Determine the theme of each story. Write the letter of your answer.

1. Pepito opened up the present and began pouting. He screamed in a high-pitched voice, "This is Captain
Thunder! I wanted Captain Lightning!" His mother looked at him with dismay and handed him another
present, which he greedily opened. "Why did you get me a red hat? You know I like blue more," Pepito
whined as he threw the hat across the room. His mother straightened her expression and squinted at him.
Earlier she had hoped to take some pictures of this moment, but by now she had put away her camera. She
sighed and handed him one more present in hopes that this year wouldn't be a total bust. Pepito opened it
and said, "A Game Box 4000… wow! Where's the Game Box 5000 that I asked for?" His mother could not
bear his ingratitude no longer. The next time that Pepito came home from school, he was shocked to find that
all of these toys and gifts, along with many other of his things, had been generously donated to needy
children.

2. Joko liked playing board games, but he hated losing. He hated losing so much that he would do whatever
it took to win, even bending or breaking the rules. He'd steal money from his father and hide it under the
couch cushions. He’d skip spaces while he was moving around the board, He’d shortchange others’ money
that they owed and argued with them about it. Techniques were effective. He did win most of the games that
he played, but the people whom he played with were his friends and family, and it didn’t take too long until
they caught on to his tricks. They tried to tell Joko to stop cheating. They said the game wasn’t any fun when
he cheated, but he didn’t listen. He continued with his treacherous style of game play, until nobody would
play with him anymore. Joko may have won a lot of games, but at what cost?

3. Melca spent all her free time reading books and felt that she was very intelligent. One day a nice student
from her class asked her if she wanted to go play patintero with them. Melca responded, "I've read about
patintero in books, and it sounds miserable. No, thank you." On another day, a different friendly student
asked Melca if she wanted to go out for hotdogs. Nenita responded, "I've read that hotdogs are filled with
parts of pig bellies. No, thank you." Nobody asked Melca to hang out again, but she did read about friends in
her books.
4. An old monkey on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice.
He ordered them to bring in a bundle of sticks, and said to his eldest son: "Break it." The son strained and
strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the sticks. The other sons also tried, but none of them
was successful. "Untie the bundle," said the father, "and each of you take a stick." When they had done so,
he called out to them: "Now, break," and each stick was easily broken. "You see my meaning,” said the
father.

5. A number of flies were attracted to a jar of honey which had been overturned in a housekeeper's room, and placing
their feet in it, ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with the honey that they could not use their
wings, nor release themselves, and were suffocated.