Problem: Mrs Black is sixty-nine years old. She has only a daughter named Sandra. Mr Black died twelve years ago. She was very sad and lived in her house alone. Two years later her daughter had a baby. The woman was busy all the time and no time to look after her son James. She asked her mother to live with with them. The old woman had to sell her house and moved there. She was strong and could do all the housework. And the family liked her. Last autumn Mrs Black went to do some shopping. A car hit her and her leg was hurt. She had to be in hospital for three months. She couldn't do anything after she came back. At first her daughter was kind to her, but soon she began to tired of her. The old woman wanted to leave, but she had no money to buy a house and nobody could take care of her. She didn't know what to do. One morning Mrs Black broke a plate. It made her daughter angry. She told James to buy a wooden for her grandma. That afternoon James came back with two wooden plates. She was surprised and asked "Why did you buy two plates, son" "One is for my grandma," answered the boy. "The other is for you." She cried for long. She's kind to her mother as she did before.
1. How many plates did the boy buy?
2. Who broke a plate?
3. How old is she?
4. Who does she live with?
5. No husband?
6. What was the daughter's name?
7. Why did she ask her mother to move in?
8. Who did the housework?
9. What did she injure?
10. How?
11. What was she doing?
12. How long was she in the hospital?
13. Did she fully recover?
14. Was her daughter understanding?
15. Why couldn't she move out?
16. What happened to her house?
17. What did Sandra ask James to do?
18. Did he?
19. For who?
20. Did Sandra cry?
21. Did she change her mindset?
Answer: 1. two
2. Mrs Black
3. sixty-nine
4. her daughter
5. he died twelve years ago
6. Sandra.
7. she was busy and needed someone to look after her son
8. Mrs Black
9. her leg
10. A car hit her
11. shopping
12. three months
13. no
14. At first
15. she had no money
16. She sold it to move in with Sandra
17. buy a wooden plate
18. He bought two
19. Grandmother and Mother
20. yes
21. yes

Problem: CHAPTER XXXV. THE ITALIAN PEDLAR

This caitiff monk for gold did swear, That by his drugs my rival fair A saint in heaven should be.--SCOTT

A grand cavalcade bore the house of Quinet from Montauban--coaches, wagons, outriders, gendarmes--it was a perfect court progress, and so low and cumbrous that it was a whole week in reaching a grand old castle standing on a hill-side among chestnut woods, with an avenue a mile long leading up to it; and battlemented towers fit to stand a siege.

Eustacie was ranked among the Duchess's gentlewomen. She was so far acknowledged as a lady of birth, that she was usually called Madame Esperance; and though no one was supposed to doubt her being Theodore Gardon's widow, she was regarded as being a person of rank who had made a misalliance by marrying him. This Madame de Quinet had allowed the household to infer, thinking that the whole bearing of her guest was too unlike that of a Paris _bourgeoise_ not to excite suspicion, but she deemed it wiser to refrain from treating her with either intimacy or distinction that might excite jealousy or suspicion. Even as it was, the consciousness of a secret, or the remnants of Montauban gossip, prevented any familiarity between Eustacie and the good ladies who surrounded her; they were very civil to each other, but their only connecting link was the delight that every one took in petting pretty little Rayonette, and the wonder that was made of her signs of intelligence and attempts at talking. Even when she toddled fearlessly up to the stately Duchess on her canopied throne, and held out her entreating hands, and lisped the word '_nontre_,' Madame would pause in her avocations, take her on her knee, and display that wonderful gold and enamel creature which cried tic-tic, and still remained an unapproachable mystery to M. le Marquis and M. le Vicomte, her grandsons.
1. Who is quoted?
2. Was something lisped?
3. What?
4. What came to the house?
5. Where were they going?
6. Where was they from?
7. How long was the journey?
8. Was it an easy journey?
9. Who's husband died?
10. Who died?
Answer: 1. SCOTT
2. yes
3. nontre
4. coaches, wagons, outriders, gendarmes
5. a grand old castle standing on a hill-side
6. Montauban
7. a whole week
8. Yes but the group was awkward to travel
9. Madame Esperance
10. Theodore Gardon

Problem: The region, as part of Lorraine, was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and then was gradually annexed by France in the 17th century, and formalized as one of the provinces of France. The Calvinist manufacturing republic of Mulhouse, known as Stadtrepublik Mulhausen, became a part of Alsace after a vote by its citizens on 4 January 1798. Alsace is frequently mentioned with and as part of Lorraine and the former duchy of Lorraine, since it was a vital part of the duchy, and later because German possession as the imperial province (Alsace-Lorraine, 18711918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries; France and Germany exchanged control of parts of Lorraine (including Alsace) four times in 75 years.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine (Alsatian, Alemannian, Swabian, Swiss). Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Under Clovis' Merovingian successors the inhabitants were Christianized. Alsace remained under Frankish control until the Frankish realm, following the Oaths of Strasbourg of 842, was formally dissolved in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun; the grandsons of Charlemagne divided the realm into three parts. Alsace formed part of the Middle Francia, which was ruled by the youngest grandson Lothar I. Lothar died early in 855 and his realm was divided into three parts. The part known as Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was given to Lothar's son. The rest was shared between Lothar's brothers Charles the Bald (ruler of the West Frankish realm) and Louis the German (ruler of the East Frankish realm). The Kingdom of Lotharingia was short-lived, however, becoming the stem duchy of Lorraine in Eastern Francia after the Treaty of Ribemont in 880. Alsace was united with the other Alemanni east of the Rhine into the stem duchy of Swabia.
1. What did the Alemannian's language help create?
2. What part of Lothar's realm was given to his son?
3. Why didn't his kingdom last long?
Answer:
1. modern-day dialects
2. Lotharingia
3. unknown