"Congratulations, jackass, you just got us sued." My editor, Sharon, was standing in front of my desk. She was apparently not happy. I shrugged, slouching further down in my chair, trying to hide from her gigantic crazy eyes behind my computer. It was a white laptop with a sticker that said "This Machine Kills Yuppies" slapped over the corporate logo on back. She reached out with one of her freakish man-hands and slammed the screen shut. "Let me try this again. You just got us sued six times over." Sharon Sinclair was a six-foot-tall beast of a woman with a huge mane of wiry black and gray hair pulled back in a pony tail. I had every confidence that she could tear me in two and use my bloody carcass in some kinky hedonistic lesbian cult ritual or something. So I usually tried to choose my words with the appropriate care around her. "Jesus-fucking-Christ, I haven't even had my morning coffee yet, and my head's still reeling from the Louisville Slugger that pummeled it last night. So I really don't feel like dealing with whatever annoying hormonal episode you have going on here." She glared at me silently, watching me squirm a little before asking, "Are you done?" "Probably." "Good," she said with a suppressed grin as she took a seat next to me. "Because I just let you publicly accuse the mayor and the valley's most powerful corporations of conspiring to defraud the taxpayers. So what's your plan for keeping my ass off the firing line?" I tilted back in my chair and met Sharon's gaze. "Look, we knew we'd get a strong reaction. Let them sue. We have e-mails to back us up." "These legal briefings say your e-mails were forged," she responded, waving a thick stack of papers in my face. "Of course they're gonna say that. That's why I made sure to get corroboration. Abrasax confirmed that the e-mails between Dylan Maxwell and City Hall are legit. But you know all this, so I don't know why we're wasting time going over it again." Question: The narrator slouched further into his chair: Options: A. before Sharon called him a jackass B. after Sharon called him a jackass C. while Sharon called him a jackass D. not enough information === The correct answer is
B

(Question)
September 2006, and deep in the bowels of the Adam Street private members' club in London a very special group of people is crammed into a private room, supping imported Spanish beer from a free bar. The value - on paper at least - of the companies owned by those squeezed into this tiny, boiling space would dwarf the debt of a small African nation. Among those present are some of the key players in Europe's Internet industry. The content creators, the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the investors; these are the new media moguls. And tonight they're in their element. I'm hiding at the back of the room getting slowly drunk with the event's organiser, an entrepreneur who helped raise a ridiculous sum of money for a business networking site that had projected revenues of precisely zero. His mantra, he tells me, is 'revenue is the enemy'. It's not clear what that means, but I have to admit it sounds great. A microphone is being passed around and we're watching and listening as a succession of young - mostly under forty - men - they're mostly men - rattle off their CVs and their future plans. 'He,' whispers my drinking buddy, pointing the neck of his beer bottle at a short, well-groomed man wearing a yellow checked jacket and bright red trousers, 'was in the FT yesterday. Apparently BT are going to buy the company he co-founded for half a billion dollars.' 'Fuck,' I half-whisper back. One habit you soon pick up, hanging out with dot com entrepreneurs, is swearing. 'That's a terrible fit. It's like Friends Reunited* all over again. What the hell are BT going to do with them?' 'Nothing.' 'Nothing?' 'No, the story's bullshit. Totally made up. And they fucking printed it. ' 'Fuck.' 'Of course they printed it. They called the investors to check it out, but they refused to comment. So they ran it as a "rumour". And why not? It wouldn't exactly be the most outrageous deal of the year, would it?' He has a point. Question: How is the deal between BT and the new company going to go? Options: A. decent B. badly C. smoothly D. not enough information === The correct answer is
(Answer)
D

But corrected figures, provided by the U.S. military and published Tuesday by SIGAR, suggest that the actual decline was 17,980. Pentagon officials acknowledged originally providing inaccurate figures to SIGAR because of a failure "to account for the transfer of most of the Afghan Border Force from the Afghan National Police to the Afghan National Army," according to a SIGAR statement. According to the new figures, there were 313,728 members of the Afghan defense forces as of January 31, 2018. That compares to a total of 296,409, as previously reported. "SIGAR receives all of the (Afghan National Defense and Security Forces) personnel strength numbers published in the quarterly report from USFOR-A and has no means of independently verifying them," the statement added. The new figures still amount to a sharp decline. Afghan forces suffered unprecedented casualties in 2017, reportedly losing about 10,000 personnel, according to reports. SIGAR has been unable to publicly disclose the exact number of Afghan forces killed, because that information continues to be classified by Washington and Kabul. The violence has led to increased reports of Afghan military desertions, but that information too has been classified. Senior U.S. military officials repeatedly have acknowledged the nearly 17-year-old conflict remains a stalemate, even while touting some successes under the new strategy announced by President Donald Trump in August. Those success include the increasing capability of the Afghan military, which began conducting airstrikes two years ago. The Afghan air force carries out between four to 12 airstrikes every day, according to the Afghan Ministry of Defense. But the Kabul government controls just over half of the country's districts, SIGAR says. Trump's strategy appeared to commit the U.S. to Afghanistan indefinitely. It involves pressuring Pakistan to end its support for Afghan militants, supporting Kabul's effort to engage the Taliban in peace talks, and dropping more bombs on the country. The U.S.-led... Question: After the end of this story, the U.S-led coalition will probably: Options: A. pull out of Afghanistan. B. not enough information C. stop dropping bombs in Afghanistan. D. continue to combat the Taliban. === The correct answer is
D