, you daft little creatures!\" But the glade was silent, and they wanted their crock of gold, of course. I'd be entitled to it if I could catch one and keep him. Or so the legends affirmed, though I've wondered often about the truth of them. even if I had latched on to a fine job of work for almost shamefully the glade where the curious shiny and looked about the glade. I knew they were all hiding nearby, watching \"Listen to me now, little people!\" had been shy. Yet without reaching don't show yourselves and come out The glade remained deathly silent. suddenly appeared. The leader—he seemed more wizened and bent than before—approached me slowly and warily as I stood there. The others all followed at a safe distance. I smiled to reassure in a friendly gesture of greeting. drawing a kind of peppered dignity up about himself, \"in such matters I am never fully convinced. After living for many centuries I am all too acutely aware of the perversity of human nature.\" \"Yes,\" I said. \"Well, as you will quickly see, all I want to do is \"And often that's all he wants,\" He shook his head and remained it if you'll go away and leave us to our work.\" and glanced at the spaceship. \"That's exactly what's got me curious.\" The others had edged in a bit this lonely place?\" must confess that does \"Invited by the American government to work on the first moon can advise you of it.\" \"A scientist, is it,\" said Keech. \"Well, now, that's very interesting.\" \"I'll make no apologies for it,\" I said. \"Oh, there's no need for apology,\" said Keech. \"Though in truth we prefer poets to scientists. But it has just now crossed my mind, Mr. Houlihan that you, being a scientist, might be of help to us.\" adopting some of the old manner. \"Leprechauns are not really mechanically inclined,\" said Keech. \"Their major passions are music and laughter and mischief, as anyone knows.\" \"Myself included,\" I agreed. would a man unravel a statement such as that?\" \"It's very simple. With all the now. We've spied upon you and learned how to do it. Well—almost how to do it. We haven't learned working on that. 'Tis not our concern. I was inclined to suggest the understand all of your high-flyin' science, but some of our people are pretty clever at gettin' up replicas \"You mean you've been spying on us at the center all this time? Do you know, we often had the feeling we were being watched, but we thought it was by the Russians. There's one thing which puzzles center. \"You're determined to go.\" \"Truly we are, Mr. Houlihan. has crossed my mind. That's why I'm wastin' all this time with you, sir. You say you are a scientist.\" \"A nuclear engineer.\" \"Well, then, it may be that you can help us—now that you know we're here.\" \"The power control, Mr. Houlihan. As I understand it, 'tis necessary to know at any instant exactly finally, \"why should I help you?\" \"Ha!\" said Keech, grinning, but not with humor, \"the avarice of humans! I knew it! Well, Mr. Houlihan, I'll give you reason enough. The pot o' gold, Mr. Houlihan!\" \"Go ahead.\" \"We'll not be needin' gold where we're goin'. It's yours if you show to be quiet while I sat and the aid of diagrams, as engineers are wont to do. Although the pencils as you would a needle, I was able to make many sensible observations and even a few innovations. in a while someone from the town or the center itself would pass by, and stop to watch me. But of course they wouldn't see the leprechauns or anything the leprechauns had made, not being believers. I would halt work, pass the time\n\n<question>:\nWhy is the narrator unafraid to work openly in the park among the leprechauns? Others aren't believers\n\n<options>:\nA He feels that he and the leprechauns can protect themselves through cunning ways and physical strength\nB He doubts that his colleagues at the Center would ever venture outdoors to the park area\nC He knows that it is rare to find believers among his colleagues and fellow humans\nD He believes strongly in the importance of his collaboration with the leprechauns and is willing to take the risk of being discovered\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
280	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>:\nRADIO PLANET end. The morrow would decide the ascendancy of Myles Ralph Milne Farley “It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent. The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber of the dread thirteen: Formis and her I exclaimed, as my eye fell on the following item: SIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD and intelligent ant-men, her councillors. One of the twelve whether or not these messages come from Mars. Myles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance, First the accusation was read, Myles being furnished was competent to surmount these difficulties, and thus enable the Cambridge savants to receive with clearness the message from another planet. Twelve months ago he would have been available, for he was then quietly visiting at my farm, after five earth-years spent on the planet Venus, where, by the aid of radio, he had led the Cupians to victory over their oppressors, a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven in his own behalf. Myles rose, then shrugged his shoulders, won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia. While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented As this dispute reached its height, a messenger ant rushed in and held up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming on Cabot’s absence. Her response opened up an Barth on the other. The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that Cabot die.” Barth: “It is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye, members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling entirely new line of thought. with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of those powerful radio sets invented by the beast who is our prisoner here to-day. seas under the gallant leadership of Prince Yuri, the man and he has been in constant communication with these ever since shortly after our arrival here. From them he learned of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet Minos. “Mr. Farley?” who had analyzed the measurements of the streamline projectile in which Myles Cabot had shot to earth the account of the first part of his adventures on Venus. Some further adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay on my farm. “Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice continued. And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, the few people among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that Hammond is getting Venus. Can you run up here and help me try and convince him?” returned with me to Edgartown that evening for the purpose of trying to repair the wrecked radio set which Myles Cabot had left on my farm. They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting apparatus, and so—after the fallen tower had been reerected aid of some old blue prints of Cabot’s which Mrs. Farley, like Swiss Family Robinson’s wife, produced from somewhere. I was the first to try the earphones, and was rewarded by was Doggo. Messenger ants hurried hither and thither. 6 “One-X-X-B,” he continued the ticking “K.” Interplanetary communication was an established fact at last! And not with Mars after all these years of scientific speculations. But what meant more to me was that I was again in touch with my classmate Myles Standish Cabot, the radio man. The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied by a telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my farm. Myles’s own account of the amazing adventures on the planet had served in the wars in which Cabot had twice freed II TOO MUCH STATIC Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments of modern terrestrial science for the Cupia from the domination of its Formian oppressors. benefit of the Cupian nation. He was the regent of Cupia boiling seas no man knew. 9 During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had shot himself off into space on that October night on which he had received had been brewing all that evening, and just as Myles Myles sprang to his feet. To his intense surprise, he found As he stood thus expectant, Myles realized that his present even recognized one of the ant-men as old Doggo, who had befriended him on his previous visit. Said she: “Doesn’t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn’t Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been here suggest to you that this may be a message, not from for the three other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced alone. By the agitation of the beast’s antennae the earth man could see that it was talking to him. But Myles no longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he had contrived and built during his previous visit to that planet, so as to talk with Cupians and Formians, both of which races are earless and converse by means of radiations this a part of the executive session, obligingly translated the ground with a grimace of disgust and pointed to his ears. Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian shorthand on the silver sands the message: “Myles Cabot, you are our prisoner.” “What, again?” scratched Myles, then made a sign of there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles advanced menacingly toward Myles, but Doggo held them right and this time the sign language produced results, for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room. with the unseen sun. With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was to be Cabot’s quarters. Then, with another wave, he Then he passed the paper and stylus over to his old friend Doggo. They were alone together at last. The ant-man’s reply consumed sheet after sheet of paper but, owning to the rapidity of Porovian shorthand, did not Myles, who read as follows: New Formia. But how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he in turn took the pad and stylus and related how he had gone to the planet Minos (which we call the Earth) to learn the latest discoveries and inventions there, and how his from Lilla. But his recollection of her predicament spurred him to be anxious about her rescue. His immediate problem was to learn what the ant-men When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, “Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be Myles tactfully changed the subject. During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty of writing and eating at the same time. But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote: 17 “Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?” The ant-man indicated that he could. “If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant, whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed for the earth-man. These brought, the two friends patted each other a fond good\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Myles Cabot’s relationship to the narrator, Mr. Farley? Evidence of this?\n\n<options>:\nA They are both radio engineers, and presumably bothers. Cabot built a radio set and natter-transmitting device on Farley’s rooftop.\nB They met on Venus and became fast friends. Cabot helped Farley to plan a coup to usurp the arch-fiend Yuri, King of both Formia and Cupia.\nC They are both radio engineers, and presumably friends. Farley allowed Cabot to built a radio set and natter-transmitting device on his farm.\nD They met on Venus and became fast friends. Farley allowed Cabot to built a radio set and natter-transmitting device on his farm.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]
765	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHe was the man of two planets, drawn through the blackness of space to save a nation from ruthless invaders. He was Yandro, the Stranger of the Prophecy—and he found that he was destined to fight both sides. And at once there was an answer: \" You lie upon the world Dondromogon. \" I knew the language of that answer, but where it came from—above, yet again: \"Who am I?\" The voice had a note of triumph. \"You do not know that. It is as well, for this will be a birth and beginning of your destined leadership on Dondromogon.\" \"Destined—leadership—\" I began to repeat, and fell silent. I had need to think. The voice was telling me that I had been snatched from worlds away, for a specified purpose here on whatever windswept planet Dondromogon might be. \"Birth and beginning—destined leadership—\" Fantastic! And yet, for all I could say to the contrary, unvarnishedly true. \"Dondromogon?\" I mumbled. \"The name is strange to me.\" \"It is a world the size of your native one,\" came words of information. \"Around a star it spins, light-years away from the world of your birth. One face of Dondromogon ever looks to the light and heat, wherefore its metals run in glowing seas. The other face is ever away in cold darkness, with its air freezing into solid chunks. But because Dondromogon wavers on its axis, there are two lunes of its surface which from time to time shift from night to day. These are habitable.\" My eyes were tight shut against the dust, but they saw in imagination \"War is fought between the two strips of habitable ground. War, unceasing, bitter, with no quarter asked, given or expected. Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar. Now come invaders, to reap the benefits of discovery and toil.\" A pause. \"You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that myself violently free. What had seized me? That was my first wonder. On this strange world called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to heat and cold and storm, and built these stout structures, and now laid hands—were they hands indeed?—upon me? I swung around, setting my broad-faced middle-aged fellow. \"Don't lie any more than you can help.\" \"There's a bigger reward for capture than for warning,\" objected Both stared narrowly. \"No spy? No enemy?\" asked the broad-faced one who had first spoken. Then, to his comrade: \"No reward, then.\" heavily. Triumphant laughter came from both adversaries. Then: \"I tell the truth,\" was my reply, not very gracious. \"You will have to prove that,\" he admonished me. \"What proof have I?\" I demanded. \"On this world of yours—Dondromogon, \"The stranger of the prophecy!\" he cried, in a voice that made us all gold-bound book that is third from the right.\" Then he turned back, and bowed toward me. \"Surely you are Yandro, the Conquering Stranger,\" he said, intoning as if in formal prayer. \"Pardon these short-sighted ones—deign to save us from our enemies—\" The girl Doriza spoke to the officer: \"If Sporr speaks truth, and he generally does, you have committed a blasphemy.\" The other made a little grimace. \"This may be Yandro, though I'm a plain soldier and follow the classics very little. The First Comers are souls to worship, not to study. If indeed he is Yandro,\" and he was most respectful, \"he will appreciate, like a good military mind, my caution against possible impostors.\" \"Who might Yandro be?\" I demanded, very uncomfortable in my bonds and loose draperies. Old Sporr almost crowed. \"You see? If he was a true imposter, he would \"As it is, he may remember that the Conquering Stranger is foretold \"I still say you will understand my caution,\" he addressed me, with real respect and shyness this time. \"If you are Yandro himself, you can prove it. The prophecy even sketches a thumb-print—\" And he held the Rohbar, field commander of this defense position,\" he said with crisp \"Enemies?\" I repeated. \"The Newcomers,\" supplemented Doriza. \"They have taken the \"Other Side\" of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves at the poles. Now,\" and her voice rang joyously, \"you will lead us to defeat and crush them utterly!\" \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow.\" of which Sporr spoke. sight of me, something like a grin of triumph flashed through his beard. Then he bowed, supple and humble, his palms together. \"It is indeed Yandro, our great chief,\" he mumbled. Then he turned and crossed the room. A sort of mouthpiece sprouted from the wall. \"I announce,\" he intoned into it. \"I announce, I, Sporr, the reader and fore-teller of wisdom. Yandro is with us, he awaits his partners and friends. Let them meet him in the audience hall.\" \"I serve Yandro,\" she vowed tremulously. \"Now and forever—and happy that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all Dondromogon.\" \"Please get up,\" I bade her, trying not to sound as embarrassed as I felt. \"Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.\" \"I am Yandro's orderly and helper,\" she said. Rising, she ranged herself at my left hand. \"Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited of Dondromogon's sunlit face is ever rising, and the cold air from the dark side comes rushing under to fill the vacuum. Naturally, our strip of twilight country is never free of winds too high and fierce to together? They should fight, not each other, but the elements.\" Doriza had no answer that time, but Sporr spoke up behind us: \"Great Yandro is wise as well as powerful. But the Newcomers do not want to help, not even to conquer. They want to obliterate us. There is nothing to do—not for lifetimes—but to fight them back at the two poles.\" \"Doriza, gentlewoman of the guard, conducts Yandro, the Conquering Stranger, to greet his lieutenants!\" others, who may have lived too long in their earth-buried shelters. And Doriza now spoke to the gathering: \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\" \" Yandro! \" They all spoke the name in chorus, and bowed toward me. they true?\" \"The tenth part of the wonders which concern mighty Yandro have not been told,\" intoned Sporr, ducking his bearded head in a bow, but the dignified folds of his purple robe. One carefully-tended hand brushed back his ginger-brown hair, then toyed with a little moustache. \"I am Gederr, senior of this Council,\" he purred. \"If Yandro permits, I will speak simply. Our hopes have been raised by Yandro's return—the return presaged of old by those who could see the future, and more recently by the death in battle of the Newcomer champion, called Barak.\" \"You honor me,\" I told him. \"Yet I still know little. It seems that I am expected to aid and lead and save the people of this world called Dondromogon. But I must know them before I can help.\" Gederr turned his eyes upon the woman with the red hair, and gestured to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n\n<question>:\nWhat statement would the narrator most likely agree with?\n\n<options>:\nA He does not fully understand how or why he is Yandro.\nB The inhabitants of Dondromogon are unwelcoming no matter his status.\nC The inhabitants of Dondromogon are playing a joke on him.\nD He has been mistakenly selected by the people of Dondromogon.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,537	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nFight Clubbed Fight Club , a movie about a fictional organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp, has provoked more than its share of media hand-wringing, particularly diatribes about Hollywood's infatuation with violence and Faludi-esque ruminations about the emasculated American male. Fight Club , however, has not sparked an iota of interest in a real organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp: the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC's flameout from national sensation to total irrelevance is a tragedy of American sports, a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia. UFC began in 1993 as a locker-room fantasy. What would happen if a kickboxer fought a wrestler? A karate champion fought a sumo champion? Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. \"There are no rules!\" bragged an early press release. Contestants would fight till \"knockout, submission, doctor's intervention, or death.\" UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Four-hundred-pound men were sent into the Octagon to maul guys half their size. Only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden. The gimmick entranced thousands of people (well, men). What happens when a 620-pound sumo champion fights a 200-pound kickboxer? Answer: The kickboxer knocks him silly in 35 seconds. They tuned in for bloodshed--\"the damage,\" as fans like to call it. UFC fights could be horrifying. Tank Abbott, an ill-tempered, 270-pound street fighter, knocks out hapless opponent John Matua in 15 seconds. Then, before the ref can intervene, Abbott belts the unconscious Matua in the head, sending him into a fit, limbs quivering uncontrollably, blood spurting from his mouth. Abbott, naturally, became a cult hero and won a guest spot on Friends . (Matua walked out of the ring.) Soon, UFC was selling out huge arenas and drawing 300,000 pay-per-view subscribers for its quarterly competitions. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. \"UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight,\" says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . UFC fell victim to cultural determinism about what a fight is. In countries such as Brazil and Japan, where no-holds-barred fighting has a long history, it is popular and uncontroversial. But Americans adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. A fight consists of an exchange of upper-body blows that halts when one fighter falls. Any blood sport can be barbaric, whether it's boxing or wrestling or ultimate fighting. It is impossible to draw a bright line between ultimate fighting and boxing. If anything, ultimate fighting is safer and less cruel than America's blood sport. For example, critics pilloried ultimate fighting because competitors fought with bare knuckles: To a nation accustomed to boxing gloves, this seemed revolting, an invitation to brain damage. But it's just the reverse: The purpose of boxing gloves is not to cushion the head but to shield the knuckles. Without gloves, a boxer would break his hands after a couple of punches to the skull. That's why ultimate fighters won't throw multiple skull punches. As a result, they avoid the concussive head wounds that kill boxers--and the long-term neurological damage that cripples them. Similarly, the chain-link fence surrounding the octagon looks grotesque. Critics have demanded that UFC install ropes instead. But ropes are a major cause of death and injury in boxing: Fighters hyperextend their necks when they are punched against the ropes, because nothing stops their heads from snapping back. The chain-link fence prevents hyperextension. When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: \"Don't people get killed all the time doing that?\" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC--though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring. and 2) the same cable outfits carried boxing matches, R and NC-17 movies, and professional wrestling shows far more violent than UFC. The UFC's \"addressable audience\"--the potential number of PPV subscribers--shrank from 35 million at its peak to 7.5 million today. \"It was a very cheap way for the cable companies to portray themselves as anti-violence. It did not cost them much and it made them look good in Washington,\" says Carol Klenfner, spokeswoman for UFC's parent company, SEG. In the past two years, an increasingly desperate UFC has been trying to assuage its critics. The competition, which had been gradually adding safety rules since the first fight, imposed even more. It institued rounds and a \"10-point must\" scoring system. It banned head butts and groin strikes. You can no longer kick a downed man or elbow someone in the back of the head. Fighters are required to wear thin martial arts gloves (a purely cosmetic change). The UFC imposed weight classes, ending the David-and-Goliath mismatches that made early fights so compelling. None of this soothed the cable operators, who have kept UFC off the air. The pay-per-view audience has plunged from 300,000 per show to 15,000. UFC can no longer afford its best fighters: Some are fighting overseas. Others, notably Ken Shamrock (Frank's brother), have become pro wrestlers. Fights have deteriorated. UFC is limping along, but it has been reduced to scheduling events in Japan and Brazil. \"Sports fans want to grow with the sport,\" says former UFC fighter David Beneteau. \"They want to recognize the athletes. They want to see the same fighters come back. When you compare UFC now to what it was, the fighters are not the same, the rules are not the same. The fans have no story to follow.\" and there's not a TV camera in sight. Ultimate fighting should have become boxing. Instead it has gone underground. It has become Fight Club.\n\n<question>:\nWhat point is being made by comparing Fight Club to the UFC?\n\n<options>:\nA While Fight Club glorifies the emasculated American male, the UFC tells a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia.\nB The UFC now actually thrives in a context similar to that of the fictional organization.\nC Both organizations share the same rules, but neither can talk about it.\nD Both organizations consist of men who strp down and beat each other to the pulp.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]
1,137	quality	[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Anybody who shunned a Cure needed his head examined—assuming he had one left! serious about this, why not just the shoes?\" to talk like that. We psychiatrists can't turn back the clock. There just aren't enough of us or enough time to give that old-fashioned therapy to all the sick people.\" we have to burn a three-dimensional smiling mother-image on the eyes of the patient with radiation? With that image over everything he sees and mean to say that man's senses will only be impaired 23 per cent? Why, he'll turn violently schizophrenic sooner or later—and you know it. The only cure we have for that is still a strait jacket, a padded cell or one of those inhuman lobotomies.\" Morgan shrugged helplessly. \"You're an idealist.\" A young man with black glasses and a radar headset (a photophobe) was Hydra-sized spiked dog collar. Mouse-hair stood by tensely as the crowd sporting a Mom-voice hearing aid and was afraid of raising her ire. He at your Cure and don't ask you to go walking in the rain. But even after seeing left ear. Infield supposed it was a Cure, although he had never issued one like it. He didn't know if it would be good form to inquire what kind it was. \"It's a cure for alcoholism,\" Price told him. \"It runs a constant blood check to see that the alcohol level doesn't go over the sobriety limit.\" \"What happens if you take one too many?\" temple and kills me.\" The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed to save lives, not endanger them. \"What kind of irresponsible idiot could have issued such a device?\" he \"I did,\" Price said. \"I used to be a psychiatrist. I was always good in shop. This is a pretty effective mechanism, if I say so myself. It can't be removed without causing my death and it's indestructible. some point in time rather than space. Price lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. \"Reggie is studying biblical text. Cute gadget. His contact lenses are made up of a lot of layers of polarized glass. Every time he blinks, the amount of polarization changes and a new page appears. His father once told him that if he didn't study his Bible and pray for him, his old dad would die.\" The psychiatrist knew the threat on the father's part couldn't create such a fixation by itself. His eyebrows faintly inquired. \"What'll you have, Georgie?\" Reggie asked. Reggie smiled—a toothy, vacant, comedy-relief smile. \"Fine. The Good Book says a little wine is good for a man, or something like that. I don't remember exactly.\" Of course he didn't, Infield knew. Why should he? It was useless to learn his Bible lessons to save his father, because it was obvious his father was dead. He would never succeed because there was no reason to succeed. But he had to try, didn't he, for his father's sake? He didn't hate his father for making him study. He didn't want him to die. He had to prove that. Infield sighed. At least this device kept the man on his feet, doing some kind of useful work instead of rotting in a padded cell with a probably imaginary Bible. A man could cut his wrists with the edge of a sheet of paper if he tried long enough, so of course the Bible would be imaginary. \"But, Georgie,\" the waiter complained, \"you know you won't drink it. Reggie went away. Price kept dissecting the tobacco and paper. Infield Cured,\" he said as a reminder. Price looked up, no longer interested in the relic of a cigarette. He was suddenly intensely interested and intensely observant of the rest imposed upon many ill minds. He could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view. Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop secondary symptoms. People would start needing two Cures—perhaps a foetic gyro and a safety belt—then another and another. There would always be a crutch to lean on for one thing and then room enough to develop something else—until everyone would be loaded down with too many Cures to A Cure was a last resort, dope for a malignancy case, euthanasia for the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and the race. Reggie's heavy hand sat a straight bourbon down before Price and He's not an alcoholic. He didn't need to put that Cure on his head. It's just an excuse for not drinking. All of this is just because a while back something happened to the baby here—\" she adjusted the don't you tell him it's silly?\" Before Infield could move, Reggie came and set both drinks on a little psychiatrists are sensitive about wearing Cures themselves, but it is a Cure and eager to Cure others. Very your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the other Cured psychiatrists give everybody who comes to you a Cure?\" vacant-eyed Reggie. He came back toward them, carrying the bottle in why shouldn't he like to make Mrs. Price screamed. \"The Cure! If you get that much liquor in his system, it will kill him!\" She rocked the rag doll in her arms, trying to soothe it, and stared in horror. You broke the Code all the way,\" Reggie said. \"The Good Book says 'Thou shouldn't kill' or something like that, and so does the Code.\" \"Let him go, Reggie,\" Price choked out, getting to his feet. \"I'm not same as when he had diagnosed his first case. No, better than that. \"That taste of liquor didn't kill you, Price. Nothing terrible happened. You could find some way to get rid of that Cure.\" Price stared at him as if he were a padded-cell case. \"That's different. I'd be a hopeless drunk without the Cure. Besides, no one ever gets rid of a Cure.\" Cures instead of more, Price. Look, if I can show you that someone can discard a Cure, would you get rid of that—if I may use the word— thing on your head?\" mustn't get wet.\" \"Well, there's no liquor out there and you can study your text in the lightning flashes, Reggie. Come on.\" books. He had had a latent fear of lightning when he chose the lightning rod Cure. He could have picked a safety belt or foetic gyro just as well. know what Price and Reggie planned to do when they caught him. He Reggie said, \"We shall make a sacrifice.\" managed to get all his fingers around two of Reggie's. He jerked and erect by holding to Reggie's arm. Staggering to his feet, he remembered overhead, but he did need some kind of lightning rod. Price (who was right behind him, gaining) had been right. No one could discard a Cure. He watched the lightning play its light on the blade of his Cure and he knew that Price was going to kill him in the next moment. He was wrong. Reggie squinted under the bandage at the lettering on the door that Reggie went out. \"Yes, sir. He was struck by lightning, struck dead. He him, of course. Morgan adjusted the soundproofing plugs in his ears, thinking that you did have to have quite a bit of light to read lips.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Reggie wear glasses?\n\n<options>:\nA He wants to study passages from the Bible in order to honor his deceased father.\nB He is forced to read passages from the Bible or else his father will die.\nC If he doesn't study biblical scriptures, then he will die and go to Hell (according to his father).\nD It is his Cure for bad eyesight and also allows him to study the Bible, which is his favorite book.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
117	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>:\nMONOPOLY By Vic Phillips and Scott Roberts 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— [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 all, chief? Gonna quit now?\" still on the vitamin research they had been conducting, he barely heard the remarks that followed him. \"One of these days the chief is going to have his glands catch up with him.\" \"Not a chance,\" Pete Brent grunted. Brian Hanson wondered dispassionately for a moment how his assistants could fail to be as absorbed as he was by the work they were doing, Consolidated had built up this city and practically everything else that amounted to anything on this planet. True, there had been others, pioneers, before the company came, who objected to the expansion of the monopolistic control. But, if they could not realize that the company's 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. He heard there had been killings, but that was nonsense. Venus He dismissed the whole business as he did everything else that did not directly influence his own department. irradiated water. He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful \"What do you want?\" There was no answer uniform. \"Sorry, sir, but one of those rebels is loose in the Administration \"Well, you can check out I haven't got any blasted rebels in here.\" The policeman's face hardened, then relaxed knowingly. \"Oh, I see, sir. No rebels, of course. Sorry to have disturbed you. it should be, but the outline under the counterpane and the luxuriant mass of platinum-blond hair on the pillow was certainly no part of his regular routine. 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.\" struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his complete relaxation. A hammering thunder burst on the outer door. He sat up with a groan. \"Lay off, you crazy apes!\" he yelled furiously, but the pounding \"Quit stallin', bud. You know who. That female rebel who was in here.\" \"Rebel? You're crazy! That was just ... Pete said ... rebel? Did you say rebel?\" \"Yeah, I said rebel, an' where is she?\" for months she's a rebel and she's sure been raising plenty of hell around here. She got in and blew out the main communications control as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"There's nothing to give away, you fool!\" Brian bellowed. \"I don't know anything about any damn rebels. All I want is to get out of here—\" frustrated fury. that way!\" he yelled wildly. \"Guards! Help!\" \"Shut up! Do you want to get us shot?\" \"Sure I do. Guards! Guards!\" Someone came running. cooked now. Whether you like it or not, you'll hang with us when they find us trying to get you out of here.\" bathrobe, leading a band of escaping rebels out of the company's best behind them, they'd have to surrender and there'd be no explaining a gasping grunt of pain as one of the rebels went down. They were away.\" \"That's just what we're doing,\" Crystal snapped. \"Everybody out.\" The rebels piled out and the cars pulled away to become innocuous parts of the traffic stream. The rebels seemed to know where they were going \"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 \"Well, what the dickens does he look like?\" Brian asked doubtfully. Two of the rebels pulled a screening tarpaulin aside and revealed rebels crowded into it and they went rumbling swiftly down the echoing passage. The lights of the car showed the old working, rotten and crumbling, fallen in in some places and signs of new work where the rebels had cleared away the debris of years. of the two ships and the rest of the rebels manned the other. \"You're crazy, you can't get through there.\" \"Oh, yeah? Just watch this.\" The ship thundered to life beneath them \"We're going to crash! That gap isn't wide enough!\" into some semblance of order. \"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?\" \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others doing?\" The slower rebel freight ship staggered drunkenly as a torpedo caught outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\" \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's just normal practice. If you'd stuck your nose out of your laboratory once in a while, you'd have heard of these things.\" could not match the maneuver. The rebel craft plunged down through the \" Phew! \"Well, you don't do it on faith. Take a look at that fuel gauge! We may get as far as our headquarters—or we may not.\" it up and up— \"Look! Police ships. They've seen us!\" \"Maybe they haven't. Anyway, there's only one place we can land.\" \"Are you crazy? Watch out—we'll crash!\" thundered to life, streaked across the floor and burst out through the opening Crystal's ship had left. \"He hasn't got a chance! We'll be spotted for sure, now.\" The other rebels waited uncertainly, but not for long. There was the an explosion. \"It's that Serono Zeburzac, the traitor. He knows these mountains as well as we do.\" \"How come?\" \"The Zeburzacs are one of the old families, but he sold out to McHague.\" \"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 around so their rocket exhausts sweep the entrance to the cavern,\" Brian suggested doubtfully. She looked at him steadily. \"You sound like the only good rebel left. We can try it, anyway.\" \"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!\" maneuver, fussing with the throttle till he had the fuel mixture adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust subtle, intangible thunder of vibration. it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn vegetation. 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 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 do you think is most likely an accurate description of the rebellion?\n\n<options>:\nA It's probably on the right side of history, given the violence of the opposition.\nB It's only a disruption, stopping it is what will maximize the good in the world.\nC It's just as bad as what it's fighting, a peace treaty is the most likely and the best solution.\nD It's widely supported and few oppose it.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]
1,357	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>:\nWhy do people commit suicide? Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration Eckert, you have but to ask.\" It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's menshar of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way.\" \"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you because, at one time or another, they had had to. It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself. Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out. He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton should have done it? If, of course, he had.... The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy perfume. Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records, resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind, so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little flower-covered plot where they had buried him. Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles, needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed. People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they didn't. But sometimes they were murdered. It was almost black inside the cabin now keep open much longer. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had killed himself. But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it. Who had killed Cock Robin? The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no information?\" A drowsy mumble from the other cot: \"He wasn't there long enough. He committed suicide not long after landing.\" The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed and Templin. his tunic. He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton had been a pretty good friend of his. seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along, Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end.\" He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every corner. \"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's keep an open mind until we know for certain.\" He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's. power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his Eckert hefted it in his palm. \"The most important thing is that they seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything. \"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?\" Templin nodded. \"Sure.\" \"Why?\" \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton nobody has volunteered any information about him. And he was an attache here for three years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends, yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any information about him is being withheld for a reason.\" Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the \"Does it? I hadn't noticed.\" Eckert turned away from the blinds. His voice was crisp. \"I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too,\" he said. \"But it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already made up your mind.\" \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was suicide?\" \"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret if Templin ever finds out that I sabotaged his power pack. Eckert.\" \"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in any way, Nayova.\" Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he knew about Pendleton's death. \"So far as I know, menshar Pendleton offended no one. I do not know what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous man.\" Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. Pendleton had killed himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to believe he had done such a thing.\" information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction Pendleton did. It is ...\" and he used a native word that Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \" obscene\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't a secret that Eckert has kept from Templin?\n\n<options>:\nA he broke Templin's power pack\nB they're living in the same place as Pendleton did\nC he expects Templin to act just like Pendleton did on Tunpesh\nD he knows that Pendleton didn't commit suicide\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]
1,387	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... and it comes out here By LESTER DEL REY Illustrated by DON SIBLEY You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button, prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button, and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no . You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can and you don't try it again. You turn to me, getting used to the idea. \"So this is the fourth Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it \"Not exactly,\" I try to explain. \"Maybe it's no dimension—or it might if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without 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. 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 \"Where are we getting our air?\" you ask. \"Or why don't we lose it?\" time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You \"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 I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming You nod, remembering I've told you about it. \"What century is this, 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.\" \"What about the time machine?\" you ask. future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says \"first\" back at us. that announces: passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get the hang of the spelling they use, though. Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you. Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well, people don't change much. \"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss,\" he tells you. Around you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know. You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You guard. What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather pleasant. \"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period. Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our oldest tapes.\" seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row \"Souvenir,\" it announces in a well-modulated voice. \"This is a typical You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the there is one labeled marked lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order, and the latest one, marked , is about the size of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier, You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the and full patent application. They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel, and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly \"Not particularly,\" you begin, and then realize bad manners might be conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls something out of his pocket and stares at it. arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine it, either. they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect. 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 You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact, happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say. Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there. You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is 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 reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one beside it and you finally decide on that. 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 nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with 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 It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice something. in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital letter. But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer. 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\n\n<question>:\nWhich item doesn't get mentioned while they're in the year 2150?\n\n<options>:\nA flying vehicles\nB diamond makers\nC an elevator that you can't feel move\nD a modified English language\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

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