When a friend tells you she has wild roses blooming everywhere, it's not hard to imagine where the conversation headed to next to turning them into rose petal jam, of course. My friend Simona Quirini and her family run the beautiful Canto del Maggio, a B&B, restaurant and garden, about one hour's drive from Florence. We arrived to catch Simona with a wooden crate in her hands, already half full of blush pink flower heads, small and as fragrant as honey. It wasn't just roses that were bursting out of their bushes with colour and fragrance. In fact, every time I go to Canto del Maggio, I notice how lush the property is with fruit, flowers and plants, and every season there are bounties to be collected. The first time I was there I noticed the myrtle bushes and heirloom fruit trees little tiny, red pears and apples. The garden was full of summer produce and I stole green-skinned figs harbouring raspberry-red flesh off the trees. The next time I went, we picked ripe olives off the trees around the pool and took them down to the local frantoio, olive oil mill, to press the bright green oil out of them. I also came home with buckets of corbezzoli, or Irish strawberries, to make jam. This spring, I noticed the hedge rows of flowering wild strawberries and this last visit we picked the berries off them for an afternoon snack. With the help of my daughter (who was slightly more interested in playing with Simona's new puppy), we filled a crateful of roses and picked the petals delicately off and into bowls. We were using the rose petal jam recipe and the technique I learned between two wonderful sources Pellegrino Artusi's 1891 cookbook (this pastry recipe below is also inspired by it) and the Armenian monks on Venice's Isola di San Lazzaro Island where I worked for two autumns. The secret, other than having beautiful, small and fragrant roses to begin with, is in massaging the petals with a bit of the sugar and the lemon juice until almost a pulp to release the essential oils. How long did the author work with the Armenian monks? A. 12 months B. 1 month C. 6 months D. not enough information
C

(Question)
Dark meat in the can--brown, oily, and flecked with mucus--gave off a repellent, fishy smell, and the taste of it rose in his throat, putrid and bitter, like something from a dead man's stomach. George Jordan sat on the kitchen floor and vomited, then pushed himself away from the shining pool, which looked very much like what remained in the can. He thought, No, this won't do: I have wires in my head, and they make me eat cat food. The snake likes cat food He needed help but know there was little point in calling the Air Force. He'd tried them, and there was no way they were going to admit responsibility for the monster in his head. What George called the snake, the Air Force called Effective Human Interface Technology and didn't want to hear about any postdischarge problems with it. They had their own problems with congressional committees investigating "the conduct of the war in Thailand." He lay for a while with his cheek on the cold linoleum, got up and rinsed his mouth in the sink, then stuck his head under the faucet and ran cold water over it, thinking, Call the goddamned multicomp, then call SenTrax and say, "Is it true you can do something about this incubus that wants to take possession of my soul?" And if they ask you, "What's your problem?" you say "cat food," and maybe they'll say, "Hell, it just wants to take possession of your lunch" A chair covered in brown corduroy stood in the middle of the barren living room, a white telephone on the floor beside it, a television flat against the opposite waIl--that was the whole thing, what might have been home, if it weren't for the snake. He picked up the phone, called up the directory on its screen, and keyed TELECOM SENTRAX. John sat on the kitchen floor A. while he was vomiting B. after he vomited C. before he vomited D. not enough information
(Answer)
C

Question: U.S. lawmakers grilled Trump administration officials Tuesday about the war in Afghanistan, saying the new White House strategy was inconsistent and was not producing results. The comments made at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing reflected growing frustration in Congress about the U.S.-led war, which is entering its 17th year. As recently as November, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, acknowledged that the conflict remained a stalemate. Since then, a wave of high-profile insurgent attacks have rocked the capital, Kabul. The Taliban now controls or contests almost half the country, according to latest U.S. estimates. Despite the setbacks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, who is helping oversee the new White House strategy, gave a positive assessment of the conflict. "The president's South Asia strategy is showing some signs of progress," Sullivan said. "On the battlefield, we are seeing the Taliban's momentum begin to slow." But lawmakers from both parties expressed skepticism. "Something is clearly not working," said Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and longtime Afghan war critic. "By any standard, the current security situation is grim." Some lawmakers took aim at President Donald Trump, who last week said he didn't want to talk with the Taliban a statement that seemingly contradicted his own strategy. After Sullivan and a top Pentagon official told the lawmakers that the U.S. was in fact still open to negotiations with the Taliban, lawmakers pressed for more details. "You can see that the world and those involved in the peace process may be pretty confused about what the U.S. position is. What is it?" asked Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat. Sullivan said he thought Trump was expressing a reaction to last month's terrorist attacks, and was pointing out that "significant elements of the Taliban are not prepared to negotiate." "And it may take a long time before they are willing to negotiate," he added. But many in the Senate appear... When did lawmakers ask for more information? A. after they were told that the Taliban would not negotiate. B. not enough information C. when a top official told them that the U.S. was still open to negotiations. D. before Trump said he wanted to talk to the Taliban.
Answer:
C