阅读理解。阅读下列短文, 从给的四个选项 (A、B、C和D) 中, 选出最佳选项。

     Isaac Stern was  more  than a great violin player.He was one of the most honored musicians in the world.He was an international  cultural ambassador.He was a major supporter of the arts in America and in other countries.He was a teacher and activist.

     Isaac Stern was born in 1920 in what is now Ukraine.His parents moved  to  San Francisco，California the following year.His mother began teaching Isaac the piano when he was six. He began taking violin lessons after hearing a friend play the instrument.Later，he began studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory(音乐学院)．He progressed quickly.When he was 16，he played with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.The next year，he performed in New York City and was praised by music critics.

     During World War II ，Mr.Stern played for thousands of American soldiers.It was the first time many of them had heard classical music.After the war，he was the first American violinist to perform in a concert in the Soviet union.He also supported young musicians and cultural organizations in Israel.

    In 1979，Isaac Stern visited China.He met with Chinese musicians and students.He taught them about classical Western music.His visit was made into a film，which is called From Mao to Mozart：Isaac Stern in China.It won an Academy Award for best documentary film.

     In 1984，Isaac Stern received the Kennedy Center Honors Award for his gifts to American culture through music.He expressed his thoughts about the part that music plays in life.He said he believed that music makes life better for everyone，especially children.

     Mr.Stern supported and guided younger classical musicians.They include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman，cellist Yo­Yo Ma，and pianist Yefim Bronfman.

     Isaac Stern died in 2001 at the age of 81.He was a major influence on music in the 20th century.He leaves the world richer with his many recordings.

Airport Express

    With the Airport Express, you are never far from town. There is a train every 10 minutes, ready to rush you between the airport and Hong Kong Station in the heart of the shopping and downtown district in about 24 minutes. Or travel to the Asia World-Expo in just 1 minute from the airport.

Airport Express service hours

Mon.-Fri.: 5:50am to 1:15am

Sat.-Sun.: 5:00am to 2:00am

Tickets

    There are three types of ticket for travelling to and from the Airport: Single Journey, Round Trip and Same Day Return. Single Journey Ticket and Same Day Return Ticket are valid(有效的) on day of issue(发放). Round Trip Ticket is valid for 30 days from day of issue. You can also use the Octopus Card for the Airport Express. (The Octopus Card is an electronic store-value ticket and it can be used on most public transport. The fare will be deducted(扣除) from the stored value each time, so you do not have to carry heavy coins. The card is valid for three years after value has been added.)

Travel tips

Children under 3 travel for free.

    Passengers travelling on the Airport Express are now able to write email and do online searches with Wi-Fi service.

    For more information about Airport Express, please visit www.hongkongairport.com or call 00852-21818888.

    In today's working world, the high school diploma program has become the initial footstep in achieving a successful career. A high school diploma is a formal document issued to certify a candidate's successful completion of a prescribed (规定的) secondary school program of studies.

    It takes four years to complete the high school diploma program. The eligibility (合格) requirements for the high school diploma vary from state to state. A high school diploma is the minimum qualification for higher education and government jobs in the United States. The opportunities for a better job are extremely limited for one who has not earned a high school diploma. To be more specific, the high school diploma can qualify one for fruitful careers in science, education, health care, the travel industry, and the legal profession.

    In some states, high school diplomas are differentiated by type such as a general diploma, an academic diploma, or a vocational diploma. A high school diploma is regarded as the minimum admission requirement for post-secondary education programs. When people apply for a green card or a US visa, a high school diploma is a valuable asset for immigrants into the United States.

    There are several ways to achieve a high school diploma. One can get the diploma through traditional classroom study. It is best suited for individuals who enjoy face-to-face interaction with their teachers and classmates. In the United States, opportunities are provided for getting high school diplomas without attending classes at school. One can earn a high school diploma at home through a combination of online and correspondence classes.

    Generally, the high school diploma programs do not have minimum age requirements. In order to get the high school diploma, the students must complete the coursework dictated by their school district. Curriculum (课程) varies from district to district. Before enrollment, a student counseling (咨询) service is recommended to most students.

    There is a lake near a forest in Sweden. The water in lake is very clear and everything is quiet and still. On the far side of the water is some farmlands and further away, across the fields, is an old church built on a hill. It has just stopped raining. The brook flowing into the lake is full and there is still some half-melted snow from last winter on the ground.

    The reason the water is so clear and everything is so quiet and still, is that most of the plant and animal life in and around the lake is died. There are no birds because all the fish and insects, which the birds need for food, have disappeared. Many trees in the forest are losing their leaves and bark, and are sick and dying. Others were blown down by the high winds of last winter. A farmer is working in a field planting something, but unless he plants a stronger kind of seed this year, the crop will be between 25 to 40 percent lower than a few years ago. The stones of the old church tower are turning to power and unless the tower is repaired soon, it will fall down.

    The smoke coming out of factories and poisonous gases from cars and trucks causes all the death and destruction in this place. And yet this silent lake is hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest factory and highways.

    A food chain is a simple way of explaining how each living thing gets its food. For example, a simple African food chain might consist of three parts: first, trees and bushes; second, giraffes; and third, lions. Each link in a food chain is food for the next link. Food chains always start with plants and end with animals.

    Plants are at the bottom of the food chain. Scientists call them producers, because they use light energy from the sun to produce food from carbon dioxide and water through photosynthesis（光合作用）. Animals, unlike plants, can't produce their own food. Instead, they must eat plants or other animals. This is why scientists call them consumers.

    Consumer animals fall into three categories. Herbivores（食草动物）eat only plants. Carnivores（食肉动物） eat only other animals. Omnivores eat both plants and animals. In addition to producers and consumers, there are also decomposers(分解者).These organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, feed on decaying(腐烂) matter. They help the food chain by speeding up the decaying process that releases minerals back into the soil to be absorbed by plants as nutrients.

    Most food chains have only four or five links in them. As you go up a food chain, the amount of energy at each level diminishes, because some of the energy is lost in the form of waste or is used up by the organism at the level. That is why it takes many plants, for example, to feed a few giraffes who in turn feed one lion.

    Most animals are part of many different food chains, because they must eat more than one type of food to satisfy their energy needs. All of these interconnected food chains form a more complex structure called a food web. Humans, for example, are at the center of a very complex food web, because we tend to eat many different types of plants and animals.

    I was in the middle of the Amazon (亚马逊) with my wife, who was there as a medical researcher. We flew on a small plane to a faraway village. We did not speak the local language, did not know the customs, and more often than not, did not entirely recognize the food. We could not have felt more foreign.

    We were raised on books and computers, highways and cell phones, but now we were living in a village without running water or electricity It was easy for us to go to sleep at the end of the day feeling a little misunderstood.

    Then one perfect Amazonian evening, with monkeys calling from beyond the village green, we played soccer. I am not good at soccer, but that evening it was wonderful. Everyone knew the rules. We all spoke the same language of passes and shots. We understood one another perfectly. As darkness came over the field and the match ended, the goal keeper, Juan, walked over to me and said in a matter-of-fact way, "In your home, do you have a moon too?" I was surprised.

    After I explained to Juan that yes, we did have a moon and yes, it was very similar to his, I felt a sort of awe (敬畏) at the possibilities that existed in his world. In Juan's world, each village could have its own moon. In Juan's world. the unknown and undiscovered was vast and marvelous. Anything was possible.

    In our society, we know that Earth has only one moon. We have looked at our planet from every angle and found all of the wildest things left to find. I can, from my computer at home, pull up satellite images of Juan's village. There are no more continents and no more moons to search for, little left to discover. At least it seems that way.

    Yet, as I thought about Juan's question, I was not sure how much more we could really rule out. I am, in part, an ant biologist, so my thoughts turned to what we know about insect life and I knew that much in the world of insects remains unknown. How much, though? How ignorant (无知的) are we? The question of what we know and do not know constantly bothered me.

    I began collecting newspaper articles about new species, new monkey, new spider…, and on and on they appear. My drawer quickly filled. I began a second drawer for more general discoveries: new cave system discovered with dozens of nameless species, four hundred species of bacteria found in the human stomach. The second drawer began to fill and as it did I wondered whether there were bigger discoveries out there, not just species, but life that depends on things thought to be useless, life even without DNA. I started a third drawer for these big discoveries. It fills more slowly, but all the same, it fills.

    In looking into the stories of biological discovery, I also began to find something else, a collection of scientists, usually brilliant occasionally half-mad, who made the discoveries. Those scientists very often see the same things that other scientists see, but they pay more attention to them, and they focus on them to the point of exhaustion (穷尽), and at the risk of the ridicule of their peers. In looking for the stories of discovery, I found the stories of these people and how their lives changed our view of the world.

    We are repeatedly willing to imagine we have found most of what is left to discover. We used to think that insects were the smallest organisms (生物), and that nothing lived deeper than six hundred meters. Yet, when something new turns up, more often than not, we do not even know its name.