Q: By-elections also spelled bye-election (known as special elections in the United States, and bypolls in India) are used to fill elected offices that have become vacant between general elections.

In most cases these elections occur after the incumbent dies or resigns, but they also occur when the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office (because of a recall, ennoblement, criminal conviction, or failure to maintain a minimum attendance). Less commonly, these elections have been called when a constituency election is invalidated by voting irregularities.

In the United States, these contests have been called "special elections" because they do not always occur on Election Day like regular congressional elections. A 2016 study of special elections to the United States House of Representatives found "that while candidate characteristics affect special election outcomes, presidential approval is predictive of special election outcomes as well. Furthermore, we find that the effect of presidential approval on special election outcomes has increased in magnitude from 1995 to 2014, with the 2002 midterm representing an important juncture in the nationalization of special elections."

The procedure for filling a vacant seat in the House of Commons of England was developed during the Reformation Parliament of the 16th century by Thomas Cromwell; previously a seat had remained empty upon the death of a member. Cromwell devised a new election that would be called by the king at a time of the king's choosing. This made it a simple matter to ensure the seat rewarded an ally of the crown.

Answer the following questions:
1. What is the term used for special elections?
2. Why are they special?
3. What sways these elections?
4. What is the main thing?
5. How do you know? What was done?
6. When was the study done?
7. On all elections or specific ones?
8. On what offices?
9. Is it having more of an impact over time?
10. What year was the turning point?
A: 1. By-elections
2. do not always occur on Election Day
3. candidate characteristics
4. presidential approval
5. increased in magnitude
6. 2016
7. specific
8. United States House of Representatives
9. Yes
10. 2002
Q: "Oh,you must have been a spoiled kid.You must be really bossy.I wonder what you're going to be like to deal with?" That's often the response Angela Hult gets when people find out she's an only child,she told ABC News.Despite such negative remarks,Hult has decided to have only one child herself.And she's not alone.

According to the US' Office for National Statistics,women approaching the end of their childbearing years had an average of 1.9 children in 2004,compared with 3.1 for their counterparts in 1976.The percentage of onechild families in Britain had risen from 18 percent in 1972 to 26 percent in 2007.

But even though only children are becoming increasingly common,the traditional view that they're selfish,spoiled and lack social skills holds strong.Even parents of only children,like Hult,are made to feel guilty about having only one child.Worried that they're being selfish and endangering their child's future,they flock to online discussion forums seeking advice.Soon,however,they ask themselves:is this social prejudice really reasonable?

"There have been hundreds and hundreds of research studies that show that only children are no different from their peers ," Susan Newman,a social psychologist at Rutgers University in the US,told ABC News.

This raises another question:why are only children still viewed with such suspicion?

"There is a belief that's been around probably since humans first existed that to have just one child is somehow dangerous,both for you and for the continuation of your race," Toni Falbo,a professor of educational psychology,told the Guardian."In the past a lot of children died.You'd have had to be crazy to only have one."

Times,of course,have changed and infant mortality has largely reduced.So what do only children themselves say?

Kayley Kravitz,a blogger for The Huffington Post,grew up as an only child and highly recommends the experience."Being an only child taught me the most valuable skill of all:the ability to be alone," she said.

Answer the following questions:
1. What office presented statistics on women?
2. Is Angela Hult an only child?
3. Do people tell her that she is spoiled?
4. How many children is she having?
5. Does she feel guilty about it?
6. Why?
7. How many families in Britain have only one child?
8. Is that an increase or decrease from the 70s?
9. From what?
10. From what percent?
A: 1. US' Office for National Statistics
2. yes
3. yes
4. one
5. yes
6. of being selfish and endangering their child's future
7. 26 percent
8. increase
9. onechild families
10. 18 percent
Q: Guardian Centers may be a place to practice how to respond to a disaster, but that doesn't mean real danger is nonexistent.

When we headed over to see its mock subway station, complete with eight cars donated from Washington's Metro system, we were told we had a limited window to view it. The reason -- they were going to be pumping actual toxic gas into the building to simulate a chemical attack.

As smoke rose from chunks of concrete representing an obliterated building, Chris Schaff put it this way: "As soon as you come in here, the pretend goes away."

He's a fire and rescue battalion chief with Fairfax County, Virginia, and his words carry a lot of weight. His elite team of urban search and rescue operatives has been deployed to numerous disasters, including Hurricane Sandy, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti quake.

Luis Fernandez, a two-decades-plus veteran of disaster response, agreed the Perry, Georgia, facility passes muster.

"The temperature extremes, the building extremes, the noises, the environment, are incredibly lifelike," said Fernandez, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue chief of staff and.a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The brotherhood of Disaster City

From the aforementioned subway station, to a mock bridge with crushed cars, to a devastated structure made to look like the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, Guardian Centers' 830-acre site is designed to allow a variety of responders to do a variety of drills in one location.

This kind of "doomsday Disneyland" owes its vision to Geoff Burkart, a telecommunications executive who was in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. During Katrina, he saw "what was being done there, and what was not being done."

Answer the following questions:
1. Who is a 20 year veteran?
2. veteran of what?
3. where is the center?
4. wher edoes he normally work?
5. what is fernandez spokesman for?
6. is real danger a possibility ?
7. Where did the subway cars come from?
8. how many are there?
9. what sort of gas will be pumped?
10. simulating what?
11. what did the concrete chuncks represent?
12. what's cominhg off them?
13. what goes away as soon as you enter?
A:
1. Luis Fernandez
2. disaster response
3. Perry, Georgia
4. Geoff Burkart
5. Federal Emergency Management Agency
6. Yes.
7. Washington's Metro system
8. eight
9. toxic gas
10. a chemical attack
11. an obliterated building
12. smoke
13. pretending