An old lady in a plane had a blanket（毯子）over her head and she did not want to take it off. The air hostess spoke to her, but the old lady said, “I have never been in a plane before, and I am frightened. I am going to keep this blanket over my head until we are back on the ground again!”

    Then the captain came. He said, “Madam, I am the captain of this plane. The weather is fine, there are no clouds in the sky, and everything is going very well. ”But she continued to hide.

    So the captain turned and started to go back. Then the old lady looked out from under the blanket with one eye and said, “I am sorry, young man, but I don't like planes and I am never going to fly again. But I'll say one thing,” She continued kindly, “You and your wife keep your plane very clean!”

阅读下列材料，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳选项。

    After that, we went on down the river. It was very dark that night and it wasn't easy to see where we were going. Suddenly, a big steamboat came at us very fast, and the next minute it was right over us. Jim and I jumped off the raft (木筏) into the water. The boat hit the raft and went on up the river.

    When I came up out of the water, I couldn't see Jim anywhere. I called out his name again and again, but there was no answer. “He's dead!” I thought. Slowly, I swam to the side of the river and got out. I saw that I was near a big old wooden house. Suddenly a lot of very angry dogs jumped out at me. They made a terrible noise and someone called from the house, “Who's there?”

“George Jackson,” I answered quickly. “I've fallen off a river boat.”

    Well, the people who lived in that house were very kind, and they took me in and gave me some new clothes and a good meal. I told them that my family were all dead, so they said I could stay with them as long as I wanted. It was a beautiful house and the food was good there, so I stayed.

    A few days later one of the slaves in the house came to me and said, “Come with me!” Together, we went down to some trees by the river. “In there!” he said and went away.

    On the ground, I found a man, asleep. It was Jim! I was really pleased to see him. When the steamboat hit the raft, Jim told me, the raft didn't break up. Jim swam after it and caught it. Then he began to look for me.

We decided to leave at once. It's all right living in a house for a little while, but you feel more free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

    "Everything happens for the best." Whenever I faced disappointment, my mother would say this to me.

    After I graduated from college in 2002, I decided to find a job in radio as a sports announcer (播音员 ).I went to Chicago and knocked at the door of every station. But unluckily, I was refused every time.

    At one station, a kind lady told me that big stations wouldn't hire(雇用) an inexperienced person and suggested that I try my luck at smaller stations. Following her advice, I went back to Dixon. There were no radio-announcing jobs in Dixon, and my father said a newly-opened store wanted a local sportsman to work for it. I applied for the job, but I was refused again.

    "Everything happens for the best," Morn reminded me. I tried WOC Radio in Davenport, Lowa. The program director, Peter, told me they had already hired an announcer.

    I left his office, and felt totally disappointed. While I was waiting for the elevator, 1 heard someone calling. It was Peter. "What do you know about sports? Do you know anything about football?" Then he asked me to broadcast (播报) an imaginary game. Pleased with my performance, he offered me a chance to work there.

    On my way home, I thought on my mother's words, "If you carry on, one day something good will happen. Something wouldn't have happened if not for that previous (先前的) disappointment. "

    September 21st, 2050—At a press conference today, it was announced that the first tourist heading for Mars would be the 38-year-old American businessman Patrick Clifford. He would leave the Earth in the launching window of June, 2052, and he would set his foot on the surface of Mars in November, together with 6 astronauts who would further explore the planet.

    Patrick has a two-year training ahead of him to get ready for the trip. Not only will he spend five months in getting to Mars, but another 600 days there before he can go back home. Patrick was very excited, "This has been my dream since I was four, and seeing the first man on Mars 20 years ago made me realize that it was possible."

    To be able to pay the 1.3 billion dollars for his ticket for the trip, Patrick sold his majority stocks in the company which his father had built. "I know that my father would have been proud of me if he had still been alive today. He knew what this meant to me," says Patrick.

    So, how is he going to spend his 600 days on the red planet? "Well, since I don't have a job, when I get back after selling the company, I have plenty of time to come up with a new business idea," Patrick says and laughs. If he brings a shovel(铲子), he can start building the first hotel there, but maybe he shouldn't expect too many guests until someone can offer a lower transfer fare.

Known as "soft gold", Gambiered Canton gauze (香云纱) is the only silk fabric (织物) that's still hand-dyed (手染的) using natural plants in the world today.

The skill has a history of more than 500 years. In 2008, it was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage (国家非物质文化遗产). Ouyang Yongze is an inheritor of the dyeing skills from Guangdong. The man started learning the skills in 2017.

The dyeing process includes 30 steps. It can take up to six months and is done by hand with materials from nature. "The plant shuliang (薯莨), river mud, sunshine, and grass are all important in dyeing," Ouyang told China Daily.

To dye the fabric, workers put it in shuliang juice and let it dry on the grass. They repeat this many times until it turns brownish yellow. Then, they put river mud on it to help shuliang react fully. After washing and drying it again, the fabric turns black!

Mastering the skills is difficult, according to Ouyang, who put full effort into controlling the density (浓度) of shuliang juice. "Too much may cause color loss, and too little may nor lead to a dark enough fabric," he said. "Better control of the density comes after many failures."

Also, the job can be really tiring as workers have to be at work in the sun for 8 hours each day. Only a few people work in the industry, and skilled masters are getting older as fewer young people take part.

Considering this, Ouyang works harder to develop the traditional craft. He has got together other dyeing skills such as tie-dyeing (扎染法) and batik (蜡染) and has worked with famous fashion designers. They turn the silk into both traditional and fashionable clothes that are popular worldwide. He thinks this can help make the craft stay alive and drew people to the industry.