By the time she turned 18, Khadijah Williams had attended twelve schools. She had lived in shelters, in parks, and in motels, never in a permanent residence for more than a few months. She had been laughed at and looked down upon by students at a dozen schools who thought of her as “different”.
Homeless since early childhood, Khadijah struggled all her life to hide her circumstances from teachers and fellow students. However, academic achievement proved to be a way for her to find confidence in herself again. For instance, at the age of 9, she placed in the 99th percentile on a state exam, and her teacher told her she was “gifted”. From that moment forward, Khadijah decided to do whatever it took to keep herself in that category. “I was so proud of being smart. I often heard my fellow students say, ‘You got the easy way out because you're homeless,’” she told The LA Times. “But I never saw it as an excuse about living a less successful life.”
By the second year of high school, she realized that she could not succeed in getting the education she dreamed of without getting help to go beyond what her current school could offer. She talked to teachers and advisers who helped her apply for summer community college classes, scholarships, and enrichment programs. And in the 11th grade, when she enrolled at Jefferson High School, she decided to complete the rest of her school career there—a decision that meant taking a bus each morning at 4 a.m. and not getting home until 11 p.m.
Here's the end of the story—when Khadijah poured the story of her life into her Harvard University college application, she was accepted.
1. What makes Khadijah confident in herself?| A．Her different personality. | B．Her ability to live well alone. |
| C．Her excellent performance in study. | D．Her fellow students' encouragement. |
| A．It's a really pitiful circumstance. | B．It makes her more strong-minded. |
| C．It offers her more ways to succeed. | D．It's an excuse about working less hard. |
| A．Pass a college entrance exam. | B．Apply for more advanced education. |
| C．Make a decision to complete high school. | D．Become a top student in her current school. |
| A．Twelve Schools Make a Successful Student |
| B．Being Different Means Having More Chances |
| C．Khadijah Williams: From Shelters to Harvard |
| D．Khadijah Williams: Inspiration to Homeless People |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Ridgewood is a small town 20 miles from Manhattan, New York. It is a quiet town, perfect for raising children away from the rapid pace of the city. However, besides hours of homework, many Ridgewood children have too many afterschool activities－from swimming to piano classes. Some kids compare their life to that of a New York general manager who has an 80hour workweek.
Children's schedules filled with homework and activities made a lot of townspeople worried, so the town decided to start a movement called “Ridgewood Family Night－Ready, Set, Relax！” The mayor (市长) made a public statement, calling for a townwide night for families to do nothing. And schools and clubs agreed to support the movement so families could relax and get together.
Some parents like to talk about their childhood, one without so many scheduled afterschool activities. As kids, they just went out to play with neighborhood friends after school. However, almost all these parents take their children to their regularly scheduled activities. These fathers and mothers feel it is their duty to make sure their children are prepared to survive in today's highpressure work environment. They are afraid that their children can't enter the “right” universities and won't succeed in a more and more competitive world.
However, it seems that Family Night worked, at least to a certain degree. Cars moved freely around Ridgewood's normally busy downtown streets. Some families ate supper together for the first time in months. One family watched home movies of when the children were little, baked cookies and played games together.
At first, some people were excited that they could take back their lives. But sadly, few families now believe that one night will change them. Nearly all of the townspeople are sure that they will fall back into the old habit.
1. Which of the following can be used to describe the life of Ridgewood children?| A．Really exiting. | B．Very relaxing. |
| C．Quite peaceful. | D．Terribly busy. |
| A．They can learn and share knowledge. |
| B．They can rest and enjoy family time. |
| C．They have more time to discuss family matters. |
| D．They have enough time to talk about schoolwork. |
| A．Spending a happy childhood. | B．Doing things at their own pace. |
| C．Working hard for a better future. | D．Enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle. |
| A．It won't change their lifestyle. | B．It will help take back their lives. |
| C．It can't be accepted by the public. | D．It may help break kids' bad habits. |
【推荐2】Tutoring a New Normal
It's not piano lessons or dance classes. Nowadays, the biggest extracurricular activity in the West is going to a tutor. “I spend about 800 [Canadian] dollars a month on tutors. It’s costly,” says Pat, a mother in Canada. However, she adds, “After finding out half my daughter’s class had tutors, I felt like my child was going to fall behind because everyone else seemed to be ahead.”
Shelley, a mother of three, also has tutors constantly coming in and out of her home. “When I used to sit down with my children, it was hard to get them focused. I was always yelling. When I got a tutor once a week, they became focused for one entire hour and could get most of their homework done.”
Tutoring isn’t simply a private school phenomenon. Nor is it geared only toward lower-achieving students. In Canada alone, seven percent of high school students reported using a tutor in 2010. That increased to 15 percent in five years.
Overall, parents hire tutors because they are worried that schools are not meeting their expectations, but there is also a cultural shift. A special value is placed on education in Asia, where tutoring is viewed as an extension of the school day. With a large number of Asians emigrating (移民) to the West in recent years, their attitudes towards education have had an impact.
Another reason for the growth in business is parental frustration and their packed schedules. “A lot of parents just don’t have time to help their children with homework,” says Julie Diamond, president of an American tutoring company. “Others couldn’t help their children after Grade Three.”
There has been a shift in the attitudes, too. “Children used to get bullied (欺侮) for having a tutor,” Diamond says. “Now it’s becoming the norm to have one.”
Children themselves don’t seem to mind that they have a tutor. One parent feels surprised that so many of her child’s classmates have tutors. “For the amount we pay in tuition, they should have as much extra help as they need,” she says. Still, she’s now thinking of getting a tutor. Why? Her daughter has actually asked for one.
1. The tutoring business in the West has seen growth in recent years because_______.① immigrants from Asia have had an impact on people’s attitudes toward tutoring
② a lot of parents are too occupied to help their children with homework
③ children no longer get bullied for getting extra help from a tutor
④ many schools cannot offer as much extra help as their students need
| A．①②③ | B．①②④ |
| C．①③④ | D．②③④ |
| A．seven percent | B．eight percent |
| C．ten percent | D．fifteen percent |
| A．her children’s school was not meeting her expectations |
| B．over half of her children’s classmates had tutors |
| C．her children’s homework was too difficult for her |
| D．she had a hard time getting her children focused |
| A．Pat got a tutor because she couldn’t help her child with homework. |
| B．Shelley spends about 800 Canadian dollars on tutors every month. |
| C．Most students who use a tutor have poor scores at school. |
| D．Asians usually place more emphasis on education than Westerners. |
【推荐3】How To Teach Your Children Proper Manners
Do you think that proper manners are going the way of the dinosaur?
Model good manners. If you yawn or cough or sneeze without covering your mouth, how can you expect your child to do it? If you don’t say, “Excuse me” when you are interrupting a conversation, they will never learn to.
Teach phone manners.
Teach eye contact. When your child is speaking to an adult, teach him to look the adult in the eye and speak clearly.
These are just a few small ways to start your child down the path to good manners. Before you know it, they will be polite little ladies and gentlemen, and will have you to thank for a great start!
| A．Start at the beginning. |
| B．Teach them to write thank-you notes. |
| C．Teach your child to answer the phone by introducing herself. |
| D．Do you think it’s too late to teach your children proper manners? |
| E．The best way to teach your child common manners is to model it yourself! |
| F．Mumbling or checking out his shoes is inappropriate and unacceptable. |
| G．They will learn that in order to get what they want, they will have to be polite. |
【推荐1】I got married just after I graduated from college and found a job to support our family at the nearby Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT). It was in the laboratory of Prof. Edward Lorenz that I learned what a computer was and how to develop software.
One day my husband saw a newspaper advertisement. The MIT Instrumentation Laboratory was looking for people to develop software to “send man to the moon”. Deeply attracted both by the idea and the fact that it had never been done before, I became the first programmer to join and the first woman the lab hired.
At the beginning, nobody thought software was such a big deal. But then they began to realize how much they were relying on it. Our software needed to be very reliable and able to detect an error and recover from it at any time during the mission.
My daughter, Lauren, liked to intimate me—playing astronaut. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation (模拟) of a mission to the moon. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, she selected a program which was supposed to be run before launch. The computer had so little space that it wiped the navigation data taking her to the moon. I thought: my God—this could happen by accident in a real mission. I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and NASA said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake.
On the very next mission, Apollo 8, one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created destruction and required the mission to be rearranged. After that, they let me put the program change in. It was the program change that had a crucial influence on the success of the mission of Apollo 11.
During the early days of Apollo, software was not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines (学科). It was out of desperation I came up with the term “software engineering”. Then one day in a meeting, one of the most respected hardware experts explained to everyone that he agreed with me that the process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware. It was a memorable moment.
1. What do we know about the author?| A．She created the term “software engineering”. |
| B．She is the first woman ever hired by MIT. |
| C．She taught Lauren to write software. |
| D．She got her master’s degree from MIT. |
| A．a pet to accompany Lauren | B．a mistake causing data loss |
| C．a software ending prelaunch | D．a mission to land on the moon |
| A．The in-time upload of data. | B．Astronauts’ rich experience. |
| C．Experts’ new attitude. | D．The program change. |
| A．Honesty is the best policy. | B．Two heads are better than one. |
| C．Chances favor the prepared mind. | D．A good beginning is half done. |
【推荐2】Growing up in Venezuela, there was never really much cause to learn English.
For years I knew nothing past “hello,” until I started high school. For five years, I spent two hours a week immersed in understanding the verb “to be”, numbers, colors, and the difference between saying “good evening” and “good night”.
I thought two hours a week was enough time to invest in learning a foreign language. I would always get top marks, and my teachers would regularly praise me.
Even as an adult, I still thought I spoke the language, just by understanding English menus or translating common phrases.
Yep, that used to be me, walking like a queen among everyday Spanish speakers.
“Bring it on, life,” I said.
“I can handle whatever you’ve got; I’m a rock star.” But when I moved to Canada, life hit me so hard that it knocked me down. Years later, I am still recovering.
Living in a new land, with different people, new rules, new weather, a new culture and language, I was no longer a queen.
Did I speak English?
No, not at all.
So, I went back to school, thinking that it was a challenge I would conquer in record time. But the reality was different. English was more like a solid wall in my path.
Even after getting a job, it took all my courage to stop myself from hiding in the washroom during my lunch break, crying, completely overwhelmed (不知所措的) and scared.
Learning English, speaking, listening – it hurt me. Not the language. Not the unkind people, it hurt because I wasn’t good, despite my efforts.
Now, after almost seven years in Canada, I’ve decided not to apologize for my accent, grammar mistakes, or pronunciation. I’m going to chase my dreams and enjoy a beautiful, rich, and fascinating language without being ashamed.
Don’t get me wrong, my brain still screams “Give me a break!” from time to time, but that’s completely natural.
I know it’s going to take a while, but at least now I accept the person I am – not the perfect person I thought I was.
1. What do we learn about learning English in Venezuela?| A．Everyone invested a lot of time in it. |
| B．It could bring a lot of benefits to students. |
| C．Its standard was very high in high school. |
| D．It didn’t require much effort. |
| A．She was proud of her command of foreign languages. |
| B．She felt confident enough to face any challenge. |
| C．She delighted in all kinds of competition. |
| D．She looked down on others. |
| A．She expected to improve her English easily. |
| B．She regretted not working hard in English. |
| C．She quickly put her language talent to use. |
| D．She adjusted to the new environment rapidly. |
| A．The author now can pass as a native speaker. |
| B．The author has conquered English eventually. |
| C．The author has a realistic understanding of herself. |
| D．The author is frustrated with her English. |
【推荐3】Al Larson, also known as “The Bluebird Man”, first began his labor of love after he read an article that described how building birdhouses could help to control their falling populations. After seeing a bluebird going in and out of a dead tree in his yard, Larson became inspired to start setting up little boxes that could serve as nests (鸟窝) for bluebirds.
What started as a hobby in his retirement turned into a full-time effort — and after almost forty years of devotion, he has recorded over 30,000 bluebirds, thanks to the 350 birdhouses that he has built across southwest Idaho. He often travels over 5,000 miles to check on all of his boxes during the summer nesting season.
Since bluebirds live in dead or nearly-dead trees, their population began to drop after the invention of the electric chainsaw (链锯) in the early 1900s, which made it easier for homeowners to remove their dead trees. In addition to having their habitats destroyed, the use of pesticides (杀虫剂) caused an uncertain future for the bluebirds of Idaho. But the efforts of Larson have shown us that if we take a moment to understand the needs of a species, we’ll find a way to deal with the problem. Though he is nearing the age of 97, Larson shows no signs of slowing down. Also, his inspiring story has been turned into a documentary Bluebird Man.
“Al is a living example of how much one person can achieve when they set their mind on a task. But he’s also an example of the benefits that a project like this can have for people,” filmmaker Matthew Podolsky said. “Bluebirds have given meaning to Al’s life, and they are truly the secret to his long life.”
1. Why is Al famous as “The Bluebird Man”?| A．He likes observing bluebirds. |
| B．He often feeds food to bluebirds. |
| C．He set up many boxes for bluebirds. |
| D．He made the documentary Bluebird Man. |
| A．In dead trees. | B．In Al’s house. |
| C．In gardens. | D．In boxes. |
| A．The government controlled the populations of bluebirds. |
| B．The nests for bluebirds was destroyed by people. |
| C．Bluebirds lived in dead trees and were short of food. |
| D．Their habitats have been destroyed and people often used pesticides. |
| A．Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. |
| B．The roses in her hand, the flavor in mine. |
| C．One is never too old to learn. |
| D．All roads lead to Rome. |
【推荐1】Sushila, who lives in Basti, a village in western India, has been a symbol of hope thanks to her continuous efforts in education.
Twenty years ago, Sushila noticed that there was no Anganwadi(印度贫困地区教育中心)in her neighborhood. As a strong believer in education, she decided to open one in Basti. However, no one was willing to help her, and there was very little government support. So, she started an Anganwadi in her home, where she taught for two years. Later, the Anganwadi moved to a temple.
"Initially, children would not come to the Anganwadi because their parents would take them to the fields," said Sushila. However, she refused to let this bring her down and kept making door—to—door visits to encourage the villagers and get them on board. Slowly, the villagers warmed up to the idea and began to send their children to the Anganwadi.
Sushila started the Anganwadi in 1091 and continued it till 2002. In the 11 years, she helped more than 250 children learn the basics of education for free! "The kids' families were too poor to pay for education. Sometimes the parents would give me food grains, but I never expected any money, she said.
Then the Anganwadi was turned into a government school — Balwadi Vidya Mandir — in 2003—2004.
Sushila is also an untraditional woman. She married Baburao, an agricultural laborer who had two sons from his previous marriage. And she completely turned his life around. Being poor, Baburao had to drop out of school in Grade 2. "I always wanted my children to get education and live a life different from mine, so we sent all of them to school," said Baburao. “Today, everybody in the village wonders how the children of a laborer are so educated. My elder son is a teacher while the younger one is a policeman: And the child of Sushila and me is a professor of Geography."
1. Why didn't the children in Basti go to Anganwadi before 1991?| A．The children were unwilling to go to school. |
| B．The government hadn't set up enough Anganwadis. |
| C．Their parents didn’t realize the importance of education. |
| D．Their poor family couldn't afford the high Anganwadi fees. |
| A．Started to accept. | B．Came up with. |
| C．Kept a distance from. | D．Made an impact on. |
| A．He regrets not having an opportunity to get educated. |
| B．Education has enabled their children to live a better life. |
| C．He's proud that all their children can earn a lot of money. |
| D．His wife succeeded in teaching their children on her own. |
| A．Respectable. | B．Effortless. | C．Complicated. | D．Competitive. |
【推荐2】Alex Elman runs a big business—something hard to imagine after she lost her sight in her twenties. But Elman says that losing her sight helped her focus on finding success.
Elman’s father planted a hillside vineyard(葡萄园) in western Massachusetts in 1981. It’s where Elman spent the darkest period of her life. When she was 27 years old, she went blind as a result of diabetes(糖尿病) 17 years ago. She recalled, “I hid in my home. I hid in the place, to me, that was the safest place in the world.”
However, she found a new way forward.
Elman is the founder of Alex Elman Wines, a growing competitor of organic wines from all around the world: Chianti from Italy, Torrontes from Argentina.
Elman isn’t solitary in her work. Instead, she has a good assistant, a guide dog named Hanley. Hanley is something of a professional wine taster and travels to all of the wine factories that Elman runs, from South America to Europe.
At first, Elman wouldn’t accept a guide dog. Now it’s hard to imagine her life, or her business, without him. She said, "When someone tells me something is organic and I don’t really believe it because I taste something funny on it, I’ll put it in front of his face and if he likes the wine, he’ll actually go in and sniff it. If it’s not right, he’ll turn his head away. That’s how we know whether the soil is actually organic.”
Elman believes the loss of her sight was a gift from God. She said, “It allowed me to pay attention to what I thought was important. Therefore, adapt to a situation, and you’ll be all right. Because you can’t change it anyway, right?”
1. How old was Elman when she began suffering from diabetes?| A．About 10 years old. | B．About 17 years old. |
| C．About 27 years old. | D．About 37 years old. |
| A．Fortunate. | B．Alone. |
| C．Skilled. | D．Active. |
| A．He will shake his head. |
| B．He will make faces at Alex Elman. |
| C．He will turn away and go home. |
| D．He will refuse to go in and sniff it. |
| A．She is something of a professional wine taster. |
| B．She found herself a guide dog soon after she went blind. |
| C．She takes a positive attitude towards her loss of sight. |
| D．She always regards her home as the safest place in the world. |
Winner of 5 Olympic Gold Medals
“In 1997 I was found to have developed diabetes(糖尿病) . Believing my career was over, I felt extremely low. Then one of the specialists said there was no reason why I should stop training and competing. That was it — the encouragement I needed. I could still be a winner if I believe in myself. I am not saying that it isn’t difficult sometimes. But I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t finished yet. Nothing is to stand in my way.”
Karen Pickering
Swimming World Champion
“I swim 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. I manage that sort of workload by putting it on top of my diary. This is the key to success—you can’t follow a career in any field without being well-organized. List what you believe you can achieve. Trust yourself, write down your goals for the day, however small they are, and you’ll be a step closer to achieving them.”
Kirsten Best
Poet & Writer
“When things are getting hard, a voice inside my head tells me that I can’t achieve something. Then, there are other distractions, such as family or hobbies. The key is to concentrate. When I feel tense, it helps a lot to repeat words such as ‘calm’, ‘peace’ or ‘focus’, either out loud or silently in my mind. It makes me feel more in control and increases my confidence. This is a habit that can become second nature quite easily and is a powerful psychological tool.”
1. What does Sir Steven Redgrave mainly talk about?
| A．Difficulties influenced his career |
| B．Specialists offered him medical advice. |
| C．Training helped him defeat his disease. |
| D．He overcame the shadow of illness to win. |
| A．Her achievements | B．Her daily happenings |
| C．Her training schedule | D．Her sports career |
| A．Ways that help one to focus. |
| B．Activities that turn one’s attention away. |
| C．Words that help one to feel less tense. |
| D．Habits that make it hard for one to relax. |
| A．Hard work. | B．Devotion. |
| C．Courage. | D．Self-confidence. |
