Lesson 45 Whose mistake?
It had been a long day.The judges had chosen fourteen sculptures for the exhibition.They wanted a fifteenth,and they wanted to go home.They looked at two more pieces.One was a man’s head.They didn’t like it.The other was a square,modern piece.The judges chose the modern piece.Then they went home.
The next day,the artist received a letter.It said that the judges had chosen his sculpture.But when he went to see the exhibition,he couldn’t see his sculpture anywhere.‘Where can it be?’ he said.‘It must be here!’
At last,he saw something with his name on it.It was the square base of his sculpture.But the top part,the head,wasn’t there.‘It must have been a mistake!’ he said.
The judges insisted it hadn’t been a mistake.They liked the base on its own,but they thought the head was awful.
Lesson 55 Monkey business
Some US scientists have shown that monkeys can be quite clever with money.In one study,the monkeys are given silver ‘coins’,and are taught to use them as money.They get the idea very fast.The monkeys can ‘buy’ pieces of apple or pieces of banana.When a piece of apple costs the same as a piece of banana,the monkeys buy each fruit the same number of times.But when the apple pieces go ‘on sale’,the monkeys lose interest in banana.They choose apple,because they get more fruit for the same money.
When pieces of cucumber were offered as well,one group of monkeys did something interesting.They didn’t eat the cucumber pieces.They saw that the cucumber pieces were the same size as their silver coins.They hid the silver coins and tried to use the cucumber pieces as money.
The scientists are very interested,but they are also getting a bit worried.They have discovered that the monkeys can become enthusiastic gamblers,too!