DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. How Jimmy Chin Filmed Alex Honnold’s Death-Defying Free Solo Honnold planned to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without a rope. Chin would film it. But first they had to figure out how to talk about it. When you are Jimmy Chin, you make a long list of rules for filming your friend Alex Honnold’s historic attempt to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without using any ropes. First you will hire a team of world-class climber-cinematographers to rappel beside him as he ascends the nearly 3,000-foot granite face. No one is allowed to whisper, sneeze, drop a lens cap, dislodge a pebble – any of which might create the distraction that sends him plummeting to his death. Most important, no one is allowed to talk to Honnold about the epic climb, at least not directly. This is to avoid putting any pressure on him but also to keep from upsetting his precisely calibrated mind-set, a mixture of acute concentration, bulletproof confidence, and deep Zen calm. Instead of using the term “free soloing,” which means climbing without ropes or safety gear, you use his preferred euphemism – “scrambling.” You follow these rules knowing that any notion of rules is contradictory to the very idea of free soloing, because in this ruthlessly unforgiving sport there really aren’t any rules, at least no written ones. That’s much of the point. Climbing without ropes is decidedly against all the rules, especially the rules of mountain safety, not to mention human logic. Some veteran climbers say there is no if a free soloist falls – only when. You can think of many who have fallen to their deaths, some you knew personally. And suddenly there it is: the vividly horrifying image of your friend flailing into the void. But wait. That’s exactly what you’re not supposed to picture when your buddy is trying to do what some experts say is the most daring ascent ever attempted – what Honnold’s friend and fellow elite climber Tommy Caldwell called “the moon landing of free soloing.” Such thoughts looped in Chin’s mind for more than a year as he and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, his wife and filmmaking partner, documented Honnold’s efforts to make climbing history. (Spoiler alert: He makes it.) The film, aptly titled Free Solo, was released in theaters. “To film a climber with both the physical and mental ability Alex has, combined with the desire to take on something so ambitious and scary,” Chin says, “it’s the project of a lifetime, no doubt.” Chin, 45, and Honnold, 33, first climbed together in 2009 as part of an expedition to Borneo to explore Low’s Gully, one of the world’s deepest slot canyons. Honnold had recently burst onto the climbing scene with a series of headline-grabbing free solos, including Yosemite’s Half Dome. Chin remembers being struck by Honnold’s boyish face and large brown eyes, which would inevitably earn him the nickname Bambi. But Honnold’s youthful appearance belies his most exceptional gift – an uncanny ability to control his fear and focus on perfectly executing the task at hand (never mind that the task is reaching for a fingertip of rock while clinging to a cliff 1,000 feet up). It’s a gift that Chin shares in some measure. Three years before meeting Honnold, he climbed Mount Everest and skied down its icy, nearly vertical face. After Borneo, the men started climbing together regularly, with Chin filming some of Honnold’s free solos. “We built up a lot of trust,” says Chin. “He trusted me to safely film him, and I trusted him to climb only what he felt good about and not to feel compelled to do rad stuff for the camera.” Meanwhile Honnold had been privately contemplating what it would take to free solo El Cap. “After Half Dome it seemed like the next obvious thing,” Honnold says. “At the end of each season, I’d think I’d be ready to do it the next year, but then I’d look up at it and think, ‘Whoa, that’s still too scary.'” Finally, in late 2015, Honnold told Chin and Vasarhelyi he was ready, and they agreed to work together in secret on a film about the climb. “It was very important that the film would be about Alex’s process,” Chin says. “Whether it ended with him summiting El Cap or deciding not to go for it didn’t matter. It was always about how do you even think about doing something so mind-bending.” Honnold chose a route called Freerider, one that often takes skilled climbers using ropes multiple days to ascend. He set about perfecting a hand-by-hand, foot-by-foot choreography up the famous cliff. Meanwhile Chin hired a crew of hard-core Yosemite climbers and began planning the extensive logistics. Each practice session required many hours of preparation. Chin and the crew would speed climb an easy route up the east side of El Cap ahead of Honnold, lugging hundreds of pounds of cameras, ropes, and gear. Then they’d rappel down Freerider and use a type of hand winch to keep pace with him as he climbed. “We all got in the best shape of our lives,” Chin says. But at the end of each marathon day, the mental loop of what-ifs would play: “Not a day went by that I didn’t think about the worst.” Around 5 p.m. on June 2, 2017, feeling that he was at his peak, Honnold asked Chin if the team could be ready to shoot the next day. “I think I’ll go scrambling,” he said. Chin nodded, acting like it was no big deal: “My mind was racing with all the things we needed to put in place before it got dark, but I didn’t want to upset his mind-set, so I hung out with him for a while.” Finally Chin told Honnold he’d see him in the morning and walked slowly until he was out of his friend’s line of sight. Then Chin ran like hell. He jumped on the crew’s walkie-talkie channel and, using Honnold’s code name, alerted the team to what was about to happen. “Bambi is going for it! Repeat: Bambi is going for it!” In paragraph D, what is meant by the moon landing of free soloing?

DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The Free Soloist In June 2017, Alex Honnold completed a stunning scramble up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite wall in Yosemite National Park. Mark Synnott recounts how Honnold’s meticulous planning and training prepared him for “the ultimate climb” – a four-hour vertical ascent without a rope. It’s 4:54 a.m. on a chilly November morning in 2016 in Yosemite National Park. A full moon casts an eerie glow onto the southwest face of El Capitan, where Alex Honnold clings to the side of the granite wall with nothing more than the tips of his fingers and two thin edges of shoe rubber. He’s attempting to do something that professional rock climbers have long thought impossible – a free solo ascent of the world’s most famous cliff. That means he is alone and climbing without a rope as he inches his way up more than half a mile of vertical rock. A light breeze rustles his hair as he shines his headlamp on the cold, smooth patch of granite where he must next place his foot. Above him, the stone is blank for several feet, devoid of any holds. Unlike parts of the climb higher up, which feature shallow divots, pebble-size nubs, and tiny cracks that Alex can cling onto with his amazingly strong fingers, this part – a barely less than vertical slab on a section called the Freeblast – must be mastered with a delicate balance of fine skills and poise. 1 Climbers call it friction climbing. “It’s like walking up glass,” Alex once said. He wiggles his toes; they’re numb. His right ankle is stiff and swollen from a severe sprain he sustained two months earlier when he fell while practicing this part of the route. That time he was attached to a rope, but now, falling isn’t an option. Free soloing isn’t like other dangerous sports. There is no “maybe” when you’re 60 stories up without a rope: If you make a mistake, you die. Six hundred feet below, I sit on a fallen tree watching the tiny circle of Alex’s light. It hasn’t moved in what feels like an eternity, but is probably less than a minute. And I know why: he’s facing the move that has haunted him ever since he first dreamed up this scheme seven years ago. I’ve climbed this slab myself, and the thought of doing it free solo makes me nauseated. The log on which I’m sitting lies less than a hundred yards from where Alex will land if he slips. A sudden noise jolts me back to the present; my heart skips. A cameraman, part of the crew recording the feat, hustles up the trail toward the base of the wall. I can hear the static of his walkie-talkie. “Alex is bailing,” he says. Thank God, I think, Alex will live. * * * Some in the climbing world view free soloing as something that isn’t meant to be. Critics regard it as reckless showmanship that gives the sport a bad name, noting the long list of those who’ve died attempting it. Others, myself included, recognize it as the sport’s purest expression. Such was the attitude of Austrian alpinist Paul Preuss, considered by climbing historians to be the father of free soloing. He proclaimed that the very essence of alpinism 2 was to master a mountain with superior physical and mental skill – not “artificial aid.” By age 27, Preuss had made some 150 ropeless first ascents, and was celebrated throughout Europe. Then, on October 3, 1913, while free soloing the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel in the Austrian Alps, he fell to his death. But Preuss’s ideas would live on, influencing successive generations of climbers and inspiring the “free climbing” movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which espoused using ropes and other gear only as safety devices, never to assist a climber’s upward progress. The next serious free soloist of note appeared in 1973, when “Hot” Henry Barber shocked the climbing community by scaling the 1,500-foot north face of Yosemite’s Sentinel Rock without a rope. In 1987, Canadian Peter Croft free soloed two of Yosemite’s most celebrated routes – Astroman and Rostrum – back-to-back in the same day. Croft’s achievement stood until 2007, when Alex Honnold, a shy 22-year-old from Sacramento, showed up in Yosemite Valley. He stunned the climbing world by repeating Croft’s Astroman-Rostrum masterpiece. The next year he free soloed two famously tough routes – Zion National Park’s Moonlight Buttress and the Regular Northwest Face of Yosemite’s Half Dome – climbs so long and technically difficult that no serious climber had imagined they could be scaled without a rope. As sponsorship offers poured in and journalists and fans hailed his achievements, Alex was secretly contemplating a much bigger goal. It’s important to note that Alex’s quest to free solo El Capitan wasn’t some adrenaline-fueled stunt that he’d come up with on a whim. In 2009, during our first climbing expedition together, he had mentioned the idea to me. There was something about his supreme confidence, though, and the way he effortlessly moved up incredibly difficult rock faces that made the comment seem like more than just an idle boast. Alex researched several El Capitan routes, finally settling on Freerider, a popular test piece for veteran climbers and one that usually requires multiple days to ascend. Its 30 or so pitches – or rope lengths – challenge a climber in practically every possible way: the strength of fingers, forearms, shoulders, calves, toes, back, and abdomen, not to mention balance, flexibility, problem solving, and emotional stamina. Certain times of the day the sun heats the rock so much that it burns to touch it; hours later the temperature can plummet below freezing. Storms blow in, powerful winds lash the wall, water leaks out of cracks. Bees, frogs, and birds can burst from crevices during crucial moves. Rocks of all sizes can suddenly give way and tumble down. The Freeblast may be the scariest part, but more physically demanding sections await higher up: a chimney-like crack he’ll have to climb through; a wide gap where he’ll have to perform almost a full split, pressing the rock with his feet and hands to inch his way up. And then 2,300 feet above the valley floor is the Boulder Problem – a blank face that requires some of the most technically challenging moves of the climb. But before he could tackle the Boulder Problem, he would have to get over the Freeblast. In 2016, the vertical slab proved to be an insurmountable 3 obstacle and he was forced to give up his attempt. But Alex knew he would try again. * * * Saturday morning, June 3, 2017. Seven months after Alex’s failed attempt, I am in a meadow near the foot of El Capitan. The tall grass is covered with dew, and the sky is gray, as it always is just before dawn. I squint through a telescope, and there is Alex, 600 feet above the valley floor, moving up onto the Freeblast, the glassy slab that has frustrated him for nearly a decade. Alex’s movements, normally so smooth, are worrisomely jerky. His foot tap-tap-taps against the wall as if he’s feeling his way tentatively into the slab. And then, just like that, he’s standing on a ledge several feet above the move that has been hanging over his head for years. I realize I’ve been holding my breath, so I consciously exhale. Thousands of moves are still to come, and the Boulder Problem looms far above, but he won’t be turning back this time. Alex Honnold is on his way to completing the greatest rock climb in history. 1 If someone has poise, they have calm self-confidence. 2 Alpinism refers to mountain climbing in the Alps and also other mountains. 3 If something is insurmountable, it is a problem too great to be overcome. In paragraph D, what can you infer is the reason for why Honnold’s toes are numb?

DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The Free Soloist In June 2017, Alex Honnold completed a stunning scramble up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite wall in Yosemite National Park. Mark Synnott recounts how Honnold’s meticulous planning and training prepared him for “the ultimate climb” – a four-hour vertical ascent without a rope. It’s 4:54 a.m. on a chilly November morning in 2016 in Yosemite National Park. A full moon casts an eerie glow onto the southwest face of El Capitan, where Alex Honnold clings to the side of the granite wall with nothing more than the tips of his fingers and two thin edges of shoe rubber. He’s attempting to do something that professional rock climbers have long thought impossible – a free solo ascent of the world’s most famous cliff. That means he is alone and climbing without a rope as he inches his way up more than half a mile of vertical rock. A light breeze rustles his hair as he shines his headlamp on the cold, smooth patch of granite where he must next place his foot. Above him, the stone is blank for several feet, devoid of any holds. Unlike parts of the climb higher up, which feature shallow divots, pebble-size nubs, and tiny cracks that Alex can cling onto with his amazingly strong fingers, this part – a barely less than vertical slab on a section called the Freeblast – must be mastered with a delicate balance of fine skills and poise. 1 Climbers call it friction climbing. “It’s like walking up glass,” Alex once said. He wiggles his toes; they’re numb. His right ankle is stiff and swollen from a severe sprain he sustained two months earlier when he fell while practicing this part of the route. That time he was attached to a rope, but now, falling isn’t an option. Free soloing isn’t like other dangerous sports. There is no “maybe” when you’re 60 stories up without a rope: If you make a mistake, you die. Six hundred feet below, I sit on a fallen tree watching the tiny circle of Alex’s light. It hasn’t moved in what feels like an eternity, but is probably less than a minute. And I know why: he’s facing the move that has haunted him ever since he first dreamed up this scheme seven years ago. I’ve climbed this slab myself, and the thought of doing it free solo makes me nauseated. The log on which I’m sitting lies less than a hundred yards from where Alex will land if he slips. A sudden noise jolts me back to the present; my heart skips. A cameraman, part of the crew recording the feat, hustles up the trail toward the base of the wall. I can hear the static of his walkie-talkie. “Alex is bailing,” he says. Thank God, I think, Alex will live. * * * Some in the climbing world view free soloing as something that isn’t meant to be. Critics regard it as reckless showmanship that gives the sport a bad name, noting the long list of those who’ve died attempting it. Others, myself included, recognize it as the sport’s purest expression. Such was the attitude of Austrian alpinist Paul Preuss, considered by climbing historians to be the father of free soloing. He proclaimed that the very essence of alpinism 2 was to master a mountain with superior physical and mental skill – not “artificial aid.” By age 27, Preuss had made some 150 ropeless first ascents, and was celebrated throughout Europe. Then, on October 3, 1913, while free soloing the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel in the Austrian Alps, he fell to his death. But Preuss’s ideas would live on, influencing successive generations of climbers and inspiring the “free climbing” movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which espoused using ropes and other gear only as safety devices, never to assist a climber’s upward progress. The next serious free soloist of note appeared in 1973, when “Hot” Henry Barber shocked the climbing community by scaling the 1,500-foot north face of Yosemite’s Sentinel Rock without a rope. In 1987, Canadian Peter Croft free soloed two of Yosemite’s most celebrated routes – Astroman and Rostrum – back-to-back in the same day. Croft’s achievement stood until 2007, when Alex Honnold, a shy 22-year-old from Sacramento, showed up in Yosemite Valley. He stunned the climbing world by repeating Croft’s Astroman-Rostrum masterpiece. The next year he free soloed two famously tough routes – Zion National Park’s Moonlight Buttress and the Regular Northwest Face of Yosemite’s Half Dome – climbs so long and technically difficult that no serious climber had imagined they could be scaled without a rope. As sponsorship offers poured in and journalists and fans hailed his achievements, Alex was secretly contemplating a much bigger goal. It’s important to note that Alex’s quest to free solo El Capitan wasn’t some adrenaline-fueled stunt that he’d come up with on a whim. In 2009, during our first climbing expedition together, he had mentioned the idea to me. There was something about his supreme confidence, though, and the way he effortlessly moved up incredibly difficult rock faces that made the comment seem like more than just an idle boast. Alex researched several El Capitan routes, finally settling on Freerider, a popular test piece for veteran climbers and one that usually requires multiple days to ascend. Its 30 or so pitches – or rope lengths – challenge a climber in practically every possible way: the strength of fingers, forearms, shoulders, calves, toes, back, and abdomen, not to mention balance, flexibility, problem solving, and emotional stamina. Certain times of the day the sun heats the rock so much that it burns to touch it; hours later the temperature can plummet below freezing. Storms blow in, powerful winds lash the wall, water leaks out of cracks. Bees, frogs, and birds can burst from crevices during crucial moves. Rocks of all sizes can suddenly give way and tumble down. The Freeblast may be the scariest part, but more physically demanding sections await higher up: a chimney-like crack he’ll have to climb through; a wide gap where he’ll have to perform almost a full split, pressing the rock with his feet and hands to inch his way up. And then 2,300 feet above the valley floor is the Boulder Problem – a blank face that requires some of the most technically challenging moves of the climb. But before he could tackle the Boulder Problem, he would have to get over the Freeblast. In 2016, the vertical slab proved to be an insurmountable 3 obstacle and he was forced to give up his attempt. But Alex knew he would try again. * * * Saturday morning, June 3, 2017. Seven months after Alex’s failed attempt, I am in a meadow near the foot of El Capitan. The tall grass is covered with dew, and the sky is gray, as it always is just before dawn. I squint through a telescope, and there is Alex, 600 feet above the valley floor, moving up onto the Freeblast, the glassy slab that has frustrated him for nearly a decade. Alex’s movements, normally so smooth, are worrisomely jerky. His foot tap-tap-taps against the wall as if he’s feeling his way tentatively into the slab. And then, just like that, he’s standing on a ledge several feet above the move that has been hanging over his head for years. I realize I’ve been holding my breath, so I consciously exhale. Thousands of moves are still to come, and the Boulder Problem looms far above, but he won’t be turning back this time. Alex Honnold is on his way to completing the greatest rock climb in history. 1 If someone has poise, they have calm self-confidence. 2 Alpinism refers to mountain climbing in the Alps and also other mountains. 3 If something is insurmountable, it is a problem too great to be overcome. Why does the author include his thought that Alex will live in paragraph F?

DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. How Jimmy Chin Filmed Alex Honnold’s Death-Defying Free Solo Honnold planned to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without a rope. Chin would film it. But first they had to figure out how to talk about it. When you are Jimmy Chin, you make a long list of rules for filming your friend Alex Honnold’s historic attempt to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without using any ropes. First you will hire a team of world-class climber-cinematographers to rappel beside him as he ascends the nearly 3,000-foot granite face. No one is allowed to whisper, sneeze, drop a lens cap, dislodge a pebble – any of which might create the distraction that sends him plummeting to his death. Most important, no one is allowed to talk to Honnold about the epic climb, at least not directly. This is to avoid putting any pressure on him but also to keep from upsetting his precisely calibrated mind-set, a mixture of acute concentration, bulletproof confidence, and deep Zen calm. Instead of using the term “free soloing,” which means climbing without ropes or safety gear, you use his preferred euphemism – “scrambling.” You follow these rules knowing that any notion of rules is contradictory to the very idea of free soloing, because in this ruthlessly unforgiving sport there really aren’t any rules, at least no written ones. That’s much of the point. Climbing without ropes is decidedly against all the rules, especially the rules of mountain safety, not to mention human logic. Some veteran climbers say there is no if a free soloist falls – only when. You can think of many who have fallen to their deaths, some you knew personally. And suddenly there it is: the vividly horrifying image of your friend flailing into the void. But wait. That’s exactly what you’re not supposed to picture when your buddy is trying to do what some experts say is the most daring ascent ever attempted – what Honnold’s friend and fellow elite climber Tommy Caldwell called “the moon landing of free soloing.” Such thoughts looped in Chin’s mind for more than a year as he and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, his wife and filmmaking partner, documented Honnold’s efforts to make climbing history. (Spoiler alert: He makes it.) The film, aptly titled Free Solo, was released in theaters. “To film a climber with both the physical and mental ability Alex has, combined with the desire to take on something so ambitious and scary,” Chin says, “it’s the project of a lifetime, no doubt.” Chin, 45, and Honnold, 33, first climbed together in 2009 as part of an expedition to Borneo to explore Low’s Gully, one of the world’s deepest slot canyons. Honnold had recently burst onto the climbing scene with a series of headline-grabbing free solos, including Yosemite’s Half Dome. Chin remembers being struck by Honnold’s boyish face and large brown eyes, which would inevitably earn him the nickname Bambi. But Honnold’s youthful appearance belies his most exceptional gift – an uncanny ability to control his fear and focus on perfectly executing the task at hand (never mind that the task is reaching for a fingertip of rock while clinging to a cliff 1,000 feet up). It’s a gift that Chin shares in some measure. Three years before meeting Honnold, he climbed Mount Everest and skied down its icy, nearly vertical face. After Borneo, the men started climbing together regularly, with Chin filming some of Honnold’s free solos. “We built up a lot of trust,” says Chin. “He trusted me to safely film him, and I trusted him to climb only what he felt good about and not to feel compelled to do rad stuff for the camera.” Meanwhile Honnold had been privately contemplating what it would take to free solo El Cap. “After Half Dome it seemed like the next obvious thing,” Honnold says. “At the end of each season, I’d think I’d be ready to do it the next year, but then I’d look up at it and think, ‘Whoa, that’s still too scary.'” Finally, in late 2015, Honnold told Chin and Vasarhelyi he was ready, and they agreed to work together in secret on a film about the climb. “It was very important that the film would be about Alex’s process,” Chin says. “Whether it ended with him summiting El Cap or deciding not to go for it didn’t matter. It was always about how do you even think about doing something so mind-bending.” Honnold chose a route called Freerider, one that often takes skilled climbers using ropes multiple days to ascend. He set about perfecting a hand-by-hand, foot-by-foot choreography up the famous cliff. Meanwhile Chin hired a crew of hard-core Yosemite climbers and began planning the extensive logistics. Each practice session required many hours of preparation. Chin and the crew would speed climb an easy route up the east side of El Cap ahead of Honnold, lugging hundreds of pounds of cameras, ropes, and gear. Then they’d rappel down Freerider and use a type of hand winch to keep pace with him as he climbed. “We all got in the best shape of our lives,” Chin says. But at the end of each marathon day, the mental loop of what-ifs would play: “Not a day went by that I didn’t think about the worst.” Around 5 p.m. on June 2, 2017, feeling that he was at his peak, Honnold asked Chin if the team could be ready to shoot the next day. “I think I’ll go scrambling,” he said. Chin nodded, acting like it was no big deal: “My mind was racing with all the things we needed to put in place before it got dark, but I didn’t want to upset his mind-set, so I hung out with him for a while.” Finally Chin told Honnold he’d see him in the morning and walked slowly until he was out of his friend’s line of sight. Then Chin ran like hell. He jumped on the crew’s walkie-talkie channel and, using Honnold’s code name, alerted the team to what was about to happen. “Bambi is going for it! Repeat: Bambi is going for it!” In paragraph I, what does the expression rad stuff mean?

DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The Sky Runner Growing up in a village in eastern Nepal’s Bhojpur Mountains, Mira Rai had dreams that went far beyond the conventional expectations for Nepali women. The eldest daughter of five children, she was expected to fetch water, tend crops and livestock, and help out at home. By age 12, she no longer regularly attended school, and instead hauled heavy bags of rice up and down steep trails – often barefoot – to trade at the market. It was hard work – but great training for a future trail runner. “As a girl,” Rai recalls, “I would constantly be told to know my place, suppress my voice, and act in a certain manner. For me, breaking free from these traditions itself was a big dream.” Several years ago, Rai’s dream became reality. She was running outside Kathmandu when two male trail runners invited her to enter her first trail race, the Kathmandu West Valley Rim 50K. She had never run 50 kilometers before, had no special gear or training for such a distance, and was also the only woman in the competition. But against all odds, she beat everyone – even the men. From there, a community of supporters came together to give her a chance to compete in international trail running competitions. Today, the running world recognizes Rai as a high-elevation trail racing phenomenon. Now she is on a mission to help both women and men of Nepal through sports. Rai believes her work to empower others has just begun. “We have realized that Nepal has tremendous potential to develop competitive athletes,” she says. Wasfia Nazreen, a mountain climber from Bangladesh, knows first-hand the impact Rai has had on the young women of Nepal. “For someone who has left school so early and missed the learning we take for granted, Mira has been able to turn back time and set a rare example by being the change herself,” she says. “It’s hard to find good role models 1 for young women in our region, especially one coming from the same rural village background as most of the young generation,” Nazreen says. Mira is blazing a trail, not just in terms of being able to speak nationally on gender equality, but also by getting young people into running through the new Kathmandu Trail Race Series. “The grit 2 and joy she embodies throughout all her hardships and victories is an inspiration to all of us!” Rai, however, remains humble. “I have been able to do the things I did because so many people believed in me and took chances, and I want to give back so others can have a chance just the way I did,” she says. “We have a saying in Nepal, ‘ Khana pugyos, dina pugos,’ which means, ‘Let there be enough to eat, let there be enough to give.'” Interviewer: Which is more difficult: running a hard, steep trail race or breaking gender stereotypes? Mira Rai: Running is no issue, but breaking gender stereotypes is. For the society we live in, it’s difficult for women and men alike because doing anything out of convention means a lot of struggle – especially for women. As women, we are expected to help out with chores at home from childhood and then get married and raise a family, so it becomes a struggle, not merely a challenge. You get called a rebel, and for an adventure sport that involves risks, nobody encourages you. “You’ll end up breaking your bones!” they’d say. Though the mindset 3 seems to be changing, it’s still at a snail’s pace and has a long way to go before women are seen as equivalent to men. What advice do you have for someone who wants to be a stronger runner like you? MR: It was a matter of chance and luck that I became a runner. Back in the village we had to walk hours on end – up and down grueling terrain, often barefoot, with a heavy weight on our backs – and this definitely contributed. I started running, I got professional training that taught me techniques, and gradually I became more determined, motivated, and persistent to chase my dreams. However, I’ve also learned that proper diet, enough rest, confidence, yoga, and mental well-being – as well as having good support from my mentor Richard Bull and my coach Dhruba Bikram Malla – are just as important as being in shape. You stopped going to school regularly when you were 12. Do you wish you’d had more school? MR: I feel that if I’d finished more school, I would have been able to communicate with more confidence and have a better insight into world affairs. In many cases when I first started racing abroad, I couldn’t even be a part of conversations because of my poor English skills. I used to just sit there and listen, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable being there as everybody was very supportive. However, with media and sponsors, it would’ve definitely been more helpful had I obtained more education back home. Even today when I try to read newspapers, I fail to understand quite a few words, so I am taking English classes these days, and it’s certainly helping. Running has helped you see the world. What is it like to return to your village now that you have been to Hong Kong, Italy, and other places? MR: I return once a year during the Dashain, the largest festival of the year, and the people there are living the same sort of lives as I saw when I was a kid. We used to have kerosene lanterns, but now there are bulbs that run on solar power. The village had no access by road back in the day; now there are dirt tracks that connect to big towns. But the mud houses are the same. There’s phone connection, but it doesn’t work well. When I go back, I meet a lot of youngsters that ask me how they can live differently. They definitely seem motivated, but sadly their folks do not agree with such ambition. While the physical infrastructure in my village has improved, the mindset has not. I remain hopeful that the future generation will break the mold. What work are you doing now with communities in Nepal? MR: While recovering from knee surgery, I have been providing guidance to men and women alike in running and encouraging them to pursue a career as professional athletes. Every so often, I visit schools and children’s homes to share my knowledge about running, particularly training, diet, and more importantly, an active lifestyle. We have realized that Nepal has tremendous potential to develop competitive athletes, so we’re organizing a series of trail races in Kathmandu. These are short races aimed for both beginners and experienced runners. I also organized a small race back in my hometown of Sano Dumma last October, to introduce the sport to the young crowd and get them interested in running. In the coming days, I plan to organize races that aim to identify and promote promising runners. Is there a personal challenge that you still want to achieve? MR: I have always dreamed of running in the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc in France. It’s a challenging race for elite runners from all over the world – 166 kilometers! I would love to see where I stand in this race. 1 A role model is someone who is a good example for young people to follow. 2 If you show grit, you have courage. 3 Your mindset is your way of thinking. In paragraph B, what does breaking free mean?

DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The Sky Runner Growing up in a village in eastern Nepal’s Bhojpur Mountains, Mira Rai had dreams that went far beyond the conventional expectations for Nepali women. The eldest daughter of five children, she was expected to fetch water, tend crops and livestock, and help out at home. By age 12, she no longer regularly attended school, and instead hauled heavy bags of rice up and down steep trails – often barefoot – to trade at the market. It was hard work – but great training for a future trail runner. “As a girl,” Rai recalls, “I would constantly be told to know my place, suppress my voice, and act in a certain manner. For me, breaking free from these traditions itself was a big dream.” Several years ago, Rai’s dream became reality. She was running outside Kathmandu when two male trail runners invited her to enter her first trail race, the Kathmandu West Valley Rim 50K. She had never run 50 kilometers before, had no special gear or training for such a distance, and was also the only woman in the competition. But against all odds, she beat everyone – even the men. From there, a community of supporters came together to give her a chance to compete in international trail running competitions. Today, the running world recognizes Rai as a high-elevation trail racing phenomenon. Now she is on a mission to help both women and men of Nepal through sports. Rai believes her work to empower others has just begun. “We have realized that Nepal has tremendous potential to develop competitive athletes,” she says. Wasfia Nazreen, a mountain climber from Bangladesh, knows first-hand the impact Rai has had on the young women of Nepal. “For someone who has left school so early and missed the learning we take for granted, Mira has been able to turn back time and set a rare example by being the change herself,” she says. “It’s hard to find good role models 1 for young women in our region, especially one coming from the same rural village background as most of the young generation,” Nazreen says. Mira is blazing a trail, not just in terms of being able to speak nationally on gender equality, but also by getting young people into running through the new Kathmandu Trail Race Series. “The grit 2 and joy she embodies throughout all her hardships and victories is an inspiration to all of us!” Rai, however, remains humble. “I have been able to do the things I did because so many people believed in me and took chances, and I want to give back so others can have a chance just the way I did,” she says. “We have a saying in Nepal, ‘ Khana pugyos, dina pugos,’ which means, ‘Let there be enough to eat, let there be enough to give.'” Interviewer: Which is more difficult: running a hard, steep trail race or breaking gender stereotypes? Mira Rai: Running is no issue, but breaking gender stereotypes is. For the society we live in, it’s difficult for women and men alike because doing anything out of convention means a lot of struggle – especially for women. As women, we are expected to help out with chores at home from childhood and then get married and raise a family, so it becomes a struggle, not merely a challenge. You get called a rebel, and for an adventure sport that involves risks, nobody encourages you. “You’ll end up breaking your bones!” they’d say. Though the mindset 3 seems to be changing, it’s still at a snail’s pace and has a long way to go before women are seen as equivalent to men. What advice do you have for someone who wants to be a stronger runner like you? MR: It was a matter of chance and luck that I became a runner. Back in the village we had to walk hours on end – up and down grueling terrain, often barefoot, with a heavy weight on our backs – and this definitely contributed. I started running, I got professional training that taught me techniques, and gradually I became more determined, motivated, and persistent to chase my dreams. However, I’ve also learned that proper diet, enough rest, confidence, yoga, and mental well-being – as well as having good support from my mentor Richard Bull and my coach Dhruba Bikram Malla – are just as important as being in shape. You stopped going to school regularly when you were 12. Do you wish you’d had more school? MR: I feel that if I’d finished more school, I would have been able to communicate with more confidence and have a better insight into world affairs. In many cases when I first started racing abroad, I couldn’t even be a part of conversations because of my poor English skills. I used to just sit there and listen, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable being there as everybody was very supportive. However, with media and sponsors, it would’ve definitely been more helpful had I obtained more education back home. Even today when I try to read newspapers, I fail to understand quite a few words, so I am taking English classes these days, and it’s certainly helping. Running has helped you see the world. What is it like to return to your village now that you have been to Hong Kong, Italy, and other places? MR: I return once a year during the Dashain, the largest festival of the year, and the people there are living the same sort of lives as I saw when I was a kid. We used to have kerosene lanterns, but now there are bulbs that run on solar power. The village had no access by road back in the day; now there are dirt tracks that connect to big towns. But the mud houses are the same. There’s phone connection, but it doesn’t work well. When I go back, I meet a lot of youngsters that ask me how they can live differently. They definitely seem motivated, but sadly their folks do not agree with such ambition. While the physical infrastructure in my village has improved, the mindset has not. I remain hopeful that the future generation will break the mold. What work are you doing now with communities in Nepal? MR: While recovering from knee surgery, I have been providing guidance to men and women alike in running and encouraging them to pursue a career as professional athletes. Every so often, I visit schools and children’s homes to share my knowledge about running, particularly training, diet, and more importantly, an active lifestyle. We have realized that Nepal has tremendous potential to develop competitive athletes, so we’re organizing a series of trail races in Kathmandu. These are short races aimed for both beginners and experienced runners. I also organized a small race back in my hometown of Sano Dumma last October, to introduce the sport to the young crowd and get them interested in running. In the coming days, I plan to organize races that aim to identify and promote promising runners. Is there a personal challenge that you still want to achieve? MR: I have always dreamed of running in the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc in France. It’s a challenging race for elite runners from all over the world – 166 kilometers! I would love to see where I stand in this race. 1 A role model is someone who is a good example for young people to follow. 2 If you show grit, you have courage. 3 Your mindset is your way of thinking. Which of the following events happened most recently to Mira Rai?

Environmental federalism is the shared authority between two or more levels of governments – national, states, and /or local governments – on environmental management. 

  Duration: 30 minutes.  Translate the sentences below on a sheet of paper. Then, send a photocopy of the paper to the Instructor via email. . (dkim88@gmu.edu) The email must be sent to the instructor before closing HonorLock. Once you have sent the email, type ‘Done’ in the textbox to finish the test. 

Suppose 2.43 g of magnesium is reacted with 3.20 g of oxygen: 2Mg + O2 ® 2MgO. How many grams of MgO will be produced?

A reaction was predicted to produce 32.4 grams of a compound. When the product was measured, there were only 26.1 grams made. What is the percent yield of this reaction?