Read the article and select the best answer. Article: I climbed the ladder, heard my dive announced, and began the moves that would push me into the air. Pushing off the diving board with my legs, I lifted my arms and shoulders back, and knew immediately I would be close to the board and might hit my hands. I tried to correct myself as I turned, spreading my hands wide apart. Then I heard a strange sound and my body lost control. Moments later I realized I had hit my head on the board. At the beginning, I felt embarrassed. I wanted to hide, to get out of the pool without anyone seeing me. Next I felt intense fear. Had I cut my head? Was I bleeding? Was there blood in the pool? Swimming to the side, I noticed many shocked faces. People were worried about my head; I was worried about something far more threatening. An official examined my head. In a hurry, I pushed him away, and everyone else who approached me. "Don't touch me!" I felt like screaming. "Get away from me!" These were the trials for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea. Until this dive, I had been ahead. But now, something else was more significant than winning. I might have endangered other divers' lives if I had spilled blood in the pool. For what I knew--- that few others knew - was that I was HIV-positive. According to my mother, my natural parents were Samoan and only teenagers when I was born, so they gave me up for adoption. When I was only eighteen months old, I started gym classes. At ten, I explored doing gym exercises off the diving board at the pool. Because of my dark skin, kids at school called me names. My diving made me feel good about myself when my peers made me feel stupid. At sixteen, I knew I had a shot at the 1976 Olympics. Everyone was alarmed when I hit my head on the board in Seoul. Regardless, I made it to the finals. During my last dive in the finals, I enjoyed for the last time the quietness underwater and then swam to the side of the pool. The crowd cheered, and I knew I'd won --- two gold medals. AIDS forced me to stop diving; I had to give up diving professionally... Question: After he hit his head on the board at the trails, the writer _ . Options: A: practiced less B: was scared and gave up diving forever C: lost the chance to compete at the finals D: still got the chance to compete at the finals
D

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: A school was across the street from our home and I would often watch the kids from my window as they played basketball. One day, among the children a girl attracted me. She seemed so small as she muscled her way through the crowd of boys. Running circles around the other kids, she managed to shoot jump shots just over their heads and into the net with no one to stop her. Sometimes, I saw her play alone. She would practice dribbling and shooting over and over again until dark. One day I asked her why she practiced so much. Without hesitation, she said, "I want to go to college. The only way I can go is that I get a scholarship. If I were good enough, I would get a scholarship. I like basketball. My Daddy told me if the dream is big enough, the facts don't count." Then she smiled and ran towards the court to go on with practice. I watched her through junior high and into high school. Every week, she led her school team to victory. One day in her senior year, I saw her sitting in the grass, head cradled in her arms. I went over there and sat down beside her. The coach told her that as a player as tall as prefix = st1 /5'5"she would probably never get to play for a top ranked college team -- much less offered a scholarship -- so she should stop dreaming about college. She was heartbroken and I felt my own throat tighten as I sensed her disappointment. I asked her if she had talked to her dad about it yet. She told me that her father said those coaches were wrong. They did not understand the power of a dream. He told her that if she really wanted to play for a good college and if she truly wanted a scholarship, nothing could stop her except one thing -- her own attitude. He told her again, "If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count." The next year, as she and her team went to the Northern California Championship game, she was seen by a college recruiter , and was offered a full scholarship, to a NCAA women's basketball team. She was going to college, which she had dreamed of and worked toward for... Question: The coach advised the girl to quit because he thought _ . Options: A: she had lost confidence in her ability to play well B: she had been good enough to get a scholarship C: she couldn't get along well with her teammates D: she was too short to realize her dream
D

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Who's in control of your life? Who's pulling your strings ? For the majority of us, it's other people--society, colleagues, friends, family or our religious community. We learned this way of operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other people like us. As Oscar Wilde puts it, "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry , their passions a quotation." So when people tell us how wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We long for this good feeling like a drug--we are addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can. Therefore, we are so eager for the approval of others that we live unhappy and limited lives, failing to do the things we really want to. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live worsened lives to keep getting their fix , we worsen our own existence to get our own constant fix of approval. But, just as with any drug, there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom--the freedom to be ourselves. The truth is that we cannot control what other people think. People have their own agenda , and they come with their own baggage and, in the end, they're more interested in themselves than in you. Furthermore, if we try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking sand. Everyone has a different way of thinking, and people change their opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted and probably pleasing no one in the process. So how can we take back control? I think there's only one way--make a conscious decision to stop caring what other people think. We should guide ourselves by means of a set of values--not values imposed from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more... Question: The author tries to persuade the readers to accept his arguments mainly by _ . Options: A: discussing questions B: making suggestions C: analyzing causes and effects D: providing examples and facts
B