The Calligraphy-Class Refund With Two Discounts
You are building an interpretive reading item from an authentic community-center notice in Hangzhou. The notice reads: '秋季书法班（初级）时间：9月7日-10月26日，每周六上午9:00-10:30，共8次；地点：文化中心302室；学费：1,200元（9月1日前报名早鸟价1,000元）；材料费：300元（含笔墨纸砚，开课后不退）；会员优惠：学费九折，不与早鸟价同时使用；名额：20人，额满为止；缺课：不设补课，不退还单次费用；备注：开课后因个人原因退班，退还剩余学费的50%，材料费不退。' Ms. Zhou is a member. She registers on August 28, pays in full, attends the first two sessions, and withdraws after the second session because of a new work assignment. She asks the center how much money she will get back. The item asks candidates to calculate the refund and to explain which line of the notice controls the calculation.
1. What refund amount is most defensible, and how should the item handle the ambiguity in '剩余学费'?
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Start with tuition: Ms. Zhou is a member, so tuition is 1,200 × 0.9 = 1,080. The early-bird price of 1,000 cannot be combined with the member discount, so 1,000 is a distractor. She attends 2 of 8 sessions, leaving 6 sessions. If '剩余学费' means tuition for the unattended sessions, then 1,080 × 6/8 = 810, and the refund is 50% of that, or 405. The 300 material fee is not refunded after the course starts. The most defensible total is therefore 405. However, '剩余学费' is not fully explicit: a center could interpret it as 50% of total tuition, which would be 540. A well-built item should either add '按未上课次数比例计算' or ask candidates to state the assumption behind their calculation. The line '缺课：不设补课，不退还单次费用' supports treating attended sessions as consumed, which makes the prorated 405 reading stronger.
2. Identify two distractors a test taker may choose and the notice language that defeats them.
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One likely distractor is 500: the test taker applies the 1,000 early-bird price and then takes 50%. The notice says the member discount '不与早鸟价同时使用', so the early-bird price is unavailable to a member who wants the member rate. Another likely distractor is 540: 50% of 1,080. That ignores '剩余' and the eight-session structure; it treats the whole tuition as remaining even after two sessions. A third distractor is 705: adding the 300 material fee to the 405 tuition refund. The notice says '材料费不退' after the course begins, so the material fee must be excluded. The item is testing whether the reader can coordinate a discount rule, a proration rule, and a nonrefundable fee instead of grabbing the first number that looks relevant.