II. Reading comprehension (20%)
Passage 1
Hiking is South Korea's most popular pastime. Two-thirds of its citizens own a pair of hiking boots and tackle amountain at least once a year； nearly a third go once a month. In 2018 they spent $ 2.3 billion on hiking gear, morethan on cinema tickets or cosmetics. The country's 22 national parks welcome around 45 million visitors every yearDuring holidays, newspapers print pictures of long queues of people waiting to take photographs next to the nationalflag that marks many peaks.

 Ask a South Korean about the allure of mountains and you are soon deep into nationalist mysticism. "We like tothink of ourselves as descendants of the mountain god," says Choi Won-sunk, who directs the center for mountainsand culture at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju. A simpler explanation is that going hiking is easy. SouthKorean mountains are not too high: the tallest peak, Hallasan, is just short of 2,000 meters. And they are everywhere.Seoul, where half the population lives, contains several mountains that can be conquered during a long lunch break.

A culture of long working hours and short holidays encourages efficient hiking. Mountain paths tend to head directlyfor the summit. South Korea has a whole infrastructure designed to get stressed leisure-seekers up and back downthe mountain as soon as possible. Some mountain enthusiasts disapprove of this approach. "A lot of people onlycare about getting to the top and down again as soon as possible," says Ms. Park, a hiking instructor. "That's notreally the point," she adds. Mr. Choi, a geographer, concurs that the focus on reaching the top is misguided. MrChoi argues that the desire to rush uphill was imported to South Korean by Japanese colonizers - who, in turn, golit from the West. In the past, he says, climbing mountains was about finding harmony with nature and reflecting onyour own short-comings. "It's not about getting up to the top and winning but about looking up to the top thinkingI'm not there yet. I need to grow more."
                                                                                  (excerpted from The Economist, with minor revisions)
【題組】26. What details does the author of this passage use to illustrate how popular mountain-climbing is in South Korea?
(A) How many people own hiking boots
(B) How many people visit South Korean national parks
(C) How many people wait for a chance to take a photo near a peak
(D) All of the above.