(Question)
Hmmm… that’s a hard one. At first I was going to say giving them daily chores, but the “reward” part of that has actually not been realized yet (what with all the eye rolling and such). So I will have to go with family dinners at the table. Sometimes, “dinner” is fast food, sometimes it is a meal I slaved over for hours - that part doesn’t seem to matter. Whether we are talking about our day, learning manners, having serious discussions, or laughing until we spit our drinks - it is where grow. There have been horrible nights at the table, where we shared bad news. There have been fabulous nights where we celebrated successes and talked about exciting things to come. There have been nights where the kids can see that Mom and Dad are “at odds” and nights where they see us push that aside and joke with each other for the sake of saving the evening. When they were little, we did “About Your Day” - one funny thing, one sad thing, one new thing you learned. Now, they are all teenagers, and the conversations just seem to flow, with never enough time to fit it all in before someone has to rush off to work, to study, or to get ready for bed because we are eating “after practice”. My twins will be Seniors next year, and I know that our table will look a little different from now on. But when I look at that worn oak (outdated) table, that needs refinishing in the worst way - I am grateful for the evenings there, where my kiddos learned to be a family. Don’t be misled, we are not the Cleavers. We have “Fun Friday” where Mom does not get to badger them about their table manners (ugh - they revel in this), Sometimes we eat in the living room while we watch a movie, sometimes we eat in shifts because of our schedules. However, the majority of meals have been together ~ I feel like this is a gift we gave them. Why would the mom and dad sometimes joke with each other?  A. not enough information  B. For the sake of saving the evening  C. To prepare for work  D. To celebrate the twins becoming seniors
(Answer)
B


(Question)
Recently the subject of discrimination has been something I have been thinking a lot about. It was the subject of some meetings with ubuntu-women, something I have discussed with my friend Sulamita in a Brazilian bar at 4.30am and the subject of various ad-hoc discussions at the Ubuntu Developer Summit. As the wider Open Source community grows, it becomes more of an issue every day, and something we all need to be aware of. While in Brazil I made a promise to Sulamita that I would be blogging about the issue of discrimination against women, and I have been holding off writing an entry until I had some real, practical, implementable steps that I can advise people to take to help make the situation better. Although I will never fully understand how some women are made to feel at the hands of such discrimination, I have been hoping my contribution could be to help contribute to an awareness of the issue, and for that to happen I felt I needed to construct some doable steps that people can execute. Solving social problems is hard though, which ain’t all that surprising, so I had held off on a blog post until I had some such action points. I have since discovered that there is really one key step that we all need take – don’t accept or allow discrimination in your community. In my mind all discrimination is bad. Every day people get up and are discriminated due to gender, age, race, mobility, technical knowledge and more. The issues of discrimination, while different in the specifics (e.g. women are discriminated in different ways to age discrimination), the underlying issue is very similar – mistreating people because of a grouping they are part of. We have all suffered this in different ways, from serious racial hatred to someone not taking you seriously because you have long hair and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. What does the narrator write a blog post about?  A. Prejudice  B. Intolerance  C. not enough information  D. Discrimination
(Answer)
D


(Question)
Mr. Drake hurried into the trailer, and Ethorne, Gwenny, Johnny Tepes, and I looked up as Mrs. DeLyon followed him. He looked at me. "Where would Digger go?" I shrugged and blinked. The question made no sense; Digger would not go anywhere. When he slept, he slept for ten hours. You could toss him around like a sack of potatoes, and he would not wake up. With one exception. "Bathroom?" Mrs. DeLyon shook her head. "No." Mr. Drake said, "And he's not in any of the beds. We looked in all three." Mrs. DeLyon said, "And under them. And I called for him. He wouldn't hide from me, would he?" I shook my head. Ethorne got up, went to the door, and shouted, "Digger! Where is you, Digger-boy? You don't need to hide no more. Everything's fine now!" The dogs barked in response, but no person answered. Mrs. DeLyon said, "Call Dr. Lamont. Maybe Susan put him in the backseat and forgot to tell us." Mr. Drake's voice held as little hope for that as Mrs. DeLyon's, but he said, "All right." Mrs. DeLyon said, "We'll get Chris to bed in the meantime." "I'm in charge," I said. Ethorne said, "When there's nothing you can do, you might as well sleep. Save your strength for when you need it." Mrs. DeLyon said, "Don't worry. At least one of us will stay in the trailer until your folks get back." Gwenny said, "C'mon, boyfriend. I'll see you to your bed." I said, "I can go by myself." Gwenny looked at Mrs. DeLyon, then at Johnny Tepes. "Well, that's a blow to a girl's ego." They smiled without much humor, and Mr. Drake hung up the phone. Ethorne said, "What is it?" Mr. Drake said, "Let's get Chris to bed first." I stood and went to the door. "G'night." How long they think Digger usually sleep?  A. 8 hours  B. not enough information  C. 3 hours  D. 10 hours
(Answer)

D