OPTION A — READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 1 TO 5.

MEET THE MASTER CARVER WHO TURNS PUMPKINS INTO PORTRAITS

Carving a basic jack-o-lantern in 45 minutes? Sure, no problem, unless you're talking about a portrait of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé or someone's pet poodle. Now that's no easy feat, unless you're Brent Pumpkins, master pumpkin carver extraordinaire who carves celebrities' mugs as well as faces on the spot at New York's High Line Hotel.

NEWSWEEK: Why pumpkins? And how did you get started? (line 5)

BRENT PUMPKINS: Well, it did start out as a hobby. I grew up in Ohio and I am a musical theatre performer first. And I was traveling with Chicago, the musical. We had about a six-week layoff before our next gig and it was during the Halloween season, so I'm kind of crazy and I had a lot of creative energy to burn. I started with Elsa from Frozen. I rounded it out doing more Frozen characters, because, this being five years ago, I knew people like them. And the movie was popular still. (line 10)

I kept posting my work and it was something to keep me motivated and interested in creativity during my layoff and I got kind of obsessed. But a real basic version of Elsa, the moms and aunts and grandmas kind of came out of the woodwork saying like, "Do you think I could get one of these from my daughter or my niece?" And friend, Brent Pumpkins was awakened. And by the end of that first season, I was carving Lady Gaga as the Countess from Horror Story. (line 15)

I did realize I had a knack for it. The first season I was on the local news in Cleveland. So it was kind of like, "There's something here." People love pumpkins. And it is such a niche form of art once a year that I can still do my career as well. (Fragment adapted from NEWSWEEK.)

OPTION B — READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 1 TO 5.

A DECADE OF FITNESS

For the past 10 years, I have been covering exercise science and I have seen interest in high-intensity exercise soar and enthusiasm for barefoot running fizzle. We have learned contracting muscles talk to baby neurons, creativity blooms from walking, a minute of exertion can be ample, aging is elastic and a chubby dog may be our best exercise motivator.

This has been a decade of greatest HIITs, with multiple studies and columns reiterating that super-(line 5) short, strenuous workouts — known as high-intensity interval training — improve fitness and health to about the same extent as much longer, more moderate exercise. Since 2.010, I have covered seven-minute, four-minute, one-minute, 20-second and 10-second interval routines, with each workout's declining length increasing its attraction.

Other studies highlighted that gentle exercise is also meaningful. In one of my favorite studies, (line 10) researchers found that older women who regularly strolled about two miles a day lived longer than women who covered only a mile.

Their brains also tended to look and work differently. In what may be the most inspiring area of fitness research from the past decade, scientists have found the extent to which movement may remake how we think and feel. In one study after another, physical activity beneficially remodeled the brains of children (line 15) and the middle-aged; lowered people's risks for dementia or, if dementia had already begun, slowed memory loss; and increased brain volume, tissue health and the quality of connections between neurons and different portions of the brain.

Exercise also seems able to encourage moods far more than most of us might have expected 10 years ago. Physically active people proved to be less likely to develop depression than sedentary people, no matter (line 20) what types of activities they chose.

Walking, jogging, gardening, weight training, swimming, hiking or even rising from an office or living room chair often and strolling across the room seemed to make people happier and less prone to mood problems than remaining still. I hope that scientists might eventually help us to better understand why, with everything we know about the benefits of exercise, so few of us manage to get up and work out (line 25) regularly. (Adapted from The New York Times.)