阅读下列材料，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出最佳选项。

    People often ask why "Uncle Sam" is a nickname (绰号) for the United States of America. The reason is strange but simple.

    Once there was a man called Samuel Wilson. He was born in Arlington, Massachusetts, on 3 September 1766. His nickname was "Uncle Sam". When Sam Wilson was 14 years old, he joined the army and fought in some battles (战役). At the end of the war (战争) he went to live in the state of New York. He opened a meat-packing business (生意) there.

Sam Wilson worked hard and loved his country. People in the city liked him. One day in 1812, a reporter from a newspaper visited his business. The reporter looked at some boxes of meat. He saw the letters "EA-US" on the sides of the boxes.

    "What do those letters mean?" he asked one of the workers.

    "The ‘EA' stands for (代表) ‘Edward Anderson'," the workman replied. "The boxes of meat are for him."

    "What about the letters ‘US'?" the reporter asked.

    These letters really stood for "United States", but the workman wanted to have a laugh. "Oh," he said. "They stand for Sam Wilson. He has this company(公司). We call him ‘Uncle Sam'."

    The worker did not think that the reporter would believe him. But the reporter wrote a story about his visit to Sam Wilson's business. He wrote that his workers called him "Uncle Sam" and that "Uncle Sam" meant the United States.

Many people liked using the name "Uncle Sam" as a nickname for the United States and soon they were all using it. In 1961, almost 150 years later, the United States government(政府) made the nickname "Uncle Sam" official (官方的).

    Jim, a young farmer, was once put into prison (监狱).

    One day, he got a letter from his mother. "I'm so worried about our farm," she wrote. "It's time to plant potatoes. I can't dig(挖) all the fields by myself. "

    Jim read the letter and became sad. "What can I do?" he thought. Then he had a good idea. He wrote to his mother, "Don't dig the fields. There's a pot of money in the earth. Don't plant potatoes until I come home."

    Some days later, Jim got another letter from his mother. It said, "Two days ago, about ten men came to our farm and dug all our fields. I can't understand it. It looks as if they were looking for something. What shall I do?"

    Jim smiled when he read his mother's letter. He wrote a letter to his mother at once. It was very short. Guess what it would say?

    If anyone can be called a scientific giant after Albert Einstein, that person must be Stephen Hawking. He was born in Oxford, England on Jan. 8th, 1942. What a pity On March 14th, 2018, the world-famous British scientist1in Cambridge, UK.

    After leaving high school Hawking went first to Oxford University 2he studied physics and then went to Cambridge University where he studied cosmology(宇宙学). As he himself admitted, he didn't work hard. And he did 3work. However, he always enjoyed thinking everything around him, especially the universe. Today, he is called the King of the Universe.

    It was at the age of 21 that Hawking first4something was wrong with him. He started to bump into some things. When he visited his family at Christmas time, his mother was so worried that she 5 him see a doctor. Hawking was sent to hospital for tests. Finally, the result came back. He6to have motor neuron disease(运动神经元病), an incurable illness which would make him unable to speak, breathe or move 7the help of a machine. Doctors said they had no ways to help him. He might die before 23.

    8, Hawking became very depressed. After a while, though, he began to see his life in a different way. As he later wrote, “After my illness was diagnosed(诊断), I was very9with life. There had not seemed to be anything worth doing. But shortly after I came out of hospital, I suddenly realized that there were a lot of worthwhile(值得做的) things I could do."Then Hawking got married and found a job at Cambridge University as a professor. We strongly believe that his story shows that 10, how had their situation is, should lose hope. “Life is not fair.” He once said, “You just have to do the best you can in your own situation.”

    Grace Murray was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City. In 1928 she finished her education in Vassar College in Maths and Physics. Since 1931, she had been teaching at Vassar and continued her study at Yale University, where she achieved a lot in Maths in 1934.

    In 1930, Grace Murray married Vincent Foster Hopper. They were happy together for 15 years. She taught at Vassar College until 1943, when she joined the United States Navy(海军)to help her country during World War Ⅱ.Then she was given a job at the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University, where she worked on the Mark series of computers.

    In 1945, she began to do research in Applied(应用)Physics at Harvard's Computation Laboratory. In 1949 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and worked with people working in it. Years later, she returned to the Navy. She retired in 1971 but continued teaching for the computer development. Brewster Academy, a school in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, the United States, gave its computer lab to her for free in 1985, calling it the Grace Murray Hopper Centre for Computer Learning. She had spent her childhood summer at a local family in Wolfeboro. She passed away in her sleep in 1992. Since her death, her workmate Elenor Briggs has been going on with her work.

    Grace Murray was a great woman and a leader in the computer development. Her work helped improve the use of computer languages. She practised her words" Dare and Do" in her lifetime.

    Helen Keller lived in the U.S.A. She was a great woman.

    When Helen was a baby, she got very sick. After many weeks, the doctor said, "She is better, but now she can't see or can't hear." Her mother and father were very sad.

    After a few years, things got worse. There was no way for Helen to speak with other people. She heard nothing. She saw nothing. She didn't understand anything.

    Then one day a teacher came to live with Helen and her family. The teacher helped Helen learn about words. Helen was a very bright child and soon she learned to spell her first word. When she was older, she went to college.

    Helen was very famous. She helped many blind (盲) and deaf (聋) people. She traveled around the world and helped many people.

    Helen was a very old woman when she died. The world remembers her today as a brave and wonderful person. She was blind and deaf, but she found a way to see and hear.