Monkey news

A few days ago, I posted one of the practice writing exercises that Archer did for his Benchmark exams. Here's another one, complete with a reference chart at the end. I believe the prompt asked him to write a story about what would happen if a monkey suddenly came into his classroom. (The astute will notice themes -- or perhaps obsessions would be a better word -- repeated from the previous example.)

It was 5/28/10 at 3 P.M. when a monkey jumped into our class with a thermostat. He plugged it in. His name is Absolute Zero. I'd call him A.Z.

A.Z.'s thermostat settings bear his name. Well, at least in winter. His thermostat setting in winter is -459°F (-273°C.) That's absolute zero. The term 'absolute zero' comes from -459°F (-273°C) at 0 kelvin.

When it was time to go home, I stayed and played a chess game with A.Z. I was White. A.Z. was Black. The game went like this: 1 e4 f3? 2 d4 g5?? 3 Qh5#. A.Z. offered another game. This time, the game was much more moves. A.Z. placed his queen en prise and I captured it. A.Z. also played 5 ... Ke5?? I won with 175 h8 Q#. I had 9 queens.

A.Z. just sat at the table. Everything stopped. Absolutely stopped. "Points?" said A.Z. So I awareded points. I won with 115 points. A.Z. had only 95. "Total?" asked A.Z. "The total is 210," I said.

So that was the end of A.Z. Did you like the story?

Circle one: YES ☺ NO :( [I don't know the HTML for frowney face -- Ed.]

"A.Z.'s Thermostat Reference"

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