Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern United States. With over six million residents, it is the 18th most populous state. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. The capitol is in Jefferson City on the Missouri River. The state is the 21st most extensive in area. In the South are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. The Mississippi River forms the eastern border of the state.

Humans have inhabited the land now known as Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The Mississippian culture built cities and mounds, before declining in the 1300s. When European explorers arrived in the 1600s they encountered the Osage and Missouria nations. The French established Louisiana, a part of New France, and founded Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South, including enslaved African Americans, rushed into the new Missouri Territory. Many from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee settled in the Boonslick area of Mid-Missouri. Soon after, heavy German immigration formed the Missouri Rhineland.

Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the Gateway Arch. The Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, and California Trail all began in Missouri. As a border state, Missouri's role in the American Civil War was complex and there were many conflicts within. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became centers of industrialization and business. Today, the state is divided into 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis.
1. What did European explorers find in the 1600's?
2. Who founded Louisiana?
3. Did they claim other areas?
4. Which ones?
5. When was that?
6. What about St. Louis?
7. Who acquired the Louisiana Purchase?
8. When?
9. Who was it immediately populated by?
10. How many people live in Missouri now?
11. What is the capital?
12. Did it play a role in the Civil War?
13. How come?
14. Was it considered a border state?
15. Did it play a small or large roll in westward expansion?
16. What notable trails began in Missouri?
17. Where in the US is it located?
18. What rivers are in it?
19. Is there another?
20. How many counties are in it?

Numbered answers:
1. Osage and Missouria nations.
2. The French
3. yes
4. Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis
5. Ste. Genevieve in 1735
6. 1764
7. United States
8. 1803
9. Americans from the Upland South
10. over six million
11. Jefferson City
12. yes
13. there were many conflicts within
14. yes
15. large
16. The Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, and California Trail
17. Midwest
18. The Mississippi River
19. unknown
20. 114

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
CHAPTER XIV. FORTEMANI DRINKS WATER

The thing had begun with the lowering glances that Francesco had observed, and had grown to gibes and insults after he had disappeared. But Lanciotto had preserved an unruffled front, being a man schooled in the Count of Aquila's service to silence and a wondrous patience. This insensibility those hinds translated into cowardice, and emboldened by it--like the mongrels that they were--their offensiveness grew more direct and gradually more threatening. Lanciotto's patience was slowly oozing away, and indeed, it was no longer anything but the fear of provoking his master's anger that restrained him. At length one burly ruffian, who had bidden him remove his head-piece in the company of gentlemen, and whose request had been by Lanciotto as disregarded as the rest, advanced menacingly towards him and caught him by the leg, as Ercole had caught his master. Exasperated at that, Lanciotto had swung his leg free, and caught the rash fellow a vicious kick in the face that had felled him, stunned and bleeding.

The roar from the man's companions told Lanciotto what to expect. In an instant they were upon him, clamouring for his blood. He sought to draw his master's sword, which together with the Count's other armour was slung across his saddle-bow; but before he could extricate it, he was seized by a dozen hands, and cropped, fighting, from the saddle. On the ground they overpowered him, and a mailed hand was set upon his mouth, crushing back into his throat the cry for help he would have raised.
1. Who did Lanciotto work for?

Numbered answers:
1. Count of Aquila'

Question:
Read the text and answer the questions.
Brasov, Romania (CNN) -- The ruins of Poienari Castle sit high on a mountain peak with a seemingly never-ending vista looking out over deep gorges, charcoal-gray cliffs and mountain streams.

It's a natural paradise, but we did not make the trip to this castle just for the awesome view. Visitors come for its connection to history's most famous vampire, Dracula.

The famous book and the ensuing movies are fiction, but since Bram Stoker published his novel in 1897, the world has been looking to Transylvania (in modern central Romania) as "Count Dracula's" home.

And there is a bit of truth to it. Stoker never visited Eastern Europe, but his famous character is based, in part, on a real 15th-century prince.

Vlad Dracula lived from 1431 to about 1476 and ruled Wallachia, which was actually south of Transylvania. As military leader, he was a hero to his people, and he has a place in the Romanian National Military Museum.

Another museum explains the name "Dracula" is actually a title from the knightly order of the dragon, whose mission was to defend Christianity. Documents he signed "Vlad Dracula" still exist.

A nickname often associated with him is Tepes, which means impaler, and comes from his brutal application of capital punishment by skewering bodies on a wooden spike.

Visiting Dracula's castle

Poienari Castle is not on the main tourist route. In fact, it's pretty hard to get there.

Public transportation is infrequent, and the big tourist town in the region, Brasov, is hours away.
1. who is the author?
2. who did he write about?
3. where did the character live?
4. did the author ever go there?
5. was a real person the inspiration for the character?
6. who?
7. when did he live?
8. do we know the year he was born?
9. what was it?
10. when did he die?
11. what was his occupation?
12. of where?
13. where is that?
14. East of it?
15. was he called something else?
16. what?
17. does it give the meaning of that?
18. what does it mean?
19. why was he called that?
20. a metal one?
21. what was it made of?
Numbered answers:
1. Bram Stoker
2. Count Dracula
3. Transylvania
4. No
5. in part
6. Vlad Dracula
7. the 15th-century
8. Yes
9. 1431
10. about 1476
11. he was a prince
12. Wallachia
13. near Transylvania
14. No
15. Yes
16. Tepes
17. Yes
18. impaler
19. because he skewered bodies on a spike.
20. No
21. wood