Article: In her new book, "The Smartest Kids in the World," Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a high-school student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Warsaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students' test scores from significantly below average to well above it. Polish kids have now outscored(......) American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Warsaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind. That American high schools lavish more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint. This is not a matter of how any given student who plays sports does in school, but of the culture and its priorities. This December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment(PISA) results are announced, it's safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers. Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D.C., which costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader--a mother with three children in the school--was asked about the school's flaws . When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. "Really?"... Question: The purpose of this article is to _ . Yes or no, is the answer "draw public attention to a weakness in American school tradition"?
Yes

Article: I finished my last evening shift of the week and could hardly wait to get home. I took off my nursing shoes, relaxed and then said goodnight to the rest of the girls and headed out of the door. It was so cold and I could see the ice crystals in the air. As I approached my car, I saw one of my coworkers standing by the bus stop. I thought it would only take a couple of extra minutes to give her a ride home, and besides, it was too cold to be standing outside on the coldest night in January. We chatted as I drove and before we knew it, we arrived at her house. As she headed up the steps to her door she turned around. "Do you know how to get to your house from here?" "How hard can it be? I'll just backtrack the way I came." I started driving. Nothing looked familiar, but at first that didn't bother me since I'd never been to this neighborhood before. I kept driving, and soon I sensed that something was wrong. I recognized nothing, not the neighborhoods, not even the street names. My husband would be worried about me. I looked down at my watch. It was now 2:30. I'd left work at 11:30 pm. I stopped my car. I thought I'd better take stock of my situation. My gas gauge was slowly going down. In total defeat I put my head down on the steering wheel and asked for help. I lifted my head. I saw a shadow down the road in front of me. It was a car. What was a car doing in the middle of nowhere at 2:30 in the morning? Hesitantly, I got out of my car and knocked on the window of the other car. An elderly man slowly rolled his window down. I said, "I'm lost and don't know how to get back into town." In silence, he started driving. I drove behind him. Finally I recognized a familiar street. As I turned to head home, I lost sight of my guiding angel. When I pulled into my driveway the warning light for my gas tank turned on. Question: Why did the writer stop her car? Yes or no, is the answer "To consider and judge the situation."?
No

Q: Article: Over the holidays, I took my three young children into a fancy chocolate shop to buy gifts. Halfway home, I noticed my 7-year-old son playing with a plastic noisemaker. Long story short: He had stolen the toy. I kept my cool -- even when he said, "but it was only $1.50, Mom!" --and explained why it was unacceptable to take things we didn't buy. A few hours later, I marched my son back to the store with two dollars from his piggy bank. He walked embarrassedly to the counter and told the clerk that he had taken something without paying for it, that he was sorry to break it and that he would pay for it now. I know exactly how terrible he was feeling. Returning to the scene of the crime is the same shame-causing punishment I received when I was five and stole something from a store. 1 remember my dad sending me back to return the item. It remains one of my clearest child- hood memories. After that day, I never stole again. My dad taught me such an important lesson 30 years ago and I saw an opportunity to do the same for my son. But now I wonder if it was the fight thing to do. "Returning to the store is absolutely the right thing to do," Laura Markham, Ph.D., a child psychologist and author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, says. "Many children steal -- they' re not born knowing the rules so it' s our job to teach them." And stay calm when you set them. "If you overreact or yell, you might create a fascination with the behavior and a willful child will be more likely to fight against you," she says. Having a child physically return the stolen item helps him or her grasp the situation -- and the consequence. But don't talk about it for too long. "lf you continuously bring up the incident, the child will believe they' re a thief and that they' re bad," she says. Only time will tell if this experience will have the same powerful effect on my son as it had on me, but at the same time I can rest if I haven' t dealt with the situation badly. Question: When the author' s son was caught playing with a stolen toy, he _ . Yes or no, is the answer "didn't think it was a big deal"?
A: No

(Question)
Article: News that Microsoft was making a $44.6 billion bid to buy Yahoo was greeted with heated discussion by many Internet users on Friday. Here are some responses: Mark Galeassi of Kansas City, Missouri This is the best move for both parties. Yahoo has the ideas and Microsoft has the money to finally market these ideas correctly. Microsoft and Yahoo are a perfect fit and the deal will be good for consumers. Scott G of New Jersey I was a Yahoo user for years along with Hotmail from Microsoft. Then Google came along: Google Earth, Google Toolbar and Gmail. Google is so innovative with everything they do. Yahoo and Microsoft... same old story... I don't think the merger will do anything for either company except improve the Yahoo shareholders' bank accounts. Michael Glosser of Estero, Florida Right now, Yahoo offers a lot of features and tools at no cost for all different levels of Internet users. Microsoft seeks nothing but profit. Undoubtedly, they'll do nothing other than find ways to start removing Yahoo's formerly non-priced features. Microsoft's greed will ruin the great thing that Yahoo currently is. Toni Suarez of Hacienda Heights, California Perhaps it would bring better high technology innovations to e-mail and help in researching and developing a better Internet! Antonio Simmons of Parkville, Maryland Microsoft purchasing Yahoo would be nothing more than an attempt from Microsoft to further impose upon the users their poor-quality software and obtain more wealth for the company. In my opinion, they will never be able to compete with Google because Yahoo and Microsoft's current search engines are too inferior to compete. Even if combined, they still lack. Question: Michael Grosser is afraid that _ . Yes or no, is the answer "the merger will cost Yahoo's free features"?
(Answer)
Yes