阅读理解

Section A
Directions:In this section,there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements,each with four suggested answers A,B,C and D.Choose the best answer and mark your answer on the Answer Sheet.

Passage One

Alice Paul Tapper was on a fourth-grade field trip last year when she noticed something that bothered her. The girls were standing in the back of the room, listening politely as the guide spoke. The boys crowded together in the front. They raised their hands to respond to questions, even if they didn't know the answer.

Alice, 10, often doesn’t raise her hand in class, even if she’s pretty sure she knows the answer. She’s nervous she’ll get it wrong and fed embarrassed. On that field trip, she figured a lot of other girls were probably keeping quiet, too.

Alice told her mom what she saw. They talked about how girls are often told to be quiet and polite, while boys are encouraged to be bold and assertive. Alice and her mom talk about that kind of thing a lot. She wants boys and girls to have the same opportunities. “Girls are important, and their ideas are important，” Alice says. “They should be heard.”

Alice’s mom is the leader of Alice’s Girl Scout troop，in Washington, D.C. She and Alice brought the issue up at their next Girl Scout meeting. Alice found she was right. The other girls said they, too, sometimes hesitated to raise their hands, and they worried that this could hold them back in life. Alice wanted to change that. If a girl raises her hand, it’s one step toward becoming a great leader，”she says.

Alice’s troop decided to ask the Girl Scouts organization to create a new patch. The new patch was introduced in October 2017. It is called the Raise Your Hand patch. To earn it, a girl has to do three things. She must pledge to raise her hand in class when she thinks she knows the answer--even if she's not 100% sure. She must recruit three girls to make the same pledge. And she must talk about how raising her hand makes her feel.

So far, more than 5,400 girls have earned the Raise Your Hand patch. They live in every state in the U.S., plus Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland. “Girls are powerful,” Alice says. “They should raise theirhands so they can release the power inside them.”