Q: Kurdish is a continuum of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by the Kurds in Western Asia. Kurdish forms three dialect groups known as Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), and Southern Kurdish (Palewani). A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the ZazaGorani languages, are also spoken by several million Kurds. Studies as of 2009 estimate between 8 and 20 million native Kurdish speakers in Turkey. The majority of the Kurds speak Northern Kurdish ("Kurmanji").

The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, when more general literature began to be developed. Today, there are two principal written Kurdish dialects, namely Northern Kurdish in the northern parts of the geographical region of Kurdistan and Central Kurdish further east and south. Central Kurdish is, along with Arabic, one of the two official languages of Iraq and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".

The Kurdish languages belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. They are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian. Martin van Bruinessen notes that "Kurdish has a strong south-western Iranian element", whereas "Zaza and Gurani [...] do belong to the north-west Iranian group".

Answer the following questions:
1. What is this about?
2. What do they speak?
3. Where are they located?
4. How many people speak it?
5. In which country?
6. What do they call it in the north?
7. Do less than half of them speak that?
8. How many different kinds of it are there?
9. What is one?
10. Where is that?
11. What is another?
12. Is that in the east?
13. Are there any other kinds of it?
14. Do they speak it in any other country?
15. Which one?
16. What else do they speak there?
17. Are there any other countries besides that?
18. Which one?
19. Which kind do they speak there?
20. What else do they speak?
A: 1. Kurds
2. Kurdish
3. Western Asia
4. 8 and 20 million
5. Turkey
6. Kurmanji
7. no
8. three dialect groups
9. Sorani
10. Central Kurdish
11. Palewani
12. no
13. yes
14. yes
15. Iran
16. unknown
17. yes
18. Iraq
19. Central Kurdish
20. Arabic

Answer the questions at the end based on the text.

CHAPTER XX

FAST IN THE ICE

"Well, there is one piece of luck," said Barwell Dawson, the next morning. "Our collier is here, so we can take on coal at once, and get away from here inside of three or four days."

"Yes, we want to take advantage of the weather while it lasts," answered the captain of the _Ice King_. And the task of transferring the coal began an hour later.

Andy and Chet asked for permission to go ashore, and, after word had been sent to the governor of the place, they entered a steam launch in company with Barwell Dawson and Professor Jeffer. The explorer knew what was on Chet's mind, and aided him to find out if the _Northland_ was at Upernivik.

"She is here," said Barwell Dawson, after making inquiries. "I will have you taken to her."

Chet found Tom Fetjen, a Danish-American, tall and powerful, with a shrewd but kindly face. He listened to the boy's story with interest, and then shrugged his big shoulders.

"I no can tell you mooch 'bout dat whaler, _Betsey Andrews_," he said, slowly. "I not know for truf what happen to him. But I hear som't'ing las' year. Two Esquimaux men come to me an' da say dat de whaleboat he got stuck by de ice far up dare." And Tom Fetjen waved his hand northward.

"Stuck in the ice?" queried Chet.

"Dat is what de Esquimaux men say. Da climb up de ice mountain an' see him ship stuck fast, but go--what you say him?--float, yes, float up dat way," and again the trader pointed northward.

1. Who wanted to go to shore?
2. Did they go?
3. What sort of official did they meet?
4. Was anyone else with them?
5. What did Chet want to learn?
6. How long before they'd be able to leave?
7. According to whom?
8. What product were they getting?
9. How quickly were they able to start hauling it?
10. What was their boat called?
11. Was it a nice day?
12. Who was inquiring about something?

Numbered answers:

A: 1. Andy and Chet
2. Yes
3. unknown
4. Barwell Dawson and Professor Jeffer
5. to find out if the _Northland_ was at Upernivik
6. three or four days
7. Barwell Dawson
8. coal
9. an hour later
10. Ice King
11. Yes
12. Barwell Dawson

Answer the questions at the end based on the text.

(CNN) -- Roger Ebert was seldom at a loss for words.

His debates with Gene Siskel, his longtime co-host on a succession of movie-review television shows, sometimes seemed to start before the introduction and often appeared to continue well after the credits rolled. He wrote reviews, columns, interviews and articles, an astonishing collection of work that spanned more than four decades with the Chicago Sun-Times, freelance contributions for magazines such as Esquire, CD-ROMs (Ebert's movie guide was one of the sources for the popular Cinemania) and rogerebert.com. He hosted festivals for underappreciated films. He gave running travelogues from Cannes and Toronto.

He tweeted, Facebooked, corresponded with film lovers and held court with words long after his physical voice was silenced by cancer a decade ago.

Ebert lost his battle with cancer Thursday. He was 70.

What a voice he had: firm, plain, brooking no claptrap and telling you exactly what he thought, a throwback, he said, to his newspaper reporter days. (Chicago, then and now, was full of such cheerily blunt personalities: Mike Royko, Irv Kupcinet, Studs Terkel -- perhaps to be expected in the birthplace of "The Front Page.")

Opinion: Ebert's sheer love of life

Above all, he was easy to relate to. Like many of his readers, I didn't always agree with Ebert, but I could understand his viewpoint. He understood movies were these complex machines of directors and actors and special effects guys and studio suits holding bags of money, machines that -- when they worked -- were magical, like dreams. And when they didn't, he could be a compassionate man, more forgiving than many other critics.

1. Who does the article feature?
2. what is he famous for?
3. how did he die?
4. Who was his cohost?
5. Could he speak?
6. For his entire life?
7. how old was he when he passed away?
8. Did he hold back on his reviews?
9. Did people usually agree with him?
10. how was he different from other critics?

Numbered answers:

A:
1. Roger Ebert
2. movie-review
3. cancer
4. Gene Siskel
5. yes
6. no
7. 70
8. no
9. to relate
10. magical, like dreams