user: (Question)
I was 35 weeks pregnant when I had my stroke. For weeks prior to the event I kept experiencing ‘visual disturbances.’ I felt when I was reading a newspaper or book a sense that my eyes were crossing. I’d feel aware right before it would occur and I would rush to look in a mirror only to discover my eyes were not crossing. I informed my OB who blamed it on the blood vessels in my eyes enlarging due to pregnancy. Ummm ok. You know more than me. Later I was told by a surgeon what I was experiencing was ‘textbook’ for the passing of blood clots through my occipital area of the brain! The feeling would eventually subside. I awoke one morning feeling ‘kind of fuzzy’ headed. Like I had slept too hard. I sat with my husband at the kitchen table for our morning coffee and newspaper and for no reason I could imagine I was unable to swallow my coffee and it dribbled out the left side of my mouth. My husband asked me what was going on and I apparently told him, I was ‘stroking’ out. He got up from the table assuming I was OK and went off to take his morning shower. While in the shower it occurred to him something might not be right. He came back to the table where I was struggling to lift myself from the chair. I put my hands on the table to lift my body and my left hand kept sliding off the edge. He finally got behind me and tried to lift me under my arms and I crumbled to the floor. He then called my OB and told him he thought I’d had a stroke. My OB immediately expressed his doubt but my husband was advised to call an ambulance to get me to the ER. I never really experienced pain from the stroke. How far along in pregnancy was she when she had her stroke?  A. almost ready to have baby  B. not enough information  C. weeks before having the baby  D. 35 weeks
(Answer)
D


(Question)
It will come as no surprise to those working in the UK’s higher education (HE) sector that universities are currently suffused with anxiety. The University and College Union (UCU) has recently been in dispute with employers over proposed changes to the USS pension scheme, and the most sustained period of industrial action in the sector’s history has highlighted the fears staff have for the security of their futures post-retirement. Such unprecedented strike action needs to be situated within the wider context of a public sector undergoing transformation: while the concept remains contested, the influence of “neoliberal” ideas on universities can most clearly be seen in Success as a Knowledge Economy – the government white paper that preceded the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act – which states: “Competition between providers in any market incentivises them to raise their game, offering consumers a greater choice of more innovative and better quality products and services at lower cost. Higher education is no exception.” Yet what might “raising our game” mean for academic staff? The university has been described as an “anxiety machine”: the creeping marketisation of the sector along with pressure to recruit students (now “consumers”), increasing managerialism, and the implementation of processes of audit – such as the REF and TEF – to evaluate performance have arguably contributed to a progressively anxious landscape in which to labour. In 2016/17, 34% of academic staff were employed on fixed-term contracts – a figure likely to be disputed by the UCU, since in 2016 it estimated the extent of casualisation in the sector to be closer to 54% once atypical contracts had been taken into consideration. In addition to pressures facing many staff in universities – such as time-management, meeting growing employer expectations, and the evaluation of performance – “casualised” contracts present particular challenges for those facing employment uncertainty: in a material sense, this can be a case of keeping up with... Who probably is worried about life after retirement in the story?  A. professors  B. not enough information  C. government officials  D. students
(Answer)
B


(Question)
Bryan C. Keene and Alexandra Kaczenski of the Getty Museum’s Manuscripts Department have spent the last few years preparing for an exhibition and publication titled Sacred Landscapes: Nature in Renaissance Manuscripts that aims to examine representations of “green spaces” such as gardens, vistas, and their relation to the divine. In particular, Bryan and Alexandra focus on the ways in which artists during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance embedded the pages of illuminated manuscripts with depictions of the natural world so that nature could guide prayer, chant, and meditation. For Bryan, this project represents a continuation of his interest in sacred gardens that began with his graduate work on the garden imagery that influenced Botticelli’s Agony in the Garden painting. In 2013 he curated the exhibition and authored the accompanying book Gardens of the Renaissance. For Alexandra, interest in this subject stems from her scholarly focus on Flemish manuscripts and their relation to Flemish landscape paintings. She brought to the project a complementary interest in issues of environmental and landscape destruction, which also were themes of the exhibition and publication. Though floral and nature studies of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods have been extensively investigated—the scientific notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, for example, are well documented—this exhibition turns its focus on landscape and the divine. Curatorial research has shed new light on subjects such as the seemingly “scattered” floral arrangements represented within the pages of these books and their relationship to humoral theory and religion. Bryan adds, “The tension that we find in these borders is, on the one hand, intricately rendered leaf and petal structures of plants or flowers, and on the other, hidden whimsical elements, all of which combine to create a rich tapestry of meaning, both symbolic and scientific. Alex and I will continue to explore the potential meaning within this botanical and arboreal chaos.” Sacred... When did the Sacred Landscapes exhibit open at the Getty Museum?  A. 2013  B. Middle Ages  C. 2017  D. not enough information
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assistant: C