(Q).
The sound of the clacking grew unbearable, so we turned the volume down. "Mute it." We muted it. "Turn it up; we might miss something." It's a silent movie. We won't miss anything. The sound of clacking gradually fills the room as my brother reluctantly turns up the volume. I can tell he's pressing hard on the button, jamming his thumb down in defiance or muted anger. He doesn't like for anyone to tell him what to do with the remote. But my grandmother wants the volume up, so we turn it up. We're all sitting along the edges of the tiny living room, staring at the fuzzy black-and-white images as they hazily walk across the television screen. I can hear a siren outside, barely discernable and then gone entirely. "Who's that?" my brother asks, evidently past his momentary and barely-noticeable indignation over the remote. "Uncle Arehl, and maybe his sister, Edna," my grandmother says, leaning in closer. "I think it's Edna," she says, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing a disease, as if the verdict was somehow relevant to someone who has only the vaguest idea who Arehl's sister is, or was. Uncle Arehl (I don't know precisely whose uncle he is, or for what the two initials of his name once stood) saunters slowly across a dry, patchy lawn, and the camera follows him. For some reason I'm more interested in the lawn--if it can be called that--than in the people on it. The sun in the movie is blazing, and everyone filmed looks only briefly at the camera before averting their faces once again to look at the stubbly grass. The camera pans once again and I can see an incredibly rutted path leading from the porch to the fence at the edge of the yard, broken pieces of concrete amid deep tire tracks fossilized in sun-baked mud. The fence is low, wire like a chain-link, but lower, with metal stakes holding it up instead of tubes. How long had they been watching the movie? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Less than two hours. B. A few minutes. C. An hour. D. not enough information
(A).
B

(Q).
Six weeks after arriving in the United States, Hassan Abduraheem takes a seat in the back pew of Tar Wallet Baptist Church. Tucked into the woods along a country road in rural Virginia, the church holds about 50 worshippers. On this cold November Sunday, Abduraheem and his family of eight noticeably increase the congregation's size. They do their best to follow the unfamiliar English of the old Baptist hymns, which are very familiar to their new neighbors. And they share the hymns from their former home Sudan. Standing in a single line in front of the altar, the family fills the church with Arabic song. "Unbelievable," Abduraheem says repeatedly, as he describes his journey from a crowded prison cell in Sudan to a fixed-up house on the farm of his new pastor. "Unbelievable" seems like the only word that could describe the turn his life took, thanks to a Facebook post and a U.S. congressman. Abduraheem's work as a former pastor is not outlawed in his native Sudan, but Christians are a minority in a diverse country that has suffered through multiple civil wars. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, there has been "an escalation in the Sudanese government's persecution of Christians," since the 2011 secession of South Sudan. Abduraheem says his work was spreading the gospel; the Sudanese government accused him of espionage, and he was detained along with two other pastors in December 2015. "The first day when they took us to the prison, they beat us," he says softly. Abduraheem was shifted from prison to prison. For five months, he wore the same clothes he was wearing when he was arrested. His eyes became damaged from the harsh prison light. Yet, despite constant interrogations, just two meals of beans a day and a tiny cell with barely enough room to sleep, he says the worst part of prison was not knowing. Who were the new neighbors in the church? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. the Christians B. not enough information C. the farm of his new pastor D. Abduraheem and family
(A).
D

(Q).
I really struggle to feel bad for people who actively choose to be miserable and manipulative. I'm dorky and like to use little proverbs all the time. One of my favorites is this: "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." At the end of the day, if someone has a problem, they can never resolve it if they don't truly wish to. You can give someone all the resources in the world, but you can't force them to utilize them. When I was 16, I dated a horrible guy. He was abusive verbally, emotionally, and sexually. He was an incredibly troubled young man and refused to seek help for his severe mental health issues. I eventually came to understand that he reveled in his misery. It was his identity. He acted like he wanted a cure and I'd set him up with resources, but he refused every single one. He may have struggled with serious mental illnesses, but being miserable perversely made him happy and he loved to use his struggles to justify his inexcusable behavior. He wanted to drag as many people into his fiery pit of anguish as possible. I later suffered from severe depression myself, and I never once used it as an excuse to hurt other people. My ex wasn't struggling with his mental health in terms of deliberating and carefully harming others. He was simply exhibiting a personality trait, one he chose to cultivate and it wasn't my problem. I ended up cutting him off completely in spite of all the threats. I will never feel bad for the awful plight he refuses to help himself out of. I have no patience for that type of person. Know what we call them? Toxic. Poison. A waste of time. What does the author like to use all the time? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. Funny little proverbs B. Abusive boyfriends C. Mental health resources D. not enough information
(A).
A