With regular money now coming in from the Guardian column, my regular contributions to other publications and the modest subscription revenue from The Friday Thing, I had been living something of the high life since arriving in London. I had started hanging out with the great and the good of the dot com world: attending launch parties for new sites, going to parties to celebrate them staying in business for a whole year, eating their lunches, drinking their booze and learning their secrets while they tried to convince me to write about them in my column. Many of these online entrepreneurs had become my friends and I'd managed to find myself a new girlfriend - Maggie, a Welsh journalist who was a restaurant reviewer for a food and drink website. This was a brilliant blag: it meant we could eat at some of London's best restaurants and never pay a penny. Life was wonderful: The Friday Thing and the Guardian column meant that my plan to use the Internet to become hugely famous and successful was firmly on track, I'd made lots of new friends, and, on top of all that, I was getting laid and eating gourmet food for free. Even Sam Lewis was jealous, and he was rich. Meanwhile, the people I was writing about were not having such an easy time of it. 2003 was a really strange time to be covering the 'new media' industry - mainly because no one was really sure for how long there would be an industry left to cover. The dot com boom of 1999 seemed like a millennium ago: a period in history as crazy as the tulip craze or the South Sea Bubble look to us now. The first signs of trouble for the industry had come in 2000. As the century turned, so had the market and - to use the parlance of analysts - the boom had turned out to be a bubble. And then the bubble had burst. Where did the writer work? A. For the Guardian column. B. not enough information C. London. D. The writer was a Regular contributer to other publications.
A

"To be real honest, Jeffrey, you're not making much progress," said Greg. "Are you practicing at all?" "Well, yeah. Mom makes me. She sits there watching to make sure I'm getting the right fingering and phrasing." "Hmm. I might need to talk to her about that." Greg hated when kids were forced into musicianship. He had been teaching private music lessons for more than ten years, and had seen it often. Parents made their kids miserable. It rarely worked anyway. "You don't really want to take piano, do you?" "No, Sir." "Well... " "I wish my mom would let me take guitar lessons. That would be cool." "You know you'd get calluses like this." Greg held out left hand and showed Jeffrey his fingertips. "Yeah! My friend, Zach, has calluses. They're hard like plastic." "Well, you know, it hurts for a while--until you build them up." "I don't care. I love the guitar. I've been begging Mom to switch me from piano to guitar." "I'll talk to her." "Great! I already have a guitar and--" "--don't get too excited yet. We'll see what she says." "Thanks, Mr. Tenorly." He jumped up and ran for the front door. Then he stopped, rushed back over to grab his piano books, and raced out the door. Greg's 3:30 lesson had been cancelled, so he now had a thirty minute break. Oftentimes, during a break, he would step outside and wander down the sidewalk, observing the townspeople going in and out of the shops around Coreyville Square. But something was bugging him. His dad's birthday party was only a few days away. He hoped he wouldn't regret letting Cynthia talk him into going. What does Greg think about kids being forced into playing music? A. He hates it. B. not enough information C. He thinks it makes kids happy. D. He thinks they are protecting their children from calluses.
A

Q: Hmmm that's a hard one. At first I was going to say giving them daily chores, but the "reward" part of that has actually not been realized yet (what with all the eye rolling and such). So I will have to go with family dinners at the table. Sometimes, "dinner" is fast food, sometimes it is a meal I slaved over for hours - that part doesn't seem to matter. Whether we are talking about our day, learning manners, having serious discussions, or laughing until we spit our drinks - it is where grow. There have been horrible nights at the table, where we shared bad news. There have been fabulous nights where we celebrated successes and talked about exciting things to come. There have been nights where the kids can see that Mom and Dad are "at odds" and nights where they see us push that aside and joke with each other for the sake of saving the evening. When they were little, we did "About Your Day" - one funny thing, one sad thing, one new thing you learned. Now, they are all teenagers, and the conversations just seem to flow, with never enough time to fit it all in before someone has to rush off to work, to study, or to get ready for bed because we are eating "after practice". My twins will be Seniors next year, and I know that our table will look a little different from now on. But when I look at that worn oak (outdated) table, that needs refinishing in the worst way - I am grateful for the evenings there, where my kiddos learned to be a family. Don't be misled, we are not the Cleavers. We have "Fun Friday" where Mom does not get to badger them about their table manners (ugh - they revel in this), Sometimes we eat in the living room while we watch a movie, sometimes we eat in shifts because of our schedules. However, the majority of meals have been together ~ I feel like this is a gift we gave them. The kid's probably believe that their mom: A. Doesn't care about their family B. not enough information C. Tries hard to maintain their family bond D. Wants to leave the family once the twins graduate
A: C

(Question)
Voters in Pennsylvania head to the polls Tuesday in a special congressional election with national implications for President Donald Trump and opposition Democrats. The election is taking place in a congressional district that Trump won by 19 points in 2016, but where Democrats now hope for an upset that could be a preview of the midterm congressional elections in November. The race pits Democrat Conor Lamb against Republican Rick Saccone. Saccone got some high-profile help on Saturday when Trump spoke on his behalf at a rally in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. "We need him. We need Republicans. We need the votes. Otherwise, they are going to take away your tax cuts. They are going to take away your Second Amendment rights," Trump warned the crowd. Though Trump easily won the district in 2016, Lamb appears to be competitive in part because he is a moderate-to-conservative Democrat who personally opposes abortion and any new gun control measures. Lamb is hoping to pull off an upset with help from former Vice President Joe Biden. "Passion and commitment rules in politics. Passion and commitment generates grass-roots support," Biden told a recent Lamb rally. Republicans have poured money into the race, including millions of dollars in television advertisements in the final days before the election. Trump is trying to help Republicans avoid another setback on the way to the November midterm elections, where Democrats are favored to make gains. In making his pitch to voters this election year, the president remains focused on his tax cut bill, new tariffs on steel and aluminum, and a diplomatic opening to North Korea. But Trump remains stuck at about 40 percent approval in the polls, historically low for a second-year president, and a potential drag for Republican candidates in November. "He's doing nothing to expand his base," said Jim Kessler of Third Way, a centrist Democrat advocacy group. "And also, political damage is kind of like sunburn. You don't really notice it as it is happening. And later in the day you... Where did President Trump go to show his support for Republican Rick Saccone? A. The polls B. not enough information C. North Korea D. Moon Township, Pennsylvania
(Answer)
D