(Question)
"Because all of you of Earth are idiots!" shouted Tom, wearily wiping the glass counter, removing coconut oil from the reflections of overpriced candy bars. Inside the theater the movie echoed him: "Because all of you of Earth are idiots!" Tom sighed, not for the first time that evening. The Manager, who paid in cash every Sunday, had decided to take advantage of the bizarre tastes of his Generation X clients and offer an Ed Wood film festival. Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Night of the Ghouls ran on the second, smaller screen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, two bucks a head. The Manager was making a killing. Tom, who needed the job in order to move out of his parents' trailer home, found little about the Ed Wood canon amusing, although it was light-years beyond anything by Coleman Francis. Even so, Tom had been forced to hear the dialog of each film, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday... He only had to watch them once, having filled in for the Manager's weasel-featured nephew/projectionist Neoldner, who had called in sick to buy grass in Beloit. But he would have been able to forget the experience had it not been for the penetrating soundtrack which bled into the lobby. The ordeal, for tonight, was almost over - the concession stand closed after Plan 9. He hoped he had sold enough to keep his job - there was the worry that the Manager would increase his profit margin by manning the concession stand himself. But the Manager strolled out of the second theater with a broad grin, revealing his cutting overbite. "I don't know why," the Manager exclaimed, "but they love it!" "Most of them are from the 'Ed 9 Film Society,'" Tom replied. "By the way, I need to restock the chocolates." Question: After working that shift, Tom would likely Options: A. reveal the whereabouts of Neoldner B. keep his job C. quit his job D. not enough information === The correct answer is
(Answer)
B

(Question)
TL:DR: I un-professionally get mad at a customer and verbally slam the door on her way out. I was working a shift at a chain cafe one afternoon in England, it was during the lunch rush, so we had a back up of customers lined up to the exit. See the problem with the chain is that all of our customers mostly range from midlife crisis to half-a-foot in the grave, so once a customer lines up, they don't leave and they extend the queue. Plus this is a chain cafe so I've got a manager who's constantly on my back to speed up because someone is on her back to drive numbers up: this results in the line putting stress on my air-hostess smile, but they don't call it work for nothing. Now I'm not the only one stressed, a customer lines up during lunch, they're hungry and wish that Euclidean laws would suspend themselves so that they did not have to deal with the fact that I can't deal with a customer at the speed of light. Well one eldritch horror declares that my coffee took too long and does her rendition of the 1933 Hitler speech to the rest of the customers with an addendum that she will take her business elsewhere. Now my chain are pretty big in England, so if a customer wants to slap me around with a 'customer is always right' the script dictates that I do everything in my power to make sure they come back, and Cthulu knows this, well: I'm stressed, I don't like her face and she's given me an opportunity for me to give her the polite 'fuck off'. All I say is 'Good' and move on to the next customer. Hitler-lite phones my corporation to voice a complaint, so a suit comes out and asks the team who did it, I fess up so I can save the time and not have a reason to hate one of my co-workers. I get a lecture and a warning, the end. Question: How does she probably feel about her job? Options: A. not enough information B. That if she gets fired for being rude to a customer, she will just find another job C. That it can be very stressful, and she doesn't get paid enough to go "Above and beyond" the call of duty D. She really enjoys her job === The correct answer is
(Answer)
C

(Question)
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: The writer thinks that: Options: A. the educational system worked better in the past B. the educational system in Scotland operates as it should C. not enough information D. the educational system in Scotland needs reform === The correct answer is
(Answer)
D