阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。
For much of my childhood, my mother filled the evening hours doing something for someone else. Sometimes she knitted (编织) hats for babies, and at other times she cooked chicken soup for sick neighbors. Therefore, I wasn't ___1___ when one evening my mother announced she'd start a new project.
“I'm going to telephone neighboring ___2___ every night,” said my mother.
“Every night? But you don't even ___3___ these people.”
“Doesn't matter ” she said. “What's important is that I want to listen.”
I was sixteen years old and couldn't figure out why my mother was willing to spend her evenings talking to strangers. She had friends and my two elder sisters to call ___4___ she felt lonely.
My ___5___ didn't affect my mother's project. That evening after supper, she settled on the sofa with the phone and began making phone calls.
For a while, I listened as she asked the lady on the phone about her day, what she had eaten for dinner, and asked if she had ___6___ that the beautiful roses had come out in a neighboring park. When she finished the call, I said, “What do you ___7___ whether she had cookie or cream pie for dessert?”
My mother replied, “I'm the ___8___ person she talked to today.”
It took me nearly thirty years to understand the ___9___ of what she was doing. Now, as my mother is nearing sixty, I find myself thinking about those nightly ____10____ she used to make.
I am often the only person who telephones my mother, and sometimes I'm the only person she speaks to all day. I ask her what she cooked for dinner, but mostly I just ____11____ as she describes a walk she took, or how her dog Lucky stole a piece of cheese from the kitchen.
I ____12____ that my mother's calls were lifelines (生命之线 ) that kept lonely seniors connected to the world. Somehow, she managed to work full-time and ____13____ a family while improving the lives of others.
That kind of ____14____ needs commitment (奉献，投入) and organizational skills that I do not have. While she freed several seniors from ____15____, I struggle to call just one － my mother.
1.
A. interested B. satisfied C. surprised D. excited
2.
A. teenagers B. children C. juniors D. seniors
3.
A. meet B. know C. pass D. find
4.
A because B. if C. though D. until
5.
A. doubt B. advice C. answer D. praise
6.
A. decided B. felt C. noticed D. imagined
7.
A. hate B. love C. mean D. care
8.
A. only B. early C. first D. last
9.
A. difficulty B. importance C. possibility D. difference
10.
A. visits B. orders C. calls D. cries
11.
A. think B. listen C. talk D. write
12
A. realize B. explain C. express D. recognize
13.
A. protect B. start C. affect D. support
14.
A. service B. experience C. promise D. tradition
15.
A. hopelessness B. illness C. loneliness D. helplessness
