22．What do we know about the entries?

　　A．They will not be accepted until February 28, 2015.

　　B．They have to show answers to Dr King's question.

　　C．Students have to create their own entries by themselves.

　　D．All of them will be displayed at the Memorial Bookstore.

23．Which column is the passage probably taken from?

　　A．Advertisement. B．Education. C．History. D．People.

　　Nearly 300 kids will take part in the National Spelling Bee on Wednesday. Fewer will make it to the following day's semifinals（半决赛）, where one mistake means elimination（淘汰）. I'd bet that many of them will be silently praying-not on the first word. I knew it because I was there 17 years ago.

　　I was 14 years old then. My mother and I had flown from Kentucky to Washington, but the capital was no strange to her. My older sister had already competed at the national level.

　　When my sister was 14 and I was 12, we trained together. We began with the Suggested List given out at school-hundreds of words printed on a poster that could be folded up like a map.

　　Sometimes my mother tested us, reading words most English teachers wouldn't know how to pronounce, let alone my Indian-born mother. When she pointed out the misspelled words, I blamed her accent for my errors!

　　When it was my turn, I approached the microphone and waited for my first word.

　　The announcer was somewhere to my left, a man who pronounced clearly. "Barbican," he said.

　　It seemed that my competitors were secretly complaining about the relative ease of my word. Would they laugh at me if I couldn't spell it? Would my mother be disappointed in me? That last syllable could go two ways: C-A-N or C-O-N. Which one was right? Finally I decided on C-O-N.

　　Of course, I was eliminated and guided to the Comfort Room, where parents couldn't enter. Inside, recent losers were sitting around a table abundant with junk food.

　　We casually mentioned the words that defeated us, like a special ceremony to welcome each new arrival.

　　Eventually, I went out and saw my mother."Well," she said, "I guess you won't be doing this again." Yes, next year I would be 15 and not allowed to take part in the competition.

24．What does the underlined word "it" in Paragraph 1 refer to?

　　A．The nervousness of the kids. B．The fierce competition.

　　C．The difficulty of the first word. D．The strict rules.

25．The author failed probably because ___________.

　　A．her competitors disturbed her B．the announcer had an accent

　　C．she was unable to relax D．she didn't practise hard enough

26．Which of the following statements about the Spelling Bee is correct?

　　A．A lot of competitors will be eliminated.

　　B．Spelling bees are held from local levels up to the national level.

　　C．It involves learning the correct spelling of words.

　　D．All of the above.

27．It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ___________.