But that did not really surprise me much. I knew very well that in addition to the great planets-- such as the Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus-- to which we have given names, there are also hundreds of others, some of which are so small that one has a hard time seeing them through the telescope. When an astronomer discovers one of these he does not give it a name, but only a number. He might call it, for example, "Asteroid 325."  I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is the asteroid known as B-612. This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909. On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration . But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said. Grown-ups are like that...  Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator  made a law that his subjects  should change to European costume under pain of death  .So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report.  If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is for the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much money does his father make?"  If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $20,000." Then they would cry out: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!"    _ , if you say to them: "The proof that the little prince... What are adults like in the eye of the narrator? A) They lack imagination. B) They don't really understand life. C) They don't like Turkish costume. D) They show no tolerance towards children.
B


If you were given a chance to choose your favorite life metaphor , what would it be? Do you agree with Forrest Gump's mother that life is "a box of chocolates" because "you never know what you're going to get"? Or do you prefer the phrase from the 1930's song that "life is just a bowl of cherries "? Though simply stated, each conveys a very different view. A "box" implies mystery, because we don't know what is in a closed box. Meanwhile, a "bowl" of cherries is completely in view. For many centuries, the metaphor of life that probably burst into most people's mind was the one suggested by Shakespeare: "All of life is a stage..." On that stage, we take seven roles. More recently, psychologist Erik Erikson took up the idea of life as a stage. Erikson regarded development as a "powerful unfolding" in which we are driven from one stage to the next as our bodies, minds, and social roles develop. Stage metaphors fit with many of our common-sense ideas about change, but the problem with the stage metaphor is that it isn't particularly accurate. None of the studies that try to clarify the universality of adult life stages actually studied people as they developed over time. All of them were based on performances of their samples  at one point in time. People's actual lives don't fit into these stage metaphors. They don't automatically transform when people reach a certain age. Instead, people's real lives are messy, unpredictable, and full of surprises. Today, I'd like to focus on an even longer study, an 80-year study which is the subject of a recent book by Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin. Their final chapter summarizes the "many changes of healthy and unhealthy pathways" that their participants took over the course of their lives. As I too discovered in my research, the pathway provides a perfect metaphor of human development. We don't all go down the same road marked with the same signposts based on age. People travel through diverse routes as they track the years of adulthood. Friedman and Martin use health... When a person is facing difficulties bravely, which metaphor can best describe him? A) "Not Easy Street" B) "Happy Trails to You" C) "Catastrophe Lane" D) "The Road to Resilience"
D


Children are very, very _ and have excellent memories. Around Christmas last year, we were heading to Grandma's house. The drive was an hour long, so we had plenty of time to chat. We were waiting to get onto the freeway when my daughter Hayley noticed a homeless man, no sign in hand. "Mom, is that man homeless?" I told her I believed he was. We got onto the freeway and drove away. But the chatting had stopped. Hayley was quiet all the way there. We spent a few hours at Grandma's then packed up to head home. As we drove back, Hayley rustled  around in her seat, trying to reach something on the floor of the car. I asked her to sit still, worried her seatbelt would slip from the booster seat. She mumbled something and sat back. "Mom, will the homeless man still be outside tonight?" I told her I was not sure, maybe. It was a freezing night, and I started to think of the man now too, and how cold he must be. All of a sudden, as we got onto the freeway exit, Haley shrieked  : "There he is! There he is!" and started rolling down her window. "Mom, I found these gloves and scarf back here. Can I give them to him? Can I?" she asked. I pulled over to the edge of the road, and beckoned  the man to come over. Haley smiled at him and handed him her gift. I looked in the front passenger seat, loaded with leftovers from Grandma's house, and handed those out to him as well. The man thanked us, he clutched   my hand in his and I could feel the bitter cold of them. We wished him a safe night and continued on our journey to our warm home. "Haley, that was very sweet of you!" I told her. "Well, they were your gloves and scarf, Mom, but his hands looked colder, and he has to keep looking for his house!" We had talked about homelessness before , and I could hear myself telling her: "Someone who has lost their home." She had taken my words literally and thought the man's home was like a lost puppy. On the ride home, and as I carried my sleeping angel into the house that night, my heart filled with gratitude. The girl thought "a homeless person" was a person who  _  . A) had no home to go to B) had lost his or her puppy C) was in need of gloves and scarves D) couldn't find his or her home

D