单选题 .  SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
    PASSAGE ONE
    (1) I didn't speak to Hassan until the middle of the next week. I had just half-eaten my lunch and Hassan was doing the dishes. I was walking upstairs, going to my room, when Hassan asked if I wanted to hike up the hill. I said I was tired. Hassan looked fired too—he'd lost weight and gray circles had formed under his puffed-up eyes. But when he asked again, I reluctantly agreed.
    (2) We trekked up the hill, our boots squishing in the muddy snow. Neither one of us said anything. We sat under our pomegranate tree and I knew I'd made a mistake. I shouldn't have come up the hill. The words I'd carved on the tree trunk with Ali's Kitchen knife, Amir and Hassan: The Sultans of Kabul... I couldn't stand looking at them now.
    (3) So I told him I just wanted to go back to my room. He looked away and shrugged. We walked back down the way we'd gone up: in silence. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't wait for spring.
    (4) My memory of the rest of that winter of 1975 is pretty hazy. I remember I was fairly happy when Baba was home. We'd eat together, go to see a film, and visit Kaka Homayoun or Kaka Faruq. Sometimes Rahim Khan came over and Baba let me sit in his study and sip tea with them. He'd even have me read him some of my stories. It was good and I even believed it would last. And Baba believed it too, I think. We both should have known better. For at least a few months after the kite tournament, Baba and I immersed ourselves in a sweet illusion, and saw each other in a way that we never had before. We'd actually deceived ourselves into thinking that a toy made of tissue paper, glue, and bamboo could somehow close the chasm between us.
    (5) But when Baba was out—and he was out a lot—I closed myself in my room. I read a book every couple of days, wrote stories, and learned to draw horses. I'd hear Hassan shuffling around the kitchen in the morning, and hear the clinking of silverware, the whistle of the teapot. I'd wait to hear the door shut and only then I would walk down to eat. On my calendar, I circled the date of the first day of school and began a countdown.
    (6) To my dismay, Hassan kept trying to rekindle things between us. I remember the last time. I was in my room, reading an abbreviated Farsi translation of Ivanhoe when he knocked on my door.
    (7) "What is it?"
    (8) "I'm going to the baker to buy naan," he said from the other side. "I was wondering if you...if you wanted to come along."
    (9) "I think I'm just going to read," I said, rubbing my temples. Lately, every time Hassan was around, I was getting a headache.
    (10) "It's a sunny day," he said.
    (11) "I can see that."
    (12) "Might be fun to go for a walk."
    (13) "You go."
    (14) "I wish you'd come along," he said. Paused. Something thumped against the door, maybe his forehead. "I don't know what I've done, Amir agha. I wish you'd tell me. I don't know why we don't play anymore."
    (15) "You haven't done anything, Hassan. Just go."
    (16) "You can tell me; I'll stop doing it."
    (17) I buried my head in my lap, and squeezed my temples with my knees, like a vice. "I'll tell you what I want you to stop doing," I said, eyes pressed shut.
    (18) "Anything."
    (19) "I want you to stop harassing me. I want you to go away," I snapped. I wished he would give it right back to me, break the door open and tell me off—it would have made things easier, better. But he didn't do anything like that, and when I opened the door minutes later, he wasn't there. I fell on my bed, buried my head under the pillow, and cried.
    PASSAGE TWO
    (1) The rivalry between King's College London on the Strand and University College in Bloomsbury has been a part of London life for nearly two centuries. It has been expressed in the academic sphere, on the sports field and in the rivalry of the student populations. It can be traced to their foundation in the 1820s when King's was established as an Anglican alternative to the secular University College. King's principal objective was "to imbue the minds of youth with a knowledge of the doctrines and duties of Christianity, as inculcated by the United Church of England and Ireland".
    (2) Attendance at College Chapel and the study of Christianity formed an important part of College life. A flavour of the rivalry can be glimpsed in the second verse of an 1820s satirical song set to the music of the British national anthem:
    King's College lads arise!
    New Universities
    Shall quickly fall;
    Confound their politics,
    Frustrate their teaching tricks,
    O, Church! on thee we fix,
    Maintain us all.
    (3) UCL have responded. This rivalry gradually moved away from denomination disagreements and became more a rivalry of class, with KCL being deemed the more "traditional" and elitist institution, with UCL the liberal and more progressive institution. Student Rags became the forum for the students to express their dislike for one another, such as this melée in 1934 between UCL and KCL medics and engineers on King's Strand campus.
    (4) Mutual rivalries inevitably lead to a sense of camaraderie among peers, i.e. if you don't like the same people as me we can be friends. KCL and UCL's affiliation with their own colleges lead to the development of mascots: for King's the red lion "Reggie" and for UCL Jeremey Bentham and Phineas proved equally popular. Over the years respective mascots were allegedly stolen and returned in various states continuing the inter-college rivalry. UCL legend has it Bentham's head was stolen on a few occasions and held to ransom by KCL and even used once in a game of football as part of the varsity fervour.
    (5) Varsity is now a far more sporting affair with UCL and KCL settling their differences on the pitch. This year saw the first 6 sport varsity which included the ever popular rugby varsity matches, as well as new entries from sports such as kickboxing and water polo.
    (6) Aside from the official six, UCL's Lacrosse club hosted its own varsity match against King's as well. In a complete change to previous competitions these varsities are now celebratory, rather than aggressive, inclusive rather than separatist. During the match, UCL and KCL supporters cheer for anyone doing anything (granted not many people understand the rules of lacrosse), and after the match both teams enjoyed a Regent's Park picnic together in honour of the healthy sporting rivalry, and long may it continue!
    (7) Student rivalry wasn't confined to King's and UCL, but spilled over into contests with Imperial and Queen Mary Colleges (established in 1907 and in 1885 respectively) and especially the neighbouring London School of Economics (established in 1895). One well-planned and successful rag against the LSE during the 1920s involved the King's Liberal Party Society organising an impostor to play the part of David Lloyd George, complete with morning coat and limousine, who proceeded to address the LSE Students' Union in an appropriately overdramatic performance. A riot ensued when the angry audience realised they had been duped and the actor sent flying before rescue by a strategically placed King's rowing heavy. Following the Second World War, King's was involved in numerous kidnapping and ransoming of rival mascots, including Queen Mary's leopard and the LSE Beaver.
    PASSAGE THREE
    (1) Nike, in December last year, announced that it was getting ready to introduce a $350 self-lacing basketball shoe. Ever since, sneakerheads have been highly anticipating the successor to the 2016 HyperAdapt 1.0, Nike's first consumer-grade sneaker with power laces. Now it's finally here at the beginning of 2019. Enter the Adapt BB, an auto-lacing, app-controlled basketball shoe that's packing a ton of technology inside it. The highlight here is a smart motor that automatically adjusts the lacing system to fit perfectly around your foot as soon as you put the shoes on.
    (2) While the Adapt BB is savvy enough to sense the tension needed by your feet on its own, you can also adjust pressure from the laces using two physical buttons on your left and right shoes—one is for tightening and the other for loosening them. If you want to take things beyond manual touch, though, this is where the Adapt BB really shines: You can control it with a companion app, available for iOS and Android, which will let you adjust your power laces without having to touch your sneakers at all. To do that, you just have to swipe up (tighten) or down (loosen) on an app setting that's aptly labeled "L" or "R".
    (3) The Adapt BB uses Bluetooth to pair with your smartphone, and the mobile app is going to make it easy for you to save your adaptive fit settings, change the color of your LEDs and check battery life. Nike says the sneakers can last up to 14 days on a full charge, though that will depend on how much time you spend messing around with the power laces. And rest assured you won't be stuck in your sneakers if the battery dies, as Nike says they're smart enough to save energy for loosening the laces. To charge them up, you'll place them on a custom Qi wireless mat that Nike's including with every pair of Adapt BBs, and it'll take about three hours to get a full charge out of them.
    (4) Thanks to its connected features, Nike will be able to bring new functionality to the Adapt BB over time. With Save Your Fit, for example, players can use the app to lock in their preferred settings for the power laces. In addition to that, Nike is working on a way to give NBA players different tightness settings for warm-ups, and they'll be able to opt-in to these updates to get them as they become available. Generally, over the course of a basketball game, a player's foot can expand almost a half-size, which can affect their comfort level and ultimately have an impact on their movement and performance on the court. That's exactly the problem Nike is looking to solve with Adapt BB.
    (5) I did use the app to adjust the power laces, but only slightly. It's also nice to be able to use the buttons on the shoes themselves to tighten or loosen the fit, especially since you may not always have your phone with you during a game. One of my main gripes with the HyperAdapt 1.0 is how uncomfortable it was. The fit was so tight that I had to go for a bigger size than I usually wear, but that's definitely not the case with the Adapt BB.
    (6) The other great thing about Nike's Adapt is how it could benefit people with disabilities, particularly those who aren't able to tie their own shoes. It may not be the use Nike is touting for the Adapt BBs, but this has the potential to be a pleasant byproduct. With the ability to update the functionality of Adapt via firmware, there's nothing preventing Nike from rolling out specific options for that community in the future.
    (7) That's what is worth remembering about Adapt and Nike's goal is to make an entire platform out of it. So, while right now we have the BB basketball shoe, the tech will soon be making its way to other sports, as well as lifestyle products. Until then, Nike's Adapt BB is the present, and you can get a pair for yourself starting February 17th for $350—which is a much, much better price than the $720 for the HyperAdapt 1.0s.1.  According to Para. 4, the relationship between Amir and his father was actually ______. (PASSAGE ONE)