A beautiful, sexy redhead sat across from Greg Tenorly. He was nervous about the closed door, but she had insisted. The slightest hint of impropriety would spark a blaze of rumors. Greg tried to concentrate on her story. But his mind wandered to his 34-year-old receding hairline and bulging stomach. The part-time music minister had been feeling good about himself ten minutes ago. Time to start exercising again. "I grew up in Marshall. Graduated from East Texas State, and got a job at a bank in Greenville. Three years ago, I moved here so I could be closer to Mom. She still lives in Marshall. I met Troy at a high school football game. He was fun, down-to-earth. We've been married for two years." Cynthia Blockerman was a vice president at First State Bank, yet only in her late 20's. She certainly looked the part, dressed in an expensive brown business suit, matching shoes and tasteful jewelry. And her shoulder-length hair was the kind you only see in shampoo commercials. Greg felt underdressed in his faded golf shirt, baggy slacks, and generic running shoes. "Everything was fine for the first six months or so. But I guess he was just playing the part of a good husband. Then I started to see his real personality. As soon as he gets home from work, he goes straight for the beer. By nine, there's a pile of cans next to his recliner, and he's calling me names, and throwing things. "Sometimes he hits me. He did it one time before we got married, but he said he was so sorry. And even broke down and cried. He promised he'd never do it again." "Is there anything in particular you say or do that seems to set him off?" It was a dumb question, but the only one he could think of. "No. It doesn't matter. I can be extra sweet, or mean, or just ignore him. He still gets mad and crazy. I don't know what to do. I want to leave him, but I'm afraid he'll come after me." Question: What is probably true of Troy? Options: - He hates alcohol. - He never drinks alcohol. - He likes alcohol - not enough information === The correct answer is
He likes alcohol

Patch's mother was named Silver, because high summer sun made her fur shine that colour. She had a marvellous drey high up a spruce tree, carved out long ago by a woodpecker, and since extended into a two-chambered home full of bright things. The journey along the sky-road to her drey did not take long. When Patch looked inside, he saw a hundred colours glittering in the sunlight, shining from bits of metal and glass set into Silver's walls and floor. But his mother was not there. He could tell by the faintness of her smell that no squirrel had been here in some time. There were two faint traces of scent, several days old; that of Silver, and that of another squirrel, a musky scent that Patch did not recognize. A scent that made his tail stiffen as if danger was near. Patch stared into his mother's empty drey for a moment. It wasn't normal for a squirrel to abandon her drey for days, not in the middle of winter. And he hadn't seen Silver for three days. Not since all the acorns had disappeared from the earth. Patch ran back to his own tree, and then to the maple tree next door, to his brother Tuft's drey. He ran very fast. He was hungrier than ever, and he was beginning to be very worried. He was relieved when he looked into Tuft's drey and found it occupied. Tuft himself was not present, but Brighteyes was, and their babies, and it was clear from the smells that Tuft had only just departed. "Hello, Patch," Brighteyes said weakly. "Would you like to come in?" Patch entered. Brighteyes was curled up with her babies in the drey's deepest, warmest corner. The last time Patch had visited, a week ago, this had been a den of noise and chaos, with all Brighteyes' four babies running and jumping and playfighting. Today they lay weakly beside Brighteyes, and the once-shining eyes from which their mother had taken her name were dim and clouded. Question: How long was Tuft probably gone? Options: - A month - not enough information - A year - A few hours === The correct answer is
A few hours

I end this small run of blog posts with the question posed by Professor Brian Boyd at the beginning of our evening: Do we want to close the achievement gap? We know we can close the gap. It's been done or almost been done before in Scottish education, but the answers have been ignored as they pass us by. The simple clue is this: poverty is single biggest predictor of achievement, and according to research (Hammonds sic, reference required), aged 10, a child living in poverty is 60% less likely to get to university. Boyd borrowed from his own mother's report card to ask us what kind of education we desire. Is it the academic success at all costs route, or is there another option we need to value as much, if not more? His mother's report card, one that prevented her from becoming a secondary school pupil in Glasgow, is filled with G and FG, until the last point: Character and conduct - excellent. What kind of pupils do we want to develop in Scotland? What do we value in our assessment system? Opening up opportunity for all is a tough game to play when the examination system rewards only certain types of behaviour, few of them related to what the Curriculum for Excellence says we stand for. In his own small community in East Kilbride, three secondary schools enter a period of meltdown as the local rag sets about creating its own local league table of performance, with those three 'teams' in competition for the top spot (or at least not the bottom one). Therefore, we must stop basing "the gap" largely on attainment. First of all, Boyd would like us to remove the traditional, and non-sensical academic/vocational divide. Is the law or medicine degree we value not vocational? (Are all General Practitioners not Plumbers, as Dr Murray on the panel suggests?) Question: Boyd believes that we want Options: - Excellence - not enough information - Opportunity in our education system - Poverty is a cause of achievement === The correct answer is
Opportunity in our education system