(Question)
I have unfriended someone over his near daily harassment of me to come over to his way of thinking. Way back in 2006, when Facebook was a young whelp and I had a newborn who steadfastly refused to sleep at night, I would sit and connect with old friends from university and high school, many of whom I had not seen or spoken with in more than a decade. One of those people was Scott. Scott was a super nice guy. He was a year ahead of me at university. He was a bit socially awkward but you really couldn't hope to meet a more genuine individual. Like most people, Scott had had some ups and downs in his life. At some point he found religion. Like he really, really found it. Now, I am somewherere between an agnostic and an atheist but my attitude is generally live and let live. But Scott couldn't do that. Almoost every day he would send me some sort of message. "What do you pray about?" I don't. "God loves you, he gave his son for you, why don't you love Him?" Because I don't believe He or his Son exist. "What are you going to say when you die and stand before Satan instead of God?" Missed that by a mile, didn't I? This went on for a few months. His questions became increasing unhinged and the only thing that mattered to him were his beliefs. Mine were of no consequence. I had asked him, politely at first and then more assertively, to stop bombarding me with his attempts to convert me or to witness to me. All to no avail. Finally, I'd had enough and decided I had better things to do. I pulled the plug and unfriended Scott. He's sent me several friend requests over the years, all of which I have summarily ignored. Question: How many children does Scott have? Options: A. not enough information B. 3 C. 1 D. 2 === The correct answer is
(Answer)
A

(Question)
If you turned on the TV towards the end of 2002 you could have been forgiven for thinking that Britain had gone absolutely horseshit mental. Every week, it seemed, another pretty young girl from a nice family, who was happy and popular and always did well at school, was being kidnapped or murdered by what the Sun newspaper cheerfully termed 'evil paedo scum'. Naming and shaming was as popular a feature in the Murdoch press as Page Three girls and discounted holidays to Butlin's. Of course you can't blame parents for wanting to keep their children safe; that's pretty much the job description of a parent. And, on the face of it, the tabloids were doing a public service in warning us about the paedophile menace lurking in our midst. The problem came when it turned out that a huge number of these concerned tabloid-reading parents were also absolute fucking morons. For every story of an actual sex offender being driven from their house by a baying mob there was one like that of Dr Yvette Cloete, a doctor at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, South Wales, who returned home from work to find that a group of 'concerned parents' had daubed the word 'paedo' on her front door in bright red paint. Dr Cloete was a consultant paediatrician. Easy mistake. If you're an absolute fucking moron. And so it was that one hung-over morning, after reading yet another story about vigilantes who had threatened to stone Maxine Carr, the girlfriend of Soham killer Ian Huntley, to death during her high-profile trial for perverting the course of justice, I decided to set up a website parodying this collective national madness. The result of two or three hours of hung-over labour was thinkofthechildren.co.uk, a spoof campaign site which claimed to offer a handy online guide for crazy vigilantes of all stripes to co-ordinate their crazy vigilante efforts. Although there are a few parts of the site I'm still a bit proud of, the majority of it was, I freely admit, satire of the lowest order. Question: The narrator believes that: Options: A. Parents have the right to worry about their child's safety, within reason. B. not enough information C. Parents should team up as anonymous crimefighters D. Parents should jump to conclusions immediately === The correct answer is
(Answer)
A

(Question)
I have never been a stop-and-smell-the-roses type of person. For me, there's always something that has to be done. In fact, the biggest complaint that my husband and two children have about me is that I'm "always busy." Seventeen years ago, when my oldest son was about a year old, he woke up in a very fussy mood. Instead of being his usual cheerful and compliant self, he just wanted to be cuddled. A mother's dream, right? Well, not for me. There was too much to be done; I didn't have time to hold him. I was well aware that in addition to some projects I was working on, there was laundry to be washed and ironed, breakfast dishes to do, a house that needed cleaning. My usual response would have been to try to coax my son into cheerfulness, or to put him back to bed to sleep it off. But it was clear that he was unwell, so against my usual inclination, I decided that I would just hold him. The chores could wait another day. So I settled into the recliner chair in the lounge room and held my son while he slept. I dozed occasionally too, waking up now and then to enjoy the feeling of snuggling my baby and looking at the world beyond the window. It was a cold day, but clear and sunny. The trees rustled in the gentle breeze, and birds and butterflies flitted about the garden. Inside, my son and I stayed snuggled together under a blanket for most of the day. He slept while I, for one of the few times in my life, just drank in the beauty of the world and the happiness of sharing this time with my son. Better mothers than I am must have done similar things many, many times with their children. But for me, this very small decision, this day of 'laziness', became a treasured memory. Question: What did the mother and son snuggle under? Options: A. not enough information B. dishes C. laundry D. blanket === The correct answer is
(Answer)
D