阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

    In the tenth grade，I began working for free at a vet's that was run by a friend. I wanted to get experience for what I thought would be my future job. However，on one particular Saturday morning I learnt something perhaps more important.

    The hospital was in the middle of one of the poorer sections of the city and some people could only pay for the most basic treatments. On this Saturday，a man and his young son，who was probably about 7 years old，walked in with a small cat in a cardboard box. There was something wrong with the cat's left eye. But the man could not afford to pay for the cost of the medicine. He kept quiet for a while，and then he asked where the nearest animal shelter was. Hearing this，his son cried and started to argue with him. All of a sudden，an older woman who was sitting in the waiting room stood up，walked up to the counter，and told the man that she would pay for the cost. The man thanked her and the son got to keep a healthy cat.

    I always thought it was the right thing to help out a needy person，but I only saw people do acts of kindness on TV or in movies. What the woman did made me believe that these things do happen in real life，and quite often.

Now，when I can't decide whether to help someone who is in need，I remember this woman，and then I have the courage to step up to the plate. Sometimes other people follow.

    China has been drinking tea since the time of Shennong, 5,000 years ago. Britain's relationship with tea is much shorter, but tea enjoys the pride as the UK's national drink. According to the UK Tea Council, British people drink an average of three cups a day or a national total of 165 million cups every day.

    With figures like these, it is no surprise that time spent taking tea affects the working day in Britain. A recent survey found that 24 minutes a day are lost to making, buying and drinking tea and coffee. That is, £400 a year is lost in working hours per employee, or 190 days over a lifetime. So, should employers be worried about this lost working time, or does the tea break make up in other ways?

    One argument is that caffeine(咖啡因) improves mental state: a drink of tea or coffee can make you active and focus on work.

    Professor Rogers of the University of Bristol disagrees. After years of studying caffeine he sees nothing can prove that. “Workers would perform equally well if not drinking it at all,” he says. “But if they're often drinking it and then go without, they'll feel tired and won't perform well.”

    Occupational Psychologist Cooper instead emphasizes the role tea breaks play in sedentary (久坐的) office life, and in building social relationships. “We need to make people more active and see other people. The tea break is one way of doing this,” says Cooper.

    And Professor Rogers also points out the comfort effect of a hot drink: “We warm our hands on them on a cold day; they're comforting and play a big role in our everyday life. Whatever the caffeine's doing, I'd say these 24 minutes aren't wasted.”

Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling or swimming, or winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some form—football, hockey, golf or tennis. It may be mountaineering.

    Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with surprise. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risks on high mountains? This astonishment is caused, probably, by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity to which men give their leisure.

    Mountaineering is a sport and not a game. There are no man-made rules, as others, as there are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different kinds which would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.

    If we compare mountaineering with other more familiar sports, we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a “team game”. We should be mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no “matches” between “teams” of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.

    The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than man. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high mental and physical qualities.

    A mountain climber continues to improve in skill year after year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty. But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they perhaps climb with more skill and less waste of efforts, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.

    In the near future, daily newspapers and monthly magazines will probably disappear. Electronic media（媒体） can provide the same information faster and cheaper. The Internet, together with laptops and mobile phones, makes it possible that almost everyone can at any time and in almost any place get some news for free or for few fees.

    You'll browse the computer newspapers or magazines just like turning on TV. An electronic voice will tell you stories about the latest events. You'll even get to choose the kind of voice you want to hear. Want more information on the brief story？ A simple touch makes the whole text appear.

    There are the predictions from the experts working on the newspapers of the future. Imagined as part of home media and entertainment systems, computer newspapers and magazines would unite printed and broadcast news, offering information and analyzing video images of news events.

    The continuing loss of readers will lead to a small number of advertisements in newspapers. It makes no sense to spend millions of dollars to print ads.

    With the development of technology, more and more electronic media have been created until now, but replacing the traditional newspapers and magazines has a long way to go, because the resistance to computer newspapers and magazines from journalism（新闻业） may be much stronger. Since it is such a cultural change, it may be not until the present journalists（新闻工作者）, who aren't used to it, die off that the newspaper industry is not considered as an industry any longer. Anyway, technology is making the traditional newspapers and magazines disappear gradually.

    People have different ways of dealing with a common cold. Some take over-the- counter(非处方的) medicines such as aspirin while others try popular home remedies(治疗)like herbal tea or chicken soup. Yet here is the tough truth about the common cold: nothing really cures it.

    So why do people sometimes believe that their remedies work? According to James Taylor, professor at the University of Washington, colds usually go away on their own in about a week, improving a little each day after symptoms peak, so it's easy to believe it's medicine rather than time that deserves the credit, USA Today reported.

    It still seems hard to believe that we can deal with more serious diseases yet are powerless against something so common as a cold. Recently, scientists came closer to figuring out why. To understand it, you first need to know how antiviral(抗病毒的) drugs work. They attack the virus by attaching to and changing the surface structures of the virus. To do that, the drug must fit and lock into the virus like the right piece of a jigsaw(拼图), which means scientists have to identify the virus and build a 3-D model to study its surface before they can design an antiviral drug that is effective enough.

    The two cold viruses that scientists had long known about were rhinovirus(鼻病毒) A and B. But they didn't find out about the existence of a third virus, rhinovirus C, until 2006. All three of them contribute to the common cold, but drugs that work well against rhinovirus A and B have little effect when used against C.

    "This explains most of the previous failures of drug trials against rhinovirus," study leader Professor Ann Palmenberg at University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, told Science Daily.

    Now, more than 10 years after the discovery of rhinovirus C, scientists have finally built a highly-detailed 3-D model of the virus, showing that the surface of the virus is, as expected, different from that of other cold viruses.

    With the model in hand, hopefully a real cure for a common cold is on its way. Soon, we may no longer have to waste our money on medicines that don't really work.

    The theatre in Shakespeare's time was much different than it is today. Authors wrote plays for the masses, especially those who couldn't read or write.

    The theatre changed a lot during Shakespeare's lifetime. The authorities didn't like it and didn't allow acting in the city itself: They thought it had a bad influence on people and kept them from going to church. Queen Elizabeth, on the other hand, loved acting and helped the theatre become popular.

    The theatre in Shakespeare's time was full of life. People did not sit all the time and it was not quiet during the performance. The audience could walk around, eat and drink during the play.

    Theaters were open arenas or playhouses that had room for up to three thousand people. There was almost no scenery because the dialogue was the most important part of the play. Colourful and well-designed costumes were very important and told the people about the status of a character. Women never performed in plays, 80 young boys played female characters. The performances took place in the afternoon because it was too dark at night.

    There was no stage crew as there is today. Actors had to do everything themselves-from making costumes to setting the stage. Plays were organized by acting companies. They performed about 6 different plays each week because they needed money to survive. They had almost no time to rehearse (排练).

    The companies in Shakespeare's time had a rank system. The company belonged to shareholders and managers. They were responsible for everything and got most of the money when the company was successful. Sometimes they even owned their own buildings. Actors worked for the managers and after some time became a permanent member of the company. Apprentices (学徒) were young boys and were allowed to act in unimportant role. They also played female characters in plays.