Reading Comprehension Quiz

The following is a reading comprehension quiz of an actual newspaper article that ran in Oklahoma's Tuttle Times. Please read the article carefully and then answer the corresponding questions. You may begin now.

Argument Ends with Pickup in Pond
A fight about gambling started a married couple down a path that would end with their pickup being driven into Tuttle Pond.

According to Tuttle police reports, the incident began when Eddie Pauley, 24, and Patricia Pauley, 22, of Oklahoma City, visited some friends in Tuttle on Saturday. Both of the Pauleys told police that they had been doing “beer bongs” at their friends' home, and Eddie passed out in their truck, a 2000 black Chevrolet Silverado. When he awoke, his wife was driving to the casino in Newcastle. Eddie told police that he was angry that his wife was going to gamble, so he took over and started back towards their friends' home on South Frisco.

The report says that about six and a half miles east of downtown Tuttle, Patricia became angry and began hitting Eddie and kicking the steering wheel. Eddie lost control and drove into a mini storage facility. When employees there approached the Pauleys, Eddie got into the back of the pickup and Patricia got behind the wheel.

Patricia then drove out onto Hwy. 37 without yielding, immediately striking two vehicles. Eddie Pauley told police that at that point, he was thrown out of the truck bed, only to wake up in someone’s yard. He left, returning on foot to his friends' house on Frisco Road.

Patricia, still believing Eddie was in the back of the pickup, turned the pickup around and started back south on Highway 37. According to the police report, Patricia said that she does not remember anything after the turn, but witnesses at the scene saw her jump out of the truck at about 30 mph. Unmanned, the pickup crossed Hwy. 37, went through a fence, across several lawns and drove into a pond until it completely submerged under water.

Upon arriving on the scene, officers observed that Patricia appeared to be "very intoxicated," according to the reports. "I could smell a very strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on her breath and person," said Sgt. Jason Lanier in his report. At that point Patricia walked out onto Hwy. 37 and began to take off her clothes. She was then placed in the back of the patrol unit where, according to officers, she urinated.

Patricia told the officers that her husband was still under the water, but when Sgt. Lanier told her witnesses had seen her husband leaving the scene on foot, she threatened to sue and shouted obscenities. Lanier wrote in his report that when he asked Patricia for a description of her husband, she told him she didn't remember what he looked like, but his shirt was white.

Tuttle police officers searched for Eddie Pauley, who was seen by witnesses screaming and running south on Sara Road and in a creek in the 5500 block of Hwy. 37 for more than an hour, but did not find him.

And now, the quiz...

1. According to Patricia Pauley, what is her husband Eddie’s most salient feature?
a. His infectious laugh.
b. His way with rebuses, anagrams and puzzles of all manners and delights.
c. Hanes undershirt, medium.

2. Why did Patricia take off her clothes on the highway?
a. She thought she was at work.
b. She thought she was babysitting.
c. She thought she was on a highway.

3. When Eddie woke up on the yard, what was his first thought?
a. “You know what this place could use? A koi pond.”
b. “Shouldn’t the rock group ‘Foreigner’ have been deported by now?”
c. “What that flirty waitress at Denny's lacked in looks she more than made up for in ass.”

4. Why did Patricia Pauley tuck and roll out of a moving vehicle and let it sink into a pond if she believed a loved one was still inside?
a. Because no one gets between a lady and the Baccarat capital of the world that is Newcastle, Oklahoma.
b. Because no one gets between a wife and her $48 in accidental death insurance.
c. Because she was going to say a black guy did it.

5. What song did the Pauleys probably first dance to as husband and wife?
a. “Strokin'”
b. “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”
c. “Strokin'” vs. “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”—The Mash-up

6. How do the Pauleys probably conclude their annual Christmas newsletter?
a. “If it bleeds it breeds, Love Pat & Eddie”
b. “What the twisters didn’t kill the floods drowned, Sincerely the Pauleys”
c. “Oh God, I shot myself. XOXO.”

7. How would the Pauleys define the difference between Iran and Iraq?
a. “One is real.”
b. “Iranians are Muslims. Iraqians are Islams.”
c. “Support our troops.”

8. What would the Pauleys do if they won the lottery?
a. Set up diverse investment portfolio with half the winnings in furs and the other half in revenge.
b. Build three extra stories on garage. Purchase hovercrafts.
c. Buy local Arena Football team. Buy charging rhinos. Create new sport with one-week season.

9. What was most likely the front-page story of the Tuttle Times the day this article ran?
a. “Community College Misplaced”
b. “We Don’t Understand Today’s Doonesbury”
c. “Dog Has No Idea He’s Best in Show”

10. Patricia leaves the methadone clinic without her pants at 2:45 P.M., traveling on her good foot in a zigzag fashion at approximately .2 miles per afternoon. Ten minutes later, Eddie—just fired from his auto detailing job for huffing and telling his Portuguese boss to “Go back to Puerto Rico with the rest of you Cubans, you wop!”—takes off in someone else’s El Camino, backwards, against traffic, at 185 mph on a cloverleaf, resulting in turns that hurl the eight unattached dogs in the back of the pickup at such speeds that the resulting sonic booms shatter the windows at the local Krispy Kreme, forcing the cancellation of the Tuttle High prom. How long will it take for the Pauley’s to arrive home just in time to see their kids being taken away by Children’s Services?
a. Patricia is struck dead by a flung schnauzer.
b. Eddie dies in traffic, realizing too late that while Flinstones Chewables do indeed have many curative properties, one of them isn’t “Fights Leukemia.”
c. The Pauleys accidentally reunite in Tuttle 25 years later, separated only by time, conflicting emotions and a submerged 2000 black Chevrolet Silverado resting between them.