text:
What to do if your dog starts talking to you.
	Step one: If he/she is speaking english you still have time to dial a number, and get him/her fixed. If he/she starts speaking german it’s too late. You have to run; then call the number eight-one-one.
	Step two: Once you’ve called the number you’ll be picked up in a blue van with racing stripes where you’ll get further instructions.
	Step three: Follow said instructions.
	Now I know what you’re thinking, “Oh Lane, why would my dog be talking?” My name is Lane by the way, and I don’t like the tone you used to ask that question.  Despite your attitude I’ll answer your question because it’s my job to make sure that you don’t die. Now, I’m not a member of the government or anything like that, but my brother-in-law is. I don’t like him very much, my sister could’ve done better. Anyways, the dog thing, long story actually. If I explain it to you from where I am now it won’t make much sense; actually the whole thing doesn’t make sense, but if I explain it from where I am now it’ll make less sense. So, let’s start from the very beginning.
	It was Friday the thirteenth (I’m not saying the events that will occur have anything to do with the day, but it’s still a freaky coincidence). I was watching Dexter in my ergonomically correct office chair. If you haven’t seen the show here’s the basic rundown: A man works for the forensics unit of the Miami Police Department and he kills serial killers. It’s really good, you should watch it. As I’m in the middle of the twist of the first season my roommate, Charles,  burst in my room wearing headgear from ancient roman times. He didn’t even have to speak because I knew exactly what he was going to say.
	“You didn’t!?” I shouted with both fury and aggravation. Wait, aren’t those two kinda the same thing? I don’t think so; well, maybe. I’ll check later.
	He didn’t even answer, he just stared at me with a, ‘Oops, I did it again’ look. You know the one. It’s that look the Olsen twins used on “Full House” whenever their character Michelle did something wrong. I really hate that show. Anyways, he looked at me with that smile and I knew that he used the time machine again. By the way we have a time machine, that’s a totally different story though. I burst out of my chair intending to punch him, but he stopped me.
	“Dude just calm down!” Charles said while holding his arms up in self defense.
	“We discussed that we wouldn’t use the time machine ever again! It’s getting too dangerous!”
	“I couldn’t help it! It was calling my name!”
	“Time machines don’t talk, Charles!”
	“I’m sorry!” Charles began to wale and cry very obnoxiously so I punched him in the thorax. That always shuts him up.
	Before I explain any further I should tell you about how this even came about. You see, about a week earlier Charles and I had returned from inventing the high five before Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke, we noticed something strange about our basement. Nothing about the placement of objects, all of our guns seemed to be in their usual spots and our extensive collection of L. Ron Hubbard books had remained untouched, but there was some dude standing in the corner of the basement. He didn’t say anything, he just stood there; like a silent, deadly, poltergeist.
	He wasn’t wearing a suit or anything like that, he was wearing a hawaiian shirt with cargo pants and sandals. He appeared to have predominately caucasian ancestry with suspected asian ancestry as well. He was a shady looking dude. What made him especially shady was the AK-47 he was holding in his hands; I was focusing more on the awful shirt he was wearing. There was about thirty seconds of silence until the gun wielding stranger finally spoke.
	“You Lane and Charles?” He apparently had a british accent. That’s something neither me nor Charles expected.
	“Uh, yeah,” Charles answered hesitantly. The stranger’s fingers tightened around the gun.
	“I’m gonna need you to come with me,” he said this very intimidatingly. Charles and I shook with fear, or maybe we were shaking because it was winter in Wisconsin and our basement didn’t have heating. So, we agreed that if his car was heated that we’d go with him.
	The man’s name was Gerald, and his vehicle was a blue van with racing stripes. The interior was not as cool as the exterior. There weren’t any back seats, just plastic crates with pillows on them. The pillows didn’t come in much handy every time we went over a speed bump. There was also no radio, so we couldn’t even jam to some Blue Oyster Cult or Beethoven on this awkward ride. It also wreaked of an awful odor. It was an indescribable smell; I just can’t put into words how bad it smelt in that car, but the smell was probably coming from the rotting corpse that was in the car. We didn’t see the corpse itself, just a bunch of garbage bags. We wouldn’t have guessed that a chopped up corpse was in those bags unless Gerald told us.
	Gerald, for a man who made Charles and I go on a joyride with him without giving us a reason, was very polite and honest, but he wouldn’t tell us who was in the bags. He merely said it was someone familiar. Gerald was also very cryptic. He was weird like that.
	We drove for about thirty more minutes before we pulled into an abandoned warehouse with about a dozen other blue vans with racing stripes on them.
	“Get out,” Gerald said calmly. Like I said, he was polite.
	Charles and I got out of the van where we were then attacked and had potato sacks put over our heads. Now, I’m not completey sure about this, but I think these guys gave me and Charles some sort of shot to get us to stop struggling. I say this because for a few minutes I felt like I was flying on a cloud. Not one of those usual clouds you fly on, this one was really nice. It was like flying on cotton candy through a sky where the air I breathed tasted like chocolate. However the ride didn’t last long because whatever Charles and I were injected with wore off and I was greeted with a punch to my face.
	The sack was still on my head so I couldn’t see where I was, but I assumed it was in the same warehouse Gerald pulled his van into because Charles wouldn’t stop screaming and thus echoes ensued.
	“Please stop punching my face! It’s very sensitive when blunt objects hit it!” Surprisingly, the men didn’t listen to his request. The sacks were eventually removed from our heads. We were greeted by three men who, by their scrawniness, made Charles and I feel really out of shape that men who looked like that could hurt us so badly. I also noticed that they were wearing the exact same thing that Gerald was wearing. Same hawaiian shirt, sandals, and cargo pants.
	“Do you know who we are?” The man in the middle said. The men never gave us their names, so I’m just gonna call them Larry, Curly, and Tom Cruise.
	“No, why would we know that?” Charles asked.
	“Because you might’ve seen us when you visited King Tut last week,” responded Tom, “or when you proved Joseph Smith wrong a year ago, or when you invented the high five an hour ago.”
	Woah, these guys were good. I was surprised that he knew of mine and Charles’ time adventures. We were the only people in the world with a time machine. Or at least, in our time. Charles had a look on his face that was all too familiar to me. It was the look that said, “I’ll get us out of here, just let me go over every Doctor Who episode I’ve ever seen and see if the Doctor has been in a similar situation.” As his face of clever thinking deteriorated to that of a distressed puppy I knew we were in trouble.
	“We’ve been watching you for quite some time now,” Curly said out of no where. He didn’t really look like someone who’d talk, “and we don’t appreciate what you’ve been doing.”
	“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
	“You’ve been unknowingly destroying Earth.” Larry responded.
	Curly then made a hologram of Earth appear on some sort of device that wasn’t supposed to be around until 2050. Charles and I took some future vacations as well. As we looked at our amazing planet several red dots began to appear all over it, mostly in North America and Europe.
	“These are all the spots where the aliens have already invaded!” Curly shouted causing me and Charles to jump a little bit.
	I’ll spare you the one hour speech that was given to Charles and I, but I will tell you what you need to know: Apparently Charles and I had used our time machine so much that it got the attention of shapeshifting extra-terrestrials due to some signal it was giving off. Since time machines weren’t supposed to be around until five years from now when we’d already made peace with a different species of aliens made mine and Charles’ time machine very suspicious. Like I said, how we got that time machine was a different story altogether. Apparently the species that we were supposed to make peace with eliminated the species that was currently inhabiting Earth. Now you see the dilemma, don’t you? Oh yeah, it turns out that Gerald, Larry, Curly, and Tom Cruise were sent from the future to stop us from causing the aliens to invade. They obviously didn’t do a good job. Also, they were wearing the same things because their future space uniforms adapted to the time period they were in. Now I remember why I don’t write, I forget to put important plot points in.
	They left it up to me and Charles to not use the time machine anymore; because if we did the aliens, species name: Dorothrats, would get a lock on signal and use the time machine for evil. Why they left it up to us I have no idea, we would probably do a worse job than them. They should’ve just taken it away from us. They also said we were a part of their Alliance or whatever, so now we had to help people with whatever kind of alien problems they had. Apparently there had been a lot of calls like that. People calling about their dog talking. The Alliance was always listening in on phone calls so they could show up on the scene before things got out of hand.
	Apparently, Dorothrats invade by taking the shape of dogs, learning how earthlings interact and live, and then they transform into humans. This wasn’t a fast process though; the educating stage could take weeks or months. And the transformation, that’s what the beginning of my story was about. Dorothrats first learn how to speak our language, which is english if you didn’t know, this is the early stage in the transformation process, so you can still get him/her fixed if you hear a strange whisper in the middle of the night. By fixed I mean beaten to death. It’s okay, they’re not really dogs, they’re aliens so it’s not animal cruelty. However, once they learn another language, (no one knows how they do it, but they do), then it’s too late for you. Your dog will then turn into your shape, kill you, and begin living your life. Huh, I guess I didn’t shorten that speech at all.
	Anyway, Gerald dropped Charles and I back off at our house and said to be ready for a call. We never would be. And those are the events leading up to Charles and the roman headgear.
	“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” I shouted.
	“I’m sorry man! What’s the worst that could actually happen?”
	Before I could answer my phone rang. It was Gerald. How did he get my number? I don’t remember him asking for it. Oh yeah, they were time travelers. I answered it, all he said was, “You really messed up. Go to 1233 3rd avenue, your first assignment is there.” The call ended. I gave Charles a dead stare, but I couldn’t focus on his mistake. We had an assignment.

title: The Time Machine (not the classic story by H.G. Wells, this is an entirely different happening of events altogether. Sorry for any confusion.) Part 1

question: Why is it too late if your dog starts talking German?

text: This answer fails to mention that the dogs are aliens in disguise and that they are learning the ways of humans so that they can take over the world.

answer: The dog is a shapeshifting alien.

text: The answer is incomplete.

text: The answer should mention that the dog is a shapeshifting alien that is trying to kill you.

text: This answer is too vague.

text: This response does not fully answer the question and does not explain why the dog would be speaking German.

text: The answer does not explain why Dante is too late when the dog speaks German.

text: The answer is incomplete. It should mention that the narrator and his friend have a time machine, and they know that an alien species will invade the Earth soon. The preliminary steps involve shapeshifting into a dog to learn how humans live. When they learn another language, they kill their "owners" and take their place, which is why it's too late to do anything if your dog starts to talk German.

answer: German dogs are dangerous because they are vicious and likely to bite their owners. If you hear your dog talking German you will have to have him put down.

text: This is not the reason why it is too late if your dog starts talking German.

text: The answer is made up.

text: The answer is completely made up.

text: The reason is that the dog has learned a second language, which means it is on the path to transforming into a human.

text: This answer is completely wrong

text: The answer is completely made up.

answer: The dogs are Dorothrats. Dorothrats are aliens who have come to Earth to take over from humans. They take the shape of dogs to learn all about humans. First they learn English and then they go on to learn other languages. Once they have progressed from English they are ready to take over your body and live your life. The only way to escape is to kill the dog.

answer: The dog is a shapeshifting alien.

text: Clarify that it is too late once the dog starts speaking a second language, so it does not have to be German as any non-American language will suffice (as the setting of the story is in the USA).  And the reason for this is that your dog will kill you and take your form through shapeshifting. While the current answer is accurate, it does not quantify the notion of "too late", which means that there is a dangerous effect would happen. Explaining the actual hostile threat properly provides the context that is needed.

answer: The dogs are Dorothrats. Dorothrats are aliens who have come to Earth to take over from humans. They take the shape of dogs to learn all about humans. First they learn English and then they go on to learn other languages. Once they have progressed from English they are ready to take over your body and live your life. The only way to escape is to kill the dog.

text: The answer is a summary of the story, not an answer to the question.

text: The answer is a summary of the story, not the answer to the question.

text: The answer is too long and includes unnecessary information.

text: The answer is too long and rambling.

text: The answer is too long and unnecessary.

text: The answer is too long and not relevant.

text: It is already stated that the dog is a Dorothrat.

text: Because that happens after they have already learnt how to speak English

answer: German dogs are dangerous because they are vicious and likely to bite their owners. If you hear your dog talking German you will have to have him put down.

text: This answer is inaccurate and not according to the story. Instead, the answer should correctly state that once a dog (the shape-shifting Dorothrat aliens) learns another language, it’s too late because the dog will then turn into your shape, kill you, and begin living your life.


text:
*Hello, all. I posted this to /r/writing awhile back, but didn't get any comments on it, so I'm posting it here in the hopes of getting feedback. I'm a novice writer who's never been published, and I can take criticism so please be honest. Thanks*

All day the sun burned furiously hot, causing sweat, stench, and thirst to all those unlucky enough to be under its power. There would be no darkness tonight; the sun was not going to let a little thing like the post meridian tell it to stop shining, burning, and suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

Before the Age turned, there had been a nightly darkness, or so people were told, but now, in the Dusk Age, day and night were separated by days and sometimes a full week.

Cammy often wondered what it must have been like to live in the Noon Age, when men had been able to predict not only when the sun would rise and fall, but the changing of the weather as well. The first people of the Dusk Age had arbitrarily carried over the static 60/60/24/365.25 time keeping system, longing for a return to the days of the Noon Age. The changes had been so subtle at first that the educated people of the Noon days chalked it up to a random aberration. When the changes became more pronounced, they investigated for any breaches or alterations in their systems. Then one day, the Age turned, everything broke, and nothing was ever the same.

“Don’t start crying again.” Jason, Cammy’s brother told her.

“Excuse me?” she answered. She hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen where she sat at their copper-top table, staring aimlessly out the one window the room was afforded.

“For a second there, you had that look on your face that you get before you cry. You know, that sour lemon/I’m about to fart-face?”

Granted, she had been about to cry over a loss she never experienced, but could still feel, and worse, she did know what face he meant—an oft discussed family trait—but she could not let him know that; she was supposed to be the strong one, and he wasn’t supposed to be so damn observant.

“Halve off!” she told him, raising her heart finger in a curse-implied salute.

“If I cut myself like the Dusky Downers do, who would be here to make sure you don’t drown mom in your tears?”

“Just leave me alone, Jason. Go back to your star maps and your penny women, and let me think.”

Knifing me in the back might be kinder than your constant disproval of the way I make money for us all; the money that buys your clothes, food, and the clean water you waste on tears.”

“Leave… me…”

“Maybe,” Jason started, pulling Cammy back into the chair she had begun to rise from “you can stop thinking of me as your baby brother for a second and let me tell you something?”

Nodding was the only response he got, but it was enough.

“Older men, men who have been studying the stars since before mom was in high school, are starting to formulate what comes next. There was the Dawn Age when men saw little more than spirits and gods in the workings of life and only just started to understand nature and their own natures. The only science they had beyond trial and error was star mapping, and they guided themselves through life with wonder, fantasies, and false emotions.”

“Perhaps,” Cammy interrupted, exasperated “you can stop being so full of yourself and remember that I went to school too and don’t need a history lesson: After the Dawn Age, there was the Noon Age,” she continued for him “when everyday dawned and dusked brightly, and by understanding and utilizing the sciences of Earth, men were able to reach beyond it, to not only map the stars, but to see them, visit them, collect them from, and understand the star’s individual sciences. Their potential was limitless, and they went forward at such a blinding pace that going backwards seemed so impossible, it was never given thought. Now,” she concluded “we are in the Dusk Age, scrabbling at the ground trying to pick up the pieces of the ages before so that we can survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, untamed, and has changed all the rules of its sciences. What little fragments we have left of the Noon age are mostly useless to us, and we have had to relearn many of the ways of the people of the Dawn Age to survive. Is that about right, Monsieur Genius?”

Quietly, and completely out of character, Jason nodded and shed a single tear.

“Really?” Cammy asked, flabbergasted and slamming her hands down on the table. All the times he had mocked her for crying about the death of the Noon age, something no one alive and not even their great-grandparents had been around for and yet, here he was crying, as if… “If this is just you playing some stupid game with me!” she erupted suddenly.

“Sit down,” Jason asked meekly “and let me tell you what’s next.”

The fear in his voice was more than enough to make her obey, but her nature was one of skepticism, so her mind was ready with a few pinches of salt for whatever he was about to say.

“Under all the talk of relearned sciences, new discoveries of edibles, and propulsion systems, there is a deep fear of the next Age. Think about it, Cammy, what comes after dusk? Night” he answered himself. “Our nights may either be full of sun or wholly absent of it, but in the Night Age, will there be any day? How will humanity survive without sunlight? We have already seen how the flora and fauna adapted to the changing of the Age, but humans, relying solely on their temporary sciences, were left blind-sided, and next time, forgive the pun, we’ll be left in the dark. We’ll be cold, blind, and helpless; so low down the food chain, worms may not wait until we’re corpses to start their feastings.”

“Very good, fear monger,” Cammy replied, keeping her skepticism forefront “but there was night in the Dawn Age, so why not dawn in the Night Age? And each age lasted for few millennia, while this one is only a few hundred years old, what’s the worry? Why did you cry?” The last was her real question, the only reason she was still having this discussion and had not just walked away from another of his wild—possibly just to mess with her—stories.

“What came before the Dawn Age?” he asked her in the stoic, marmoreal voice that was a much better display of his inner character. He provided his own answer in that same voice; “A Night Age” he told her. “One so deep and dark, that it was only vaguely remembered in the Noon Age. They had a different name for it, but it still confers the meaning; The Dark Ages. They also called that Noon Age the Golden Age, and thought nothing of the previous Dawn. More importantly, there was nothing of the Dusk. It is impossible to know if any of their sciences changed as they had only just begun to scratch the surface of science, and the stars stay constant, so their mapping is the same as ours, but changes occurred, Cam. From Dawn to Noon they gained knowledge, wealth, and dominance over the Earth, just like our more recently passed forefathers, and also just like them, Night fell and wiped it all away, but how? For us, we know that violent solar flares and the subsequent fission reactions in the atmosphere destroyed all the Noon Age’s technology, disrupted the laws of physics, and the biology of all living organisms on Earth—besides humanity—changed to adapt to the new environment, but what about in the Ages past? Did the Dusk before the Dark Ages pass so quickly that it did not bear mentioning? Did they not recognize its appearance? Is there even a Dusk Age or are we already experiencing the Night’s terrors? We don’t even know if we can really rely on any information that came before the Noon Age. It’s just all so, so…”

“X” Cammy told him when he started to cry again, pulling him into a hug. It was the way she told him that she understood and agreed; that she was his big sister and there was no shame in being worried. “X”. It was their slang for all will be well, because I love you and understand you: you are not alone.

“Zora” they said together as they heard the front door open and close. Their mother, the reason they had their own slang, was home, and they had to release their embrace and dry their tears before she got upset, and became useless for days.

“Anyone home?” she called out from the foyer. “I have dinner for my two happy children!”

title: Dawn of the Night Age (x-post from /r/writing)

question: What does the story say about suffering?

text: The answer should mention the harsh reality of the world during the Dusk Age.

category: coverage

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

answer_source: Human misleading

text: Doesn't mention the suffering during the different ages, past and to come.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text: The answer should mention the Dark Ages.

text: The answer should mention the suffering of the Dark Ages.

text: The answer omits the part where the siblings are talking about the future and their fears.

text: Doesn't mention the survival of humans in the Dusk and Dark Ages, which is the most important type of suffering mentioned in the story.

answer: No answer

answer_source: Model

text: The answer should mention the suffering caused by the sun.

text: The story doesn't say anything about suffering.

text: The answer should mention the suffering of the people in the Dusk Age.

text: The answer should mention the suffering the characters feel due to the Dusk Age.

text: No answer given.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text: The response should mention that this condition is called the Dawn Age and it has a negative physical and emotional impact on the people in the story.

text: The response should mention that Cammy and Jason feel the need to hide their true emotional suffering from their mother.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock. People in the Dusk Age are struggling to survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, and untamed.

answer_source: Human

text: The answer should mention how the sun caused the denizens to sweat, smell, and be thirsty.

text: This should mention how the sun doesn't set for days or a week, leaving the denizens to suffer.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock. People in the Dusk Age are struggling to survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, and untamed.

text: The answer should mention the Dark Age.

text: Add that people are suffering as they have no idea what's coming next.

text: The answer should mention that it seems the main characters are suffering because they are afraid of what is to come in their world, the Night Age.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text: It is omitted that they are in the Dust age, where there are no nights.

text: It is omitted that the Sun causes sweat, stench, and thirst.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock. People in the Dusk Age are struggling to survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, and untamed.

text: The answer should mention the Dark Age.

text: The answer should mention that the regular daily cycles of the Noon Age are a thing of the past in the story. In the Dusk Age, days and nights may last for days, and they aren't predictable.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text:
The answer should mention that the hot sun caused sweat, stench, and thirst to those under its power.

The answer should mention that there wouldn't be any day in the Night Age. Humanity wouldn't survive without sunlight because humans rely solely on nature's temporary sciences. They'd be left blind-sided, in the dark, cold, blind, helpless, and very low down the food chain that worms may not wait until they become corpses to start their feasting.

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text: Nothing is in the piece about suffering but one could deduct from the phrase that this could cause suffering. The answer should however offer some explanation.

answer: No answer

answer: The sun burns furiously hot, suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

text: The story does not say anything about suffering in general. There is no answer to the question

category: accuracy


text:
David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London for 30 years, has lately led a double life. In his day job, he has pioneered painstaking research into the binding properties of molecules and contributed extensively to understanding the particular influences on ion channel function in the development of drugs. In his after-hours alter ego, however, he is the take-no-prisoners scourge of quackery and mumbo-jumbo in his unmissable blog, DC's Improbable Science.

For a decade or more, no homeopath or acupuncturist has been safe from Professor Colquhoun's scathing, and often comic, online analysis. No newspaper report of the latest carcinogen – sausages or coffee or cheese – can survive his statistical scrutiny. He wages rigorous war against the march of managerialism and corporate speak through academia and the NHS. And, at 76, you would have to say he rather enjoys it.

Sitting in his office at UCL, surrounded by shelves of box files yellowed with the smoke of the pipe that was always a necessary accompaniment to his algebra, he dwells with some amusement on the two halves of his public life. "I once wrote a textbook on statistics, which has been enormously useful to me in many ways," he says. "But that book, though pretty well received, sold 5,000 copies over several years. The latest blog I did on the Department of Health had 7,000 hits in three days. I have to say it is fun to have a big audience. All my life, I have been writing papers that have been read by a handful of people around the world. I love the science and I remain addicted to stochastic processes, but to write something that gets picked up on Twitter and has an immediate response is a different kind of addiction. If I get asked to go to a university these days to speak they ask me to do a seminar on ion channels and another on management gobbledegook or something. One gets a dozen committed students, the other fills a large lecture hall…"

The General Medical Council currently requires all medical students to be familiarised with alternative medicine as part of their studies. Some universities apparently ask practising homeopaths to conduct this briefing; others, such as King's in London, invite Colquhoun. "I tend," he says, with a guffaw, "to give them a version of my 'Patient's Guide to Magic Medicine', which was originally written as a response to the witterings of the Prince of Wales on the subject."

Colquhoun's guide is a _Devil's Dictionary_ of all things holistic: "Herbal medicine: giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety… Reflexology: plain old foot massage, overlaid with utter nonsense about non-existent connections between your feet and your thyroid gland… Spiritual healing: tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving… Kinesiology, iridology, vega test, etc: various forms of fraud, designed to sell you cures that don't work, for problems you haven't got." And so on.

Colquhoun has lately won a series of victories against what he calls the "endarkenment" of healthcare. After lodging a freedom of information request, he obtained the background correspondence from the prince's homeopathic charity that apparently influenced the creation of an infamous page on alternative treatments on the NHS Choices web page. Colquhoun subsequently gained an admission that the advice had "let down the general public" and a reworking of the page to include the wording: "There is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition…" Also long in his sights have been the universities that offer MSc qualifications in anti-science. "I discovered for example that 'amethysts emit high yin energy' was being taught as part of a BSc at Westminster just down the road." As a result of the attention brought by his blog, science degrees in homeopathy are a thing of the past in British universities.

Inevitably, none of this has been achieved without some fallout. After protracted complaints by one herbalist to the provost of UCL, Colquhoun was quietly, and outrageously, asked to remove his blog from the university site in 2007. When he did so, "all hell broke loose" after a column by Ben Goldacre in the _Guardian_ exposed the academic cowardice of the university hierarchy. No stranger to lawyers, Colquhoun now worries that unless the much-debated defamation bill is passed, legitimate scientific opinion will continue to be suppressed by anyone with money.

At the same time, he hopes that the "fashion for irrationality", which he dates back to the Beatles going to India "when flower power stopped being fun and started being mystical bollocks", may be fading. His abiding hero is Bertrand Russell, and he laces his conversation with favourite quotes, including Russell's maxim that "it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true".

Colquhoun ascribes some of his critical scepticism to his father, the only boy from Birkenhead to get a scholarship to Liverpool University in his year in the 1920s, who went on to become a schoolmaster, teaching languages to Harold Wilson and the geneticist Steve Jones among others. Colquhoun was hopeless at school and started to make his mark as an academic only after a miserable couple of years as an apprentice pharmacist in a branch of Timothy Whites & Taylors chemists in Birkenhead.

Having eventually gained tenure at UCL in the 60s, he devoted himself to solving the "affinity-efficacy problem". This dwelt on the idea that if "drug design is to become rational, it is essential to be able to measure separately the binding affinity of the drug for its receptor and the effectiveness of the drug in opening an ion channel once it has bound".

The only way to solve the problem was by measurement of single molecules. In collaboration with Alan Hawkes, the necessary mathematics was worked out for the interpretation of experiments done initially with Bert Sakmann, who, with Erwin Neher, got the Nobel prize in 1991 for discovering how to record from single molecules. "I don't think drug design will become fully rational in my lifetime," Colquhoun says. "But I have tried to make a small contribution to that long-term goal."

He doesn't link the two halves of his career very closely in his own mind, but talking to him you can see clearly how one has fuelled the other. Having spent half a lifetime trying to establish the smallest conceivable causalities at the molecular level, you can well imagine his righteous frustration when policy-makers disregard evidence-based models entirely in putting forward advice in relation to health or diet or anything else.

"People simply still don't get that to prove 'effect B' is caused by 'intervention A', you have to use randomised controlled testing," he says.

In his current semi-retirement, Colquhoun was hoping to complete a book on the mathematical and statistical principles of pharmacology, but he worries the sheer irrationality of the world might yet prevent him. "There is so much to do on the blog," he says, both cheerfully and guiltily, "that I fear that might get in the way…"

TEN QUESTIONS FOR David Colquhoun

WHAT IS THE MOST EXCITING FIELD OF SCIENCE AT THE MOMENT?

Too often what's trendy now turns out not to live up to its promise. Predictions are impossible: that's why it's called research.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN A GOD?

Not since I was 15. A nurse took me to an Easter mass, which struck me as a sadomasochistic orgy (of course I didn't know then that so many priests acted out their perversities). I'm with Steven Weinberg when he said: "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion."

WHAT BOOK ABOUT SCIENCE SHOULD EVERYONE READ?

Fiction: George Eliot's _Middlemarch_. Nonfiction: Bertrand Russell's _On the Value of Scepticism_.

WHAT WORDS OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A TEENAGER WHO WANTS A CAREER IN SCIENCE?

Live your dream, and stick to your principles. But be realistic about career prospects. At the moment they are lousy.

DO YOU HAVE A FANTASY EXPERIMENT OR STUDY THAT YOU HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO DO FOR LOGISTICAL/ETHICAL/COST REASONS?

No. Single ion channel biophysics is cheap compared with many areas. The limitation is my brain, not cost.

WHAT SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE WOULD MAKE THE MOST DIFFERENCE TO YOUR DAILY LIFE?

Factors that limit my daily life are not to do with lack of science (unless you count the inability of medicine to fix my spine).

OUTSIDE OF YOUR WORK, DO YOU LIVE AN EVIDENCE-BASED LIFE?

Yes, I think so. The exception is my pipe, without which I can't do algebra (or much else).

WHY DO SO FEW SCIENTISTS ENTER POLITICS?

Because science is one of very few occupations where you can put honesty above expediency (though even in science that doesn't always happen). That being said, the lack of scientific education among politicians is scary. Can you imagine a minister of education referring to "Newton's laws of thermodynamics", or giving taxpayers' money to schools that believe in karma and gnomes? Michael Gove has done both.

WHO DESERVES A NOBEL PRIZE?

That's always contentious. I suspect that big prizes cause more misery than happiness, and do nothing to improve science.

IF I CALLED YOU A GEEK WOULD YOU HOLD IT AGAINST ME?

Not in the least.

question: What does the article say about the reception of Colquhoun's blog?

text: While it is not overtly obvious, the section where he is talking about filling lecture halls is also relevant to the success of his blog compared to his academic lectures.

answer: His latest blog post at the time of the article had 7000 hits in three days. An audience for his books is able to fill a large lecture hall. Due to the attention brought by his blog, British universities no longer offer science degrees in homeopathy.

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog is very popular.

text: The response could include more information about the reception of Colquhoun's blog.

text: The response should include that Colquhoun's blog is unmissable.

text: The response is missing the part about the blog being removed from the university site.

text: The response misses to mention that his book sold only 5,000 copies over several years, while his latest blog got 7,000 hits in three days.

text: The question asks about Colquhoun's blog, not about his books. The sentence about his books should probably be removed.

answer: His latest blog post at the time of the article had 7000 hits in three days. An audience for his books is able to fill a large lecture hall. Due to the attention brought by his blog, British universities no longer offer science degrees in homeopathy.

text: The response misses to mention that the blog is very popular and that Colquhoun enjoys having a big audience.

text: The response is missing the part about the blog being removed from the university website.

text: The response misses to mention that the blog is hugely popular, and that the blog got Colquhoun invited to speak at universities.

text: The last sentence is not relevant because it does not describe the reception of the blog.

text: It is omitted that the article states that all the university seminars on Ion Channel and Management Gobbledegook fills a large lecture hall.

answer: His latest blog post at the time of the article had 7000 hits in three days. An audience for his books is able to fill a large lecture hall. Due to the attention brought by his blog, British universities no longer offer science degrees in homeopathy.

text: It's omitted that his blog has caused complaints from an herbalist which caused UCL to ask if his blog could be taken down.

answer: No answer

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun was asked to remove his blog from the university site.

answer: His latest blog post at the time of the article had 7000 hits in three days. An audience for his books is able to fill a large lecture hall. Due to the attention brought by his blog, British universities no longer offer science degrees in homeopathy.

text: The second sentence is irrelevant. It is about the book, not the blog.

category: coherence

text: The first sentence is unclear so it should be rewritten: His latest blog post had 7000 hits in three days.

text: It should be mentioned why due to the attention brought by his blog, British universities no longer offer science degrees in homeopathy. It is because he criticized homeopaths.

answer: No answer

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog is very popular and has a large audience.

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog is well received.

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog has a large audience.

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog is enormously popular, and that his blog on the Department of Health had 7,000 hits in three days.

text: The response misses to mention that Colquhoun's blog gets 7,000 hits in three days.

text: The response misses to provide an answer to the instruction in the task.

text: The response misses to mention that his blog posts have more views than his books about statistics.


text:
I'm applying to a creative writing program at my school and I'm looking to see if anyone has feedback on my fiction short story I'm turning in (this was my brother's idea). I'd also LOVE title suggestions- I'm not great with titles. Anything is appreciated! Thanks!

Title

	“One more’s not gonna kill you” Taylor laughed and handed Cole a colorful shot glass labeled, “Viva México!” spilling copper liquid over the rim. “C’mon just take it, you pussy” he lost his balance but caught himself, giggling. More liquid spilled. Cole’s head spun, but he grabbed the glass from Taylor’s shaky hand, closed his eyes, and threw it back. His throat burned as it slid down, and he liked it; the discomfort comforted him. He looked around, his thoughts clouded from hours of shot-gunning Busch light and downing cheap whiskey. Everyone started to look the same- every boy sporting a lacrosse pinnie with bold letters stating “Seniors 2011,” “(blank) University,” or some kind of profanity. The girls all wearing too-tight tops, trying to increase the look of their bra size or show off their newly pierced navels. They melted together, a painting of colorful conformity. Cole sat on the couch, observing boys celebrate their win at the most recent beer pong game, and girls stumbling and convincing others that they “never throw up when they drink.”
	He began to feel the last shot around 12:30 am. His body tingled and he didn’t notice the couple making out next to him until the girl accidently kicked his arm. He stood up and tried to walk, stumbling. Taylor approached him, his arm draped around a girl on her tippy-toes trying to kiss his neck. “Dude, you headin’ out?”
“Yeah, I gotta… My house…” his words slurred and trailed off. He laughed at his inability to explain.
“Why don’t you just stay here for the night?” Taylor suggested. The girl crinkled her nose.
“Nah my parents…”
“Dude, your parents won’t give a fuck. Seriously, you can sleep in John’s room.” Cole grinned and jingled his car keys in front of his face. Taylor rolled his eyes, “Whatever, man. Do what you gotta do.” He turned and picked up the small girl who squealed as he carried her upstairs.
	Cole made his way to the door, kicking aside red cups and crushed beer cans as he walked. His arm hair stood up when it made contact with the early morning air, he had forgotten his jacket, but he didn’t notice.  He pressed what he thought was the unlock button on his keys, but the alarm began to blare. Cole jumped and pressed the button again, bringing back the silence. He put his finger to his lips to shush the car, to punish it for it’s naughty behavior. He snickered.
	The engine roared to a start, and Cole flipped through radio stations- “No. No. No. No. Fuck Katy Perry. No. No.” He finally landed on the recognizable chords of Guns N’ Roses, and the corner of his mouth turned up. He pushed down on the gas, rubber screeched on the gravel; he didn’t notice.
The headlights pierced the darkness of the suburban town. Guns N’ Roses slashed the silence. Cole slammed his head back and forth, screaming along, “She’s got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories, where everything was as fresh as a bright blue sky.” With every beat he pushed harder on the gas. He turned the music up.
A mind clouded and hearing overpowered, he didn’t see the stop sign; he didn’t see her. He only felt her when she thudded on the hood of his car and cracked the windshield. Cole smashed his foot on the brake. “She takes me away to that special place… and if I stared too long, I’d probably break down and cry.” His breathing quickened. The thud of her body played in his head, as he sat frozen. His seatbelt tight against his panting chest, he watched blood drip down the windshield. “Oh whoa whoa sweet child o’ mine.”
Cole turned off the music. “Shit! Shit shit shit mother fucking shit.” The thump played over and over in his head- a broken record. His eyes widened as the blood made its way down the fractured glass. He flipped on the windshield wipers, but that only spread her blood back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Cole’s stomach churned.
He turned off the car and sat in the silence, listening to the wipers squeak. His muscles tensed and shook; he couldn’t move. Finally, he opened the door and stumbled to the ground. Trembling, he pushed himself up and hobbled to the back of his car. Lying behind was a girl who looked around his age. She wore a loose white blouse, and dark wash jeans; she was pretty. Her limbs twisted around one another, and her humerus peeked out through her skin. Blood poured from her nose and mouth. Scratches from the graveled street covered her exposed skin. Beside her, a terrier whimpered, it’s leash draped on the pavement searching for its owner’s hand. Cole froze. Bile crept up his throat but he swallowed it down and stepped closer to her, praying she was alive. With every step his breathing thickened. With every breath, the smell of alcohol overwhelmed his nostrils and bile rose faster. His mind tried to make sense of the blood, and the bone, and the squeaks, and the whimpers; but it blurred into a mess of white noise and red. Minutes passed and the girl did not move. The dog licked her bloody face and lay down, resting his head on her chest. His eyes went to Cole. Tears formed in Cole’s eyes, and ran hot down his face blurring his vision. He fell to the ground heaving, and vomited. Everything went black.
Cole came to a few minutes later, his white shirt stained from vomit and sweat. He observed the girl again, neither she nor the terrier had moved. He stood up and pulled his phone out of his pocket- dialing 911. The conversation was hazy; Cole mumbling and crying, the emergency dispatch officer repeating, “Calm down, where are you? Calm down, where are you? Calm down, where are you?” He felt dizzy- but he somehow got the words out: “Essex and Sunset. Hurry.” He snapped his phone shut and ran to his car. The dog picked up his head and yapped after him, but did not leave his owner. When Cole slid back into the driver’s seat the glass of the windshield was stained red, the wipers now ineffective. Cole kept them on. He started the car and sped away, avoiding eye contact with the review mirror. As he sped home he heard sirens in the distance and gripped the wheel.
His face stung when he arrived home. He parked the car in the garage, and walked into the side door, the same as every Saturday. He went to his bathroom and splashed water on his face; it was cold but burned against Cole’s hot skin. He didn’t look in the mirror. When he got into bed he tried to fall asleep, but every time he closed his eyes he heard the thump, and the bloody wipers, and smelled the vomit, and saw the bones. He threw up again.
Lying in bed he thought of the dog. His whimper reverberated through Cole’s brain- growing louder and louder. He thought of his eyes- black and glistening; he wondered if dogs could cry. He wondered if he knew the answer.
Unable to sleep, he crept to his parent’s bathroom. He opened his mother’s medicine cabinet to an array of pill bottles. He went through the names; Prozac, Xanax, Ambien, Advil, Vicodin. He poured one of each into his palm- a medicine mosaic. He clasped his fingers around them and tiptoed to his mother’s bedside. He looked at his mother sleeping; mouth gaped open, hair tousled, still wearing her pearls. What was she going to think? Would she even ask? Would she even care? Cole scoffed as he grabbed the bottle of vodka from her bedside table.
Back in bed he popped the assortment of pills into his mouth and took a swig of vodka. His face scrunched as the warm liquid burned his throat. He didn’t like it. He thought of Taylor and the small girl. He thought of the girl in the white blouse. He thought of the emergency dispatch officer- did she think he was a bad person? His mind began to get hazy and the room spun. He felt his heartbeat quicken and slow at the same time, his eyelids drooping. His breath sporadic, his thoughts started to diminish and fade into slumber. He pictured himself at the party, the girl in the white blouse kissing his neck and biting his earlobe. She whispered things he could not understand into his ear, giggling. He liked her laugh. He took her hand in his, and with his other hand pushed her hair behind her ear. She hummed Guns N’ Roses. He smiled. Warmth crept up his body, and everything went black.
Cole opened his eyes to see the cement ceiling above him. He put his hands on his chest, neck and face to confirm that he was there. His head ached and pounded; the blanket felt scratchy on his skin and he threw it to the floor. He looked to his right to see his cellmate, Leon, grunting doing pushups against the floor. The window created a square of light that fell directly onto his shoulders. Cole’s breathing began to slow. As reality set back in he heard the regular morning sounds: men wailing and banging against the bars, guards whistling theme songs to cancelled TV shows as they strolled the hallways. He wiped the sweat from his face and threw the thin cranberry blanket to the end of the bed. “Morning, Leon.” Leon didn’t stop or look up, but Cole was glad. He took a small piece of charcoal and behind his bed marked another tally- day one hundred and sixty-three.

title: Looking for Feedback for a creative writing application (age 20)

question: What does the story say about teenage pregnancy?

text: The story never says that the partying group is teenagers. It also never mentions or implies pregnancy.

answer: No answer

answer: No answer

text: The answer should mention that the story is about a teenager who is pregnant.

text: The answer should mention that the story is about a teenager who is in prison.

text: The answer should mention that the story does not talk about teenage pregnancy.

text: The story does not say anything about teenage pregnancy.

text: The answer should mention the title

text: The answer should state that the passage does not discuss teenage pregnancy.

text: The question is asking for the answer, not the answer to the answer.

text: The answer can mention the fact that Cole does refer at one point to a couple that gets intimate next to him on the couch; it could be mentioned in this context.

answer: A group of younglings party in the story, having casual sex. Pregnancy is a possibility.

text: The story says nothing about teenage pregnancy

answer: No answer

text: The answer should mention that the story does not discuss teenage pregnancy.

text: The answer should mention that the story doesn't talk about teenage pregnancies.

text: The answer could mention that the story doesn't talk about teenage pregnancy.

text: The answer should mention that the lack of any discussion about teen pregnancy is evidence of the lack of discussion of teenage pregnancy.


text:
Red dirt littered the outside of the Land Cruiser as we rolled down the unpaved road. Smoke billowed from beyond some of the buildings, and we knew exactly what it was from.

"Do these niggers really think what they're doing will help?" Jonah said from the passenger seat. "How can they truly believe this can change anything?"

I kept my gaze on the road and my left hand firmly on the wheel. The coup had started, and we were in charge of the ambassador's escort. The embassy was still another five-minute drive, and since the mobs were blocking the roads and lighting tires on fire, we would probably have to change our course once or twice.

"I don't agree with the tactics,” I said, “but I can empathize with them. They want an opportunity. Just a chance at a life where they don't have to wake up hungry.”

Jonah rolled his eyes. "What the fuck does that mean? And you're only saying that because you grew up here! Damn sympathizer! You're emotionally attached to these... these... people. That's what gets your ass killed, bro."

"I'm not attached. It's more of a respect. I know many of them personally. They're good people."

"Good people my ass.”

Our argument was postponed as we both noticed black smoke pouring from a group of locals down the road. I slowed down as I neared them, hoping to find an avenue of escape, but just as I noticed a hole, the group hurried to throw a few tires and douse them in gasoline. I brought the vehicle to a stop and put it in reverse. A few of the men from the mob ran at us and slammed their machetes against the metal hood of the Land Cruiser. One man threw a rock and barely missed the driver's mirror.

"Find me another route, Jonah," I exclaimed as the vehicle's engine revved and threw us backwards.

"You can turn right here. I don't see any smoke this way, hopefully these fuckers haven't hit the alleys yet," Jonah said as he messed with the GPS.

I whizzed down the side road as quickly as the SUV could, hitting bumps and unintentionally testing the suspension system. My view to the rear was a barrage of red dust, and if we were being followed, I couldn’t tell.

A thin man came running into the road and forced me to slam on my breaks. Jonah hit his face on the dash, and cursed a few times with my name in mind.

"You don't stop. Don't ever fucking stop!" Jonah yelled.

"I know him," I exclaimed. "Samuel! Samuel, it's me!”

The man stopped running and jogged over to the car. "My friend, I am so glad," Samuel said through a bright white smile. "I did not know if you were not going to get through. Many people out here is very violent right now."

"Get in!" I said, slapping the outside of the door a couple times.

Samuel jumped into the back seat and pulled the door closed. He put his seatbelt on, as I pressed back down on the accelerator.

Jonah held his brow, "Am I bleeding?"

"No you're good," I proclaimed eyeing him for a half second.

"My friends, it is not good out there. The radio say that the president is dead. General Sanogo is now the man, and he say Americans is why the famine is real bad." Samuel's face looked worried. "I do not believe this. But my friends, are you leaving now?"

"Yes thank god, sick of this fucking place," Jonah said still holding his forehead.

"We're trying, Samuel, but we have to get to the embassy first. We won't leave without the ambassador," I said looking Samuel in the eyes through the mirror.

We kept dodging the blocked roads, which forced us to take back roads. We passed soldiers with AK's, and heard bullets ringing into the air every few minutes. No one had shot at us yet, but if they did, all we had were our issued handguns, and five magazines of ammunition each. We needed to get to the embassy so we could suit up, and face the challenges head on. My primary job was that of the translator. I spoke English and French fluently, and spoke a few phrases of the several dialects of the area. Secondly, I was the radio operator. And I would have had my radio equipment with me, but we had been sent out on short notice earlier in the morning to search for a specific American student that lived in town near the market. Our task had failed, he wasn't there, and the two-bedroom loft had been ransacked. We hoped that he had found a way out, and hadn't been grabbed by the mob.

I grabbed my water canteen from the cup holder and held it over my right shoulder. "Samuel, drink buddy, you're still breathing hard!"

"Merci mon ami," Samuel said as he grabbed the bottle and took a few gulps.

Jonah turned his head towards Samuel. "What did he say? You know I don't speak French!" Jonah directed at me.

"Chill. He said 'thank you my friend'." I explained using my right hand to push the stick into second gear as we turned a sharp corner. "Samuel and I have been friends for many years. Samuel taught me to play soccer, and how to fish using just a line."

Samuel laughed, "Yes I remember. You got scared one day because a crocodile came near so... so you ran home. You wouldn't come back for three days," Samuel chuckled and emphasized the day count with three fingers in the air.

We both laughed.

"Just shut up guys," Jonah exclaimed. "This isn't the time."

It was true, it wasn't the time for us to be reminiscing on the past, but for those few seconds, it sure felt good to remember.

"Take this next left," Jonah said. "It's gonna lead us back onto a main road and I don't see any smoke in the sky, so hopefully it's clear."

I took the turn, and about 500 meters in front of us was a group dancing in the road. They had their machetes up, and a few soldiers waved their AK rifles in the air. I screeched to a stop, and as I turned the vehicle around, we must have hit a nail, or a broken beer bottle, because the right front tire blew, throwing the rim onto the rocky ground. The mob had already noticed us, they chanted and sang, and did it while nearing us at an increasing pace. We all jumped out of the car, and looked around for an escape. The open road was not an option because we knew farther back the masses would be on their way.

"This way, this way." Samuel yelled at Jonah and I as we both checked our weapons. He had found an alley between two cement buildings and it seemed to lead to another road.

By now, the mob was at a full sprint. Their cries were no longer that of freedom, but had turned to hate and anger. I knew that they believed full heartedly in what the radio had said, and that they would have no mercy on us.

"We're behind you. Go!" Jonah told Samuel as he ran behind the African man.
"Coming," I yelled out bringing up the rear.

We turned a few corners, sprinting as fast as we could. This labyrinth of cement walls had to lead somewhere. We could hear the mob getting closer and we heard bullets being shot off as we ran into the alley. Samuel was still in the lead, and he turned and weaved like a professional escape artist. We just did our best to stay on his heels. He gained a small lead on Jonah and I, but we still followed.

Stop.

We turned a corner, and Samuel was stopped. He stood with his hands on his head facing a cement wall blocking our path. It was quite tall, and way too high for one person to reach the top.

"Help each other up! I will calm them. I will tell them you are not to fault!" Samuel exclaimed confidently waving both of us towards the wall. Breathing heavily, he turned back towards the path where the mob would soon be visible.

"No. Samuel, come with us right now, we can get all three of us up and over this wall. We will have time." I yelled at Samuel who was already facing away from us.

"Samuel, come on. You don't need to do this," Jonah yelled.

I grabbed Jonah by the shoulder. "Let's go get the ambassador."

Samuel looked back one last time. "It will be alright. Goodbye my friends."

I nodded thankfully at Samuel, and knelt down to allow Jonah to use my knee as a foothold.

We made it over the wall, and just in time. We heard the cries as they reached the wall. And then everyone went quiet. Samuel was yelling at them and speaking to them in
French.

"What's he saying?" Jonah whispered.

"He said 'they are not at fault', and I even think he said we were Canadian. He is telling them that we were here to help the people."

The people started shouting out again. It was hard to tell what they were saying, but whatever it was, it wasn't peaceful. Then a man hushed the crowd, and eventually, his voice was the only one readable.

"Mon homme, je suis officier pour le général, où sont les blancs?" The man said. "Le général veut leur parlé!"

"I work for the general,” I translated, “where are the whites, the general wants to speak with them.”

"Sont pas là!" Samuel protested, allowing his courage to be tested.

"They ar..." I started.

"I got that part," Jonah interrupted me putting his finger up asking for silence.

A few of the members started yelling, and soon everyone was in an uproar.
The man hushed the crowd again. "Traître, tue le!"

The crowd went wild.

A tear formed in my eye.

Jonah noticed. "What? What is it?"

"They killed him." I muttered. “Why would he give his life for us?”

“I don’ know,” Jonah answered. “I didn’ even respect ‘im.  But he, was a good man.”

title: The Coup - And a Salvation

question: Summarize the happenings encountered by Jonah and the narrator as they drove to the embassy.

text: According to the passage, America was not the reason for the famine.

answer:
Jonah and the narrator were trying to navigate their way to avoid the mob. They could see the smoke ahead and a group of protesters who, seeing the two men, started to hurls stones and rocks at them. A few of them drew machetes and slammed them on the hood of the car. The narrator and Jonah fled the scene. On their way, they picked up Samuel, a friend of the narrator who told them the president is dead and the new president (General Sanogo) has declared Americans as the reason for the famine.
The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor.

answer: The narrator and Jonah were driving to the embassy when they encountered a mob of angry locals. The narrator was able to find a route that was not blocked by the mob and was able to drive through. However, the narrator encountered a man running in the road and had to stop. The man was Samuel, a friend of the narrator. Samuel got in the car and told them that the president was dead and General Sanogo was now in charge. Samuel also told them that the radio said that the Americans were responsible for the famine. The narrator and Jonah encountered a mob dancing in the road and their car got a flat tire. The mob chased them and they ran into an alley. The narrator and Jonah made it over the wall, but Samuel was killed by the mob.

answer: The narrator and Jonah were driving to the embassy when they encountered a mob of angry locals. The narrator was able to find a route that was not blocked by the mob and was able to drive through. However, the narrator encountered a man running in the road and had to stop. The man was Samuel, a friend of the narrator. Samuel got in the car and told them that the president was dead and General Sanogo was now in charge. Samuel also told them that the radio said that the Americans were responsible for the famine. The narrator and Jonah encountered a mob dancing in the road and their car got a flat tire. The mob chased them and they ran into an alley. The narrator and Jonah made it over the wall, but Samuel was killed by the mob.

text: The narrator and Jonah were driving to the embassy when they encountered a mob of angry locals. The narrator was able to find a route that was not blocked by the mob and was able to drive through. However, the narrator encountered a man running in the road and had to stop. The man was Samuel, a friend of the narrator. Samuel got in the car and told them that the president was dead and General Sanogo was now in charge. Samuel also told them that the radio said that the Americans were responsible for the famine. The narrator and Jonah encountered a mob dancing in the road and their car got a flat tire. The mob chased them and they ran into an alley. The narrator and Jonah made it over the wall, but Samuel was killed by the mob.

text: The response is missing the part where the narrator and Jonah encountered a mob dancing in the road and their car got a flat tire. The mob chased them and they ran into an alley. The narrator and Jonah made it over the wall, but Samuel was killed by the mob.

text: It's omitted that the narrator and Jonah encountered a mob dancing in the road and their car got a flat tire. The mob chased them and they ran into an alley. The narrator and Jonah made it over the wall, but Samuel was killed by the mob.

text: "The man was Samuel, a friend of the narrator. Samuel got in the car and told them that the president was dead and General Sanogo was now in charge. Samuel also told them that the radio said that the Americans were responsible for the famine." - this part can be combined with the previous sentence for better flow.

text: The group of locals is referred to as a mob throughout the passage.

text: "the man was Samuel, a friend of the narrator" - this is not correct because the narrator and Samuel are friends. The sentence should be removed.

answer:
Jonah and the narrator were trying to navigate their way to avoid the mob. They could see the smoke ahead and a group of protesters who, seeing the two men, started to hurls stones and rocks at them. A few of them drew machetes and slammed them on the hood of the car. The narrator and Jonah fled the scene. On their way, they picked up Samuel, a friend of the narrator who told them the president is dead and the new president (General Sanogo) has declared Americans as the reason for the famine.
The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor.

text: "The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor." - this is inaccurate. The men didn't abandon their car. They were forced to abandon it when the mob blew their tire. They also didn't get caught by the mob. They were running away from the mob.

text: "The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor." - this is inaccurate. The men didn't abandon their car. They were trying to find a route to the embassy when their car got a flat tire. The mob caught up with them and Samuel tried to buy time for the two men to escape.

text: The last sentence is a bit confusing.

text: "hurls" - change to "hurl"

text: The answer could be more precise about the narrator and Jonah's movements.

text: "who, seeing the two men, started to hurls" - change to "who, seeing the two men, started to hurl"

text: "fled the scene." - replace with "tried to leave the area"

answer:
Jonah and the narrator were trying to navigate their way to avoid the mob. They could see the smoke ahead and a group of protesters who, seeing the two men, started to hurls stones and rocks at them. A few of them drew machetes and slammed them on the hood of the car. The narrator and Jonah fled the scene. On their way, they picked up Samuel, a friend of the narrator who told them the president is dead and the new president (General Sanogo) has declared Americans as the reason why the famine is worse than it should be.
The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor.

text: The final sentence doesn't happen while they're driving. It should be omitted.

answer:
Jonah and the narrator were trying to navigate their way to avoid the mob. They could see the smoke ahead and a group of protesters who, seeing the two men, started to hurls stones and rocks at them. A few of them drew machetes and slammed them on the hood of the car. The narrator and Jonah fled the scene. On their way, they picked up Samuel, a friend of the narrator who told them the president is dead and the new president (General Sanogo) has declared Americans as the reason why the famine is worse than it should be.
The fleeing men had to abandon their car after a while but were caught by a mob while trying to find their way to the embassy. The mob killed Samuel, declaring him a traitor.

text: The last sentence is unnecessary.

text: The answer omits that the narrator and Jonah were trying to find a specific American student that lived in town near the market.

text: The answer omits that the narrator and Jonah were in charge of the ambassador's escort.

text: The answer should mention that Samuel sacrifices himself to save the narrator and Jonah.

text: The narrator and Jonah did not abandon the car. They were forced to abandon it when their tires got punctured.

text: It is not clear that the narrator and Jonah are the "fleeing men"

text: The way the mob catches Samuel can be being more specific.


text:
The key to niagras heart
Part 1 Black

josh was an ordinary boy Just like you or me or... so it seemed, on the outside he was just a boy who for some reason , Hated life. In other words he was just a fifteen year old boy who showed no emotion, no feeling, no compassion. He appeared as if he WANTED to be hated in public, wearing clothes no other would DARE to wear at fancy party's he wore jeans a novelty shirt such as a video game character and he always held a cane for NO reason when asked the question "josh what has happened to you" he would reply, "that name serves no purpose to me ... and what did i TELL YOU! i am the same GUY" but he wasn't he had changed... he had not always been like this with jet black hair the dyed red tip scraping his chin. people around him would know, he would only talk sorrow and death after that day... he spoke to M for the very ... last...time M a woman who no one dared mention the full name of in front of black was a fifteen year old girl who had no confidence in herself whatsoever yet black rather... josh, taught her to have some but that is one of his many regrets josh found resolution in M as she was a quite attractive young woman who could no nothing but worry and that... was just what set her over the top. Her wavy pink hair gave her all the power to men in the world and black had power over that he never used it... he wished he did.

Black didnt have many people he concidered friends but he had many people who was TRYING to be his friend  he knew it... but did not want it he was happy with the friends he already had there names all changed when he changed to blackdare... well atleased to him he had his best friends Linkkirby, grayslimer and M--- wait  black thaught to himself why did i "OH NO" he shouted outloud as his mind jumped back in time... this was no "flashback" he could controll himself but... things always had the same outcome that night when M leaned in and said ... it was to painfull to say but ha always, he always said the same thing "no I...I DONT WANT TO HURT YOU" he regains control but the part that really pains me, you , black its hard too tell 1st,2nd or 3rd person who am i the world just pushes us and when we push back the world cries.

GAH black awoke with a freight he told the only erson he could tell
"kirby it happend again DONT CALL ME MAD ITS NOT A DREAM or a flashback"
kirby replied five minutes later
"JOSH its 3AM my name is not kirby pull yourself together your father already said family curse"
"KIRBY i am NOT josh and do NOT mention my father you have NO right"
the skype call ended there with the same words every covosation ends with"you have alot of people who want to help you they were friends with josh ... not blackdare and i am starting to see why"
I did not cry ... she had my tears and she misused themi got up and had asoden thaught that i was afraid of so i forgot about it it would drag me back there but perhaps...this time.

Part 2 Kirby

"OMG josh is soo annoying right now slimer"
"what do you mean NOW kirby he has been like this ever since he said the UNUSABLE PHRASE to m kirby god how long have we known eachother and we dont even know eachothers names"
"oh no daniel i know your name im robbie so TTYL AFK and all that"
I shut my laptop and thaught how good black had it his folks were rich and he acts like he is POOR his mother loves him and his father is "cursed" but he acts like he is homeless
after M left kirby was blacks one outlet in life he used daniel as a way te escape the VR as kirby lived far away but little did he know he was the key to niagras heart he did not know what that ment he just heard black mention it beforeway back then when they broke up
kirbys memory spiraled "dont worry kirby she may have left me but you haha are niagras heart" that one scentence stuck with him... it was the last time black was truly happy

Kirby was a young boy 13 years old had the whole world goin for him brown surf swept hair a clam necklas and the whole 5,0 but the only problem is after blacks big "phrase utter with M" his confidence was knocked too he was a profestional in sword fighting and sometimes took black 1 on 1 but the one thing he would never try was to even talk to M as last time he god a warning but NEXT TIME the sword will do more than toutch his neck

kirby got up and walked to his old secret creek just down the road from niagra falls as kirby and blackdare used to live there thats where they met M but after the break up black moved too canada kirby now being the only one who new the location of the creek had a old picture pinned up he looked for a good thirty seconds at what it used to be... the days of playing zelda with our feet in the water the days of yaunder gone  by but hope all he could it would be a LONG time before that happened again. I looked back at the picture we were all gathered around in a semi circle as we did and i looked happyer i suppose when M died we all died alittle i looked at her she had smooth skin and this one freckal on her left cheek her face was the only one compleatly visible , her hair was a sholder height pink it was wavy and pretty... she always had a look of pain on her face you could put her in ANY type of people and she would stick out... exept from us her face was the only one visible she never wore make-up but her lips were a cherry red i saw her staring up at me from the image... i never told black this but i always liked M alittle but they suited each other. The creek around was  a nice place... A small stream swam throughout the center but the place was well hidden there was sand at one side whenre they would lie down if they were not in the cave and a grassy side with a hill with a medium sized cave about the size of a flat in it . The cave was a beautiful brown place with bean bag chairs computer chairs and tables it it, the cave was just a dirty hole before twe came along ... we transformed... we made it our own but now, it is only mine ,as everyone had moved or... All but two I heard black say im the "key to niagra" M was buried next to niagra falls... Is that what he means

Part 3 way back then

I looked back and i saw Josh he was happy and i liked it because... One of us had to have been all of the girls at school taunted me for my choce of clothing ... I usually go for a mettalic silver-ish feel, being with josh was my only outlet of somewhat happyness. We were just sitting in the sandfeeling it inbetween out toes josh braught robbie and daniel we dicide that day to give eachother nicknames
Josh is to be known as blackdare
Robbie is Linkkirby
Daniel as Grayslimer
And me. With the VERY CREATIVE name M but i diddnt care... I liked it it expressed the amount of CARE i give into everyday society but... i liked calling black josh ... I dont know why? I just liked the name and i liked him but i would still call all the others by the nicknames...
"Black" kirby yelled and i see why it had just appered asif there was two of him for a moment every word that came out his mouth sounded rehersed... like he had done this a MILLION times over
"M im sorry for all im going to do but... when you accept me as blackdare things will... change ... i i love you"
I had no idea what he was talking about so... i slapped him his body morphed for a sec and he was back to normal
"OW whyd you hit me!"
I was'nt sure how to answer so i left it he diddnt seem bothered i let it all fly over my head

Sometimes i just wondered was i really worth all of this I mean i had always had the feeling that i was liked by more people than josh sometimes i thaught kirby liked me too or... was he just being friendly but why do these people like me... Noone likes me i mean i know why im liked by josh he alays says
"I can read EVERYONE like a book but... but you uou are different your Interesting!"

PART 4 "BRAIN FARTS"

I was SICK... SICK of everything that was going on KIRBY was no help! but... how could he be there was only one person who could help AND IM NOT SPEAKING TO HIM! i walked downstairs and saw a note on the table that was blurred but i noticed five words
Family, Sorry , ive took mom
I was not bothered i would just sit in my room and draw, think, i can live without them they are not needed i opened myt laptop and looked through my old photos for inspiration there was photos of
Me,Gray and kirby at the kreek
Pictures of nature
and... a picture of M ... how did that get there it was the photo at her at niagra falls where she was buried OH NO black out
I awoke at that moment behind the falls we were looking at the rshing water whilst holding hands i had a feeling of happyness for the 1st time in awhile
"i wish i could stay here"
"the falls?" M quizzed
"yeah... sure" i really ment in this time but i could not say that
"well you cant remember I got that oricana in the mail today you gotta teach me to play that"
I have her oricana now every day i play the song of time ... but it does not work a single tear rolled down my eye and i thaught " this wont matter... might as well tell her"
I turned and confessed "M i love you and ... but... things are keeping us apart"
She just looked forwards and said "thats not my name ... say my name "
I was about to tell her again but... i felt faint and whited out
"JOSH" I awoke at my pc in call with kirby
"huh what were we talking about i blacked out again"
sometime I just wanna Live in the past but i can not they say we have to look to the future I was tired... i wanted to go to bed

title: M... The key to niagras heart (parts 1-4)

question: Why were the girls in the school taunting the narrator?

text: It should be added that the girls would taunt her not just for her metallic silver clothing but for her dressing sense in general.

answer: The girls in the school would often taunt the narrator for her choice of clothing. She would usually wear metallic silver clothing.

text: The narrator is M, not the narrator.

text: The narrator is named M.

text: The narrator is male.

text: It is not clear that the narrator is a girl.

text: The answer could be clearer in its pronoun use.

text: This answer is incorrect. The narrator isn't the one who was being taunted.

text: There is no mention of for what the girls' taunt M, "on the outside"

text: The narrator is named M.

answer: The narrator was wearing a metallic silver-ish outfit.

answer: The girls in the school would taunt the narrator for her metallic silver clothing.

answer: The girls in the school would taunt the narrator for her metallic silver clothing.

text: The answer should be clearer about the narrator being M.

text: It is not stated that the girls would taunt the narrator for her metallic silver clothing.

text: The narrator is M, not the narrator.

text: The answer should clarify that the narrator is M.

text: The narrator's name is M.

text: The person is female, so the use of "he"/"him" when discussing the narrator is wrong.