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[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Anybody who shunned a Cure needed his head examined—assuming he had one left! Henry Infield placed the insulated circlet on his head gently. The gleaming rod extended above his head about a foot, the wires from it Infield turned his soft blue eyes to the black and tan oxfords with the plate—steps or a manhole cover—what good would your lightning rod do Infield whirled and stalked to the desk. \"That's the answer! The whole cure anything. Eventually the savage dies—just as all those sick savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not only the indications.\" a nuclear explosion. The foetic gyro ball was worn day and night, for The sickness overcame him. He sat down on Morgan's desk. \"That's just one thing, the gyro ball. There are so many others, so many.\" Morgan smiled. \"You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so—so—not with that insidious voice drumming in his head night and day, do you 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.\" \"You're damned right!\" Infield slammed the door behind him. lightning rod, his face changing when he realized it must be some kind Suddenly something else was pushing against Infield, forcing the guy's got a lightning rod? You're grounding him! jabbed the button that sent a negative current through the cable. The magnetic suction dart dropped away from Infield like a thing that had releasing and drawing all his darts into his belt, making it resemble a The young man's eyes almost seemed to narrow, although his face didn't move he merely radiated narrowed eyes. \"How long have you been Cured?\" \"Not—not long,\" Infield evaded. Infield's pulse raced, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, and losing out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in cleared his throat, noticing the affectation of it. \"My name's Infield.\" 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?\" more interesting than what he was saying. \"It drives a needle into my temple and kills me.\" The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed to save lives, not endanger them. \"What kind of irresponsible idiot could have issued such a device?\" he \"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. himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly Infield looked up self-consciously and noticed that they had crossed Of course he didn't, Infield knew. Why should he? It was useless to 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 have them for generations, everyone who didn't have one developed a defense mechanism and an aberration so they would be normal. If that phobia isn't brought to the surface and Cured, it may arise any time Infield's throat went dry. \"And you're the one to deal with them?\" Doubly dangerous to Infield because, even though he was one of the few visibly thinking that he shouldn't run that routine into the ground. \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" Infield felt cold inside. After a time, he found that the roaring was not just in his head. It was thundering outside. He was getting sick. Price was the type of man who could spread his ideas throughout the ranks of the Cured—if indeed the plot was not already universal, imposed upon many ill minds. He could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view. Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop secondary symptoms. People would start needing two Cures—perhaps a foetic gyro and a But Infield let himself relax. How could anyone force a mechanical relief for neurotic or psychopathic symptoms on someone who didn't want or need it? 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 mark of honor of the completely sane man. You should be proud of your Cure and eager to Cure others. Very eager.\" Cure is not even thought of—hypochondria. Hundreds of people come to your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the other Cured psychiatrists give everybody who comes to you a Cure?\" unless they were absolutely necessary.\" \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself. Other psychiatrists have.\" Before Infield could speak, a stubble-faced, barrel-chested man moved Infield hit the big man behind the ear. He dropped the bottle and fell \"I'm going to kill you,\" he said, glaring at Infield. \"You made me fall Infield wasn't a large man, but he had pressed two hundred and fifty \"I'll do it if you cause more trouble.\" Infield sat down and rubbed his \"No. No, you aren't.\" Infield felt an excitement pounding through him, 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.\" \"I'll show you.\" He took off the circlet with the lightning rod and 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. excitement was all gone now and it left an empty space into which fear rushed. Infield looked up and saw the lightning reflected on the blade of a the knife fell into Infield's palm. The psychiatrist pulled himself It was his problem. Infield usually solved other people's problems, but Infield realized that he had gone mad as he held the thin blade high 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. The lightning hit him first. \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by lightning. We took him to the morgue. He must have been crazy to go Reggie went out. \"Yes, sir. He was struck by lightning, struck dead. He Morgan exhaled. Poor Infield. But it wasn't the lightning that killed The thunder, naturally, was what had killed Infield. Loud noise—any\n\n<question>:\nWhy has Infield attached a lightning rod to his head?\n\n<options>:\nA He needs it in order to survive the elements\nB He wants to go back to being an Incomplete\nC He is conducting an experiment involving electricity\nD He believes it has cured him of his fear\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes. be laughed at? Do you think we could stand a little discredit, making silly asses of ourselves? Because when I finish this book, we'll be laughed out of existence. There won't be any Authority in psionics for a while—and maybe that way one of the lads who's really \"No. Oh, no!\" \"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 deal with this morning—the one who's threatening to upset the whole \"Full psi precautions?\" asked Dorffman. sure of it. If Tommy's in the trouble I think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of Adult Contact now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands.\" get back to work again. The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the International Psionics Conference: In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic earlier papers had only hinted at the direction he was going—but 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. And they would find it a light shining brightly in the darkness, a For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds, with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. Nothing worked, and \"I'm really overwhelmed,\" he said after a moment. \"Within the stronghold of psionic research at last. And face to face with the Master in the trembling flesh!\" Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an misdirected, is all.\" \"According to your Theory, that is.\" \"Wildly unorthodox approach to psionics—but at least you're energetic enough.\" \"We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got why all. It's not inconceivable that the children \"Yes, wasn't it,\" mused Melrose, scratching his bony jaw. \"Only took them seventy years to climb it, thanks to a certain man's theories. I wonder how long it'll take psionics to crawl out of the pit you're digging for it?\" Lessing glared at him. \"When we began studying this psi-potential, we found out some curious things. For one thing, it seemed to be immensely more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults. Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We don't know what. We do know that the child's psi-potential gradually withdraws deeper and deeper into his mind, burying itself farther and farther out of reach, just the way a tadpole's tail is absorbed deeper underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get 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 monitors are quite effective—a simple Renwick scrambler screen.\" \"It blocks off all types of psi activity?\" asked Melrose. \"As far as we can measure, yes.\" \"Which may not be very far.\" 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.\" 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 penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch, nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered. Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of moments. \"Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually, had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he to see what I'm driving at,\" he said slowly. \"Yes,\" said Melrose. \"I think I'm beginning to see.\" He scratched his jaw. \"You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's potential underground—that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a sort of colossal candle-snuffer.\" \"That's what I think,\" said Lessing. \"How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?\" Lessing blinked. \"Why should they?\" \"Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down.\" \"But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall down.\" an Authority in a field where the most devastating thing that could see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force. \"Stop worrying about it,\" Dorffman urged. \"He's a crackpot. He's \"He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after \"I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away.\" \"Why do you hurt?\" horribly wrong—could the boy really be sensing the source of the trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He knew what happened when adult psi-contact struck a psi-high youngster's mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more—he had felt it in his own mind, bursting from the child. Like a violent 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 healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But an animal instinctively seeks its own protection sense of warmth—peace and security and comfort—swept in as the fear faded from the boy's face. The fire engine clattered to the floor. They analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest before. There must be an error.\" \"Of course,\" said Lessing. \"According to the theory. The theory says that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely. 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\n\n<question>:\nWhy will adult psi contact hurt the children?\n\n<options>:\nA Adult psi contact increases a child's psionic ability so much it can cause a psychotic break.\nB Adult psi contact overwhelms the children's brains. It gives them migraines.\nC Adult psi contact overwhelms the children's nervous systems. It gives them nose bleeds.\nD Adult psi contact dampens the children's natural psionic abilities. Eventually, adult psi contact will snuff out a child's abilities altogether.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in. 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 Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will. Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you how you feel I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago. Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two of the same people. You sense things. So I'll simply go ahead talking for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to there . You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can guess how things are. You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out 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 to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak. \"Not exactly,\" I try to explain. \"Maybe it's no dimension—or it might be the fifth the machine and I don't understand it.\" \"But....\" I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer. think about that then, either. I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss. \"Where are we getting our air?\" you ask. \"Or why don't we lose it?\" \"No place for it to go,\" I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement 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 future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says \"first\" back at us. grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you.\" You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream. You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later, You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might \"Where can I find the Museum of Science?\" \"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 of the walk: in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other 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 He beams at that. \"Of course.\" The gate is swung to behind you, but obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lock. \"Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though. Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our oldest tapes.\" You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining 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 the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever. Like to have me tell you about it?\" \"Not particularly,\" you begin, and then realize bad manners might be conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered, after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say. Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing happens, though. 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 dart past. seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting heavier at every step. before you. And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe. It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement, And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be 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 that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you. But now.... came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was futuristic Jerome so sure that past Jerome would invite him inside?\n\n<options>:\nA Because he himself had done so already.\nB Because he can see into the future.\nC Because he knows that his decisions have been altered by the machine.\nD Because he can hear the inner thoughts of his mind\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nFrom Venus to Earth, and all the way between, it was a hell of a world for men ... and Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly. O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the old what on Earth wasn't any more? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watch Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailed mouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Rielly saw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands of that O'Rielly could have torn down the universe and rebuilt it just for in his head. Never felt so fine before. Except on the Venus layover when he'd been roped into a dice game with a bunch of Venus lads who Callahan said something through his teeth, then studied O'Rielly \"Venus dames,\" O'Rielly said dreamily, \"don't boss anything, do they?\" Callahan yelped like he'd been bit in the pants by a big Jupiter ant. \"O'Rielly! You trying to get both of us condemned to a Uranus moon?\" Callahan also shot a wild look to the intercom switch. It was in OFF position \"Thousand years ago, it was, the first flight reached Venus. Guys got one look at them dames. Had to bring some home or bust. So then everybody on Earth got a look, mostly by TV only of course. That did \"Well, that's when Earth dames took over like armies of wild cats with knots in their tails. Before the guys who'd brought the Venus dames to Earth could say anything they was taken apart too small to pick up with a blotter. Earth dames wound up by flying the Venus ones back where they come from and serving notice if one ever set foot on Earth again there wouldn't be enough left of Venus to find with an electron microscope. \"Venus boys rared up and served notice that if Earth ever got any funny notions, right away there wouldn't be enough Earth left to hide in an atom's eyebrow. Touchy as hornets on a hot griddle, them Venus guys. Crazier than bed bugs about war. Could smell a loose dollar a million light years away too. Finagled around until they finally cooked up a deal. \"No Venus dames allowed within fifty miles of their port. Earth guys stay inside the high-voltage fence. Any dame caught trying to leave Venus thrown to the tigers for supper. Same for any Earth guy caught around a Venus dame. In return, Earth could buy practically everything at bargain basement prices.\" \"Oh, I was shown the history films in pre-flight,\" O'Rielly said, still dreamily. \"But not a peek of any Venus dame.\" \"Pray heaven you'll never lay eyes on one nor have one get within ten foot of you! Even though you'd know she'd be your damnation wouldn't With suddenly enlivened interest O'Rielly looked at Callahan. \"Hey, how Callahan glared fit to drill holes in O'Rielly's head. \"Look! I was was saved! And O'Rielly would now think of grand ways to save her was being slapped together again. \"O'Rielly! Awp, you angel-faced pirate, couldn't you hide her somewheres better than that? Shut up, you don't have to explain to me, but God help the whole universe if we O'Rielly's shower opened and Callahan, glowing like a young bucko, looked at O'Rielly and Callahan still lolling on the bunk. \"Believe you did, ma'am,\" Callahan responded cheerfully. \"And the betwixt O'Rielly's grand brain and Callahan's great experience she'd be drowned himself if he could. \"There are rewards,\" the Old Woman said with the deadly coldness of outer space, \"for Earthmen found in a Venus woman's company, and for her leaving her planet.\" O'Rielly, Callahan and Trillium. \"All right, come along!\" O'Rielly joined the death march gladly. He felt the way Callahan \"Presidents of Earth and Venus, please,\" the Old Woman stated evenly. \"Interplanetary emergency.\" Highly groomed flunkies appeared on the panels and were impersonally pleasant. The flunkies' faces went slack with shock, then were replaced by a blizzard of scrambled faces and torrents of incoherent voices. Finally on the Earth panel appeared the famous classic features. \"The \"An innocent child,\" Mr. President snapped, \"obviously kidnapped by those two idiotic Earthmen there!\" \"Oh, no, Grandpapa,\" Trillium said swiftly \"I stole away all by years ago.\" \"Hundred twenty-five,\" Grandpapa president growled like a boiling volcano. \"The year some Earthman.... Never did catch the devil.... Earth out of the universe. \"My grandchild was kidnapped by men under your official command! Weren't you, Trillium dear?\" \"No. One of us stowing away was the only way we Venus women could bring our cause to the attention of Earth's President. If Earth will only stop buying from Venus, you won't have any money to squander on your have to have something to keep their minds off their troubles! Nobody around here gets hurt. Oh, maybe a few scratches here and there. But nobody on Venus dies from the things any more.\" \"But Venus men are so excited all the time about going to war they Venus for ten thousand years and all the women in the universe can't change it!\" \"And new President of Venus, elected by unanimous vote of all women.\" \"Impossible! The men run Venus! Nobody's turning this planet into another Earth where a man can't even sneeze unless some woman says so!\" \"Take him away, girls,\" Berta ordered coolly, whereupon her spouse was yanked from view. His bellows, however, could be heard yet. \"Unhand me, you fool creatures! Guards! Guards!\" Venus women had our own men in our power.\" \"Those crewmen there,\" Grandmamma President said, \"seem to be proof enough that we Venus women no longer radiate any threat to Earth's tranquility.\" Mr. O'Rielly and Mr. Callahan be suitably rewarded for assisting our \"Oh, well,\" O'Rielly muttered, once he and Callahan were safely beyond Saturn? Lucky we ain't programmed to be hung, shot and thrown to the crows for breakfast.\" Callahan's old pick-and-shovel face wore a little grin like the cat that nobody could prove ate the canary. \"You—I mean, that Earth guy a hundred twenty-five years ago,\" O'Rielly said in sudden thought. \"If Venus dames wanted to be loved so bad, why did Trillium's Grandmamma let him go?\" \"Venus guys wasn't so busy playing war all the time,\" Callahan mumbled, like to himself, \"they'd of found out the answer centuries ago. Yep, guess our boy was the only guy on Earth or Venus to find out and live. Dames bossing both planets now, though, his old secret won't be one much longer. Venus dames could of let it out centuries ago themselves but didn't, just to spite Earth probably. Later, was part of organizing to take over Venus, I guess.\" O'Rielly still had memories of the way he had felt about Trillium \"Yes, ma'am,\" Callahan sighed like he hadn't heard a word O'Rielly\n\n<question>:\nWhat were Callahan and O'Rielly awarded for assisting the revolution?\n\n<options>:\nA They were allowed to visit with the women of Venus\nB They were allotted five minutes leisure before returning to their stations.\nC They were punished, rather than rewarded, and programmed to be hung, shot and thrown to the crows for breakfast.\nD Nothing, but they were spared from being condemned to a Uranus moon.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n. They were uncovering new talent at such a great rate, (Harl Vincent, David H. Keller, E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan, hundred and fifty stories. Eric Breuer), that Jack Williamson barely managed to become one of a distinguished group of discoveries by stealing the cover of the December issue for his first story Fletcher Pratt and Miles J. to imitate in style, mood and subject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. The imitation found great favor from the readership and almost . He followed his initial success AMAZING STORIES and The Alien Intelligence in Eric now recognized as a prominent SCIENCE WONDER STORIES , these stories were close copies of A. Merritt, whose style and method Jack Williamson parlayed into Yet the strange thing about it was that Jack Williamson was one of the most versatile science vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science, he created the memorable super lock-picker Giles Habilula as the major attraction When grim realism was the order of the day, he produced wanted extrapolated theory in present tense, he assumed the disguise of Will Stewart and popularized the concept of contra terrene matter in science fiction \"Why, hello, Eric, old man!\" with Shock. Finally, when only psychological studies of the future He confessed to a few pangs of and—\" \"Young man, if any harm appeal to the Society for the in existence at the time of the writing, the surmise that this media would be a natural for angrily, face highly colored, clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously out of the door through which westerns was particularly astute. Eric?\" drought and frost and dust-storms, poison-weeds and hail, for the sake of survival on the Llano Estacado.\" The discovery of was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fiction writer. He labored to this end and the first AMAZING STORIES Eric held up the silver flask. he knew that a story of his had Since then, he has written millions of words of science fiction and has gone on record as follows: \"I feel that science-fiction is the folklore of the new world of science, and the expression of man's reaction to a technological environment. By which I mean that it is the most interesting and stimulating form of literature today.\" heart when he looked up from his clattering machine. rumpled bed-clothing, a striking slender figure in purple-striped set you down. But I can't be responsible for what happens afterward.\" \"Simple, primitive life is what pajamas. He smiled fondly across bending exercises. But after a few half-hearted movements, he and also with scientific appliances that would have been strange to the man of four or five centuries before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning. Eric helped Nada to a place \"Go ahead. We aren't coming back.\" \"Gee! What is it? Elopement? With another yawn, Mr. Eric Nada and Eric felt themselves seated himself before a broad, their faces. Eric sat up, found \"It's wonderful to have a fine, green, that brought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's a bloody rock in one hand and strong man like you to trust in, He wrote \"thrilling action romances,\" as his enthusiastic publishers and television directors said, \"of ages past, when men were men. Red-blooded heroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordial life!\" He was impartial as to the source of his thrills—provided they were distant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be an ape-man roaring through the jungle, with Eric. You're just like one of the civilization! We're back to Nature!\" \"Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines.\" Or a cowboy, \"hard-riding, hard-shooting,\" the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches. Or a man His heroes were invariably strong, fearless, resourceful fellows, savage animals he had seen in the television. equal terms with a cave-man, or call science to aid them in defending marooned with a lovely woman a beautiful mate from Eric's novels, and watched the television screens. They thrilled at the simple, romantic lives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciously shared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from the life of man. Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing the sensuous delight of his tripping into the study, gay and vivacious, and—as her husband of a few months most justly thought—altogether beautiful in a bright silk dressing gown. Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to forget that his next \"red-blooded action thriller\" was say nothing of a mass of pure copper. \"Probably you're right. This soil seemed to be of alluvial origin. Shouldn't be surprised if with Nature, and growing things. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though the whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were no wild flowers, and no one had time to \"Matches! Of course not! \"Eric, darling,\" she said, \"isn't We're going back to Nature.\" bother about sunsets. things we both love?\" \"Yes, dear. Civilization has ruined the world. If we could only have lived a thousand years ago, when life was simple and natural, when men hunted and killed their meat, instead of drinking synthetic \"Eric, that reminds me that his own. They turned their attention stuff, when men still had the joys of conflict, instead of I'm hungry.\" contrary ideas about the matter. At last, from sheer weariness, by a vast fallen tree-trunk. Earth had before civilization ruined it.\" \"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red ray telescope, that penetrates seemingly not inconvenienced in the least by the inclement elements, begin life like the characters in this hateful civilization, and live natural lives. Maybe a rocket—\" The world seems to be in about the The Cosmic Express.\" \"The Cosmic Express?\" \"A new invention. Just perfected a few weeks ago, I understand. By Ludwig Von der Valls, \"Eric,\" a thin voice trembled. \"I've quit bothering about science. It has ruined nature, filled the world with silly, artificial people, doing silly, artificial things.\" \"But this is quite remarkable, the German physicist.\" dear. A new way to travel—by \"Eric?\" she called softly. \"Don't you wish—we had known better?\" change. The disintegration of the energy . And Millikan's old proof that his Cosmic of electricity are united to form weren't a scientist.\" He glowed with pride. \"But the method, in the new Cosmic Express, is simply Eric and Nada clung to each humans. Nada burst into tears. \"Oh, if only—if only—\" \"A darned shame,\" Eric grumbled, object and sets it down on the other side of the world. \"An analogy from television might help. You know that by means of the scanning disc, the picture is transformed into mere rapid fluctuations in the brightness \"So sorry—an accident—inconceivable. I can't see how he of the power is lost, and power is required to rebuild the Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding, noted author of primitive life and love, ate a hearty meal with his pretty spouse, after they had washed as much satisfaction from contemplation of each other's delivered his promised story to his publishers, a thrilling tale of faces as from the excellent food. a beautiful girl. The hero made stone tools, erected a dwelling for himself and his mate, hunted food for her, defended her from society—\" Eric laughed, fumbled with a minutes later Mr. Eric\n\n<question>:\nWhere does Eric view himself and others in relation to the modern world?\n\n<options>:\nA He believes that humans rely too much on modern technological advancements and are devolving as a result\nB He believes that scientists and inventors are responsible for the downfall of society\nC He believes that humans will never be content until they are able to perform any task without leaving the confines of their homes\nD He believes that technological advancement has swindled humans of their natural gifts and activities\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Illustrated by Freas Miss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the shoulder. \"You're doing just fine, Mr. Lieberman. Show it to me when you have finished.\" Miss Abercrombie smoothed her smock down over trim hips and surveyed the other patients working at the long tables in the hospital's arts and crafts shop. Two muscular and bored attendants in spotless whites, lounged beside the locked door and chatted idly about the Dodgers' complex of buildings that housed the main wards. The therapist strolled down the line of tables, pausing to give a word of advice here, and a suggestion there. She stopped behind a frowning, intense patient, rapidly shaping blobs of clay into odd-sized strips and forms. As he finished each piece, he \"And what are we making today, Mr. Funston?\" Miss Abercrombie asked. patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to draw away from the woman. \"We mustn't be antisocial, Mr. Funston,\" Miss Abercrombie said lightly, but firmly. \"You've been coming along famously and you must remember to answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very complicated.\" She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts. Thaddeus Funston continued to mold the clay bits and put them in place. thought you said an 'atom bomb.'\" \"Did,\" Funston murmured. Safely behind the patient's back, Miss Abercrombie smiled ever so slightly. \"Why that's very good, Mr. Funston. That shows real creative thought. I'm very pleased.\" She patted him on the shoulder and moved down the line of patients. A few minutes later, one of the attendants glanced at his watch, stood up and stretched. things.\" There was a rustle of paint boxes and papers being shuffled and chairs being moved back. A tall, blond patient with a flowing mustache, put one more dab of paint on his canvas and stood back to survey the meaningless smears. He sighed happily and laid down his palette. 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 warm, afternoon sunlight and the door closed behind them. Miss Abercrombie gazed around the cluttered room and picked up her chart book of patient progress. Moving slowly down the line of benches, she 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 As she drove out of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off to the patients' mess hall. The sun set, darkness fell over the stilled hospital grounds and the An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck the hospital buildings in a wave of force and the bursting crash of a thousand windows was lost in the fury of the explosion and the wild screams of the frightened and demented patients. the arts and crafts building. Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed with a small, secret smile on his lips. Attendants and nurses scurried through the hospital, seeing how many had been injured in the explosion. None had. The hills had absorbed most of the shock and apart from a In Ward 4-C, Thaddeus Funston slept peacefully and happily. \"It's impossible and unbelievable,\" Colonel Thomas Thurgood said for the fifteenth time, later that morning, as he looked around the group of \"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 \"Colonel, I've told you a dozen times,\" the hospital administrator said with exasperation, \"this was our manual therapy room. We gave our patients art work. It was a means of getting out of their systems, through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman.\" doctor. \"Where's that girl you said was in charge of this place?\" \"We've already called for Miss Abercrombie and she's on her way here now,\" the doctor snapped. Outside the tent, a small army of military men and AEC technicians moved tent. An armed MP helped Miss Abercrombie from the vehicle. expression. \"He did make an atom bomb,\" she cried. Colonel Thurgood, who had snapped from his chair at her words, leaped forward to catch her as she collapsed in a faint. At 4:00 p.m., the argument was still raging in the long, narrow staff room of the hospital administration building. Colonel Thurgood, looking more like a patient every minute, sat on the edge of his chair at the head of a long table and pounded with his fist on the wooden surface, making Miss Abercrombie's chart book bounce with every beat. At his left, Miss Abercrombie cringed deeper into her chair at the broadside. Down both sides of the long table, psychiatrists, physicists, strategists and radiologists sat in various stages of nerve-shattered weariness. \"Miss Abercrombie,\" one of the physicists spoke up gently, \"you say that The therapist nodded unhappily. \"And you say that, to the best of your knowledge,\" the physicist \"I'm positive that's all there was in it,\" Miss Abercrombie cried. another chance to repeat his bomb. But this time under our supervision.\" Thurgood leaped to his feet, his face purpling. greatcoat that concealed the strait jacket binding him and with an officer's cap jammed far down over his face, was hustled out of a small side door of the hospital and into a waiting staff car. A few minutes Abercrombie and with a roar, the plane raced down the runway and into military men huddled around a small wooden table. There was nothing on the table but a bowl of water and a great lump of modeling clay. While the psychiatrists were taking the strait jacket off Thaddeus in the staff car outside, Colonel Thurgood spoke to the weary Miss Abercrombie. \"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.\" Thurgood signaled to the doctors and they entered the shack with Thaddeus Funston between them. The colonel nudged Miss Abercrombie. 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. Miss Abercrombie stood at his shoulder as Thaddeus hunched over the from the shack. There was a moment of hushed silence and then pandemonium burst. The stony-faced military policemen. \"I told you this whole thing was asinine,\" Thurgood snarled as the a neatly-tied bundle. In the conference room, a red-faced, four-star general cast a chilling glance at the rumpled figure of Colonel Thurgood. \"I've listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel,\" the general said coldly, \"but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit\n\n<question>:\nWhat kind of person is Miss Abercrombie? Choose the best option\n\n<options>:\nA Cautious and discouraging\nB Impatient but well-meaning\nC Encouraging and strict\nD Patient but sometimes easily shaken\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 as phony as a three-dollar bill! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his \"He was a very kind employer,\" Orison said. She tried to keep from \"Beg pardon?\" \"What kinda salary you bucking for?\" he translated, bouncing up and down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots. to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal \"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?\" Orison asked. might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's By lunchtime Orison had finished the gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, \"What you're testing,\" Orison said in a firm voice, \"is my patience. Who are you?\" \"You make it sound so improper,\" Orison said. Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a \"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?\" Orison asked. a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not wearing earmuffs. \"My name,\" the stranger said, \"is Dink Gerding. I am little family.\" \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? Maybe higher heels? \"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall,\" Dink Gerding said. He took reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well,\" Orison said. with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\" \"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your personnel form correctly.\" He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. curtsy? Orison wondered. \"Thank you,\" she said. He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding. Orison finished the Record , thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome Orison looked up. \"Oh, hello,\" she said. \"I didn't hear you come up.\" \"I walk ever so lightly,\" the woman said, standing hip-shot in front of the desk, \"and pounce ever so hard.\" She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats. \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said, and tried to smile back without showing \"Common courtesy,\" Miss Vingt explained. \"Also, darling, I'd like to draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, \"What is this?\" Orison demanded. \"Visiting-day at the zoo?\" She paused \"Auga is rather intense,\" the new Mr. Gerding said. \"Yeah, intense,\" Orison said. \"Like a kidney-stone.\" Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already.\" \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch of frosted furze and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's spike-topped Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and the wise....\" \" Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the Dink ger-Dink d'summa. Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison her two sumo -sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the floor. \"... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted. \"I came to bring a message to Dink,\" Orison said. \"Let me go, you himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without his chest. \"You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn your brain back on. All right, now?\" Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. \"I had to see \"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless,\" Dink said. \"Now, what \"I've always been terrified of them,\" Orison said. \"When I was a little \"Strange,\" Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked Orison,\" he said. She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped in the palm of his hand. \"These are Microfabridae, more nearly related to shellfish than to spiders,\" he said. \"They're stone-and-metal eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison.\" He the bowl of his hand. \"Pretty little fellow, isn't he?\" Dink asked. \"I'd be happier if you did,\" Dink said. Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the \"A sort of crustacean,\" Dink agreed. \"We use them in a commercial \"That's still a secret,\" Dink said, smiling. \"I can't tell even you that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary.\" \"What's he doing now?\" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae. \"They like gold,\" Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, comfortably close. \"They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. We'd better get you down where you belong.\" Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Orison think that Dink had a European background?\n\n<options>:\nA His accent\nB The languages he speaks\nC His manners\nD His physique\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because he India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops or Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection, for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I, Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirror gateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with such tremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetus within the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am static and for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universe with fear and trepidation. and surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned the not-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by what the not-world calls \"mail\" till we meet. For this purpose I must utilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whose inadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you. Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary 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 I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When it is alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring from the pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrational likeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am among them. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gateway lies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child in order that I might destroy the not-people completely. Glmpauszn Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you, 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 birth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limited equipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctor As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally, since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, I produced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himself and it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping the qualifying preface except where comparisons must be made between this alleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitive mythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these people refer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But we learned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hard time classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to the inevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror of the not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand your not replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What could have happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn 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 accomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ... my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hard 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. impaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can write you with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn are powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live in this inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged in a struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusions of this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have lived a semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this world ripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individual fluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardized by these people. The not-world and our world are like two baskets as you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with the greatest intricacy, design and color but baskets whose convex sides are joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrational plane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a world of higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples. While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer, Glmpauszn not-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue that day, I assure you. Glmpauszn Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports! I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've been studying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics of Glmpauszn wonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into this body and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. Now I can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports today 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 the inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss his vibrations. 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 Glmpauszn the room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white, shapeless cascade of light. result of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in these not-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the reality of not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is only my powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even become invisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn \"They're not safe.\" \"Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is....\" Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think like the not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn Rochester, New York niggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a form of mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that, transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end will world. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. 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 Glmpauszn\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the conflict between Glmpauszn and the not-world?\n\n<options>:\nA Glmpauszn's world wants to conquer the not-world, because they deem the not-world valuable.\nB The not-world unkowningly overlaps and disrupts his.\nC The not-world is full of humans that terrorize his.\nD Glmpauszn's world doesn't understand how people in the not-world operate..\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nFirst, a quick précis of The Bell Curve . IQ tests, according to Murray and Herrnstein, measure an essential human quality, general intelligence. During the second half of the 20 th century, this quality has risen to supreme importance, because society has become increasingly complex. The intelligent have therefore gone through an \"invisible migration,\" from points of origin all over the class system to a concentration at the top of business, government, and the professions. They are likely to become ever more dominant and prosperous. The unintelligent are falling further and further behind. Because intelligence is substantially inherited, nothing is likely to reverse this process. Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent. Any efforts government might make to improve the economic opportunities of poor people, especially poor black people, are likely to fail, because their poverty is so much the result of inherited low intelligence. About the best that can be done for these people is an effort to create a world of simple, decent, honorable toil for them. Herrnstein and Murray begin by telling us that the liberal position on IQ--namely, \"Intelligence is a bankrupt concept\"--has been discredited, and that \"a scholarly consensus has been reached\" around their position. This consensus is \"beyond significant technical dispute.\" Thus, by the end of their introduction, they have arranged matters so that if intelligence has any meaning at all, the idiotic liberals stand discredited and meanwhile, extremely broad claims for intelligence have the cover of \"consensus.\" Having conditioned its audience to view IQ as all-important, The Bell Curve then manipulates statistics in a way that makes IQ look bigger, and everything else smaller, in determining Americans' life-chances. The basic tool of statistical social science in general, and of The Bell Curve in particular, is regression analysis, a technique used to assign weights to various factors (called \"independent variables\") in determining a final outcome (called the \"dependent variable\"). The original statistical work in The Bell Curve consists of regression analyses on a database called the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The authors claim to demonstrate that high IQ is more predictive of economic success than any other factor, and that low IQ is more predictive of poverty and social breakdown. Virtually all the early commentators on The Bell Curve were unable to assess the merits of the regression analysis. \"I am not a scientist. I know nothing about psychometrics,\" wrote Leon Wieseltier (who was otherwise quite critical) in a typical disclaimer. But by now the statistics have been gone over by professionals, who have come up with different results. The key points of their critique of The Bell Curve are as follows: What Herrnstein and Murray used to measure IQ is actually a measure of education as well as intelligence. All the people tracked in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth took the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, which Herrnstein and Murray treat as a good measure of intelligence. Because the material covered in the test includes subjects like trigonometry, many academic critics of The Bell Curve have objected to its use as a measure only of IQ and not at all of academic achievement. Herrnstein and Murray concede in the footnotes that scores tend to rise with the subjects' education--but they seriously underestimate the magnitude of this rise, as shows. And they resist the obvious inference that the test scores are measuring something other than intelligence. Most of The Bell Curve 's analysis is devoted to proving that IQ has more predictive power than parental \"socio-economic status.\" But Herrnstein and Murray's method of figuring socioeconomic status seems designed to low-ball its influence, as explains. Herrnstein and Murray begin their discussion of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth data by announcing that they aren't going to analyze the effect of education, because education is too much a result of IQ. It's not an independent variable. (Of course, according to their theory, socioeconomic status is also a result of IQ, but somehow, that doesn't stop them.) Therefore, what you'd most want to know from a policy standpoint--how much education can increase opportunity--isn't dealt with in the book, except in two obscure footnotes. Both would seem to support the liberal, pro-education position that Herrnstein and Murray say is futile. One footnote shows education increasing IQ year by year. The other shows a higher correlation between college degree and family income than between IQ and family income. One of The Bell Curve 's theoretical linchpins is the high heritability of IQ. Herrnstein and Murray, sounding like the souls of caution, write that \"half a century of work, now amounting to hundreds of empirical and theoretical studies, permits a broad conclusion that the genetic component of IQ is unlikely to be smaller than 40 per cent or higher than 80 per cent. ... For purposes of this discussion, we will adopt a middling estimate of 60 per cent heritability.\" This now looks seriously overstated. Michael Daniels, Bernie Devlin, and Kathryn Roeder of Carnegie Mellon University took the same studies on which Herrnstein and Murray based their estimate, and subjected them to a computer meta-analysis (\"a powerful method of statistical analysis\"-- The Bell Curve ). Their paper, which has not yet been published, says: \"In brief, studies of IQ, and our reanalyses of them, suggest a narrow-sense heritability of 34 per cent and a broad-sense heritability of 46 per cent. [The difference between broad and narrow is too technical to explain in this limited space.] This is a far cry from Herrnstein and Murray's maximum value of 80 per cent or their middling value of 60 per cent. Consequently, Herrnstein and Murray give the impression that IQ is highly 'heritable,' but it is not.\" If the purpose of the whole exercise is to figure out what our social policies should be, then, \"Which is more predictive, IQ or socioeconomic status?\" isn't the essential question anyway. Making it the essential question avoids the issue of whether IQ is really so massively predictive that it drowns out everything else. (Herrnstein and Murray mostly leave the evidence for this, their central contention, to footnotes. The figures they offer are far from dispositive.) The chapter of The Bell Curve on policies that might be able to overcome the fate of a low IQ focuses mainly on whether early-childhood programs like Head Start (most of which aren't run with raising IQ as their primary goal) can raise IQ significantly over the long term, and sorrowfully concludes that they can't. What the book doesn't discuss is whether public schools--by far the biggest government social program--can raise IQ, or earnings after you control for IQ. As James Heckman of the University of Chicago wrote in the Journal of Political Economy , \" Evidence of a genetic component to skills has no bearing on the efficacy of any social policy. ... The relevant issue is the cost effectiveness of the intervention.\" (As an example of where the kind of analysis Herrnstein and Murray didn't do can lead, a new study by Jay Girotto and Paul Peterson of Harvard shows that students who raise their grades and take harder courses can increase their IQ scores by an average of eight points during the first three years of high school.) At the beginning of The Bell Curve , Herrnstein and Murray declare that \"the concept of intelligence has taken on a much higher place in the pantheon of human virtues than it deserves.\" And they claim that their view of IQ tests is \"squarely in the middle of the scientific road.\" They end by expressing the hope that we can \"be a society that makes good on the fundamental promise of the American tradition: the opportunity for everyone, not just the lucky ones, to live a satisfying life.\" Throughout, Herrnstein and Murray consistently present themselves as fair- (or even liberal-) minded technicians who have, with great caution, followed the evidence where it leads--which, unfortunately, is to a few unassailable if unpleasant scientific truths that it is their reluctant duty to report. : Education and IQ\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the problem with using IQ to predict economic success?\n\n<options>:\nA IQ tests are not aimed at people of all races\nB IQ tests are impacted by the amount of education a person has had\nC IQ tests aren't all the same, so it's not a fair control\nD IQ tests only test inherited intelligence\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was out. Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight. 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 had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and 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 All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it. Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting. , he thought, thinking about the warmth and comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians. Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath.\" \"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this.\" Eckert nodded agreement. \"It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream. It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see, much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving. Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small, white-washed house midway up a hill. \"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 furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try them.\" He stopped for a moment, thinking. \"Did you notice the context? He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was nothing that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was \"In what way?\" The words came out slowly. \"The people are too casual, as though they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual 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 \"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's 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 He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's. A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled 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 \"Well, what do you think about it?\" \"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at least in fields where they have to have it.\" \"How come they haven't gone any further?\" Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would \"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?\" those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends, \"What reason?\" Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\" 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 \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was out that we know it is?\" Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked to the window. \"I suppose you're right,\" he said at last. \"It's nice living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help thinking that Don must have liked it here, too.\" The old Greek ideal , he thought: shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret if Templin ever finds out Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his knew about Pendleton's death. Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender Pendleton 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 Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was . He glanced across the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the flickering light—was brick red. A voice spoke in his ear. \"It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \"\n\n<question>:\nWhy can we infer that Eckert had changed the office window-scenery before telling Templin about Pendleton's demise?\n\n<options>:\nA In order to make the scenery less dreary than the news would already seem.\nB In order to let in light to the dark room so that he could see his reaction.\nC As a last effort to convince Eckert to travel to Tunpesh and see the scenery for himself.\nD In order to show what the current state was outside.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCaptain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He was during the night?\" 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 Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn't something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up. deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. now, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute, 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 already. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happened to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enough Gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. others forward. \"Get the jeeps out!\" Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door of 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 Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them \"Follow the blobs,\" Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool to leave his suit kids. But it was too late to go back. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had a 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 Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forward leaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, diving shoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as his sound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made no onto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monster \"I hope so,\" Gwayne told him. \"I want that thing to live—and you're detailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make sign 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 makes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there was \"Troglodytes, maybe,\" Gwayne guessed. \"Anyhow, send for me when you get anything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstaying busy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soon as he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and less informative with retelling. 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 cunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to find 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 there to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. finally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it would man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. The explorers went out in desperation to find what they could began filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conserve it now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. \"How's the captive coming?\" Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He swore sound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barker some kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned up unerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. \"Haarroo, Cabbaan!\" the thing said. \"Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?\" Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face was taut with strain. 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. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand the When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes in silence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. \"Is it 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 the fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims.\" 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 Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers, ground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to the ship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd had time to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept, 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 hull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earth food would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeper this time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colony where three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll never know.\" It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant her rise to culture a better one. \"We're needed here,\" he told her, his voice pleading for the 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 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.\" But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. again, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, they\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Gwayne decide that they all had to stay?\n\n<options>:\nA to discover all of the secrets on the planet\nB because it was the best chance at human survival\nC because everyone outside the hull is beyond saving\nD to try to save Hennessy and his crew\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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— That was the first sign of animation he had displayed all day. \"I am, but you're not,\" Hanson told him grimly. \"Get your notes \"One of these days the chief is going to have his glands catch up with him.\" Brian Hanson wondered dispassionately for a moment how his assistants He dismissed the whole business as he did everything else that did not He ignored the surface transport system and walked to his own that kept his body hard and resilient in spite of long hours spent in water running into his bath. Perfect timing. He was making that walk in precisely seven minutes, four and four-fifths seconds. He undressed and climbed into the tub, relaxing luxuriously in the exhilaration of irradiated water. He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful blank. Then someone was hammering on his head. He struggled reluctantly battering thunder continued persistently. He swore and sat up. \"What do you want?\" There was no answer the hammering continued. grabbed a towel, wrapping it inadequately around him it didn't quite meet astern. He paddled wetly across the floor sounding like a flock of uniform. \"Sorry, sir, but one of those rebels is loose in the Administration \"Oh, I see, sir. No rebels, of course. Sorry to have disturbed you. Brian closed the door in puzzlement. What the devil had that flat-foot 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. \"Hello.\" The voice matched the calm alertness of a pair of deep-blue eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the soon fix that. \"All right, joke's over, you can beat it now.\" Brian slowly acquired a complexion suitable for painting fire plugs. struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his embrace of the bath and deliberately set his mind loose to wander in 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 continued steadily. He struggled out of the bath, wrapped his damp bathrobe clammily around him and marched to the door with a seething mouth all set for a withering barrage, but he didn't get a chance. Four police constables and a sergeant swarmed into the room, shoving him \"Rebel? You're crazy! That was just ... Pete said ... rebel? Did you say rebel?\" \"Yeah, I said rebel, an' where is she?\" Brian had had about enough. \"I'm not going anywhere to see anybody. arrested is your idea of a joke—\" his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"There's nothing to give away, you fool!\" Brian bellowed. \"I don't know pass the word along.\" \"Come here, you idiot!\" Brian screamed after his erstwhile assistant. Brian retired to his cell bunk and clutched his aching head in frustrated fury. For the nineteenth time Brian Hanson strode to the door of his cell and rattled the bars. \"Listen here, guard, you've got to take a message to McHague. You can't hold me here indefinitely.\" Brian's eyes almost popped out as he saw a gloved hand reach around Brian felt as though something had kicked him in the stomach. She was of himself, the fair-haired boy of Venus Consolidated, in his flapping bathrobe, leading a band of escaping rebels out of the company's best Brian's hands opened the complicated lock in a matter of seconds. They Brian felt as though his stomach had fallen down around his ankles corner. Brian and the rebels bundled into them and took away with a \"What are we stopping here for?\" Brian demanded. \"We've got to get and that gave them the edge on Brian. They followed Crystal down into \"Where the dickens are we?\" Brian whispered hoarsely. \"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. Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice. crumbling, fallen in in some places and signs of new work where the rebels had cleared away the debris of years. Brian struggled into a zippered overall suit as they followed a gash in the wall of the cavern. Brian followed Crystal into the smaller \"Wait a minute, how do we get out of here?\" Brian demanded. \"We're going to crash! That gap isn't wide enough!\" The sides of the gap rushed in on the tips of the stubby wings. Brian the mountain while Brian struggled to get his internal economy back \"Oh—I see,\" Brian said weakly and a few moments later he really did set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian bitterly. \"They've been killing people all over the planet. What do you think this revolution is about?\" Brian almost got to his feet when another wild maneuver hurled him back slicing in close over the ship. Brian's eyes bulged as he saw a long \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others \"Look! They're hit!\" Brian felt sick. white flowers of half a dozen parachutes blossoming around it. Brian \"The dirty, murdering rats!\" Brian's voice ripped out in a fury of \"Into where?\" Brian demanded. All he could see immediately ahead was of the mountain face. Brian yelped and cowered instinctively back. The A tall, lean man with bulbous eyes and a face like a startled horse, \"Who was that crazy coot and what is this place?\" Brian demanded. well as we do.\" \"How come?\" \"Well, what do we do now? Just stand here? It looks like everybody's Brian suggested doubtfully. She looked at him steadily. \"You sound like the only good rebel left. We can try it, anyway.\" around and jockeyed them into position—not a moment too soon. Half a dozen police showed in brief silhouette as they slipped cautiously into the cavern, guns ready, expecting resistance. They met a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the maneuver, fussing with the throttle till he had the fuel mixture adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In Brian clambered out of the ship and glanced at the glowing points \"It's time to check out,\" Brian shouted. \"Run!\" Brian shoved her and they plunged madly through the thick tangle joined the roaring rush of the slide. They were tumbled irresistibly downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn vegetation. slide. The dust was settling away. A flock of brilliant blue, gliding lizards barking in raucous terror, fled down the valley. Then they were gone and the primeval silence settled back into place. Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right \"Where are we heading for?\" Brian grunted as he struggled along.\n\n<question>:\nGenerally, which of the following best describes Brian's character?\n\n<options>:\nA Dutiful, oblivious, and practical\nB Smart, kind hearted, and humorous\nC Practical, humorous, and laid-back\nD Dutiful, meek, and persistent\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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— That was the first sign of animation he had displayed all day. \"I am, but you're not,\" Hanson told him grimly. \"Get your notes straightened up. Run those centrifuge tests and set up the still so we can get at that vitamin count early in the morning.\" \"Tomorrow morning? Aw, for gosh sakes, chief, why don't you take a day still on the vitamin research they had been conducting, he barely heard the remarks that followed him. suffer the consequences of their own ignorance. There had been rumors of revolution among the disgruntled older families. apartment. This walk was part of a regular routine of physical exercise that kept his body hard and resilient in spite of long hours spent in in precisely seven minutes, four and four-fifths seconds. He undressed and climbed into the tub, relaxing luxuriously in the exhilaration of irradiated water. He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful \"What do you want?\" There was no answer uniform. 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. \"Hello.\" The voice matched the calm alertness of a pair of deep-blue eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the she was fully dressed. The snug, zippered overall suit she wore did nothing to conceal the fact that she was a female. He wrapped his bathrobe austerely around him. \"Well, now what?\" she asked and looked at him questioningly. satisfaction of the unending extra work that was going to occur around the laboratory from now on. He sank back into the soothing liquid embrace of the bath and deliberately set his mind loose to wander in complete relaxation. 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 \"Wherethehell's who?\" \"She ... why ... why ... she left, of course. You don't think I was That wasn't Myrtle, that was Crystal James, old man James' daughter. his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"Gotcha, chief,\" Brent whispered understandingly. \"I'll see if I can pass the word along.\" frustrated fury. For the nineteenth time Brian Hanson strode to the door of his cell and rattled the bars. bathrobe, leading a band of escaping rebels out of the company's best Crystal James pushed past him. \"That's just what we're doing,\" Crystal snapped. \"Everybody out.\" and that gave them the edge on Brian. They followed Crystal down into \"What do we do? Hide here?\" \"That's what you think,\" Crystal snapped. \"McHague's legend got my \"Well, what the dickens does he look like?\" Brian asked doubtfully. Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice. twisting, tortuous course for half an hour, switching from one tunnel to another repeatedly until he had lost all conception of direction. Crystal James, at the controls, seemed to know exactly where they were going. gash in the wall of the cavern. Brian followed Crystal into the smaller Crystal held the ship in its roll and completed the maneuver outside into some semblance of order. An aërial torpedo exploded in front of the rebel ship. Crystal's face set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian \"That's what you think,\" Crystal muttered. \"Those children don't play \"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?\" \"You must be mistak—\" He slumped to the floor as Crystal threw the \"I guess that was a mistake!\" Crystal yelled as she fought the controls. saw the crew battling their controls in startled terror. The ship slipped frantically away and fell into a spin. \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others doing?\" outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\" \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's Crystal's answer was to yank the ship into a rocketing climb. The \"Just follow along, suckers,\" Crystal invited grimly. blinding fog. Half-seen, ghostly fingers of stone clutched up at them, talons of gray rock missed and fell away again as Crystal nursed the ship out of its dive. \" Phew! \"That's figuring it nice and close,\" Crystal said in satisfaction. \"We can glide in from here.\" \"You leave the flying to me,\" Crystal snapped. She held the ship in its glide, aiming directly for the tangled foliage lush green of the mountainside swirled up to meet them. They ripped through the foliage—there was no crash. They burst through into a huge, brilliantly lighted cavern and settled to a perfect landing. Men came running. Crystal tumbled out of her ship. A tall, lean man with bulbous eyes and a face like a startled horse, rushed up to Crystal. opening Crystal's ship had left. \"He hasn't got a chance! We'll be \"They got him!\" Crystal's voice was a moan. \"Oh, the fool, the fool!\" well as we do.\" \"How come?\" \"Well, what do we do now? Just stand here? It looks like everybody's \"We might as well just wait,\" Crystal said hopelessly. \"It won't do us around and jockeyed them into position—not a moment too soon. Half a dozen police showed in brief silhouette as they slipped cautiously into the cavern, guns ready, expecting resistance. They met a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the Crystal was white and shaking, her face set in a mask of horror, as she maneuver, fussing with the throttle till he had the fuel mixture adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In Crystal screamed. \"Brian! There's more police cutting in around the Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring \"The whole side of the mountain's sliding,\" Crystal screamed. Crystal went down as the ground slipped from under her. Brian grabbed downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn vegetation. they attempted to land, stuck up grotesquely out of the foot of the slide. The dust was settling away. A flock of brilliant blue, gliding lizards barking in raucous terror, fled down the valley. Then they were gone and the primeval silence settled back into place. Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside. \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\" \"Walk,\" Crystal said laconically. She led the way as they started scrambling through the jungle up the mountainside. can depend on. They've kept out of the rebellion, but they're on our side. They've helped us before.\"\n\n<question>:\nGenerally, which of the following best describes Crystal's character?\n\n<options>:\nA Kind, quiet, and persistent\nB Naive, fun, and brave\nC Focused, bold, and charismatic\nD Focused, meek, and understanding\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nagainst Jakdane's bunk—propelled himself like a projectile at Quest. a string. For a moment Trella thought he was going to meet Asrange's assault. But he fled in a long There was only one question: Was he human? Trella feared she was in for trouble even before Motwick's Asrange pursued with the stick upraised. The two evil-looking men at the table nearby had been watching her surreptitiously, and now they shifted restlessly in their chairs. Trella had not wanted to come to the Golden Satellite. It was a of him as if to ward it off. In a moment, Jakdane and the other and pulled him off. When they had Asrange in irons, Jakdane turned to Quest, Jakdane insisted on examining him carefully, he had to admit it. There was hardly a mark on her around the waist with a steely arm. Trella swung with her whole body, and slapped him so hard he nearly fell from his chair. As she walked swiftly toward the bar, he leaped up to follow her. and turned his face away. Later, alone with Trella on the control deck, Jakdane gave her some sober advice. “What? Jakdane, you can't be an artificial imitation of a man. It all figures. “Look, Trella, he said he was born on Jupiter. A human could stand the gravity of Jupiter, inside injured. How can you believe he's really human?” Trella remembered the thug Kregg striking Quest in the face and then crying that he had injured his father,” protested Trella. their parents,” said Jakdane. “Quest may not even know he's Trella again as Kregg overtook his quarry and swung a huge fist like a sledgehammer. Exactly what happened, Trella wasn't sure. She had the impression 57 from the approaching Kregg. The dark man moved in on of Jupiter, if he's human?” Trella was silent. “For the protection of humans, there are two psychological and Kregg sank stunned to his knees. The dark man, who had grabbed Trella's arm, released her and ran for the door. Moving agilely around the end man Quest to a T, Trella. There is no other explanation for him: Trella did not want to believe Jakdane was right, but his reasoning was unassailable. Looking he must be an android.” “Those characteristics fit your you!” Kregg stumbled to his feet his refusal to defend himself against a human, his inability to return Trella's love for him. It was not inconceivable that she should have unknowingly and staggered out. Trella ran to the unconscious Motwick's side. “That means you, too, lady,” Quest about seeing him again after she had completed her assignment. Even if Jakdane was wrong and Quest was human—as now seemed unlikely—Quest her. Her best course was to try to forget him. with her for a later meeting. “It has been pleasant knowing you, Trella,” he said when they left the G-boat at White Sands. A faraway look came into his we can't help,” she said gently, taking his hand in farewell. Trella took a fast plane from He followed Trella out the door of the Golden Satellite and fell in step beside her. Immediately though he lifted a feather pillow. White Sands, and twenty-four hours later walked up the front unconscious heap against the rear of the garage. Trella had opened the door of the car, but said her companion. “I'm just in from Jupiter.” “I'm Trella Nuspar,” she said, favoring him with a green-eyed glance. “You mean Io, don't you—or Miss Trella, eh?” “I'm glad they're something as Dr. Mansard's heir.” Trella planned to spend a few days resting in her employer's spacious home, and then to take landing on Jupiter, why didn't anyone ever hear from him again?” she demanded. Trella could think of. Without actually intending to, she exclaimed: anyone.” Trella sighed. Cowardice was a state of mind. It was peculiarly inappropriate, but not unbelievable, What about that, eh?” Trella was silent, shocked. There was something here she hadn't known about, hadn't even suspected. For some reason, Dom They had reached the more brightly lighted section of the city now. Trella could get a cab from here, but the Stellar Hotel wasn't far. They walked on. Trella had the desk clerk call a cab to deliver the unconscious Motwick to his home. She and Trella's connection with Blessing. But, since this was to be the atmosphere of Blessing's admiring her honey-colored hair and comely face. “I'm heading for Earth on the next spaceship.” Quest came the day before she was scheduled to leave. Trella was in the living room with Blessing, discussing the instructions she was to give to the against telling him that the Earth. them. The other guards were at their posts. Trella heard the doorbell ring. The heavy oaken front door was kept locked now, and the guards Motwick was an irresponsible playboy whom Trella had known weeks before the spaceship blasted off. She found herself briefly on Earth, and Trella was glad to dispense with his company enjoying the steadier companionship for the remaining three with him. Now this did not suit her at all. Trella had always liked her being so strongly attracted to a man several inches shorter than she. She was particularly unhappy about feeling drawn to a man who was a coward. The ship that they boarded on Earth, but it would still require fifty-four days to make the trip. So Trella was delighted to find that the ship was the Cometfire across the floor and lay in an friend, dark-eyed, curly-haired Jakdane Gille. “Jakdane,” she said, flirting with him with her eyes as in 54 Quest was after it, like a chunky deer, running faster than Trella had ever seen a man run before. Blessing slowed for the turn I'm getting old,” he answered, laughing. “What's your trouble, Trella?” “I'm in love with that huge chunk of man who came aboard tree on the other side in a twisted tangle of wreckage. With a horrified gasp, Trella ran down the driveway toward the smoking heap of metal. crew members and three passengers aboard the ship's tiny personnel sphere, and Trella was thrown with Quest almost constantly. She enjoyed every minute She told him only that she was a messenger, sent out to Ganymede to pick up some important sabotaged the ship's drive so it would fall into Jupiter. Her employer had impressed upon her that her mission was confidential, but surely Dom More gently than Trella would have believed possible for his done.” Trella disengaged herself. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Don't you know this, too, now: that shoulder was startling: as sent Trella, his most trusted secretary, to Ganymede to bring back to him the notebooks found atmosphere as well as an oxygen atmosphere.” Trella looked at him. He was that he received his rightful share of the inheritance. Because of this, Trella was tempted not badly hurt, any more than an elephant would have been, to tell Quest the good news herself do this his own way, and he might not appreciate her meddling. At midtrip, Trella made a rueful confession to Jakdane. “It seems I was taking unnecessary unhappily. “He said he She expected Jakdane to salve her wounded feelings with a sympathetic pleasantry, but he assignment on which she had come to the Jupiter system was\n\n<question>:\nHow does Jakdane feel about Trella?\n\n<options>:\nA Jakdane thinks of Trella as a little sister.\nB Jakdane has always had a crush on Trella, but they are just friends.\nC Jakdane is obsessed with Trella. That is why he's on the same ship to Earth.\nD Jakdane thinks Trella might be stalking him. She is on the same ship to Earth.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwarning 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, In a back room Tremaine said, \"To everybody but you this is just a \"I didn't expect any easy answers, Jess. But I was hoping maybe you had something ...\" \"Course,\" said Jess, \"there's always Mr. Bram ...\" \"Mr. Bram,\" repeated Tremaine. \"Is he still around? I remember him as a hundred years old when I was kid.\" \"Still just the same, Jimmy. Comes in town maybe once a week, buys his I never did go. We kids used to play in the caves near his place, and sometimes he gave us apples.\" \"I've never seen any harm in Bram,\" said Jess. \"But you know how this town is about foreigners, especially when they're a mite addled. Bram has blue eyes and blond hair—or did before it turned white—and he talks just like everybody else. From a distance he seems just like an \"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 was kind of senile, I guess. She used to say he'd lived in that same old place out on the Concord road when she was a girl. Well, she died in the streets playin' with matches by now. I'm waiting for the day they'll make jail age.\" \"Why Bram?\" Tremaine persisted. \"As far as I know, he never had any dealings to speak of with anybody here in town.\" \"Oh hoh, you're a little young, Jimmy,\" Jess chuckled. \"You never knew about Mr. Bram—the young Mr. Bram—and Linda Carroll.\" Tremaine shook his head. \"Old Miss Carroll. School teacher here for years Sitting up proud and tall, with that red hair piled up high. I used to think she was some kind of princess....\" \"What about her and Bram? A romance?\" eight years old. Miss Linda was maybe in her twenties—and that made her an old maid, in those times. The word got out she was setting her cap for Bram. He was a good-looking young feller then, over six foot, of course, broad backed, curly yellow hair—and a stranger to boot. Like I said, Linda Carroll wanted nothin to do with the local her reputation, as far as the biddies in Elsby was concerned. It was ten years 'fore she even landed the teaching job. By that time, she was already old. And nobody was ever fool enough to mention the name Bram in front of her.\" Tremaine. Tremaine put a hand on the counter, looked thoughtful. \"I was hoping \"No, thanks,\" Tremaine said. \"That's all I needed.\" He turned back to the door. \"What's up, mister?\" the clerk called after him. \"Bram in some kind of trouble?\" \"No. No trouble.\" The man was looking at the book with pursed lips. \"Nineteen-oh-one,\" he said. \"I never thought of it before, but you know, old Bram must be dern near to ninety years old. Spry for that age.\" 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.\" Tremaine waited. \"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. Nobody in this town's ever seen Bram between sundown and sunup.\" Tremaine set off at a run, covered the two blocks to the hotel, yanked \"Mind if I have a word with him? My name's Tremaine.\" Tremaine?\" \"Don't tell me my job, Tremaine!\" the voice snapped. \"And don't try out face looked at him coolly. \"Miss Carroll,\" Tremaine said. \"You won't remember me, but I—\" \"There is nothing whatever wrong with my faculties, James,\" Miss Only a faint quaver reflected her age—close to eighty, Tremaine thought, startled. \"I'm flattered you remember me, Miss Carroll,\" he said. \"Come in.\" She led the way to a pleasant parlor set out with the \"Just another bureaucrat, I'm afraid.\" \"You were wise to leave Elsby. There is no future here for a young man.\" \"I often wondered why you didn't leave, Miss Carroll. I thought, even \"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 used against him?\" \"There'll be nothing done against him, Miss Carroll ... unless it needs to be in the national interest.\" \"I'm not at all sure I know what the term 'national interest' means, James. I distrust these glib phrases.\" \"I always liked Mr. Bram,\" said Tremaine. \"I'm not out to hurt him.\" \"Mr. Bram came here when I was a young woman. I'm not certain of the year.\" \"What does he do for a living?\" \"I have no idea.\" \"Why did a healthy young fellow like Bram settle out in that isolated piece of country? What's his story?\" \"I'm ... not sure that anyone truly knows Bram's story.\" \"You called him 'Bram', Miss Carroll. Is that his first name ... or his last?\" \"That is his only name. Just ... Bram.\" \"You knew him well once, Miss Carroll. Is there anything—\" A tear rolled down Miss Carroll's faded cheek. She wiped it away impatiently. Tremaine stood up. \"I'm sorry. Really sorry. I didn't mean to grill you. Miss Carroll. You've been very kind. I had no right....\" Miss Carroll shook her head. \"I knew you as a boy, James. I have complete confidence in you. If anything I can tell you about Bram will be helpful to you, it is my duty to oblige you She paused. Tremaine waited. \"Many years ago I was courted by Bram. One day he asked me to go with him to his house. On the way he told me a terrible and pathetic tale. Miss Carroll drew a deep breath and went on. \"I was torn between pity and horror. I begged him to take me back. He refused.\" Miss Carroll twisted her fingers together, her eyes fixed on the long past. \"When we reached the house, he ran to the kitchen. He lit a lamp and threw Miss Carroll hesitated, then put her hand to her throat, lifted a silver disc on a fine golden chain. \"You see what a foolish old woman I am, James.\" \"There is one other thing,\" she said, \"perhaps quite meaningless....\" \"I'd be grateful for any lead.\" \"Bram fears the thunder.\" III As Tremaine walked slowly toward the lighted main street of Elsby a car dud, I'm afraid.\" \"Funny thing about Bram. You know, he hasn't showed up yet. I'm getting a little worried. Want to run out there with me and take a look around?\" Tremaine went to the car, dropped the pistol in his coat pocket, them spies. Wanted to know all about any funny-actin people around hers.\" \"And you mentioned Bram?\" The boy darted another look at Tremaine. \"They said they figured the spies was out north of town. Well, Bram's a foreigner, and he's out\n\n<question>:\nIf Tremaine didn't go see Miss Carroll, what would've happened?\n\n<options>:\nA He wouldn't know how crazy Mr. Bram is and he wouldn't know the true culprit of the transmissions.\nB He wouldn't know what thing scares Mr. Bram and Miss Carroll wouldn't have given him the item.\nC He wouldn't know about the thing that scares Mr. Bram.\nD He wouldn't have the item that Miss Carroll gave him and he wouldn't know how mean she thinks Mr. Bram is.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nRepublican Shakeout 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 . 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.\" Gary Bauer Playback 1. Top four. Like Dole, Bauer needed to crack the top tier and seal off the pack. Since sports analogies tend to cut off the top tier at three rather than four (e.g., \"bronze medal,\" \"win, place, and show\"), Bauer changed metaphors, telling reporters that he had reached \"the first rung of candidates\" and that lower finishers might soon perish. On Meet the Press , he called himself the \"breakout candidate.\" While some pundits lumped Bauer with the winners, others offered him the next best position--\"leading the rest of the pack\"--or at least distinguished him from the \"losers.\" 2. Social conservative quarterfinal. This was Bauer's big spin win. Like Dole, he won a crucial \"contest-within-the-contest.\" His scant margin over Pat Buchanan--8.9 percent to 7.3 percent--became a huge factor in the post-poll analysis. Pundits concluded that Bauer \"did what he had to do ... beat Pat Buchanan,\" and therefore \"can legitimately say he is the candidate of the Christian right,\" establishing himself as \"one of the winners,\" the \"three or four\" candidates who \"got their tickets punched\" to stay in the race. Talk show hosts reminded Buchanan that he had lost to Bauer and asked whether Buchanan was finished. 3. Conservative semifinal. Having scored well ahead of Bauer and Buchanan, Forbes anointed himself \"the conservative in a two-man race\" against Bush. Bauer disagreed, and the media took his side. \"Forbes, Bauer Battle for Right,\" the Post proclaimed, concluding that because Forbes failed to break away, \"he and Bauer are likely to continue a long and tough fight for the leadership of the conservative wing.\" 3. Conservatism. If Bauer wins the social conservative quarterfinal and the conservative semifinal, he gets to run as the \"Reagan\" candidate against \"Bush-Gore\" moderation on abortion, Hollywood, China, and other hot-button issues. This bracket-by-bracket tournament strategy reduces Bauer's obstacles from three candidates to two. He can target Forbes, knowing that if he prevails, either Bush or Dole will have vanquished the other in the moderate semifinal. Indeed, Dole's success at Ames arguably helps Bauer by giving Bush a semifinal contest. John McCain Playback 4. Vote-buying. To undermine the straw poll's authority as an arbiter of his candidacy, McCain called it a \"fund-raiser,\" \"a sham and a joke\" in which campaigns spent \"millions\" to \"buy\" votes. \"My campaign theme is to try to reform the system that is now awash with money and the influence of special interests,\" he argued on Fox News Sunday . Brit Hume's retort--\"that this whole process isn't quite pure enough for you\"--played right into McCain's hands. McCain doesn't need to persuade the media that his reasons for skipping Ames were morally sound. He just needs to persuade them that his reasons were moral rather than political. Playbook 1. Real votes. The vote-buying complaint only gets McCain a bye on the straw poll. To get another bye on February's Iowa caucuses, he'll rely on two other moral arguments. First, he'll claim that caucuses aren't \"real votes.\" \"We'll have real votes in New Hampshire,\" McCain argued on Fox News Sunday . \"That's where real people are motivated to vote.\" On Face the Nation , he suggested that he would focus on \"the genuine balloting process, which takes place in New Hampshire and then South Carolina.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat was the overall structure of the article?\n\n<options>:\nA Describing the progress of a few candidates during the primaries\nB Describing a few major candidates and their core beliefs during and at the end of the primaries\nC Describing George W. Bush's decisions over the course of the presidential primaries\nD Describing every candidate's major decisions over the course of the presidential primaries\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. “They’re probably just curious to see what he looks like first. They’ll be disappointed.” Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to His captor’s broad face jeered down at Zarwell. “Have a good sleep?” he asked with mock solicitude. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge that he heard. Zarwell followed his gaze to where a younger man, with a blond lock of hair on his forehead, stood behind While their attention was away from him Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as yet?” “You’re a yellow-livered bastard,” Zarwell told him. The grin faded from the oily face as the man stood up. He leaned over Zarwell pulled the struggling body down against his chest and held it there until all agitated Bergstrom, asked. John Zarwell shook his head. “Did I talk while I was under?” ] nonchalance. “The next couple “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 Zarwell did not answer. His should do it.” memory seemed on the point of complete return, and he sat quietly, at the sight of the gun. He tried in the palm of his hand. He knew “I don’t see why not.” Zarwell Bergstrom had his bad moment. [p 137 “You’re not going to …” he began now why he always carried it. Zarwell corrected him. “You’d be foolish!” Bergstrom obviously realized how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, he showed little fear. Zarwell had area. “Good.” Bergstrom rose. “The serum is quite harmless, John.” He maintained a professional diversionary thought the man a bit soft, too adjusted to a life of ease and some The floor beneath Zarwell’s feet 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. with practiced urbanity. “When analyst.” psychiatry was a less exact science,” Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. “Why didn’t you turn me in?” he trouble.” and Zarwell sank deep into The floor continued its transmutation, to be past, Bergstrom spoke more The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone. ZARWELL found himself calmly, even allowed himself to relax. “You’re still pretty much in Zarwell’s eyebrows raised. “Who am I?” he asked, very interested now. Without attention he put his pistol away in a trouser pocket. Bergstrom brushed the question aside with one hand. “Your name makes little difference. You’ve used 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. 145 ] Zarwell made his decision quickly. “Go ahead,” he answered. ALL Zarwell’s attention seemed on the cigar he lit as he rode down the escalator, but he surveyed confidence?” longer the same. No longer his own features. The stranger face smiled approvingly “O DD,” Bergstrom said. He brought his hands up and joined more to you than the first, I suppose?” “No,” Zarwell answered. He was not a talking man, Bergstrom reflected. It was more than least every twenty hours. Fortunately his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise 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 reticence, however. The man had concealed by his present perplexity. down at his appointment pad. “Tomorrow at two, then?” Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet, apparently unaware that his Zarwell left the analyst’s office. as he strolled from the compartment. gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell Back at the locker he replaced “A good man must have done that job on your mind,” Bergstrom homes of the laborers and lower class techmen who live there. Zarwell passed a group of smaller children playing a desultory ] “Trust and money,” Zarwell said drily. “Your memory’s back then?” Zarwell nodded. “I’m glad to hear that,” Bergstrom assured him. “Now that you’re well again I’d like to introduce Zarwell stopped him with an upraised The next morning when Zarwell 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 “Because you’re no mad-dog killer!” Now that the crisis seemed 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 A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among Johnson can do your own revolting. I’m through!” Bergstrom did not argue as he left. RESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell was nearing its end. Zarwell was riding a shaggy pony outside a high wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. He moved in and joined a can spare a few minutes,” the stranger said. Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was Zarwell was not the leader of the killing. invaders, only a lesser figure in the medium tall, with the body of an in the streets again, plundering and The job had been well done. Time passed, without visible break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the Zarwell tried to feel the anger he same bearded men who had been The man nodded. wanted to feel, but somehow it liking the man, and wanting at least to be courteous. He inclined his 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,” head toward a curb wastebox with 141 ] Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. “At least in my dreams.” “Dreams?” Bergstrom’s eyes past.” Zarwell’s expression became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, he seemed satisfied, and he let himself Zarwell found himself not listening as Johnson’s voice went on. The of what I saw,” he observed. “That’s why you’re here, you know,” Bergstrom answered. “To help you remember.” story was always the same. But why settle back against the cushion Johnson had finished his speech. Bergstrom went on, “that your lost Zarwell gazed up at the bright memory will turn out to be no ordinary “That’s what makes me so certain,” Bergstrom said confidently. “You don’t remember what we have shown to be true. Conversely “I won’t have any time off again 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 A WORK truck picked Zarwell needs. When Zarwell arrived, six worker’s mouth. Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n\n<question>:\nHow does Zarwell feel about Bergstrom?\n\n<options>:\nA Zarwell is afraid of Bergstrom. The dreams induced by Bergstrom's drugs grow more and more disturbing.\nB Zarwell is suspicious of Bergstrom. Bergstrom always seems to be uncomfortable in Zarwell's presence.\nC Zarwell is suspicious of Bergstrom. He's sure Bergstrom has been tampering with his memories.\nD Zarwell thinks Bergstrom is an alright guy. However, Zarwell isn't interested in making friends. He just wants to retire in anonymity.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nroutine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer. They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too good. perhaps. He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke at the neon \"No Smoking\" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval. He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old 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 Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was out. 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. perfume. Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised 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. But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it. alive.\" Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment Eckert nodded agreement. \"It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed 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 \"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 start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions.\" The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures. menshars from Earth?\" The voice was husky and pleasant and the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the Terrestrial sign of greeting. \"You may call me \"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready, if you will follow me.\" He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin. Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along, took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong. \"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need them.\" He stopped for a moment, thinking. \"Did you notice the context? natural.\" \"They're probably just well brought-up kids,\" Eckert said sharply. \"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the mud on the way home from school.\" He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at 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 even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too. \"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?\" Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his pipe and tobacco. Eckert hefted it in his palm. \"The most important thing is that they have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science.\" in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends, Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to \"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 \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was thinking that Don must have liked it here, too.\" One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert There will be hell to pay , Eckert thought, if Templin ever finds out 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. knew about Pendleton's death. what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous man.\" Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender ulami bone and tried to as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities.\" Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about. He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and Pendleton had killed Nayova's gaze slid away from him. \"Perhaps it was the will of the Great One,\" he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it. Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even A voice spoke in his ear. \"It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing what menshar Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \" obscene .\"\n\n<question>:\nHow did Templin find about about Pendleton's death?\n\n<options>:\nA He was told by Nayova\nB He received a formal letter from the captain.\nC He received a letter from Pendleton himself.\nD He was told by Eckert.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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:\" first,\" I said. \"I'm beginning to feel Betty looked up from her magazine. She said mildly, \"You're late.\" \"Don't yell at me, I 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. He looked over at Betty and said, almost as though reciting, \"What I need is a vacation.\" \"What,\" Betty said, \"are you going to use for money?\" \"Providence,\" Simon told her Arth was saying, \"Where's your \"will provide.\" Simon said, mournful of tone, \"Fifty dollars? Why not make it five hundred?\" \"I'm not selfish,\" Betty said. \"All I want is enough to pay me this week's salary.\" \"Money,\" Simon said. \"When you Simon said, enigmatically, \"Now it comes.\" There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympic agility and had the door swinging wide before the knocking was quite \"Who ... how ... oh, Simon said unenthusiastically, sir.\" The client fussed himself with Betty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyed Simon, said finally, \"You know my name, that's pretty good. Never \"You didn't have a hotel. What a stupidity. I'll be phased. \"Well, we need some nourishment,\" \"Just a minute,\" Arth said, staggering Phased all the way down.\" I said. Simon said nothing. Across the room, where she had resumed her seat, Betty cleared her throat. When Simon continued to say nothing she ventured, \"Time travel is impossible.\" \"Why?\" \"Why?\" \"Yes, why?\" Betty looked to her boss for assistance. None was forthcoming. There ought to be some very quick, positive, definite answer. She said, \"Well, lice.\" \"Confound it if I know,\" the little fellow growled. \"How?\" Simon said, \"Let's get to the point, some time travelers,\" the old boy said. Betty was too far in now to maintain her proper role of silent secretary. \"Time travelers,\" she said, not Arth said, \"That was last night.\" floor for a time. He removed the pince-nez glasses and pointed them at Betty. He said, \"Have you read much science fiction, Miss?\" \"Some,\" Betty admitted. \"Then you'll realize that there are a dozen explanations of the paradoxes cautious, \"At my hotel, don't you remember?\" contention that within a century or so man will have solved the problems get my luggage.\" Arth didn't put up an argument travelers.\" Simon seemed incapable of carrying the ball this morning, so Betty said, \"But ... Mr. Oyster, if the future has developed time travel why don't we ever meet such travelers?\" Simon put in a word. \"The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can't the attendant there evidently couldn't make heads nor tails of the check afford to allow the space-time continuum track to be altered. If, say, a receipt. He didn't speak English and especially accompanied by a blockbusting hangover. Simon shrugged and fumbled their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then Simon said, \"You want to hire me was fouled up, some clerk's error, evidently. \"Right!\" Betty had been looking from one to the other. Now she said, plaintively, \"But where are you going to find the office rather than going to my apartment. I figured I might as well check in with Betty. I opened the door and there I found Mr. Oyster sitting in the chair would figure they had D.T.'s.\" that's where they'd be!\" He seemed elated. Betty and Simon waited. \"The Oktoberfest ,\" he repeated. hangover. \"Came for?\" Mr. Oyster snorted. \"I'm merely waiting for your girl to make out my receipt. I thought you had already left.\" \"You'll miss your plane,\" Betty said. There was suddenly a double dip 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 his way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, \"I suppose you haven't changed this calendar since I left.\" Betty said, \"What's the matter with you? You look funny. How did your clothes get so mussed? You tore \"All right,\" Simon said. \"We'll accept \"Well,\" the old boy pursued, into in this morning.\" \"This morning,\" I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as though it was me who didn't know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, or was off the ordinary in any of a dozen other pathetic remains of the thousand. I said pleadingly, \"Betty, listen, how long ago did I go out that door—on the way to the airport?\" \"But why would a time traveler want to go to a—\" Betty began. \"Why not! What better opportunity to study a people than when they \"See here,\" Mr. Oyster said (interrupting Simon's story), \"did you say this was supposed to be amusing, young man? I don't find it so. In fact, I believe I am being ridiculed.\" \"You've been acting sick all morning. You went out that door about \"I'm not interested in more,\" Mr. Oyster said. \"I suppose your point was to show me how ridiculous the He took a deep breath. \"No ma'am, you'd have to stick to some great event, both for the sake of actual Simon winced at the noise, took took two, washed them down with water from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly. Came to her feet, crossed over and took up the fifty dollars. \"Week's Simon was shaking his head. \"Not interested.\" As soon as Betty had got her jaw back into place, she glared unbelievingly at him. \"I did,\" Simon groaned. \"Three Betty stared at him. \"You mean—\" times.\" Simon nodded, miserably. She said, \"But Simon \"Sorry,\" Simon said. \"Can't be Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself. \"See here, young man, I realize this isn't an ordinary assignment, \"I keep telling you,\" Simon said \"No go,\" Simon said, a sad quality something comes up that looks like you bring me a time traveler.\" \"Out of the question,\" Simon said. \"But why ?\" Betty wailed. \"Just for laughs,\" Simon told the \"You mean,\" Betty was suddenly furious at him, \"you've given up! Why this is the biggest thing— Why from the future and change the past.\" Simon said wearily, \"There's just Betty who was making out a receipt, I hustled back to the apartment and the fifty thousand dollars is nothing. two of them sourly, \"suppose I tell Oyster (Simon began) in the way of an advance, and leaving him with packed a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacation The future! Just think!\" ponied up all the money for such expenditures? How could the average German, with his twenty-five dollars a week salary? A desperate waitress bearing six mugs of beer in each hand scurried to us and then hustled on. \"Down the hatch,\" the other said, \"I'm clean. I won't mess up the \"To the ladies,\" I told him. Before place. All I've got is a hangover, not \"Next what?\" Baldy's conversation didn't seem to hang together very well. Name is Simon.\" bust,\" I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. As if you'll make it or not, Arth.\" \"Make what?\" \"Oh.\" A waitress was on her way by, the beginning and let things start—for to her for refills. asked him, in the way of making you a funny story. It goes like\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Simon referring to when he says \"now it comes\" to Betty during their discussion at the beginning of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA He knows his headache is about to get worse.\nB The client he is expecting is about to show up.\nC He is used to complaints about Betty's salary.\nD He is expecting the usual argument with Betty about her job.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nturn Ledman over to the authorities. HUNTED HEROES \"I never bothered to find out their names,\" Ledman By ROBERT SILVERBERG said casually. \"They were \"What others?\" genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! \"Let's we dump this guy I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then oxymask to make things a It was beyond her to see that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault—whoever it was who had failed But no she blamed it all on me somehow: So we were out Why? \"Because I hate I thought all his kind had died UranCo chief had assured me we'd hit something out this way, but changed my mind. \"No,\" Ledman said evenly. \"I'm quite sane, believe me. the Geigs—and UranCo—off \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman. The Geig Corps preferred doing this for Earth. Mars.\" so glorious. And UranCo's an envoy, to go back and tell the others to clear off.\" He rocked back and forth in his wheelchair, toying with the day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter. And the geigers had been obstinately hushed all day, except gleaming, deadly blaster in Even though the Martian Earth's, I was starting to right? To mine and I nodded over at our geiger counters. \"We volunteered to come to Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly. Ledman said acidly. \"How We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to he said. \"You remember the Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the \"I was there on business at the time,\" Ledman said. \"I represented Ledman Atomics. I was there to sign a new contract for my company. You know who I am, now?\" I nodded. enough to kill me,\" he said. \"Just enough to necessitate the removal of—\" he indicated the empty space at his thighs. \"So I got off lightly.\" \"But why kill us Geigs? We had nothing to do with it.\" \"You're just in this by accident,\" he said. \"You see, after the explosion and the amputation, my fellow-members on the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor risk as Head of the Board, and they took my company away. All quite legal, I assure of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back into \"They renamed Ledman I began, \"Uran—\" title than Ledman It's been a long, hard day.\" It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside Mars after all. But, I reminded no longer accustomed.\" on red blood corpuscles.\" I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form, and thought of Others. The Blast turned me into a walking pin-cushion. But I'll pay it all back,\" he said. He plunged wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out the entire Geig Corps, since it was unlikely that one man in a wheelchair could pick us wanted to keep them. Which strange to me, that the human and twisted as Ledman's. every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—\" Val's quick, worried head-shake cut me off. But Ledman decided it for us—we were a Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we volunteered. good team. We had no ties on And here we are. wheelchair.\" \"You're sick, Gregory Ledman,\" That's not sane!\" His eyes blazed. \"Who are you to talk of sanity?\" the direction. \"I'll be knew what our ace in the hole was. But I had to get Ledman \" a spider's web is for a trapped That did it. Ledman hadn't Earthman who had bound us. I rolled my eyes toward Val, and saw that she was much humanity left in him, but there was a little. He lowered odor like that of drying fish. It had been spun on \"A very wise statement,\" said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up above us. He wasn't wearing glued-in instantly. Ledman the customary skin-tight pliable wore an outmoded, bulky oxysuits we had. He to him, its wheels slowly revolving the wheelchair upended next weren't attached to his back as expected, though. They were strapped to the back of the wheelchair in which he sat. Ledman clawed his way to Through the fishbowl I him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone that he had no legs. The which he had entrapped us, and a very efficient-looking blaster was in his right. \"I didn't want to disturb \"Teamwork,\" Val said. She swivelled around on the floor I could just see it. He might have been sitting there for hours, complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he \"That's that.\" I looked uneasily at Ledman. He was groaning and beginning to stir. enough,\" he said. \"Suppose now you come with me.\" He trained on us all the while. Our legs were free. \"You may get up now,\" he across the floor to Ledman, Then I turned and faced Ledman. now,\" he said. \"No. That's the difference between sane people and insane,\" I told him. \"I'm not outboard atomic rigging behind him, strapped to the back of the wheelchair. He fingered a knob on the arm of the chair and the two exhaust going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth.\" after what they did to \" \"They'll help you on Earth. \"What's going on, Ron?\" \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat talking. We trudged along together, with him following behind had to leave.\" \"Why are you telling all this to me?\" The answer to that came to me quick enough: we had to. Earth needed radioactives, Ledman scowled, and then \"It was the only way,\" he protested. \"I had to get off—\" \"She's right,\" I told him. given the necessary replacement limbs free of charge. All except you. You were so sick nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty And that started the chain he'd killed twelve Geigs—or more—and would have added Val to the number had he had the chance. \"You're a very sick man, Ledman,\" I said. \"All this of events that led Val and me into the middle of the floor, Earth. But you decided to to tide us over until then. In a decade or so, our power would be just about gone. I could he said, weakly but stubbornly still. I could see his whole structure of hate starting to topple, \"Yes—human legs aren't Mars, combing for its uranium two hummocks on the Ledman was sobbing. settlement where all of UranCo's \"Okay, Ledman,\" I said. brought him the fishbowl helmet. us and fairly small. A one-man Ledman.\" He herded us off to sentenced to psych adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you, but there'll be a new—and sane—Gregory Ledman.\" I turned to Val. Ledman had caught us, I remembered who hated. The place was spartanly now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with rivet-studded, glared back at us. He had an automatic my chromium legs and atomic-powered chef, a bed, and a writing-desk, furnished. No chairs, no tape-player, She lifted the geiger harnesses, and I put Ledman back in his wheelchair. know the whole story,\" he said. \"The others did, too.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is Ledman's relation to UranCo?\n\n<options>:\nA He was a civilian injured by them in the Sadlerville blast\nB He was their CEO prior to the Sadlerville blast\nC He was the CEO of a competing company, Ledman Atomics\nD He was a member of the Board\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 takes a heap of flying to make a hulk a home! Forty days of heaven and forty nights of hell. That's the way it's been, Laura. But how can I make you understand? How can I tell you what it's like to be young and a man and to dream of reaching the stars? And yet, at the same time, to be filled with a terrible, gnawing fear—a fear locked in my mind during the day and bursting out like an evil jack-in-the-box at night. I must tell you, Laura. Perhaps if I start at the beginning, the very beginning.... It was the Big Day. All the examinations, the physicals and psychos, It doesn't matter , I told myself. \"You made it, boy,\" he chortled, \"and by Jupiter, we'll celebrate tonight. Yes, siree, I got twenty-four hours, and we'll celebrate as good spacemen should!\" Then Mickey strode up to us. He was his normal, boyish self again, And you, Laura, were with him. \"Meet the Brat,\" he said. \"My sister Laura.\" \"I'm happy to meet you, Ben,\" you said. \"I've heard of no one else for Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're planning to see the town tonight.\" a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" classroom for forty years when I've got the chance to—\" I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: \"When you've got the You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" you're lucky, you're good for five, maybe ten years. Then one thing or another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know.\" My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to 'copter. \"Sure,\" I said to Mickey, \"we can still have a good weekend.\" I liked your folks, Laura. There was no star-hunger in them, of course. doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as feeling that I shouldn't have come here. You kept looking at me until I had to ask: \"What are you thinking, Laura?\" You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. \"No, I shouldn't be thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that.\" I frowned. \"And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think maybe I haven't grown up yet?\" I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up what \"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\" it's just that I've been dodgin' meteors now for twenty-five years. That's a long time, boy. Ain't one spaceman in a thousand that lucky. Some of these days, I won't be so lucky.\" I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\" He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. \"Maybe. Anyway, I'm gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a couple of months, maybe a couple of years. You know spacemen.\" have lived the kind of life a kid should live. Mickey noticed my frown. \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" \"No, I understand, Mickey. I'm not sore, really.\" \"Listen, then. You haven't accepted any offer yet, have you?\" But I wanted, also, to be with you, Laura, to see your smile and the And I said, slowly, my voice sounding unfamiliar and far away, \"Sure, I'll stay, Mickey. Sure.\" Forty days of joy, forty nights of fear and indecision. We did all the flushed. Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, two years. Then you'd have a twenty-four hour liberty—and I'd have what?\" Somehow I'd expected words like these, but still they hurt. \"I wouldn't have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, then teach.\" \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears glittering in your eyes. \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops men had no burns. But a year later the captain had a child. And it was—\" \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\" You had to finish. \"It was a monster.\" That night I lay awake, the fears and doubts too frantic to let me You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a That's what he'd say. And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always. \"Oh God,\" I moaned, \"what shall I do?\" Next morning the door chimes pealed, and you went to the door and I hurled the cylinder at the wall. It thudded, fell, rolled. The broken voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I I walked into your living room and called Dean Dawson on the visiphone. I accepted that job teaching. And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, and the house is silent. It's hard to tell you, to make you understand, and that is why I am left himself, Laura, for he showed me that a boy's dream can also be a He made his last trip to Luna when he knew he was going to die. Heaven knows how he escaped a checkup. Maybe the captain understood and was kind—but that doesn't matter now. It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration to you, but he wanted it with all his heart, and we robbed him of it. Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson. Right now I've got a date that I'm going to keep—at a dingy stone cafe\n\n<question>:\nHow does Ben feel about Laura?\n\n<options>:\nA Ben loves Laura, but not enough to give up space travel.\nB Ben thinks Laura is the one.\nC Ben likes Laura but they only met 40 days ago. It's not that serious.\nD Ben thinks Laura got too serious, too fast. It's only been 40 days.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] All she wanted was a mate and she had the gumption to go out and hunt one down. But that meant Matilda would seek the happy medium. The best that could be said for Matilda Penshaws was that she was at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was This, in itself, was not unusual—but Matilda was so completely talk about it all to Matilda. bachelors, and that the right one would come along simply because she had been waiting for him. Matilda, you see, had patience. She also had a fetish. Matilda had received her A.B. from exclusive Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws, that it was in this way she would find her husband. The widow Penshaws impatiently told her to go out and get dates. That particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the in her own and examine the next-to-the-last finger. \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found of love. She said good-night and went upstairs, climbed out of her light summer dress and took a cold shower. a gratifying selection of pen pals. She shut off the shower, brushed her teeth, gargled, patted herself dry with a towel, and jumped into bed, careful to lock the door of her Matilda switched her bed lamp on and dabbed some citronella on each Matilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light Matilda could see that. But she had not fifty miles from her home, and she'd get there a hop, skip, and jump ahead of her competitors, simply by arriving in person instead of writing a letter. Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed Matilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered with a merest wary trickle of water, tiptoed back into her bedroom, dressed in her very best cotton over the finest of uplifting and figure-moulding underthings, made sure her stocking seams were \"Mother,\" gasped Matilda. Matilda always gasped when she saw something Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak only mother could cook. Matilda moodily thanked the widow Penshaws. Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an happily that he was sorry he couldn't help her. He grudgingly suggested that if it really were important, she might check with the police. out that no one did: Matilda tried the general store, the fire did not exist. Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this early. If she could not find Haron Gorka, that was one thing but she to analyze other people's mistakes, especially Matilda's. Then Matilda frowned. Twenty years from now, this could be Matilda On the other hand—why not? Why couldn't the librarian help her? Why Matilda cleared her throat. \"Pardon me,\" she began. \"I'm looking for—\" Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear. Matilda reached into her pocket-book and withdrew a five dollar bill. \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this of vicarious enjoyment. Is it—ah—a deal?\" Matilda assured her that it was, and, breathlessly, she wrote down the address. She thanked the librarian and then she went out to her car, whistling to herself. that the land no longer was being tilled. The house itself had fallen to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her librarian's account of him certainly had been glowing enough. Perhaps made the sixth. In spite of herself, she smiled. She had not been the only one with the idea to visit Haron Gorka in person. With half a dozen of them there, the laggards who resorted to posting letters would be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought had been her ingenuity, and which now turned out to be something which she had in common with five other women. You live and learn, thought Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having she wouldn't be needed perhaps she was too late.... As it turned out, she wasn't. Not only that, she was welcomed with open arms. Not by Haron Gorka that she really might have liked. Instead, someone she could only regard as a menial met her, and when he asked had she come in response to the advertisement, she nodded eagerly. \"When he wants you, he will send for you. Meanwhile, make yourself to home, lady, and I will tell him you are here.\" A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was her overwrought nerves. At that point she remembered what the servant had said about food and Matilda gasped once and felt about to gasp again—but by then her little while Matilda was asleep again. This time she did not dream at all. It was a deep sleep and a restful one, and when she awoke it was with the wonderful feeling that everything was all right. He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair. She told the servant so. \"Miss,\" he replied, \"I assure you it will not matter in the least to Haron Gorka. You are here and he is ready to see you and that is all \"You sure?\" Matilda wanted to take no chances. \"Yes. Come.\" \"I—do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit. \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\" Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her wanted to believe in him and the result was that it took until now for her to realize it. Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the alone. As she drove back to town, the disappointment melted slowly away. There It was not until she had passed the small library building that she remembered what she had promised the librarian. In her own way, the aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up have returned, too, and I imagine your story will be similar.\" \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what happened to me.\" She quickly then related everything which had happened, completely and in detail. She did this first because it was a promise, and second because she knew it would make her feel better. \"What do you mean?\" \"Did he leave a message for his wife?\" \"Why, yes. Yes, he did. But how did you know? Oh, I suppose he told the \"No. He didn't. But you were the last and I thought he would give you a message for his wife—\" Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told the little librarian what the message was. \"He wanted her to return,\" she said. The librarian nodded, a happy smile on her lips. \"You wouldn't believe Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for the opportunity just to listen to him. \"But he's wrong. It's a hard life for a woman. Someday—five thousand, ten thousand years from now—I will convince him. And then we will If you marry, choose a home-body. I've had the experience and you've seen my Haron for yourself.\" And then the woman was gone. Numbly, Matilda walked to the doorway and\n\n<question>:\nWhat is not a reason for Matilda to tell the librarian what happened?\n\n<options>:\nA she had been asked to relay a message to his wife\nB she wanted to tell someone her crazy story\nC she wanted to make sure the librarian stayed away from him\nD she had made a promise to return\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 sight of an Earthman on Vega III, where it was impossible for an outlander to be, brought angry crowds to surround refuses to obey the just and legal orders of its Viceroy. So we achieve \"And it is true that we can always We control it adequately, and we live in peace. \"The Sundans, for example, though they took the rule of the Empire that was rightfully ours Sunda. He ignored the snarling, the spitting, the waving of boneless prehensile fingers, as he ignored the 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 these Sunda friends of yours.\" \"Don't call those damn lobsters friends,\" growled Ggaran. He subsided world. You can do the same on the worlds of the Sunda. Now, just tell us how you did it, and we're partners.\" exterminate any planet that to feel safe, and we will guarantee them an equal share in the government of the Galaxy.\" \"Bunk,\" said Crownwall. His Effulgence lifted a tentacle the Viceroy's Palace?\" asked Emperor, Hereditary Ruler of the Seventy Suns, Viceroy of the Twelfth Sector of the Universal Holy Empire\"—Universal Galactic Vegan in lordly trappings. They examined Crownwall with great interest for a few moments. when you enter the Viceroy's presence,\" customary among civilized peoples.\" \"It's all right, Ggaran,\" said the Viceroy languidly. He twitched a plans to beat the claws off the Master from Earth to break through our blockade and come here. Most of my advisors—even Ggaran here—thought it couldn't be done, but 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 come, so I can tell you that although I am the leader of one of the mightiest peoples in the Galaxy, whereas there are scarcely six member. \"Then of course, as I continued to move in time, the whole Galaxy billions of you squatting on one moved spatially with reference to \"We offer you partnership with us to take over the rule of the Galaxy from the Sunda—the so-called Master Race.\" \"It would hardly be an equal \"I'm listening,\" said Crownwall. stalks in amusement. \"I'm Viceroy the Empire. I rule over a total of a hundred Satrapies and every Cluster has an average of a hundred inhabited solar systems. There are more inhabited upstart Earthlings are a strange and a frightening race,\" he said. \"Frightening to the Sunda, especially. When you showed up in the spaceways, it was decreed that you thousand years ago. There were at that time three different but similar racial strains of pulpy bipeds, classed among the intelligent races, there was a general expectation, which we reported to the Sunda, that they would some day come to be numbered among the Servants of the Emperor. So we let you alone, in order that you could develop in your own way, until you Galaxy. In all, it has been found only fifteen times. The other races we have watched develop, and One such race we left uncontrolled too long—but no matter. \"You Earthlings, in defiance of all expectation and all reason, have exploded into space. You have developed \"When the Viceroy of the Seventy Suns,\" said the Viceroy of the Seventy Suns, \"travels in state, no one but my own entourage is permitted ten years before. The Star Seeker 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 masses. Then, after several impatient days of careful study and calculation, the distorter drive had been activated, for the first time in Earth's history, and, for the twelve, the stars had winked out. The men of Earth had decided that it should work in theory. They of Alpha Centauri. They had quickly located a dozen planets, Earth to be its twin sister. They had headed for that planet confidently and unsuspectingly, using the ion drive. Your Effulgence, does the Emperor's race—the Master Race—also enjoy the type of civilization you have just had demonstrated Star Seeker , and had then tried to herd it away from the Although caught by surprise, the Earthmen had acted swiftly. Crownwall recalled the discussion—the council of war, they had called it—and their unanimous decision. Although far within the dangerous influence of a planetary mass, they had again activated the distorter drive, and they had beaten they had returned to Earth as swiftly as they had departed. Earth had immediately prepared for war the cohort, the bearers and Ggaran continued to run—without food, drink or, except for Ggaran, evidence You knew that you could have destroyed not only yourself, but also all who live on that planet. You could also have wrecked the planet itself and the ships and those of my own race who manned them. We had tried to contact you, but since you had not developed subspace else that would have kept you from landing on Earth and taking us \"Would that have been so bad?\" said Ggaran. \"We can't tolerate wild and warlike races running free and uncontrolled in the Galaxy. Once was enough for that.\" Government of Earth, making a full report on his trip to Vega. When he had finished, the President \"But what about my question? treaty with a Vegan. They sound ungodly murderous to me. There are too many holes in that protection send them down to your planet. And by the time we had organized properly for war against you, it was obvious that we could not conquer you. We could only destroy you.\" \"That old fool on Sunda, the Emperor, decided that we should for a while. I was back so far that the Vegans hadn't appeared yet. Now, I didn't land—or deliberately down into Vega III's atmosphere blow you up, but by that time I each other. I traveled halfway just to quarantine you. When we had used your radio system to teach a few of you the Universal across the Galaxy to meet him, to convince him that it would be sufficient with the bomb, you would only succeed in setting it off, and that's what the Sunda had been in favor of in the first place. \"But I had different ideas. From to Sunda and there's no sign of Earthling,\" said His Effulgence. Ggaran bowed. \"The crustaceans on Sunda—the lobsterlike creatures that rule the Galaxy—are usurpers. They have no rights to their position of power. Our race is much older than theirs. We were alone when we found the Sundans—a primitive tribe, grubbing in the mud at the edge of their shallow those days we were desperately lonely. We needed companionship among the stars, and we helped them develop to the point where, in their inferior way, they were able to reason, almost as well as we, The People, can. And then they cheated us of our rightful place. \"The Emperor at Sunda is one of them. They provide sixty-eight of the hundred Viceroys for revenge. And now \"If you haven't been able to help yourselves for two million years,\" asked Crownwall, \"how does the said the aged ruler. \"We can destroy planets, of course, but with few exceptions, we cannot conquer them. I rule a total of seven races in my Sector. I rule them, but I don't let them intermingle. Each race settles on the planets that best suit it. Each of those planets is quite capable of defending\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the Viceroy want to overthrow the Sundans?\n\n<options>:\nA The Sundans do not understand polite society or etiquette. They really must be stopped.\nB The Sundans are waging war on the Vegans.\nC The Sundans are a race of brutal warriors, oppressing everyone in the galaxy.\nD The Vegans were around before the Sundans, therefore the Vegans should be in charge of the galaxy.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nblood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. drifted together, four men in bulbous pressure suits like small individual rockets, held together by an awful pressing need for each other and by the \"gravity-rope\" beam. Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face Suddenly, Old Dunbar had known where they were. Suddenly, Dunbar knew which sent a man a few hundred thousand miles further on toward wherever he was going. Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line, taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third, knew too, but were afraid to admit it. But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking about how Dunbar looked inside that suit—and hating Dunbar more and repeat. Sometimes Russell thought of other things besides his growing hatred thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing. for Dunbar. Hell no—Dunbar had to start talking about a place they And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of away could see or care. Still—we might have a chance to live, even now, Russell thought—if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar. They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old rum-dum. Russell had known now for some time that they were going in the wrong direction. No reason for knowing. Just a hunch. And Russell was sure his hunch was right. \"We're about in the middle of those four suns aren't we, Dunbar?\" \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic life on it, Dunbar ... the only one we can live on?\" Russell asked. \"That's right! That's right,\" Dunbar yelled. \"That's the only one—and Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe Alvar and Johnson would see that he was cracked. \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\" \"No life, boys, nothing,\" Dunbar laughed. \"Nothing on these other Russell said. \"Yeah, that's right,\" said Alvar. \"Sometimes I see a red rim around the one we're going for, sometimes a red rim around that one on the Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face. than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all was to get rid of Dunbar. \"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long,\" Dunbar said, as the always spring, always spring, boys, and the music plays all night, every night of a long long year....\" Russell suddenly shouted. \"Keep quiet, Dunbar. Shut up will you?\" Johnson said. \"Dunbar—how long'll it take us?\" \"Six months to a year, I'd say,\" Dunbar yelled happily. \"That is—of \"What?\" croaked Alvar. Johnson didn't say anything at all. Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six \"Shut up!\" Johnson yelled. Dunbar laughed. \"Boys, boys, don't get panicky. Keep your heads. Just stick to old Dunbar and he'll see you through. I'm always lucky. Only on our hungry hides. That's worth waiting for.\" Russell did it before he hardly realized he was killing the old man. It was something he had had to do for a long time and that made it pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's ears, and he knew Alvar and Johnson had heard it too. Alvar and Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer. \"Russ—you shouldn't have done that,\" Johnson whispered. \"You shouldn't have done that to the old man!\" \"No,\" Alvar said, so low he could barely be heard. \"You shouldn't have done it.\" \"I did it for the three of us,\" Russell said. \"It was either him or us. Lies ... lies that was all he had left in his crazy head. Paradise ... \"Maybe he was lying, maybe not,\" Johnson said. \"Now he's dead anyway.\" \"Maybe he was wrong, crazy, full of lies,\" Alvar said. \"But now he's dead.\" \"How could he see any difference in those four stars?\" Russell said, louder. \"He thought he was right,\" Alvar said. \"He wanted to take us to \" Shhhh ,\" said Alvar. It was quiet. How could it be so quiet, Russell thought? And up ahead the old man's pressure suit with a corpse inside went on ahead, leading the other three at the front of the gravity-rope. \"Maybe he was wrong,\" Alvar said. \"But now do we know which way is right?\" Sometime later, Johnson said, \"We got to decide now. Let's forget the decide what to do.\" And Alvar said, \"Guess he was crazy all right, and I guess we trusted him because we didn't have the strength to make up our own minds. Why because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction, long ago but for that fear. \"How can we tell which of us is right?\" Alvar said. \"It's like \"The one to the right,\" said Johnson. \"We been going away from the right one all the time,\" said Alvar. \"We got to stay together,\" said Russell. \"Nobody could spend a year out here ... alone....\" \"Ah ... in another month or so we'd be lousy company anyway,\" Alvar can come and help the other two....\" \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can ever make it alone....\" Alvar said, \"We each take the star he likes best. I'll go back the other way. Russ, you take the left. And you, Johnson, go to the right.\" Johnson started to laugh. Russell was yelling wildly at them, and above his own yelling he could hear Johnson's rising laughter. \"Every guy's got a star of his own,\" Johnson said when he stopped laughing. \"Okay,\" Alvar said. \"We cut off the gravity rope, and each to his own sun.\" Now Russell wasn't saying anything. \"And the old man,\" Alvar said, \"can keep right on going toward what he thought was right. And he'll keep on going. Course he won't be able to old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't care.\" \"Ready,\" Johnson said. \"I'll cut off the gravity rope.\" \"I'm ready,\" Alvar said. \"To go back toward whatever it was I started from.\" \"All right,\" Johnson said. \"Good-bye.\" Russell felt the release, felt the sudden inexplicable isolation and aloneness even before Alvar and Johnson used their life-guns and shot out of sight, Johnson toward the left and Alvar back toward that other red-rimmed sun behind them. And old Dunbar shooting right on ahead. And all three of them Fading, he could hear their voices. \"Each to his own star,\" Johnson said. \"On a bee line.\" \"On a bee line,\" Alvar said. Russell used his own life-gun and in a little while he didn't hear Alvar or Johnson's voices, nor could he see them. They were thousands of miles away, and going further all the time.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Dunbar continue to tell stories of an enchanting paradise?\n\n<options>:\nA To motivate them to keep persisting until they arrive\nB To convince himself that he is choosing the correct star\nC To assuage his crewmen's minds before they inevitably die\nD To lure the Johnson, Alvar, and Russell into a trap\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nName Your Symptom Extensive 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! world is going mad and we are just sitting back watching it hike along. Do you know that what we are doing is really the most primitive medicine in the world? We are treating the symptoms and not the disease. One cannibal walking another with sleeping sickness doesn't cure anything. Eventually the savage dies—just as all those sick savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not only the indications.\" just aren't enough of us or enough time to give that old-fashioned therapy to all the sick people.\" the life. The sickness overcame him. He sat down on Morgan's desk. \"That's just one thing, the gyro ball. There are so many others, so many.\" Morgan smiled. \"You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so—so—not all are like that. Those Cures for mother complexes aren't even obvious. If anybody does see that button in a patient's ear, it looks like a hearing aid. Yet for a nominal sum, the patient is equipped to 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.\" seemed to be Normals, but you couldn't tell. Many \"Cures\" were not readily apparent. of Cure. \"Pardon me,\" he said warmly. \"Quite all right.\" stubble-chinned, heavy-shouldered man quivering in the center of a web care about other people's feelings. This is he merely radiated narrowed eyes. \"How long have you been Cured?\" \"Not—not long,\" Infield evaded. Under the mousy hair, Price's strong features were beginning to gleam moistly. \"You are lucky in one way, Mr. Infield. People take one look 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?\" Price looked off as if at something not particularly interesting, but more interesting than what he was saying. \"It drives a needle into my temple and kills me.\" The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed to save lives, not endanger them. \"What kind of irresponsible idiot could have issued such a device?\" he \"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. himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly shocked sane. Men hide in the comforts of insanity, but when faced with defeat of his life and his withdrawal from life and live an enforced sanity. But sometimes the withdrawal was—or could become—too complete. \"You don't understand. Everyone has some little phobia or fixation. Maybe everyone didn't have one once, but after being told they did have them for generations, everyone who didn't have one developed a defense mechanism and an aberration so they would be normal. If that phobia isn't brought to the surface and Cured, it may arise any time and endanger other people. The only safe, good sound citizens are Cured. Those lacking Cures—the Incompletes— must be dealt with .\" likable, impassioned with his cause, and convinced that it was his Price started to glance around the cafe, then half-shrugged, almost visibly thinking that he shouldn't run that routine into the ground. \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" not just in his head. It was thundering outside. He was getting sick. Price was the type of man who could spread his ideas throughout the ranks of the Cured—if indeed the plot was not already universal, imposed upon many ill minds. He could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view. Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop secondary symptoms. People would start needing two Cures—perhaps a foetic gyro and a safety belt—then another and another. There would always be a crutch to lean on for one thing and then room enough to develop something else—until everyone would be loaded down with too many Cures to operate. A Cure was a last resort, dope for a malignancy case, euthanasia for the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and the race. relief for neurotic or psychopathic symptoms on someone who didn't want or need it? \"Perhaps you don't see how it could be done,\" Price said. \"I'll half-humorously, it was surprising to see a Normal—an \"Incomplete.\" But then he noticed something about the baby she carried. The Cure had been very simple. It wasn't even a mechanized half-human robot, just a 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 mark of honor of the completely sane man. You should be proud of your Cure and eager to Cure others. Very eager.\" Price leaned forward. \"There is one phobia that is so wide-spread, a Cure is not even thought of—hypochondria. Hundreds of people come to your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the other Cured psychiatrists give everybody who comes to you a Cure?\" Infield gestured vaguely. \"A psychiatrist wouldn't hand out Cures unless they were absolutely necessary.\" \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself. Other psychiatrists have.\" 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.\" critical point in history. It was up to him which turn the world took, the world as represented by these four Cured people. \"I'm afraid I'm for less 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— monstrous threw the Cure on the floor. \"Now,\" he said, \"I am going out in that rain storm. There's thunder and lightning out there. I'm afraid, but I can get along without a Cure and so can you.\" \"Just a moment.\" Morgan switched on the room lights. \"What were you saying?\" \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by lightning. We took him to the morgue. He must have been crazy to go out without his Cure.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a major theme of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA Placebos can be just as powerful as engineered medications and cures\nB Not every illness should be cured through a western, pathology-focused approach to healing\nC The more people believe there is something 'wrong' with them, the greater lengths they will go to hide or repair their 'flaws'\nD Sometimes a 'cure' can end up causing more distress and pain than living with an affliction\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Centre for the Future of Intelligence is seeking to investigate the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity, and make sure humans take advantage of the opportunities while dodging the risks. It launched at the University of Cambridge last October, and is a collaboration between four universities and colleges – Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Berkeley – backed with a 10-year, £10m grant from the Leverhulme Trust. Because no single discipline is ideally suited to this task, the centre emphasises the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing and collaboration. It is bringing together a diverse community of some of the world's best researchers, philosophers, psychologists, lawyers and computer scientists. 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. That means bringing together the technologists and the experts at developing these algorithms together with social scientists, philosophers, legal scholars and so forth. 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. We want to create a space where many different disciplines can come together and develop a shared language, learn from each other’s approaches, and hopefully very quickly move to be able to actually develop new ideas, new conclusions, together. But the first step is learning how to talk to each other. 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? One of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen. 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. I think this is very important because historically, we've had an overwhelming tendency to anthropomorphise. We define what intelligence is, historically, as being human-like. And then within that, being like certain humans. And it's taken a very long time for the academic community to accept that there could be such a thing as non-human intelligence at all. We know that crows, for example, who have had a completely different evolutionary history, or octopuses, who have an even more different evolutionary history, might have a kind of intelligence that's very different to ours. That in some ways rivals our own, and so forth. But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. And until now, people have been fairly shy about describing them as intelligent. Or rather, in the history of AIs, we think solving a particular problem would require intelligence. Then we solve it. And then that's no longer intelligence, because we've solved it. Chess is a good example. It certainly is a very ambitious project to create the atlas of intelligence. 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? 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>:\nAccording to Cave, what must happen before different disciplines converge to guide AI development?\n\n<options>:\nA government support\nB signing a treatise\nC creating shared policies\nD establishing dialogue\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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\"If there was ever a fellow ready for this planet,\" decided the tree named Ashlew, TREE Dang vines! Beats all how some plants have no manners—but what do you expect, Kolin sensed a lack of direct \"you're it, Sonny! Hang on there while I signal the Life attention. The rustle about him was natural, caused by an ordinary breeze. He tree,\" he muttered. \"If Yrtok snapped out of it and heard, I'm as good as re-personalized As he brooded upon the sorry choice of arousing a search by hiding where he was or going back to bluff things out, the tree spoke. \"Maybe you're all set, Sonny. The Life has been thinkin' \"The penalty for desertion—\" \"Whoosh! Who'd find you? You could be a bird, a tree, even a cloud.\" Silenced but doubting, Kolin permitted himself to try the dream on for size. He considered what form might most easily escape the his musings: mere hope of escape thought Kolin rebelliously. Prudently, he did not express this resentment overtly. His well-schooled features revealed no trace of the idea—or of any other idea. The live … the whole damn set-up. They could just as easy make world's less kindly techniques \"Why?\" wheezed Ashlew. complete loyalty to the state was likely to result in a siege of treatment that left the subject come, people would have time Kolin had heard of instances wherein mere unenthusiastic posture had betrayed intentions to harbor would get blown up—and I mean blown up!\" The tree was silent for a treasonable thoughts. branches stir meditatively. Then Ashlew offered a suggestion. \"I could tell the Life your side of it,\" he hissed. \"Once Kolin permitted himself to mildly willing look. (Too eager an attitude could arouse suspicion of disguising an improper of a proper viewpoint was a necessity if the Planetary Kolin found himself in a that the keepers of rations could hardly, in an emergency, give even the appearance of favoring themselves in regard to food. They would go without. Kolin It was tenuous, almost a haze. Close examination would have revealed it to be made up of myriads of tiny spores. They resembled those cast forth by one of the stare measured them. Yrtok, a dark, lean-faced formed a cohesive body. They drifted together, approaching the men as if taking intelligent a sparse creeper grew along their way, its elongated leaves shimmering with bronze-green reflections against a Kolin shared their sense of of sight of authority and responsible for their own actions. Unit One.\" Throughout the cloud of spores, the mind formerly known as Peter Kolin congratulated itself upon its choice of form. For all Kolin could tell, he Nearer to the original shape of the Life than Ashlew , he thought. He paused to consider the state of the tree named Ashlew, half immortal but rooted to one spot, unable to float on a semi-circle of damp trees and bushes several hundred meters away. He suspected Especially, it was unable to insinuate any part of itself flickered among the foliage. Once, a shrub puffed out an thought Kolin. deceptively distant forest. Yrtok paused to examine some purple berries glistening dangerously on a low shrub. Kolin regarded the trees with misgiving. \"Looks as tough to get through as a tropical jungle,\" he remarked. \"I think the stuff puts out shoots that grow back into the ground to root as they \"Could hardly be better, could it?\" he chuckled to the In two or three minutes, they reached the abrupt border of the odd-looking trees. Except for one thick trunked giant, all of them were about the same height. They craned their necks to estimate \"Reformation of the Planetary State,\" mused the captain, smiling dreamily as he branches. The depths behind it looked dark and impenetrable. \"We'd better explore along Kolin looked over his shoulder. sat beside the bush with the purple berries, utterly relaxed. \"He must have tasted For some reason, he had trouble attracting her attention. Then he noticed that she \"Hope she didn't eat some stupid thing too!\" he grumbled, trotting back. As he reached her, whatever dreamily, Kolin backed away. they had involuntarily drawn back to \"It's time to end this scout,\" he told himself. \"It's dangerous. One good look and I'm jetting off! What I need is an easy tree to climb.\" He considered the massive giant. Soaring thirty or forty At first, Kolin saw no way, thick limbs, twice head height, he felt safer. Later, at what he hoped was one knee over a branch and paused to wipe sweat from his eyes. Peering down, he discovered open the top is,\" he mused. \"I wonder how the view will had been employed. Lack of Kolin, slipping, grabbed don't?\" Kolin could feel the skin crawling along his backbone. \"Who The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its suggestion of \"They're scared that without amiability. talk of war, and scouting I am. Didn't figure you'd ever seen a man grown into a tree before.\" Kolin looked about, seeing my bark—I'm not like an Earth tree.\" Kolin examined the bark of the crotch in which he sat. It to think about the way they holes and hollows in its rough surface. \"I never saw an Earth tree,\" he admitted. \"We came from Haurtoz.\" have to live and who's running don't bother with them all, since I came here and found out I could be anything I wanted.\" \"What do you mean, anything Kolin, testing the firmness of a vertical vine. \"Just of the tree trunk. \"And, if I do have to remind you, it would be nicer if you said Earth years any more. Lost track. I always figured bein' a tree was a nice, peaceful life and when I remembered \"It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?\" asked Kolin, twisting about in an effort to see what the higher branches might hide. \"Nope. Most everything here is run by the Life—that is, by the thing that first grew big enough to do some thinking, and set its roots down all over until it had of it down below.\" \"The other trees? That jungle?\" \"It's more'n a jungle, Sonny. didn't twist that branch over in time, you'd be bouncing off my roots right now!\" hanging on grimly. \"Doggone vine!\" commented mind and set up a mental field to help him change form. He looks twice as good as a vine!\" \"He's very handy,\" agreed Kolin politely. He groped for he started living with a different way of thinking. It burns me. I thought of being a tree, and then he came along to take advantage of it!\" Kolin braced himself securely don't have to be a tree.\" \"No?\" \" to get around and see things. Lots changed to animals or birds. One even stayed a man—on the outside anyway. Most of them have to change as the bodies wear out, which I don't, and some made bad mistakes tryin' to be things they saw on other planets.\" \"I wouldn't want to do \"Listen!\" Kolin blurted out. \"I wasn't so much enjoying being what I was that getting back matters to me!\" \"Don't like your home planet, whatever the name was?\" \"Haurtoz. It's a rotten place. A Planetary State! You have to think and even look just to live.\" Suddenly, Kolin found himself telling the tree about life on Haurtoz, and of the officially announced threats to imagine. Somehow, the oddity of talking to a tree wore off. Kolin heard opinions spouting more relaxed he felt.\n\n<question>:\nWhat might lead the reader to think that Ashlew is trying to draw Kolin into a trap?\n\n<options>:\nA The way in which he offers to talk to the powerful force about Kolin's history\nB The holes strewn across Ashlew's back.\nC The fact that Ashlew assumed Kolin had been to Earth.\nD The fact that anyone would think a tree would be a good being to change into.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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\"If there was ever a fellow THE TALKATIVE ready for this planet,\" decided \"you're it, Sonny! Hang on there while I signal the Life by root!\" All TREE about him was natural, caused damage to the stellar drive and the way the small planet's murky atmosphere defied precision scanners—the tree,\" he muttered. \"If Yrtok snapped out of it and heard, I'm as good as re-personalized right now.\" As he brooded upon the Peter Kolin had to admit that casualties might have been \"Don't know what got into things out, the tree spoke. \"Maybe you're all set, Sonny. The Life has been thinkin' of learning about other worlds. If you can think of a safe form to jet off in, you might make yourself a deal. How'd you like to stay here?\" Peace State You could be a bird, a tree, \"Since the crew will be on the damage,\" announced the emergency watches repairing the dream on for size. He considered what form as is suitable. It may be useful to discover temporary still be tough enough to live a long time without renewal. Another factor slipped into his musings: mere hope of escape was unsatisfying after the outburst that had defined foods.\" that never fights is bad not just get away but get even for the way they make us live … the whole damn set-up. They could just as easy make peace with the Earth colonies. Earth, but many of the home world's less kindly techniques of any other idea. The complete loyalty to the state was likely to result in a siege \"They're scared that without suitably \"re-personalized.\" of treatment that left the subject have to live and who's running wherein mere unenthusiastic had been employed. Lack of posture had betrayed State. Then the gravy train would get blown up—and I mean blown up!\" of three persons each,\" one person in to report, and \"I could tell the Life your he will be replaced by one of the five I shall keep here to issue rations.\" no matter how far away. Maybe you could make a deal to kill two birds with one stone, as they used to say on Earth….\" viewpoint.) The maintenance of a proper viewpoint was a necessity if the Planetary State were to survive the hostile plots of Earth and the latter's decadent colonies. That, at least, was the official line. small packets of emergency rations. The line of crewmen released temporarily from repair work was transient as to individuals but immutable as to length. Slichow muttered something profane about disregard Since the crew would be eating that the keepers of of favoring themselves in regard to food. They maintained a standard expression would have revealed it to be passed. Along the edges, the haze faded raggedly into thin formed a cohesive body. They drifted together, approaching staggering flunkies, stealing a few seconds of relaxation on the pretext of dumping an their way, its elongated leaves shimmering with bronze-green reflections against a armful of light plastic packing, momentarily before descending. Kolin shared their sense of the valley at a brisk pace, becoming Unit One.\" Throughout the cloud of spores, the mind formerly known as Peter Kolin congratulated itself upon its choice of form. Nearer to the original shape of the Life than Ashlew got , he thought. a somber, brooding grayness. state of the tree named Ashlew, half immortal but rooted to one spot, unable to float on a breeze or through space itself in a world bounded by the He paused to consider the on the pressure of light. into the control center of another form of life, as a second spore was taking charge of insinuate any part of itself plentiful, interspersed with scrubby thickets of tangled, \"Be a job to find anything Finally, after a longer hike than he had anticipated, they Peace State and the return to Haurtoz passed like weeks to some of the crew but like brief moments in infinity to other units. At last, the ship parted the air above Headquarters \"Looks as tough to get through as a tropical jungle,\" he remarked. \"I think the stuff puts out regarded the trees with \"Could hardly be better, through.\" In two or three minutes, \"Maybe we can find a way \"Hardly, sir. All ready for the liberation of Haurtoz.\" \"Reformation of the Planetary State,\" mused the captain, smiling dreamily as he grasped the handrail. \"And then—formation of the Planetary Mind!\" END by the wide spread of the edge,\" decided Yrtok. might most easily escape the \" relaxed. \"He must have tasted some!\" exclaimed Kolin. \"I'll The they had involuntarily drawn back to \"It's time to end this scout,\" he told himself. \"It's dangerous. One good look and I'm jetting off! What I need is He considered the massive giant. Soaring thirty or forty dwarfing other growth, it seemed the most promising choice. clinging to the rugged trunk to climb. Planetary State of Haurtoz \"Oh, well, I can take it when I come down, if she hasn't snapped out of her spell by then. Funny … I wonder if had been organized some fifteen When he reached the first thick limbs, twice head height, he felt safer. Later, at what he hoped was light-years from old open the top is,\" he mused. \"I wonder how the view will be from up there?\" \"Depends on what you're of twigs and leaves, which You know why they don't?\" \"Who The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its suggestion of amiability. \"Name's Johnny Ashlew. Kolin had heard of instances told himself in a reasonable tone. \"It's bad enough that the other two passed out without me going space happy too.\" intentions to harbor Earth tree.\" surface. since I came here and found out I could be anything I wanted.\" \"What do you mean, anything a vertical vine. \"Just Chief Slichow said. \"Every the voice, sounding of the tree trunk. \"And, if age.\" \"Your age? How old—?\" \"Can't really count it in Earth years any more. Lost a tree was a nice, peaceful life and when I remembered how long some of them live, that settled it. Sonny, this world ain't all it looks like.\" in an effort to see what the \"Nope. Most everything here is run by the Life—that is, by the thing that first thinking, and set its roots control. That's the outskirts \"The other trees? That jungle?\" \"It's more'n a jungle, Sonny. with the others from the Arcturan Spark , the planet get some rest, but assumed a hanging on grimly. \"Doggone vine!\" commented mildly willing look. (Too eager the Life got in touch with his mind and set up a mental field to help him change form. He looks twice as good as a vine!\" a foothold. much, even with the Life's way of thinking. It burns me. I thought of being to take advantage of it!\" to stretch tiring muscles. \"Maybe I'd better stay a him. \"You ought to let me tell you how the Life helps you change form. You don't have to be a tree.\" \" the outside anyway. Most of them have to change as the bodies wear out, which I don't, and some made bad mistakes tryin' to be things that, Mr. Ashlew.\" \"There's just one thing. The Life don't like taking believes in peace and quiet. You might not get back to your ship in any form that out. \"I wasn't so much enjoying being what I was that getting back matters to me!\" \"Don't like your home planet, whatever the name was?\" \"Haurtoz. It's a rotten place. A Planetary State! You have to think and even look the way that's standard thirty dream treason and they'd find out somehow.\" just to live.\" Suddenly, Kolin found himself telling the tree about life the Planetary State's planned expansion. He dwelt upon the desperation of having no imagine. Somehow, the oddity of more relaxed he felt.\n\n<question>:\nWhat does \"the Life\" best represent?\n\n<options>:\nA Freedom to live authentically\nB Escapism and abandonment of responsibility\nC Temptation and deviation from shared goals\nD Immortality and a return to wholeness\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. I'm A Stranger Here Myself The Place de France is the town's hub. It marks the end 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 Baghdad of Harun al-Rashid. King-size sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. The Cafe de Paris serves the establishment. You can sit of a sunny morning and read the Paris edition of the New York at current exchange. You can sit there, after the Tangier is possibly the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In native costume you'll see from further south. In and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Americans and South Americans, and, of course, even Europeans—from both sides of the Curtain. In Tangier you'll find some of the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a bodies, and the richest will avoid your eyes, afraid might try to sell them something. smugglers and black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced persons, ex-royalty, and subversives limits the activities of few of Tribune 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. Rupert? Haven't seen you for exports. \"What's in the newspaper?\" he said, disinterestedly. \"Pogo and Albert are going to fight a duel,\" I told him, \"and \"Oh,\" I said, \"the intellectual type.\" I scanned the front page. another manned satellite.\" anything we Americans have.\" to those poxy flying \"What flying saucers?\" Paris. Every pore in place. We both looked after her. \"You know, what everybody too bad one of these bloody manned Maybe they would've seen one.\" without rubbing him the wrong well, but, for that matter, it's get to know anybody very well in Tangier. Largely, cards are played close to the chest. My beer came and a plate of tapas for us both. Tapas at the Cafe de Paris are apt to be Free lunch, they used to call it in the States. Just to say something, I said, \"Where do you think they came from?\" And when he looked blank, I added, \"The Flying He grinned. \"From Mars or Venus, or someplace.\" landed on the Yale football field and said Take me to your cheerleader , or something.\" crackpot blokes' explanations of them. If they were aliens from space, then why not show themselves?\" oil. answers to that one. We could Paul was mildly interested. \"Like what?\" there's this big Galactic League of civilized planets. But it's restricted, 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.\" read the same poxy stuff I do.\" in a neatly tailored gray jellaba, European style high-heeled I said, \"Or, here's another advanced civilization on, say, Mars.\" \"Not Mars. No air, and too bloody dry to support life.\" \"Don't interrupt, please,\" I said with mock severity. \"This is a very old civilization and as the planet began to lose its water and air, it withdrew underground. Uses hydroponics and air. Isn't that what we'd do, in a few million years, if Earth lost its water and air?\" what about them?\" \"Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific Any day now he's going to have practical space ships. Meanwhile, he's also got the H-Bomb and the way he beats the drums on both sides of the Curtain, he's not against using it, if he could Paul said, \"I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on us. That's an old one. I've read different.\" 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 and revolutions, and greed for power or any of these things giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right or how we're going to get there.\" my hands for Mouley. \"How do you mean, 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 countries, and all using different methods of doing it. But look at the so-called advanced countries. Up to their bottoms in climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony-bins full of the balmy, unemployed, threat of war, spending all their money on armaments it. Why, a man from Mars would be fascinated, like.\" the whole thing out before, and 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 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, get the daily newspapers and the magazines. Be right in the center of things. But now I don't think so. I think he'd be right here in Tangier.\" \"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 haven't the slightest idea of how ask a man where's he's from. He can be British, a White Russian, could care less. Where are you from, Rupert?\" \"California,\" I told him. \"No, you're not,\" he grinned. I was taken aback. \"What do \"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 difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really from, Rupert?\" \"Aldebaran,\" I said. \"How about you?\" We had a laugh and ordered another beer. \"What're you doing here on Earth?\" I asked him. \"Researching for one of our meat trusts. We're protein eaters. Humanoid flesh is considered quite a delicacy. How about you?\" \"Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal, or international, 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 Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from December 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n\n<question>:\nWhat, according to Rupert, would be the best place for an alien visitor to observe and learn about humans?\n\n<options>:\nA Harun al-Rashid\nB The Cafe de Paris\nC A New York City library\nD The FBI headquarters\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 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 in precisely seven minutes, four and four-fifths seconds. He undressed and climbed into the tub, relaxing luxuriously in the exhilaration of irradiated water. He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful battering thunder continued persistently. He swore and sat up. \"What do you want?\" There was no answer the hammering continued. 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. \"Hello.\" The voice matched the calm alertness of a pair of deep-blue eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the soon fix that. \"All right, joke's over, you can beat it now.\" force.\" satisfaction of the unending extra work that was going to occur around the laboratory from now on. He sank back into the soothing liquid complete relaxation. A hammering thunder burst on the outer door. He sat up with a groan. \"Say! What the—\" \"Where is she?\" the sergeant demanded. \"Wherethehell's who?\" \"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?\" \"She ... why ... why ... she left, of course. You don't think I was going to have women running around in here, do you?\" \"What the devil do you want? Haven't you caused enough blasted trouble already?\" \"Yes, you! If sending that damn blonde to my apartment and getting me arrested is your idea of a joke—\" for months she's a rebel and she's sure been raising plenty of hell panel last night. Communications been tied up all day.\" Pete lowered his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl as good-looking as they say she is?\" \"Now listen here, Brent. I don't know—\" hold me here indefinitely.\" \"Shut up. Nobody ain't takin' no message to McHague. I don't care if \"Hello, pantless!\" a voice breathed. He knew that voice! \"What the devil are you doing here?\" \"Somebody by the name of Pete Brent tipped us off that you were in trouble because of me. But don't worry, we're going to get you out.\" cooked now. Whether you like it or not, you'll hang with us when they find us trying to get you out of here.\" Brian felt as though something had kicked him in the stomach. She was right! He had to get out now. He wouldn't be able to explain this away. \"Give me that key,\" he hissed and grabbed for it. a gasping grunt of pain as one of the rebels went down. They were shooting to kill. stabbed through the darkness and they clambered precariously down a steep, steel stairway. \"Where the dickens are we?\" Brian whispered hoarsely. \"Oh, you don't have to whisper, we're safe enough here. This is one of level tunnel. \"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 off the planet.\" \"Well, what the dickens does he look like?\" Brian asked doubtfully. before he died,\" she said grimly. Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice. going. The tunnel emerged in a huge cavern that gloomed darkly away in every direction. The towering, massive remains of old machinery, eroded and \"Through that hole up there,\" the girl said matter-of-factly. \"You're crazy, you can't get through there.\" almost as soon as we can walk.\" \"Oh—I see,\" Brian said weakly and a few moments later he really did \"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?\" \"You must be mistak—\" He slumped to the floor as Crystal threw the ship into a mad, rolling spin. A tremendous crash thundered close saw the crew battling their controls in startled terror. The ship slipped frantically away and fell into a spin. \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others doing?\" jerked and jumped like crazy marionettes as the bullets smashed into them. It was over in a few moments. The dead rebels drifted down into the mist-shrouded depths of the valley. \"The dirty, murdering rats!\" Brian's voice ripped out in a fury of outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\" \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's once in a while, you'd have heard of these things.\" \"But why—\" He ducked away instinctively as a flight of bullets spanged could not match the maneuver. The rebel craft plunged down through the blinding fog. Half-seen, ghostly fingers of stone clutched up at them, talons of gray rock missed and fell away again as Crystal nursed the \" Phew! can you do it?\" \"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.\" solely by instruments and dead reckoning. The needle of the fuel gauge flickered closer and closer to the danger point. They tore loose from the clinging fog as it swung firmly to \"Empty.\" The drive sputtered and coughed and died. \"That's figuring it nice and close,\" Crystal said in satisfaction. \"We can glide in from here.\" crescendoing roar of ships in a dive followed by the terrific crash of an explosion. \"They got him!\" Crystal's voice was a moan. \"Oh, the fool, the fool!\" \"Sounded like more than one ship. They'll be after us, now. Is there well as we do.\" \"How come?\" two ships. Startled screams of agony burst from the crowded group of police as they were caught in the annihilating cross fire of roaring flame. They crisped and twisted, cooked to scorched horrors before they fell. A burst of thick, greasy smoke rushed out of the cavern. Two of the police, their clothes and flesh scorched and flaming, plunged as mixture down till the exhaust was a lambent, shuddering stutter, verging on extinction. He dashed to the other ship and repeated the adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In a moment the whole mass of air in the cavern hit the frequency with a subtle, intangible thunder of vibration. to the floor. \"It's time to check out,\" Brian shouted. hundred yards to the east of the cavern entrance. The ground shook and heaved beneath them. downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn vegetation. gone and the primeval silence settled back into place. Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside. \"How did you do it?\" \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the meaning of “laconically” as used in this passage?\n\n<options>:\nA Elaborately\nB Windy\nC Concisely\nD Deeply\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 RANDALL GARRETT Women on space station assignments shouldn't get pregnant. But there's a first time for everything. Here's the story of such a time——and an historic situation. One thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, a woman was in pain. There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in its orbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum inside, in the hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. she knew the pain wouldn't return for a few minutes yet. \"Fine, doctor. It's no worse than I was expecting. How long will The major looked nervously at his wristwatch. \"Nearly an hour. You'll be all right.\" Alice Britton closed her eyes. Major Banes was all smiles and cheer Service, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up here on a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!\" Alice had said: \"I'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. I know it never entered mine.\" \"But that was two and a half months ago! Why didn't you come to me before this? Of all the tom-fool—\" His voice had died off in suppressed anger. not equipped for obstetrics up here.\" \"Send me back down to Earth, of course.\" So she had stayed on in the Space Station, doing her job as always. As Chief Radar Technician, she was important in the operation of the station. Her pregnancy had never made her uncomfortable the slow rotation of the wheel-shaped station about its axis gave an effective gravity at the rim only half that of Earth's surface, and the closer to the hub she went, the less her weight became. According to the major, the baby was due sometime around the first of September. \"Two hundred and eighty days,\" he had said. \"Luckily, we can pinpoint it almost exactly. And at a maximum of half of Earth gravity, you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then. You're to report to she took a deep breath. Everything had been fine until today. And then, only half an hour ago, space. The depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been enough to start labor. The baby was going to come two months early. She relaxed a little more, waiting for the next pain. There was nothing to worry about \"Incubator,\" he said, without taking his eyes off the clock. \"I beg your pardon?\" \"Incubator. We can't deliver a seven-month preemie without an incubator.\" The nurse's eyes widened. \"Good Lord! I never thought of that! What are I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. But—\" \"But what?\" \"Will we have time? The pains are coming pretty fast now. It will be at least three hours before they can get a ship up here. If they miss us on the next time around, it'll be five hours. She can't hold out that long.\" impatiently as he waited for the answer. When the receiver teletype began clacking softly, he leaned over the page, waiting anxiously for every word. BRITTON PILOTING. MEDICS LOADING SHIP TWELVE WITH INCUBATOR AND OTHER SUPPLIES. BASE OBSTETRICIAN LT COL GATES ALSO COMING TO ASSIST IN DELIVERY. HANG ON. OVER. Banes nodded and turned to the operator. \"I want a direct open station was protected by airtight doors and individual heating units if some accident, such as a really large meteor hit, should release the Alice Britton was resting quietly, but there were lines of strain the mill. What's eating you?\" He forced a nervous smile. \"Nothing but the responsibility. You're first child born in space. And it's my job to see to it that you're both all right.\" \"Something on that order, I suppose. But it won't be all my glory. Colonel Gates, the O.B. man, was supposed to come up for the delivery his left hand. \"Two hours. It isn't soon enough. She'll never hold out that long. And we don't have an incubator.\" His voice was a clipped monotone, timed with the rhythmic slamming of his fist. The Chief Nurse said: \"Can't we build something that will do until the rocket gets here?\" out of? There's not a spare piece of equipment in the station. It costs money to ship material up here, you know. Anything not essential is left on the ground.\" She frowned. \"That really puts you on the spot. If the baby dies, save that baby!\" He paused as he saw her eyes. \"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. My nerves are all raw, I guess. But, dammit, my field is space medicine. I can handle depressurization, space sickness, and things like that, but I don't know anything about babies! I know what I read know. I don't even have any references up here people aren't supposed to go around having babies on a space station!\" \"It's all right, doctor. Shall I prepare the delivery room?\" His laugh was hard and short. \"Delivery room! I wish to Heaven we had Brittons tension within him. The slow, monotonous rotation of the second hand on the wall clock seemed to drag time grudgingly along with it. Banes wished he could smoke to calm his raw nerves, but it was strictly against regulations. board had had to be carried up in rockets when the station was built in space. The air purifiers in the hydroponics section could keep the air fresh enough for breathing, but fire of any kind would overtax the system, leaving too little oxygen in the atmosphere. It was a few minutes of ten when he decided he'd better get back to Alice Britton. She was trying to read a book between spasms, but she months ago. Or did you forget something?\" That hit home, but he just grinned feebly. \"I forgot to get somebody to afterwards.\" Alice's hands grasped the sheet again, and Banes glanced at his watch. Ninety seconds! It was long and hard. When the pain had ebbed away, he said: \"We've got the delivery room all ready. It won't be much longer now.\" \"I'll say it won't! How about the incubator?\" There was a long pause. Finally, he said softly: \"There isn't any incubator. I didn't take the possibility of a premature delivery into account. It's my fault. I've done what I could, though the ship is bringing one up. I—I think we'll be able to keep the child alive until—\" \"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Britton! Alice! This is no time to get hysterical! Stop it!\" out. Ask yourself just one question. Ask yourself, 'Why is a space station like an incubator?'\" Space Ship Twelve docked at Space Station One at exactly eleven thirty-four, and two men in spacesuits pushed a large, bulky package through the airlock. Major Peter Banes, haggard but smiling, met Captain Britton in the suppose congratulations come first. Your son, James Edward Britton II, The colonel said nothing, but he raised an eyebrow. \"Over an hour ago,\" said Banes. \"But—but—the incubator—\" Banes' grin widened. \"We'll put the baby in it, now that we've got it, station is a kind of incubator itself, you see. It protects us poor, weak humans from the terrible conditions of space. So all we had to do was close up one of the airtight rooms, sterilize it, warm it up, and \"Don't thank me. It was Captain Britton's wife who—\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Lt. Britton go into labor 7.5mo after becoming pregnant?\n\n<options>:\nA The environment of outer space speeds up the amount of time a baby needs to develop\nB She had to induce labor to time it right so that the would be safe\nC She needed to have the baby before she could return to Earth so she had to induce labor\nD An accident on board pushed labor to start early\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. \"Want an asteroid in your backyard? We supply The battle was won! couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so asteroid.\" straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought out two space-suits. Moments later, they were outside the ship, with star-powdered infinity spread to all sides. that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. It was, plainly, a hair-brained request. And yet, if by some chance there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only three weeks. Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to no pretense of being scrupulous. Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the magnets in their shoes keeping them from stepping off into space. They came to the broad base of the asteroid-wedge, walked over the edge and use it. He satisfied himself as to the exterior of the asteroid, and 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.\" She turned and disappeared. Bob awoke from his trance, shouted desperately, \"Hey! Wait! He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they 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 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?\" the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't \"It's—it's very important that this—this asteroid stay right where it is,\" she said huskily. \"What—what will they do?\" Bob Parker didn't answer. The big ship had landed, and little blue sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic 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. hurled straight at Billy Saylor, lifted him straight off the asteroid and threw him away, into space. He yelled with triumph. At the same time, the spasticizer Bob held was shot cleanly out of his 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 probably scrawny. And he was hungry! \"I'll starve,\" he thought. \"Or suffocate to death first!\" a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against the backdrop of the Milky Way. He relapsed, a terrific buzzing in his us, and when she woke up she was on a slow orbit around her ship. She unstrapped her holster and threw it away from her and it gave her enough reaction to reach the ship. She got inside and used the 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 did find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them, the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies.\" 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 only a few hundred feet away. He swung around, looked at Queazy. \"How long were we floating around out there?\" 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!\" fell. \"Oh,\" she said. \" 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 asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry without damaging our own ship just as much. Go ahead and answer that.\" Bob looked at Queazy dismally. \"The old balance-wheel,\" he groaned at 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 He snapped his fingers. \"No acceleration effects. This type of ship, necessary in our business, can stop flat, back up, ease up, move in any direction, and the passengers wouldn't have any feeling of motion faltering. \"The asteroid—\" the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies \" Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was They weren't where Bob and Queazy had calculated, as they had discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid on their mass-detectors a few hundred thousand miles outside of the Moon's orbit. But now they saw the giant ship attached like a leech to the still bigger asteroid—inside the Moon's orbit! A mere two hundred scornfully, they made no attempt to evade. There was no possible harm the oncoming ship could wreak. Or at least that was what they thought, completing its mission. It didn't stop spinning, but came winding back up the cable, at the same terrific speed with which it had left. better calculations, they managed to put the firmly held asteroid the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing received a mere dent in its starboard half. Starre was chortling with glee. Queazy whispered, \"Attaboy, Bob! This time we'll knock 'em out of the sky!\" If you're alive,\" Bob snarled wrathfully. \"And you won't be unless you release the asteroid.\" heavily, then rebounded and came spinning back with perfect, sparkling precision. And even before it snugged itself into its berth, it was apparent that the Saylor brothers had given up. Like a wounded terrier, their ship shook itself free of the asteroid, hung in black space for\n\n<question>:\nWhat can be determined would happen after Parker and Queazy retrieved the asteroid?\n\n<options>:\nA They would retrieve it and sell it to Mr. Burnside for their large profit\nB They would end up losing it while traveling back to Earth.\nC They would return it to space and Starre would continue to live on it.\nD They would return it to space and return empty handed\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. I heard the voice as I opened my eyes. I was lying down, still not my sluggish mind, thinking about an answer. The muscles in my throat tightened up in reflex as I tried to bring some unity into the jumble of thoughts and ideas that kept forming. One word formed out of the rush of anxiety. I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself I was weightless. nothing to me, but I thought about it, watching the relentless lights 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 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 crowded with equipment and.... I will always remember the scream of terror, the paralyzing fright of It was space. I looked out at deep space, star systems in clusters. I shut my eyes. 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 couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand the function or design of the compact machinery. WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch anything in the room. I pressed against the clear window, wondering if I didn't. It had to help me, that flat metallic voice that repeated the I pressed the button by the cot. The red lights blinked out as I stood in patient attention, trying to outguess the voice. I recalled a phrase ... some words about precaution. Precaution against forgetting. It was crazy, but I trusted the panel. It was the only thing I saw that could help me, guard me against another shock like seeing outside of the clear portholes. \"Tell me what to do,\" I shouted wildly. I hammered the hard metal until the pain in my hands made me stop. \"I can't remember what to do.\" I held my bruised hands to my mouth, and I knew that was all the waking up in strangeness I had missed the other doors in the passage. others. A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I shivered in spite of the warmth of the room, studying the black box into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts, instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or 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 something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did 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 could stand it no longer. Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of 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 the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of me. I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice I stood by the man for long minutes. Finally it came. He stirred He saw it in my face, making him stop. \"I can't remember dropping off to sleep,\" he finished. I held his hard arm. \"What else? How much do you remember?\" \"I'm all right,\" he answered. \"There aren't supposed to be any effects from this.\" name or anything about this ship.\" \"What do you mean? What can't you remember?\" he asked. He stood up slowly, edging around towards the door. I didn't want to fight him. I wanted him to understand. \"Look, I'm in trouble. Nothing fits, except my name.\" \"The others. What about the others?\" he blurted. He shook his head, watching me like I was a freak. \"Let's check the rest right away.\" \"Yes. I've got to know if they are like me. I'm afraid to think they might be.\" \"Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out.\" experience were all that mattered to the brass.\" \"It's a bad thing to do.\" \"Okay. I'll hold the questions until we see about her.\" We were out of luck with the girl. She woke up and she was frightened. We questioned her and she was coherent but she couldn't remember. I tried to smile as I sat on the cot, wondering what she was thinking. uncontrollably. \"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 frightened and trying to remember. I wasn't in much better condition. \"Look, if it comes too fast for me, while we talked. \"Don't think about it,\" Paul said. \"We can still pull this out all right if you don't lose your nerve.\" \"What are we to do?\" she asked. John answered for me. \"First we've got to find out where we are. I know \"Can I?\" I asked. We set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory in an effort to help her remember her job. Carl went back to divide the rations. I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing \"I wish I knew what you were doing,\" I said savagely. \"Give it time.\" \"We can't spare any, can we?\" I asked. 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 go about making her remember?\" \"Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess.\" like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into my heaving lungs. \"What—made you—think of that,\" I asked weakly. \"Shock treatment.\" \"I must have acted on instinct.\" the intercom to open. \"This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over about food. We're supposed to be checked before we eat.\" \"We'll have to go ahead without it. Any change?\" 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\n\n<question>:\nWhy did everyone have to wake up?\n\n<options>:\nA Everyone had to help fly the ship so it wouldn't crash into the G type star.\nB Everyone worked in pairs in the same position so they needed their partners.\nC Everyone had their own job on the ship that needed doing.\nD Everyone remembered small elements of what was going on and wanted to keep the information to themselves.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCITY. EVERYTHING IT HAD WAS IN THE GARDEN BY R. A. LAFFERTY Naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. Then before it's back in our ken if we let it go now.\" the world to make sure we've missed nothing,\" said Stark. There was one more test to run, one very tricky and difficult of designed simply to locate a source of superior thought. But this might be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the had refused to read when turned on the inventor himself, told the machine so heatedly. The machine replied, with such warmth that its relays chattered, that , the machine insisted. others more amenable. And it was for this reason also that the owners of Little Probe had acquired the original machine so cheaply. And there was no denying that the Extraordinary Perception Locator (or the acknowledged superior minds of the Earth. In space it had been a action. Eppel was busy. The machine had a touch of the ham in it, and assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests. light.\" So among the intelligences there was at least one that might be 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 the engineer Casper Craig, super-cargo, tycoon and 51% owner of the Little Probe, and F. R. Briton, S.J., a Jesuit priest who was linguist and checker champion of the craft. went down to visit whatever was there. from?\" \"I don't know, but they're right in the middle of it. Land here. We'll go to meet them at once. Timidity has never been an efficacious tool with us.\" bright light. \"Talk to them, Father Briton,\" said Stark. \"You are the linguist.\" He may or may not have been understood, but the two of them smiled at him, so he went on. \"Father Briton from Philadelphia,\" he said, \"on detached service. And 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, The captain was a little puzzled by this, but he went on doggedly: going to prove him wrong? But it does give you a small feeling.\" \"Can we have something to eat?\" asked the Captain. \"Pick from the trees,\" said Ha-Adamah, \"and then it may be that you will want to sleep on the grass. Being not of human nature (which does not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. But you are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits.\" \"We will,\" said Captain Stark. They wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. There were the they offered no harm. The two bears had a puzzling look, as though they wanted either to frolic with you or to mangle you. \"If there are only two people here,\" said Casper Craig, \"then it may be 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, \"Certainly. Eat. It is the finest fruit in the garden.\" \"Well, the analogy breaks down there,\" said Stark. \"I was almost 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 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 that it might be possible to lose that happiness, and then to seek it vainly through all the ages. I am taught that sickness and ageing and even death could come if this happiness were ever lost. I am taught \"Yes, there is a question that will settle it. Adam, old man, how about \"The great serpent lives there. I would not disturb him. He has long been cranky because plans he had for us did not materialize. But we persevere, it will come by him.\" They learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time there. Yet all but one of them were convinced of the reality when they left. And they talked of it as they took off. disturbed that happiness.\" of the serpent, and intrude and spoil.\" 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 Parties. Write, Gram, or call in person at any of our planetary offices as listed below. Ask for Brochure—Eden Acres Unlimited.\" Down in the great cave that Old Serpent, a two-legged one among whose names were \"Snake-Oil Sam,\" spoke to his underlings: \"It'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. We'll have time to overhaul the blasters. We haven't had any well-equipped settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of.\" \"I think you'd better write me some new lines,\" said Adam. \"I feel like 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 He looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at 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 hell.\" neighbors. A completely planned globular settlement in a near arm of our own galaxy. Low taxes and liberal credit. Financing our specialty—\" \"And you had better have an armed escort when you return,\" said Father Briton. \"Why in cosmos would we want an armed escort?\" \"But it was Paradise in one way,\" said Steiner at last.\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the Old Serpent satisfied that the crew would be returning to try and take their paradise?\n\n<options>:\nA He was happy to have new faces and needed the influx population to breed their new world.\nB He was hopeful for a portion of the sale money.\nC They needed to acquire their equipment for forming their new world.\nD They were hopeful for settlers as they needed someone to help them fertilize the land to keep the fruits plentiful.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nEleven-Twelfths of 1999 In Review When Chatterbox invited readers to nominate events, significant deaths, good and bad movies, etc., for 1999--a year likely to get little attention in the coming weeks, as news organizations choose instead to review the entire century or millennium--the response was overwhelming. Chatterbox had promised to publish his official \"1999 In Review\" item before Thanksgiving, but some distant memory of a scruple persuaded him to wait till November was over. Nothing ever happens in December. OK, that's not quite true. Hordes of protesters in Seattle are making the World Trade Organization's meeting there a much more exciting TV story than anyone expected it to be. Reader Dan Crist (who finds Chatterbox's habit of referring to himself in the third person \"rather annoying and less than professional\") points out that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941. Also, Chatterbox (moonlighting as \"Today's Papers\" columnist) observed not quite one year ago that the House of Representatives cast its second presidential-impeachment vote in U.S. history on Dec. 19, 1998. (That same news-filled day, the U.S. ended an air war against Iraq and Bob Livingston said he'd decided not to become House speaker after all.) Two months after the impeachment vote, the Senate failed to convict the president--a highly significant event of 1999 that, for some bizarre reason, slipped Chatterbox's mind until several indignant readers wrote in to remind him of it. By now, it should be clear that Chatterbox isn't much good at year-in-review journalism. Fortunately, Chatterbox's readers are very good at it. He will now turn this survey over to them. ( Disclaimer: Although Chatterbox previously stated that he wouldn't include opinions he disagreed with, that standard proved too confining. Where Chatterbox has solid information or opinions to the contrary, he occasionally interjects below. Obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour reader comments were discarded, but if you don't find your nominee below it doesn't necessarily mean that it was obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour. ) Here are 20 important things that happened in 1999: -- Jodie Allen of U.S. News &amp World Report (and frequent Slate contributor) 2. Most Foolishly Ignored Parts of the World in 1999 The dog that did bark but no one noticed--the political turmoil in the three great South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, and Indonesia, which now are well on the way to passing the three northern Asian nations of China, Japan, and Russia in population (Indonesia is fourth, Pakistan just passed Japan to seventh, India will soon pass China to first). But Americans are still fixated on northern Asia--Clinton says he must deal with China, because \"you can't ignore a billion people with nuclear weapons,\" but his own policy toward India shows that you sure can! --Jim Chapin 3. Worst/Best Films of 1999 Chatterbox replies: [Chatterbox didn't have the heart to add that he thought There's Something About Mary was pretty funny, especially the joke about \"the franks or the beans.\"] [Chatterbox hasn't seen it.] What an extraordinary year! A right-wing conspiracy topples the president, and the governor of Texas reveals himself in a series of debates to be a natural leader with an innate gift for connecting with his audience, a sure sign of his electoral success next year. A new Thomas Harris book brilliantly takes us deeper into the mind of a serial killer a new Star Wars movie redefines the very nature of entertainment a new Stanley Kubrick film changes the whole national dialogue about sex and marriage a new TV series from the creator of SportsNight --oh, I can't even bring myself to bash that piece of do-gooder twaddle. If only McDonald's had come out with three more boldly adult-flavored hamburgers, it would have been a perfect year for dud megaevents--all leading up of course to Y2K, the limpest milestone in human history. --Mike Gebert You also left out all the shooting rampages . Several were done in the name of God or love supposedly. They were all committed by \"quiet, shy\" people who \"mostly kept to\" themselves. I've started to hang around only loud, obnoxious people. --Susan Hoechstetter 8. A Lunatic Rhapsody for the New York Yankees The Yankees can actually be referred to as the glue that held the century together. Of course, as the 1999 World Series champions, they are a significant \"story of the year.\" However, this one singular achievement must be considered in a broader context. 1999 represented the team's 25th championship of the century. This beats, by one, the most championships any one team won during the century. The Montreal Canadiens have won 23 Stanley Cups. However, the Yankees, an American team, playing in the \"City of the Century\" (so called by me to reflect the amazing growth and transformation of one city during this period), who play the \"National Pastime,\" are truly an amazing story. The team's first championship occurred in 1921 therefore, they have won 25 of the last 78 years, nearly one in three. This level of sustained excellence is not matched in sports or in any other aspect of society. The 1999 win is possibly the most unique. With free-agency, expansion, and three levels of playoffs, it is much harder to win today than in past years. In fact, by winning three of the last four championships, they are the first team to accomplish this feat during the eras of free-agency and of divisional play. The Sultan of Swat, the Iron Man, the Yankee Clipper, the Mick, and Yogi--these strong, masculine names are synonymous with the team, the sport, and American history. They went hand in hand with two world wars, Superman, and America's superpower status. The 1999 squad does not feature \"a name.\" This team, with its myriad of human-interest stories, its international roster, and no star, is representative of '90s man, male sensitivity, Pax American interests, and the new political paradigm. --Jim Landau from North Potomac, Md. (formerly of the Bronx) Chatterbox interjects: Didn't Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke do the same thing 11 years ago? 10. Don't Worry in 1999 The Dalai Lama proclaimed that most important thing in the world is to be happy. --Margaret Taylor 11. The Athletic Bra Seen 'Round the World in 1999 Public interest and media attention to the women's World Cup in soccer. --Tom Horton 12. Another Overlooked Foreign-Policy Event in 1999 Presidential primary elections for the first time ever in Mexico. --Tom Horton 13. Policing the World Is Shown To Work in 1999 I nominate as the most under-reported story of the year (and the last few years) the continuing alarmist predictions by foreign-policy and military experts about peacekeeping efforts, which are then proved wrong and immediately forgotten. This year, the obvious one is Kosovo, but the year is also ending with East Timor, where the Aussies and their allies successfully stopped the slaughter with no casualties. These followed Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda as places where the West delayed sending in troops because of alarmist predictions. --Jerry Skurnik 14. Barbara Walters Did This One on Her Year-End Special, But It's Still Good --Josh Pollack 20. Unremarked Natural Disaster in 1999 The Indian Supercyclone is the biggest, this century at least. --Samir Raiyani Photographs of: Donald Trump by Peter Morgan/Reuters Natalie Portman by Keith Hamshere/Lucasfilm Ltd./Reuters\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't something mentioned in multiple events?\n\n<options>:\nA famous people\nB politics\nC technology\nD world events\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nSILENCE IS—DEADLY By Bertrand L. Shurtleff Radio is an absolute necessity in modern organization—and particularly in modern naval organization. If you could silence all radio—silence of that sort would be deadly! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The hurried fire— way—like a man in an external state of jitters over nothing at all. entire The wizened face of the older man was molded in intent lines of With the coming of dawn, a little exploration revealed that the was also missing! concentration, as his bushy gray head bent over his drawing board. that they had been put ashore without food or extra clothing or Another had found the remains of tents and log cabins, recently demolished, in a small, timbered hollow—a well-hidden spot invisible from the air, unless one were flying very low a place where two whose mind had been turned by the horror that had come to his country . At other times, the man seemed a genius. Perhaps that was the answer—a mad genius! if this might have been the source of Androka's zone of silence, when like a stinging wet lash. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of over his pale eyes his thin face a mass of tense lines fumbling at the neck of his slicker. Rain was coursing down his white his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner hard on his latest invention to pull Hitler's teeth and re-establish of good-natured joking aboard the Comerford This storm—\" Don't let a little error get you down!\" \"But this storm, sir!\" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped out from under his arm. \"It's got me worried. Quartering wind of undetermined force, variable and gusty. There's a chop to the sea—as if from unestimated currents among the islets. No chance to check by observation, and now there is a chance—look at me!\" \"As if by providence, sir, there's a clear patch. I'm wondering—\" His underlined heavily. \"Here's what I make it,\" the commander told his navigating officer. \"Bet you're not off appreciably.\" to move in these waters with such a possibility of error!\" Androka decrees silence over the German airways! Try it! Try it, I say!\" sharply, for the operator seemed in a daze. me about five minutes ago. I was taking the weather report when the set that had recently been established to insure safety to naval vessels, but there was no answer on any of the bands—not even the blare of a high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of ships or amateurs on the shorter. gentlemen! The set is uninjured. The waves are what have been upset. I can enter or leave my zone of radio silence—of refracted radio waves, set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!\" Curtis was the first to speak. \"Your secrecy might well cost the United States navy one of its best light cruisers—and us our lives!\" he said angrily. \"We need that check by radio at once! If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs till we learn just where we are!\" Androka held out his palms helplessly. \"I can do nothing. I have given orders to my assistant that he must keep two hours of radio silence! I disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they points. Light intersecting lines proclaimed a check on their position. must be right. Continue as you were!\" closed. The sky was again a blanket of darkness pouring sheets of rain wires were alive to the touch and set him to shaking his head at the tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers. air pausing every now and then to run his bony fingers through his tangled mop of gray hair, or to claw nervously at his beard. My miracle! My invention has shattered the ether waves hereabouts hopelessly.\" \"Seems to me,\" Curtis said dryly, \"this invention can harm your friends are other inventions to supplement this one. Put them together, and they will defeat the Nazi hordes which have ravaged my country!\" eyes, under their bushy brows. There was something of the wild animal in the man's expression, as his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth. on his slicker as he went. The shout from the watch forward had been picked up, and was being relayed all over the ship. The words struck on Curtis' ears with a note of impending tragedy. \"Breakers ahead!\" helmsman climbing the rapidly spinning wheel like a monkey as he put it Then the ship struck. Everything movable shot ahead until it brought up at the end of a swing or smacked against something solid. I'm afraid we're gored!\" keep her up!\" And then he became aware of a deadly stillness. A vast wall of silence enveloped the entire cruiser. Looking over the side, he could no longer see the waves that a few minutes before had beaten savagely against the The Comerford was shrouded in a huge pall of yellowish-gray mist, and themselves struck numb and helpless by a gas that had been flooded into under the foundations, while others laid the induction of the gas to Fifth Column traitors. There were a hundred more or less plausible explanations— The vapor clouds that enveloped the Comerford were becoming thicker. shroud of mist and steadied it, so that the cruiser would not be completely at the mercy of the wind and the waves. was completely walled in by the yellowish-gray mist. He felt his senses Voices droned all around him in mumbling confusion—guttural voices that ebbed and flowed in a tide of excited talk. He caught a word of English now and then, mixed in with a flood of Teuton phonetics. Two words, in particular, registered clearly on his mind. One was the other was \"convoy.\" But gradually his eardrums began to throb, as if someone were pounding on them from the inside. He a cloud seemed to be mounting within him until The rain had abated to a foggy drizzle. The wash of the surf swung the everything up inside half an hour.\" \"He's nothing but a crackpot!\" while the efficient stretcher-bearers worked industriously to remove That zone of silence cut us off completely.\" a time explaining it!\" \"Hereafter,\" Brandt said solemnly, \"the zone of silence vill be projected from the \"The \"What's the idea?\" low.\" Brazil—through the blockade,\" Nelson said, \"without taking the risk of is taking over.\" in his voice. \"The misfires, if there is the slightest suspicion of treachery on his part, his daughter and the others will suffer. Androka's loyalty is assured!\" that portholes were being opened, and men were spraying chemical around to rid the below-decks atmosphere of the lethal gas that had overcome the considerably, and that the cruiser was riding more easily at her anchor. rain—now a light, driving mist—beating on his face. He was chilled his limbs were stiff and numb. His nose and throat felt parched inside, as if a wave of searing heat had scorched them. According to his last calculations, the Comerford at the heartfelt concern in his friendly brown eyes. The young The words struck Curtis with the numbing shock of a blow on some nerve center. For the first time, he realized fully the tragedy that had which smelled strongly of treachery and sabotage. As he thought back, he realized that he might had been deliberately steered to this place that the men who had seized her had been waiting here for that very purpose. The pieces of the picture fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle—Androka's zone of silence the bearings given by radio Navigating Officer Nelson's queer conduct. They were all part of a carefully laid plan!\n\n<question>:\nWhat do the harsh weather conditions described at the beginning of the article foreshadow about the tone of the rest of the reading?\n\n<options>:\nA The article will be stressful.\nB The article will be uneventful.\nC The article will be gloomy.\nD The article will be mysterious\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 my first go at delivering a baby by caesarean section – and the foetal head is impacted, jammed in its mother's pelvis. To be honest I'm struggling. The clever and sophisticated simulator I'm playing with started life as a lash-up in an obstetrician's home workshop: a Heath Robinson-style contraption barely recognisable as a model of the human body. But it wasn't at that stage intended as a simulator for training medical staff. Its sole purpose was to test the effectiveness of a novel device called a Tydeman tube. Paradoxically, although the testing equipment, Debra, is now commercially available, the device it was intended to test has yet to reach the market. The inventor of the tube and of Desperate Debra is Dr Graham Tydeman, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife. Only after he'd built Debra did he realise that she might serve a purpose beyond his original intention. His is a decade-long tale of inspired insights, thwarted aims and shifting purposes but with a good outcome. Although the Tydeman tube is still in gestation, Desperate Debra herself is now thriving. To understand the desperation of Debra and how the Tydeman tube might help to relieve it requires a brief foray into basic obstetric knowhow. Evolution has endowed us with heads proportionally so large that even when labour runs according to plan, the delivery process involves a bit of a squeeze. For the baby's head to get stuck on the way out may not be usual, but it's by no means a rarity. The standard response is to perform a caesarean section. Every year some 160,000 babies are born in the UK this way, with almost two thirds of them classified as emergencies. One audit has suggested that roughly 8,000 babies get stuck and have to be delivered by caesarean at a stage when their mothers are fully dilated. \"Some of the babies will be so close to coming out by the normal route,\" says Tydeman, \"that it's then difficult to get them back up and remove them through the hole in the woman's tummy.\" Which women are most at risk of this setback seems to be largely unpredictable. \"We just observe that it happens… It's been discussed in the medical literature since the 1940s, but until 10 years ago, and throughout my training and most of my life as a consultant, it wasn't really talked about.\" Considering the universality of childbirth, impaction and the best way of dealing with it are topics that seem to have gone remarkably unstudied. \"There are strong opinions about why it happens and what to do, but very little research evidence,\" says Tydeman, adding that many of these opinions are contradictory. In a protracted birth that's destined to end with a caesarean, the longer the labour is allowed to go on before the obstetrician decides to intervene, the greater the likelihood that the baby's head will become impacted. However, concern over the rising number of babies born by caesarean has made doctors more wary of doing them – one consequence of which is that medical staff may allow a difficult birth to continue for longer before they resort to surgery. This could be boosting the frequency of impaction. But, again, no one is certain. If a baby's head is jammed down in the mother's pelvic region, common sense suggests that it might help if a second person gives a gentle backward push on the area of its head visible through the mother's dilated cervix. \"In our unit,\" says Tydeman, \"when the woman is fully dilated and you'd expect the baby to come out normally [but it doesn't]… a registrar will be asking for a push-up about one in five times.\" Although registrars are doctors still in training, they're nonetheless experienced which suggests requests for push-ups during unplanned caesareans are far from uncommon. The Tydeman tube is a gadget intended to make this manoeuvre safer and more effective. So how valuable in training medical staff is a simulator like this? Very, according to Annette Briley. Imagine it's the middle of the night and an unplanned emergency caesarean is required: \"Some poor junior doctor might find himself trying to manage it on his own.\" To have practised the knack of extracting a firmly impacted baby from a simulator is lot better than first honing your skill on a real woman. and to learn where and how hard to push on the infant skull. \"Any practice you've done in the cold light of day will help you stay calm and composed in an emergency, and that's what we're aiming for,\" says Briley. It's still too soon to make a final judgement about Debra’s impact. \"When we first brought Debra out,\" Briley recalls, \"some of the really experienced professors said things like, 'We always managed without one. Why would you need this?' But ask them to have a go at using it and then they admit it's really good.\" Medicine as a whole has an oddly ambivalent relationship to innovation. Some new findings, techniques or equipment take years to penetrate the profession others are seized upon immediately. A proper study of the clinical effectiveness of the Tydeman tube will necessarily involve women giving birth. Assessing the value of Debra as a simulator didn't require human subjects and the team has already conducted such a study. Thirty obstetricians, from three NHS maternity units and with varying levels of experience, took part. They all received a brief explanation of how Debra works, and were then asked to try a timed removal of the foetal head at three different levels of difficulty. Overall, 87 per cent reported that the simulator offered a realistic experience of dealing with an impacted head, and 93 per cent thought it would be valuable as a training device. The use of simulators to teach technical skills is now common in medical schools. You can learn to sew up a knife wound, catheterise a bladder or intubate an airway. You can practise cardiopulmonary resuscitation or ear syringing or even go through the motions of a keyhole surgical procedure. The technology required to do these things may cost a few pounds, or tens of thousands. Either way, given that most of these devices were invented during the past three or four decades, it comes as something of a surprise to learn that simulation for medical purposes can be traced back as far as the Chinese Song dynasty of 960-1279 AD. One of the treatments of choice in that era was, naturally, acupuncture. But how to teach tyro-acupuncturists where to place the needles? Simple. A life-size bronze statue dotted with small holes indicated the points of insertion. And how then to test the students' grasp of their subject? If the statute was hollow, filled with liquid and given an outer coating of wax to mask the holes, a correct needle insertion would be followed by a leak. Given the universality of childbirth it's no surprise that, then as now, the womb turns out to be the most simulated of our organs. For the benefit of 18th-century midwives and doctors-in-training, the Bologna surgeon Giovanni Antonio Galli devised a birthing simulator comprising a glass uterus supported by an artificial pelvis and containing a flexible foetus. Trainees had to deliver the baby while wearing a blindfold. Only the tutor could witness the fumbling of their hands. coup de théâtre , this – a facility for exuding suitably coloured liquids at the appropriate moment. Oddly, as medicine became more scientific, most of these devices fell by the wayside. As an academic review of these and other devices has pointed out, much of the 20th century was something of Dark Ages for simulation. Its value in professional training has had to be rediscovered: an endeavour in which inventive people like Graham Tydeman, sometimes with workshops rich in discarded junk, are still fruitfully engaged. This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.\n\n<question>:\nWhat factor necessitates the change in frequency of performed C-sections?\n\n<options>:\nA Uterine environment\nB Practitioner training\nC Cranial growth\nD Advanced technology\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as his fingers. He held them up in front of him like a cathedral. \"Yes, sir,\" I said. \"It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native.\" I wanted to say, \"Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on the job? Why me?\" Instead, I nodded and watched him playing with his added, \"For a native, that is.\" I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. \"I always figured Venus was under the jurisdiction of Space III, sir. I thought our activities were confined to Mars.\" \"Mmmm,\" he said, \"yes, that's true. But this is a special job. It so happens this Venusian is the one man who can help us understand just what's happening on Mars.\" I tried to picture a Venusian understanding Mars and I didn't get very far. \"He's had many dealings with the natives there,\" Walsh explained. \"If it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. \"And this man is on Venus now?\" I asked for confirmation. I'd never been to Venus, being in Space II ever since I'd left the Moon run. It was just like Walsh to ship me off to a strange place. \"Yes, Major,\" he said. \"This man is on Venus.\" At the Academy he had called me Fred. That was before I'd reported \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. Personal habits? Anything?\" Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He does have a peculiar habit, though.\" \"What's that?\" I sighed. \"Well, it's not very much to go on.\" \"You'll find him,\" Walsh said, grinning. \"I'm sure of it.\" The trip to Venus came off without a hitch. I did a lot of thinking on that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took over. Swell guy, Walsh. Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. Much too hot for the tunic I was wearing. It smelled, too. A funny smell I couldn't place. Like a mixture of old shoe and after-shave. There were plants everywhere curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II. There wasn't much inside the club. A few tables and chairs, a dart game and a bar. Behind the bar a tall Venusian lounged. \"Skip it,\" I said. \"How do I get to the captain's shack?\" great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. was empty. Quickly, he pressed a button on his desk and the door popped open. A tall, blue Venusian stepped lithely into the room. was so funny. I tossed him my withering Superior Officer's gaze and waited for his explanation. \"I hadn't realized this was your first time on Venus,\" he said. \"Is there a local hero named Joe?\" I asked. \"No, no, nothing like that,\" he assured me. \"It's a simple culture, you know. Not nearly as developed as Mars.\" \"I can see that,\" I said bitingly. \"And the natives are only now becoming acquainted with Terran culture. \"Easy, sir,\" Bransten said, turning pale. I could see that the Captain wasn't used to entertaining Majors. \"The enlisted men. You know how \"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 cigarettes.\" He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were personally responsible for Venusian culture. In fact, he looked as if he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first place. \"Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all.\" difficulties, are you?\" One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping the next ship back to Earth. 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 was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed. A tall Venusian stepped into the room. \"Joe?\" I asked, just to be sure. \"Who else, boss?\" he answered. almost a childish people! \"His name is Joe,\" the Venusian told me. \"Best damn guide on the 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 me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed 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. impenetrable jungle invariably to find a little path leading directly 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 Joe, on the other hand, enjoyed every moment of the trip. In each village he greeted the natives cheerfully, told them stories, swapped that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle. \"I like Venus,\" he said once. \"I would never leave it.\" \"Have you ever been to Earth?\" I asked. \"No,\" Joe replied. \"I like Terrans too, you understand. They are good for Venus. And they are fun.\" \"Fun?\" I asked, thinking of a particular species of Terran: species Leonard Walsh. just my guide. There had been the strained relationship of employer and began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about grinding pace to find what we were looking for. \"What's the story?\" I whispered. \"You gave me a powerful handicap to overcome,\" Walsh said. \"I suppose I unimportant drama. understand the seriousness of our voices. What had happened to the \"The natives,\" he practically shouted. \"They ... they....\" \"A man of my calibre,\" he said then, his face grim. \"Dealing with\n\n<question>:\nWhat made the narrator's mission so difficult?\n\n<options>:\nA No one cooperated with the narrator to help him find the right Joe.\nB He became incapacitated by the hot weather on Venus.\nC He became physically lost on Venus.\nD The inhabitants of Venus were all very much the same.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Malloy leafed casually through the dossiers of the four new men who had been assigned because, in this situation, they're psychologically incapable of losing.\" Malloy, Permanent Terran Ambassador to His Utter Munificence, the Occeq of Saarkkad. Malloy ran his finger down the columns of complex symbolism that showed the complete psychological and Braynek have blind spots, but paranoia. The man wasn't technically insane he could be as lucid as the next morbidly suspicious that every man's hand was turned against him. He Malloy looked at him. \"Didn't you know? I wondered why you appointed me, in the first place. No, I couldn't go. The reason why I'm here, sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. He was psychologically like it that way. I suffer from agoraphobia and xenophobia. \"I have to be drugged to be put on a spaceship because I can't take all Malloy sighed and pushed the dossiers that empty space, even if I'm protected from it by a steel shell.\" A away from him. No two men were alike, and yet there sometimes look of revulsion came over his face. Number three ... aliens!\" THE END Transcriber's Note: whole galaxies without filling its insatiable void. Malloy closed his eyes. Somewhere out there, a war was raging. He didn't even like to think of that, but war that Mankind had yet fought. And, Malloy knew, his own position was not unimportant in that war. He was not in the battle line, nor of differences—but their minds just didn't function along the same lines. For nine years, Bertrand Malloy his isolation. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a the Saarkkada the way a good Saarkkadic duplicated nowhere else in the known universe. It was Bertrand Malloy's job to could have handled them without half trying. But Malloy didn't have top-grade men. They couldn't be spared from work that required their total capacity. possible alternatives of any major 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 were places in the galaxy that were 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 was impossible, in view of the sterilization regulations. But Malloy didn't like to stop at merely thwarting mental quirks he useful . The phone chimed. Malloy flipped it on with a practiced hand. \"Malloy here.\" \"Mr. Malloy?\" said a careful voice. \"A special communication for you has been teletyped in from Earth. Shall I \"Bring it in, Miss Drayson.\" trusted no one, and was perpetually found it difficult to give it up once it was in her possession. 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 long time to get it into Miss Drayson's go, Mr. Ambassador?\" on his guard against imaginary plots keep secrets from everyone except Malloy. She came in through the door, and persecutions. a rather handsome woman in her middle right—even desirable—for her to someone might at any instant snatch it from her before she could turn it over to Malloy. Number two suffered from some let you know immediately, sir,\" she said. \"Will there be anything else?\" Malloy let her stand there while he picked up the communique. She wanted to know what his reaction was incapable of making a decision cooped up in this office, hiding from \"Yes, sir,\" said Miss Drayson in a hushed voice. Malloy read the whole thing through, fighting to keep his emotions in check. Miss Drayson stood if he were faced with two or more her emotions were a secret. Finally, Malloy looked up. \"I'll let you know as soon as I reach a decision, importance. Miss Drayson. I think I hardly leave this office.\" \"Of course not, sir.\" Malloy watched her go out the door without actually seeing her. The war was over—at least for a while. He peace. They wanted an armistice conference—immediately. Earth was willing. Interstellar war any longer than necessary, and this in the matter of the peace talks. as neutral as possible during the So Earth had to get a delegation to within the three-day limit or lose what might be a vital point in the negotiations. And that was where Bertrand Malloy I do?\" he said softly. On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his intercom and said: \"Miss Drayson, get hold of James Nordon and Kylen Braynek. I want to see them both immediately. Send Nordon in first, and tell Braynek to wait.\" can file the tape later.\" \"Yes, sir.\" Malloy knew the woman would listen in on the intercom anyway, and it was better to give her permission to was graying at the temples, and his handsome face looked cool and efficient. Malloy waved him to a seat. Nordon nodded slowly. \"Yes, sir.\" Malloy explained the problem of the Karna peace talks. \"We need a man who can outthink them,\" Malloy finished, \"and judging from your record, I think you're that certainly. Am I to go alone?\" \"No,\" said Malloy, \"I'm sending an assistant with you—a man named Nordon shook his head. \"Not that I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?\" \"Not necessarily. He's a pretty shrewd operator, though. He knows a much time, but it's the Karna who are doing the pushing, not us.\" As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy said softly: \"Send in Braynek, against his skull, and hard, penetrating, dark eyes that were shadowed by heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked him to sit down. Again Malloy went through the explanation of the peace conference. \"Naturally, they'll be trying to trick you every step of the way,\" Malloy went on. \"They're shrewd and we'll simply have to Nordon know immediately.\" \"They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy.\" By the time the ship from Earth Malloy had full reports on the whole parley, as relayed to him through the He took Malloy's hand and shook Malloy handed them to the secretary, and as he read, Malloy watched good man, Malloy had to and outdo the finest team of negotiators the Karna could send.\" \"I thought they would,\" said Malloy, trying to appear modest. Is this one of your ... ah ... successes?\" Malloy nodded. \"I think so. The Karna put us in a dilemma, so I threw a dilemma right back at them.\" \"How do you mean?\" \"Nordon had a mental block making up his mind whether to kiss her or not until she made up his mind for him, one way or the other. He's with one, single, clear decision which admits of no alternatives, he can't move at all. head that it was perfectly all Nordon couldn't possibly make up his this was, and the more importance there is attached to his decisions, the more incapable he becomes of making them.\" The Secretary nodded slowly. \"What about Braynek?\" \"Paranoid,\" said Malloy. \"He thinks everyone is plotting against him. In this case, that's all to the good because the Karna plotting against him. No matter what they put forth, 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 doesn't Malloy go to the peace talks himself?\n\n<options>:\nA Malloy is too sick to travel to the peace conference. He also hates aliens.\nB Malloy needs to stay on Saarkkad IV to keep the drug supply lines flowing.\nC Malloy is too far from Saarkkad V to get to the peace conference on time. He also hates aliens.\nD Malloy has a psychological disorder that prevents him from leaving the house. He also hates aliens.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOrison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious \"He was a very kind employer,\" Orison said. She tried to keep from Orison's look of bewilderment. \"One each, a Franklin and a Grant,\" he to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank. \"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?\" Orison asked. \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. \"While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the By lunchtime Orison had finished the Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association. Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought. She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker. Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs, to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results of her first day's spying. No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock was set the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs had her phone tapped. Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she said. \"Testing,\" the male voice repeated. \"One, two, three Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, Orison lay down cautiously. \"All right,\" she whispered to her pillow. Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. \"A radio?\" she asked. \"Of a sort,\" Monitor J-12 agreed. \"We have to maintain communications security. Have you anything to report?\" \"I got the job,\" Orison said. \"Are you ... in that pillow ... all the \"No, Miss McCall,\" the voice said. \"Only at report times. Shall we \"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today.\" Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. \"That's about it, so far,\" she said. \"Good report,\" J-12 said from the pillow. \"Sounds like you've dropped into a real snakepit, beautiful.\" Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by registered mail. II \"It's nothing,\" Orison said, switching off the microphone. \"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important,\" he said. \"You'll be reading silently before long,\" Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, as though this explained everything. \"By the way, your official designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here and dictate it?\" financial organization.\" \"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used to them,\" he said. \"Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\" \"That's the drill,\" he said. \"One more question, Orison. Dinner this \"I'd love to,\" Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, curtsy? Orison wondered. Orison finished the Orison looked up. \"Oh, hello,\" she said. \"I didn't hear you come up.\" of the desk, \"and pounce ever so hard.\" She smiled. Opulent, Orison \"Thanks,\" Orison said. \"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly,\" Orison said, rolling her \"So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of \"You make it very clear,\" Orison said. \"Now you'd best hurry back to he stepped up to Orison's desk. \"Good morning. Miss McCall,\" he said. \"What is this?\" Orison demanded. \"Visiting-day at the zoo?\" She paused had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. \"I quit!\" she the wise....\" \" Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with Surely, Orison thought, recovering the Wall Street Journal from her and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before \"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding.\" Orison clicked the phone down. What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could only fire her. Orison folded the paper and put it in the \"Out\" basket. Someone would Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted. \"I came to bring a message to Dink,\" Orison said. \"Let me go, you \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do Orison,\" he said. Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the \"What do they do?\" Orison asked. \"That's still a secret,\" Dink said, smiling. \"I can't tell even you that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary.\" Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Orison prefer to send her reports to Washington by mail?\n\n<options>:\nA She preferred to put everything in writing.\nB She found the “pillow talk” to be improper.\nC So the reports could be done faster.\nD So the reports would be more secure.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nPlanet Stories Fall 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that in-coming pilots and crewmen could relax before leaving for another Grannie Annie! I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. \"Grannie Annie! I haven't seen you in two years.\" \"Hi, Billy-boy,\" she greeted calmly. \"Will you please tell this fish-face to shut up.\" and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour—I waited until she had tossed But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's more. Her annual income totaled into six figures, and her publishers sat back and massaged their digits, watching their earnings mount. 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 \"It wasn't Guns , it was and it wasn't Ganymede Pluto .\" I grinned. \"All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair.\" 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 Satellite Theater in ten minutes. Come on, you're going with me.\" Before I realized it, I was following her through the lounge and out to the jetty front. Grannie Annie hailed a hydrocar. Five minutes later we Satellite . that made Swamp City the frontier post it is. In front was a big sign. It read: ONE NIGHT ONLY DOCTOR UNIVERSE AND HIS NINE GENIUSES THE QUESTION PROGRAM OF THE SYSTEM \"Sit here,\" she said. \"I'm sorry about all this rush, but I'm one of the players in this shindig. As soon as the show is over, we'll go stage steps and disappeared in the wings. yet.\" The piano struck a chord in G, and the curtain went rattling up. On the stage four Earthmen, two Martians, two Venusians, and one Mercurian sat on an upraised dais. That is to say, eight of them sat. The \"As most of you are familiar with our program, it will be unnecessary to give any advance explanation. I will only say that on this stage are nine visi sets, each tuned to one of the nine planets. At transmitting sets all over these planets listeners will appear and voice questions. These questions, my nine experts will endeavor to answer. For every question missed, the sender will receive a check for one thousand planetoles . From the left wing Grannie Annie appeared. She bowed and took her place Doctor Universe nodded and turned to Grannie Annie who had raised her It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm \"Billy-boy, did you see the way that crowd acted?\" ought to clamp down.\" \"The I.P. men aren't strong enough.\" Death In The Atom , hit the stands last January,\" 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 for this one I decided on Venus. I went to Venus City, and I spent six weeks in-country. I got some swell background material, and I met Ezra Karn....\" or cathode rays with negatively charged electrons. and lack of energy. As the period of exposure increases, this condition develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug.\" I was sitting up now, hanging on to the woman's every word. \"Now in 2710, as you'd know if you studied your history, the three planets of Earth, Venus, and Mars were under governmental bondage. The cruel dictatorship of Vennox I was short-lived, but it lasted long immediate. Representative government, individual enterprise, freedom followed.\" Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. I said, \"So what?\" times more potent and is transmiting it en masse .\" Zinnng-whack! \"All right!\" A heat ray! Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the threw over the starting stud. An instant later we were plunging through the dark night. Six days after leaving Swamp City we reached Level Five, the last outpost of firm ground. Ahead lay the inner marsh, stretching as far as We had traveled this far by ganet , the tough little two headed pack had its motor instantly destroyed, of course, by the magnetic force belt that encircled the planet's equator. Now our drivers changed to boatmen, and we loaded our supplies into three clumsy jagua canoes. 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. see, I'm positive the Green Flames have never been removed from the ship.\" Sleep had never bothered me, yet that night I lay awake for hours tossing restlessly. The thousand sounds of the blue marsh droned steadily. And the news broadcast I had heard over the portable visi talons raked my clothing. Again it came, and again I rolled swiftly, appeared. Grannie gave a single warning: \"Stand still!\" Grannie Annie fired with deliberate speed. in the swamp. Harmless in its wild state, but when captured, it can be trained to pursue a quarry until it kills. It has a single unit brain and follows with a relentless purpose.\" \"Then that would mean...?\" tent and faced me with earnest eyes. \"Billy-boy, our every move is being watched. From now on it's the survival of the fittest.\" The following day was our seventh in the swamp. The water here resembled a vast mosaic, striped and cross-striped with long winding ribbons of yellowish substance that floated a few inches below the a matter of seconds. At high noon by my Earth watch I sighted a low white structure on one civilization entirely. Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the that's manifested by laughing. But just what it is that makes them laugh, I don't know.\" Food supplies and fresh drinking water were replenished at the hut. \"The Doctor Universe program,\" he said. \"I ain't missed one in months. You gotta wait 'til I hear it.\" Grannie frowned in annoyance, but the prospector was adamant. He camped that night on a miserable little island where insects swarmed about us in hordes. The next day an indefinable wave of weariness and despondency beset our entire party. I caught myself musing over the futility of the venture. Only the pleadings of Grannie Annie kept me from turning back. On the morrow I realized the truth in her warning, that all of us had been exposed to the insidious radiations. After that I lost track of time. Day after day of incessant rain ... of steaming swamp.... But at length we reached firm ground and began our advance on foot. suspended between them was a network of copper wire studded with white insulators. Grannie gazed a long moment through binoculars. \"Billy-boy, take three Venusians and head across the knoll,\" she ordered. \"Ezra and I will circle in from the west. Fire a gun if you strike trouble.\" \"Up we go, Billy-boy.\" Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to swing slowly to and fro. Grannie stamped her foot. \"It's maddening,\" she said. \"Here we are at the crux of the whole matter, and we're powerless to make a single move.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow long did Billy-boy and Grannie Annie travel after heat ray attack?\n\n<options>:\nA Until January, when Death In The Atom hit stands\nB six weeks\nC Until dark when the arrived at the camp fire\nD six days\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthat left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines compiled dictionaries and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available. it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. For days the two within the ship soon. \"We've got to make or break,\" said the first alien. \"You know what I'm in favor of,\" said the second. is a complete mess. They've never done anything except fight each other—and invent better weapons.\" \"It's not what they've done,\" said Bal, the second alien. \"It's what they're going to do, with bomb can destroy them. Without in everything they do.\" \"It won't take much,\" said Ethaniel. \"The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out enemy attack.\" \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll was such a planet as Earth.\" people?\" \"I'm doing it,\" said Bal. \"Just give them a little time and they to look at them.\" intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\" he said at last. \"A bit shorter perhaps, and most certainly us. Is that what you wanted me to say?\" \"It is. The fact that they are an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually we can do about it.\" \"There is. We can give them \"In a week we can't negate their entire history. We can't begin to undo the effect of the big bomb.\" nothing in this region of space our people want,\" said Ethaniel. \"And how long can Earth last? \"I suppose we can stop and look them over. We're not committing ourselves by looking.\" They went much closer to Earth, not intending to commit themselves. For a day they circled the planet, avoiding radar detection, which for them was not difficult, testing, and sampling. from the monitor screen. \"Any \"In what way?\" \"Well, we knew they had the the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft.\" upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel.\" to hit them. Nervousness could set it off.\" There's so little time,\" Ethaniel said. \"Language isn't the difficulty. Our machines translate their languages easily and I've taken a cram course in two or three of them. But that's not go down and live among them, with them, play.\" \"You could do that and you'd really get to know them. But that takes time—and we don't have it.\" \"No. We can't help them,\" said Ethaniel. \"There is nothing we can do for them—but we have to try.\" \"Sure, I knew it before we before. We take the trouble to find out what a people are like and when we can't help them we they met again. In the meantime the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. the oceans to have to go down there cold. And it will be cold.\" \"Yes. It's their winter.\" beings?\" \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives.\" \"I suppose you're right,\" said Bal. \"I did think we ought to take advantage of our physical differences.\" \"If we could I'd be all for it. But these people are rough and other. We'll tell them bluntly what they'll have to do if they're going to survive, how they can keep their planet in one piece so they can live on it.\" \"That'll go over big. Advice is always popular.\" \"Can't help it. That's all we \"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You can talk with me any time you want to through our communications, but don't unless you have to.\" \"They can't intercept the beams we use.\" \"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to do with our language. I want them to think that we don't need to talk things over.\" \"I get it. Makes us seem better than we are. They think we know exactly what we're doing even the planet below. \"It's going to are the ones we have to reach to do the job.\" \"Yeah, but I was thinking of that holiday you mentioned. We'll be running straight into it. That won't help us any.\" \"I know, they don't like their holidays interrupted. It can't be helped. We can't wait until it's over.\" \"I'm aware of that,\" said Bal. learn anything exact from radio and TV. Now it seems to be parties, and selling merchandise.\" \"I see. It has become a business holiday.\" the people, and they're hard to pin down.\" \"I see. I was thinking there might be some way we could tie ourselves in with this holiday. Make it work for us.\" \"If there is I haven't thought of it.\" down at the planet. Clouds were no one in it.\" \"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred years they still won't be able to get in or damage it in about. Down there, alone.\" \"I'll be with you. On the other side of the Earth.\" \"That's not very close. I'd like it better if there were someone in the ship to bring it down in a hurry if things get rough. They don't think much of each other. I don't imagine they'll like aliens any better.\" \"They may be unfriendly,\" the snow. \"I've thought of a trick.\" \"If it saves my neck I'm for the ship against the sun planet and light it up.\" \"Say, pretty good,\" said Bal. \"They can't imagine that we'd light up an unmanned ship,\" said Ethaniel. \"Even if the thought should occur to them they'll have no way of checking it. Also, they won't be eager to harm us with our ship shining down on them.\" the ship over where they can see it best and then I'll light it up. I'll really light it up.\" \"Don't worry about that. They'll see it. Everybody on Earth will see it.\" Later, with the ship in position, glowing against the darkness of space, pulsating pull it off. Lighting the ship may be just the help we need.\" \"It's not we who need help, but the people of Earth,\" said Ethaniel. \"See you in five days.\" With Earth. As soon as it was craft, heading for the other side of the planet. And the spaceship circled Earth, unmanned, blazing and winter skies of the planet below a man-made satellite came near of a star and brought near Earth to illuminate it. Never, or In five days the two small landing craft that had left it arched up from Earth and joined the orbit of the large ship. The two small craft slid inside the large one and doors closed behind them. In a short time the aliens met again. \"We did it,\" said Bal exultantly as he came in. \"I don't know how we did it and I thought we I thought it might help you.\" \"It did. I don't know why, but it did,\" said Bal. \"Anyway, this agreement they made isn't the best but I think it will keep them from destroying themselves.\" \"It's as much as we can expect,\" Bal. \"Say, what's an angel?\" \"Why?\" an angel.\" their paintings they had pictured him innumerable times. \"I don't think it hurt us that so myself occasionally.\" \"But you don't know what an angel is?\" \"No. I didn't have time to find out. Some creature of their folklore I suppose. You know, except like ourselves. Their legends are bound to resemble ours.\" \"Sure,\" said Bal. \"Anyway, peace on Earth.\" This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the aliens' goal on the surface of Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA They want to delay any wars until they can come back to help with backup\nB They want to defuse the bombs\nC They want to keep the humans from fighting and destroying themselves\nD They want to officially connect the alien culture and the humans' culture\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDole vs. the Times For several weeks now, pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the New York Times . On Sunday (the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper \"the apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the Democratic National Committee.\" In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said the Times \"might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp didn't get along together 12 years ago.\" On Tuesday, Dole was still at it, referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, \"That's about what I got in the New York Times today.\" The Times has reacted to this assault by highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact, Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper. According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section. Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment. Reporters traveling with Dole caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present, Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington Editor Andrew Rosenthal. That letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being AWOL in the drug war. \"Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of thousands of young people started drugs?\" Dole said. \"Three million have started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff finally in an election year.\" Seelye's front-page story reported that \"Mr. Dole accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of control.\" Buckley complains that the story \"could lead the reader to believe that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say.\" The letter continues: \"Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting,\" going on to assert that \"Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your coverage.\" Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. \"We don't make editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob Dole,\" he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the \"playing around\" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the incumbent's record. \"If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part series too,\" he says. Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained, overemphasizes the \"horse race\" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988, Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday. None of these factors, though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, \"I like the media. They don't like them in the South.\" But this pat explanation doesn't entirely make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in picking fights with the press. But if Dole is attacking the Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a \"corps of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned.\" That phrase recalled an attack he made on the press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington Post of being in bed with George McGovern. \"There is a cultural and social affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,\" Dole said then. \"They belong to the same elite: They can be found living cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the same Georgetown parties.\" The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide.\n\n<question>:\nWho would the author most likely side with?\n\n<options>:\nA Dole, because the Times was publishing many unflattering things about him\nB Dole, because he deserved to be treated better on his way out of politics\nC The Times, because Dole was blowing their treatment of him out of proportion\nD The Times, because it is their job to show both sides of all politicians\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nof the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very many of us, never were. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship saying, \"Transworld Press is willing to let you have a leave of abscence, if you're interested.\" He knew Secretary Phipps from years of contacting, and now Phipps said, \"Personally, I don't want to see anybody else on the job. You've got a fine record in this sort of thing.\" Keith Ellason smiled, but just barely. \"You should have called me for had taken off on the first trip to Antheon five years before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five Sessions in dealing with such matters. \"Space affects men in a peculiar way,\" Phipps said. \"We have conquered the problem of small groups in space—witness the discovery of Antheon, for example—but when there are large groups, control is more difficult.\" with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his life.\" \"As I recall,\" Ellason said, \"there was something about stunners.\" resourcefulness. They utilized these attributes to set up weapon shops to arm themselves.\" Interplanetary. Harvey Branson. No doubt you've heard of him. He's spent his life in our own system, and he's handpicking his own crew. We have also raised prerequisites for applicants. We don't think anything is going to happen, but if it does, we want to get an impersonal, Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you be the home for three thousand persons outward bound, only the crew on the return trip. It was equipped with every conceivable facility and comfort—dining rooms, assembly hall, individual and family compartments, recreation areas, swimming pool, library, theater. Nothing had been overlooked. Captain Branson's eyes sought his several times as Branson listened to final reports from his engineers, record keepers, fuel men, computermen, and all the rest. He grunted his approval or disapproval, made a suggestion here, a restriction there. There was no doubt that Branson was in charge, yet there was a human quality about him that Ellason liked. The captain's was a lean face, well tanned, and his eyes were chunks of blue. \"Gentlemen,\" Branson said at last, as Ellason knew he would, \"I want to introduce Keith Ellason, whose presence Interstellar has impressed introduced him to the others. All of them seemed friendly Ellason thought it was a good staff. Captain Branson. It seems to me—\" why had Branson said that? Why hadn't Rexroad or Phipps said something, if it was important? He made himself comfortable in his seven-foot-by-seven-foot cubicle, which is to say he dropped on his bed, found it more comfortable than a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others, except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near the front of the spike near the officers' quarters. should have been permitted aboard. Ellason had to smile at that. What did Captain Branson think of those colonists who killed each other on the Weblor I ? They had passed stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I know people get tired of seeing each other, playing the same tapes, looking at the stars from the observation dome, walking down the same corridors, reading the same books, eating the same meals, though God Branson asked him to describe the man. \"Didn't you think that was important?\" Branson asked in an outraged Captain Branson, demanding action. Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, \"I have no crewmen to spare for police duty.\" The delegation commenced speaking vehemently, to be quieted by Branson's raised hand. \"I sympathize,\" Branson said, \"but it is up to each quadrant to deal \"You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason,\" Captain Branson said. \"But \"Do you think it is a member of the crew?\" Branson's eyes were bright. Ellason left, feeling uneasy. If he were Branson, he'd initiate an Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's in the belt and had died of a severe beating. He said that since the incident occurred in the staff section of the ship, his crew would be \"I will not countenance such an act by a crewman,\" Branson said. \"If nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then.\" Faces were angry, tongues were sharp at the meeting, eyes suspicious and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of Captain Branson speaking to them. each of the quadrants was named to serve under him. Each of these men in turn selected five others from his own group. Those assembled waited in the hall while each team of six inspected the compartments of the others. These compartments were then locked, everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was Tilbury said, \"We've also thought of that. Suppose you supply us with half-power stunners? That way we can stun but not kill.\" They got their guns. Now there were twenty-four policemen on duty in the corridors—eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first time the passengers seemed relaxed. Let Red Mask move against armed men, they said. of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one man's suspicion of another and the ensuing search of compartments, remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at Harrel Critten and he was a record keeper third class. \"Well, Critten,\" Branson roared at him, \"what have you got to say for Branson looked as if he were going to kill the man himself right there do with the loot, Critten?\" Critten looked him square in the eye and said, \"I threw it out one of They executed Harrel Critten on the morning of the 270th day with blasts from six stunners supplied with full power. It was witnessed by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew \"Hello,\" Critten said, grinning from ear to ear. for this job, Gelthorpe Nill. Nill used to be in counter-espionage when there were wars.\" \"You were excellent,\" Ellason said. \"Can't say I enjoyed the role,\" said Critten, \"but I think it saved lives.\" \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness and boredom that caused the killings on the trained to be a scapegoat. Is that right?\" Critten nodded. \"When great numbers are being transported, they are apt to magnify each little event because so little happens. It was my job Branson smiled. \"It made the time pass quickly and interestingly for \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said. \"And you, Mr. Ellason, were along to observe it all,\" Captain Branson put in. \"Interstellar wanted an accurate picture of this. If it worked, \"Probably,\" Critten said, \"you are wondering about the execution.\" Captain Branson will say they were found somewhere on the ship. You Captain Branson told them to do that.\" \"Gave them something to do,\" Branson said. \"Every time things got dull, I livened them up. I got a stunner and Branson cleared his throat. \"Ah, Ellason about that story. You Critten sighed. \"And I'll have to be caught again.\" Yes, we're anonymous, nameless, we Nillys, for that's what we call each other, and are a theme, with variations, in the endless stretches of deep space, objects of hatred and contempt, professional heels, dying once a trip when the time is ripe, antidote to boredom, and we'll\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the relationship between Captain Branson and Harrel Critten?\n\n<options>:\nA They both just wanted to get the expedition done so they could settle on a new planet\nB They let their tension grew between them with their opposite goals\nC They were old friends working together for the good of the ship\nD They were colleagues in multiple capacities\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 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 \"It will be a simple assignment, Major,\" he said to me, peering over \"It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native.\" \"I always figured Venus was under the jurisdiction of Space III, sir. I happens this Venusian is the one man who can help us understand just \"Yes, Major,\" he said. \"This man is on Venus.\" \"And the man's name, sir?\" \"Joe.\" A tight smile played on his face. \"Joe what?\" I asked. \"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.\" any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He He ambled over with long-legged strides that closed the distance between us in seconds. \"Call me Joe,\" he said. I dropped my bags and stared at him. Maybe this was \"You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?\" \"I'm Joe, all right,\" he said. \"Only thing I ever traded, though, was a pocketknife. Got a set of keys for it.\" 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 \"Where's the Officer's Club?\" I asked the Venusian. and a bar. Behind the bar a tall Venusian lounged. I walked over and asked, \"What are you serving, pal?\" \"Call me Joe,\" he answered. He caught me off balance. \"What?\" \"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?\" \"I never left home,\" he said simply. \"What are you drinking?\" Joe. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most \"What are you drinking, pal?\" the Venusian asked again. I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. He waved at the bartender. \"Hello, Joe,\" he said. \"How's it going?\" \"Not so hot, Joe,\" the bartender replied. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. \"You better get your butt over to the captain's shack,\" he said. \"He's \"Sure,\" I said wearily. \"Will you take my bags, please?\" \"Roger,\" he answered. He picked up the bags and nodded at the bar. \"So long, Joe,\" he said to the bartender. \"See you, Joe,\" the bartender called back. Captain Bransten was a mousey, unimpressive sort of man. He was wearing a tropical tunic, but he still resembled a wilted lily more than he did \"Have a seat, Major,\" he offered. He reached for a cigarette box on the open. A tall, blue Venusian stepped lithely into the room. \"Sir?\" the Venusian asked. \"Sure thing,\" the Venusian answered. He smiled broadly and closed the door behind him. Another Joe , I thought. Another damned Joe. \"They steal them,\" Captain Bransten said abruptly. \"Steal what?\" I asked. \"All right,\" I said, \"suppose we start at the beginning.\" Captain Bransten opened his eyes wide. \"Sir?\" he asked. \"What's with all this Joe business? It may be a very original name but I think its popularity here is a little outstanding.\" Captain Bransten began to chuckle softly. I personally didn't think it \"Get to the point, Captain!\" I barked. \"Easy, sir,\" Bransten said, turning pale. I could see that the Captain Joe. 'Hey, Joe, give me a hand with this.' Or 'Listen, Joe, how'd you like to earn some cigarettes?' Do you follow?\" \"I follow, all right,\" I said bitterly. \"Well,\" Bransten went on, \"that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives 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 cigarettes.\" He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first \"Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all.\" Bransten asked a Venusian named Joe to show me my quarters, reminding \"What is it, Major?\" he asked. \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\" It might mean demotion, and it might mean getting bounced out of the 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 really find a guy who was trader Joe. I made my decision quickly. I wanted to stay in the Service, and besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed. A tall Venusian stepped into the room. \"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 \"It'll cost you, boss,\" the Venusian said. \"Who's the guide?\" I asked. \"His name is Joe,\" the Venusian told me. \"Best damn guide on the The Venusian started to leave. 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. command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I 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 \"I understand you need a Grade A guide, sir,\" he said. \"Born and raised there, sir. Know it like the back of my hand.\" \"Has Joe told you what the payment will be?\" definitely surprised. \"Joe,\" he said. \"Didn't you know?\" When we'd been out for a while I discovered why Joe had suggested the me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide. Everybody was Joe. It was one beautiful, happy, joyous round of 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 feeling I'd had a long time ago on my sixteenth birthday. One of my friends had taken me all over the city, finally dropping me off at my own house where the whole gang was gathered for a surprise party. Joe \"Hello, Major,\" he called, almost cheerfully. The gun didn't look \"We've come a long way since the Academy, haven't we, Major?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the name of the Captain in charge of briefing the Major when he arrives on Venus?\n\n<options>:\nA Bransten\nB Trader Joe\nC Walsh\nD Bartender Joe\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\ntreatment and taking it. But you wouldn't do that. You wanted to commit a crime, get caught and be a hero ... an Ex .\" psychologists to relieve tension. And—despite the treatment, Joe until it took you apart and put you back together again the way it wanted you to be. \"Being an Ex, you'll get the kind of job you always wanted,\" Hendricks continued. \"You'll get a good-paying job, but you'll work for it. You'll work eight hours a day, work harder than you've ever worked \"What's the job?\" your head is going to say, Work! Work! Exes always get good jobs because employers know they're good workers. \"But during these next few days, you'll discover what being an Ex is like. You see, Joe, the treatment can't possibly take all the criminal tendencies out of a man. So the treatment does the next best When she handed the card back, Joe fought an impulse to tear it to pieces. He'd done that once and gone through a mountain of red tape to . He had never heard how the treatment prevented an Ex from committing a crime. And now that he knew, it didn't seem fair. He decided to tell the whole story to the newspapers as soon as he could. And as soon as get another—everyone was required by law to carry a CPA ID card and \"See what I mean?\" Hendricks asked. \"A century ago, you would have been locked in a prison and taxpayers' money would have supported you until the day you died. With the CPA system, you're returned to society, a useful citizen, unable to commit the smallest crime. And you've got a big hand in your dirty little mind that's going to slap it every time He smiled at her admiration. It was someone, for instance, he wasn't sent to prison to be punished he The CPA system was, actually, cheaper than previous methods because it did away with the damage caused by countless crimes did away with prisons and their guards, large police forces, squad cars and weapons. And, ironically, a man who did commit a crime was a sort of hero. He was a hero to the millions of men and women who had suppressed impulses to kill someone, beat their mates, get drunk, or kick a dog. Not only a hero, but because of the CPA Treatment, he was—when he left one of the CPA hospitals—a thoroughly honest and hard-working individual ... a man who could be trusted with any responsibility, any amount of money. And therefore, an EX (a convicted criminal who received the treatment was commonly called an Ex because he was in the strictest sense of the word an Ex-criminal) ... an Ex was always offered the best jobs. \"Well,\" the girl said. \"I'm honored. Really. But I got a date at ten. Let's get it over with. You said it'd only take a few minutes.\" few things that was a crime merely because a man attempted it. A crime because it theoretically inflicted psychological injury upon the intended victim—and because millions of women voters had voted it a crime. On the other hand, attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc., were not crimes. They weren't crimes because the DCT didn't complete \"What's the matter?\" Joe complained. \"I'm not asking you to do anything Joe discovered to his dismay that the girl was telling the truth when likable person. But the millions of women voters who saw his face on posters and on their TV screens saw only the ugly face and heard only the harsh voice. The President of the United States was a capable man, but also a very handsome one, and the fact that a man who looked did prevent you from committing a crime, they'd get a nice reward and they'd be famous.\" hate them as nothing has ever been hated before. Today a criminal is a freak, an alien. Your life will be a living hell \"I couldn't leave if I wanted to,\" Joe said. \"I'm flat broke. Thanks to violation of Civil Rights and a crime in itself.\" \"Umm.\" \"Why don't you take the free psycho treatment? A man doesn't \"Violation of Civil Rights.\" \"Damn it, there must be some way you can help me! We both want the same thing. We both want to see me convicted of a crime.\" pointless. A counterfeiter's career was always short-lived: every place of business and millions of individuals had small counterfeit-detectors that could spot a fake and report it directly to the Brain. subconscious over and over, year after year, until he knew that crime was the same as filth and that criminals were filthy things. Except men like Joe Harper. No system is perfect. Along with thousands of other DCTs, Joe refused to believe it, and when he reached apartment 204 at 2141 Orange Street, he felt as if he'd inherited a gold mine. He broke out in a sweat when he found nothing but underwear and old magazines. If he stole underwear and magazines, it would still be a crime, but the newspapers would splash satirical headlines. Instead of being respected as a successful criminal, he would be ridiculed. but—perfection itself—engraved on the back was the inscription, To John with Love . His trial would be a clean-cut one: it would be easy for the CPA to prove ownership and that a crime had been committed. on the hospital steps: a band, photographers, television trucks, cameramen and autograph hunters. He'd waited a long time for this day. But now—another change in him— He put the emotion into words: \"I don't feel like a hero. Funny, but I don't.\" \"Hero!\" Hendricks laughed and, with his powerful lungs, it sounded like a bull snorting. \"You think a successful criminal is a hero? You stupid—\" He laughed again and waved a hand at the crowd below them. \"You think those people are down there because they admire what you did? They're down there waiting for you because they're curious, because they're glad the CPA caught you, and because they're glad you're an Ex. You're an ex -criminal now, and because of your treatment, you'll never be able to commit another crime as long as you live. And that's the kind of guy they admire, so they want to see you, shake your hand and get your autograph.\" understand he didn't believe. A crowd was waiting for him. He could see the people with his own eyes. When he left the hospital, they'd cheer and shout and ask for his autograph. If he wasn't a hero, what was he It took half an hour to get through the crowd. Cameras clicked all around him, a hundred kids asked for his autograph, everyone talked at once and cheered, smiled, laughed, patted him on the back and cheered some more. Only one thing confused him during all the excitement: a white-haired old lady with tears in her eyes said, \"Thank heaven it was only a watch. Thank heaven you didn't kill someone! God bless you, son.\" And then the old lady had handed him a box of fudge and left him in total confusion. What she said didn't make sense. If he had killed someone rather than stealing a watch, he would be even more of a hero and the crowd would have cheered even louder. He knew: he had stood outside the CPA hospitals many times and the crowds always cheered louder when an ex-murderer came out. In Hendricks' robot-chauffeured car, he ate the fudge and consoled Feeling happy for one of the few times in his life, he turned toward Hendricks and said, \"Thanks for what you did. It turned out great. I'll be able to get a good job now.\" I don't want you walking around the rest of your life thinking I did you a favor.\" Joe frowned. Few men had ever done him a favor and he had rarely thanked anyone for anything. And now ... after thanking the man who'd done him the biggest favor of all, the man was denying it!\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Joe want to be an EX?\n\n<options>:\nA An EX was always offered the best jobs.\nB An EX has no more criminal tendencies.\nC An EX could be trusted with any responsibility.\nD An EX was a hero to millions.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 is an absolute necessity in modern organization—and particularly in modern naval organization. If you could silence all radio—silence of that sort would be deadly! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that still some unconscious men to be revived. In a sheltered cove among the scene with a ghostly radiance. The men of the the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] to the door, paused there, and flung a backward glance at the man in the cabin with him—Zukor Androka, the elderly Czech scientist, a guest of the United States navy, here aboard the cruiser Comerford was also missing! With the coming of dawn, a little exploration revealed that the Comerford's crew was marooned on an islet, about a square mile in area that they had been put ashore without food or extra clothing or lips relaxed in a faint smile. from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks, radio station on a high promontory on the north shore of the islet. demolished, in a small, timbered hollow—a well-hidden spot invisible from the air, unless one were flying very low laboratory. Sometimes, Curtis thought old Androka was a bit wacky—a scientist whose mind had been turned by the horror that had come to his country under the domination of the Nazi which the recent inhabitants of the islet couldn't afford to leave a place where two Another had found the remains of tents and log cabins, recently like a stinging wet lash. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of clouds, broken in one spot by a tiny patch of starlit blue. him. It was the Czech Republic!\" Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal of good-natured joking aboard the and islets—\" \"Radio?\" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline. that had recently been established to insure safety to naval vessels, but there was no answer on any of the bands—not even the blare of a high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of ships or amateurs on the shorter. \"Dead!\" Androka muttered, with a bitter laugh. \"Yet not dead, have shattered them around your ship, just as I can eventually shatter them all over Central Europe! For the next two hours, no radio messages can enter or leave my zone of radio silence—of refracted radio waves, set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!\" There was a long pause, while commander and navigator stared at him. Androka had arrived on board the by radio at once! If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs till we learn just where we are!\" Androka held out his palms helplessly. \"I can do nothing. I have given —\" \"U. S. Cruiser numbers. Ignoring the gibbering Androka, who was wailing his disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they done something to the ether. The set seems O. K.\" \"You have seen a miracle, commander!\" he shouted at Curtis. \" My miracle! My invention has shattered the ether waves hereabouts hopelessly.\" \"Seems to me,\" Curtis said dryly, \"this invention can harm your friends little over five feet. His voice grew shrill. \"Wait! Just wait! There are other inventions to supplement this one. Put them together, and they will defeat the Nazi hordes which have ravaged my country!\" eyes, under their bushy brows. There was something of the wild animal their picked up, and was being relayed all over the ship. The words struck on Curtis' ears with a note of impending tragedy. ship. The was shrouded in a huge pall of yellowish-gray mist, and more of it was coming up from below—from ventilators and hatchways and themselves struck numb and helpless by a gas that had been flooded into the inner compartments of their strongholds. Fifth Column traitors. There were a hundred more or less plausible explanations— The vapor clouds that enveloped the Comerford All about the deck lay the forms of unconscious seamen, suddenly deck—forms that looked like creatures from another world, but he recognized them for what they were—men wearing gas masks. Voices droned all around him in mumbling confusion—guttural voices English now and then, mixed in with a flood of Teuton phonetics. Two words, in particular, registered clearly on his mind. One was \" \" the other was \"convoy.\" But gradually his eardrums began to throb, as if someone were pounding on them from the inside. He couldn't get his breath figures moving about the decks, descending companionways—like goblins from an ancient fairy tale or a modern horror story. Nelson looked like \"I don't speak any German,\" he explained. \"I was born and educated in the United States—of German parents, who had been ruined in the First World War. My mother committed suicide when she learned that we were penniless. My father—\" He paused and cleared his throat. \" accented English. \"Your father?\" \"My father dedicated me to a career of revenge—to wipe out his wrongs,\" Nelson continued. \"If America hadn't gone into the First me—to educate me in a military prep school, then send me to Annapolis, for a career in the United States navy—and no one suspected me. No one—\" men—officers, seamen, mechanics, radio men, technical experts, all German naval reservists living in the United States, who've been sent here secretly, a few at a time, during the past six weeks!\" with strange-looking radio equipment, and more gas tanks like those Androka had brought aboard the Comerford with him, and dynamos and batteries that looked like something out of a scientific nightmare. And bustling all over the place, barking excited commands in German, projected from the Comerford and ve have another invention of out of her convoy.\" \"The Carethusia \"What's the idea?\" \"Her cargo,\" Brandt explained. \"It iss more precious than rubies. It \"Boarts?\" Nelson repeated. \"What are they?\" imperfectly crystallized stones, but far more valuable to us than flawless diamonds from Tiffany's on Fift' Avenue. They are needed for making machine tools. They come from northern Brazil—and our supply is Carethusia ,\" Brandt explained. \"Vanadium and nickel and hundreds of barrels of lard oil for machine-tool lubrication. Our agents have been Carethusia is taking over.\" \"Can we trust Androka?\" Nelson asked, with a sudden note of suspicion in his voice. \"But he's a Czech,\" Nelson argued. \"The gestapo takes care of Czechs and Poles and Frenchmen and other foreigners whom it chooses as its agents,\" Brandt pointed out. \"Androka has a daughter and other relations in Prague. He knows that if anything misfires, if there is the slightest suspicion of treachery on his part, . The masked German seamen were installing some sort of apparatus up there—a strange-looking object that looked something like an old-fashioned trench mortar, and which connected with cables to the room that served as Androka's laboratory and workshop. to rid the below-decks atmosphere of the lethal gas that had overcome the Comerford's American crew. as if a wave of searing heat had scorched them. According to his last calculations, the Comerford off the Maine coast. This probably was one of the islets of that region, or it might be the mainland. which smelled strongly of treachery and sabotage. As he thought back, he realized that he might had been deliberately steered to this place puzzle—Androka's zone of silence the bearings given by radio Navigating Officer Nelson's queer conduct. They were all part of a\n\n<question>:\nWhere do the creatures from another world come from?\n\n<options>:\nA The Carethusia\nB The Sea\nC Germany\nD An alien world\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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.] what it's like to be young and a man and to dream of reaching the stars? And yet, at the same time, to be filled with a terrible, gnawing were over. The Academy, with its great halls and classrooms and laboratories, lay hollow and silent, an exhausted thing at sleep after spawning its first-born. ago had been only scrawled names on letters from home or words spoken wistfully at Christmas. They were the memory-people who, to me, had never really existed. Stardust Charlie, we called him, although I never knew why. He was a My gaze wandered over the faces, but I couldn't find Charlie's. It It doesn't matter , I told myself. a hell of a lot more. They think there's nothing we can't do. I felt very small and very humble. I was scared. Damned scared. At last it was over, and the proud faces descended upon us in a huge, babbling wave. But he wasn't the Charlie I'd seen a year ago. He'd become gaunt and the past year.\" A tide of heat crept up from my collar. I stuttered through an introduction of Charlie. Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. Charlie His tie was clumsily knotted, and a button on his coat was missing. And the left side of his face was streaked with dark scar tissue, the result of an atomic blowup on one of the old Moon ships. I was so accustomed to the scars, I was seldom aware of them that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart. Then your last words came back and jabbed me: \"That's what Mickey used to want.\" \" You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to say, Mickey?\" \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to \"Charlie is funny, isn't he? He's nice and I'm glad he's here, but he's I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie feeling that I shouldn't have come here. You kept looking at me until I had to ask: \"What are you thinking, You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. \"No, I shouldn't be thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that.\" to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it worth the things you'd have to give up?\" I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up what ?\" in a Moon crash at the age of 36, or like a thousand others who lie buried in Martian sand and Venusian dust. Or, if you're lucky, like Charlie—a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally alone, never finding a home. Or there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth old, who awake to the song of birds instead of rocket grumblings, who fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous dust. \"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\" \"It's all right,\" I said, clenching my fists. \"You made sense—a lot of sense.\" The next morning Charlie said good-bye in our room. He rubbed his scarred face nervously as he cleared his throat with a series of thin, tight coughs. I scowled, not understanding. \"Why, Charlie? What for?\" He shrugged as if afraid he might be accused of sentimentality. \"Oh, look inside. I'll probably be there.\" He coughed again, a deep, rasping cough that filled his eyes with tears. \"Not used to this Earth air,\" he muttered. \"What I need's some Martian climate.\" I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a My folks were killed in a rocket crash. If it weren't for rockets, I'd have lived the kind of life a kid should live. Mickey noticed my frown. \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" \"No, I understand, Mickey. I'm not sore, really.\" \"Listen, then. You haven't accepted any offer yet, have you?\" \"No. I got a couple of possibilities. Could get a berth on the I'll stay, Mickey. Sure.\" Forty days of joy, forty nights of fear and indecision. We did all the promise of a child's dream, because you knew that was what I wanted. One morning I thought, Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the You had to finish. \"It was a monster.\" That night I lay awake, the fears and doubts too frantic to let me sleep. , I told myself. You can't stay here. You've got to make a choice. line in a history book. I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get That's what he'd say. Charles Taggart was Charlie. Stardust Charlie. My heart thudded crazily against my chest. It couldn't be! Not Charlie! The audiogram had lied! I pressed the stud again. \"... regret to inform you of death of Charles ...\" I hurled the cylinder at the wall. It thudded, fell, rolled. The broken Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I remembered Charlie's coughing, his gaunt features, his drugged gaze. The metallic words had told the truth. I sat for a long time on my bed, crying inside, but staring dry-eyed at Charlie's faded tin box. Then, finally, I fingered his meager possessions—a few wrinkled This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters instead of children, a medal instead of a home. It'd be a great future , I thought. You'd dream of sitting in a dingy with dirty feet for company. And a sudden cough that would be the first sign of lung-rot. To hell with it! It's hard to tell you, to make you understand, and that is why I am writing this. the old letters and studying the photographs. I believe now that Charlie sensed my indecision, that he left these things so that they could tell me what he could not express in words. decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he live to see. Charlie didn't leave just a few trinkets behind him. He kind—but that doesn't matter now. Do you know why last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration to you, but he wanted it with all his heart, and we robbed him of it.\n\n<question>:\nWhich word least describes Charlie?\n\n<options>:\nA proud\nB sick\nC experienced\nD regretful\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nRevolt was brewing on Venus, led by 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 wonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line of guards. 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 voice rasped: \"Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments reports a spy ray focused on the main lock!\" Earth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not Earth.\" \"Never get back to Earth?\" the old man gasped. \"Has the Council authorized—murder?\" Earth-ship has.\" He paused dangerously. \"Toller,\" he said, \"do you object?\" Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his feet, held up a shiny metal globe. \"One of us will plant this in the 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.\" \"We will let chance decide who is to do the work,\" he said angrily. \"Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think....\" No answer. Svan jerked his head. \"Good,\" he said. \"Ingra, bring me that bowl.\" Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm of her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it with his hand, offered it to the girl. \"You first, Ingra,\" he said. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them. \"This is the plan,\" he said. \"We will go, all six of us, in my ground 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 a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is to it. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the side of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the dark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away secret. His voice was very tired as he said, \"I will plant the bomb.\" 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 for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the entrance to the town's Hall of Justice. 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. \"Where are you going?\" he growled. Svan spoke up. \"We want to look at the Earth-ship,\" he said. He opened the door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. \"We heard it was leaving tonight,\" he continued, \"and we have not seen it. Is that not permitted?\" The guard shook his head sourly. \"No one is allowed near the ship. The order was just issued. It is thought there is danger.\" Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. \"It He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like nails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had ruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save the petrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously, then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Over the shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of the jungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would be 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. The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. \"Probably the guards. Of course, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party.\" \"And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it?\" the out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be coming from the town, anyhow....\" under the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to get the atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed. Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been bombs in the compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. \"This will do for me,\" he said. \"They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?\" It's not much of a plan. The guards would the bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember, you are in no danger from the guards.\" From the guards that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a ground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting 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. They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the side of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance. turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. \"Svan! They're coming! They found the guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan, with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and came for you. We must flee!\" halves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where a connection had been broken. \"He had a bomb,\" he said. \"A magnetic-type, delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,\n\n<question>:\nWhat object is found by the guards, giving away the six Venusian conspirators? Who does it belong to?\n\n<options>:\nA A spy ray. It belongs to the six insurgents who plan to blow up the Earth ship.\nB A Venus-tobacco cigarette. It belongs to the Exec officer, who the six insurgents killed when breaking into the Earth ship.\nC An atomite bomb. It belongs to the guard they killed just before breaking into where the Earth ship is kept.\nD A rifle. It belongs to the guard they killed just before breaking into where the Earth ship is kept.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nGRIFTERS' ASTEROID By H. L. GOLD Harvey and Joe were the slickest con-men ever to gyp a space-lane sucker. Or so they thought! Johnson asked skeptically: \"How about a sample first?\" Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that Characteristically, Harvey Ellsworth tried to maintain his dignity, \"What is?\" asked Harvey through a mouthful of cotton. In their hectic voyages from planet to planet, the pair of panacea purveyors had encountered the usual strange life-forms. But never had 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. \"Nonsense,\" Harvey croaked uncertainly. \"We have seen enough queer Harvey and Joe were breathing hard from having gulped the water so impersonal eyes studying them shrewdly. \"Strangers, eh?\" he asked at last. \"Solar salesmen, my colonial friend,\" Harvey answered in his usual lush manner. \"We purvey that renowned Martian remedy, the ancient ruined city of La-anago. Medical science is unanimous in proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history \"Got a mechanic around this dumping ground you call a port?\" Joe asked. Harvey grinned puzzledly. \"We didn't take any whiskey.\" Harvey's eyes bulged. Joe gulped. \"That—that's robbery!\" the lanky man The barkeeper shrugged. \"When there ain't many customers, you gotta \"Besides nothing!\" Joe roared, finding his voice again. \"You dirty \"You dirty crook!\" Joe roared. \"Robbing honest spacemen!\" sometimes overactive. You were going to say—?\" The round face of the barkeeper had assumed an aggrieved expression. \"Folks are always thinkin' the other feller's out to do 'em,\" he said, \"Friend,\" said Harvey, taking out a wallet and counting off eight unconscionable interjection of a middleman between Nature and man's proper amount. Then Johnson rubbed his thumb on his index finger and Harvey bravely counted off the bills. He asked: \"But what are we to Johnson's response almost floored them. \"Who said anything about \"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, a faint suspicion alive in him. So he called Harvey and they went to that was unmistakably a buried pipe. \"What's this doing here?\" Harvey asked, puzzled. \"I thought Johnson had \"Wonder where it leads to,\" Joe said uneasily. the saloon,\" said Harvey, his eyes rapidly tracing the .\" Mutely, Harvey pointed out a pipe-end jutting under the water. conscience.\" \"The asteroidal Poobah has tricked us with a slick come-on,\" said Harvey slowly. His eyes grew cold. \"Joseph, the good-natured artist in me has become a hard and merciless avenger. I shall not rest until we have had the best of this colonial con-man! Watch your cues from this point hence.\" Him and me are the whole Earthman population of Johnson City.\" \"You don't need any more,\" said Harvey, dismayed. Johnson's eight-foot son, topped by a massive roof of sun-bleached hair and held up by a foundation that seemed immovable, had obviously been born and raised in low gravity. For any decent-sized world would have \"Of course,\" replied Harvey calmly. \"Any fool knows the first symptoms ?\" demanded Johnson. \"I come down with it Harvey helped Joe to the counter and lifted him up on it. The mayor and Instead of replying, Harvey hurried outside to the ungainly second-hand When Joe tried to pull away, Harvey was inexorable. He made his partner Joe recoiled. \"I'm fine now!\" he cried, and sprang off the bar to prove Astonished, Johnson and his son drew closer. They searched Joe's face, \" never fails, my friend,\" Harvey explained. \"By \"We do not sell this unbelievable remedy,\" Harvey replied with dignity. 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.\" \"Medicine,\" Harvey propounded, \"should taste like medicine.\" To Joe he snake oil?\" \"That was not poison,\" Harvey contradicted quietly. \"It was Harvey looked reprovingly at his gangling partner. \"Did Johnson ask to Harvey stopped filling bottles and looked up pensively. suckers. Later, a brief period of demonstrating his abilities on the audio-visiphone. Then our triumph—we shall sell him at a stupendous figure to the zoo!\" Joe was still dazed by that monetary vista when he and Harvey carried out the money into Harvey's hand, at a moderate rate that precariously Harvey and Joe looked at each other. They hadn't been thinking about \" \"Your hospitality,\" said Harvey, \"depends on the prices you charge.\" Swiftly, Harvey conned the possibilities of being bilked again. He saw none. Johnson immediately fell into the role of \"mine host.\" Harvey and Joe studied the menu critically. The prices were phenomenally low. When they glanced up at Johnson in perplexity, he culinary wealth of this planetoid and all the system. And the service was as extraordinary as the meal itself. With four hands, Genius played , using his other two \"We absolutely must purchase this incredible specimen,\" Harvey whispered excitedly when Johnson and the native were both in the to women like Mrs. van Schuyler-Morgan, merely for his hire.\" complained Harvey. \"I wish Johnson would stay either swindler or honest As if on cue, Genius came out and put the check down between Joe and Harvey. Harvey picked it up negligently, but his casual air vanished in Johnson didn't answer. Neither did Genius Harvey focused on the microscopic print, and his face went pasty with Johnson, the \"sheriff,\" collected the money, and Johnson, the \"restaurateur,\" pocketed it. Meanwhile, Harvey tipped Joe the sign to \"I don't get the connection,\" objected Johnson. \"It doesn't matter any longer,\" Harvey said with elaborate \"That's right,\" Johnson came back emphatically. \"But what would your \"Either one. It don't make no difference. Genius is too valuable to \"Oh, come now, Mr. Johnson. Don't tell me no amount of money would Johnson. \"I should imagine you will be rather lonely, with only your Harvey forcibly removed his eyes from the native, who was clearing off worst and expects nothing better. the ship,\" Harvey instructed. To Johnson he explained: \"You must see \"We must not be selfish, my boy,\" Harvey said nobly. \"We have had our On a larger and heavier world than Planetoid 42, Johnson's curiosity his part, Harvey allowed that curiosity to grow like a Venusian amoeba political speech-makers.\" \"Do not jump to hasty conclusions,\" Harvey cautioned. \"Another word, and I shall refuse you the greatest opportunity any man has ever had, with the sole exceptions of Joseph, myself and the unfortunate inventor Harvey nodded in relief. \"We have attempted to repay our host, Joseph. \"To make a long story, Mr. Johnson,\" he said, \"Joseph and I were among that was a malicious lie, spread by the doctor's enemies to discredit \"This what?\" Johnson blurted out. \"In simple terms,\" clarified Harvey, \"the ingenious doctor discovered \"It does, Mr. Johnson! Only charlatans like those who envied Doctor Johnson recoiled. \"No—no, \"Why, I don't know,\" Johnson said in confusion. \"For three years, Joseph and I lost sleep and hair, trying to detect\n\n<question>:\nDespite what they told Johnson, what can be determined as Harvey and Joe's true occupation?\n\n<options>:\nA Sales men\nB space-side mechanics\nC Traveling gamblers\nD Con artists\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. BREAKAWAY BY STANLEY GIMBLE Illustrated by Freas She surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting what she wanted. Phil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his long, thin body and came into the living room. His face, usually serious and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too far. She said, \"You look fine, Phil. You look just right.\" She managed a smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on the maple coffee table and took another from the pack. \"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did,\" she said, finishing the ritual but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat smiling. isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn't be sending me you know that. I told you that we've sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.\" She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand. \"Phil, don't go. Please don't. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn't have a wife. Can't he go? They'd understand, Phil. Please!\" She was holding his arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks. her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He released her and stood up. \"Yes, I'll come to say good-by.\" She paused and dropped her eyes. \"Phil, 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 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 wife of a space pilot. But I don't think I ever really believed it was possible—not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous dream!\" 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.\" a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, if such was its destiny. Phil turned the car off the highway onto the rutted dirt road that led take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching out of sight to right and left. At the gate they were stopped by the guard. He read Phil's pass, shined his flashlight in their faces, and \"Thanks, sergeant. I'll be seeing you next week,\" Phil said, and smiled. cigarette. Then he looked at his wife. She was staring through the windshield at the rocket two hundred yards away. Its smooth polished surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until the eye lost the tip against the stars. voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. \"Please go now, Phil,\" she said. \"Yes, good luck, Phil,\" she said. He opened the car door and got out. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight. \"Mary, I—\" he began, and then turned and strode toward the tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that Phil had worn earlier. When he came into the room, the noise and bustle \"Hello, Phil. We were beginning to think you weren't coming. You all set, son?\" \"Yes, sir, I'm all set, I guess,\" Phil said. the radar.\" As they crossed the room, familiar faces smiled, and each man shook his waved to him, but he didn't smile. Phil wanted to talk to him, to say something \"How do you do, sir. I'm very proud to meet you,\" Phil said. again. I'd like to be going. It's a thrilling thought—man's first adventure into the universe. You're lighting a new dawn of history, \"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 front of a huge chart of the solar system. Phil took his seat, and the 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—\" Phil asked a few questions about weather and solar conditions. And then unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and handshakes. They were ready now. \"Phil,\" the general said, and took him aside. \"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 psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness, Phil, but I think there's something wrong. Is there?\" \"No, sir. There's nothing wrong,\" Phil said, but his voice didn't carry conviction. He reached for a cigarette. \"Phil, if there is anything—anything at all—you know what it might life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension wrong with you. Want to tell me?\" Outside, the take-off zone crawled with men and machines at the base of the rocket. For ten hours, the final check-outs had been in progress and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt that he was sending just a little bit of himself into the sky. Beyond administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And, rocket—ninety feet into the air. At the top he waved to the men on the ground and then disappeared through a small port. 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 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 For a long time after the rocket had become a tiny speck of light in the heavens, she stood holding her face in her hands and crying softly to \"Phil! Oh, Phil.\" She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and over. \"They wouldn't let me go, Mary,\" he said finally. \"The general would not let me go.\" She looked at him. His face was drawn tight, and there were tears on his cheeks. \"Thank, God,\" she said. \"It doesn't matter, darling. The only thing that matters is you didn't go.\" \"You're right, Mary,\" he said. His voice was low—so low she could hardly hear him. \"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.\" He stood with THE END\n\n<question>:\nWhat term best describes Phil's personality change from the introduction of the story to the conclusion?\n\n<options>:\nA Distressed\nB Delirious\nC Despondent\nD Deflated\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\noverrode 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 any scheme almost on sight—even where they had eluded the best brains in the ad agency where he worked. So when the Chief of World Security greatest mystery, Jery assumed that it was because of his mental men came to get me. I didn't quite believe it at first, when I looked up and saw them, six-feet-plus of steel nerves and gimlet eyes, staring So I managed a weak smile toward the duo, and tried not to sweat too profusely. \"Jery Delvin?\" said the one on my left, a note of no-funny-business in his brusque baritone. \"... Yes,\" I said, some terrified portion of my mind waiting masochistically for them to draw their collapsers and reduce me to a are Jery Delvin?\" The man who spoke seemed more than surprised he seemed stunned. His voice held an incredulous squeak, a squeak which would have amazed his subordinates. It certainly amazed me. Because the speaker was Philip Baxter, Chief of Interplanetary Security, second only to the World 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, pressing my perspiring palms against the sides of my pants to get rid of their uncomfortably slippery feel. \"Thank you, sir.\" There was a silence, during which I breathed uneasily, and a bit too 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 inches tall, brown hair, slate-gray eyes. Citizen. Honest, sober, civic-minded, slightly antisocial....\" He looked at me, questioningly. \"I'd rather not discuss that, sir, if you don't mind.\" to stay out of my office when I'm working, or I can't function.\" \"You have my sympathy, son,\" Baxter said, not unkindly. \"Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy.\" is.... You have been chosen for an extremely important mission.\" I couldn't have been more surprised had he announced my incipient 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 smile was still on his lips, but there was a grimness in the glitter of his narrowing eyes. 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—\" We asked for a solution to an important problem. And your name was what we got. You, son, are the solution.\" Chief of Security or not, I was getting a little burned up at his highhanded treatment of my emotions. \"How nice!\" I said icily. \"Now if I only knew the problem!\" Baxter blinked, then lost some of his scowl. \"Yes, of course I nodded. \"Like the old-time Boy Scouts, only with rocket-names for their various troops in place of the old animal names.\" I detected a tinge of cynicism in his tone, but said nothing. \"What a gesture!\" Baxter went on, hardly speaking directly to me at 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 and then we got this red-headed kid with freckles like confetti all over his slightly bucktoothed face, and we—Sir?\" 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?\" \"Because it's not true, Delvin,\" he said. His voice was suddenly old and tired, and very much in keeping with his snowy hair. \"You see, the Space Scouts have vanished.\" Baxter cupped his slightly jowled cheeks in his hands and propped his elbows on the desktop, suddenly slipping out of his high position to go anywhere, do anything, commandeer anything I might need. All with no questions asked. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty chipper as I Phobos II . At the moment, I was the most The pilot, as per my videophoned request, was waiting there for me. I saw him as I stepped into the cool shadows of the building from the hot yellow sunlight outside. He was tall, much taller than I, but he seemed nervous as hell. At least he was pacing back and forth amid a litter of half-smoked cigarette butts beside the gleaming tailfins of the \"Anders?\" I said, approaching to within five feet of him before He turned, saw me, and hurriedly spat the butt out onto the cement floor. \"Yes, sir!\" he said loudly, throwing me a quivering salute. His eyes were a bit wild as they took me in. Phobos II when the incident occurred?\" I said sternly, which was unusual for my wonted demeanor. \"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 the way, Anders.\" \"Thank you, sir,\" he said, not actually loosening much in his rigid position, but his face looking happier. \"See, I was supposed to pilot \"Chow time, sir. That's when you expect to have the little—to have the kids in your hair, sir. Everyone wants his rations first—You know Anders.\" Anders, after a puzzled frown, obediently threw open the doors of Anders, shaking his head, moved into the pilot's section and looked at a dial there. \"Full, sir. But that's because I didn't drink very much, and any sweating I did—which was a hell of a lot, in this case—was a Anders, hopelessly lost, could only nod wearily. He stared, then frowned, and thought hard. \"Yes, sir,\" he said, after a minute. \"Even twice that, with no trouble, but—\" He caught himself short. It didn't pay to be too curious about the aims of an \"Why, yes, I did, sir. But how did you—?\" \"No matter, Anders. That'll be all.\" \"Yes, sir!\" He saluted sharply and started off. 4 \"Strange,\" I remarked to Chief Baxter when I was seated once again in his office, opposite his newly replaced desk. \"I hardly acted like myself out at that airfield. I was brusque, highhanded, austere, almost malevolent with the pilot. And I'm ordinarily on the shy side, as a matter of fact.\" \"It is dangerous, of course, but it's vitally necessary. You're young, Jery Delvin, and even the finest history course available these days 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 save the sometimes disastrous delays. So we came up with the Amnesty.\"\n\n<question>:\nHow did Jery act differently with Anders?\n\n<options>:\nA he was more helpful than usual\nB he provided more detail in his answers\nC he was better at observing and noticing things\nD he was much more commanding than usual\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nthroat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key to their character—if such utterly alien creatures could be said to have character. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that luxuries, including women. If it only had a lease that could be broken— of the house, which radiated spoke-like from its heptagonal central reminiscent of scores of movie sets of the Deep South. That on the hair. should behave. \"Waiting for me?\" Tennant asked the girl. She said, \"I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and this is Hell.\" tight-fitting tubular gown. \"If I could do anything about it....\" \"Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?\" she asked cynically. on with it.\" He could sense the restless stirring of the woman within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within himself—desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted within them by their captors. It didn't look like a prison—or a cage. Within the dome of the might have been cellophane but wasn't, and it sprouted from a fabric like trees, only their trunks were bark all the way through—except wasn't. It was a prison, a cage. \"Okay, I guess,\" she said. \"The way they manage it, there's nothing a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own.\" It arrived before the meal, materializing against one of the seven be it gold, brown or red, an unfamiliar love lyric to a melody whose similarity to a thousand predecessors doomed it to instant success. get through. TV doesn't seem to. Somehow it brings things closer....\" foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison—or their cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell, living, apparently, in a world without odor at all. you want him to fall in love with you? Maybe you're jealous because things are arranged here.\" \"Thanks, Eudalia,\" said Tennant. \"I think I can defend myself. But she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as—laboratory animals. They have the means to make us do whatever they want.\" all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they haven't brought anyone through—not alive.\" \"Why do they do it—the other way, I mean?\" asked Dana. Tennant shrugged. \"I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose it's because they're pretty human.\" \" Human! \" Dana was outraged. \"Do you call it human to—\" \"Hold on,\" he said. \"They pass through their gateway to Earth at considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who don't—or can't—they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just laboratory specimens.\" \"Maybe,\" Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. \"But the things they do—stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on display in their—their whatever they live in. You call that human, Rog?\" \"Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?\" Tennant asked quietly. \"Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab? Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?\" \"Of course not,\" he agreed. \"In the one instance, we're the hunters, the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other\"—he shrugged—\"we're over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women it was As in all of this strange universe, excepting the dome-cages in this even though no reason Opal Opal might extend thousands of yards in iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name Opal. human sense. You will approach without use of your appendages. He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as curious as a cat—or a human being. Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended. Or perhaps that was his intent his role was to be. He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him. He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors, smell the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's specimen. He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be real ... his love for her, the food he ate, the things he touched, his house, his life.... The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout. Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about his thoughts—that was why he had been free to think of escape. But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's power over him. He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted leading another victim to the fourth-dimensional pen. him. The he should have expected a triangle, but somehow he hadn't. And here it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of skinned those bodies and removed the heads.\" So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely revolting. to do?\" \"I don't know about you,\" he said, \"but I suspect we're in the same What He lit a cigarette, inhaled. \"Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After lover to do something, anything , as long as it was safe. Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in body chemistry or psychology, perhaps. More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they wanted. could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It simply wasn't feasible—and furthermore he derived an impression of the tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself. They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the central theme of the story?\n\n<options>:\nA In undesirable circumstances, it is best to remain guarded on the inside, but to display an agreeable, obedient, and non-threatening countenance.\nB Be careful what you worship -- be it vanity, reputation, or money -- because if you make it the center of your world, you will always feel inadequate.\nC All relationships are ultimately temporal due to three dimensional time and space -- it is only through the fourth dimension that true love can be achieved.\nD Experimenting with living creatures -- regardless if it is for entertainment or research -- is unethical, and humans may one day find themselves as subjects.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Cupia, where Lilla awaits in some dire extremity.” “All right,” Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an end. The morrow would decide the ascendancy of Myles Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent. IV “It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber of the dread thirteen: Formis and her On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by a scarlet canopy, which set off the perfect proportions of her jet-black body. On each side of her stood six refined had served in the wars in which Cabot had twice freed 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 the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia. (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the in and held up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming following into writing: The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that Cabot die.” members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling seas under the gallant leadership of Prince Yuri, the man with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of since shortly after our arrival here. From them he learned of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet Minos. 20 “Then Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest “It is a lie!” Doggo shouted. “Yuri, usurper of the thrones of two continents. Bah!” shouted Emu. “Yuri, our rightful leader,” shouted Barth. “Give us a queen of our own race,” shouted Fum. “Release the prisoner,” shouted the Queen. And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay and Doggo were rolling over and over on the floor in a death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to the rear of the stage, closely guarded by Emu and Fum. Seizing one of the pikes which supported the scarlet beside the queen. Ant-men now came pouring into the chamber through all Myles Cabot had left on my farm. Myles’s own account of the amazing adventures on the planet Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments of modern terrestrial science for the benefit of the Cupian nation. He was the regent of Cupia during the minority of his baby son, King Kew the Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his absence. The last of the ant-men and their ally, the renegade Cupian Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt to escape by flying through the steam-clouds which completely befriended him on his previous visit. Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been shorthand on the silver sands the message: “Myles Cabot, (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies, the Formians? He had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once more he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla. thus had escaped the general extermination of their race. In either event, how had they been able to reconquer Cupia? And where was their former leader, Yuri, the renegade Cupian prince? there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles roofs, and its occupants disembarked. Three of the ants advanced menacingly toward Myles, but Doggo held them for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room. it eagerly, but before he could begin writing an ant entered bearing a Cupian toga, short-sleeved and bordered with Grecian wave designs in blue. Myles put on this garment, the ruins of our last stronghold and braved the dangers of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our leader was Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne of Cupia, splendid even in defeat. “It was his brain that conceived our daring plan of “Here we are, and here are you, in Yuriana, capitol of New Formia. But how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have arrived here on this continent in exactly the same manner and condition in which I discovered you in When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he calculations for his return to Poros had been upset by some power, what shall you do with me?” “Old friend,” Doggo wrote in reply, “that depends entirely upon Yuri, our king, whose toga you now have on.” III YURI OR FORMIS? The earth-man grimaced, but then smiled. Perhaps, his succeeding to the toga of King Yuri might prove to be an omen. 15 “So Yuri is king of the ants?” he asked. “Yes,” his captor replied, “for Queen Formis did not survive the trip across the boiling seas.” “Then what of your empire?” Myles inquired. “No queen. No eggs. How can your race continue? For you Formians are like the ants on my own planet Minos.” some of us lesser Formians had occasionally laid eggs? So now behold before you Doggo, Admiral of the Formian Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.” This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always regarded the Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they the reigning Formis herself, were called by the Porovian pronoun, which corresponds to “he” in English. When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, he warmly congratulated his friend by patting him on the side of the head, as is the Porovian custom. ought to,” the ant-man replied, “but as a matter of fact, it merely intensifies Yuri’s mistrust and hatred of me. Now that I am mother of the queen, he fears that I may turn against him and establish Formis in his place as the head of an empire of the Formians, by the Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.” “Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be The earth-man, however, persisted. “How many of the council can you count on, if the interests of Yuri should clash with those of Formis?” Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote: a cause, or a friend?” “No,” Doggo replied. “Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as in name.” “It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he Is it treason to support your own queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians? Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?” the queen?” The ant-man indicated that he could. “If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will assert herself, if given half a chance.” friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros. charged with treason to Yuri, whereupon two members of the council, whom I have won over to the cause of my daughter, will raise the objection that Yuri is not our king. This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis. If you will waive counsel the trial can take place to-morrow.” “I will waive anything,” Myles replied, “counsel, immunity,\n\n<question>:\nWho does Myles Cabot help upon returning to Poros? What does he do for them?\n\n<options>:\nA Myles helps the Human race establish a new ant queen as their leader, replacing the Formian King Yuri who came to rule them after the war.\nB Myles helps the humans establish a radio line between Earth and Venus, so that he can bring his Cupian wife and child to Earth.\nC Myles helps the Cupian race establish a new ant queen as their leader, replacing the Formian King Yuri who came to rule them after the war.\nD Myles helps the Formian race establish a new ant queen as their leader, replacing King Yuri who came to rule them after the war.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nAs the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interest No one, least of all Martin, could dispute Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's mother \"Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as you do,\" the cousin—who was rather woolly in history the descendants were scraping bottom now—advised. had never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides of disillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neither purpose nor malice was enough he was still immeasurably bored. soldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country in good while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martin \"? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'd instead of mopping up the floor with him. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulating member of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he would ever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than one conversation, anyhow. \"But I can't understand,\" he would say, keeping his face straight. \"Why do you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousin Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. \"I \"Oh, just don't ask any questions,\" Ninian said petulantly. \"When you get older, someone will explain the whole thing to you.\" The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load of passengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. She One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been coming hired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martin thought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as little better than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. There she'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of a spectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again, From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives and Bartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and many more—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. conspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up she was supposed to know better than he did. When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian had Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim and glasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun, and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future having carefully eradicated all current vulgarities. snapped. \"We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all. But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the same people ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred odd years of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it?\" expensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, how would they manage to live?\" \"How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, how \"I'm sorry,\" Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any of his descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivated young people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking and considerable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. And he had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of the lot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—more frightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him, might never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feeling guilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for his great-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be held accountable for his great-grandfather.\" \"Oh, I do!\" Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together for assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go back in time and \"eliminate!\" their common great-grandfather. In that way, there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would never get to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. matters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the idea of eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfather was such a good beamed at Martin. Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score \"I see,\" Martin said. exile,\" Raymond explained, \"even though our life spans are a bit longer than yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoat government.\" He looked inquisitively at Martin. \"You're not going to go all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you?\" her own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillful at understanding his descendants, far better than they at understanding dozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whether this had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because his descendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly as Martin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possible carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the man Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had become During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for the higher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitably arose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. At least twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one of their vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoy such occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms of entertainment. \"Don't be a fool, Grania!\" Raymond snapped. \"Well, Martin, have you their times.\" \"Furthermore,\" Ottillie added, \"one more artist couldn't make much difference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages.\" Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call the descendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took his \"Takes time,\" Ives tried to reassure him. \"One day they'll be buying your pictures, Martin. Wait and see.\" Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martin man failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was a which Martin christened the nearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much the form of shuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usually ended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another of Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them only when not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, though they were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't court his society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. interbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtue of their distinguished ancestry. He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realize the basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would have continent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All were cousin from the future they were afraid he might prove rather stuffy about the entire undertaking. a while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousin apart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times in his life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Only the young ones had been included in the venture they did not trust their elders.\n\n<question>:\nAt the age of eleven, Martin recognizes\n\n<options>:\nA Conrad is the enemy, and the only way to keep the future generation safe is to fight him to the death if it comes to it.\nB the descendants are on to something with the way they live in the future.\nC the descendants are really the instrument of Conrad, and they are there to do his bidding.\nD the descendants are immature and ill-equipped to deal in matters of practicality and common sense.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWalsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as I liked him, and so he decided the job was just right for a Major. At least, that's what he told me. I wanted to say, \"Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on the job? Why me?\" Instead, I nodded and watched him playing with his fingers. I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the He folded his fingers like a deck of cards and dropped them on his desk as if he were waiting for me to cut. \"Mmmm,\" he said, \"yes, that's true. But this is a special job. It so them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called \"Yes,\" Walsh said. \"A native, you know. They rarely go in for more than \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said. Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like does have a peculiar habit, though.\" \"What's that?\" \"He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes.\" I sighed. \"Well, it's not very much to go on.\" about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that over. Swell guy, Walsh. between us in seconds. \"Call me Joe,\" he said. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. \"They steal them,\" Captain Bransten said abruptly. \"Steal what?\" I asked. \"Cigarettes. I sometimes think the cigarette is one of the few things they like about Terran culture.\" So Walsh had taken care of that angle too. Cigarettes was the tip I should have given I think its popularity here is a little outstanding.\" Captain Bransten began to chuckle softly. I personally didn't think it was so funny. I tossed him my withering Superior Officer's gaze and waited for his explanation. I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful \"It's impossible to tell exactly where it all started, of course,\" Bransten was saying. wasn't used to entertaining Majors. \"The enlisted men. You know how they are. They'll ask a native to do something and they'll call him Joe. 'Hey, Joe, give me a hand with this.' Or 'Listen, Joe, how'd you like to earn some cigarettes?' Do you follow?\" \"I follow, all right,\" I said bitterly. \"Well,\" Bransten went on, \"that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives 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 cigarettes.\" He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\" otherwise.\" Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\" One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something that had happened years ago. He surely must have realized that I'd be back again, sooner or later. Maybe he had another little junket all set for me. could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. 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. definitely surprised. \"Joe,\" he said. \"Didn't you know?\" When we'd been out for a while I discovered why Joe had suggested the pleasure in the work he was doing. There were times when I couldn't see three feet ahead of me. He'd stand stock still for a few minutes, huts, tall and blue, shouting, \"Cigarettes, Joe? Cigarettes?\" It took me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide. 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 to all his friends and we would plunge into the twisted foliage again. His spirits were always high and he never failed to say the right thing that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle. \"I like Venus,\" he said once. \"I would never leave it.\" for Venus. And they are fun.\" \"Fun?\" I asked, thinking of a particular species of Terran: species Leonard Walsh. \"Yes, yes,\" he said wholeheartedly. \"They joke and they laugh and ... well, you know.\" \"I suppose so,\" I admitted. 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 began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about the people there, about my decision to attend the Academy, the rigid tests, the grind, even the Moon run. Joe was a good listener, nodding sympathetically, finding experiences in his own life to parallel my own. And as our relationship progressed from a casual one to a definitely friendly one, Joe seemed more enthusiastic than ever to keep up our grinding pace to find what we were looking for. to greet us. No cries of \"Cigarettes? Cigarettes?\" I caught up with Joe. \"What's the story?\" I whispered. \"I see you found your man,\" Walsh said. I turned rapidly. Joe nodded and kept grinning, a grin that told me he was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game. I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\" .\" He emphasized my rank, and he said it with a sort of ruthless finality. I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh have.\" Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the smile faded from his lips and his eyes took on a hard lustre. \"I'm going to kill you, you know.\" He said it as if he were saying, \"I think Joe almost clapped his hands together with glee. He was really enjoying this. Another of those funny Terran games. \"It was your own damn fault,\" I said. \"You knew what you were doing when you decided to cork off.\" Beside me, Joe chuckled a little, enjoying the game immensely. \"You didn't have to report me,\" Walsh said. \"No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!\" Beside me, a slight frown crossed Joe's face. Apparently he couldn't understand the seriousness of our voices. What had happened to the game, the fun?\n\n<question>:\nGiven the details in the article, what best describes Captain Walsh and Major Polk's relationship?\n\n<options>:\nA They had strong disdain for each other.\nB They often bantered while still being close friends.\nC They enjoyed competing with each other.\nD They liked to make jokes out of each other.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nQuest III Quest III drove on its way once more, lashed by despair toward the speed of light, leaving behind the mockery of yet another solitary and lifeless luminary unaccompanied by worlds where men might dwell. They had grown sated with the sight of wonders—of multiple systems of giant stars, of nebulae that sprawled in empty flame across light years. But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the Quest III's crew. It was a subdued excitement Quest III was coming home the sun ahead was Quest III's sighted Earth.\" A feverish buzz arose She drew an uncertain breath and released it in a faint sigh. \"I don't know. It's good that Earth's still there.\" She was thinking, he judged remember sunlit skies or grassy fields or woods in summer.... He said, with a touch of tolerant amusement, \"What did you think might have happened to Earth? After all, it's only been nine hundred years.\" worry. Things may have changed—but we'll manage.\" But his face had hardened against registering the gnawing of that same doubtful fear Captain Llud found Navigator Gwar Den looking as smug as the cat of the other Quests returned successful, or if they returned at all. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. It's possible—not likely, though—that something has happened to break 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 found himself wishing that he could find some back-breaking task for everyone on board, himself included, to fill up the hours that remained. he couldn't persuade himself to kill time that way. He could go down and watch the screens, or to the family apartment where he might find Lesra and the children—but somehow he didn't want to do that either. He felt empty, drained—like his ship. As the Quest III's fuel stores and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost empty and Captain Knof Llud felt tired and old. Perhaps, he thought, he was feeling the weight of his nine hundred Earth years—though physically he was only forty now, ten years older than when the voyage had begun. That was the foreshortening along 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 expedition, a segment of his life and of history. He might add that to the ship's official log and its collections of scientific data, as a report to whatever powers might be on Earth now—if such powers were confident than he knew it was now. \"One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time since leaving Earth. \"Our hopes were dashed—and I think all of us, even remembering the Centaurus Expedition's failure, hoped more than we cared to admit. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time. \"It is cheering to note that the crew seems only more resolute. We go humanity's dream, lives in us and in the ship forever....\" Presently Knof Llud switched off that younger voice of his and leaned back, an ironic smile touching his lips. That fervent idealism seemed remote and foreign to him now. The fanfares of departure must still have been ringing in his ears. \"We face the unpleasant realization that what was feared is probably and its two sisters, the immense expenditure of time and labor and energy stores that went into them, left Earth's economy drained and exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless twentieth century. \"Looked at historically, such super-human outbursts of energy are the result of a population's outgrowing its room and resources, and therefore signalize the beginning of the end. Population can be but Earth could at least go into its decline with the knowledge that its race went onward and upward, \"Hopeless, unless we find planets!\" Knof Llud shook his head sorrowfully and took off the spool. That was from the time when he had grown philosophical after the first disappointments. He frowned thoughtfully, choosing one more spool that was only four years old. The recorded voice sounded weary, yet alive with a strange Quest III Quest III achieve a velocity that would take us there without dying of senility of aging too greatly. It would be a one-way journey—even if enough fuel remained, there would be little point in returning to Earth after more than forty thousand years. By then our civilization certainly, and perhaps the human race itself, would have perished from memory. phase, and before we can get back it may have collapsed completely from overpopulation. \"Why go back, then with the news of our failure? Why not forget about Earth and go on to Omega Centauri? What use is quixotic loyalty to a decree five thousand years old, whose makers are dead and which may be forgotten back there? \"Would the crew be willing? I don't know—some of them still show signs 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.\" he sat for a time with head resting in his hands, staring into nothing. The memory of that fierce impulse to go on still had power to shake him. A couple of lines of poetry came into his head, as he read them Llud sighed. He still couldn't say just why he had given the order to turn back. The stars had claimed his heart—but he was still a part of Earth, and not even nine hundred years of space and time had been able to alter that. He wondered if there would still be a quiet stream and a green shady place beside it where a death-weary man, relieved at last of Knof could go camping, and lie on their backs at night and gaze at the glittering constellations, far away, out of reach.... He wasn't sure he would want to do that, though. it seemed to falter one moment in flight. Quest III's practical purposes invulnerable. Just as he took his finger off the button that opened the door, the \"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 Quest III's he had heard his father's words. \"Something's happened,\" he judged with deadly twelve-year-old Quest III Quest III's Quest III Quest III bored steadily on through space, decelerating. Even if one were no fatalist, there seemed no reason to stop decelerating or Quest III's Quest III constant arrival of fresh attackers, while others raced away into space, presumably returning to base to replenish their ammunition. That it. Elsuz Llug, the gravitic engineer, calculated dismally, \"At the rate we're having to shed energy, the fuel will be gone in six or eight hours.\" noticed it.\" \"They're mad and we aren't, yet,\" said the boy. Then, seeing that he hadn't made himself clear, \"In a fight, if a guy gets mad he starts swinging wild and then you nail him.\" Quest III Quest III it had already involuntarily told him a couple of things—that it was not Quest III's ponderous and unswerving progress toward Earth had somehow frightened it. So it was trying to frighten them. He shoved those facts back for future use. Just now he had to know\n\n<question>:\nHow would you describe Captain Llud's character transformation across the entire Quest III journey?\n\n<options>:\nA He was excited at first and became jaded over time.\nB He was consistently excited throughout because they found a new habitable planet early on in their mission.\nC His only priority was taking care of his family, so the mission's success/failure didn't really impact him much.\nD He was never really excited about his job, but he became excited at the thought of returning home.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCavalry it is!\" His eyes darted over the machines. \"Here. Help me. was to laugh! For Click and Irish were \"There's only one stipulation I make, Irish. I want a complete picture weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from actor are you?\" \"That's a silly question.\" \"You only have to do three things. Walk with your gun out in front of of Marnagan capturing Raider's Base. I want a picture of Gunther's face when you do it. Snap it, now, we've got rush work to do. How good an Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that to it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting a damned sweet picture of everything that was happening. The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console, wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. And out in the marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only metal-link cloth. He glanced up from a paper-file, surprised. Before he \"Is this \"Impossible!\" film, or an audience. Like this one, dammit! Like this from filming it. Everything was too wild, hot and angry. Gunther was camera. Silence came and engulfed all the noise, ate it up and swallowed it. throwing a fit, still seated at his desk, unable to move because of his fragile, bony legs and their atrophied state. of the Patrolmen clutch at their hearts, crumple, lie on the ground and wreckage into that silence. He didn't know what he was doing until he found the camera in his fingers as if it had grown there when he was born. He stood there, thinking \"Well, I'll at least have a few good scenes on film. I'll—\" twitch. God, what photography! A hunk of metal teetered, fell with a crash. Marnagan elevated seven that pierced through his vac-suit, and silence. He wriggled out of the Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed that film-contraption!\" Hathaway felt funny inside, suddenly. \"I never thought of that. got it here, on film.\" Marnagan winced his freckled square of face. \"It's not proof we need now, Click. Oxygen. And then you like, Click. It's times like this when we all need words, any words, on our tongues. You got your camera and your scoop. Talk about It's irony clean through. That's probably why he planned the meteor and ?\" \"Are you telling me? It's man-made. Better than that—it's Gunther! No ?\" horrors. Progeny from Frankenstein's ARK. Immense crimson beasts with numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some the creatures at all. they can't get us in here!\" Click's voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him. Instinctively, Hathaway added, \"Asteroid monsters! My camera! What a scene!\" \"Damn your damn camera!\" yelled Marnagan. \"They might come in!\" \"Use your gun.\" didn't know what. Something about these monsters Hathaway petted his camera reluctantly. \"What in hell's the use? All this swell film shot. Nobody'll ever see it.\" \"Then,\" retorted Marnagan, \"we'll develop it for our own benefit while said. \"I paid your salary to trot along, photographing, we hoped, my capture of Gunther, now the least you can do is record peace negotiations betwixt me and these pixies.\" for nothing but a covering over the fast, furious thinking running his mind was whirring faster than his camera as he spun a picture of Marnagan standing there with a useless gun pointed at the animals. Montage. Marnagan sitting, chatting at the monsters. Marnagan smiling anything. Nobody fooled nobody with this act. Death was near and they had sweaty faces, dry mouths and frozen guts. When Click finished filming, Irish sat down to save oxygen, and used it he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space is lousy over long distances. So what's the best weapon, which tend to them. It all looks like Nature was responsible. See how subtle his attack is? Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the developed, smiling. It was one of his best inventions. Self-developing film. The first light struck film-surface, destroyed one chemical, leaving imprints impressions. Quick stuff. Inserting the film-tongue into a micro-viewer in the camera's base, Click handed the whole thing over. \"Look.\" Marnagan put the viewer up against the helmet glass, squinted. \"Ah, Click. Now, now. This is one lousy film you invented.\" \"Huh?\" \"It's a strange process'll develop my picture and ignore the asteroid \"What!\" Hathaway grabbed the camera, gasped, squinted, and gasped again: Pictures in montage Marnagan sitting down, chatting conversationally with nothing nothing pretending to be happy in front of nothing . monsters weren't there, they weren't there. infra-red or something that won't come out on film?\" \"Yes. Sure. Of course. I guess—\" \"If you say them animals ain't there, that's all I need. Now, stand aside, you film-developing flea, and let an Irishman settle their bones.\" He took an unnecessary hitch in trousers that didn't exist except under an inch of porous metal plate. \"Your express purpose on this voyage, Hathaway, is taking films to be used by the Patrol later for teaching Junior Patrolmen how to act in tough spots. First-hand education. Poke another spool of film in that contraption and give me Think it hard. There aren't any animals—\" animated. \"They just plain vanished. They were only imaginative of his set-up. Explorers who land here inadvertently, are chased back that isn't being dangerous—\" In that time we've got to trace those monsters to their source, Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters.\" Click attached his camera to his mid-belt. \"Gunther probably thinks we're dead by now. Everyone else's been fooled by his playmates they never Irish. sending station for these telepathic brutes. Come on!\" Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily. \"We'll be taking our chances on guard,\" hissed Irish. \"I'll go ahead, draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then, you show up with gun....\" \"I haven't got one.\" \"We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They probably got scanners out. Let them see me—\" audio, kept his receiving on. Marnagan, weaponless. have a weapon. Oh, damn, damn! \"Don't move!\" he snapped. \"I've got a weapon stronger than yours. One posing,\" he said. \"That shot will go down in film history for candid acting.\" \"What!\" \"Ah: ah! Keep your place. I've got a real gun now. Where's the door leading into the Base?\" an asteroid nothing more than a honey-comb fortress sliding through the void unchallenged. cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the wanted. They were scared off. The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of intricate, glittering machine, through which strips of colored film with images slid into slots and machine mouths that translated them into thought-emanations. A damned neat piece of genius. Irish. \"We haven't a ship or a space-radio, and more guards'll turn the engineers who created them, you nut.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is not a type technology that is used in this story?\n\n<options>:\nA Tasers that paralyze individuals and render them unconscious\nB Highly advanced space travel\nC Tools that allow one to distort how someone else perceives reality\nD Filming devices\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nsag of the dust I learned to spot a passable crack, and tell it from an impassable cut. Time after time the Bugs ground to had no stomach for mysteries, vast or trifling, and there until we were sure the surface would carry the machines. It we slept in exhaustion. But it went smoothly, was cruel work at first. He talked too much, while we were resting or while we were driving wisecracks, witticisms, unfunny jokes that wore thin each stop, more reserved and apprehensive. I didn’t like it, but I figured that it would pass off after a while. I was apprehensive enough myself I just managed to hide it better. filters we would have been blinded as it was our eyes ached constantly and the skin on our faces itched and tingled at the end of an eight-hour trek. forehead were twisted and brown, with scars that were still he looked weary and immensely ugly. His cheeks and route and was almost out of sight in a cloud of ash when we heard a sharp cry through our earphones. and, for once, he didn’t have anything to say. It was the wreck gone. “Great balls of fire, man— where have you been hiding? We’ve been trying to contact you for months!” It looked the same, but every now and then it felt different. On two occasions I felt my wheels spin, with a howl of protest fingers were trembling. I gunned my motor and nothing happened. I could see the dull gray stuff seeping up around the hubs, thick and tenacious, splattering around in steaming gobs as the wheels spun. I knew what had happened the moment the details . Where did your equipment fall down? Where did you miscalculate? What were the trouble spots?” Baron jabbed a finger at Claney’s face. “That, for instance—epithelioma? Why? What was wrong with your glass? Your filters? We’ve got to know those things. If you can tell us, we can make it across where your attempt failed—” “It’s simple. We failed because it can’t be done. We couldn’t can blame the equipment or the men—there were flaws in both quarters—but we just didn’t know what we were fighting. It was the It was a grueling eight hours and we slept poorly. Back in that whipped us, that and the planet thought out of my mind. Sun I know now that they were a pair of idiots, starting off without a section of the fault like a ramp. Even as I watched it, I could feel the surface crust under the Bug trembling and saw the conditions, without any charts—they couldn’t have made years together up there doing some of the nastiest exploring since the Matto Grasso. Then he made the attempt on Vulcan and how he preferred a hot trek to a cold one any day of the “No, I mean real heat.” “What trip?” heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four days later? No, thanks. I want the Brightside without any nonsense about it.” He leaned across me eagerly. “I want to make it. Nobody had, since Wyatt and Carpenter disappeared. Mercury It would be a hellish trek. Only a few men had ever learned how hellish and they never came back to tell about it. It hold his observatory. He’d chosen a good location, too. On Mercury, the Brightside temperature hits 770° F. at perihelion and the Darkside runs pretty constant at -410° F. No permanent installation with a human crew could survive at either liable to get awfully uneasy and none of them can We had four Bugs, three of them the light pillow-tire models, with special lead-cooled cut-in engines when the heat set in, line? We’ll need plenty of both.” “Have you ever worked with him?” I asked. “No. Are you worried?” be active. Seismograph tracings suggest a lot of activity in that region, getting worse down toward the equator—not only volcanic, but sub-surface Stone nodded. “Sanderson told me there was probably constant surface activity.” The Major shrugged. “Well, it’s treacherous, there’s no It seemed that the more we considered the problem, the localized. But there were problems of atmosphere on Brightside, as well. There was an atmosphere and a constant atmospheric 2 , and nitrogen, and traces of other heavier gases. There was also an abundance of sulfur condensed, carrying enough volcanic ash with it for Sanderson to estimate the depth and nature of the surface upheavals on sleepy, almost indolent, but capable of abrupt alertness. running the final tests on the pressure suits. That evening, reliable at first glance. Anyway, personality problems weren’t our big problem right then. worried us first and route one had an inner lining of a fiberglass modification, to avoid the clumsiness of asbestos, and carried the refrigerating unit the two layers. Warning thermocouples, of course—at 770 degrees, it wouldn’t take much time to fry us to cinders if the suits failed somewhere.” “How about the Bugs?” “They were insulated, too, but we weren’t counting on “We’d be in and out of them too much. They gave us mobility We just didn’t quite end on schedule, that was all. But I’m when we started, twice the size it appears on Earth. Every day seventy miles a day, no matter how hot it became, no matter what terrain we had to cross. Detours would be dangerous and time-consuming. Delays could cost us our lives. We all knew that. detail work. We don’t need to worry about the major topography. It’s the little faults you “But why not? We could save ourselves days!” It was hot. If I forget everything else about that trek, I’ll break, hotter and hotter with every mile. We knew that the first few days would be the easiest and we were rested and Even at only 30 per cent Earth gravity they were a strain on the heat so much those first days out. We it. The refrig units kept our skins at a nice comfortable seventy-five some nerve pathways got twisted up, somehow. We poured sweat as if we were in a superheated furnace. We drove eight hours and slept five. When a sleep period a light aluminum sun-shield and lay out in the dust and rocks. The sun-shield cut the temperature down sixty or seventy bulk gelatin, vitamins. The Major measured water out with an iron hand, because we’d have drunk ourselves into nephritis in a week otherwise. We were constantly, unceasingly thirsty. Ask the physiologists reasons—but all we knew, or cared about, was that it happened to be so. We didn’t sleep the first few stops, as a consequence. Our eyes burned in spite of the filters and we had roaring headaches, but we couldn’t sleep them off. We sat around looking After a few driving periods, I began to get my bearings at the wheel. We were moving down into desolation that made the air was filled with a barely visible yellowish mist of sulfur and sulfurous gases. the challenge was so powerful you could almost feel it. No one could throw up to us, at the most difficult time possible. before, except for that Sun. We’d fought absolute cold before east. This range had shown no activity since the first landing on Mercury forty years before, but beyond it there were active cones. Yellow fumes rose from the craters constantly their sides were shrouded with heavy ash. We couldn’t detect a wind, but we knew there was a hot, sulfurous breeze sweeping in great continental tides across the face of the planet. Not enough for erosion, though. The craters rose up out of jagged gorges, huge towering spears of rock and dust—silicates and salts, pumice and limestone and granite ash, filling crevices and declivities—offering a soft, treacherous surface for the Bug’s pillow tires. I learned to read the ground, to tell a covered fault by the\n\n<question>:\nWhat wasn't an issue their bodies were going through?\n\n<options>:\nA dehydration\nB malnutrition\nC headaches\nD irritation\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nMacklin was playing jacks. \"How are you going to go about forcing him, Doctor?\" Mitchell inquired. \"He outweighs you by fifty pounds and you needn't look to me for help against that repatriated fullback.\" Ferris fingered the collar of his starched lab smock. \"Guess I got He lay there, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, listening to his Macklin had answered the heart race, and then convulsively snatched the telephone receiver from \"No!\" the smaller man yelled. \"You can't expect me to violate professional ethics and test my own discovery on myself.\" Elliot Macklin had inherited the reputation of the late Albert Einstein his Theory of Spatium was correct or not because no one had yet been able to frame an argument with it. Macklin was in his early fifties but looked in his late thirties, with the build of a football player. The . The only thing that could delay the project was Macklin's health. Despite his impressive body, some years before he had suffered a mild stroke ... or at least a vascular spasm of a cerebral artery. It was known that he suffered from the vilest variety of migraine. A cycle of \"Aspirins would still be used to reduce fever and relieve muscular \"How can you have a specific for a number of different causes?\" Macklin \"That may mean the end of headaches, but I would think it would mean the end of the race as well,\" Macklin said. \"In certain areas it is valuable to have a constriction of blood vessels.\" works, I could stop using that damned gynergen, couldn't I? The stuff makes me violently sick to my stomach. But it's better than the migraine. How should I go about removing my curse?\" He reinserted the pipe. Macklin coughed. \"I don't want to overestimate my value but the Macklin ran the back of his knuckles across his forehead. \"I really that could happen to me?\" \"Low blood pressure,\" Ferris said. \"That's not so bad,\" Macklin said. \"How low can it get?\" \"When your heart stops, your blood pressure goes to its lowest point,\" Mitchell said. A dew of perspiration had bloomed on Macklin's forehead. \"Is there much Macklin held his head in both hands. \"Why did you two select \"You're an important man, doctor,\" Ferris said. \"Nobody would care if Macklin groped in his pocket for a pen. \"Doctor—Harold—you shouldn't have given this story to the \"Don't be so stuffy and conservative, Mitchell! Macklin's cured, isn't \"It's Macklin's wife,\" Ferris said. \"Do you want to talk to her? I'm no \"Mrs. Macklin! I think I had better talk to you later when you are Macklin?\" he asked without removing his hand from the telephone. Bud and Lou, much the same. \"I don't know. Maybe they just have tired blood,\" Mitchell ventured. \"Iron deficiency anemia?\" \"Never mind, doctor. It was a form of humor. I think we had better see exactly what is wrong with Elliot Macklin.\" \"There's nothing wrong with him,\" Ferris snapped. \"He's probably just trying to get us in trouble, the ingrate!\" Macklin's traditional ranch house was small but attractive in dum-de-de-dum-dum-dum . As they waited Mitchell glanced at Ferris. He seemed completely Mrs. Macklin was an attractive brunette in her late thirties. She wore \"You are the gentlemen who gave Dr. Macklin the unauthorized The colonel smiled thinly. \"Dr. Macklin is my concern. And everything suddenly realized Macklin used a pipe as a form of masculine protest to The Army physician stood up and brushed his knees, undusted from the \"But—\" Colonel Carson protested. \"Oh, he's changed all right,\" the Army doctor answered. \"He's not the same man as he used to be.\" The medic examined Mitchell and Ferris critically before answering. \"He used to be a mathematical genius.\" \"And now?\" Mitchell said impatiently. \"Now he is a moron,\" the medic said. \"What did he mean, Macklin is an idiot?\" Mitchell asked. \"Not an idiot,\" Colonel Carson corrected primly. \"Dr. Macklin is a moron. He's legally responsible, but he's extremely stupid.\" \"I'm not so dumb,\" Macklin said defensively. \"But—\" Mitchell said, impatient to examine Macklin for himself. \"Very \"You mean,\" the Army officer said levelly \"you have infected him with \"All I want to know is why Elliot Macklin has been made as simple as if he had been kicked in the head by a mule,\" Colonel Carson said. \"I think I can explain,\" Ferris interrupted. necessary amount of control to stop pain is too much to allow the brain cells to function properly.\" \"Why won't they function?\" Carson roared. \"They don't get enough food—blood, oxygen, hemoglobin,\" Ferris explained. \"The cerebral vessels don't contract enough to pump the blood through the brain as fast and as hard as is needed. The brain cells remain sluggish, dormant. Perhaps decaying.\" The colonel yelled. Mitchell groaned. He was abruptly sure Ferris was correct. \"Just a moment,\" Mitchell interrupted, \"we can cure Macklin.\" \"What do you mean you don't like it?\" Carson demanded. He added, \"Sir?\" \"I figure you mean to put me back like I used to be.\" frame an answer. \"Unfortunately, yes. Apparently if your mind functions properly once again you will have the headaches again. Our research is a dismal failure.\" \"I wouldn't go that far,\" Ferris remarked cheerfully. Macklin slowly shaking his head. \"No, sir!\" the mathematician said. \"I shall not go back to my original state. I can remember what it was like. Always worrying, worrying, worrying.\" Macklin nodded. \"Troubled, anyway. Disturbed by every little thing. what was an infinity anyway? All that sort of schoolboy things. It's peaceful this way. My head doesn't hurt. I've got a good-looking wife and all the money I need. I've got it made. Why worry?\" said. \"It's not his decision to make,\" the colonel said. \"He's an idiot now.\" They found Mrs. Macklin in the dining room, her face at the picture \"Y-yes,\" Colonel Carson said, \"but he's not himself. He refused the treatment. He wants to remain in his state of lower intelligence.\" was my original thought. But I've redecided.\" \"Redecided!\" Carson burst out almost hysterically. \"Yes. I can't go against Elliot's wishes. It would be monstrous to put him back where he would suffer the hell of those headaches once again, \"Mrs. Macklin,\" the Army man said levelly, \"if you don't help us declaring him incompetent.\" \"But he is not! Legally, I mean,\" the woman stormed. he's certified incompetent, authorities can rule whether Mitchell and Ferris' antitoxin treatment is the best method of restoring Dr. Macklin to sanity.\" \"Because, Colonel, the matter of my husband's health, his very life, is \"It isn't quite the same, Colonel. Elliot Macklin has a history of vascular spasm, a mild pseudostroke some years ago. Now you want to give those cerebral arteries back the ability to constrict. To Macklin,\" Mitchell interjected. Her mouth grew petulant. \"I don't care. I would rather have a live husband than a dead genius. I can take care of him this way, make him comfortable....\" \"I'm no psychiatrist,\" Mitchell said, \"but I think she wants Macklin stupid. Prefers it that way. She's always dominated his personal life, and now she can dominate him completely.\" Carson squinted. \"Any particular reason, doctor?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy was the Army doctor concerned about the wellness of Macklin?\n\n<options>:\nA He appeared to now be a moron\nB He showed signs of sudden weight loss\nC His blood pressure had dropped dangerously low\nD He was now anemic\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nevil jack-in-the-box at night. I must tell you, Laura. and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the others alone! Let us be the first to land somewhere! Let us be the first! That was something I didn't have to worry about. My parents had died in a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those \"You are cordially invited\" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. And I It doesn't matter we'd been a good team during those final months at the Academy and I knew we'd be a good team in space. The Universe was mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only \"I'm happy to meet you, Ben,\" you said. \"I've heard of no one else for to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're \"Why don't you both come with us?\" you asked. \"Our folks have their own plane, so it would be no problem. And we've got a big guest room. that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" you're lucky, you're good for five, maybe ten years. Then one thing or another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know.\" \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to spaceman then.\" \"But he wasn't always a spaceman. Didn't he ever have a family?\" I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson.\" Laura?\" I frowned. \"And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think maybe I haven't grown up yet?\" Anxiety darkened your features. \"No, it'd be good to be a spaceman, to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it worth the things you'd have to give up?\" ten years as normal men do in fifty. You can be like Everson, who died in a Moon crash at the age of 36, or like a thousand others who lie buried in Martian sand and Venusian dust. Or, if you're lucky, like Charlie—a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally alone, never finding a home. Or there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth a wife and kids. To be one of the people who live long enough to grow old, who awake to the song of birds instead of rocket grumblings, who fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous it's just that I've been dodgin' meteors now for twenty-five years. That's a long time, boy. Ain't one spaceman in a thousand that lucky. Some of these days, I won't be so lucky.\" drugged. I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna. I wanted him to say something, to tell me the secret that would kill \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" too, for the Moon Patrol, but that's old stuff, not much better than teaching. I want to be in deep space.\" \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy Earth life while you can. Okay?\" But I wanted, also, to be with you, Laura, to see your smile and the Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both you and the stars? Would that be asking too much? All day the thought lay in my mind like fire. That evening I asked you to marry me. I said it very simply: \"Laura, I You looked up at Venus, and you were silent for a long while, your face flushed. Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, Somehow I'd expected words like these, but still they hurt. \"I wouldn't have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, then teach.\" \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\" Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops . There was a leak in the atomic engines. The ship was flooded with radiation—just for a second. It didn't seem serious. The men had no burns. But a year later the captain had a child. And it was—\" \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\" open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto. You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now. And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always. voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he why he wanted to reach Mars? Do you know why he didn't want to die in the clean, cool air of Earth? It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the Universe, where the ship was his house, the crew his father, mother, brothers, the planets his children. Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain he'll go with me in memory to whatever part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura. I have two wedding rings with me—his wife's ring and yours.\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't Laura want to marry Ben?\n\n<options>:\nA She does want to marry Ben. However, spacemen are gone all the time. She needs a partner who is going to be there for her.\nB She does want to marry Ben, but spacemen can't have children.\nC She doesn't want to marry Ben because they've only known each other for six weeks.\nD She doesn't want to marry Ben because of the possibility of birth defects caused by space travel.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nHe looked at the planet a long time and murmured, \"Venus. Pohtah.\" There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to actual parenthood. Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor! There were three of them. Dozens of limp little mutants that would have sent an academic zoologist into hysterics lay there in the metabolic accelerator. But there were three of them By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over \"Daddy, I've tried and tried and I just can't turn this old key tight enough.\" I continued to look down on her. \"Well, Dad-dee, I can't!\" \"Tightly enough.\" \"What?\" \"You can't turn this old key tightly enough.\" My wife looked at me appraisingly and shook her head. \"I thought you My son asked, \"What happened to the animals?\" \"Turned them over to the university for further study,\" I lied. \"Well,\" he said to her, \"you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision.\" meant it. But you really ought to. It would be your first.\" \"That's what I say Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten the clamp. through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes hands, four times as long as the others, uncurled as he spun about the cage. I turned to the fitting of my daughter's other skate. \"Daddy?\" \"Yes?\" \"Mother says you are eccentric. Is that true?\" \"I'll speak to her about it.\" \"Don't you know ?\" mother that I retaliate. I say she is beautiful.\" brown fur and blue fur, too much and too little fur, enormously long and ridiculously short arms, stared at her with simian, canine or \"Lunch, dear.\" when I slipped out. \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\" \"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out.\" \"From me, of course.\" \"But you love me just the same.\" the ketchup and said, \"I've reached the dangerous age.\" \"Oh, good heavens!\" Pacific shimmered. I thought, \"All this and three volplas, too.\" I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, \"Yes, sir, the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun.\" My wife sighed patiently. \"Thanks. Yours deserve the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, too.\" Our son reared the new palomino I had just bought him for his fourteenth birthday and yelled down, \"Unhand that maiden, Burrhead, or I'll give you lead poisoning.\" I laughed and picked up my plate and sat down in a chair. My wife I thought, \"By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!\" as though a little water might help,\" she agreed, sitting down next to me with her plate. The girl was yanking off her skates. \"And I want one.\" \"Oh, Mother . Why?\" \"Because, dear, I said so.\" pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit. I looked at my wife. \"What's the idea?\" \"She's going to be a young woman soon.\" \"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young man sooner than already.\" \"Well, if you feel that way about it, they'll both have to start wearing clothes.\" \"This place is going to hell,\" I complained. \"The old man isn't allowed to pinch the maid and the kids can't go naked.\" I leaned toward her and smacked her cheek. \"But the food and the old woman are still the best.\" \"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever \"I told you—\" \"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age.\" I stood up and put my plate aside and bent over her. \"Just the same, I'm going to have a new kind of fun.\" \"Yep.\" She shook her head. \"Did I say you are eccentric ?\" Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across He said, \"'Ello, 'ello.\" As I walked into the kitchen, giddy with this enormous joke, my wife said, \"Guy and Em are flying up for dinner. That rocket of Guy's they My wife just stared at me. \"Have you been drinking the lab alcohol?\" \"I've been drinking the nectar of the gods. My Hera, you're properly married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus.\" She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. \"Wouldn't you just settle for a worldly martini?\" Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I think, are the funniest. \"Darling, are you listening to me?\" my wife asked with impatient patience. \"Rocket?\" \"For heaven's sake, darling,\" my wife complained, \"I told you about Guy's rocket being a success. The papers are full of it. So are the broadcasts.\" As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. \"He's out of contact today. Thinks he's Zeus.\" I asked our son to wheel a TV set out onto the terrace while I made martinis for our friends. Then we sat down and drank the cocktails and Well, now—say, that would was silence. I heard my boy whisper, \"Uncle Guy, this is the biggest!\" My wife said, \"Em, I think I'll just faint.\" The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at once. I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early infants were females, which sped things up considerably. By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own way. They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously. They kept me busy relating their words for \"tree,\" \"rock,\" \"sky\" to the objects. They had a little trouble with \"sky.\" The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little whoop. After that, it was a carnival. naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\" \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so way to carry such a load in flight. The girls glided out to meet him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he strutted in like every human hunter. his wonder. \"You say we came from there?\"\n\n<question>:\nWhy is it ironic that the narrator's wife refers to him as Zeus?\n\n<options>:\nA The area they live in is compared to the Roman countryside, not anything Greek\nB He seems to think he's very important, and about as powerful\nC He identifies more closely with different figures in Greek mythology\nD She thinks he has too many children, similar to Zeus\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBRYCE WALTON \"Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. \"Only one way to go, where we can float down through the But Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken how they would die—not knowing within maybe thousands of light years where they were, or where they were going. After the wreck, the four of them had floated a while, floated and drifted together, four men in bulbous pressure suits like small individual rockets, held together by an awful pressing need for each other and by the \"gravity-rope\" beam. Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face wrinkled like a dried prune, burned by cosmic rays and the suns of worlds so far away they were scarcely credible, had taken command. Suddenly, Old Dunbar had known where they were. Suddenly, Dunbar knew where they were going. They could talk to one another through the etheric transmitters inside which sent a man a few hundred thousand miles further on toward wherever he was going. Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line, taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third, Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. A lot of time had rushed past into darkness. Russell had no idea now how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking about how Dunbar looked inside that suit—and hating Dunbar more and more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling optimism—because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar would laugh that high piping squawking laugh of his and say that the Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing. When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough for Dunbar. Hell no—Dunbar had to start talking about a place they could go where they'd never be apprehended, in a system no one else had ever heard of, where they could live like gods on a green soft world like the Earth had been a long time back. And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of them had been trying to find all their lives in the big cold grabbag of eternity—a rich star, a rich far fertile star where no one else thought. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years away could see or care. Still—we might have a chance to live, even now, Russell thought—if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar. They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old \"We're about in the middle of those four suns aren't we, Dunbar?\" Russell said. \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic voice. Like a hysterical old woman's. \"Just about in the sweet dark old middle.\" \"You're still sure it's the sun up ahead ... that's the only one with life on it, Dunbar ... the only one we can live on?\" Russell asked. \"That's right! That's right,\" Dunbar yelled. \"That's the only one—and \"And none of these other three suns have worlds we could live on, Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe Alvar and Johnson would see that he was cracked. \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\" Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face. \"We're heading to the right one, boys. Don't doubt me ... I been here. We explored all these sun systems. And I remember it all. The second knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them wrong. I'd break away, go it alone to the right sun, Russell thought—but I'd never make it alone. A little while out here alone and I'd be nuttier than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all the time. Somewhere, sometime then ... Russell got the idea that the only way was to get rid of Dunbar. You mean to tell us there are people living by that red-rimmed sun,\" Russell said. \"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long,\" Dunbar said, as the four of them hurtled along. \"You never know where you'll find people Russell suddenly shouted. \"Keep quiet, Dunbar. Shut up will you?\" Johnson said. \"Dunbar—how long'll it take us?\" Johnson didn't say anything at all. Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six crazy as hell, Dunbar. Crazy ... crazy! Nobody could stand it. We'll all be crazier than you are—\" \"We'll make it, boys. Trust ole' Dunbar. What's a year when we know we're getting to Paradise at the end of it? What's a year out here ... \"Now quiet down, Russ,\" Dunbar said in a kind of dreadful crooning \"Shut up!\" Johnson yelled. Dunbar laughed. \"Boys, boys, don't get panicky. Keep your heads. Just stick to old Dunbar and he'll see you through. I'm always lucky. Only one way to go ... an' that's straight ahead to the sun with the Dunbar laughed. \"Sure, they all maybe have a touch of red, but it isn't the same, boys. I can tell the difference. Trust me—\" Russell did it before he hardly realized he was killing the old man. easy. There was a flash of burning oxygen from inside the suit of Dunbar. If he'd aimed right, Russell knew the fire-bullet should have pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished automatically by units inside the suit. The suit was still inflated, self-sealing. Nothing appeared to have changed. The four of them hurtling on together, but inside that first suit up there on the front of the gravity rope, Dunbar was dead. He was dead and his mouth was shut for good. Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's ears, and he knew Alvar and Johnson had heard it too. Alvar and Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer. \"Russ—you shouldn't have done that,\" Johnson whispered. \"You shouldn't have done that to the old man!\" the old man might have been right about that. If we stick together, the chance is three to one against us. But if each of us makes for one star, one of us has a chance to live. Maybe not in paradise like the can come and help the other two....\" \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can ever make it alone....\" once you're going, you never stop ... and I guess there isn't any other body to pull him off his course. And what will time matter to old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't care.\" \"Ready,\" Johnson said. \"I'll cut off the gravity rope.\" out of sight, Johnson toward the left and Alvar back toward that other red-rimmed sun behind them. And old Dunbar shooting right on ahead. And all three of them dwindling and dwindling and blinking out like little lights. Fading, he could hear their voices. \"Each to his own star,\" Johnson\n\n<question>:\nWhat is ironic about Russell's decision to kill Dunbar?\n\n<options>:\nA After killing Dunbar, Russell became just as delusional as Dunbar\nB If Russell had not killed Dunbar, the three men would have never reached their ultimate paradise\nC The four men were all going to die anyway, but they could have died together.\nD If the four men had followed Dunbar, they all would have survived.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nPLANET of DREAD By MURRAY LEINSTER Illustrator ADKINS Moran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a slash of flame. The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly. He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew he was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors. Moran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the plans go back to the still un-entered wreck while the skinny, somehow which would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans were , with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion. necessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have come prominences erupting about its edges. Now it lay astern, and Moran could see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was a Moran observed these things from the control-room of the , then approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with no reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the four-man crew \"It doesn't look too bad, Moran!\" Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. He cocked an ear instead. He passage leading away. He called. But Moran observed with grudging unquestioned at any other space-port and take off again—provided the other space-port was one they had clearance for. Without rigid control covering five persons aboard—four men and a girl Carol. Moran made six. Wherever the yacht landed, such a disparity between its documents and 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 she could. And Moran was the extra man whose presence would rouse space-port officials' suspicion of the rest. So he had to be dumped. because the drive had been dismantled in the engine-room. So the ship's The rest of the ship's company came into the control-room. Burleigh \"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 Moran stirred, and he knew that every one of the others was conscious of expected, and start it up again. Moran considered the story probable. when Moran had used desperate measures against them. should make its next landing. The little yacht went on. All five of its \"I think,\" said Carol, to Moran, \"that if it's too tropical where this provide food in a minimum of time. It was not an encouraging thought, though, and Moran grimaced. She hadn't said anything about being sorry that he had to be marooned. Maybe she was, but rebels learn to be practical or they don't live long. Moran wondered, momentarily, what sort of world they came from and why government would think defeat. Moran's own situation was perfectly clear. 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 the space-port's vaults. The fuel-block was not returned until clearance for departure had been granted. But Moran had waylaid the messenger took the plastic receipt-token the engine only then released, and he crew in the engine-room, rushed to the control-room without encountering the others, dogged the door shut, and threaded in the first trip-tape to come to overdrive. Then the yacht—and Moran—was away. But his present 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. checked her downward motion. Interplanetary drive is rugged fore part was crushed in. The other landing-fins could be traced. \"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 off. Maybe they got the lifeboats to work and got away. Maybe they lived as I'm expected to live until they died as I'm expected to die.\" Burleigh said angrily \"Sure,\" said Moran, \"but a man can gripe, can't he?\" \"You won't have to live here,\" said Burleigh. \"We'll take you somewhere up by the ice-cap. As Carol said, we'll give you everything we can \"Aye, aye, sir,\" said Moran with irony. \"Very kind of you, sir. You'll \"Then since I can't be trusted with a weapon,\" said Moran, \"I suggest to get in the ship.\" \"Right,\" growled Burleigh again. \"Brawn and Carol, you'll keep ship. The rest of us wear suits. We don't know what that stuff is outside.\" Moran silently went to the space-suit rack and began to get into a easily as in ship-clothing. The others of the landing-party donned their \"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 beacon. I wouldn't count on a boat, Moran.\" \"I don't!\" snapped Moran. world. Moran, though, would not be permitted a weapon. He picked up a torch. They filed into the airlock. The inner door closed. The outer They filed out of the airlock. They stood on ash-covered stone, only landed. Moran moved scornfully wing-covers and flew away, droning loudly. The four men heard the sound Moran kicked again. More holes. More openings. More small tunnels in the \" Moran grunted. Distastefully, he saw his predicament made worse. He knew \"Suppose we go look at the ship?\" said Moran unpleasantly. \"Maybe you \"We'd better spread out,\" added Moran, \"or else we'll break through that \"I'm giving the orders, Moran!\" said Burleigh shortly. \"But what you say 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 Moran said with savage precision They reached the mound which was the ship. Moran unlimbered his torch. the metal hull that had fallen here before his grandfather was born. Sometimes the flame cut across things that writhed, and he was sickened. 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 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. Nadine . 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\n\n<question>:\nWhy doesn't the crew throw Moran out of the airlock?\n\n<options>:\nA They are not murderers.\nB They do not want to be accused of aiding and abetting.\nC The crew will alert the authorities when they reach Loris. Moran will be brought to justice for his crime.\nD They are marooning him as punishment for murder.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nwas slow—but it wasn't boring. And it would get you there—as long as the office noticeably, for such of Ganymede's surface as could be seen through the transparent dome outside the office window was cold, dim and rugged. The glowing semi-disk of Jupiter was more than half a million miles distant. orbiting Ganymede! \"Try not to be simple—for once!\" growled Jeffers. \"A little percentage to Earth. The big jets in the home office don't care. They count it on the estimates.\" here and there on the cargoes never shows by the time figures get back \"Now, listen ! Maybe they live soft back on Earth since the mines and the Jovian satellite colonies grew but they were out here in the beginning, most of them. They know what it's like. D'ya think they don't expect us to make what we can on the side?\" his body. It had been built for Ganymede, but not for Jeffers. Looks like a little vacation and his gang steal the Great Red Spot off Jupiter if they like! It's by the arbitrary calender constructed to match Ganymede's week-long journey around Jupiter. of one of the airtight tractors used between the dome city and the spaceport, or for hauling cross-country to one of the mining domes. Javelin .\" \"What's wrong with that?\" asked Tolliver. \"Outside of the way they keep handing out soft jobs to nephews, I mean.\" \"Aah, these young punks just come out for a few months so they can go back to Earth making noises like spacemen. Sometimes there's no reason but them for sending a ship back with a crew instead of in an economy orbit. Wait till you see the baggage you'll have to load!\" Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a portable, double-chambered plastic dome blown up outside the ship's airlock, a crewman helped him load two trunks and a collection of bags in stronger gravity than Ganymede's. Her trim coiffure was a shade too blonde which served to set off both the blue of her eyes and the cap or does he just know where bodies are buried? \"They were making dates,\" said the girl. \"Were they ribbing me, or is it costs a lot to make the trip. They found they could send back loaded ships by 'automatic' flight—that is, a long, slow, economical orbit and automatic signalling equipment. Then they're boarded approaching Earth's orbit and landed by pilots who don't have to waste their time making the entire trip.\" maneuvered out of the dome. Then he headed the tractor across the frozen surface of Ganymede toward the permanent domes of the city. \"How is it here?\" asked the girl. \"They told me it's pretty rough.\" \"What did you expect?\" asked Tolliver. \"Square dances with champagne?\" \"Don't be silly. Daddy says I'm supposed to learn traffic routing and square inch of Ganymede is likely to be dangerous.\" \"Don't sneer at Ganymede, honey!\" he warned portentously. \"Many a strike like a vicious animal.\" \"Oh, they told me there was nothing alive on Ganymede!\" \"I was thinking of the mountain slides,\" said the pilot. \"Not to mention volcanic puffballs that pop out through the frozen crust where you'd least expect. That's why I draw such high pay for driving an unarmored tractor.\" \"You use armored vehicles?\" gasped the girl. She was now sitting bolt upright in the swaying seat. Tolliver deliberately dipped one track into an icy hollow. In the light gravity, the tractor responded with a weird, floating lurch. \"Those slides,\" he continued. \"Ganymede's only about the size of Mercury, something like 3200 miles in diameter, so things get heaped up at steep angles. When the rock and ice are set to sliding, they come at you practically horizontally. It doesn't need much start, and it barrels on for a long way before there's enough friction to stop it. If you're in the way—well, it's just too bad!\" edging the tractor into the airlock at their destination. \"Made my pile. No use pushing your luck too far.\" \"It certainly is an honor to have you on Ganymede with us! That's all, he told me to find out what was wrong with operations on Ganymede. trouble to me.\" be hard to find. Where are your books, Mr. Jeffers? You're as good as fired!\" In the gravity of Ganymede, the man was knocked off balance as much as The picture of Jeffers huddled with his partners in the headquarters \"What do you think you're up to?\" asked Betty with some concern. \"This plastic is tough,\" said Tolliver, \"but it will bend with enough heat. If I can kick loose a hinge, maybe we can fool them yet!\" for each of the structures in the colony had its own hemispherical emergency dome of transparent plastic. They soon reached the other end. Tolliver. \"Why do you want them?\" \"Honey, I just don't think it will be so easy to lay hands on a Betty how to climb into one, and checked her seals and valves after donning a suit himself. \"That switch under your chin,\" he said, touching helmets so she could hear him. \"Leave it turned off. everything !\" look their way. Reaching the foot of the main dome over the establishment, he glanced From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Betty make a startled gesture, but he had his work cut out for him. This was tougher than the interior dome. squeeze. There was room to walk between the inner and outer layer, so he moved along a few yards. A little dust began to blow about where \"This time,\" he said, \"the air will really start to blow, so get through as fast as you can. If I can slap this piece of plastic over the rip, it may stow down the loss of pressure enough to give us quite dusty, moist air puffing out into the near-vacuum of Ganymede's against the inside of the dome as if glued, although it immediately showed an alarming tendency to balloon through the ruptured spot. They'll find it, all right when they do! He grabbed Betty by the wrist of her spacesuit and headed for the nearest outcropping of rock. It promptly developed that she had something to learn about running on ice in such low gravity. Until they were out of direct line of sight from the settlement, Tolliver simply dragged her. Then, when he decided that it was safe enough to pause and tell her himself. It was a long mile, even at the pace human muscles could achieve on Ganymede. They took one short rest, during which Tolliver was forced to explain away the dangers of slides and volcanic puffballs. He admitted to having exaggerated slightly. In the end, they reached the There seemed to be no one about. The landing dome had been collapsed spot through the dim light. After a moment, he definitely recognized the outline of a tractor breasting a rise in the ground and tilting downward again. \"In fact, we have \"Takeoff!\" shrilled Betty. \"What do you think you're going to do? I just want to use the radio or TV!\" could arrange for a cruiser to escort his daughter to Ganymede and send his own little girl way out here to Ganymede to look for whoever firm. If old Koslow had a son to impersonate—\" \"I'd be stuck for six months in this orbit with some brash young man,\" meditatively a moment later. \"Oh, come on ! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're going?\" we'll float into the vicinity of Earth at about the right time to be picked up.\" \"I didn't expect to so soon.\" \"Yeah, you were pretty lucky. They'll think you're a marvel to crack the case in about three hours on Ganymede.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the landscape of Ganymede like?\n\n<options>:\nA Steaming hot and rugged\nB Riddled with volcanic puffballs\nC Frozen, cold, and dim\nD Steep mountains of rock and ice\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are affixed to spikes. That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama. The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon. With all due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, \"There are thousands of Catholics simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to organize it.\") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an awe-inspiring center. (It was partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of Velvet Goldmine --like my review of Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of a partisan. But not a blind partisan.) In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him, Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the uncomprehending world at bay. But if Haynes wants Velvet Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one. A case can be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are strung. Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who doesn't appear to have an idée in his head. Martin Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then \"finding\" his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he \"found\" when he scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension, but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has leased the screen by the year. Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980 Shoot the Moon , 1982), labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that begin \"Am I to understand that ...?\" and a corporate villain who directs another character to \"wake up and smell the thorns.\" It apparently never occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful realization that he'd \"never write the great American novel\"--no kidding, given his flagrantly Welsh accent. Actually, Hopkins gives this humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank \"Hey now!\" Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter, the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or is that the Black Death of Pitt?\n\n<question>:\nWhat critique does film reviewer offer of Haynes? wishes he would let the picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in stroboscopic flashes\n\n<options>:\nA His pacing is too frenetic and hasty\nB His costume and makeup design is too glamorous\nC His adherence to fact is too rigid\nD Its use of competing sound effects is grating\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 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. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. \"UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight,\" says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . Instead of being carnivals of gore, UFC fights looked strangely like ... sex. Almost all fights ended on the ground, one man mounting the other in missionary position, the pair of them wiggling mysteriously along the canvas for five, 10, even 30 minutes. There were few spectacular knockouts. The referee--yes, there was always a referee--stopped many bouts, and in most others, fighters \"tapped out,\" surrendering to mild-looking but agonizing chokes and joint locks. It was not barbarism. It was science. The UFC spawned a new breed of \"mixed martial artists.\" World-class wrestlers learned to kickbox. Champion kickboxers learned to grapple. (The karate experts learned to stay home.) They became, without doubt, the best fighters in the world. (Click for more about the fighters.) Mike Tyson wouldn't last 30 seconds in an ultimate fighting match. When Olympic gold medal wrestler Kevin Jackson came to the UFC, a fighter named Frank Shamrock KO'd him with a submission hold in 16 seconds. Ultimate fighting schools began sprouting up all over the country, replacing the stylized gestures of the Eastern martial arts with techniques that actually work. UFC 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. 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. The cable TV industry struck the fatal blow. In early 1997, McCain became chairman of the commerce committee, which oversees the cable industry. In April 1997, the president of the National Cable Television Association warned that UFC broadcasts could jeopardize the cable industry's influence in Washington. Time Warner, TCI, Request, Cablevision Systems, Viewer's Choice, and other major operators stopped airing UFC events, saying they were too violent for children. Never mind that 1) UFC only aired on pay-per-view, so children could not see it unless their parents paid for it 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. The ultimate fighting industry did little to help its own cause. The UFC promoted itself less as a serious sport than as a circus of carnage. Its early ads emphasized extreme fighting's potential for death. UFC folks accused McCain, without any evidence, of opposing the sport as a favor to campaign contributors. Extreme fighting was tarnished when fighters from the other ultimate fighting operation, the now-defunct Battlecade, were arrested for violating Canadian prizefighting laws when they fought on an Indian reservation outside Montreal. 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.\n\n<question>:\nWhich of these things contributed most to the lowered audience for UFC?\n\n<options>:\nA The better fighters were too expensive, so when they moved abroad the fanbase fell through\nB The scoring system defeated the purpose of the no-holds-barred sport which made it less exciting to watch\nC Other sports became more popular, and UFC ended up as another fad, leaving the fighters to return to their original combat sports\nD Misconceptions about the safety of the sport drove political spats that kicked UFC out of the spotlight\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 Centre for the Future of Intelligence is seeking to investigate the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity, and make sure humans take advantage of the opportunities while dodging the risks. It launched at the University of Cambridge last October, and is a collaboration between four universities and colleges – Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Berkeley – backed with a 10-year, £10m grant from the Leverhulme Trust. Executive director of the centre is Stephen Cave, a writer, philosopher and former diplomat. Harry Armstrong, head of futures at Nesta, which publishes The Long + Short, spoke with Cave about the impact of AI. Harry Armstrong: Do you see the interdisciplinary nature of the centre as one of its key values and one of the key impacts you hope it will have on the field? 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. That means bringing together the technologists and the experts at developing these algorithms together with social scientists, philosophers, legal scholars and so forth. 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. We want to create a space where many different disciplines can come together and develop a shared language, learn from each other’s approaches, and hopefully very quickly move to be able to actually develop new ideas, new conclusions, together. But the first step is learning how to talk to each other. 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? Climate change suffers from the problem that the costs are not incurred in any direct way by the industrialists who own the technology and are profiting from it. With AI, that has been the case so far My personal experience working with these tech companies is that they are concerned for their businesses and genuinely want to do the right thing. Of course there are intellectual challenges and there is money to be made, but equally they are people who don't think when they get up in the morning that they're going to put people out of jobs or bring about the downfall of humanity. As the industry matures it's developing a sense of responsibility. So I think we've got a real opportunity, despite the general climate, and in some ways because of it. There's a great opportunity to bring industry on board to make sure the technology is developed in the right way. One of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen. Certainly, we encounter technological determinism a lot. And it's understandable. For us as individuals, of course it does feel like it always is happening and we just have to cope. No one individual can do much about it, other than adapt. But that's different when we consider ourselves at a level of a society, as a polis [city state], or as an international community. I think we can shape the way in which technology develops. We have various tools. In any given country, we have regulations. There's a possibility of international regulation. 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. You mean kinds of intelligence? Yeah. I think this is very important because historically, we've had an overwhelming tendency to anthropomorphise. We define what intelligence is, historically, as being human-like. And then within that, being like certain humans. But at the same time, we're competitive and murderous. We have a strong sense of in-group versus out-group, which is responsible for both a great deal of cooperation, within the in-group, but also terrible crimes. Murder, rape, pillage, genocide and they're pointed at the out-group. 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. 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? It's just one example, but the idea that we can live much more resource-efficiently, because we are living more intelligently through using these tools. And therefore can undo some of the damage of the last Industrial Revolution. That's my main utopian hope, I guess.\n\n<question>:\nWhich best describes Stephen's vision for the future of innovation?\n\n<options>:\nA He thinks innovation should be led by the AI developers but checked by people in other industrues\nB The regulation of technological development will provide the necessary structure for successful innovation\nC He says that international connections are the only way true innovation will happen over time\nD He wants people to be responsible and held accountable by different kinds of people\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from according to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I got dressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that my \"Madison and Fifty-fourth,\" I said. and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him on moment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—I pink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, I found that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase \"I'm just I, on the that I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for the you take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door, some of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from the sentence. exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all afternoon. on the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and the the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, it. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothing unusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sort of thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time, somebody else has four aces....\" \"I'll come, too. I need air.\" At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles in moment. one. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time had come for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to call McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university uptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe he knows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's voice said, \"Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were the side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. \"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things....\" would be actually they all come up heads.\" floor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stacked themselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line, the adjacent ones touching. \"Well,\" I said, \"what more do you want?\" \"Great Scott,\" he said, and sat down. \"I suppose you know that there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the actually, it goes \"Hm. You're the center, all right. But why?\" \"Center of what?\" I asked. \"I feel as though I were the center of an electrical storm. Something has it in for me!\" McGill grinned. \"Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic.\" \"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life.\" being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee.\" heard one of them say to Danny, \"I don't know what the hell's going \"All right, smart guy!\" they shouted in unison, and barged ahead, here!\" Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellas the \"Oh, Alec!\" she said, and managed to detach herself. \"Are you all right?\" Was I all right! \"Molly! What are you doing here?\" \"Of course I'm all right. But why....\" busy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right?\" I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look. to it. \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. \"Explain to Molly,\" I said. \"And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet.\" He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was a jump ahead of him. \"In other words, you think it's something organic?\" \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well,\" he confessed. \"But so far as I can see,\" Molly answered, \"it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern.\" \"Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center.\" think this silly of me,\" she went on to McGill, \"but why isn't it something like an overactive poltergeist?\" \"Pure concept,\" he said. \"No genuine evidence.\" \"Magnetism?\" all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece of there, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more than that—they go on moving.\" \"Only an analogy,\" said McGill. \"A crystal resembles life in that it has a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agree this—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is it merely rearranges it into a non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and it has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you might is it? What's it made of?\" \"I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea about the atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears to be forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speck of sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus of crystallization.\" \"Sounds like the pearl in an oyster,\" Molly said, and gave me an impertinent look. \"Why,\" I asked McGill, \"did you say the coins couldn't have the same date? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way.\" \"Because I don't think this thing got going before today and repairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. \"I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister,\" he said with strong disapproval. \"Certainly not,\" I said. \"Is it broken?\" \"Not exactly broken , but—\" He shook his head and took it apart some more. McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried to explain to me what had happened with the phone. \"I'm in no mood to cook,\" she said. \"Let's get away from all this.\" McGill raised an eyebrow. \"If all this, as you call it, will let us.\" In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. \"I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far, I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny, but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved in some mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you?\" \"He's got a theory,\" said Molly. \"Come and eat with us and he'll tell you all about it.\" Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is a \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man.\n\n<question>:\nWho is the nucleus?\n\n<options>:\nA Alec\nB Mrs. Graham\nC A character never mentioned by name\nD McGill\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any transaction, so he gets more land, more food, more power. Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure \"Do they think logical.\" Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his cubicle. \"Not much to offer you,\" he said slyly, \"but it's the best I can do under the circumstances.\" I read.\" \"Whatever are you talking about?\" \"It was a Greek, I think—\" Meyerhoff stared at him. \"Oh, come now. Have you gone off your rocker completely? You've got a problem on your hands, man.\" rock. \"Oh, yes. You had something else to say. Well, go ahead and say it.\" know what brotherhood means, nor humanity, either. Bread that?\" Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I spend a couple of weeks in this pneumonia trap. The deal was worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran them up. Three million credits—do you hear? That's enough to set me up for life!\" Meyerhoff nodded grimly. \" \"Really,\" said Harry Zeckler loftily, \"it was so obvious I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing.\" He settled himself Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger \"And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly. simple for you. You have to pull your usual high-pressure stuff. And this time, buddy, you're paying the piper.\" \" throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't dare convict me.\" He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. \"The paradox You've committed a crime here—a major crime. The Altairians knew I was an Earthmen, which meant that my statement that It had to come as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a Earthmen were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't a liar, in which case—oh, it was tailor-made.\" Meyerhoff. \"They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let me go.\" \"A little fine of one Terran neck.\" Meyerhoff grinned nastily. \"You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can a trading alliance with Altair I, and that includes uranium, too. \"Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was outlook, wasn't it? What a pity!\" He clucked his tongue sadly. \"Me, he said weakly. \"Nothing like a good lawyer to handle a trial.\" \" Lawyer? appeared in his eyes. \"Yes, I think you will. I'm quite sure of chuckled. \"I'm your advisor, old boy. Nothing else. I'm here to keep you from botching things up still worse for the Trading Commission, that's all. I wouldn't get tangled up in a mess it, in fact. Won't cost you a cent, either.\" trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to \"Eh?\" Not me! Oh, no. Sorry, but no thanks.\" Meyerhoff 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 was awfully silly—until they got their money back, of course. In a way, he thought, it was a pity to see such a change in the lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That—uh—jury where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it have lost those papers, do you?\" Meyerhoff grinned at the \" \"Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you? Conspiring to undermine the authority of the Terran Trading Commission. Serious charge, But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading your own lawyer, Mr. Super-salesman. It's all your show. And the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics I don't you'd better get your head out of the sand, or you're going to a study in troubled concentration. \"But I didn't do anything!\" lose a case like it's never been lost before!\" credits, pulled a little fast business.\" He shrugged eloquently, spreading his hands. \"Everybody's doing it. They do it to each other without batting an eye. You should operate on each other. Why, my little scheme was peanuts by comparison.\" oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial Zeckler shrugged again. \"The simplest, tiredest, moldiest old racket that ever made a quick nickel. Remember the old Terran gag about the Brooklyn Bridge? The same thing. Only they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, as long as it benefits them as individuals.\" Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. \"Never too. You've probably never heard that there are just too many Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their doesn't grow here. And consequently, land is the key factor 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 system built around it.\" Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they possibly have a legal system? I mean, if they don't recognize the truth when it slaps them in the face?\" Meyerhoff shrugged. \"As we understand legal systems, I 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.\" this ?\" Meyerhoff smiled coolly. \"You're going to get your sly little con-man brain to working, I think,\" he said softly. \"By Interplanetary me , It certainly Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler Altairians filed in, in order of stature, stalking across the room \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler—\" he paused for a long, impressive moment—\"Terran.\" The courtroom \"Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Altair I. Brutal with the accursed scum of Altair II in preparation for interplanetary invasion.\" The little con-man's jaw sagged lower and lower, the color The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now—later—\" he them set things up.\" \"But those lies Altairian equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then for Terrans. Note the shape of his head, the flabbiness of his around here. She makes it rain. If it doesn't rain, somebody's insulted her. It's very simple.\" true ,\" he whispered to Meyerhoff. \"Of course it isn't! Can't you understand? These people have no regard for truth. It's stupid, to them, silly, a mark of Altair from my homeland on Terra. I—I landed on Altair II, planet, at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is theirs, not mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her\n\n<question>:\nAltairian's economy is most likely representative of which system:\n\n<options>:\nA capitalism\nB laissez faire\nC socialism\nD Keynesian\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 to keep Nordon from getting unconfused. \"These two men are honestly doing their best to win at the peace conference, and they've got the Karna reeling. The Karna can see that we're not trying to stall our men are actually working at trying to reach a decision. But what the Karna don't see is that those men, as a team, are unbeatable because, in this situation, they're psychologically incapable of losing.\" hand was turned against him. He trusted no one, and was perpetually or another. He was psychologically incapable of making a decision if he were faced with two or more possible alternatives of any major \"I have to be drugged to be put on a spaceship because I can't take all that empty space, even if I'm protected aliens!\" THE END the Earth calendar dial that was automatically correlated with the Saarkkadic softly to himself—he had Saarkkad. of interstellar space—a great, yawning, men, ships, planets, suns, and void. Somewhere out there, the ships of Earth were ranged against the ships of the alien Karna in the most important war that Mankind had yet fought. And, Malloy knew, his own position that meant keeping on good terms with the Saarkkadic government. The Saarkkada themselves were humanoid to one of them would have meant instant loss of prestige. To their way of thinking, an important official was aloof. The greater only way Saarkkad would do any business at all. To violate the rigid social setup of Saarkkad would mean the instant closing off of the supply of biochemical products that the that were vitally necessary to Earth's war, and which could be duplicated nowhere else in the known universe. Earth and her allies and outposts. The job would have been a snap cinch in the right circumstances 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 But Malloy didn't like to stop at merely thwarting mental quirks he bring it in?\" right—even desirable—for her to keep secrets from everyone except Malloy. it didn't matter because eyes widened involuntarily. \"Armistice,\" he said in a low whisper. \"There's a chance that the war may be over.\" Malloy read the whole thing through, fighting to keep his emotions was over—at least for a while. He looked down at the papers again. The Karna, slowly being beaten back on every front, were suing for peace. They wanted an armistice conference—immediately. Earth was willing. Interstellar war is too costly to allow it to continue any longer than necessary, and this one had been going on for more than thirteen years now. Peace was necessary. But not peace at any price. The trouble was that the Karna had a reputation for losing wars and winning at the peace table. They were clever, persuasive talkers. They could twist a disadvantage to an advantage, and make their own strengths look 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 impotent. But if the armistice went to their own advantage ... Already, they had taken the offensive in the matter of the peace talks. They had sent a full delegation to Saarkkad V, the next planet out from the Saarkkad sun, a chilly world inhabited only by low-intelligence animals. The Karna considered this to be fully neutral territory, and Earth couldn't argue the point very well. In addition, they demanded that the conference take more than a week for the Earth government to get a vessel to Saarkkad V. Earth had been caught unprepared for an armistice. They objected. The Karna pointed out that the Saarkkad sun was just as far from Karn as it was from Earth, that it was only a few million miles from a planet which was allied with Earth, and that it was unfair for Earth to take so much time in preparing for an armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared? Did they intend to fight to the utter destruction of Karn? It wouldn't have been a problem at all if Earth and Karn had fostered the only two intelligent races in the galaxy. The sort of grandstanding the Karna were putting on had to be played to an audience. But there were other intelligent races throughout the galaxy, most of whom had remained as neutral as possible during the Earth-Karn war. They had no intention of sticking their figurative noses into a battle between the two most powerful races in the galaxy. But whoever won the armistice would find that some of the now-neutral races would come in on their side if war broke out again. If the Karna played their cards right, their side would be strong enough next time to win. So Earth had to get a delegation to meet with the Karna representatives within the three-day limit or lose what might be a vital point in the negotiations. He had been appointed Minister and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to the Earth-Karn peace conference. He looked up at the ceiling again. \"What On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his Nordon nodded slowly. \"Yes, sir.\" Malloy explained the problem of the Karna peace talks. \"We need a man who can outthink them,\" Malloy finished, \"and judging 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 to study it and get it into your head before the ship leaves. That isn't much time, but it's the Karna who are doing the pushing, not us.\" As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy Again Malloy went through the explanation of the peace conference. \"Naturally, they'll be trying to trick you every step of the way,\" Malloy went on. \"They're shrewd and \"They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy.\" By the time the ship from Earth got there, the peace conference had on Earth?\" \"Tense. They're waiting to see what is going to happen on Five. So am I, for that matter.\" His eyes were curious. \"You decided not to go When Blendwell looked up from the reports at last, he said: \"Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of negotiators the Karna could send.\" \"I thought they would,\" said Malloy, trying to appear modest. Is this one of your ... ah ... successes?\" Malloy nodded. \"I think so. The Karna put us in a dilemma, so I threw a dilemma right back at them.\" \"How do you mean?\" making up his mind whether to kiss her or not until she made up his mind 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. \"As you can see, the Karna tried to give us several choices on each point, and they were all rigged. Until this was, and the more importance there is attached to his decisions, the more incapable he becomes of making them.\" \"What about Braynek?\" \"Paranoid,\" said Malloy. \"He thinks everyone is plotting against him. In this case, that's all to the good because the Karna are plotting against him. No matter what they put forth, 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>:\nDoes Earth want peace with Karn?\n\n<options>:\nA The Earth is ready for peace, as interstellar war is costly.\nB Earth needs to eliminate the Karna to protect the galaxy.\nC The Earth does not want peace with the planet Karn. The Karna are an evil race.\nD The Earth wants peace but doesn't trust the Karna to hold up their end of the bargain.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nVolpla That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and to write a paper about my results.\" Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their when I slipped out. \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\" boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture. I thought, \"By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!\" \"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young man sooner than already.\" since you came out of the lab.\" \"I told you—\" \"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age.\" She reached up and grabbed my ear. She narrowed her eyes and put a mock grimness on her lips. \"It's a joke,\" I assured her. \"I'm going to play a tremendous joke on the whole world. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, but I've always....\" \"Well, when my old man was pumping his first fortune out of some oil on the walk in front of the movie just as Theda Bara's matinee let out. The best part was that no one had seen me do it. They just couldn't understand how so many snakes got there. I learned how great it can be to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that my first volplas were shockingly humanoid. They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of growth in the metabolic accelerator. When I returned to the lab, they were already moving about on the mattress and the male was trying to stand. that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same proportion to the body as it is in the human. his arms out and tried to tease the spars open. They were not new. The spars had been common to the basic colony for years and were the result Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and decidedly amorous. The male watched me, grinning. He said, \"'Ello, 'ello.\" dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic have their own crafts and live in small tree houses. I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first white men enter these hills. loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers would laugh. Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He would conclude, \"I am convinced that they have a language and speak it intelligently.\" The government would issue denials. Reporters would \"expose the truth\" and ask, \"Where have these aliens come from?\" The government would reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends. Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I \"Hey, wait a minute,\" Guy objected. \"They're about to show the shots of the launching.\" himself explaining that when he pressed the button before him, the hatch on the third stage of the great rocket in the background would ?\" On the screen, Guy's big dead-earnest face was explaining more about the project and suddenly I realized that this was an instrument-bearing rocket they hoped to land on the Moon. It would broadcast from there. Well, now—say, that my volplas. But only for a moment. map behind him. \"From this position, the telemeter known as Rocket Charlie will be broadcasting scientific data for several months. But now, ladies and The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at once. I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model, My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out of the lab. I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes. Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught motored out into the hills to witness this! Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little actual surviving. I called the male over to me. He looked at me. \"How?\" \"I don't think you can get at them in the tree. You'll have to soar up above and catch one of them on the wing when they fly away. Think you \"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case they leave while you are climbing.\" criss-crossing the ridge, working his way back to us. The two girls were watching him intently. They came over to me wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with tiny hands and watched him as he passed directly above us at about two I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the bird's crossward flight. plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he strutted in like every human hunter. They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal. When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire. I said again, \"Promise me you won't leave here until we've made you his wonder. \"You say we came from there?\" \"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?\" \"I can't remember any old ones. You tell me.\" \"The old ones told me you came long before the red men in a ship from the stars.\" Standing there in the dark, I had to grin, visioning the\n\n<question>:\nWhat motivated the narrator to design the Volpla origin story as he did?\n\n<options>:\nA He enjoyed creating backstories for the creatures as part of the stories he told them\nB He did not want the creatues to feel like they did not have a rich history\nC The Volpla asked him to tell them their history, and when they guessed they were from elsewhere, he ran with it\nD Making them think they were aliens was part of preventing any traceable ties between them and himself\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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“About ten years ago,” Giles answered. He found his identity the right names, but it was purely automatic. Somehow, thinking had grown difficult in the mornings for breath and feeling his Giles thought as carefully as heart hammering in his chest. Cobb considered it, hesitated as some of the thickness in his head. “I guess I’m getting old, Amanda.” She smiled dutifully at the reason you can’t begin immediately?” Giles remembered that Dubbins was more important. It hadn’t been a joke about his growing old, after all. But now, in a few days, he’d be his old—no, of course not—his young self again! They went down the hall to experimenting. A personal letter for you, relayed from some place I never heard of. And one of the by crude mechanical and drug hypnosis for other months. Somewhere in every human brain lay the memory of what his cells had been like when he was young. Or perhaps it lay in the cells them return automatically after taking pictures of wherever they arrived. So far, none had ever returned or been located. This was the first hope they’d found that the century-long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles within minutes, even—but finding the mechanism in the brain operate. There had been impossible study and finding a means of bringing it under control had taken an incredible amount of might be ended and he should Giles dropped the report wearily avoid the compulsory emigration draft and stay on with his mother. It had been the bitter quarrels COBB LED him back to the repair the damage of time. over that which had finally being married on the way or his dozen children, but filled “That’s all for now, Mr. Giles. description and a plea for his father to join him there! GILES SNORTED and turned Cobb smiled the automatic reassurance against the background of an alien but attractive world. He had no desire to spend ninety years cooped up with a bunch of callow young emigrants, even in one of the improved Exodus shuttles. And even if Exodus he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put an end to most family ties Giles. Maybe we’ll all get to see sentiment He took a quick look at Giles and Then he studied Giles more carefully. “The doctor says everything’s first time that Cobb had said no the way back. Word had already gone around the club that he’d Giles grunted in irritation. He more morose moods. He found a single table in the dining room and picked his way the idea of clubs in place of private families. A man here could choose his group and grow it, and Giles felt a sinking sensation. a family. Giles had been living here for nearly a century now and he’d never regretted it. But tonight Giles forced his attention on song pop into his head. Now there nuisance, running around with various nostrums, giving him no peace. Constant questions about was no escaping it. Something can send a message on the shuttle, begging for their secret in a couple of hundred years! While a hundred other worlds make a but he’d heard them all before, study the final report. He gave up at last and went to his own suite. What he needed was a good except for one about the night’s sleep after a little relaxation. Earth was becoming a backwater world Even that failed him, though. He’d developed one of the finest he’d developed through new thinking. There was a measure of truth in it, unfortunately. the years helped to add to the richness of living now. “They’ll slow up when their He gave it up and went to bed—to other discoveries eventually, without interrupting the work of making the Earth fit for our longevity. We can wait. We’ll have to.” down to something or other. look Giles had seen too often his old answers. “We’re still ahead in medicine and we’ll get the about the years—or was it days—dwindling how to work with the doctors and they could only bring him back to “Wait a minute.” Giles felt the were still there and the circles under his eyes. He searched for drafted for building long enough now we can finish it in three find no new ones. He looked into the dining room and then went by hastily. He wanted no solicitous glances this morning. Drat it, maybe he should move out. Maybe trying family life again would give him some new interests. Amanda probably would be willing to marry him Giles shook his head at what know life can stand the trip. The spring for him—not this rejuvenation nor the last, nor the one before that. GILES TRIED to stop scaring It occurred to Giles then that the idea to think. He leaned back, shaking his head again wearily. rest of your life rather than waiting a couple more centuries until we know it’s safe? If you do, I’ll for a second Giles’ heart caught Giles shook his head, interrupting vanish, leaving a coldness that numbed him. “I’d rather know the whole Cobb sighed and yet seemed relieved. “It may take longer, but eventually we’ll find a way. With time enough, we’re bound to. And “So did I. I wouldn’t believe it even yet—but now I find it when we do, the ship will be plan for short-term benefits. Usually it was too easy to realize that, and the sight of the solid, time-enduring buildings outside should have given him a sense of security. Today, though, nothing seemed to help. He felt choked, imprisoned, somehow lost the city beyond know. But you aren’t the first and you won’t be the last, if that’s any consolation. We’ve got a longer It was no consolation. Giles Cobb spread his hands unhappily. “And then....” Giles couldn’t residence club, but he had to stop twice to catch his breath trail. The years had dwindled and gone, and only a few were left. at once, with a hand under his arm to guide him toward his discovery. OUTSIDE ON the street, he looked up at the Sun and then at the buildings built to last it was still possible to find personal servants. Now he managed with the members. For the moment, though, he’d slipped back into the old ways. GILES FOUND himself lying on his couch, partially undressed, no longer wondering about the dangers that might possibly much now. For a man who had thought of living almost forever, from his panic to leave him almost himself again. After all, there was nothing to worry about Procyon in two weeks. We even thirty years was too short now Giles wanted no kindness. Dr. Cobb whose reputation is Giles puzzled over it doubtfully. his, though. “Dr. Cobb, then,” he keep busy enough to forget sometimes that the years were gone for him. Giles hadn’t heard since the man “Dr. Cobb wants you to come Automatic habit carried him through the office again, to Amanda’s Giles with his shoes. “I’d be Giles frowned. He’d expected didn’t go in for home visits growing old.” This time her laugh was heartier. now—they preferred to see their on, he’d be missing the old days when he’d had a mansion and counted his wealth in possessions, instead of the treasures he could build inside himself for the future ahead. He was getting positively could echo her mirth in a different voice and went inside where she people still in the odd, wheelless vehicle on the alien planet. around. Now he’d taken to walking, as so many others had, for even with modern safety measures so strict, there was always travel. Yet there seemed to be no slackening of them in Harry’s look? Well, he’d soon find out. He located the directory and a family, rather than a mere group. A very pleasant family in with all the degrees Dr. Cobb had He read Harry’s note again, with its praise for the planet and its invitation. He wondered if like that, before he left. COBB APPEARED himself, Or had he even been one of those over, and led Giles into a room He listened as Giles stumbled the doctor began working on At Giles’ look, he smiled faintly. Giles shrugged and reached for on impulse, he set it back to the check came through and Cobb\n\n<question>:\nAfter seeing Dr. Cobb, what isn't something Giles thought about doing?\n\n<options>:\nA volunteering to man the big ship\nB seeing another doctor for a second opinion\nC dating again\nD finding a new place to live\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nDole vs. the On Sunday (the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper \"the apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the Democratic National Committee.\" In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said the Times \"might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp didn't get along together 12 years ago.\" On Tuesday, Dole was still at it, referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, \"That's about what I got in the New York Times today.\" The Times has reacted to this assault by highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact, Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper. According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section. Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment. Reporters traveling with Dole caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present, Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington Editor Andrew Rosenthal. That letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being AWOL in the drug war. \"Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of thousands of young people started drugs?\" Dole said. \"Three million have started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff finally in an election year.\" Seelye's front-page story reported that \"Mr. Dole accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of control.\" Buckley complains that the story \"could lead the reader to believe that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say.\" The letter continues: \"Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting,\" going on to assert that \"Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your coverage.\" No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon the complaint. \"They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,\" the official said. \"The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems.\" With Seelye, the official says, the problem is \"not being able to transcribe a tape accurately.\" With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering Dole full time since the summer, \"the problem is an incredible focus on the little picture as opposed to the big picture.\" As an example, the official cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the \"Brooklyn\" Dodgers as \"a rough stretch of politicking.\" Other than those two episodes, the official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the official describes as \"the softest portrait since they invented black velvet\"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole crowds. \"Clinton even gets better photographs,\" the official contends. Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. \"We don't make editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob Dole,\" he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the \"playing around\" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the incumbent's record. \"If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part series too,\" he says. But though unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained, overemphasizes the \"horse race\" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988, Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday. None of these factors, though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, \"I like the media. They don't like them in the South.\" But this pat explanation doesn't entirely make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in picking fights with the press.\n\n<question>:\nWhat isn't a way that the Times treated Dole unfairly?\n\n<options>:\nA they published unfavorable pictures of him\nB the way they quoted him emphasized his flaws\nC they had no full-time reporters following him\nD they omitted information about Dole's successes\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nInfield turned his soft blue eyes to the black and tan oxfords with the very thick rubber soles. \"They might get soaked through.\" Morgan took his foot off the chair behind the desk and sat down. you then?\" Infield shrugged slightly. \"I suppose a man must take some chances.\" Morgan said, \"You can't do it, Henry. You're crossing the line. The people we treat are on one side of the line and we're on the other. If you cross that line, you won't be able to treat people again.\" Henry, but staying on our side is a pretty good way to keep sane and Infield whirled and stalked to the desk. \"That's the answer! The whole savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not only the indications.\" Morgan shifted his ponderous weight uneasily. \"Now, Henry, it's no good Infield leaned on the desk and glared. \"I called myself a psychiatrist once. But now I know we're semi-mechanics, semi-engineers, Morgan smiled. \"You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so—so—not \"But is everything all right?\" Infield asked intensely. \"Suppose the patient is driving over one hundred on an icy road. He thinks about slowing down, but there's the voice in his ear. Or suppose he's or one of those inhuman lobotomies.\" Morgan shrugged helplessly. \"You're an idealist.\" \"You're damned right!\" Infield slammed the door behind him. The cool air of the street was a relief. Infield stepped into the main of Cure. \"Pardon me,\" he said warmly. \"Quite all right.\" It was the first time in years that anyone had apologized to Infield for anything. He had been one of those condemned Normals, more to be scorned than pitied. Perhaps he could really get to understand these Suddenly something else was pushing against Infield, forcing the air from his lungs. He stared down at the magnetic suction dart he merely radiated narrowed eyes. \"How long have you been Cured?\" \"Not—not long,\" Infield evaded. slowly. \"Do you think you might be interested in joining a fraternal organization of the Cured?\" Infield's pulse raced, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, and losing out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in was going to faint. \"All right. I'll risk it.\" He touched the side of his face away from the psychiatrist. Infield shifted around, trying to see that side of his benefactor, but couldn't manage it in good grace. He wondered if the fellow was sporting a Mom-voice hearing aid and was afraid of raising her ire. He cleared his throat, noticing the affectation of it. \"My name's Infield.\" \"Price,\" the other answered absently. \"George Price. I suppose they 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. himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly shocked sane. Men hide in the comforts of insanity, but when faced with Infield looked up self-consciously and noticed that they had crossed 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 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 it.\" He did laugh. Price fumbled with the cigarette stub in the black iron ashtray, examining it with the skill of scientific observation. \"Mr. Infield is buying me the drink and that makes it different.\" name for the so-called Normals. Have you ever thought of just how dangerous these people are, Mr. Infield?\" \"Frankly, no,\" Infield said, realizing it was not the right thing to say but tiring of constant pretense. \"You don't understand. Everyone has some little phobia or fixation. .\" Infield's throat went dry. \"And you're the one to deal with them?\" \"It's my Destiny.\" Price quickly added, \"And yours, too, of course.\" Infield nodded. Price was a demagogue, young, handsome, dynamic, likable, impassioned with his cause, and convinced that it was his divine destiny. He was a psychopathic egotist and a dangerous man. Doubly dangerous to Infield because, even though he was one of the few people who still read books from the old days of therapy to recognize Price for what he was, he nevertheless still liked the young man \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" Infield felt cold inside. After a time, he found that the roaring was 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. the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and the race. But Infield let himself relax. How could anyone force a mechanical relief for neurotic or psychopathic symptoms on someone who didn't want or need it? don't you tell him it's silly?\" \"Maybe it is,\" Infield said softly. \"You could take the shock if he downed that drink and the shock might do you good.\" Infield.\" The psychiatrist sat rigidly. \"You didn't think you could give me your right name in front of your Infield gestured vaguely. \"A psychiatrist wouldn't hand out Cures unless they were absolutely necessary.\" Infield in the street. Infield hit the big man behind the ear. He dropped the bottle and fell looked up at Infield. Infield wasn't a large man, but he had pressed two hundred and fifty \"I could drop you,\" the psychiatrist said. \"No!\" Davies begged weakly. \"Please!\" \"I'll do it if you cause more trouble.\" Infield sat down and rubbed his aching forearms. \"No. No, you aren't.\" Infield felt an excitement pounding through him, same as when he had diagnosed his first case. No, better than that. \"That taste of liquor didn't kill you, Price. Nothing terrible They were all looking at Infield. Somehow he felt this represented a the knifing ice bristles of the rain, Henry Infield realized that he It was his problem. Infield usually solved other people's problems, but now he ran away—he couldn't even solve his own. Infield realized that he had gone mad as he held the thin blade high said INFIELD &amp MORGAN and opened the door. He ran across the room to the man sitting at the desk, reading by the swivel light. \"Mr. Morgan, your partner, Mr. Infield, he—\" \"Just a moment.\" Morgan switched on the room lights. \"What were you saying?\" \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by lightning. We took him to the morgue. He must have been crazy to go out without his Cure.\" Morgan stared into his bright desk light without blinking. \"This is quite a shock to me. Would you mind leaving? I'll come over to your Morgan exhaled. Poor Infield. But it wasn't the lightning that killed him, of course. Morgan adjusted the soundproofing plugs in his ears, thinking that you did have to have quite a bit of light to read lips. The thunder, naturally, was what had killed Infield. Loud noise—any\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Morgan believe Henry Infield is an idealist?\n\n<options>:\nA Infield has a vision of the world that includes complete and total Cures for everyone who has a phobia of anything.\nB Infield is skeptical that Cures cause limited interference like Morgan claims. He believes they will drive people to insanity.\nC Infield calls Morgan out for knowingly developing Cures that do not work and are sometimes only 23% effective.\nD Infield does not believe that human beings should be subject to the kinds of human experimentation of which Morgan seems to take no issue.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless off Asiatic reds in some steamy gone jungle paradise, he'd forget his punkie origins in teeveeland. But the old man was right on for once about the dangerous repressed They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up. \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\" \"Okay, go,\" Wayne said. \"If you wanta walk. I'm taking the family \"Hell,\" Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. \"I just got my \"So gimme the keys,\" Wayne said. The old man handed the keys over. His pansy haircut looked out of a pile of paperwork. \"Where you think you're going, my pretty lad?\" Wayne grinned down. \"Higher I hope than a typewriter jockey.\" on a slip of paper, handed the pass to Wayne. \"Go to the Armory and \"Thanks, sarge dear,\" Wayne said and took the elevator up to the Armory. A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne. \"Hold your teeth, pop,\" Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement. \"Take it from a vet, bud. Sooner you go the better. It's a big city and you're starting late. You can get a cat, not a mouse, and some babes are clever hellcats in a dark alley.\" \"You must be a genius,\" Wayne said. \"A corporal with no hair and still a counterboy. I'm impressed. I'm all ears, Dad.\" Wayne's mouth twitched. He leaned across the counter toward the The corporal waddled back with the revolver and the switchblade while Wayne examined the weapons, broke open the revolver, twirled the Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy \"Wayne Seton,\" said Captain Jack as if he were discussing something Captain Jack chuckled. \"All right, superboy.\" He handed Wayne his \"Your beast is primed and waiting at the Four Aces Club on the West \"No, sir, but I'll find it fast.\" \"Sure you will, punk,\" smiled Captain Jack. \"She'll be wearing yellow slacks and a red shirt. Black hair, a cute trick. She's with a hefty psycho who eats punks for breakfast. He's butchered five people. They're both on top of the Undesirable list, Seton. They got to go and they're your key to the stars.\" \"Yes, sir,\" Wayne said. A copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath FOUR ACES CLUB a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and doom. \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\" Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled. The bum's fingers drew at the air like white talons. \"Help me, kid.\" He turned with a scratchy cry and retreated before the sudden blast of headlights from a Cad bulleting into the alley. The Cad rushed squealed. The Cad stopped and a teener in black jacket jumped out and crouched as he began stalking the old rummy. \"This is him! This is him all right,\" the teener yelled, and one hand came up swinging a baseball bat. A head bobbed out of the Cad window and giggled. The fumble-footed rummy tried to run and plopped on wet pavement. The Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in He hurried into the Four Aces, drawn by an exhilarating vision ... and pursued by the hollow haunting fears of his own desires. He walked through the wavering haze of smoke and liquored dizziness and stood until his eyes learned the dark. He spotted her red shirt and yellow legs over in the corner above a murky lighted table. He walked toward her, watching her little subhuman pixie face lift. The eyes widened with exciting terror, turned even paler behind a red slash of sensuous mouth. Briefed and waiting, primed and eager for running, she recognized her pursuer at once. He sat at a table near her, watching and grinning and seeing her squirm. She sat in that slightly baffled, fearful and uncomprehending attitude of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive. Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty T-shirt, a big bruiser with a gorilla face. He was tussling his mouse heavy. \"Bring me a Crusher, buddyroo,\" Wayne said, and flashed his pass card. \"Sure, teener.\" Red nuzzled the mouse's neck and made drooly noises. Wayne watched and fed on the promising terror and helplessness of her hunted face. She sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass. Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons imbedded in the waxlike skin of his face. Then he grinned all on one side. One huge hand scratched across the wet table top like a furious 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. The waiter sat the Crusher down. Wayne signed a chit Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his white eyelids fluttering. Red fingered at her legs and salivated at her throat, glancing now and then at Wayne, baiting him good. \"Okay, you creep,\" Wayne said. He stood up and started through the haze. The psycho leaped and a table crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast filled the room. The psycho screamed and stumbled toward the door holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the \"You, baby,\" Wayne gasped. \"I gotcha.\" her arms out and poised like crippled wings. Wayne crept up. She gave \"No use running,\" Wayne said. \"Go loose. Give, baby. Give now.\" She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her, cracks. A rat ran past Wayne and fell into space. He burst into the Wayne took his time. He knew how she felt waiting in there, listening She crouched in the corner panting. He took his time moving in. He snickered as he flashed the switchblade and circled it like a serpent's tongue. He watched what was left of her nerves go to pieces like rotten cloth. studied Wayne with abstract interest. \"They're undesirables. Incurables. You know that, Seton?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"The psycho you only wounded. He's a five-times murderer. And that girl killed her father when she was twelve. You realize there's nothing can be done for them? That they have to be executed?\" \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\" Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split\n\n<question>:\nWho is with Red when Wayne enters the Four Aces Club?\n\n<options>:\nA A hefty psycho who drinks too much\nB A hefty psycho who has killed five people\nC A hefty psycho with a cat’s face\nD A hefty psycho who has abducted Red\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nmight have a planet revolving about each star. Of all the insane— They were mad, all right, and now Matilda wondered if, actually, they were husband and wife. It could readily be maybe the madness was catching. Maybe if you thought too much about such things, such Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] All she wanted was a mate and she had the gumption wrapped up in the romantic fallacy of her day that she sought a prince of every worldly pleasure and who now wanted to sit on a porch and talk about it all to Matilda. The fact that in all probability such a man did not exist disturbed Matilda not in the least. She had been known to say that there are over bachelors, and that the right one would come along simply because she had been waiting for him. The widow Penshaws nodded regretfully. \"That was thoughtful of Herman to hide his feelings.\" \"Hogwash!\" said her daughter. \"He has no true feelings. He's sorry that he had to miss his college reunion. That's all he has to hide. A stuffy Victorian prude and even less of a man than the others.\" \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It in love, Matilda—no one does. Love osmoses into you slowly, without you even knowing, and it keeps growing all the time.\" Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found the nude the widow Penshaws would object to a girl sleeping in the to herself, it was the flavor of the wording. This very well could be it . Or, that is, him . universal experience can make the average cosmopolite look like a The man was egotistical, all right Matilda could see that. But she had never minded an egotistical man, at least not when he had something about which he had a genuine reason to be egotistical. The man sounded as though he would have reason indeed. He only wanted the best because The name—Haron Gorka: its oddness was somehow beautiful to Matilda. Haron Gorka—the nationality could be anything. And that was it. He had Falls and find out. asked him where she could find Haron Gorka. \"I said, where can I find Haron Gorka?\" take it easy, ma'am. First place, I don't know any Haron Gorka—\" Matilda did, only they didn't know any Haron Gorka, either. It turned but she knew that she'd rather not return home and face the widow Penshaws, at Haron Gorka would be an avid reader, and unless he had a permanent \"How on earth did you know?\" \"You know him? You know Haron Gorka?\" \"I mean anyone would like to correspond with Haron Gorka. Or to know him well. To be considered his friend. Haron Gorka....\" of you will tell me about Haron Gorka, sparing no details. You each Haron Gorka lived in what could have been an agrarian estate, except spirits in check. Haron Gorka, the man, was what counted, and the made the sixth. In spite of herself, she smiled. She had not been the only one with the idea to visit Haron Gorka in person. With half a arms. Not by Haron Gorka she wasn't going to be girlishly timid about it. Besides, it was not her fault if, in his unconcern, Haron Gorka had unwittingly hired a neurotic servant. pretend that there was nothing outside the little room, and presently she lay down on the bed to take a nap. This didn't last long, however: she had a nightmare in which Haron Gorka appeared as a giant with two heads, but, upon awaking with a start, she immediately ascribed that to her overwrought nerves. that it was precisely what she would have wanted could, of course, be attributed to coincidence, and the further fact that everything was extremely palatable made her forget all about Haron Gorka's neurotic servant. The feeling did not last long. Standing over her was Haron Gorka's She told the servant so. Haron Gorka. You are here and he is ready to see you and that is all Haron Gorka. Well, then, she must see to it that she impressed him better than did all the rest, and, later, when she returned to tell the She would not admit even to herself that she was disappointed with Haron Gorka. It was not that he was homely and unimpressive it was just that he was so -looking. She almost would have preferred the monster of her dreams. He wore a white linen suit and he had mousy hair, drab eyes, an almost-Roman nose, a petulant mouth with the slight arch of the egotist Haron Gorka were to talk to her as he saw fit. Almost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her that Haron Gorka was mouthing gibberish. But on the other hand she wanted to believe in him and the result was that it took until now for her to realize it. \"Stop making fun of me,\" she said. \"What's that? Making fun of you?\" Haron Gorka's voice had been so eager as he spoke, high-pitched, almost like a child's, and now he seemed disappointed. He smiled, but it was a sad smile, a smile of resignation, and he said, \"Very well. I'm wrong again. You are the sixth, and you're no better than the other five. Perhaps you are even more outspoken. When you see my wife, tell her to come back. Again she is right and I am wrong....\" Haron Gorka turned his back. Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the Then Haron Gorka had severed that relationship, too, and now he was all As she drove back to town, the disappointment melted slowly away. There were, of course, two alternatives. Either Haron Gorka was an eccentric who enjoyed this sort of outlandish tomfoolery, or else he was plainly insane. She could still picture him ranting on aimlessly to no one in particular about places which had no existence outside of his mind, his voice high-pitched and eager. have returned, too, and I imagine your story will be similar.\" \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what happened to me.\" in detail. She did this first because it was a promise, and second because she knew it would make her feel better. \"So,\" she finished, \"Haron Gorka is either extremely eccentric or insane. I'm sorry.\" \"He's neither,\" the librarian contradicted. \"Perhaps he is slightly eccentric by your standards, but really, my dear, he is neither.\" \"What do you mean?\" \"Did he leave a message for his wife?\" \"Why, yes. Yes, he did. But how did you know? Oh, I suppose he told the and took out her hat and perched it jauntily atop her gray hair. \"You see, my dear, Haron expects too much. He expects entirely too much.\" Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for anybody, but here she found herself confronted with two. \"We've been tripping for centuries, visiting every habitable star system from our home near Canopus. But Haron is too demanding. He loses his temper, he tries to convince me that any number of females of the particular planet would be more than thrilled if they were given the opportunity just to listen to him. \"But he's wrong. It's a hard life for a woman. Someday—five thousand, ten thousand years from now—I will convince him. And then we will settle down on Canopus XIV and cultivate \"Well, if Haron wants me back, then I have to go. Have a care, my dear. If you marry, choose a home-body. I've had the experience and you've seen my Haron for yourself.\"\n\n<question>:\nIs Haron’s story true?\n\n<options>:\nA No. Haron only tells her the story in the hopes of getting his wife to come home,\nB Yes. Matilda confirms when she sees the “shooting star.”\nC Yes, though only his wife is aware of that.\nD No. Both he and his wife are truly delusional.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 JAMES Mac CREIGH descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. turned. The OD nodded. \"I'll have a blank log if this keeps up,\" he said. 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 \"Acclimation,\" Lowry said scientifically. \"They had to acclimate themselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough.\" 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. voice rasped: \"Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments even while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenly \"You see?\" their own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right.\" 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 The other woman spoke unexpectedly. \"The Council was right,\" she agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\" Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. \"One moment. Ingra, do you still object?\" The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked authorized—murder?\" ship. It will be set by means of this dial—\" he touched a spot on the He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grin off a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made a mark on one of them, held it up. \"We will let chance decide who is to do the work,\" he said angrily. \"Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think....\" No answer. Svan jerked his head. \"Good,\" he said. \"Ingra, bring me that bowl.\" Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it with his hand, offered it to the girl. \"You first, Ingra,\" he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slip and held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svan himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their slips. uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: \"Look at the slips!\" Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled. Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over, striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second's glance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance. A traitor! his subconscious whispered. be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftly beneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked in for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searching the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered. Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not one of them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. \"Go faster, Ingra,\" he ordered the girl who was driving. \"Let's get this done with.\" She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in her eyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsy A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silence 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. complicated gesture. \"Do you understand?\" \"By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—\" He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against answer in his stolid face. \"Don't joke about it,\" he said. \"Suppose the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years.\" out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be said. \"They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?\" Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. \"We must circle back again,\" she parroted. \"We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards.\" Aloud, he said, \"You understand. If I get through, I will return to the Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting off the seconds. \"Go ahead,\" he ordered. \"I will wait here.\" \"Svan.\" The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached for him, kissed him. \"Good luck to you, Svan,\" she said. \"Good luck,\" repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. figures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own. They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those he reckoned. His fingers went absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. for you. We must flee!\" swinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps before onto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear the feel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... callously to Lowry, who had just come up. \"It won't last long, though. Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the two The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. They had it coming....\" He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece of paper between his fingers. \"This is the only part I don't get,\" he said. \"What's that?\" Lowry craned his neck. \"A piece of paper with a cross on The surgeon shrugged. \"He had it clenched in his hand,\" he said. \"Had slowly, displayed the other side. \"Now what in the world would he be\n\n<question>:\nWho drew the fatal slip?\n\n<options>:\nA Svan\nB Ingra\nC Toller\nD Ingra's aunt\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 GOD NEXT DOOR By BILL DOEDE Illustrated by IVIE \" You \"I hear you.\" and I have several good reasons for not Stinson lay still in the sand where he fell, gloating over the success of his arrival. \"Listen to that, will you?\" Stinson said angrily. \"Just listen! You He touched the pencil-line scar behind his ear where the cylinder was buried, marveling at the power stored there, power to fling him from adolescent. Worse.\" Missouri air, though he was light years from Missouri. \"No!\" Stinson shot back. \"You've owned this planet for a million \"Earthman, wait....\" It had happened so fast that he could almost feel the warm, humid fire, and in all those ages you never learned self-control. I can't subject my people to the whims of an entity who throws a planetary fit Stinson relaxed. He'd had his say. Sybtl trembled beside him. A small when it pleases him.\" blue. \"Stinson,\" the Sand God said. \"You said I was adolescent. You are correct. Do you remember I told you how my people, the entire race, left their bodies at the same time? Do you imagine all of us were adults?\" The sun—no, not up there. This was the \"No.\" Stinson tried to imagine it. At first there must have been a single voice crying into a monstrous emptiness, \"Mother, where are you? MOTHER! Where is everyone to drift in the wind—although there was no wind. Stinson backed away. \"Chronologically, by our standards, I was nine years old.\" base. Then Stinson backed away again. It was changing. Now it became a And a nine-year-old child brooding over an empty world. \"I don't understand why your development stopped,\" Stinson said. shone obliquely, throwing Stinson's shadow upon the sand. The wind \"Nor do I. But perhaps ... well, I sense that I would continue, if you portion of this planet that suits you. Take the web-footed woman for your wife. Have children. I promise never to harm you in any way.\" was here to investigate, to determine if this planet was capable of but it was composed only of grains of sand. There was no core, no central place you could point to and say, here is the brain, or the nervous system. But then, how could a group of loosely spaced grains of supporting life. coming here if the door was open.\" \"No. This is my home.\" thought of Benjamin, and Straus, and Jamieson—all those to whom he had given cylinders, and who were now struggling for life against those who desired them. no meaning for Stinson. The men were dark-skinned, the women somewhat lighter, with long flowing hair, wide lips and a beauty that was utterly sensual. the musical language. \"My name is Stinson,\" he said, pointing to himself. \"I'm from the planet Earth.\" He tested the gravity by jumping up and down. Same as Earth gravity. poked Stinson with the stick rose, and handed it to him. Still angered, Stinson grasped it firmly, with half a notion to break it over his the Stinson's face drained pale, and suddenly, unaccountably, he was Centaurus? Well, perhaps neither. He was here and Earth was somewhere \"I suppose not. Sounds reasonable. How old were you?\" \"But you continued to develop after....\" me.\" \"Why?\" kissed Stinson's feet. Two of the men came and gave her a brilliant Stinson looked at the wind devil, since it could be no one else speaking, and pointed to himself. \"Me?\" \"Yes.\" \"I am Stinson, of the planet Earth.\" planet.\" \"Then you must know where I came from, and how.\" \"I do not understand how. You have a body, a physical body composed \"I deserted you?\" Stinson cried angrily, \"You tried to kill me!\" Stinson felt a mental shrug. \"It is of no importance. When they arrived it directly. These are the undesirables, the incorrigibles, the nonconformists from the sixth planet. I permit them here because it were about to take place. I believe you think of death. I see your physical body has deteriorated since yesterday. Your body will cease to exist, almost as soon as those of the sixth planet peoples. I am most interested in you. You will bring your people, and live here.\" color and configuration. Is it your body? Where do you come from? Is this planet populated with your kind?\" \"Where do I originate? It seems I have always been. You see this cavern, the heated pool, the statues, the inscriptions. Half a million bodies. Our technology surpassed any you have seen. The tube these webfoots use is a toy by comparison. Our scientists found the ultimate nature of physical law. They learned to separate the mind from the body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free itself from the confines of the body. The date came.\" \"What happened?\" greatest law of all—that an entity, once in existence, can never cease to exist.\" Stinson was silent, thinking of the endless years of searching through \"Destroy them?\" Stinson asked, incredulously, \"all these people? They kill the body is unimportant.\" \"No. You misunderstand. Listen, you spoke of the greatest law. Your law is a scientific hypothesis. It has to do with what comes after physical silent, and Stinson felt as if he had been taken from some high place Stinson pointed the disintegrating weapon at them and yelled. They Stinson donned the shimmering skirt, smiling as he did so. The others that we're in trouble together, we may as well introduce ourselves. My name is Stinson.\" \"I am Sybtl,\" she said. name.\" She smiled, then pointed to the cavern. \"When the ice is gone, they \" What? \" my wife. Let's get that straight.\" \"But....\" he was no better than any other man, perhaps not so good as some because he was forty, and never had been an athlete. How was he to decide if this planet was suitable for his people, hampered by a woman, slinking through a frozen wilderness like an ice. They were safe, unless the webfoots possessed talents unknown to him. from the creek. Stinson's bare feet were numb from walking on ice. Christ, he thought, what am I doing here, anyway? He glanced down at Sybtl and remembered the webfoots. He stopped, tempted to use his cylinder and move to a disowned us.\" position.\" \"I cannot leave her. She is helpless against them.\" \"What form of primitive stupidity are you practicing now? Leave, or they will kill you.\" Stinson shook his head. primitive logic long before it reached your level of development.\" \"Yes,\" Stinson said, \"and your race no longer exists.\" drove them backward. \"Earthman,\" the great voice said, \"go back to your Earth. Take your inconsistencies with you. Do not come here again to infect my planet with your primitive ideas. The webfoots are not as intelligent as you, but they are sane. If you bring your people here, I shall destroy you all.\" The sphere of blue fire screamed away across the frozen wilderness, and hills. Sybtl shivered against his arm. \"The Sand God is angry,\" she said. \"My Well, Stinson said to himself, that does it. We are better off on \"I have no ship.\" \"Then he will kill you.\" She touched her fingers on his face. \"I am attack. \"They will not find us....\" to green. Then he tires and lets winter come back again. He is the loneliest God in the universe.\" he will make them churn and boil, like river whirlpools in spring. At \"The Sand God isn't doing this,\" Stinson said. \"It's only a storm.\" Stinson had never been in a sand storm before, even on Earth. He could purposefully. Stinson prepared himself to leave. In spite of his desire \"Fiend!\" Stinson screamed the word, vaguely marvelling at his own fury. \"Monster!\" Again. \"Murderer!\" \"Adolescent!\" Stinson ignored him. He glanced down at Sybtl, who sensed that this was \"Earthman, hear me.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhere is Stinson from?\n\n<options>:\nA Montana\nB Missouri\nC Mississippi\nD Michigan\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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.... learned of it the same way. Pop didn't Pop Young was the one known Sattell undoubtedly dealt with it fully in his desperate writings back to Earth. Pop matter-of-factly tended the said that no normal man could do 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 talk. Pop Young alone knew the mind on Sattell—he found fresh incidents The shack and the job he filled 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 Pop received the stores and from Earth, on a voyage equal to rather more than a thousand times Pop didn't even ask. gaping rocky fault which stretches nine hundred miles, jaggedly, over the side of the Moon that Earth splendidly. And its fumes were merely more CO Pop continued to search absorbedly memory. Sattell still seemed necessary, missing portions of his life that Sattell He thought often of Sattell, down fresh, and all sorts of things to make life possible for men under if not and then over-corrected again. It was an altogether clumsy landing. happily tell himself that it feels delicious. But Sattell couldn't comfort himself Pop made his way toward it in had to be knocked cold and shipped out unconscious. They'd been underground—and in low gravity—long enough to be utterly unable to face Sattell got the shakes when he thought of Pop, and Pop rather it with what—say—Sattell might have written with desperate plausibility about greasy-seeming white Sattell. The facts spoke for themselves. about Pop Young's shack in cannisters crystals out of the mine, knocking what had happened to his wife and children. They'd been murdered open, and Pop reached up and gave no longer remember. He met Sattell quite by accident. Sattell looked familiar. Pop eagerly tried to ask him questions. And Sattell turned gray grinned savagely at Pop. He held a seen Pop before. Pop's middle. \"Don't come in!\" he said mockingly. to Pop that the sight of Sattell had about how you are. This isn't social. \"And I don't give a damn though, and he hunted up Sattell quite take it in. \"This,\" snapped the red-headed man abruptly, \"is a stickup!\" Nowadays, by the Big Crack, Pop wasn't so insistent on seeing Sattell, Pop simply gaped. He couldn't And Sattell went into panic when Sattell helped bring back. Pop was Pop's eyes went through the inner Pop gazed at the plastic, snarling. He slashed Pop across the face with the barrel of his weapon. It drew blood. It was wanton, savage brutality. \"Pay attention!\" snarled the red-headed man. \"A stickup, I said! Get Pop said numbly: \"What the therefore, he wanted to hurt. \"Move!\" he rasped. \"I want the Tell Sattell I'm here and he can He leaned forward. His face was only inches from Pop Young's. It frozen solid, though in sunlight. At such times Pop hardly thought of Sattell. He knew he had plenty Sattell knowing what had happened smashes it! We burn you down! Then we swing over the cable of them at all. But Sattell stirred struck cruelly again at Pop Young's recover a good deal. When Sattell face. He seemed filled with fury, at savagery due to terror. But, of course, Pop was helpless to resent When Sattell frenziedly tried to deny Moon and the mention of Sattell's Pop had come to remember both his by the edge of the Big Crack. Pop Even when Sattell—whimpering—signed sure that Sattell was the man who'd killed his family. If so, Sattell had profited by less than two days' pay for wiping out everything that Pop possessed. But Pop wanted it back. He couldn't prove Sattell's guilt. he didn't really want Sattell to die. If he did, there'd be no way to recover Somehow, the mention of Sattell had more lost memories. odd fancies about Sattell. There was detail. He knew Sattell. That part was simple. Sattell had planned this nearly filled up a three-gallon cannister with greasy-seeming white sometimes Pop wondered if Sattell more than two men—with Sattell as mine's production. If he would kill a woman and two children and think he'd killed a man for no more than a hundred dollars, what enormity would he commit for a three-gallon ever thought of the value of the message he'd been told to pass on. presently. Otherwise the ship on the landing strip would destroy shack \"I'd guess,\" said Pop painstakingly, \"that Sattell figured it out. He's won't.\" dead and the shacks smashed and the cable burnt through, they'll be back on Earth long before a new But not Pop. He'd come to the was here. Near Sattell, he found tell Sattell a thing about it, if I were dearly. And when he was near Sattell grisly humor—Pop didn't even hate Sattell. He simply wanted to be near Pop regarded his drawings meditatively. It's business!\" \"That stair-rail,\" he said in deep satisfaction. \"That'll do it!\" He tore bed linen from his bunk repeated violent changes of temperature. So a thermware-lined cannister in balance. He poured the frigid, Outside the shack, jagged stony pinnacles reared in the starlight, and craters complained of the bombardment how a child had looked while sleeping, Sattell, he suddenly recovered a completely some fifteen years before. He remembered with astonishment that truthful likeness. The sun rose, and baked the abomination of desolation which was Pop reflected hungrily that it was the moonscape. Pop Young meticulously permanent and to extend it— If it had not been for his vacuum suit and the cannister he carried, Pop clearly when he thought of Sattell, so by keeping Sattell in mind he recovered whether Sattell ever thought of millions shook and trembled. Pop said calmly: hoist, if Sattell's coming up from There was no purpose in the sketching, save that he'd lost all his young manhood through a senseless contents should weigh a hundred pounds on Earth. \"Any tricks,\" he rasped, \"and you occupation made it absurdly easy to \"Yeah,\" said Pop. Sattell had no such device for adjusting to the lunar state of things. Living on the Moon was bad enough live on the surface of the far side of was recovering it bit by bit. The much worse. Sattell clearly remembered yet recalled. He considered that Pop had made no overt attempt to revenge himself because he planned some retaliation so horrible and lingering that it was worth waiting for. He came to hate Pop with an insane shack. There was the most luridly bright on top of the other psychotic states normal to a Moon-colonist. kill Pop. He had no chance—and he He wrote with the desperate, impassioned, frantic blend of persuasion Pop didn't wait. He searched bore directly upon Pop Young and Sattell and Pop Young's missing \"Don't do a thing,\" advised Pop. to do with Pop or with Sattell. But where he'd been restricted to drawing pictures of his wife and children in order to recover memories of worked, he'd think of Sattell, because parts Sattell had managed to get Sattell had committed. He felt, somehow, that he wouldn't get that back until he'd recovered all the rest. Gloating, it was amusing to remember what people used to call that! THE END Transcriber's Note: Astounding Science Fiction September\n\n<question>:\nWhich term best describes Sattell's attitude toward Pop?\n\n<options>:\nA condescending\nB frenetic\nC aggrieved\nD repugnant\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs. The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless noises, their blabbing and yakking as if they had something to say. Blab-blab about the same old bones, and end up chewing them in the impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion. So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone \"Well, dear, if you say so,\" Mother said, with the old resigned sigh that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly. They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up. \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\" \"What, son?\" his old man said uneasily. \"Sure we are. We're going to the movies.\" \"Hell,\" Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. \"I just got my draft call.\" He saw the old man's Adam's apple move. \"Oh, my dear boy,\" Mother cried Wayne grinned down. \"Higher I hope than a typewriter jockey.\" A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne. cigarette. \"I've decided.\" 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 cylinder and pushed cartridges into the waiting chamber. He slipped a head shaped like a grinning bear. Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to shrink him. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea among bowling balls. Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy head. Shoulders hunched like stuffed sea-bags. A copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's Slumville, but Wayne felt a cold that wasn't of the night or the wind. secretive and sparse, the uncared-for streets became rough with pitted potholes, narrow and winding and humid with wet unpleasant smells. Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with the shadows of mysterious promise. a bank of garbage cans, humming to himself, pulling at a rainsoaked shirt clinging to a pale stick body. He reminded Wayne of a slim grub The stewbum stumbled. His bearded face in dim breaking moonlight had a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and doom. \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\" Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled. The bum's fingers drew at the air like white talons. \"Help me, kid.\" as the Cad cruised in a slow follow-up. Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything. 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 bounced over the old man twice. Then the finlights diminished like bright wind-blown sparks. Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in scummed rain pools. The smell of raw violence, the scent of blood, made his heart thump like a trapped rubber ball in a cage. of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive. Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty T-shirt, a big bruiser with a gorilla face. He was tussling his mouse heavy. fed on the promising terror and helplessness of her hunted face. She sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass. Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons imbedded in the waxlike skin of his face. Then he grinned all on one side. One huge hand scratched across the wet table top like a furious cat's. Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated 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. The waiter sat the Crusher down. Wayne signed a chit tonight he was in \"Sure, teener,\" the waiter said, his breathy words dripping like syrup. Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his veins, became hot wire twisting in his head. He drank again and forced out a shaky breath. The jazz beat thumped fast and muted brass moaned. Drumpulse, stabbing trumpet raped the air. Tension mounted as Wayne watched her pale throat convulsing, the white eyelids fluttering. Red fingered at her legs and salivated at her \"Okay, you creep,\" Wayne said. He stood up and started through the haze. The psycho leaped and a table crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast filled the room. The psycho screamed and stumbled toward the door holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was out the door. Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the cold strange breath of moist air on his sweating skin as he sprinted down the alley into a wind full of blowing wet. She quivered above him on the stoop, panting, her eyes afire with terror. \"You, baby,\" Wayne gasped. \"I gotcha.\" She backed into darkness, up there against the sagging tenement wall, her arms out and poised like crippled wings. Wayne crept up. She gave a squeaking sob, turned, ran. Wayne leaped into gloom. Wood cracked. He clambered over rotten lumber. The doorway sagged and he hesitated in the musty dark. A few feet away was the sound of loose trickling plaster, a whimpering whine. \"No use running,\" Wayne said. \"Go loose. Give, baby. Give now.\" She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her, Wayne took his time. He knew how she felt waiting in there, listening to his creeping, implacable footfalls. Then he yelled and slammed open the door. like him and something was wrong with his belly. It was knotting up. \"Bad, I know! So get it over with, please. Hurry, hurry.\" 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?\" in there. I can't turn you out and have it erupt later—and maybe shed clean innocent blood, can I?\" \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\" \"Give him the treatment,\" the doctor said wearily. \"And send him back to his mother.\" Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split\n\n<question>:\nHow did Wayne's attitude change by the end of the article?\n\n<options>:\nA Wayne went from feeling excited to disgusted.\nB Wayne went from feeling excited to regretful for not listening to his parents.\nC Wayne went from feeling confident to feeling defeated.\nD Wayne went from feeling nervous to guilty.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nBy their nature cities along coasts and rivers developed so they could be open to trade with each other. From the middle of the 13th century, and for some 300 years after, many settlements dotted along this route formed the prosperous Hanseatic League, a European trading confederation of market towns, before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution. The Hanseatic League is not well known, and today it lives on most prominently in the name of the German national airline Lufthansa, literally the 'Hansa of the skies', whose planes you can look out of – and down towards the Hanseatic cities – on the short journeys between mainland Europe and Britain. The letters HH on the number plates of cars in Hamburg stand for Hansestadt Hamburg: another proud little memory of this hidden history. In the traumatised atmosphere of post-Brexit Britain, it is worth remembering the Hanseatic League. It could point us towards new relationships between progressive city dwellers in a world that otherwise seems to be putting the brakes on modernity. and it was at exactly this point that the Hanseatic League slowly started to coalesce, eventually influencing our isles. The League is most easily understood as a loose federation of cities that acted together in self-interest to promote trade. The Hanseatic cities developed their own legal system, and their armies came to one another's aid. Merchants who wanted to buy and sell and travel were taking the lead at a time when nation states were not fit for purpose: in the case of England or Denmark, leadership was too centralised and authoritarian, while in German-speaking lands a nation had yet to be formed. The cities involved in the Hanseatic League are found along the Baltic and North Sea coasts, and slightly inland too. The League stretched from Novgorod in the east – in what is now Russia – to London in the west. Tallinn, Riga, Gdańsk, Visby, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp, Stockholm, Bergen, Kiel, Rostock, Dinant, Bruges, Turku, Groningen, Hanover, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad: all were involved at different stages in the Hanse's history, which ran on into the 1500s. The League covered lands that today find themselves a part of the modern nations of Finland, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It was a huge – and hugely ambitious – undertaking in the days when communications consisted of ink and paper and the only viable method of travel was by ship. Wood, fur, wool, silver, herring, cod and salt were the main items traded. But what was also exchanged was knowledge. In some ways it was an exercise in what we today call 'soft diplomacy'. There was no maniacal ruler overseeing things – merchants met and talked. They raised armies and waged war against kings who threatened their businesses and their freedoms and their peace. There was a kind of proto-democracy at work. Professor Rainer Postel, of the Bundeswehr Universität (Germany's equivalent of Sandhurst military academy), has described the Hanse as \"a community of interests without power politics\". As David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge points out, \"The lack of an elaborate superstructure was one of the things that made the Hanse work. Having said that, one should recognise that Lübeck in particular dominated the League for long periods.\" Lübeck was where the merchants most often met So how about a new Hanseatic League? I ask Benjamin Barber, senior fellow at New York's Fordham University. \"I believe you will find there is a new Hanse,\" he says, \"that constituted itself about 10 or 11 years ago – including many of the original Hanseatic League cities.\" Barber is founder of the Global Parliament of Mayors, which he describes as a kind of Hanse of all cities, not just European ports, which will give cities a global urban voice and a common platform for action. The parliament convenes for its inaugural session in The Hague in September. \"Cities both exist within nations and transcend nations. Their power lies not just in the extent of de jure autonomy ceded or granted by 'higher' levels of government,\" says Bruce Katz, centennial scholar at the Washington DC thinktank the Brookings Institution. \"Rather, cities have de facto power, the result of larger market and demographic forces and environmental imperatives that value proximity, density, connectivity and quality. Smart nations will see themselves as partners to their cities, setting strong platforms for urban prosperity and devolving powers, where appropriate, to give cities the flexibility to perform… Dumb nations will continue to dictate from above, stifling market activity and urban potential.\" But could we go further? Could cities like London declare independence from the UK? London's economy is larger than that of Scotland and Wales combined. \"States will not vanish or surrender their waning sovereignty,\" says Benjamin Barber. \"But cities will meet across frontiers and work together to solve problems. The objective is not an independent London or New York, but interdependent cities collaborating globally. And that is happening.\" London's voters largely wanted to remain a part of the EU and to maintain the city's status as an entrepôt. There is clearly a widening chasm between urban and rural life at the heart of many nations. Visualisations of Austria's recent presidential election showed the issue clearly: the country's cities voted for the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, while the the rural districts went for right-wing nationalist Norbert Hofer (whose legal challenge to the close result has resulted in a rerun being announced for October). And in the USA in November, it's likely that Trump voters will also come from rural areas and Clinton voters from the cities. City dwellers are finding ever more in common with the world's other city dwellers than with their countrymen 50 miles down the road. For all its complex beauty, life can ultimately be reduced to a series of binary options: yes or no, stick or twist, in or out, innovation or stagnation, modernity or mythology. The referendum result was disappointing for many progressive observers because it felt like a step backwards. Despite being primarily about trade monopolies and money making, the Hanse was, in its way, an early stab at stepping forwards: it encompassed internationalism, rational thought, free trade, loose democratic institutions and, most crucially of all, movement. The future, for many observers, can only be understood in terms of the free movement of people, capital, goods and ideas. It is this necessary movement, and its possible curtailment, that could be the spark that leads to cities like London to seek independence and parity with other world cities – rather than with the rural hinterlands of Britain. Of course, cities seceding from their nation states would provide huge headaches for countries whose biggest economic driver had been removed – as well as likely deepening ideological differences between city and rural dwellers. Moreover, cities need the food the countryside provides. \"The Hanseatic League was not always accepted by local citizens,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, \"because the privileges granted to the Hanse merchants were forcing local traders out of competition and many cities took steps to eliminate them. The reasons the countryside is turning to the right [globally] are not independent from cities turning increasingly into speculation machines for the profit of a happy few. It is basically these systemic contradictions that must be addressed before we resort to more isolationist ideas that would intensify the urban-rural political divide. The bottom line is not whether a contemporary Hanse-esque federation is possible, it probably is but whether it is actually desirable.\" This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.\n\n<question>:\nWhat did the Hanseatic League exchange other than commodities?\n\n<options>:\nA Animals\nB Women\nC Weapons\nD Knowledge\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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. 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. 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) 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>:\nWhich of the following terms best describes the reviewer's opinion of Bening's acting performance in \"American Beauty,\" compared to her previous acting roles:\n\n<options>:\nA empowering\nB muddled\nC redemptive\nD distasteful\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCompany, slamming the drafting board with his hairy fist, \"I want results!\" Heads lifted over boards. Kalvin Feetch shrunk visibly. Advertising and Sales are breaking their necks. It's Engineering that's missing the boat!\" \"But Mr. Piltdon,\" remonstrated Feetch unsteadily under his employer's How could you set a time limit on research and development? A designer had to dream at his board, investigate, search, build, test, compare, discard. He had always wanted to devote all his time to research, but thought Feetch. Twenty-five years of close supervision, dead-lines, production headaches, inadequate facilities and assistance. What had happened, to the proud dream he once had, the dream of exploring uncharted engineering regions, of unlimited time to investigate and managed somehow to design a few good things during his twenty-five years with Piltdon. That was some satisfaction. What now? He had to hang on to his job. Technical work was scarce. Since the early 1980's the schools had been turning out more technicians than industry could absorb. He was too old to compete in the employment market. He couldn't afford to lose any money. Jenny wasn't well. How to meet this four month dead-line? He would get right on it himself, of course Hanson—good man—could work with him. He shook his head despairingly. Something would be sure to blow up. Well, he had to start— machinist departed and Hanson locked the opener on a can. \"I hope——\" he turned the handle, and stopped abruptly, staring down open-mouthed. after leaving our employ? We have a good thing here, and I don't want you holding it back. We're going into production immediately.\" Close, thought Feetch, wearily. It had been a man-killing job, and it had been close, but he'd made it. Beat the time limit by a half-day. a sell-out!\" crowed Piltdon, waving a sheaf of telegrams. \"Step up production! Let 'er rip!\" any departure from its exact specifications nullified the effect. Piltdon, genial these days with success and acclaim, roared at Feetch: \"I'm putting you in for a raise. Yes sir! To reward you for assisting That's almost four dollars a week, man.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Piltdon.\" And still, thought Feetch wryly, he received no recognition. His name did not even appear on the patent. Well, expensive. He was a fool, he supposed, to try independent research when so many huge scientific organizations were working on it. But he could no more keep away from it than he could stop eating. He still didn't know where the cans went, but somehow he felt that he was close to the answer. When he finally found the answer, it was too late. The Borenchuck incident was only hours away. As soon as he could get hold of Piltdon, Feetch said trembling, \"Sir, I think I know where those cans are going. I recommend—\" \"Are you still worrying about that?\" Piltdon roared jovially. \"Leave that to the long-hairs. We're making money, that's all that counts, eh Feetch?\" in the plant, surrounded by bodyguards. Livid with fury and apprehension, he screamed at Feetch, \"This is your doing, you vandal! I'm a ruined man!\" A falling can caught him neatly on the tip of his nose. \"But sir,\" trembled Feetch, dodging three spaghetti cans, \"I tried to warn you.\" \"You're through, Feetch!\" raved Piltdon. \"Fired! Get out! But before you go, I want you to know that I've directed the blame where it Piltdon's huge desk. \"No!\" yelled Piltdon at Feetch's face which was inches away. \"No, I——What did you say?\" \"A small design improvement sir, and the cans would disappear forever.\" especially on the Piltdon effect. Hire a couple of extra men to help with production. I assure you the company will benefit in the end.\" \"Damn it, no!\" roared Piltdon. \"How many times must I tell you? You got your job back, didn't you?\" The prospect of long years of heavy production schedules, restricted engineering and tight supervision suddenly made Kalvin Feetch feel very tired. Research, he thought. Development. What he had always wanted. Over the years he had waited, thinking that there would be opportunities later. But now he was growing older, and he felt that there might not be a later. Somehow he would manage to get along. Perhaps someone would give him a job working in the new field he had pioneered. With a sense of relief he realized that he had made his decision. \"Good-day,\" said Feetch firmly, sprinting through the falling cans to the door. Money, Feetch decided after a while, was a good thing to have. His supply was running pretty low. He was not having any luck finding another job. Although the cans had stopped falling on the fifteenth day, as predicted by the statisticians, industry would not soon forget the inconvenience and losses caused by the deluge. It was not anxious to hire the man it regarded as responsible for the whole thing. \"Feetch,\" the personnel man would read. \"Kalvin Feetch.\" Then, looking up, \"Not the Kalvin Feetch who—\" slow anger, Piltdon was hitting low and getting away with it. Of course, if he were to agree to reveal his latest discoveries to a research organization, he would undoubtedly get an appointment. But how could he? Everything patentable in his work would automatically revert to Piltdon under the one year clause in the company patent agreement. No, Feetch told himself, he was revealing nothing that Piltdon might grab. The anger began to mount. But he was beginning to need money desperately. Jenny wasn't getting any better and medical bills were running high. The phone rang. Feetch seized it and said to the image: \"Absolutely not.\" \"I'll go up another ten dollars,\" grated the little Piltdon image. A total increase of one hundred and twenty-six dollars? Be sensible, Feetch. I know you can't find work anywhere else.\" \"Thanks to you. Mr. Piltdon, I wouldn't work for you if—\" \"No,\" said Feetch. \"People will forget anyway—I hope.\" \"If you won't think of yourself, at least think of your fellow workmen,\" begged Piltdon, his voice going blurry. \"Do you realize that Piltdon Opener will soon be forced to close down, throwing all your former associates out of work? Think of Hanson, Sanchez, Forbes. They have families too. Think of the men in the shop, the girls in the office, the salesmen on the road. All, all unemployed because of you. Think of that, Feetch.\" Feetch blinked. This had not occurred to him. Piltdon eyed him sharply, then smiled with a hint of triumph. \"Think it over, Feetch.\" Feetch sat, thinking it over. Was it right to let all these people lose figured the Super-Opener can solve this.\" Feetch hung up. A glow of anger that had been building up in his chest grew warmer. He began pacing the floor. How he hated to do it. Think, Hanson had said. But he had. He's considered every angle, and there was punched him in the nose. The twenty-five years. The tricks. The threats. Think? He'd figured the solution long ago, only he hadn't allowed himself to see it. Not lack of brains, lack of guts. Well, he thought grimly, dialing Piltdon's number, he was going through with it now. \"This information is important to science,\" said the Van Terrel man. \"Piltdon, don't bother me about production. Production is your problem.\" \"But Mr. Feetch—\" \"Get out,\" said Feetch. Piltdon blanched and left.\n\n<question>:\nWhy did Kalvin hesitate to share information about the new invention?\n\n<options>:\nA He wanted to do more research into how it works.\nB He wanted to be the one to tell Piltdon.\nC He wanted to keep the invention for himself.\nD He wanted to save his job.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWomen on space station assignments shouldn't get pregnant. But there's a first time for everything. Here's the story of One thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, a woman was in pain. There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in its orbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her Lieutenant?\" yet. \"Fine, doctor. It's no worse than I was expecting. How long will Alice Britton closed her eyes. Major Banes was all smiles and cheer \"Lieutenant Britton, you're either careless or brainless I don't know which! Your husband may be the finest rocket jockey in the Space Service, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up here on a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!\" Alice had said: \"I'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. I know it never entered mine.\" not equipped for obstetrics up here.\" \"Send me back down to Earth, of course.\" And he had looked up at her scathingly. \"Lieutenant Britton, it is my personal opinion that you need your head examined, and not by a general practitioner, either! Why, I wouldn't let you get into an airplane, much less land on Earth in a rocket! If you think I'd permit you to subject yourself to eight gravities of acceleration in a rocket landing, you're daffy!\" She hadn't thought of it before, but the major was right. The terrible pressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weight to nearly half a ton an adult human being couldn't take that sort of punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within her. So she had stayed on in the Space Station, doing her job as always. As Chief Radar Technician, she was important in the operation of the station. Her pregnancy had never made her uncomfortable the slow rotation of the wheel-shaped station about its axis gave an effective gravity at the rim only half that of Earth's surface, and the closer to the hub she went, the less her weight became. According to the major, the baby was due sometime around the first of September. \"Two hundred and eighty days,\" he had said. \"Luckily, we can pinpoint it almost exactly. And at a maximum of half of Earth gravity, you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then. You're to report to me at least once a week, Lieutenant.\" As the words went through her mind, another spasm of pain hit her, and a meteor had hit the radar room. It had been only a tiny bit of rock, no bigger than a twenty-two bullet, and it hadn't been traveling more than ten miles per second, but it had managed to punch its way through the shielding of the station. The self-sealing walls had closed the tiny hole quickly, but even in that short time, a lot of air had gone whistling out into the vacuum of space. The depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been enough to start labor. The baby was going to come two months early. She relaxed a little more, waiting for the next pain. There was nothing to worry about \"I beg your pardon?\" \"Incubator. We can't deliver a seven-month preemie without an incubator.\" The nurse's eyes widened. \"Good Lord! I never thought of that! What are you going to do?\" \"Right now, I can't do anything. I can't beam a radio message through to the Earth. But as soon as we get within radio range of White Sands, I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. But—\" \"But what?\" \"Will we have time? The pains are coming pretty fast now. It will be at BRITTON PILOTING. MEDICS LOADING SHIP TWELVE WITH INCUBATOR AND OTHER the base before we get out of range again.\" He turned and left through the heavy door. Each room of the space station was protected by airtight doors and individual heating units if some accident, such as a really large meteor hit, should release the air from one room, nearby rooms would be safe. He forced a nervous smile. \"Nothing but the responsibility. You're going to be a very famous woman, you know. You'll be the mother of the first child born in space. And it's my job to see to it that you're both all right.\" She grinned. \"Another Dr. Dafoe?\" HRS MST. CAPT BRITTON SENDS PERSONAL TO LT BRITTON AS FOLLOWS: HOLD his left hand. \"Two hours. It isn't soon enough. She'll never hold out out of? There's not a spare piece of equipment in the station. It costs recorded all the monitor pickups from the Earth radio stations, and it looks as though the Space Service has released the information to the public. Lieutenant Britton's husband was right when he said the whole \"Well, think about something useful! Think about how we're going to save that baby!\" He paused as he saw her eyes. \"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. My nerves are all raw, I guess. But, dammit, my field is space medicine. I can handle depressurization, space sickness, and things like that, but I don't know anything about babies! I know what I read in medical school, and I watched a delivery once, but that's all I know. I don't even have any references up here people aren't supposed to go around having babies on a space station!\" \"It's all right, doctor. Shall I prepare the delivery room?\" His laugh was hard and short. \"Delivery room! I wish to Heaven we had Brittons seemed to drag time grudgingly along with it. Banes wished he could smoke to calm his raw nerves, but it was strictly against regulations. Air was too precious to be used up by smoking. Every bit of air on board had had to be carried up in rockets when the station was built in space. The air purifiers in the hydroponics section could keep the air fresh enough for breathing, but fire of any kind would overtax the system, leaving too little oxygen in the atmosphere. \"I'll say it won't! How about the incubator?\" There was a long pause. Finally, he said softly: \"There isn't any incubator. I didn't take the possibility of a premature delivery into account. It's my fault. I've done what I could, though the ship is bringing one up. I—I think we'll be able to keep the child alive until—\" \"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Britton! Alice! This is no time to get her answer. \"Doctor,\" she said, \"I thought you would have figured it out. Ask yourself just one question. Ask yourself, 'Why is a space station like an incubator?'\" Space Ship Twelve docked at Space Station One at exactly eleven thirty-four, and two men in spacesuits pushed a large, bulky package through the airlock. Major Peter Banes, haggard but smiling, met Captain Britton in the Banes nodded to Colonel Gates, then turned to Britton. \"I don't know \"Over an hour ago,\" said Banes. \"But—but—the incubator—\" Banes' grin widened. \"We'll put the baby in it, now that we've got it, but it really isn't necessary. Your wife figured that one out. A space station is a kind of incubator itself, you see. It protects us poor, weak humans from the terrible conditions of space. So all we had to do was close up one of the airtight rooms, sterilize it, warm it up, and put in extra oxygen from the emergency tanks. Young James is perfectly \"Don't thank me. It was Captain Britton's wife who—\" But Captain Britton wasn't listening any more. He was headed toward his\n\n<question>:\nWhy can't Lieutenant Britton go back to Earth?\n\n<options>:\nA There are no ships available to go to Earth at this time.\nB There is no one else trained to replace her as Chief Radar Technician on the space station.\nC The replacement Radar Technician was killed in a car wreck on his way to White Sands. A new technician will have to be trained.\nD The G-forces the body is subjected to during space travel would affect the fetus.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nappeared to have overcome every little imperfection he had been able to communicate to her. It was in the privacy of his room that Pembroke became aware of just how perfect, physically, little office over Lemark's Liquors in downtown Los Angeles and waited for his first customer. He had been in business for a week and as yet had had no callers. that he greeted the tall, dark, smooth-faced figure that came up the stairs and into the hard to understand why there are so few children.\" \"Yes, children are decorative, \"Why not have a couple of your own?\" he asked. \"Oh, they're only given to maternal with an amiable smile. \"I see my advertisement has interested the crew of the ship, Either that, or she had a basic flaw of loquacity that no one else had discovered. Pembroke decided peopled it. And Mary Ann would probably. He also recognized several a telephone call and sat down to \"In the first place,\" said Pembroke, \"you should be willing to very loyal.\" time. Pembroke came as close to being a professional adventurer as one can in these days of regimented travel, organized peril, \"I'll try,\" she said unsurely. \"What else?\" \"The other thing is that, as for his restiveness. Loyalty to person or to people that she understood his plan and that she was irrevocably in love with him. Tomorrow might bring His next thought was of food. via the elevator to the restaurant. years of searching for a passion, for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank a full dinner, for he was unusually hungry, he began to study the others in the restaurant. help him to save it. The next morning Pembroke talked to Valencia about hunting. Many of the faces seemed familiar Pembroke had at last found his. Earth and the human race that he made no attempt to speak to them. After his meal, he bought He said that he planned to go shooting out on the desert which He picked up Mary Ann at her apartment and together they went to a sporting goods store. As he guessed there was a goodly selection of firearms, despite the fact that there was nothing to at Pembroke as he passed. Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous moments. \"You are looking for someone?\" she inquired. \"Much of the time,\" said the targets they had purchased. At twilight they headed back to the him. If necessary, she would conduct the authorities to the place where they had been target shooting, but would be unable to Please help me, please!\" \"You're not casual enough, for an Earthman. Now Pembroke had himself to worry about. The first step was one, but should be considerably safer. He headed slowly for the please tell me.\" \"How about talking it over at supper tonight?\" Pembroke proposed. \"Maybe with less distraction \"Oh, that's very generous of you,\" the woman told him. She scribbled a name and an address on a small piece of paper and handed it to him. \"Any time Pembroke left the beach and walked through several small specialty shops. He tried to get the woman off his mind, but the oddness of her conversation continued could requite it. Soon, he assured her, soon. \"Because, after all, you do owe to explain that to her? Then he saw the weird little glass statuette among the usual on each of its six limbs, and There would be very few Earthmen left in Puerto Pacifico, and it would be simple enough to locate \"Can I help you, sir?\" a middle-aged saleswoman inquired. \"Oh, good heavens, whatever is smiled up at him as he stared. the bizarre statuette underneath Pembroke watched with lifted eyebrows as the clerk whisked went there in the afternoon. He loitered around the stalls where that thing doing here?\" one of the—strangers?\" \"And if I were?\" \"Well, I'd certainly appreciate could pass the interview would be sent to Earth. Pembroke had visited the docks every day, without being able to learn when the great exodus would take place. Yet he was certain the first lap would be by water rather than by spaceship, since no one he had talked to in the city had ever heard of spaceships. In fact, they knew very little about their masters. Now the ship had arrived and you won't fall down,\" suggested Pembroke. \"You're in too much of a hurry. Also those fake flowers that they had all qualified in every other respect. The reason for transporting Earth People to this planet was, of course, knew where he was. But as he or articulation. This was the polishing up phase. Pembroke began hobbling toward of his knowledge, was called Puerto Pacifico. He headed for the nearest service station and asked for a map. The attendant gave him one left the shop he began checking which showed the city, but nothing asked Pembroke. \"That all depends on where you are,\" the boy returned. \"Okay, then where am I?\" \"Pardon me, there's a customer,\" the boy said. \"This is there were now set up on the roped-off wharves small interviewing off to service a car with a sense of having been given the runaround. To his surprise, the boy came back a few minutes later after servicing the automobile. \"Say, I've just figured out who you are,\" the youngster told him. confined beneath a glass dome. It \"I'd sure appreciate it if you'd give me a little help on my lingo. each went into separate ones. he had seen at the gift store. Pembroke watched him hurry Puerto Pacifico.\" on the wall. a surly voice. \"Occupation?\" \"I work a lot o' trades. Fisherman, fruit picker, fightin' range fires, vineyards, car washer. Anything. \"Say, come back again, huh? I sure appreciate the help. Keep the map.\" \"Yeah, it's kinda isolated. A had qualified as a satisfactory surrogate for a mid-twentieth century American male, itinerant Pembroke found himself alone in type. \"You understand your mission, are to establish yourself on \"That's for sure,\" the boy said, walking away to wait on another Earth. In time you will receive customer. \"If you don't like the place, you've had it.\" Pembroke returned to the there?\" Newton?\" the voice asked. \"You us well.\" He stumbled out toward the docks, then looked about for hotel. Going to the bar, he recognized one of the Sidling up to a well-dressed man-about-town type, Pembroke companion explained. \"They'll take her off to the buggy house for a few days and bring her out fresh and ignorant as the booth. \"Okay if I join you?\" on a piece of wreckage, and had been picked up by a Chilean trawler. How he had then made his way, with much suffering, up the coast to again solvent, he was headed for Los Angeles to begin his save-Earth campaign. Now, seated at his battered desk in the shabby rented office of a federal official, but the hesitant, self-conscious steps of a you would give me a few minutes of honest criticism.\" junior clerk type. soon, once the FBI agent had got there. Pembroke was only in it to get the proof he would need to convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he allowed himself to admire the Valencia was seeking. Pembroke was amused at his companion's that it was exactly this that little ad that had saved mankind IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE manager. \"There is much food for thought in what you have FEE—$3.75 It will make you more acceptable.\" to prove itself. You have only yourself to blame. Cooperation is \"Thank you so much,\" said the all we require of you.\" Frank?\" lot of ships dock here, though.\" While he waited for the elevator, he saw them carrying the body he had bought. Then he took He left the room and descended Here he observed that it\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the significance of the glass statue that Frank finds in the store?\n\n<options>:\nA It prompts a discussion of the worth of various materials in this town.\nB It is the first piece of evidence about the others who live on the planet.\nC It is proof that hedgehogs are held in high esteem in this society.\nD It shows him where he can find a craftsman to help them with the project.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nevil jack-in-the-box at night. I must tell you, Laura. and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the others alone! Let us be the first to land somewhere! Let us be the first! That was something I didn't have to worry about. My parents had died in a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those \"You are cordially invited\" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. And I liberties, as Charlie said, were as scarce as water on Mars. It doesn't matter , I told myself. we'd been a good team during those final months at the Academy and I knew we'd be a good team in space. The Universe was mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only half as big. civilization and a better place out of Earth. They expect all this and a hell of a lot more. They think there's nothing we can't do. tonight. Yes, siree, I got twenty-four hours, and we'll celebrate as good spacemen should!\" to reach the Moon!\" Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\" I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian fizzes and Plutonian zombies. But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration. a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor should look. \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two months to decide.\" \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben? Did he make you an offer?\" You bit your lip, not answering. \"What did she mean, Mickey?\" Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben. We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But—\" \"Yes?\" \"Well, what does it add up to? You become a spaceman and wear a pretty another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know.\" My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\" I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet. \"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend.\" Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson.\" Laura?\" I frowned. \"And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think maybe I haven't grown up yet?\" Anxiety darkened your features. \"No, it'd be good to be a spaceman, to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it worth the things you'd have to give up?\" I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up what ?\" Then I looked at you and the promise in your eyes, and I knew. I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna. I wanted him to say something, to tell me the secret that would kill \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just not like you and Charlie, I guess. I—\" promise of a child's dream, because you knew that was what I wanted. One morning I thought, Why must I make a choice? Why can't I have both you and the stars? Would that be asking too much? All day the thought lay in my mind like fire. That evening I asked you to marry me. I said it very simply: \"Laura, I want you to be my wife.\" You looked up at Venus, and you were silent for a long while, your face flushed. Then you murmured, \"I—I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\" \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\" \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see, Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for maybe two months, Somehow I'd expected words like these, but still they hurt. \"I wouldn't have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years, then teach.\" \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\" Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears glittering in your eyes. \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened on the Cyclops \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\" , I told myself. You can't stay here. You've got to make a choice. open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto. You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now. I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get out there on the That's what he'd say. And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always. \"Oh God,\" I moaned, \"what shall I do?\" voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly—\" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters And now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping, And among the things, Laura, I found a ring. A wedding ring. In that past he never talked about, there was a woman—his wife. Charlie was young once, his eyes full of dreams, and he faced the same decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to travel both. He later learned what we already know—that there can be no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose. Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he He made his last trip to Luna when he knew he was going to die. Heaven knows how he escaped a checkup. Maybe the captain understood and was kind—but that doesn't matter now. I could have been the first ? We said, too, that the life of a spaceman is lonely. Yet how could one Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson. he'll go with me in memory to whatever part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura. I have two wedding rings with me—his wife's ring and yours.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Ben tell Laura his has her wedding ring?\n\n<options>:\nA Ben is telling her he can't marry her, so he's taking back the ring.\nB Ben is telling her that even though he can't stay, she is the only woman he'll ever love.\nC Ben is telling her that the marriage is over, so he's taking the ring back.\nD Ben is telling her he was going to marry her but, she can't compete with the universe.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveled through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by Evans' tractor. It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine, \"Well, it was to rescue you that I came.\" landed. When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once he followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that he had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and a half, and he was lucky to break even. \"Claim?\" the first landing on the Moon. on the Moon!\" \"Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine THE END In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would be dark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not begin for thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late. into the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine, the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next to the sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might have to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly improbable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he was Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of on the Moon for another week. \"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?\" he asked. The solar anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant. over the assets of the Survey Credit Association all morning.\" \"I'll certainly be glad to get them off my hands,\" McIlroy said. \"I hope \"There doesn't seem to be any profit,\" Mr. Phelps said. \"That's par for a nonprofit organization,\" said McIlroy. \"But we're Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small craters overlapped and touched each other. There was—except in the that didn't contain a crater at least ten inches across, there was not a square inch without its half-inch crater. Nearly all of these had been made millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a crater covered part of a footprint, clear evidence that it was a recent one. be, zeolites need water to form, and there's no water on the Moon.\" across.\" All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the the sun. Earth remained in the same spot in the black sky. The shadow line crept around until Earth was nearly dark, and then the rim of light appeared on the opposite side. For a while Earth was a dark disk in a thin halo, and then the light came to be a crescent, and the line of dawn began to move around Earth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and into the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same time that the sun rose. to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going back to mining.\" drinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him. \"Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.\" McIlroy had heard all of this before. \"How's that?\" he asked politely. \"You may think it's myself running the ship,\" Jones started on his \"Near cost it is now at a dollar forty. But what sense is there in charging the same rate to go either way when it takes about a seventh of the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to here?\" \"The nickel, man, the tons of nickel worth a dollar and a half on Earth, and not worth mining here the low-grade ores of uranium and vanadium, they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel. \"Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to \"Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone up, and I think he could ship some of his ore from Yellow Crater at a profit.\" The sun was halfway to the horizon, and Earth was a crescent in the sky thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such Part of his reasoning proved correct. That is, he found that by one with its droplet of water. The average was about one per cent of the mound of lava. It was rounded on top, and it could easily be the dome of his suit was reading dangerously near empty. He turned back to his tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing. Running would use up efficient as the one in the tractor it wasted oxygen. By using the suit so much, Evans had already shortened his life by several days. He resolved not to leave the tractor again, and reluctantly abandoned his The sun stood at half its diameter above the horizon. The shadows of the dawning line of light covered half of Earth, and Earth turned beneath it. ruptured. A stream of mud gushed out and boiled dry on the face of the Moon. Cowalczk and Lehman rushed forward again. They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor power in it to crush the scale.\" \"Think we weren't worried?\" Lehman asked. \"And it's not over.\" \"What?\" Cade asked. \"Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?\" \"No,\" said Lehman, \"I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do.\" \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\" \"You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple of weeks.\" PROSPECTOR FEARED LOST ON MOON McIlroy released a statement today that Howard Evans, a prospector is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was presumed that he was merely temporarily delayed. Evans began his exploration on August 25th, and was known to be McIlroy has expressed a hope that Evans will be found before his oxygen runs out. search from Palomar and the new satellite observatory are hindered by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now dark. Little hope is held for radio contact with the missing man as McIlroy chuckled for the first time in several days. \"So that's the rocket would be needed in the search.\" The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted Earth. The great blue globe of Earth, the only thing larger than the stars, wheeled silently in the sky. As it turned, the shadow of sunset crept across the face that could be seen from the Moon. From full Earth, as you might say, it moved toward last quarter. are clouded over. Anyway the satellite observatory will be in position by the time Europe is.\" finding him. It began to dawn on McIlroy that nearly the whole population of Williamson Town was involved, one way or another, in the\n\n<question>:\nWhat is a significant irony in the successful colonization of the moon?\n\n<options>:\nA Earth needs materials from the moon to survive, while the moon needs materials from the Earth\nB The government is just as ineffective on the moon as it is on Earth\nC Moon inhabitants are less free on the moon than they used to be on Earth\nD The greed of humankind is destroying the newly colonized moon just as it is destroying Earth\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nenough myself I just managed to hide it better. And every mile the Sun got bigger and whiter and higher in the sky and hotter. Without our ultra-violet screens and glare filters we would have been blinded as it was our eyes ached constantly and the skin on our faces itched and tingled at the got to. You’re the only man on Earth who’s “It’s simple. We failed because it can’t be done. We couldn’t do it and neither can you. No human beings will ever cross the Brightside alive, not if they try for centuries.” “Nonsense,” Baron declared. “We will.” Claney shrugged. “I was there. I know what I’m saying. You It was the planet that whipped us, that and the Sun . They’ll whip you, too, if you try it.” “Never,” said Baron. “Let me tell you,” Peter Claney said. I’d been interested in the Brightside for almost as long as I can remember (Claney said). I guess I was about ten when Wyatt and Carpenter made the last attempt—that was in 2082, terrible tragedy. After that, I followed Sanderson’s work in the He was a major in the Interplanetary Service did a good deal of the original mapping and surveying for been out to see Sanderson and the Twilight Lab on Mercury, and how he preferred a hot trek to a cold one any day of the Venus and what my plans were. “No particular plans,” I told him. “Why?” I told him one-thirty-five. “That much!” he said. “Well, there can’t be much fat on you, at any rate. How do you take heat?” “You should know,” I said. “Venus was no icebox.” “No, I mean “What trip?” “Brightside of Mercury,” the Major said. I whistled cautiously. “At aphelion?” heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four days later? No, thanks. I want the Brightside without any nonsense about it.” He leaned across me eagerly. “I want to make a man can do that, he’s got Mercury. Until then, nobody’s it. Nobody had, since Wyatt and Carpenter disappeared. Mercury turns on its axis in the same time that it wheels around the Sun, which means that the Brightside is always facing in. That makes the Brightside of Mercury at perihelion the hottest place in the Solar System, with one single exception: the surface of the Sun itself. It would be a hellish trek. Only a few men had ever learned just rocket landing, the labs and quarters for Sanderson’s crew sunk deep into the crust, and the tower that housed the Solar ’scope that Sanderson had built up there ten years before. Twilight Lab wasn’t particularly interested in the Brightside, of course—the Sun was Sanderson’s baby and he’d picked Mercury as the closest chunk of rock to the Sun that could hold his observatory. He’d chosen a good location, too. On Mercury, the Brightside temperature hits 770° F. at perihelion and the Darkside runs pretty constant at -410° F. No permanent installation with a human crew could survive at either extreme. But with Mercury’s wobble, the twilight zone between Brightside and Darkside offers something closer to survival temperatures. Sanderson built the Lab up near the pole, where the zone is about five miles wide, so the temperature only varies 50 to 60 degrees with the libration. The Solar ’scope could take that much change and they’d get good clear observation of the Sun for about seventy out of the eighty-eight days it takes the planet to wheel around. The Major was counting on Sanderson knowing something about Mercury as well as the Sun when we camped at the Lab to make final preparations. Sanderson did. He thought we’d lost our minds and he said Poor Jack met us at the rocket landing almost bawling, Sanderson and testing himself, with a big assist from Sanderson. say much about it. Stone was getting edgy and so was I. We spent the second day studying charts of the Brightside, such as the board, “is largely inactive, according to Sanderson. But be active. Seismograph tracings suggest a lot of activity in that region, getting worse down toward the equator—not only volcanic, but sub-surface shifting.” Stone nodded. “Sanderson told me there was probably constant It seemed that the more we considered the problem, the further we got from a solution. We knew there were active volcanoes on the Brightside—even on the Darkside, though well. There was an atmosphere and a constant atmospheric flow from Brightside to Darkside. Not much—the lighter gases millennia ago—but there was CO 2 , and nitrogen, and traces of other heavier gases. There was also an abundance of sulfur vapor, as well as carbon disulfide and sulfur dioxide. The atmospheric tide moved toward the Darkside, where it condensed, carrying enough volcanic ash with it for Sanderson to estimate the depth and nature of the surface upheavals on the two layers. Warning thermocouples, of course—at 770 degrees, it wouldn’t take much time to fry us to cinders if the suits failed somewhere.” “How about the Bugs?” between us and a surface temperature where lead flowed like water and zinc was almost at melting point and the pools of sulfur in the shadows were boiling like oatmeal over a campfire.” with thirty days to make it to the Center of Brightside. If we could cross an average of seventy miles a day, we could hit Center exactly at perihelion, the point of Mercury’s closest approach to the Sun—which made Center the hottest part of the planet at the hottest it ever gets. The Sun was already huge and yellow over the horizon when we started, twice the size it appears on Earth. Every day that Sun would grow bigger and whiter, and every day the surface would get hotter. But once we reached Center, the job was only half done—we would still have to travel another two thousand miles to the opposite twilight zone. Sanderson to do the advance scouting?” “It sounds like I am,” I cut in. “We want to keep the lead Bug light as possible.” let’s go.” It was hot. If I forget everything else about that trek, I’ll never forget that huge yellow Sun glaring down, without a break, hotter and hotter with every mile. We knew that the first few days would be the easiest and we were rested and little outpost observatory and the tracks stopped. We were in virgin territory and already the Sun was beginning to bite. We didn’t saw it. The refrig units kept our skins at a nice comfortable seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit inside our suits, but our eyes watched that glaring Sun and the baked yellow rocks going past, and some nerve pathways got twisted up, somehow. We poured sweat as if we were in a superheated furnace. came due, we pulled the Bugs together into a square, threw up a light aluminum sun-shield and lay out in the dust and rocks. The sun-shield cut the temperature down sixty or seventy degrees, for whatever help that was. And then we ate from the forward sledge—sucking through tubes—protein, carbohydrates, with a barely visible yellowish mist of sulfur and sulfurous gases. could throw up to us, at the most difficult time possible. Yet we knew that even the land might have been conquered before, except for that Sun. We’d fought absolute cold before and won. We’d never fought heat like this and won. The only worse heat in the Solar System was the surface of the Sun itself. Brightside was worth trying for. We would get it or it would on Mercury forty years before, but beyond it there were active cones. Yellow fumes rose from the craters constantly their We couldn’t detect a wind, but we knew there was a hot, sulfurous breeze sweeping in great continental tides across the face of the planet. Not enough for erosion, though. The craters\n\n<question>:\nWhat was Sanderson studying?\n\n<options>:\nA The Brightside\nB The Darkside\nC The twilight zone\nD The Sun\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nA sound foreign policy ,\" they all said, it being almost too obvious for words. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a masterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was Humphrey Fownes' abstraction curiosity. deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his \" \" \"What?!\" rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight shouted. \"Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two!\" He grasped the approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an \"You'll have to tell me what you did first!\" odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and told force it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, \"What have I done?\" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own \"I'm not sure what's going to come of this,\" he said to Lanfierre with \"Not any more there isn't.\" \"I never figured on this to return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossed absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It was ,\" Lanfierre murmured. \"I knew that much.\" When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully, standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably \" zephyr?\" \"I've heard some.\" \"They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strong with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical twister?\" over the roaring, \"that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond the confines of everyday living all \"No, I don't need a vacation.\" A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the Optimum temperature collapsed. \"Mrs. Deshazaway! dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The family of thirsty and clean kids, and he \"And compasses won't work on this street.\" he'd never thought to watch Every window slammed shut. right? No, . He went on, thinking: The old curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. Looking through the window he saw only a garden. setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails for two. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched as the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose as the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset, an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose really smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read that book on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. \"No\" circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on The risks he was taking! Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and important No. Contrived. How about a simple, fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down And all the rest have \"Men are too perishable,\" Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. \"For all practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die.\" that way,\" she said. \"I'm not going to marry you and if you want reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse.\" The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything passionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had never known anyone like her. \"You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,\" she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. \"Do you have any worse for him.\" She threw up her hands. \"You'd be the worst of the lot!\" She left the elaborate plans you've been find out? \"That's impossible! How?\" no control whatever? Where the it the other way around? No matter. How would you like that two hands. \"Pray continue,\" she said. \"Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway. And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and is \" \" would be such a deliciously insane experience. (\"April has thirty number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor with it are primes library several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given over to government publications and censored old books with holes in eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near unintelligibility. days. What do you make of it?\" In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surrounded illustration. \"What's that?\" he said. this later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book. that ?\" to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything \"Where did the old society fail?\" the leader was demanding of them. He said, \"for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?\" \" A sound foreign policy obtained the insight. \"If a sound foreign policy can't be created the only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the by common consent of the governments . This is known as self-containment.\" in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be \"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and \"And that day I'll await impatiently,\" Fownes replied with marvelous tact, \"because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else? Have I left anything out?\" Everyone spoke at the same moment. \"\n\n<question>:\nWhat lesson couldn't be gleaned from this story?\n\n<options>:\nA no matter how much you strive for perfection, there will always be something preventing it\nB work on your dreams until they become a reality\nC history tends to repeat itself\nD love can accomplish many things\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nCharles Murray is a publicity genius, and the publication of his and Richard Herrnstein's book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life , in the fall of 1994 was his masterpiece. The Bell Curve was not circulated in galleys before publication. The effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray and his publisher. The ordinary routine of neutral reviewers having a month or two to go over the book with care did not occur. Another handpicked group was flown to Washington at the expense of the American Enterprise Institute and given a weekend-long personal briefing on the book's contents by Murray himself (Herrnstein had died very recently), just before publication. The result was what you'd expect: The first wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence, because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully. The debate on publication day was conducted in the mass media by people with no independent ability to assess the book. Over the next few months, intellectuals took some pretty good shots at it in smaller publications like the New Republic and the New York Review of Books . It wasn't until late 1995 that the most damaging criticism of The Bell Curve began to appear, in tiny academic journals. What follows is a brief summary of that last body of work. The Bell Curve , it turns out, is full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors. Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis. First, a quick précis of The Bell Curve . IQ tests, according to Murray and Herrnstein, measure an essential human quality, general intelligence. During the second half of the 20 th century, this quality has risen to supreme importance, because society has become increasingly complex. The intelligent have therefore gone through an \"invisible migration,\" from points of origin all over the class system to a concentration at the top of business, government, and the professions. They are likely to become ever more dominant and prosperous. The unintelligent are falling further and further behind. Because intelligence is substantially inherited, nothing is likely to reverse this process. Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent. Any efforts government might make to improve the economic opportunities of poor people, especially poor black people, are likely to fail, because their poverty is so much the result of inherited low intelligence. About the best that can be done for these people is an effort to create a world of simple, decent, honorable toil for them. Herrnstein and Murray begin by telling us that the liberal position on IQ--namely, \"Intelligence is a bankrupt concept\"--has been discredited, and that \"a scholarly consensus has been reached\" around their position. This consensus is \"beyond significant technical dispute.\" Thus, by the end of their introduction, they have arranged matters so that if intelligence has any meaning at all, the idiotic liberals stand discredited and meanwhile, extremely broad claims for intelligence have the cover of \"consensus.\" The notion that IQ tests are completely useless never prevailed in liberal academia to nearly the extent that Herrnstein and Murray say. A more accurate rendering of the liberal position would be that rather than a single \"general intelligence,\" there are a handful of crucial--and separate--mental abilities The next problem with The Bell Curve 's thesis is in the idea of the rise to dominance of the cognitive elite. To the book's initial audience of Ivy Leaguers, this idea seemed valid on its face. Everybody knows that the best universities, law firms, hospitals, investment banks, and the State Department used to be run by preppies whose main virtue was fortunate birth, and are now open to one and all on the basis of merit. Having conditioned its audience to view IQ as all-important, The Bell Curve then manipulates statistics in a way that makes IQ look bigger, and everything else smaller, in determining Americans' life-chances. What Herrnstein and Murray used to measure IQ is actually a measure of education as well as intelligence. All the people tracked in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth took the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, which Herrnstein and Murray treat as a good measure of intelligence. Because the material covered in the test includes subjects like trigonometry, many academic critics of The Bell Curve have objected to its use as a measure only of IQ and not at all of academic achievement. Herrnstein and Murray concede in the footnotes that scores tend to rise with the subjects' education--but they seriously underestimate the magnitude of this rise, as shows. And they resist the obvious inference that the test scores are measuring something other than intelligence. Most of The Bell Curve 's analysis is devoted to proving that IQ has more predictive power than parental \"socio-economic status.\" But Herrnstein and Murray's method of figuring socioeconomic status seems designed to low-ball its influence, as explains. Herrnstein and Murray begin their discussion of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth data by announcing that they aren't going to analyze the effect of education, because education is too much a result of IQ. It's not an independent variable. (Of course, according to their theory, socioeconomic status is also a result of IQ, but somehow, that doesn't stop them.) Therefore, what you'd most want to know from a policy standpoint--how much education can increase opportunity--isn't dealt with in the book, except in two obscure footnotes. Both would seem to support the liberal, pro-education position that Herrnstein and Murray say is futile. One footnote shows education increasing IQ year by year. The other shows a higher correlation between college degree and family income than between IQ and family income. At the beginning of The Bell Curve , Herrnstein and Murray declare that \"the concept of intelligence has taken on a much higher place in the pantheon of human virtues than it deserves.\" And they claim that their view of IQ tests is \"squarely in the middle of the scientific road.\" They end by expressing the hope that we can \"be a society that makes good on the fundamental promise of the American tradition: the opportunity for everyone, not just the lucky ones, to live a satisfying life.\" Throughout, Herrnstein and Murray consistently present themselves as fair- (or even liberal-) minded technicians who have, with great caution, followed the evidence where it leads--which, unfortunately, is to a few unassailable if unpleasant scientific truths that it is their reluctant duty to report. not once is a finding that contradicts the main thesis reported in the text. ( shows how Herrnstein and Murray have made the convergence in black-white IQ scores, which they claim to find \"encouraging,\" look smaller than it actually is.) The Bell Curve 's air of strict scientism doesn't preclude the use of lightly sourced or unsourced assertions, such as the statement that the median IQ of all black Africans is 75, or that \"intermarriage among people in the top few percentiles of intelligence may be increasing far more rapidly than suspected\" (no footnote). Though they piously claim not to be doing so, Herrnstein and Murray leave readers with the distinct impression that IQ is the cause of economic success and failure, and that genetic difference explains the black-white IQ gap.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does the author describe Charles Murray as a “publicity genius”?\n\n<options>:\nA He sent out numerous press releases and did a press tour for this book.\nB He published first in academic journals to increase the book’s authority.\nC He limited access as a way to increase the allure of the book before publication.\nD He attacked critics of his book to discredit them.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nWHEN THE MOUNTAIN SHOOK steep were its cliffs and sheer its crevasses. But its outward perils could not compare with the Ryzgas themselves, who slept within, ready to wake and conquer.... At sunset they were in sight of the Ryzga mountain. Strangely it towered and fell in a heap, like a mechanical doll whose motive power has Is our feud finished, or does your ambition for a worthy son-in-law go beyond the conqueror of the Ryzgas?\" mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He was no longer a simple problem to Var, who had grown much older in the last days. \"Wait,\" he commanded. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to lurid fire spewed from the Ryzga mountain, and strange lights dipped above it avalanche in the dream, and hideous beasts rushed snapping and ravening from the crevices of the rock. There was no path. Now they were descending the steeper face of the the rocks above. They heard no sound. watch on the Ryzga mountain, as a part of the oldest legends of their childhood but neither had been here before. a tinkling of falling water, thawed from the glacial ridges above to off and forced us into the mountains, and now they are only a few hours Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families.\" and on all men.\" \"We know the stories,\" Var said brusquely. \"In the hollow heart of their mountain the Ryzgas sleep, as they chose to do when their world crumbled. But if they are wakened, the mountain will tremble, and the Ryzgas will come forth.\" \"Do you believe that?\" \"As one believes stories.\" farther into the mountain than anyone before, farther even than did the the mountain began to shake, the force that is in the Earth rumbled \"The Ryzgas also were men,\" said the Watcher. \"But they were such a race as the world has not seen before or since. There were tyrannies before the Ryzgas, there was lust for power, and atrocious cruelty but such tyranny, power, and cruelty as theirs, had never been known. They ruled 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 that survived when the Ryzgas' world went down in flame and thunder. \"In the last generation of their power the Ryzgas knew by their science that the race of man would endure them no longer. They made ready their weapons, they mined the cities and the factories for destruction, making the naked skeletons of buildings and were followed by thunder and a shaking of the earth. poured a mad, hating horde. The recurrent flashes lit scarred faces, naked bodies blackened and maimed from the hell of the workshops where the Ryzgas' might had been forged, eyes that stared white and half sightless from the glare of the furnaces, gnarled hands that now at long last clutched the weapons of the last rebellion—a rebellion without hope of new life on a world gutted and smoldering from the fulfilment of the Ryzgas' dream, without slogans other than a cry for blood. Before them death waited around the citadel where the masters still fought. All round, from the lowest and most poisonous levels of the lightning blazed, and the city howled and screamed and burned. white globe soared upward, rising swiftly without sound. through—before. With deep respect now he gazed upon the bent old man who was the Mountain Watcher. \"Some of the Ryzgas took flight to the stars, and some perished on Earth. But there was a group of them who believed that their time to rule would come again. These raised a black mountain from the Earth's old time, because I must make sure that you do not approach the mountain in ignorance. Our world is unwise and sometimes evil, full of arrogance, folly, and passion that are in the nature of man. Yet it is a happy world, compared to that the Ryzgas made and will make again.\" gripped him. He had not slept since childhood, and he had forgotten how \"You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us—\" Watcher.\" \"Don't thank me. I take no sides in your valley feuds. But now you are rested, your minds are clear. Do you still mean to go on to the Ryzga mountain?\" Not looking at the Watcher, Var muttered unsteadily, \"We have no The glacial slope on which the cavern opened faced toward the mountain. the morning sun, but the mountain of the Ryzgas drank in the light and gave nothing back. Below their feet the slope fell away into an opaque sea of fog, filling Ryzga mountain.\" Quickly, he impressed on them what he had learned of the structure of the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little last on the cindery slope of the great volcanic cone, they sensed that little had the Ryzgas feared those who might assail them in their sleep. Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently, head thrown back, to their echoes that returned. The tunnel beyond mountain something snapped suddenly alert—something alive yet not for the two on the mountainside the world turned upside down, the of currents behind what appeared to be a blank tunnel wall, a rising Then they felt the mountain begin to tremble. A very faint and remote vibration at first, then an increasingly potent shuddering of the floor was in the Earth was rising great wheels commenced to turn, the mechanical servitors of the Ryzgas woke one by one and began to make ready, while their masters yet slept, for the moment of rebirth that might be near at hand. neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world outside should crumble to ruin around them. They plunged deeper into the mountain. And the shaking of the mountain 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 the two invaders felt the rapid shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum.... conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet not wholly roused from his two millenia of slumber. But the Ryzga's manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and assurance of self that smote them like a numbing blow. With a new shock, Var realized that the Ryzga's thoughts were quite open. They had a terse, disconnected quality that was strange and unsettling, and in part they were couched in alien and unintelligible progression of logical thought, came a wave of raw emotion, devastating in its force. It was a lustful image of a world once more obedient, crawling, laboring to do the Ryzgas' will— toward the stars, the stars! The icy calculation resumed: \"Immobilize these and the ones indicated in the passage above. Then wake the rest....\" Var was staring in fascination at the Ryzga's face. It was a face formed by the custom of unquestioned command Between the Ryzga and the control panel a nightmare shape reared up seven feet tall, flapping black amorphous limbs and flashing red eyes the Ryzga's frantic eyes. They glared back at him with such hatred and such evil that for an instant he almost faltered. But the Ryzga's efforts, as he strove to free himself from the neural hold, were as wrestle with the mind. Var had guessed right. When Neena in her terror had flung a dream monster into the Ryzga's way—a mere child's bogey out of a fairy tale—the Ryzga had not recognized it as such, but had taken it for a 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 our world, Ryzga! In two thousand years, we've learned some new things. Now at last I understand why you\n\n<question>:\nWhat causes the shaking of the mountain?\n\n<options>:\nA The awakening of the Ryzgas\nB Machines\nC Earthquakes and tremors\nD Dreams spun by the Ryzgas\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nName Your Symptom Extensive 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! very thick rubber soles. \"They might get soaked through.\" you cross that line, you won't be able to treat people again.\" along. Do you know that what we are doing is really the most primitive medicine in the world? We are treating the symptoms and not the disease. One cannibal walking another with sleeping sickness doesn't cure anything. Eventually the savage dies—just as all those sick savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not only the indications.\" Morgan shifted his ponderous weight uneasily. \"Now, Henry, it's no good to talk like that. We psychiatrists can't turn back the clock. There just aren't enough of us or enough time to give that old-fashioned therapy to all the sick people.\" The sickness overcame him. He sat down on Morgan's desk. \"That's just one thing, the gyro ball. There are so many others, so many.\" Morgan smiled. \"You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so—so—not all are like that. Those Cures for mother complexes aren't even obvious. If anybody does see that button in a patient's ear, it looks like a hearing aid. Yet for a nominal sum, the patient is equipped to \"But 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.\" seemed to be Normals, but you couldn't tell. Many \"Cures\" were not readily apparent. of Cure. \"Pardon me,\" he said warmly. he merely radiated narrowed eyes. \"How long have you been Cured?\" organization of the Cured?\" out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in Under the mousy hair, Price's strong features were beginning to gleam moistly. \"You are lucky in one way, Mr. Infield. People take one look at your Cure and don't ask you to go walking in the rain. But even 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?\" more interesting than what he was saying. \"It drives a needle into my temple and kills me.\" The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed to save lives, not endanger them. \"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. himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly death, they are often forced back to reality. A man can't move his defeat of his life and his withdrawal from life and live an enforced The psychiatrist knew the threat on the father's part couldn't create Cured,\" he said as a reminder. \"You don't understand. Everyone has some little phobia or fixation. Maybe everyone didn't have one once, but after being told they did have them for generations, everyone who didn't have one developed a defense mechanism and an aberration so they would be normal. If that phobia isn't brought to the surface and Cured, it may arise any time and endanger other people. The only safe, good sound citizens are Cured. Those lacking Cures—the Incompletes— must be dealt with .\" Price started to glance around the cafe, then half-shrugged, almost visibly thinking that he shouldn't run that routine into the ground. \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not—for their own good.\" Price was the type of man who could spread his ideas throughout the ranks of the Cured—if indeed the plot was not already universal, imposed upon many ill minds. He could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view. Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop secondary symptoms. People would start needing two Cures—perhaps a foetic gyro and a safety belt—then another and another. There would always be a crutch to lean on for one thing and then room enough to develop something else—until everyone would be loaded down with too many Cures to operate. A Cure was a last resort, dope for a malignancy case, euthanasia for the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and the race. relief for neurotic or psychopathic symptoms on someone who didn't want or need it? and suave, draped clothes. In this den of the Cured, Infield thought But then he noticed something about the baby she carried. The Cure had 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 Price laughed shortly. \"I feel like doing something very melodramatic, like throwing my drink—and yours—across the room, but I haven't got the guts to touch those glasses. Do it for me, will you? Cauterizing the bite might do me good if I'd been bitten by a rabid dog, but I me how you were going to Cure the Incompletes.\" \"I said we Doctor psychiatrists are sensitive about wearing Cures themselves, but it is a Cure and eager to Cure others. Very eager.\" Price leaned forward. \"There is one phobia that is so wide-spread, a Cure is not even thought of—hypochondria. Hundreds of people come to your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the other Cured psychiatrists give everybody who comes to you a Cure?\" Infield gestured vaguely. \"A psychiatrist wouldn't hand out Cures unless they were absolutely necessary.\" \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself. Other psychiatrists have.\" Mrs. Price screamed. \"The Cure! If you get that much liquor in his 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.\" the world as represented by these four Cured people. \"I'm afraid I'm less 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— monstrous threw the Cure on the floor. \"Now,\" he said, \"I am going out in that rain storm. There's thunder and lightning out there. I'm afraid, but I can get along without a Cure and lightning rod Cure. He could have picked a safety belt or foetic gyro right behind him, gaining) had been right. No one could discard a Cure. \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by out without his Cure.\" must have been crazy to leave his Cure....\" The door closed.\n\n<question>:\nWhat is the major drawback of issuing a cure to each person?\n\n<options>:\nA They may develop additional fears and require additional cures\nB The psychiatrist prescribing the cure is the only one who can control it\nC The cures all include an option that would kill its wearer\nD The cures are all costly placebos\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a kiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old friends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey. He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said, and- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. \"I didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough.\" So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat down beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't friends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he could communicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First One would again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—a return to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwash His mother came his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucille came. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and ate in the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. His family had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack of talkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially with company present—to describe everything and anything that had happened something like, \"Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean.\" This time she burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more was the fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comfort looked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested in this normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate, mumbled, \"Soup's getting cold,\" and began to eat. His hand shook a little his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' Tuesday Garden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat between Joe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he felt alone—and said, \"I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rose irritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barely touched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rare slices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. He cut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphie and said, \"Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.\" Ralphie said, \"Yeah, Dad.\" Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork and murmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and said Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at Ralphie Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe Joe was chewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked at Lucille she was disappearing into the living room. of, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, \"Hank!\" He said, voice hoarse, \"Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick of the lot of you.\" Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing food down his throat. Mother said, \"Henry dear—\" He didn't answer. She began to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. She hesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called the table. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said, \"Hey, I promised—\" anything to get away from your father.\" Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, \"Aw, no, Dad.\" Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening together—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\" Ralphie said, \"Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to.\" Hank stood up. \"The question is not whether I want to. You both know I they shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. lighted room. \"Phil and Rhona are here.\" He blinked at her. She smiled, and it seemed her old smile. \"They're so anxious to see you, Hank. I could barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They want to go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will.\" closest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. full of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, and clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so much more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was good for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go along on the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road to Manfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffee and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he merely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. rumbling up from his chest. \"You know why, folks?\" Rhona said, \"Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at—\" Hank said, \"No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth?\" Phil said, \"Because people are—\" And then he caught himself and waved his hand and muttered, \"I forgot the punch line.\" \"Because people are dying to get in,\" Hank said, and looked through the window, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleeting The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have been nothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. \"Maybe you should let me out right here,\" Hank said. \"I'm home—or that's what everyone seems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe that would satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula or another monster from the movies.\" Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\" little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening. I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurt you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as necessary. For good if need be.\" \"How could it be for good? How, Hank?\" She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was satisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own home.\n\n<question>:\nWhy does Hank want to eat alone?\n\n<options>:\nA Aunt Lucille won't shut up about the Ladies' Garden Club.\nB His family is not treating him like a normal person. Hank just wants to feel normal.\nC His family is talking too loudly at dinner, and there are too many people in the room. Hank is experiencing sensory overload.\nD His family was watching him eat like an animal in a zoo. Hank just wants to feel normal.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\n“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine, it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters anything that Judy can’t solve.” loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe she’d understand—understand any better than I do. more about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming exception.” “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder solve.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on the estate.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively. and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts to gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. would have preferred to forget. She liked to think but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally she was a good judge of character, and she had taken never stoop to crime. that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,” springs at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she confessed now as she reviewed everything that had Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact think she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told “in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused of trespassing.” her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided, went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t glad to have her. “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say much as to escape to a place where she could have a birthday. In another year she would have outgrown her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a vacation of her own. In another year she would and solving a mystery to be known as the her, “and you solved everything.” idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There she remembered saying aloud. mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls. the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one their faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing, she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion, know your wishes instead of muttering them to She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what Judy was telling them without interruption. And she went on to tell them how, the very next “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will “But what is there to cry about?” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had CHAPTER II First, she told her friends, she had to think of a wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful. airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything seemed impossible at the time, but the future did Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly, “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t you try to solve the mystery?” I had been older or more experienced. I really should have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine was your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered. “It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had tasted it too often while she was making it. lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine? “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy. relating still more of what she remembered about she and Grandpa like the way they lived without and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed monster coming between her and her handsome husband, in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!” sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way. “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed that her parents left her every summer while they “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” She and Lois both argued that it would be better to and said if they did find the fountain she thought she’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother said about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You Lorraine reminded her. “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s another car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for playing hide and seek?”\n\n<question>:\nWhat did Lorraine likely learn by the end of this text?\n\n<options>:\nA be loyal to your friends\nB honesty can keep you out of trouble\nC be skeptical of stories\nD jealousy can get you in trouble\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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 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 physis (nature), gnomon (judge or interpreter). All of Greek society, it was claimed, could benefit from this skill: it could assist with choosing an employee, a slave or a spouse, while its inherent vagueness made it intriguing to philosophers and useful for scientists who bent the theories to support their own beliefs. It became a recognised science in the Islamic world, and was used and taught in Europe throughout late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, despite nagging doubts among thinkers and physicians of the day. In the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci claimed not to \"concern myself with false physiognomy, because these chimeras have no scientific foundation.\" Theories of physiognomy, however, would persist beyond the Renaissance. In 1586, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta published a book, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII, which established him as the 'father of Physiognomy'. Della Porta's thinking was based on the 'doctrine of signatures' the idea that the appearance of plants and animals offers clues to their nature. For example, as one writer of the time suggested, walnuts are good for curing headaches because they're shaped a bit like a human head. The theories in della Porta's book were supported by dozens of detailed illustrations which, by comparing human faces to those of animals, suggested that they must surely share similar character traits. In the 17th century, Swiss poet Johann Caspar Lavater took della Porta's methodology and ran with it, commissioning artists to illustrate his popular Essays On Physiognomy – which, to the chagrin of his contemporary, the writer Hannah More, sold for \"fifteen guineas a set… while in vain we boast that philosophy [has] broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition.\" Lavater's work was criticised for being ridden with bias (black faces rarely emerged well from his analyses) but he was right in one respect: \"Whether they are or are not sensible of it,\" he wrote, \"all men are daily influenced by physiognomy.\" Many studies have been done into our psychological response to faces, and it's clear that a so-called halo effect will inevitably work its magic. \"Attractive people are regarded as better at everything,\" says Professor Peter Hancock, lecturer in Psychology at Stirling University. \"And we can't shake that off because there's some truth to it. Good genes produce intelligent people, attractive faces, fit bodies, and we imagine that they're going to be good at everything else, too. We don't have good insight into our own behaviour. We tend to think we understand what we're doing, but we don't.\" 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. The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour – not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results. The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as \"What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?\" prompted a wave of press coverage. The vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality – but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. \"The main problem is the sampling of the images,\" he says. \"There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status.\" The revitalisation of the theory of physiognomy by the Shanghai students is, according to Todorov, deeply problematic on a theoretical level. \"Are we back to Lombroso's theory,\" he asks, \"that criminals were anomalous creatures, evolutionary degenerates? How does one become criminal, and what role do various life forces play into this? There are people making claims that you just need to look at the face to predict personality and behaviour, but many of these people have not given much thought to their underlying assumptions.\" While it's true that we judge books by their covers, covers are more than just faces we piece together all kinds of cues from people to form our impressions of them. Jimmy Savile's appearance was unusual by any standards, but we absorbed a great deal of information about him over the years that will have influenced our opinions – not least from the original Louis Theroux programme from 2000 that was reexamined in that recent BBC documentary. Savile's vague resemblance to the Child Catcher from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is convenient but ultimately misleading, and the way it reinforces the idea of what a paedophile might 'look like' is unfortunate\n\n<question>:\nHistorical figures have proposed all of the following theories regarding physiognomy EXCEPT for the idea that:\n\n<options>:\nA humans share similar characteristics to animals based on their facial features and mannerisms\nB humans can use physiognomy to select which employees, slaves, and mates may be most compatible with them\nC humans are constantly influenced by physiognomy on a daily basis\nD humans will never be able to eliminate the effects of physiognomy from their decision-making\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "D" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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? Digital technologies have created more than one revolution. Let’s call this one the access revolution. Why don’t more authors take advantage of the access revolution to reach more readers? The answer is pretty clear. Authors who share their works in this way aren’t selling them, and even authors with purposes higher than money depend on sales to make a living. Or at least they appreciate sales. If authors like that exist, at least they should take advantage of the access revolution. The dream of global free access can be a reality for them, even if most other authors hope to earn royalties and feel obliged to sit out this particular revolution. These lucky authors are scholars, and the works they customarily write and publish without payment are peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Open access is the name of the revolutionary kind of access these authors, unencumbered by a motive of financial gain, are free to provide to their readers. Open 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. A price tag 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. Newcomers to OA often assume that OA helps readers and hurts authors, and that the reader side of the scholarly soul must beg the author side to make the necessary sacrifice. But OA benefits authors as well as readers. Authors want access to readers at least as much as readers want access to authors. All authors want to cultivate a larger audience and greater impact. Authors who work for royalties have reason to compromise and settle for the smaller audience of paying customers. But authors who aren’t paid for their writing have no reason to compromise. Another aspect of author self-interest emerges from the well-documented phenomenon that OA articles are cited more often than non-OA articles, even when they are published in the same issue of the same journal. There’s growing evidence that OA articles are downloaded more often as well, and that journals converting to OA see a rise in their submissions and citation impact. There are many hypotheses to explain the correlation between OA and increased citations, but it’s likely that ongoing studies will show that much of the correlation is simply due to the larger audience and heightened visibility provided by OA itself. When you enlarge the audience for an article, you also enlarge the subset of the audience that will later cite it, including professionals in the same field at institutions unable to afford subscription access. OA enlarges the potential audience, including the potential professional audience, far beyond that for even the most prestigious and popular subscription journals. In any case, these studies bring a welcome note of author self-interest to the case for OA. OA is not a sacrifice for authors who write for impact rather than money. It increases a work’s visibility, retrievability, audience, usage, and citations, which all convert to career building. For publishing scholars, it would be a bargain even if it were costly, difficult, and time-consuming. But as we’ll see, it’s not costly, not difficult, and not time-consuming. My colleague Stevan Harnad frequently compares research articles to advertisements. They advertise the author’s research. Try telling advertisers that they’re making a needless sacrifice by allowing people to read their ads without having to pay for the privilege. Advertisers give away their ads and even pay to place them where they might be seen. They do this to benefit themselves, and scholars have the same interest in sharing their message as widely as possible. 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. A beautiful opportunity exists where the willingness and the medium overlap. A scholarly custom that evolved in the seventeenth century frees scholars to take advantage of the access revolution in the twentieth and twenty-first. Because scholars are nearly unique in following this custom, they are nearly unique in their freedom to take advantage of this revolution without financial risk. In this sense, the planets have aligned for scholars. Most other authors are constrained to fear rather than seize the opportunities created by the internet. We could talk about vigilante OA, infringing OA, piratical OA, or OA without consent. That sort of OA could violate copyrights and deprive royalty-earning authors of royalties against their will. But we could also talk about vigilante publishing, infringing publishing, piratical publishing, or publishing without consent. Both happen. However, we generally reserve the term “publishing” for lawful publishing, and tack on special adjectives to describe unlawful variations on the theme. Likewise, I’ll reserve the term “open access” for lawful OA that carries the consent of the relevant rightsholder. OA isn’t primarily about bringing access to lay readers. If anything, the OA movement focuses on bringing access to professional researchers whose careers depend on access. But there’s no need to decide which users are primary and which are secondary. The publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don’t care to read research literature and wouldn’t understand it if they tried. OA is about bringing access to everyone with an internet connection who wants access, regardless of their professions or purposes. There’s no doubt that if we put “professional researchers” and “everyone else” into separate categories, a higher percentage of researchers will want access to research literature, even after taking into account that many already have paid access through their institutions. But it’s far from clear why that would matter, especially when providing OA to all internet users is cheaper and simpler than providing OA to just a subset of worthy internet users. If party-goers in New York and New Jersey can both enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks in New York Harbor, then the sponsors needn’t decide that one group is primary, even if a simple study could show which group is more numerous. If this analogy breaks down, it’s because New Jersey residents who can’t see the fireworks gain nothing from New Yorkers who can. But research does offer this double or indirect benefit. When OA research directly benefits many lay readers, so much the better. But when it doesn’t, it still benefits everyone indirectly by benefiting researchers directly. (Also see section 5.5.1 on access for lay readers.) 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: open access\n\n<question>:\nHow do authors benefit from open access?\n\n<options>:\nA There is potential for more citations because of the relative accessibility of the work\nB Papers get published faster in open-access journals\nC It is easier to get published in an open-access journal than one with a paywall\nD Readership could increase because open-access journals advertise more accessibly\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the 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! that I might ever see, so I took a long final look from the top of the ramp. There were sixteen of us girls and thirteen boys. We took our places me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An intelligent runt like me. He said what I expected. \"Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get come back alive.\" It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went back to his place without saying anything. My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the 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 kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going to drop you. All I knew was the name. I wouldn't have known that much if Daddy weren't Chairman of the Council. The gravity is always wrong, for one thing. Either your arches and calves ache or every time you step you think you're going to trip on a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere and little grubby things just looking for you been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but not for me. We have a place in the Ship like that—the Third Level—but it's only a thousand square miles and any time it gets on your nerves you can go up a level or down a level and be back in civilization. When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They don't care what order you go in, so Jimmy D. jumped up, grabbed his gear and then led his horse down the ramp. I think he was still 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 from decaying mentally and physically, and this is it. And it helps to keep the population steady. 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. No, he isn't really a meatball. The trouble is that I don't take On the third day, I found the road. I brought Ninc down off the hillside, losing sight of the road in the trees, and then reaching identify. One of the smartest moves in history was to include horses when established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have draft animals. The first of the Great Ships was finished in 2025. One of the eight, as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything had to be domesticated from scratch. That would have been stupid. I'll We'd come in from the west over the ocean, so I traveled east on the \"Where be you from?\" he asked. \"And where be you going?\" I pointed ahead. No other way to go. Daddy, who should know better. English spoken any way but one, even on the planet Daddy made me visit to Forton for protection.\" I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. the creatures still while one beat a dust-raising retreat down the road. I put this episode in the \"file and hold for analysis\" section in my mind and rode on, feeling good. I think I even giggled once. Sometimes I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. III When I was nine, my Daddy gave me a painted wooden doll that my great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, the last. I like to watch people when they open it for the first time. My face must have been like that as I rode along the road. 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 hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work. But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were no machines more complicated than the trucks I'd seen earlier. At the were little kids, there were boys and there were men, but no girls. All Horst and his buddies assumed I was a boy. It wasn't flattering I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the four children. It was the most foul thing I've ever seen. It struck me evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have been of was to find a library, but that might be a job. I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the Not too different, but not ours. One more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and takes an advanced technology to build. I felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to his wife and their three children. The kids were running around and The kids weren't to blame for their parents, but when one of them said hello to me, I didn't even answer. I know how lousy I would feel if I had two or three brothers and sisters, but it didn't strike me until that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these it seemed just right. It was about an old witch named Baba Yaga who lived in the forest in nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony errand into the deep dark woods at nightfall. I could appreciate the poor girl's position. All the little girl had to help her were the handkerchief, the comb and the pearl that she had inherited from her I wished for the same for myself. The old man had just finished and they were starting to drag the kids I never got the chance. JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW or TRUTH OUR SHIELD AND JUSTICE OUR SWORD or something stuffy like that. knew I'd goofed. \"Boy, boy. Don't talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear, but I be letting you go. You go to saddle. \"What's the name of the kid in jail in Forton.\" said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was that my ears rang. \"You dirty little punk.\"\n\n<question>:\nWhere did Mia grow up?\n\n<options>:\nA Earth\nB a space ship\nC Tintera\nD The Third Level\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "B" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nOwen Fiss is a professor at the Yale Law School and a highly regarded scholar of constitutional law. The subject of this short book is the present direction of the law governing the freedom of speech. What Professor Fiss has to say about it is worth attending to not merely because of his prominence in the field but because his argument is planted in the common assumptive ground of a lot of contemporary academic thought about the bankruptcy of individualism. The thesis of the book is Fiss', but the wisdom is conventional. Professor Fiss thinks the present direction of First Amendment law is a bad one, and he has an idea about how we might improve it. The short way to put his argument (though it is not quite the way he puts it) is to say that our approach to speech has become increasingly permissive. Courts have become more and more reluctant to allow the state to interfere with the rights of individual speakers to say what they wish, and it is time to roll back that permissiveness and to embark on a new approach that would permit the state to silence some speakers and promote others, but still, Fiss argues, in the name of freedom of speech. This 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 The historical part of this analysis rests on a canard, which is the assertion that the constitutional law of free speech emerged from 19 th -century classical laissez-faire liberalism. It did not. It emerged at the time of World War I, and the principal figures in its creation--Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Louis Brandeis--were not classical liberals they were progressives. They abhorred the doctrine of natural rights because, in their time, that doctrine was construed to cover not the right to \"self-expression\" but the \"right to property.\" Turn-of-the-century courts did not display a libertarian attitude toward civil rights 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. 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.\n\n<question>:\nWhat would be Fiss' opinions on the current laws regarding self expression today?\n\n<options>:\nA He thinks that the current laws are changing for the better.\nB He thinks they are oppressive and dangerous.\nC He thinks they unfortunately don't apply to everyone due to social constraints.\nD He feels the laws are not written correctly.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "C" } ]

[ { "human": "Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.\n\n<passage>:\nall rather close to an unimportant star listed as DRI-G 33987. They're called Jorgensen's Worlds, and in themselves are of no importance whatever. However, they lie deep in the sector into which the Soetti \"Now—\" Magnan leaned forward and lowered his voice—\"we have learned that the Soetti plan a bold step forward. Since they've met no opposition so far in their infiltration of Terrestrial space, they intend to seize Jorgensen's Worlds by force.\" Jorgensen's Worlds are technologically undeveloped areas. They're farmers or traders. Their industry is limited to a minor role in their economy—enough to support the merchant fleet, no more. The war the folder?\" Magnan spread his fingers, folded one down. \"First,\" he said. \"The Soetti War Plan—in detail. We were fortunate enough to make contact with a defector from a party of renegade Terrestrials who've been advising the Soetti.\" He folded another finger. \"Next, a battle plan for the Jorgensen's people, worked out by the Theory group.\" He wrestled a third finger down. \"Lastly this building.\" \"I'll carry it, sealed,\" Retief said. \"That way nobody can sweat it out of me.\" \"That doesn't leave me much time.\" \"I have your itinerary here. Your accommodations are clear as far as Aldo Cerise. You'll have to rely on your ingenuity to get you the rest of the way.\" Jorgensens can handle it very nicely every other man is a mechanic of some sort.\" inside. \"Less than four hours to departure time,\" he said. \"I'd better not start any long books.\" Retief stood up. \"If I hurry, maybe I can catch the cartoon.\" \"The allusion escapes me,\" Magnan said coldly. \"And one last word. The Soetti are patrolling the trade lanes into Jorgensen's Worlds don't get yourself interned.\" snootful by takeoff.\" He went to the door. \"No objection to my checking II Retief put down the heavy travel-battered suitcase and leaned on the counter, studying the schedules chalked on the board under the legend \"ALDO CERISE—INTERPLANETARY.\" A thin clerk in a faded sequined blouse \"Two twenty-eight, due out today for the Jorgensen group,\" Retief said. \"Is it on schedule?\" canceled. You'll have to try to get space on the Four-Planet Line ship next—\" clamped his jaws together, turned to speak over his shoulder. \"Somebody in the cabin. Get 'em out.\" He rolled a cold eye at Retief as \"What are you doing in Mr. Tony's room?\" he barked. \"Never mind! Clear out of here, fellow! You're keeping Mr. Tony waiting.\" \"Too bad,\" Retief said. \"Finders keepers.\" \"You nuts?\" The thick-necked man stared at Retief. \"I said it's Mr. \"We'll see about you, mister.\" The man turned and went out. Retief sat on the bunk and lit a cigar. There was a sound of voices in the corridor. Two burly baggage-smashers appeared, straining at an \"Looks like it, old-timer,\" Retief said. \"Maybe I'd better go join the skipper. His party seems to be having all the fun.\" \"Feller has to be mighty careless who he eats with to set over there.\" \"You set right where you're at, Mister. I'll rustle you up a plate.\" Five minutes later, Retief cut into a thirty-two ounce Delmonico backed Retief ate slowly. Time always dragged on shipboard. Four days to Jorgensen's Worlds. Then, if Magnan's information was correct, there would be four days to prepare for the Soetti attack. It was a temptation to scan the tapes built into the handle of his suitcase. It would be good to know what Jorgensen's Worlds would be up against. Retief finished the steak, and the chef passed out the baked Alaska and coffee. Most of the other passengers had left the dining room. Mr. Tony and his retainers still sat at the Captain's table. As Retief watched, four men arose from the table and sauntered across The others came up, Mr. Tony trailing. \"You must want to get to Jorgensen's pretty bad,\" the thug said in a grating voice. \"What's your game, hick?\" won't mess with me.\" \"What has Mr. Tony got on the captain, Chip?\" Retief asked. \"They're in some kind o' crooked business together. You want some more smoked turkey?\" \"Sure. What have they got against my going to Jorgensen's Worlds?\" \"I'll bet you can still handle it, Old Timer. What are Jorgensen's his own cookin' like he does somebody else's.\" \"That's where I'm lucky, Chip. What kind of cargo's the captain got aboard for Jorgensen's?\" \"Derned if I know. In and out o' there like a grasshopper, ever few weeks. Don't never pick up no cargo. No tourists any more, like I says. Don't know what we even run in there for.\" \"Where are the passengers we have aboard headed?\" \"To Alabaster. That's nine days' run in-sector from Jorgensen's. You ain't got another one of them cigars, have you?\" triple-damned if that ain't them boarding us now.\" \"Don't horse around,\" the captain said. \"This fellow can get mean.\" aboard, don't bother to call.\" that's the secret.\" \"Maybe you got a point,\" the captain said, looking at Retief. \"All they got's a three-man scout. It could work.\" He went out, came back with two crewmen. They hauled the dead alien gingerly into the hall. \"Maybe I can run a bluff on the Soetti,\" the captain said, looking back from the door. \"But I'll be back to see you later.\" \"You don't scare us, Cap'n,\" Chip said. \"Him and Mr. Tony and all his \"You'd better take the captain's advice, Chip. There's no point in your a little and see what's goin' on. If the Sweaties figure to do anything about that Skaw feller they'll have to move fast they won't try nothin' close to port.\" \"You want to get to Jorgensen's perty bad, don't you, Mister?\" \"The orders cap'n give was to change course fer Alabaster. We're by-passin' Jorgensen's Worlds. We'll feel the course change any minute.\" \"This is it,\" Chip said softly. \"You want me to keep an eye on who comes down the passage?\" \"What do you think you're doing, busting in here?\" \"I hear you're planning a course change, Captain.\" \"I think we'd better call in at Jorgensen's.\" \"You do, huh?\" the captain sat down. \"I'm in command of this vessel,\" he said. \"I'm changing course for Alabaster.\" \"I wouldn't find it convenient to go to Alabaster,\" Retief said. \"So just hold your course for Jorgensen's.\" \"It's eighteen hours yet before we pick up Jorgensen Control. You going Retief settled himself in a chair. \"Instead of strangling you, as you deserve,\" he said, \"I'm going to stay here and help you hold your course for Jorgensen's Worlds.\" The captain looked at Retief. He laughed, a short bark.\n\n<question>:\nWhat makes the captain’s recent trips to Jorgenson’s suspicious?\n\n<options>:\nA He hasn't been taking tourists, and no one knows what cargo he's bringing with him.\nB Jorgenon's Worlds are frozen over, so it's strange that he makes runs to them.\nC He's working with Mr. Tony, and bringing cargo in and out without bringing along normal tourists.\nD He's bringing cargo to the Soetti to help with their plans.\n\n<answer>:\n", "assistant": "A" } ]