(Question)
I had seen it before, those fuzzy, furry leaves and stalks, with the pretty, star-pointed purple flowers, but up until that moment that I saw them sitting in a basket at the market stalls, I admit I had never taken notice of it as a food. It grow along cracks in stone walls and along the roadside near my home in Settignano, which is blooming with spring goodness right now: robinia (black locust) trees, wild garlic (three-cornered leek) and even elderflowers are already bursting. I asked the vendor just to double check, "Is this borage?" "Si," Came the answer, "Borragine." He confirmed. "I've had it in ravioli," I started to say, "Brava!" He said, as if we were about to start a guessing game on what could be done with it. Actually, there's a lot that can be done with it. If you can use it as a ravioli filling with ricotta, then you can imagine it taking the place of spinach in gnudi, too, but also soups or frittata or stirred through polenta. I learned that the flowers are just as delicious, if not more interesting, for their delicate cucumber-like flavour people told me of their use in salads or cocktails like Pimms, and someone even mentioned she freezes them in ice cubes, what a pretty idea for those first warm nights when you can dine al fresco, homemade cocktail in hand. Then there's risotto and of course the fritters, much like these ones. Or you can simply deep fry the clusters of buds that haven't yet burst open like these deep-fried robinia flowers. borage and ricotta crepes The problem, I was thinking, as I took home my bag of borage, is that I can't decide what to make. There's simply too much choice. I consulted two of my favourite books that also happen to be cookbooks. Patience Gray's Honey from a Weed and Luigi Ballerini's A Feast of Weeds. Both had wonderful ideas for borage (and indeed many other edible, foraged plants). How had the author eaten borage in the past? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. in cocktails C. in salad D. in ravioli
(Answer)
D

(Question)
I showed up at the address on Columbine's invitation just before eleven; it was a converted warehouse in an industrial zone on the city's north side. Since it was a Saturday night, everything else was empty for miles. The parking lot was filled with sports cars, hybrids, and shiny suburban tanks. The door facing the parking lot was open, spilling out muted lights and the din of yuppie chatter. It cast a somewhat foreboding aura over the entrance. The first thing I noticed as I approached was the beefy refrigerator in a rented tux blocking the doorway. The second thing was the surveillance camera perched on the wall above his head. I had stopped home and changed first, so I was sure I was dressed mostly appropriately for some rich faux-hipster art party - charcoal gray pinstripe jacket over a TV on the Radio t-shirt, skinny cuffed jeans, Docs, and a black fedora. I certainly didn't look any worse than the other idiots I saw filing in and out of the door. I even had an invitation. So I was fairly confident I'd be able to gain admission to this thing without incident. "No, absolutely not," the doorman said, pressing a meaty palm into my chest. "I was invited!" I said, exasperated. "I have documentation." I waved the rave card in front of his face. "No dice." I stepped aside to let a couple of aging goths through the door and wondered for a moment if the doorman somehow knew who I was. Then I noticed the ear piece he was wearing and my eyes darted back to the surveillance camera. "Motherfucker," I spat and raised both arms to flip off the camera. I didn't know it at the time, but at that moment Dylan Maxwell was sitting in front of a wall of monitors, laughing his ass off. Why does the narrator believe he should be allowed entry? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. Because he is a cop. C. Because he has an invitation. D. Because he is important.
(Answer)
C

(Question)
It will come as no surprise to those working in the UK's higher education (HE) sector that universities are currently suffused with anxiety. The University and College Union (UCU) has recently been in dispute with employers over proposed changes to the USS pension scheme, and the most sustained period of industrial action in the sector's history has highlighted the fears staff have for the security of their futures post-retirement. Such unprecedented strike action needs to be situated within the wider context of a public sector undergoing transformation: while the concept remains contested, the influence of "neoliberal" ideas on universities can most clearly be seen in Success as a Knowledge Economy the government white paper that preceded the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act which states: "Competition between providers in any market incentivises them to raise their game, offering consumers a greater choice of more innovative and better quality products and services at lower cost. Higher education is no exception." Yet what might "raising our game" mean for academic staff? The university has been described as an "anxiety machine": the creeping marketisation of the sector along with pressure to recruit students (now "consumers"), increasing managerialism, and the implementation of processes of audit such as the REF and TEF to evaluate performance have arguably contributed to a progressively anxious landscape in which to labour. In 2016/17, 34% of academic staff were employed on fixed-term contracts a figure likely to be disputed by the UCU, since in 2016 it estimated the extent of casualisation in the sector to be closer to 54% once atypical contracts had been taken into consideration. In addition to pressures facing many staff in universities such as time-management, meeting growing employer expectations, and the evaluation of performance "casualised" contracts present particular challenges for those facing employment uncertainty: in a material sense, this can be a case of keeping up with... What does competition between providers cause? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Increased casualisation of the education sector B. Great choice of more innovative and better quality products C. not enough information D. Services at the same cost
(Answer)
B