That day, my mother picked me up from school, wearing the yellow sundress and shawl I remembered from our trip with Father the year before. She looked just like she did most days back then--a glamour queen, a movie star ("Just like Lena Horne," my friend Chloe had once said, "only darker--oh, sorry, Leah!"), but today her beauty somehow had a harder, more defiant edge to it. I could smell the expensive Dior perfume as soon as I opened the door, which surprised me, because my mom was usually fastidious about not getting perfume on her clothes. She was wearing her bug glasses--huge dark things with lenses that bulged out like fly eyes and reflected my face like a fun-house mirror. She had tied a yellow silk scarf around her hair and was taking deep pulls on a cigarette held between two immaculately manicured fingers. Only I knew about the nicotine stains she carefully covered with her special order "forest sable" cream each morning. Tiffany, a stupid but vicious senator's daughter who I had the misfortune of sharing a classroom with, suddenly dashed from inside the school, her face flushed. "Hello, Mrs. Wilson," she called. Before my mother could respond, she giggled and ran back to three of her friends waiting beyond the door. I could hear them laughing, but I was glad I couldn't understand their words. They were all fascinated with my mother--the black housekeeper who dressed like Katharine Hepburn and drove a Cadillac, whose daughter's "light toffee" skin indicated that she might just like her coffee with a lot of cream. Sometimes I hated those girls. "Get in the car, Leah," my mother said. Her already husky voice was pitched low, as though she'd been crying. That made me nervous. Why was she here? "Ma, Chloe was going to show me her dad's new camera. Can't I go home on the bus?" My mom pulled on the cigarette until it burned the filter, and then ground it into the car ashtray--already filled with forty or so butts. She always emptied out the ashtray each evening. How does Leah sometimes feel about Tiffany and the other girls? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Envy B. Disgust C. Sympathy D. not enough information
B

U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum has met criticism from his Republican allies in Congress, many of whom worry the measures could trigger a trade war that damages U.S. businesses. But the president does have supporters among some Senate Democrats from states where voters are concerned about the long-term loss of American manufacturing jobs. "This welcome action is long overdue for shuttered steel plants across Ohio and steelworkers who live in fear that their jobs will be the next victims of Chinese cheating," Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, said in a statement released after the plan was announced. "If we fail to stand up for steel jobs today, China will come after other jobs up and down the supply chain tomorrow." American labor unions have also broadly favored Trump's proposed tariffs, saying they have been complaining for years that foreign countries frequently subsidize their own steel industries, putting American competitors at a disadvantage. Economists have been mostly critical of the plan, saying that overall it will hurt American manufacturers, some of whom may be targeted by trading partners for retaliatory sanction. They argue that the benefits to steel and aluminum workers are outweighed by job losses among Americans in other industries. A test of how much the issue is resonating with American voters comes next week, when voters in Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, vote in a special election to fill a vacated seat. Many voters are looking to the president to fulfill his campaign promise of protecting manufacturing jobs in America's heartland. The race for the seat left vacant by Rep. Tim Murphy's sex scandal is coming down to the wire between Republican candidate Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb. Saccone's campaign endorsed Trump's tariff plan in a statement, saying "If other countries aren't playing by the rules and tariffs are needed to protect steel and aluminum jobs in Southwestern Pennsylvania,... The tariffs could affect American businesses for how long? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. Years C. Decades D. Months
B

Once again, I've analysed my year of travel to see if I'm any closer to reducing it year on year. It's an annual habit, and if often kicks off new ideas that might affect my team's next year of work. The good answer is: yes, there is less travel! And not just that, but having reduced the schlepping I do, I've been able to hire more amazing people to lead on our work, and celebrate one of NoTosh's best years ever in terms of the quality, quantity and breadth of work we're doing. Key to traveling less has been a marked increase in the number of folk who see and are now reaping the value of working with us online. I've avoided as many as 20,000 miles of travel thanks to greener clients, who are also many dollars better off having not paid for the airmiles that are wrapped up in our regular fee structure. The quality of our work is better, too, thanks to this. We are doing fewer of those day-long workshops with teachers or leaders, when an hour or even thirty minutes before the day gets started is more worthwhile. We're seeing more school leaders take this up, although it's harder to get teachers into the habit of taking 30 minutes 'me time' to jump into a coaching session on the day or week ahead. But it's starting, and the value to us all is huge. Coaching is very different to 'consulting a Personal Learning Network' on Twitter. It's intense, targeted, focussed and involves a one-on-one discussion that arrives quickly at resolutions to current day challenges that will have a long-term impact. And we come back to measure whether that impact actually happened. I don't think it's a way of working that many are used to in Education, although many corporate clients have had some rare experience with it. Encouraging both groups to take more regular time out for coaching, little and often, is a real challenge, but we're beginning to see some huge impact from relatively little input (and relatively few dollars!). After the end of this story, school leaders are probably: Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Concerned B. Motivated C. Dismissive D. not enough information
B