阅读下面的短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C和D四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

    While high school does not generally encourage students to explore new aspects of life,college sets the stage for that exploration. I myself went through this 1 process and found something that has changed my 2 at college for the better:I discovered ASL-American Sign Language(美式手语).

    I never felt an urge to 3 any sign language before.My entire family is hearing,and so are all my friends.The 4 language were enough in all my interactions(交往).Little did I know that I would discover my 5for ASL.

    The 6 began during my first week at college. I watched as the ASL Club 7 their translation of a song. Both the hand movements and the very 8 of communicating without speaking 9me. What I saw was completely unlike anything I had experienced in the 10 .This newness just left me 11 more.

After that, feeling the need to 12further, I decided to drop in on one of ASL club's meetings. I only learned how to13 the alphabet that day. Yet instead of being discouraged by my 14progress,I was excited. I then made it a point to 15those meetings and learn all I could.

    The following term, I  16an ASL class. The professor was deaf and any talking was  17 . I soon realized that the silence was not unpleasant. 18 , if there had been any talking, it would have 19us to learn less. Now, I appreciate the silence and the 20way of communication it opens.

    When I told my father that I was moving to Des Moines, Iowa, he told me about the only time he had been there. It was in the 1930s, when he was an editor of the literary magazine of Southern Methodist University（SMU）in Dallas, Texas. He also worked as a professor at SMU, and there was a girl student in his class who suffered from a serious back disease. She couldn't afford the operation because her family was poor.

    Her mother ran a boardinghouse in Galveston, a seaside town near Houston, Texas. She was cleaning out the attic（阁楼）one day when she came across an old dusty manuscript（手稿）. On its top page were the words, “By O. Henry”. It was a nice story, and she sent it to her daughter at SMU, who showed it to my father. My father had never read the story before, but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew that O. Henry had once lived in Houston. So it was possible that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in the Galveston boardinghouse, and had written the story there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New York, whoauthenticatedthe story as O. Henry's.

My father then set out to sell it. Eventfully, he found himself in Des Moines, meeting with Gardner Cowles, a top editor at the Des Moines Register. Cowles loves the story and bought it on the spot. My father took the money to the girl. It was just enough for her to have the operation she so desperately needed.

My father never told me what the O. Henry story was about. But I doubt that it could have been better than his own story.

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从各题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

    He was known everywhere as a great artist. People1 from miles around to admire his beautiful2 His name was Pygmalion，and he lived long，long3 in Athens，Greece.

    Pygmalion4 his art for many years. His desire 5excellence made him spend months6a single work of art. He would not stop7he felt it was perfect.8the years passed，his work became9 Pygmalion painted flowers which looked 10natural that people tried to11them. He painted fruits which looked so12that people wanted to eat them. Everyone13 looked at the pictures he had painted was14by their beauty.

    As the years passed it15only his pictures that made him famous，Pygmalion16 made perfect pieces of sculpture.He could take a plain piece of wood17stone and make it beautiful. He could make a rough stone as18as glass. He worked long and hard to make his statues as real as possible. Often visitors who came to see his work began talking to someone. They were surprised when that person didn't19They were even more surprised20they realized they were talking to a statue. It always gave Pygmalion pleasure when people were surprised this way.

    Sunday was always our book-buying day. Every Sunday, my father would take me over to the Carousel Mall and let me walk through all the 1 while he read his newspaper. Then we would sit side by side reading in  2. After a while, he would ask me which one out of my large pile of books I liked best. If I couldn't  3 between two, he would buy me both books. In this way, he  4me to read. He never discouraged me by  5 like my mom often did: “Why are you reading  6? Get outside! Stop living in fantasy.”

    When I grew older and discovered the  7 where I could take out as many books as I wanted for free, my father encouraged me to go there  8.

    For quite some time I never knew there was an actual person who  9all those wonderful books. When I finally realized this, it was like a(n)  10. I thought I could also write stories just like them. When I told my dad this, he seemed to already11 it. He read what I wrote and always joked that when I became a famous writer one day I should give the 12to him. Even if I don't become 13 for my books. I at least know what I am and what my dad helped me to become because of all those childhood 14 to book stores, and all his heartfelt comments that made me really 15myself. Before reading what I wrote, he said he knew it would be16, because I had written it.

    I'm going to major in English literature at college 17I want to make a career writing. I know my dad will be 18 of me. He has19 me instead of hindering（阻碍）me. He encouraged me to be who I am. I'm going to give the first book to him not because he 20me to but because he is my inspiration.

Alexis, 17, sat quietly in the passenger seat of her dad's car. She let her eyes lazily scan the landscape for wildlife. Then a deer came into 1 about 200 yards in front of them. It was a male deer with 2 antlers (角)on each side of its head.

As the car moved closer, Alexis heard a 3 and then saw the deer 4 a woman. Sue had been out for her morning run. The deer followed her and edged 5. "I knew I was in trouble, " Sue says. She went to pick up a stick for 6, and the deer 7. It lifted her with its antlers and 8 her into the air. Sue could feel blood flew down her leg.

When Alexis and her father 9, the deer was throwing Sue like a doll. Alexis looked into the woman's 10 eyes, and 11 her father had even stopped the car, the teenager 12 quickly out of the car and ran toward the deer. "I was kicking it to get its 13," she says. Then her father followed and pushed the deer away from the women.

Alexis helped Sue into the car. Then she heard her father shout 14 . He had been knocked to the ground. Alexis took hold of a hammer from the car to beat the deer's head and neck, but the blows didn't 15 it away. "I was losing faith," she says. "A couple more 16, Alexis," said her father. "You can do it. "Turning the hammer around, Alexis 17 her eyes and beat the deer's neck with all her 18. When she opened her eyes, the deer was running away. Alexis got in the driver's seat and 19 toward the nearest hospital. After Sue was treated, she 20 thanked her rescuers.

Max Du won the Canada-Wide Science Fair. His project is a drone (无人机) to save people who go into cardiac (心脏的) arrest. Max got the inspiration during Christmas break last year. "I got a toy drone from my parents, but I couldn't fly it because it is snowy." Max said. "So I played with it at home, and it got me thinking how a drone could be used as an indoor robot that could help people."

About 35, 000 people have cardiac arrests in Canada each year. Most of those happen outside of a hospital, of whom fewer than 10 percent survive. Max believed a drone could offer faster support and life-saving medicine, but he had to build it himself to know for sure.

Testing his drone took about six months. Max's parents had to deal with their son's constantly flying and crashing in the home. Every time Max would create an exciting innovation, such as an extendable arm, it would add extra weight to his drone, causing it to break apart. Then Max would have to buy all new parts. Max tested using more lightweight materials until his design was more balanced.

Through trial and error, the 14-year-old boy finally got it right. His drone can open a door handle, fly in the air and then land softly on the ground. A new extendable arm can be released to administer a shot or hand a patient lifesaving medicine. A built-in camera could directly conference with an emergency response team whose members could monitor the patient remotely.

Max plans on applying for a patent (专利) so he can make connections in the health-care industry to get it made for real. He's spent his summer learning about artificial intelligence at California's Stanford University as one of 32 kids selected worldwide. He'll head next to the University of Pennsylvania to take a college-level robotics class before returning to high school in September.