I saw in my rearview mirror that a large SUV headed straight for my car at a breakneck speed. My heart and mind started racing, and panic (恐慌)instantly set in.
With fear in my voice, I started saying out loud, "Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!", making my friend who was with me immediately scared and puzzled. I was sure that within mere seconds, we were going to be knocked from behind by a careless vehicle clearly going over 100 miles per hour in heavy traffic.
Unable to change lanes or speed up because of cars on all sides, I just prepared myself for the impact. But thank goodness, the driver missed hitting my car by an inch as he went into the lane beside me, nearly hitting another vehicle, tires screeching (刺耳声)and burning, filling the air with clouds of smoke. He continued dashing in and out of traffic, causing more near-collisions, and then quickly disappeared into the distance.
As I sat there surprised, loosening my fingers from the steering wheel, my friend and I began to talk about what if we had been hit. How life could have been changed in an instant(瞬间)or even ended.
I thought about my precious children, my husband, my family and things undone. I wondered whether I would have regrets if that had been my last day. I began to consider if I was truly enjoying and embracing(拥抱) my life, even if it hadn't turned out the way I thought it would or should. I couldn't help but ask myself if I was by accident taking for granted the pure blessing of waking up every morning and being given another day, and if I was spending time being unhappy because of difficult circumstances instead of living with joy.
1. Why was the author stuck in panic?| A．The road was too crowded. | B．A rude driver attacked her. |
| C．She drove at too high a speed. | D．An accident seemed to happen. |
| A．She took no action. | B．She sped up her car. |
| C．She gave others a warning. | D．She drove into another lane. |
| A．That day. | B．That car. |
| C．The author's life. | D．The author's family. |
| A．Behind bad luck comes good luck. | B．Love me, love my dog. |
| C．Live in the present moment. | D．Value our friends and family. |
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“Any old papers, lady？” asked one of them.
I was busy. I wanted to say “no” until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals(凉鞋), wet with heavy snow.
“Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”
They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started cooking.
The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, “Lady, are you rich？”
“Am I rich? Pity, no！”
I looked at my wornout slipcovers(椅套). The girl put her cup back in its saucer(茶碟)carefully and said, “Your cups match your saucers.” They left after that, holding their papers against the wind. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful.
Plain blue china cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.
I tasted the potatoes and stirred(搅动)the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a regular job, these matched, too.
I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy marks of little sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.
1. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Lady, are you rich? |
| B．A story of Thanksgiving Day |
| C．Don't forget how rich you are |
| D．Does cups and saucers match well? |
| A．The girl thought the writer was rich just because she wanted to make the writer happy. |
| B．The writer had thought she wasn't rich because her supplies were not expensive. |
| C．If cups and saucers match well, they are a best pair even though cheap. |
| D．After hearing what they said, the writer seemed to understand what a rich life was. |
| A．show that she was a kindhearted lady |
| B．remind her that she shouldn't forget how rich she was |
| C．leave room for readers to think about what being rich is |
| D．prove that she had understood what meant being rich |
| A．how much money you have made |
| B．what attitude you have had towards life |
| C．the way you help others |
| D．your social relationship |
【推荐2】Around the time I turned 40, I went to see a therapist, a man who knew me well. I tended to call him once or twice a year on an as-needed basis. I had reached the point of being able to sort through most problems on my own. But life had—as it occasionally does—grown suddenly complicated.
I had been trying with no success to have a second child. We had made an abrupt move from New York City to rural Connecticut in the wake of September 11. My mother had recently died. I was still shrinking from a difficult and frightening year. I found myself questioning everything entirely: “Does any of this make sense?”
“Everything about you makes sense,” said my therapist.
I found these words enormously comforting as they always are from him. I so badly wanted the narrative of my life to make sense. Two brief failed marriages—one at 18 the other at 28? Makes sense. My uneasy relationship to faith and doubt, having been raised in a strict, religious home? Makes sense. The emptiness I continued to feel at the early loss of my father? Makes sense. My impossibly anxious relationship with my mother? Make sense.
My husband, a screenwriter, is often asked to adapt biographies for film, and the struggle, he often says, is that lives have first acts, but they don’t have third acts(until they’re over) and second acts are just one damned thing after another. So how to understand the narratives of our lives? How to trust that everything about us makes sense?
Lately I’ve been wondering if perhaps the answer to this is not to even attempt to smooth things out. Sure, life’s road is nothing if not filled with unexpected surprises, both happy and not-so-happy ones.
1. What made the author begin to question everything?| A．Her old age. | B．The therapist’s intervention. |
| C．Complicated life. | D．Breakdowns in her life. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By making a comparison. |
| C．By using data. | D．By presenting findings. |
| A．Every dog has its day. | B．Enjoy your life while you can. |
| C．Life is made up of sobs and smiles. | D．One careless move may lose the whole game. |
【推荐3】Long long ago, a God called Ratu lived in the sky. Ratu liked to play games and make people angry. The game he liked best was to fly down into the sea and frighten all the fishes. The fishes became very tired of his game. They asked Hemi, the God of the sea, to help them.
So Hemi tried to catch Ratu the next time he flew into the sea, but he was too slow. Ratu laughed at Hemi as he flew past him. This made Hemi angry and he had an idea. He asked the fishes to bring him a lot of seaweed. Hemi tied it all together and made a large net from it. Soon Ratu flew down and Hemi threw the net over him. Ratu fought and fought but could not get free. He was caught.
Ratu promised（保证）never to frighten fishes again if Hemi would set him free. But Hemi did not believe him. Instead, he changed Ratu into a mountain in the sea. Ratu was so angry that when he opened his mouth to shout at Hemi, fire and smoke broke out. And that is why the Island of Ratu is a volcano（火山）.
1. This story is a ________.| A．joke | B．humor |
| C．true story | D．fairy tale |
| A．how volcanoes are born |
| B．how Ratu was beaten |
| C．why some gods are good and some are bad |
| D．why the Island of Ratu is a volcano |
| A．he liked to make fun of the fishes |
| B．the fishes welcomed him |
| C．the fishes were friendly to him |
| D．he had too much fire in his mouth. |
| A．the person who makes trouble will be punished |
| B．some volcanoes in the sea are gods |
| C．seaweed is a good material for making nets |
| D．one who makes promises is not to be always believed |
【推荐1】For the first time in my life I have been dumped by a friend. I should have seen it coming: the phone calls not returned, the excuses about ‘not feeling very sociable right now’... Yet the letter suggesting that the time had come for us to move on still came as a shock.
Tula and I had been firm friends for nearly ten years. We met at a singing workshop and took on each other immediately. But life changed for both of us: I got married and she responded to her single status by developing a fresh set of social networks. Then she took a long holiday, reviewed her life and decided what to keep and what to throw out. In her letter she described our friendship as a ‘borderline’ case and suggested it should be time we ‘let each other go’.
I’m all for letting go of bad habits and boxes of old school exercise books. But surely close friends are not consumer goods to be discarded or replaced at the first hint of trouble? We are encouraged to believe that friends will be around forever. ‘You’ve got a friend,’ sang Carole King and ‘I'll be there for you’ promised the theme tune of Friends. Such sentiments have sunk deep into the collective unconsciousness, or into mine, at least.
Certainly, the statistics indicate that we need friends more than ever. Government figures predict that the proportion of married men and women aged from 45 to 54 will fall by a quarter in the next two decades. A recent British survey found that two-thirds of eighteen to 35-year-olds in Britain turn to friends before family for help and advice. Yes, the argument goes, in a fast-moving, ever-changing world, friendship is our rock, the one thing we can truly rely on.
But in his book, The Philosophy of Friendship, Mark Vernon suggests otherwise. He cautions that we place unrealistic burdens on friendship, that it's unreasonable to expect friends to fulfill family members’ roles. Worse still, he says, friendships are becoming harder to maintain. ‘There are lots of obstacles in the way we live today. It’s harder to put time and effort into knowing someone. Mobiles, email and so on, all these are secondary ways of communicating. There’s not the depth.’
So, what did I do with Tula’s letter? I re-read it many times, thinking over where I’d gone wrong. And then I wrote back. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ I wrote, ‘things have changed. But aren’t we good enough friends to hang in there?’ Since then we have exchanged a couple of emails. A walk has been suggested. It would be easy not to make the effort and let this friendship go but, as Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, said: ‘Stay is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.’ 1think she's right.
1. What can we learn about Tula and the writer from the first two paragraphs?| A．They became close friends ten years after their first meeting. |
| B．Nothing had happened to indicate their friendship might end. |
| C．Tula suggested the end of their friendship with a letter. |
| D．The writer took a long holiday after her marriage. |
| A．trouble in making friends | B．dependence on close friends |
| C．reluctance to end a friendship | D．belief in permanent friendship |
| A．We expect too much of friendship. |
| B．More and more people are choosing to be single. |
| C．Friendship is what we can rely on in today's society. |
| D．Technology makes it easier for us to know others well. |
| A．To prove that efforts to maintain a friendship may not be worthwhile. |
| B．To justify what she has done with the friendship with Tula. |
| C．To emphasize the importance of Little Women in history. |
| D．To illustrate the charming things existing in friendship. |
【推荐2】The world is filled with smart, educated and gifted people. We meet them every day. A few days ago，my car was not running well. I pulled it into a garage and the young mechanic fixed it in just a few minutes. He knew what was wrong by simply listening to the engine sound. I was amazed. The sad truth is that great talent is not enough.
I am constantly shocked at how little talented people earn. I heard the other day that less than 5 percent of Americans earn more than $100,000 a year. A business consultant who specializes in the medical trade told me how many doctors and dentists struggle financially. It was this business consultant (顾问) who gave me the phrase, “They are one skill away from great wealth.”
There is an old saying that goes, “JOB means ‘Just Over Broke (破产)’”. And unfortunately, I would say that the saying applies to millions of people. Because schools do not think financial intelligence is intelligence, most workers “live within their means”. They work and they pay the bills. Instead I recommend that young people seek work for what they will learn, more than what they will earn.
When I ask the classes I teach, “How many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonald’s?” almost all the students raise their hands. I then ask, “So if most of you can cook a better hamburger, how come McDonald’s makes more money than you?” The answer is obvious: McDonald’s is excellent at business systems. The world is filled with talented poor people. They focus on perfecting their skills at building a better hamburger rather than the skills of selling and delivering the hamburger.
1. The author mentions the mechanic in the first paragraph to show that .| A．he is just one of the talented people |
| B．he is ready to help others |
| C．he has a sharp sense of hearing |
| D．he knows little about car repairing |
| A．spend more than they can afford |
| B．do in their own way |
| C．live in their own circle |
| D．live within what they earn |
| A．They don’t work hard enough. |
| B．They lack financial intelligence. |
| C．They don’t make full use of their talents. |
| D．They have no specialized skills. |
| A．how young people can find a satisfactory job |
| B．what schools should teach about finance |
| C．why so many talented people are poor |
| D．how McDonald’s makes much money |
【推荐3】Yesterday, a salesman called me by phone, on behalf of a telecom company, to sell his phone plans. I was at work and I usually didn't like telemarketing (电话销售), so I excused myself that I couldn't talk yet and said he could call me back one hour later, at 6:00 pm.
That's what he did. So we talked for 15 minutes. He explained to me his different phone plans, which he stated to be better than my current one. While listening to him, sometimes I was lost in my thoughts and I gave several “hmm hmm” as a sign of agreement to convince him that I was still there. Sometimes, I felt a bit impatient, especially as he had difficulty in correctly talking in French. But I stayed calm and polite until the end of the discussion.
At the end of the conversation, he revealed (袒露) the following to me:“Thank you, Linda. You are the first person in a long time with whom I had an enjoyable conversation. Usually, people shout at us, speak to us rudely, and treat us as thieves. Today, since 10:00 am, I hadn't had a conversation without an offense. I know you had a long day at work and you could have relaxed in front of your TV. Instead, you listened carefully to me. I sincerely thank you. I wanted to tell it to you.”
I thanked him for this revelation. I realized how much he could have been the subject of verbal violence, all through his working days. Unfortunately, the telephone enables the customers to have such aggressive behavior. Indeed, physical barriers do not exist in this situation and a kind of dehumanization (非人性化) seems to happen. I am also conscious that those people getting impatient could have been me. Yet, he was only doing his job and he shouldn't have suffered from the violence.
1. Why did the author let the salesman call back later?| A．She meant to refuse him at once. |
| B．She showed interest in his phone plans. |
| C．She hoped for more about telemarketing. |
| D．She wanted to use the way to discourage him. |
| A．Patient. | B．Careful. . |
| C．Kind of absent-minded. | D．Obviously impolite. |
| A．His deep apology. | B．His true appreciation. |
| C．His anger at misunderstanding. | D．His sufferings in telemarketing. |
| A．People say unkind words to him. | B．There are physical barriers. |
| C．Salesmen's impatience. | D．Customers' Humanization. |
【推荐1】Lose Yourself in a Good Book for Australia Reads
In November, we're inviting Australians of all ages and from all walks of life to share and celebrate the joys of reading. Whether you're picking up a book for the first time or your head is already stuck in one, there are plenty of books, activities and events as parts of our festivities.
On Thursday, November 12 we'll celebrate Australian Reading Hour. You're invited to stop what you're doing for an hour, pick up a book and read to yourself or the children in your life. Join us and relax. Get inspired and find joy in books!
This year we are hosting three online events to celebrate the many benefits of reading.
☆Australia Reads Main Event—Wednesday, November 11 from 12:30 pm
☆Australia Reads Kids—Monday, November 9 from 10:30 am
☆Australia Reads Teens—Tuesday, November 10 from 12:30 pm
Reading has some little-known benefits including reducing stress by 68%—it even works faster than listening to music, going for a walk or enjoying a cup of tea. What's more, a bedtime story six days a week can put kids almost a year ahead when they start school. If those benefits aren't enough to persuade you to pick up a book just yet, Australia Reads has also kindly donated a bunch of books to give away!
You will be offered FREE books by visiting our friendly team at King George Square bus station, Thursday, November 12 from 7: 30 am.
We'll be giving away a range of adult and kid books to celebrate Australian Reading Hour until we run out of books.
These are just some of the exciting books we'll have on offer as part of the giveaway—but remember, we'll have limited numbers available, so first come first serve!
·The Greatest Hit ,William Kostakis
·Frankie Fish and the Tomb of Tom foolery, Peter Helliar
·Tashi and the Stolen Forest ,Anna Fienberg
·The Girl in the Mirror , Rose Carlyle
For more information: https: / / australiareads.org.au/
1. The online activity for teens will be on| A．November 9 | B．November 10 |
| C．November 11 | D．November 12 |
| A．come across four writers |
| B．get a copy of The Greatest Hit for free |
| C．celebrate the festival by giving away free books |
| D．volunteer in the activity organized by Australia Reads |
| A．To attract people to buy books. | B．To inspire people to write books. |
| C．To encourage people to read books. | D．To invite people to donate free books. |
【推荐2】Lucy Hughes, a 24-year-old English inventor, has used skin and scales (鳞)from fish to create a new kind of plastic that will break down in about six weeks. Her invention won this year's James Dyson Award.
Ms. Hughes was very aware of how wasteful many products are. Plastic items (物品)，for example, are often made from new plastic, used once for a short time, and then thrown away. She decided to challenge herself to make something out of waste instead.
Fishing is a big business in England, and the University of Sussex where Ms. Hughes studied wasn't far from the coast. She spent some time studying the fishing business, and the things that were thrown away. She was amazed by the amount of waste from fish that gets thrown away.
After some tests, Ms. Hughes decided that the fish skin and scales seemed like the most likely parts for her product. But then she needed something to bind (hold the material together) with. She found that red algae (红藻)was the best binder.
Ms. Hughes called her finished product “MarinaTex”, which is clear and feels like plastic, but stronger than regular plastic of the same thickness. MarinaTex is also cheap to make since it's made from fish waste. Ms. Hughes says that the waste from one Atlantic cod (a fish) could make 1,400 bags. The process of making MarinaTex also doesn't use much energy. Most importantly, MarinaTex doesn't take hundreds of years to break down.
Ms. Hughes thinks that one of the best uses for MarinaTex will be in some kinds of food packaging where plastic is currently being used. Ms. Hughes is looking forward to moving ahead with her idea. She wants to try to make her recipe for making her plastic even better. She hopes the award money will help her with the process of getting MarinaTex into use as quickly as possible.
1. Why did Lucy Hughes invent MarinaTex?| A．To turn waste into treasure. |
| B．To win James Dyson Award. |
| C．To gain people's wide attention. |
| D．To help the local fishing business. |
| A．It is of higher quality. |
| B．It is more convenient to use. |
| C．Its production cost is fairly low. |
| D．It can break down in a short time. |
| A．MarinaTex has been put to practical use. |
| B．Lucy Hughes hopes for more fund support. |
| C．Lucy Hughes intends to improve her invention. |
| D．MarinaTex will replace regular plastic in food packaging. |
| A．Red Algae: the Best Binder to Hold Materials |
| B．Young Inventor Creates Plastic from Fish Skin |
| C．Fish Waste Has Affected the Environment Seriously |
| D．Lucy Hughes: an English Inventor Won James Dyson Award |
【推荐3】We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse.For my grandchildren,I’d know better.I’d really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and home-made ice cream and leftover meatloaf.I really would.
My cherished boys,I hope you learn humility by surviving failure and that you learn to be honest even when no one is looking.I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother.And it is all right to draw a line down the middle of the room,but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he’s scared,I hope you’ll let him.And when you want to see a Disney movie and your kid brother wants to tag along,I hope you take him.
I hope you have to walk uphill with,your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books,and when you learn to use computers,you also learn how to add and subtract in your head.
May you skin your knee climbing a mountain,burn your hand on the stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole（旗杆）.I hope you get sick when someone blows smoke in your face.I don’t care if you try beer once,but I hope you won’t like it.
I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your grandpa or go fishing with your uncle.I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through a neighbor’s window,and that she hugs you and kisses you when you give her a plaster of pared mold of your hand.
These things I wish for you—tough times and disappointment,hard work and happiness.
1. Who wrote the letter?| A．A grandmother. | B．A grandfather. |
| C．A father. | D．A mother. |
| A．They learn a lesson from a fight with others. |
| B．They know how to calculate with computers. |
| C．They have a close relationship with one another. |
| D．They burn their hand on the stove and stick their tongue on a frozen flagpole. |
| A．To show the boys it’s not easy growing up. |
| B．To teach the boys dos and don’ts on the way growing up. |
| C．To help the boys to avoid making mistakes on the way growing up. |
| D．To encourage the boys to fully experience life on the way growing up. |
【推荐1】In 2000, when I was around seven years old, my parents, sister, brother, and I were coming back from a T-ball game. There, in our driveway, we spotted two adult geese and a small gosling. The adults were startled by our return and flew away, but their baby was still too young to fly. We are no strangers to wildlife, so we avoided physical contact with the small gosling out of fear that it would keep us in its mind and be lost to its family forever. Hours passed, and night fell. The tiny little thing was wandering around our yard, unaware of what could happen.
And then another morning. And still another. Each morning, we would try to drive the goose over to his parents, who kept coming back to our yard. He wouldn’t go to them, though, and they wouldn’t come close enough to collect him. My sister Joanna decided to call the little guy Peeper, because he would follow us around the yard making a peeping noise, nonstop.
Almost a year passed. My family filled our days with feathery hugs and my dad would throw Peeper up into the air so he could fly a circle around the house.
One evening, my uncle came, and my dad wanted to show him Peeper’s circle. He threw him up in the air, but this time, Peeper just flew off. Everyone was very, very sad. We looked for him for days, calling his name, but he didn’t come back. Twenty years passed, and Peeper became a fond memory for my family.
Geese are very loyal, never forgetting their first home. Even so, it came as a total shock to me when, in 2020,an aging adult goose appeared at my home. At first, I assumed it was just another goose. After two weeks of the goose coming back repeatedly, it became clear to me that this wasn’t a random goose. He did all of the same things Peeper used to and responded to the name Peeper. My old best friend returned, 20 years later.
People desire connection with the natural world. Through Peeper, I have learned so much about myself and about the nature of love.
1. What does the underlined word “startled” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Moved. | B．Frightened. | C．Confused. | D．Attracted. |
| A．They were worried about its health. | B．They didn’t know what to do with it. |
| C．They didn’t want it to take them as its family. | D．They feared being attacked by its parents. |
| A．Pitiful. | B．Entertaining. | C．Discouraging. | D．Rewarding. |
| A．My Goose Returned Home | B．Dad Trained Goose |
| C．The Love for Nature | D．A friendly Goose |
September is around the corner, and some of us are already complaining about summer’s end. But parents have a special reason to do so. The end of summer means the start of school. And these days, planning a young child’s schedule is a big challenge. The challenge is no longer finding activities to fill a child’s day; it is saying no to the hundreds of options available. Our mailbox is filled with brochures urging us to sign our kids up for classes from cooking to martial arts(武术).
Educators are themselves discouraged by the number of special classes that many children attend. In the name of “enrichment,” three-year-olds not only go to preschool in the morning but study French or gymnastics after lunch. One teacher tells of a four-year-old asking for help in the toilet before hurrying off to tennis. Another teacher says that children sometimes hold on to her at pickup time. What happened to unstructured time?
A generous explanation is that we enjoy giving children opportunities we never had. The truth however is that many parents have doubts about how much time they spend away from their families. And one way to reduce this guilt is to believe that time spent in these classes is somehow more beneficial to children than the time we know we should be giving them ourselves.
David Elkind, an expert on children, suggests that the 1960s gave birth to the belief that earlier is better. Parents hope that early music lessons, for example will build a child’s confidence. The truth, however, is that any time children are asked to do too much, too soon, they are at greater risk for feelings of failure.
A child’s time does not have to be planned to be meaningful. Remember the lazy days of summer? Some children sleep late and play with the kids across the street until it’s time to come home for dinner. However, with the majority of mothers working, fewer children enjoy that idle (空闲的) time now.
Come September, children across the country will finish a full day of kindergarten, only to attend an after-school program until 6 P.M., when a working mom or dad comes to take them home. That’s too much for a five-year old. Finances, of course, do limit some parents. But let’s be honest with ourselves – our own busy schedules, whatever they involve, are no excuse for burdening a young child’s.
1. The author holds that it’s a challenge to plan a schedule for a child mainly because _____.
| A．a child’s schedule is too complex |
| B．activities suitable for kids are limited |
| C．parents are stuck in numerous choices |
| D．children always say no to parents’ advice |
| A．children love to stay at school |
| B．they are popular with children |
| C．children dislike after-school classes |
| D．after-school classes are of poor quality |
| A．Parents want to make up for their own regrets. |
| B．After-school classes develop children’s potential. |
| C．Parents have doubt about their own ability to guide children. |
| D．After-school classes give parents an excuse for being absent. |
| A．For children’s benefits, the earlier the better. |
| B．Children’s spare time should be carefully designed. |
| C．Idle time for children is becoming a thing of the past. |
| D．Parents should be forgiven if they have a good reason., |
【推荐3】Did you know that Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years old, and could not read until he was seven? His parents and teachers worried about his mental (大脑的) ability.
Beethoven’s music teacher said about him, “As a composer (作曲家) he is hopeless.” What if this young boy had believed it?
When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid that he could never learn anything. He once said, “I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of my class ... My father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided that I was a stupid person.” What if young Thomas had believed what they said about him?
When the sculptor (雕刻家) Auguste Rodin was young, he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning disability. His father said of him, “I have an idiot (白痴) for a son.” His uncle agreed. “He’s uneducable,” he said. What if Rodin had doubted his ability?
Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor because he was thought to have no “good ideas”. Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, “You can’t sing. You have no voice at all.” And an editor told Louisa May Alcott that she was unable to write anything that would have popular attraction.
What if these people had listened and become discouraged? Where would our world be without the music of Beethoven, the art of Rodin or the ideas of Albert Einstein and Walt Disney? As Oscar Levant once said, “It’s not what you are but what you don’t become that hurts.”
You have great potential (潜力). When you believe in all you can be, rather than all you cannot become, you will find your place on earth.
1. How many successful people are mentioned as examples in the passage?| A．Six. | B．Seven. | C．Eight. | D．Nine. |
| A．When he was young, Thomas Edison always got good grades at school. |
| B．Levant thought Louisa May Alcott couldn’t write any popular works. |
| C．Only Auguste Rodin’s uncle regarded him a boy of learning ability. |
| D．Both Enrico Caruso and Beethoven achieved their dreams in music. |
| A．He is too stupid to be taught. | B．He is very clever. |
| C．He is different. | D．He is a late success. |
| A．Working Hard for Success | B．Having Dreams |
| C．Believing in Yourself | D．Self-challenging |
