Answer the questions at the end based on the text.

CHAPTER XXVIII

FIRE AND HAIL

On the morning after her return from Winnipeg, Beatrice sat in her father's study, with Mowbray facing her across the table. He looked thoughtful, but not so shocked and indignant as she had expected.

"So you are determined to throw Harding over!"

"Yes," Beatrice said in a strained voice. "It seems impossible to do anything else."

"A broken engagement's a serious matter; we Mowbrays keep our word. I hope you're quite sure of your ground."

"What I heard left no room for doubt."

"Did you hear the man's defense?"

"I refused to listen," said Beatrice coldly. "That he should try to excuse himself only made it worse."

"I'm not sure that's very logical. I'll confess that Harding and I seldom agree, but one must be fair."

"Does that mean that one ought to be lenient?" Beatrice asked with an angry sparkle in her eyes.

Mowbray was conscious of some embarrassment. His ideas upon the subject were not sharply defined, but if it had not been his daughter who questioned him he could have expressed them better. Beatrice ought to have left her parents to deal with a delicate matter like this, but instead she had boldly taken it into her own hands. He had tried to bring up his children well, but the becoming modesty which characterized young women in his youth had gone.

"No," he answered; "not exactly lenient. But the thing may not be so bad as you think--and one must make allowances. Then, a broken engagement reflects upon both parties. Even if one of them has an unquestionable grievance, it proves that that person acted very rashly in making a promise in the first instance."

1. What had Beatrice broken?
2. with woh?
3. did her father and harding often agree?
4. Does he think she should have kept the engagement?
5. does he think she is being fair?
6. would she listen to her fiancee's excuses?
7. did she believe what she had heard about him?
8. Did her father think it made sense notto hear Harding's side of the story?
9. did he think she should have made the decision on her own?
10. who should have been involved?
11. did he think his daughter immodest?
12. did he see it as a parenting failure?
13. who does he feel looks bad in a broken engagement
14. what might it show>?

Numbered answers:

A: 1. engagement
2. Harding
3. No
4. yes
5. No
6. No
7. Yes
8. No
9. No
10. her parents
11. yes
12. Yes
13. both parties.
14. person acted very rashly in making a promise in the first instance

Answer the questions at the end based on the text.

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Ramesh Makwana knew the risks to his health by working in an agate factory, but at $4 a day the rewards were too great.

Now, after 14 years of breathing in the fine dust created by grinding and polishing the gemstone, Makwana has silicosis, a respiratory disease that swells the lungs.

"He's thankful to the stone because it helped him survive for so long. But now that he has lost so much, it is also a feeling of anger," Makwana told CNN through an interpreter, Mohit Gupta, the co-ordinator for the Occupational, Environmental Health Network of India.

"He has lost his parents to it, and he himself knows he's going to die some day," he said.

It's not known how many other workers in Asia are suffering from occupational diseases, but the Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC) has warned that the region is facing an epidemic.

The last estimate on work-related diseases in Asia was released by the International Labor Organization in 2008. It estimated that more than 1.1 million people in Asia were dying each year.

"One-point-one million is a really high number, but even then we're not sure, we think it may be a really conservative number," said Sanjiv Pandita, Executive Director of the AMRC.

Frustrated by the lack of official records, Pandita and his team set out to find the true extent of the problem in six Asian countries: China, India, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.

A report released ahead of this year's International Workers' Memorial Day on April 28, found similar problems in all countries; a lack of official data on the number of cases, partly due to a reluctance to diagnose work-related illness for fear of the financial cost.

1. Where does Ramesh work?
2. Where?
3. What city is he in?
4. Is he sick?
5. What doe he have?
6. Are there many in Asia that are suffering?
7. Do they know how many?
8. Did anyone else in his family die from it?
9. Who?
10. How long has he been working there?

Numbered answers:

A: 1. an agate factory
2. "He's thankful to the stone because it helped him survive for so long. But now that he has lost so much, it is also a feeling of anger," Makwana told CNN through an interpreter, Mohit Gupta, the co-ordinator for the Occupational, Environmental Health Network of India
3. Hong Kong
4. Yes
5. silicosis
6. Yes
7. more than 1.1 million people
8. Yes
9. his parents
10. 14 years

Answer the questions at the end based on the text.

Our brains work in complex and strange ways. There are some people who can calculate the day of the week for any given date in 40,000 years, but who cannot add two plus two. Others can perform complex classical piano pieces after hearing them once, but they cannot read or write.

Dr. J. Langdon Down first described this condition in 1887. He called these people idiot savants. An idiot savant is a person who has significant mental injury, such as in autism or retardation. At the same time, the person also exhibits some extraordinary skills, which are unusual for most people. The skills of the savant may vary from being exceptionally gifted in music or in mathematics, or having a photographic memory.

One of the first descriptions of a human who could calculate quickly was written in 1789 by Dr. Benjamin Rush, an American doctor. His patient, Thomas Fuller, was brought to Virginia as a slave in 1724. It took Thomas only 90 seconds to work out that a man who has lived 70 years, 17 days, and 12 hours has lived 2,210,500,800 seconds. Despite this ability, he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write.

Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s. Blind Tom had a vocabulary of only 100 words, but he played 5,000 musical pieces beautifully.

In the excellent movie Rain Man, made in 1988 and available on video cassette, Dustin Hoffman plays an idiot savant who amazes his brother played by Tom Cruise, with his ability to perform complex calculations very rapidly.

Today we more clearly recognize that the idiot savant is special because of brain impairment. Yet not all brain injury leads to savant skills. Some studies have shown that people who have purposeful interruption of the left side of the brain can develop idiot savant skills. However few people wish to participate in such experiments. There are many excellent reasons for not undergoing unnecessary experimentation on one's brain. The term idiot savant is outdated and inappropriate. Virtually all savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots.

1. What are idiot savants?
2. What type of skills?
3. Anything else?
4. And?
5. Who wrote about a human that could calculate fast?
6. What was his profession?
7. Where was he from?
8. What year did he write about this person?
9. What was his patient's name?
10. Was he a free man?
11. Was he literate?
12. Who became famous as a pianist?
13. How many words did he know?
14. How many music pieces could he play?
15. What actor played Rain Man?
16. What was his amazing skill?
17. Does all brain injury leads to savant skills?
18. Do many people wish to participate in experiments to determine idiot savant?
19. Does the author like the term idiot savant?
20. Why not?

Numbered answers:

A:
1. a person who has significant mental injury but has extraordinary skills
2. gifted in music
3. mathematics
4. having a photographic memory
5. Dr. Benjamin Rush
6. doctor
7. America
8. 1789
9. Thomas Fuller
10. no
11. no
12. Blind Tom
13. 100
14. 5,000
15. Dustin Hoffman
16. he performed complex calculations very rapidly
17. no
18. No
19. no
20. savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots