¹When we meet, she always has something critical to say, such as “What have you done with your hair?” or “You look terrible in that color.” ²She calls my sister “the smart sister” and me “the dumb one.” ³On my birthday, she said, “I didn’t think you wanted a present.”

¹She works as a billing clerk at a hospital. ²She dropped out of high school, but earned her GED and then attended community college. 3She’s held the job for more than 15 years and has been the hospital’s “Employee of the Month” a number of times.

¹Isabel is about five foot seven and is a little on the heavy side. ²She wears her hair very short and always has on long dangly earrings. ³She’s almost 50 but looks younger. 4She wears very little makeup—just some mascara and sometimes lip gloss.

¹He has his top students present the lessons to the class so he doesn’t have to do anything. ²If someone is having trouble in class, he tells him or her to get help from one of the other students. ³So he doesn’t have to grade papers, he allows us to grade each other’s homework and test papers, even midterm and final exams.

¹His favorite saying is, “There is no such thing as partial credit. ²Either the answer is right or it isn’t.” ³We can expect at least two hours of biology homework every night, and more on weekends and holidays. ⁴Even the best students in class have trouble finishing his tests before the end of the period, and the average grade for his class is a C.

¹He always arrives exactly on time for class; you could set your watch by him. ²He predictably begins with two or three questions, then lectures for most of the period, and with five minutes to go, writes on the board exactly what he wants us to read before the next class.

¹She can barely stay awake while at work. ²Almost every day, she arrives at the store a few minutes late, having slept till the last minute. ³She works in slow motion, and it takes her so long to do any one thing that people never ask for her help. ⁴If she didn’t spend the day pumping herself full of caffeine, she probably would not be able to move at all.

¹She keeps customers waiting while she talks with a coworker. ²When someone asks her about a sale item, she snaps, “If it isn’t on the shelf, we don’t have it!” ³When her boss isn’t watching her, she answers the telephone by saying, “Yeah, what do you want?”

¹She can answer the phone, ring up a customer’s purchases, and count large amounts of money all at the same time. ²She often volunteers to help customers bring their bags to their cars. ³She does not mind taking time to answer a customer’s question or help someone stock a shelf.

¹It is slower than any other roller coaster in the state. ²The curves of its track are so wide and the hills are so shallow that a ride on this roller coaster seems like a drive in the country. ³People don’t scream when they ride it. ⁴Instead, they enjoy the view from above the park.

¹It is known as one of the best roller coasters in the country. ²People will wait in lines for hours just to try it. ³At certain points it reaches the same speeds as cars do on highways. ⁴The track is so tall and long that you can see it miles away.

¹Last year, it broke down several times, leaving people stranded in their cars sixty feet off the ground. ²In most cars, the seatbelts are torn and don’t always buckle properly. ³One area of the track shakes and makes a strange grinding sound whenever a car passes over it.

¹He gives up his bus seat to elderly commuters. ²When he sees people carrying heavy packages or struggling with squirming children, he rushes to open doors to help them out.

¹No matter how much trouble I’m having with my English assignment, he refuses to do any of it for me. ²He says that between his own homework and his job, he doesn’t have time. ³But he always gets B’s, and I have trouble getting C’s. ⁴Furthermore, when I need someone to cover for me at work so that I can see my girlfriend, he’s always too busy with something else to help me out.

¹He never pays his bills on time. ²When he borrows things, he returns them damaged, or not at all. ³He is usually late for appointments, if he even remembers them at all.

¹The chicken took an hour to prepare and two hours to cook. ²I had to travel for twenty miles to find a produce store that sold the vegetables I wanted. ³In order to make all this food, I had to buy a whole new set of pots and pans. ⁴Afterward, it took me hours to clean the kitchen and wash the dishes.

¹My girlfriend’s car would not start when she wanted to come over. ²By the time she arrived, she was two hours late and very angry. ³As we sat down to eat, all she could talk about was how much it would cost to have her car fixed. ⁴When I tried to change the subject, she said I never listen to her, so I apologized. ⁵Then she accused me of apologizing too much. ⁶We both got so mad that we hardly touched dinner.

¹The chicken came out so tough and dry that I could barely cut it with a steak knife. ²I overcooked the fresh vegetables so much that they changed from a bright green color to the color of an army jeep. ³The cake I tried to bake collapsed into itself, turning into a shapeless chewy mass that resembled a giant cookie.

¹Proms pressure students to spend a ridiculous amount of money on gowns, tuxes, flowers, and even limos. ²Prom preparations distract students for many weeks from the real business of the school, which is education. ³In addition, the social pressure to get a date for the prom makes many people miserable.

¹Proms usually feature a theme, and the room the prom is held in is decorated according to that theme. ²Often a photographer is hired to take pictures of the couples as they arrive. ³Some proms even have thrones set up for the prom king and queen.

¹At most schools, proms are chaperoned by teachers and administrators. ²Of course, the students would prefer that no adults were in the room,

especially adults who should stay in the classroom or office where they belong. ³What they don’t realize is that the chaperones are often as ill at ease as the students they are watching.

¹He spent a half-hour talking and laughing with someone yesterday, then later confided to me, “I can’t stand that man!” ²He lectures his daughters about the dangers of drug addiction, but he is a heavy drinker and smoker.

¹He waits until December to put in winter storm windows, and his Christmas tree is often still up in March. ²He usually pays his bills a few days after they are due, and he never gets around to dental or medical checkups until real problems develop.

¹After thirty-seven years of marriage, he still writes love letters to his wife. ²He took early retirement so he could stay home and care for her when an illness left her bedridden. ³He never leaves the house without bringing her back something special.

¹She greets employees and customers alike with a warm smile and a hearty, “Hi! How are you today?” ²She is forever telling us, “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet.”

¹Instead of giving us orders, she asks us to do things. ²She always thanks an employee for completing a task. ³She often helps out when she sees that things are getting stressful.

¹Getting a raise out of her is impossible—even for long-term employees. ²Her secretary is still using an old typewriter because the boss won’t buy anything new. ³We had to have the retirement party for the office manager during our lunch hour, and the boss was waiting by the time clock when we got back—to make sure we weren’t a minute late.

¹I began feeling lousy while I was at school. ²By the time I got home, it was even worse. ³The symptoms kept developing, one after another. ⁴I went to bed feeling horrible, and there was no doubt that I was really in for it. ⁵I could tell I was going to feel awful for days. ⁶Getting the flu is such a miserable experience that I really would not wish it on anyone.

¹I know exactly when the flu hit. ²I was at my desk when I felt a tickle in my throat. ³I began to cough, and the cough refused to go away. ⁴A few minutes later, the words on my computer screen began to swim. ⁵I could feel a deep headache developing behind my eyes. ⁶By the time I got home later that afternoon, I had a fever of 102. ⁷I crawled into bed shivering, even with three blankets. ⁸And I was aching so badly I felt as

though I’d been hit by a truck.

¹Once he tried to open a tube of Krazy Glue with his teeth. ²When the cap came loose, glue squirted out and sealed his lips shut. ³They had to be pried open in a hospital ER.

¹Even when he does simple jobs, he seems to get into trouble. ²This can lead to funny but sometimes dangerous results. ³Things never seem to go right for him, and he often needs the help of others to get out of one problem or another.

¹There are a lot of corners we can cut when we need to. ²If you think about it, there are plenty of unnecessary expenses every day that people can cut out when necessary. ³Food and entertainment are two categories that eat up a lot of money needlessly. ⁴Those expenses may not seem like a lot individually, but they can add up to quite a bit. ⁵My family has gotten good at being aware of such small ways to save.

¹We have a simple breakfast like oatmeal rather than bacon and eggs. ²We pack lunches rather than eat in the school cafeteria or restaurants. ³We plan ahead for those lunches, buying economy sizes of peanut butter, lunch meat, and fruit. ⁴We cut back on buying impulse items like candy, chips, and coffee or soda drinks. ⁵Rather than going out to the movies at

eight dollars ahead, we rent a DVD and make popcorn at home.

¹If the car’s problems were just cosmetic, we might be able to live with them, but it’s worse than that. ²Our car has major mechanical problems that would cost more to fix than would be worth it. ³Even if we did fix them, that would leave a lot of smaller problems to deal with. ⁴Those problems not only affect its appearance but definitely make the car unsafe. ⁵It’s time to say goodbye to the old heap.

¹The transmission slips, and our mechanic told us it would cost $2,000 to get it repaired. ²That’s more than the car is worth. ³Because the engine burns oil, we have to add a quart a week. ⁴In addition, the air conditioner and heater are shot, the upholstery is stained or torn, the cover has fallen off the glove box, the rear-view mirror is loose, and the driver’s window

sticks much of the time in the “down” position.

¹When I asked him to do something, he gave me nothing but trouble. ²He seemed determined to make things difficult for me, for he had made his mind up.

¹When I asked him to stop playing in the yard and come indoors, he looked me squarely in the eye and shouted “NO!” and then spelled it out: “N. . . O!”

¹They serve canned vegetables, which are not as good as fresh ones. ²The macaroni and cheese does not do anything for your appetite, and the pizza is not as good as the kind you can get at a pizzeria. ³Some of the meat is virtually inedible. ⁴Lots of luck if you want something good to drink.

¹The string beans and other canned vegetables are limp and salty, and the macaroni and cheese is gluey and tasteless. ²The pizza is usually spongy and cold and does not have much cheese on it. ³You’d need diamondtipped teeth to be able to chew the beef in the stew. ⁴The hamburgers taste like rubber.

¹He has shredded the curtains in my bedroom with his claws. ²He nearly drowned when he crawled into the washing machine. ³And my hands look like raw hamburger from his playful scratches and bites.

¹He seems to destroy everything he touches. ²He’s always getting into places where he doesn’t belong. ³Sometimes he plays too roughly, and that can be painful.

¹Many people will go to almost any length to avoid speaking to a group. ²If they are forced to do it, they can feel so anxious that they actually develop physical symptoms. ³If asked, people will often prefer that anything happen to them as an alternative to having to speak in public.

¹Some people will pretend to be ill to avoid speaking publicly. ²Stage fright, stammering, and blushing are frequent reactions. ³When asked to rank their worst fears, people often list public speaking as even worse than death.

¹He had to live on whatever he had in the freezer for a while. ²He was not any good in the kitchen and went through a trial-and-error process of learning how to prepare things to eat. ³More often than not with his meals, he would make mistakes first, and someone who knows what to do in preparing food would probably not believe some of the things that

he did.

¹The only dinners he ate for the first three weeks were frozen turkey or chicken dinners. ²When he got tired of Cheerios for breakfast, he tried to cook an egg by putting a whole egg in the microwave, where it exploded. ³Then for lunch one day, instead of a bologna sandwich, he attempted to make a grilled cheese sandwich by putting slices of cheese and bread in a toaster.

¹My mom was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and hypertension, but we cannot afford the medications she should now be taking. ²Since my dad lost his job as an insurance agent, we’ve started to fall behind on our mortgage payments. ³Then my sister was caught shoplifting cosmetics from our local drug store.

¹My mom has some serious health problems, and it is really going to be a challenge for us to try to deal with them. ²My dad is not employed at the present, and so there is no money coming in. ³As a result, we’re having to deal with major financial difficulties. ⁴Then my sister has been acting out

because of all the stress in the family.

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