Question: There's a story in my Tuscan family of nobility and forbidden love. It's set in Taranto, Puglia, on Italy's southern heel and involves my daughter's great-great-grandmother. The best known version is told by my husband Marco's uncle, Riccardo, who remembers it being told to him by his elderly Nonna Anna herself. Anna Michela Comasia Maria Calianno. Her long name was a sign of her family's noble status. She was born in Taranto, Puglia, in 1889, into a wealthy, well-educated Tarantine family of physicians, surgeons and landowners. One day, by chance, young Anna answered the door instead of the butler. There was Nicola Cardellicchio, the postman. He came from a poor family of bricklayers and wool spinners, raised by a single mother. "He was no adonis," noted Nonna Anna. Nicola was rather short and stocky, but she liked him immediately. She continued answering the door whenever the postman passed. When Anna's mother, Girolama, noticed her daughter's growing interest in the postman, she forbid her to see him again, threatening to disown her. So Anna did what any lovesick girl would do: she ran away, eloping with Nicola. The couple had nine children in Taranto Mario, Marco's grandfather was born in the middle of the First World War but times were very hard, and they moved north to Torino to look for work. Nonna Anna was perhaps not an instinctive cook. I wondered whether she ever had the possibility to learn how to cook. Her grandchildren, Angela (my mother in law) and Riccardo, remember her only ever making lesso (boiled meat) and these polpette, which became variously known in the family as "sugo di nonna Anna" and, oddly, "amatriciana" (which is actually a different recipe, a chilli-spiked sauce of fried guanciale and tomato to coat pasta). But these polpette plump meat balls, cooked slowly in tomato sauce, a very traditional dish from Puglia were passed down to Anna's daughter in law, Angela's Tuscan mother, Lina, who made them so often for her own family that she in turn taught her daughter in law,... What did Anna cook? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. Something forbidden C. Something delicious D. Something noble
Answer: C

Question: The city was gray but the buildings contrasted with dirt red. The morning settled my nerves a bit more and before long the train pulled into the station. Boston had a slower feel, much slower than New York. The air was cool and peppered with moisture. I knew I was close to the ocean. Vision blurry, I wobbled out of the train depot and thought about the fact that I had never really done anything crazy in my life. The colors meant something here. Green was the color of plants but it was also the color of money. Plants were good but money was bad. I didn't know what green meant. Blue and red were clear though. Blue was the color of ocean and sky, both good things. Red was the color of Mars and it was manly but mars meant aliens and aliens were bad so red was bad. This is how I navigated. I followed the colors. I was lost in a daze of exhaustion and moved my feet slowly. They were dead and raw with pain and blisters, and I shuffled out into the city. My eyes darted from color to color, sign to sign, connection to connection. I floated like a ghost and thought about crying. There were few people out so I found a relative ease in that but my mind still jumped around reckless. I needed to find Kim. I saw a silent pay phone with a dangling phonebook and headed towards it until I remembered that phone books don't normally list cell phones. Kim wasn't the type of girl to list herself in the phonebook either. I had no leads but I knew I could go to a library and maybe find out her number if she had listed it on Facebook, so I kept walking. Stopping at benches, I would rest until I could muster more energy. What does the author find after leaving the train station? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. a library C. a plant D. a pay phone
Answer: D

Question: I don't know how this rates as "shocking", I guess it might depend on the culture in which you live, but, it is at the least "repulsive" or disgusting. There was a huge corporation in which I had a contract with. I was called in, to help them uncover what they considered "a very serious series of incidents". Their own "in house" attempts were fruitless. It turned out, they had an over-sized engineering department, and that it had been announced that this would be scaled back due to completion of contracts. Someone though, within the engineering department, was sabotaging the continued work, slowing the completion. I was to go undercover, posing as a visiting engineer from a distant plant, and find out who the perpetrator/s were, as they wished to file legal action. So, this is at the corporate headquarters, in the late 1980's. These people were making 6 figure incomes easily. That being said, you kind of expect a bit more of a dignified behavior here than you would with a construction laborer or dishwasher. I completed my job in four days, giving them the evidence and name of the lone individual respsonsible for the sabotage. What exactly was he doing? He carried rubber gloves in his back pocket, and he would periodically use the restroom, and remove his feces from the toilet and smear it all over the walls, covering as much surface as he could. He would also visit restrooms in different departments and do the same. This would cause the unionized individuals, who only had that restroom to use in their area, to walk off their work stations. Seriously, a butt-hurt guy fearing a layoff, so he decided to smear his shit all over the place before it even happened. He readily confessed when confronted by HR, further destroying his work record/career. How did the investigator feel about finishing the case in 4 days? Pick the correct answer from the following options: A. not enough information B. scared C. Great D. sad
Answer:
C