阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

A

BasketballStatistician Help Wanted

      The Athletic Department islooking for students to help assist staff during the Fall 2016, Winter 2016-17and Spring 2017 semesters. Students in this position will be keeping livestatistics during basketball games. Students must meet all of the followingrequirements:

Good computer skills

Available evenings andweekends

Knowing basketballrules and statistics

Students interestedin working for the Athletic Department should contact the Athletic Coordinatorat their respective(各自的) campuses.

TP/SSAthletic Coordinator, Michael Simone,240-567-1308

RockvilleAthletic Coordinator, Jorge Zuniga,240-567-7589

SpringfieldAthletic coordinator, Gary Miller,240-567-2273

GermantownAthletic Coordinator, GavriChavan, 240-567-6915

根据短文理解，选择正确答案。

    One night in March 1999, a man was driving from California to Oregon, US, to visit some friends. He had stopped his car to have some food when he started to hear strange noises. Turning on the headlights, he saw an 8-foot-tall creature covered in thick, dark hair. The creature stared at him for a minute, turned in the road and walked off slowly into the woods.

    In the past 50 years alone, there have been thousands of reported sightings of similar creatures in the US, Canada, the Himalayas(喜马拉雅山地区)and even Hubei Province in China. The creature is known as bigfoot.

    Bigfoot is said to be a very tall(between 2 and 4. 5 metres), ape-like(类人猿似的)creature that is covered in hair and walks upright on two legs. It is very wary(警惕的)of human beings.

    Believers think bigfoot is a direct descendent(后代)of ancient gigantopithecus(巨猿). But it remains one of the planet's undiscovered secrets. There is a little evidence(证据)to support the believers' theory: traces of hair, footprints and body prints as well as the reported sightings. Some people have even showed what they say with photos or films of bigfoot.

    But so far, no one has found bones or any other definite proof that the giant creature exists.

    As a result many people believe the evidence is just part of a big trick.

    The footprints are easy to make and they say: all you need to do is to make two large feet out of plaster(石膏), attach them to the bottom of your shoes and walk with big steps. As for the photos and films, they are just people dressed in ape suits.

    They also say the sightings are not real, just people making mistakes. For example, bigfoot could be a bear living in the wild that sometimes stands up on its back legs.

    Washington—Wild applause broke out at the Parent Teacher Association national offices when several government spokespeople announced a decision to return the subject of civics(公民学) to high school curricula nationwide.

The decision is symbolic of the new agenda to restore(恢复) the United States Constitution to its pre-Bush-era status. In a joint statement, Senators Harry Reid, Republican of Kentucky, said that the decision proves the two parties can work together on an issue of national importance.

    The announcement came following a series of school strikes organized by parents angered by a recent study by the National Opinion Research Center. The findings showed a total ignorance of government structure and citizens rights by graduating high school seniors.

    Some of the fallacious opinion and beliefs mentioned in this cross-country study included: the president has the power to interpret treaties(条约); the president is not bound（约束） by law; the vice president is independent of all three branches of government; torture（刑讯） is not a punishment and therefore cannot be considered “cruel and unusual”.

    The study noted that many students' political consciousness dated back only three years — in other words, their awareness of constitution rights had been entirely formed during the Bush administration.

    The study also found that students were growing incapable of telling the difference between living figures, historical figures, and corporate-licensed figures such as cartoon characters.

    The revived civics courses will teach students about the structure and function of each branch of government, the theory of checks and balances, theories of the role of government, and constitutional(宪法的) law.

    "We have so much work in front of us." said Los Angeles area high school teacher Roberta Morales. "Trying to develop students' sense of citizenry and the public good and undo so many self-centered individualistic messages will take great effort."

    According to a new US study, couples who expect their children to help care for them in old age should hope they have daughters because they are likely to be twice as attentive overall.

    The research by Angelina Grigoryeva, a sociologist at Princeton University, found that, while women provide as much care for their elderly parents as they can manage, men do as little as they can get away with and often leave it to female family members.Her analysis of the family networks of 26,000 older Americans concluded that gender(性别) is the most important predictor(预示物) of whether or not people will actively care for elderly parents.

    In a paper being presented at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, she concludes that simply having a sister makes men statistically likely provide less care.

    Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a study which has been tracking a cross-section of over-50s for the last decade, she calculated that women provide an average of 12.3 hours a month of care for elderly parents while men offer only 5.6 hours.

    “Whereas the amount of elderly parent care daughters provide is associated with limitations they face, such as employment or childcare, sons' caregiving is associated only with the presence or absence of other helpers, such as sisters or a parent's spouse(配偶),” she explained.

    “Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother.”

    “This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.”

    In the UK, the 2011 census(人口普查) showed that there are now around 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities – a figure which has risen by a tenth in a decade.

    But many are doing so at the risk of their own health. The census showed that those who provide 50 hours or more of care a week while trying to hold down a full- time job are three times more likely to be struggling with ill health than their working counterparts(相对应的人) who are not carers.

    It is believed that some of animals think a great deal. Many of them are like children in their sports. Some birds are very lively in their sports; and the same is true with some insects. The ants, hardworking as they are, have their times for play. They run races; they wrestle; and sometimes they have mock fights together. Very busy must be their thoughts while engaged in these sports.

    Animals think much while building their houses. The bird searches for what it can use in building its nest, and in doing this it thinks. The beavers think as they build their dams and their houses. They think in getting their materials, and also in arranging them, and in plastering them together with mud. Some spiders build houses which could scarcely have been made except by some thinking creature.

    As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. The parrot learns to talk, though in some other respects it is quite stupid. The mocking bird learns to imitate a great many different sounds. The shepherd dog does not know as much about most things as some other dogs, and yet he understands very well how to take care of sheep.

    Though animals think and learn, they do not make any real improvement in their ways of doing things, as men do. Each kind of bird has its own way of building a nest, and it is always the same way. They have no new fashions, and learn none from each other.

    It is plain that, while animals learn about things by their senses as we do, they do not think nearly as much about what they learn, and this is the reason why they do not improve more rapidly. Even the wisest of them, as the elephant and the dog, do not think very much about what they see and hear. Nor is this all. There are some things that we understand, but about which animals know nothing. They have no knowledge of anything that happens outside of their own observation. Their minds are so much unlike ours that they do not know the difference between right and wrong.

The history of Australian Rules Football

    Australian Rules Football is called by many nicknames. Lovers of the game just call it "football" or "footy." When contrasted with other forms of football, it is called "Aussie Rules" or "AFL". AFL stands for Australian Football League, which is the most prestigious league in Australia.

    Australia Rules Football was created by Tom Wills in 1858. He wanted to create a sport that would keep cricket players fit through the winter. He began by writing a letter that explained his purpose to a sports magazine. It also called for the creation of a football club. In 1858, Wills and others played an experimental match that was the first game of Australian football. But few details about this match have survived.

    On August 7, 1858, two important events for the game occurred. The Melbourne Football Club was founded. It was one of the world's first football clubs in any code. Also, a famous match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College was played. It was umpired(仲裁)by Tom Wills. A second day of play took place on August 21, and then there was a third and final day on September4. The two schools have competed every year since.

    The game is played between two teams of 18 players on an oval that can also be used for cricket. These playing fields can be up to 185m long. This is almost four times the size of fields used in other forms of football.

    A point called "a behind" is scored when the ball goes across the line and between a goal post and a behind post. A behind point is also scored if the ball is touched by any body part of either team's member as it passes between the goal posts. A goal is worth six points, and a behind is worth one point.