阅读下列短文,从每小题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出一个最佳选项。

    The idea for the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came to Joanne Kathleen Rowling in 1990. It took her seven years to finish writing it. During those seven years she had a number of jobs, including one job as an English teacher.

    Rowling sent the book to four publishers (出版社) before one of them bought it. She was very happy to sell her book because it was her life's dream to be a published writer. Before she sold her book, Rowling was living in a small apartment with her daughter and was so poor that she could not afford heat in the winter.

    Harry Potter became very successful with children and adults in England. The book also really took off in the United States. After her second and third books were published, the three Harry Potter books filled the top three places on many newspapers' lists of best-sellers. Then the books were made into popular movies. Without question, Rowling's life had completely changed, in just three years.

    Harry Potter books have now sold more than 30 million books around the world and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. In 1997, Rowling was earning ￡70 a week.

    By the end of 2001, she had earned over ￡150 million, making her one of the most successful female writers of all time.

Experiencing China

An old banker walked around his study. He 1 by a bet (赌约) that he had made with a young lawyer 15 years ago. The bet took place at a party 2 a dark autumn night. They discussed the topic of punishment by death and life imprisonment (终身监禁). The banker believed that punishment by death was 3 than life imprisonment. The lawyer disagreed. Then the rich banker offered two million rubles(卢布) if the lawyer could live in the prison for 15 years. The lawyer accepted. "I 4 no money if I give up, " he said.

Then the lawyer stayed in a small house. He had only a small window through which he could pass notes to ask for 5 he needed. At first, the lawyer was lonely. He just read 6 and played the piano. Throughout the following years, his interests and requests changed a lot, but he continued reading. And as the end of his 15-year imprisonment neared, he was busy 7 history and science and several languages.

With only hours left, the banker was worried. He slipped into the lawyer's room and tried to do 8 bad. The lawyer was asleep at his desk, and in front of him was a letter beside a pen. He wrote in 9 letter that he had got great wisdom. He would prefer to live a life without any wealth.

The banker was relaxed but also filled with shame. He thought he took 10 years away from a bright young man.

 Wu Jingxun, 46, is from Foshan, Guangdong Province. About 15 years ago, when he came to volunteer at a village primary school in Sichuan Province for the first time, he found the kids there didn't have enough books to read. He also found that there weren't any books at the students' homes.

 After that, Wu and his friends at Friends Camp, a volunteer organization (组织), bought many books for the primary school.

 One year later, in 2007, when they visited the school again, they found that children in the village did not know how to read. Even though you put great books in front of them, they just looked through the picture books. They didn't learn from the books. This made Wu and his friends think how to teach children to read.

 In some good primary schools, grade-three students can finish reading 15 books a year and, sometimes even more. But, in poor villages, grade-six students only know about 1,800 Chinese characters(汉字).

Now Wu focuses on(专注) picture books and science as he volunteers to teach children how to read. "If they can take up reading as a good habit, they can benefit (受益) more. They can read in their free time but not just play games or use Douyin on their phones," Wu said.