user: I have never had a lot of money. But I don’t believe you have to have a lot for it to become burdensome. Money has always seemed to be a burden. Either you have it and the obligation and responsibility becomes a burden (so I’ve been told, ha) or you don’t have it and life without money becomes a burden. I guess money became a burden to me when I started paying my own bills. Let me explain. I raised my 2 girls by myself. I was fortunate to have a good job as an office manager for a doctor in Dallas. I was able to pay my bills and juggle things around to afford what the girls needed for school and what not. When I didn’t have money for something they wanted I felt like I carried the world on my shoulders. I didn’t let them know how stressful it all was because I felt like it was none of their business. They were kids and needed to be kids. They would soon enough be feeling the stress of managing their own household and shouldn’t be asked to help shoulder that burden as kids. Once, me and my youngest daughter, who was an adult at this time, went to a drive in fast food place and got a couple of drinks. My daughter was treating me and when the car hop came to deliver the drinks, my daughter gave her $5.00 as a tip, which was more than the drinks! I, of course, asked why she did that and she told me that they live off their tips and she knew what that was like having been a waitress before. I said something about her needing the money as well and how money makes the world go around. She said “No, Mom, you can be dead-assed broke and the world is still going to go around.” That was when I quit letting money be a burden. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: After the end of the story, the narrator is probably: Options:  A. burdened by money  B. not burdened by money  C. loves money  D. not enough information
B
(Question)
Rain, the young man is thinking. Of course it would be raining. Not a heavy, cleansing rain that leaves the streets steaming and the neatly sculptured yards lush and fragrant. This is a gray drizzling rain. A rain that makes him think of places like England and Scotland as they appear in those disturbing late night films on cable, the ones in black and white that weren't particularly memorable when they were made and are even less so now. Still, it rains and the air is cool. All he has to shelter him is a think nylon jacket. The jacket is soaked. It feels both chilly and coarse against his skin. His hair hangs in flat and sodden wings, falling into his eyes. It's long in the back, almost to his shoulders, and he thinks that the cars that pass him on the street, the occupants of those cars, might look at him and see only that he is wet and not that he is dirty as well. Can they tell that his hair has been unwashed for days? That his clothes are the same ones he's worn for more than a week? It doesn't matter. He's invisible to them as soon as they pass, taking any assumptions they might make with them. They might just mistake him for one of those hoity-toity college kids, one of those clean limbed and beaming have's who has happened to find himself caught out without his umbrella. He makes a desultory attempt to straighten his shoulders, to lift his eyes from the buckled sidewalk. To look like he might have a purpose or a destination. It doesn't help. He has become the day. He has internalized the environment. He did that years ago, in fact. That's all I can do. Not his words, of course, but he understands them. He is intimately acquainted with his limitations. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: Why is the young man walking in the rain? Options:  A. His friend never picked him up  B. not enough information  C. He was unable to find his umbrella  D. He forgot his car
(Answer)
B
What would you do – you’re driving past hundreds of citrus trees. With a better look, they’re mandarins, or, more precisely clementines. On the roadside is a truck selling crates of them for 1 euro a kilo. You stop, right? And buy a crate of 10 kilos. Even though you have to get on a plane the next day. I couldn’t help myself. Marco, who I had already made turn 180 degrees to drive back to the truck, gave me that look of disapproval when I want to do something totally unreasonable like impulse buy citrus fruit that we can’t keep. “What are we going to do with these?” He questioned. I wasn’t sure. I wanted to taste them, I wanted to photograph them. And maybe I could even squeeze some of them into our tiny bag to take home. “It won’t be a waste, I’ll give the rest away!” I reasoned. He just shook his head, giving in. I bought them, a big grin on my face. We were just outside the port city of Taranto, on the western coast of Puglia in Italy’s deep south, where we spent a long weekend recently and where clementines have special IGP (Protected Geographical Indication) status. These clementines — a hybrid of oranges and mandarins — grow in the fertile soil around the gulf of Taranto, particularly around the town of Palagiano (also known as “the city of clementines” — they celebrate the symbol of their city with a sagra, a food festival, every December) and the delicate fruit is harvested by hand. We don’t get these in Florence, it was my only chance to taste them – they are small with very few, if any, seeds, and they are very sweet. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: Why did Marco have to make a turn back? Options:  A. Because the author wanted to admire the hundreds of citrus trees  B. Because the author wanted to talk to the truck driver  C. not enough information  D. Because the author wanted to buy some kilos of clementines


assistant: D