Light dappled through the trees in the family courtyard, painting shadows on the paving stones. Li Reiko knelt by her son to look at his scraped knee. "I just scratched it." Nawi squirmed under her hands. Her daughter, Aya, leaned over her shoulder studying the healing. "Maybe Mama will show you her armor after she heals you." Nawi stopped wiggling. "Really?" Reiko shot Aya a warning look, but her little boy's dark eyes shone with excitement. Reiko smiled. "Really." What did tradition matter? "Now let me heal your knee." She laid her hand on the shallow wound. "Ow." "Shush." Reiko closed her eyes and rose in the dark space within her mind. In her mind's eye, Reiko took her time with the ritual, knowing it took less time than it appeared. In a heartbeat, green fire flared out to the walls of her mind. She dissolved into it as she focused on healing her son. When the wound closed beneath her hand, she sank to the surface of her mind. "There." She tousled Nawi's hair. "That wasn't bad, was it?" "It tickled." He wrinkled his nose. "Will you show me your armor now?" She sighed. She should not encourage his interest in the martial arts. His work would be with the histories that men kept, and yet... "Watch." Pulling the smooth black surface out of the ether, she manifested her armor. It sheathed her like silence in the night. Aya watched with obvious anticipation for the day when she earned her own armor. Nawi's face, full of sharp yearning for something he would never have, cut Reiko's heart like a new blade. "Can I see your sword?" She let her armor vanish back into thought. "No." Reiko brushed his hair from his eyes. "It's my turn to hide, right?" What part of Nawi's body hurts? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. His back B. not enough information C. His knee D. His arms
C

I was driving on Highway 35 on my way home from work. Up in front of me was a giant billboard advertising yet another jeweler, in ten-foot letters and bright silver watches like massive alien machines. The traffic slowed and stopped on the ramp as it bottlenecked further into the city, and my head turned to examine the sign and the blocked view of the cityscape and land beyond. Past it was another billboard, with the name of a casino as its only text, filled with collaged images of money, plush rooms, and dancers. A quarter mile further brought me to an advertisement for business management solutions. Another few hundred yards and I was urged to try the new sandwich at the new sandwich place. The sun set and the signs stayed bright as automatic light switched on. The city grew dark and the hills beyond feebled out, existing only in our minds and finally not even there. All that remained were the well-lit and shiny reminders that lawyers were standing by to take my case to court, and that somebody's air conditioners would outlast somebody else's. I had an idea. I made the call the next day. It would put me back a good half grand, but it would be worth it. There would be no design meeting; I sent them the image and it was printed. A few weeks later it went up. Now on my commute, when I paused in the crush of metal bodies, I looked up and saw mountains by Maxfield Parrish, reaching up to the clouds in impossible cragginess, rivulets and gushing streams painted down their sides, with the sun striking vibrant oranges and reds into the shadows of the rocks. There were trees in copper-patina green and still pools quieter than the middle of winter but warm as the first day of summer. No doubt people thought it was the first part of a two-stage advertising gimmick, or a filler to be used when no one was renting space on the sign. But I was happy. After the events outlined by the story, the narrator feels: Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Happy B. Confused C. not enough information D. Tired
A

Have you ever sat around and thought about how you'd create your dream kitchen if you had the chance? Well, we are on the verge of a move (whenever the house sells, we'll move), and I keep thinking that I need to sit down and write a list of our "would likes" and our "must haves." That way, when we are house hunting, we'll already know what we're looking for. For a chance to win an Un Amore custom-designed KitchenAid Stand Mixer from PartSelect, I have been thinking about the top three "would likes" for our new kitchen and decided to check out what KitchenAid has to offer! I discovered three appliances that would change our reality kitchen into a dream kitchen. We have two young boys that will change into tweens and teens before we know it. Big Brother has always been a good eater, open to trying just about anything we put in front of him. However, discovering that he actually does have some control over what he does, he's lately turned up his nose on occasion. Little Brother is exactly like me when I was young. He turns his nose up at just about anything. Although he did just spend a week with his grandparents and decided he would eat and make up for lost mealsand make me out to be a liar! Anyway, I keep reminding myself as I find myself challenged at mealtimes, that soon enough, they'll be eating us out of house and home. So, one of the larger dream kitchen appliances I'd like in our home would be a double oven! I just think it'd come in really handy when trying to keep up with their metabolism down the road! When you're preparing a lot of food, you're typically buying a lot of products, and the garbage and recycling bins fill up faster than ever as well. The second dream kitchen appliance I wouldn't mind having would be the KitchenAid Trash Compactor, reducing our use of garbage bags and trips to the outside dumpster. Plus, I think I'd like not having to smell the garbage all the time! The author wrote this Essay Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. After winning the KitchenAid Stand Mixer B. not enough information C. Before anything else D. After selling their house
C