阅读下面短文，按照句子结构的语法性和上下文连贯的要求，在空格处填入一个适当的词或使用括号中词语的正确形式填空，并将答案填写在答题卡标号为16—25的相应位置上。
Ms. Mary was over eighty, but she still drove her old car like half her age. She loved driving very fast, and boasted of the fact   16.          she had never, in her thirty-five years of driving, been punished  17.          a driving mistake.
Then one day, she nearly lost her record. A police car followed her, and the policemen in it saw her pass a red light without  18.          (stop).
When Ms. Mary came before the judge, he looked at her severely and said that she was too old to drive a car, and that the reason  19.                    she had not stopped at red light was most probably that her eyes had become weak        20            old age, so that she had simply not seen it.
When the judge had finished  21.           he was saying, Ms. Mary opened the big handbag she was carrying and took out her sewing. Without saying a word, she  22.              (choose) a needle with a very small eye, and threaded it at the first time.
When she had  23               (success) done this, she took the thread out of the needle again and handed both the needle and thread to the judge, saying, “Now it is your turn. I suppose you can drive a car well, and you have no doubts   24.          your eyesight.”
The judge took the needle and tried to thread it. After half a dozen times, he had still not succeeded. The case against Ms. Mary  25.         (dismiss), and her record remained unbroken.