On his fifty-fifth birthday the president decided to (1)_____ some prisoners of the (2)_____ age as a gesture of good will Not too many, but one, say, from each of the twenty of thirty (3)_____ prisons in the small state. They would have to be carefully selected (4)_____ not to give trouble once they were out. Men perhaps had been so (5)_____ in prison that they had ceased to have and real contact with the outside world. None of them was to be told a (6)_____ of his (7)_____ liberty. Mario was therefore (8)_____ when he was called to the Governor"s office one morning and told he was to be set (9)_____ next day. He had spent almost three quarters of. his life in (10)_____ working out a life sentence (11)_____ stabbing a policeman to death. He was a dull-witted man with no relations (12)_____ and no friends except his prison mates. The following morning was clear and bright. Mario (13)_____ no opportunity to say goodbye to (14)_____ but a guard (15)_____ him to the prison gates and wished him g6dspeed. Alone, he set off up the long white road leading to the town. The traffic, the incessant noise, the absence (16)_____ the secure prison walls terrified him. Presently he "sat down by the side of the road to think (17)_____. After he had thought for a long time, for his brain worked slowly, he (18)_____ a decision. He remained he was, waiting patiently until at last he saw a police car (19)_____ When it was near enough, he darted out into the road, obliging it to stop with a squeal of brakes. He had with him a little knife. When the young police officer got out of the car demanding (20)_____ what was wrong, Mario stabbed him very neatly just behind the right ear.

A. as
B. like
C. same
D. similar