Exercise 1: Suspending, Resuming and Ending Jobs — Possible Solution ===================================================================== $ sleep 600 ^Z (press Ctrl-Z) [1]+ Stopped sleep 600 $ bg [1]+ sleep 600 & $ sleep 900 & [2] 51207 $ jobs [1]- Running sleep 600 & [2]+ Running sleep 900 & The current job (+) is job 2, the one most recently started; the previous job (-) is job 1. End both using job specs: $ kill %1 $ kill %2 # or: kill %% (the current job) $ jobs [1]- Terminated sleep 600 [2]+ Terminated sleep 900 WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ It goes through the full cycle — foreground, stopped, background, ended — and shows how the + and - markers follow the most recent jobs. The PIDs will differ on your system.