Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.

Acupuncture is a Chinese method of treating illnesses by inserting needles into certain points of the body. The idea is that this restores the natural balance of energy, (24) ________ is disturbed when a person is ill. The origins of this therapy have been traced back over five thousand years, but it only began to be accepted in the West in the 1970s.

In 1971, James Reston, a well-known journalist from the New York Times, was visiting China when he developed appendicitis. He was operated (25) _____________ in a hospital in Peking, where the doctors used acupuncture to relieve his pain. Reston was surprised at how (26) _____________ it was, and wrote about it in an article for the newspaper.

Soon afterwards, Chairman Mao Tse-tung invited a group of distinguished Western doctors over to China to witness for themselves that (27) ________ worked. They were accompanied by television crews, and soon viewers in the West were watching operations being carried out on patients with acupuncture needles sticking out of them. The patients felt no pain.

The Western experts were a little embarrassed at what they saw, because they had (28)_______ ridiculed the idea that patients could be treated with needles. But now they were forced to admit that it actually worked, and acupuncture became a popular form of therapy.