Read the following context and choose the correct option to answer the question. Context: I sure have Shannon. But, not for very long! My apologies as I need to give a little back story first. Please bear with. I first came to the DC/NOVA area via the US Army. It had a very small town feel. I was amazed no traffic, extremely affordable housing market, friendly, helpful and caring people and trees as far as the eyes could see. It was top 3 places I had lived in this country. After the Tech boom peaked near 2000 and after 9/11 the flood gates opened and people spilled in from all over the Earth for the bountiful opportunities. The housing market skyrocketed and people were tripling++ the values of their homes. It is now home to some of the wealthiest counties in the US. Why is this all relevant? All the prosperity brought greed, selfishness and gluttony to a whole new level. People had massive disposable income they had never had before. Nothing is too grossly indulgent anymore and they throw away vast amounts of money trying to one up the last kids party without giving a thought to what a kid needs or the fact they are teaching kids that over indulgence is okay. Now, my son and I were invited to a birthday party for this FIVE year old. The sole Parent had rented the club house, surrounding grounds and pool area of a local country club. I would estimate around 30 kids x 1.5 adults. It was catered with both adult and children's foods and beverages, including Wine and Champagne (few here seem able or willing to parent without it). A company was hired to bring in 6 industrial fair/carnival type rides. A mini Ferris Wheel and a mini Roller Coaster included. She even had hired help that distributed Party Bags/Swag Bags that included cologne/perfume for the kids. I don't think my jaw closed the entire time we were there. This was for a FIVE year old! Could you believe she talks about the daughters poor behavior frequently? My Son asked to leave after around 20 mins, Question: What happened to the area after 9/11? Options: - Things stayed the same. - Property value went down. - not enough information - Property value went up.
Property value went up.

Read the following context and choose the correct option to answer the question. Context: Kurt Vonnegut, writer and famous speech giver at US university graduation ceremonies, made this point to one group of soon-to-be-non-students: If this isn't nice, I don't know what is. It is the end of a story about his grandpa who, on a summer's afternoon, would find the shade of a tree under which he could rest with a glass of homemade lemonade. The family didn't have a lot of cash, the grandpa worked hard every day of his life, but no matter how relentless the day-to-day was, he would always repeat this phrase as a reminder to those around him that, at the end of the day, this is all still amazing to be part of. This kind of optimism, as you might call it, can often disappear in a flash in the busy-ness of business or school. Things become impossible, hardgoing, relentless(ly difficult). And the reasons we give for that busyness nearly always involve someone or something else - the system, the job, the weather... For many years, people would ask the salutary "how are you?" and my answer was a stock one: "I'm tired." It was my wife who pointed it out to me, presumably because everyone else was too polite to express their boredom with my reply. The fact is, most people feel tired most of the time, until they make a switch in their life. That switch is deciding that the only person who can turn that frown upside down, who can make crazy stuff happen (or attempt to, and enjoy the process), is you. And in Vonnegut's case, that switch came from saying out loud the one phrase that brings us back to the good elements in what we or our team or our family is doing at any given moment: If this isn't nice, I don't know what is. Question: For how long did the author give the same reply to people? Options: - his entire life - not enough information - a month - many years
many years

Read the following context and choose the correct option to answer the question. Context: 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. Question: What is it like outside in the movie? Options: - There are ambulances - There are police cars - not enough information - It is dry and hot.
It is dry and hot.