Bill Porter was born with cerebral palsy (脑瘫), which made it difficult for him to move his arms and legs and even speak. There was much prejudice against people in his situation. This is because few understood that a person only had limitations for certain activities, not for all of them. Only one person trusted him: his mother. She knew the boy was smart and interested in learning.
After entering adulthood, Bill didn’t want to give up his life to inactivity. He dreamed of being useful and successful. In fact, he loved sales, as he liked being in contact with others. Many people told him that becoming a salesman would be impossible in his condition. After several unsuccessful job searches, Bill applied for Watkins company. At first, he was rejected. When Bill proposed to run the route of least profit, the manager reconsidered and decided to hire him. Bill didn’t go well on the sales route. In the first few days, Bill had a lot of cold shoulder treatment, and he began to doubt whether he was really suitable for the job.
One day, Bill went to a park to enjoy the meal his mother had packed for him. It was a simple sandwich. However, there was something very special in it. It had two words written with ketchup (番茄酱): “patience” and “persistence”. Bill regained the excitement he had been losing door after door in the morning after seeing his mother’s message.
His efforts finally paid off. The door that once shut began to keep open to him. Some customers even became his friends. Bill Porter found his path to success, both financially and personally. In fact, he became Watkins’ top salesman in a short time.
Bill Porter worked for 40 years for that company and collected awards, medals, and even admirers. A local newspaper reported his story in 1995. TNT turned his story into a movie in 2002. He died at the age of 81, in 2013.
1. Why were people prejudiced against Bill?| A．He was badly disabled. | B．He was not intelligent. |
| C．He had little schooling. | D．He was poor-spirited. |
| A．The jokes of others. | B．The salary of salesmen. |
| C．The attitude of customers. | D．The rejection of the manager. |
| A．She was good at cooking. |
| B．She set an example for her son. |
| C．She encouraged Bill to do what he liked. |
| D．She hoped Bill would give up his dream. |
| A．Determined. | B．Energetic. |
| C．Warm-hearted. | D．Considerate. |
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【推荐1】Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy and affordable meals.
Evan Lutz is enthusiastic about correcting that social injustice. And he combines that goal with enthusiasm for business. Lutz is CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, a business which collects and sells “ugly” produce. These are fruits and vegetables that most food companies would throw away. More than six billion pounds are wasted each year due to surface imperfections.
“So I’ll give you an example.” Lutz says, “If you go to a grocery store you will see all the produce lineup shiny, perfect, of the same size and color. But on a farm, everything doesn’t grow the same way. So all that stuff that doesn’t grow the same way often gets thrown out. And what we do is take all that normally gets thrown out because of its odd size or shape, box it up and deliver it to our customers once a week.”
For Evan Lutz, giving back to others came form his upbringing. “When I was growing up, my parents taught me the values of giving back, and giving is a lot more powerful than receiving. We sell produce with a purpose and that doesn’t just mean we reduce food from going to waste. We hire people that were formerly in prison or were formerly injured or sick living in homeless shelters. They really wanted to get back on their feet for a second chance in life.”
Evan Lutz is really happy to be realizing great mission that he thinks can really revolutionize the food industry in America.
1. The social injustice in Paragraph 2 refers to the fact that _________.| A．vegetables and fruits that don’t taste good are thrown away |
| B．grocery stores only sell produce of the same size |
| C．poor Americans can not afford healthy food |
| D．much produce gets wasted while many Americans starve |
| A．Deliver food for free. | B．Collect “ugly” produce and sell it. |
| C．Raise money for the poor. | D．Buy “ugly” produce and process it. |
| A．To provide them with a job. | B．To reduce labor costs. |
| C．To increase productivity. | D．To earn a better reputation. |
| A．Creating More Jobs for the Less Fortunate. |
| B．Putting Healthy Food on Dinner Table. |
| C．Giving Unused Produce a Purpose. |
| D．Making Profits from Shiny Produce. |
【推荐2】A cancer survivor has become the first woman to complete an exhausting “Sea to Summit” triathlon (三项全能运动) which saw her swim, cycle, and run over 330 miles in just five days. Andrea Mason was overjoyed when she crossed the finish line early Wednesday morning.
The race was set in the French Alps. Setting off at 6:15am on Friday, 39-year-old Mason battled through severe pain, and hallucinations(幻觉), but she pushed on—managing to complete the race in an impressive four days, 23 hours, and 41 minutes. Andrea had been diagnosed with cancer and needed life-saving surgery. Following a successful operation, she is now hoping to raise awareness of women’s health. In the past year, Andrea set up her own charity, Lady Talk Matters, in order to improve surrounding female’s health.
Andrea, from Blackpool in Lancashire, England, said, “I am so happy all went according to plan as there were so many things that could have gone wrong. I wanted to do it in five days, and I did, but it was very tough. I had some low moments, particularly when I couldn’t sleep in my limited rest periods, and when I couldn’t keep any food down as I was running. For sure I had some doubts along the way as I was exploring the unknown with such a huge run, particularly as large parts of it were in the dark. It was bigger than I imagined, the impact on my body was huge. But every time I felt like giving up, I thought about all the women out there in pain or who still hadn’t been diagnosed. That is why I put myself through this.”
Andrea had to swim 23 miles around Lake Annecy, cycle 205 miles with 30,000 feet of vertical climbing around Mont Blanc, and run 105 miles with 4,000 feet of vertical climbing around The Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc. You could say Andrea’s actually spent a lifetime training for an event like this. She completed her first three-mile race “powered by chocolate bars” when she was just four.
1. What brought Andrea Mason so much joy?| A．She joined a race | B．She defeated cancer. |
| C．She finished a marathon in five days. | D．She finished a triathlon lately. |
| A．To help the poor women. | B．To promote women’s health. |
| C．To focus on women’s life. | D．To raise the status of women. |
| A．When she couldn’t eat | B．When she couldn’t sleep. |
| C．When she ran at night | D．When she couldn’t give up. |
| A．Her strong willpower. |
| B．Her family’s support. |
| C．Thinking of other women who might be in pain or have cancer. |
| D．Thinking of other women who had more pain. |
| A．Andrea liked sports very much. |
| B．Andrea faced huge challenges. |
| C．As a little girl, Andrea won many races. |
| D．Andrea’s success lied in long -term effort. |
【推荐3】In our family, the presents we gave one another were almost always homemade. I thought that was the definition of a gift: something you made for someone else. We made all our Christmas gifts: piggy banks from old bottles, and puppets from retired socks. It didn’t seem like a hardship to me; it was something special.
My father loves wild strawberries, so for Father’s Day my mother would almost always make him strawberry cakes. While we kids were responsible for the berries, we each got an old jar and spent the Saturday before the celebration in the fields, filling it as more ended up in our mouths. Finally, we returned home and poured them out on the kitchen table to sort out the bugs. I’m sure we missed some, but Dad never mentioned the extra protein.
In fact, he thought that was the best possible present, or so he had us convinced. It was a gift that could never be bought. As children raised by strawberries, we were probably unaware that the gift of berries was from the fields themselves, not from us. Our gift was time, attention, care and “red” fingers.
Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, a duty of sorts to give, to receive, and to exchange. The field gave to us, we gave to my dad, and we tried to give back to the strawberries. When the berry season was done, the plants would send out its red runners to make new plants. So I would weed out little fields of ground where the runners touched down. Sure enough, tiny little roots would emerge from the runner and by the end of the season there were even more plants, ready to bloom under the next strawberry season. No person taught us this — the strawberries showed us. Because they had given us a gift, an ongoing relationship opened between us.
1. What is the author’s belief about a gift?| A．It should be practical and valuable. | B．It should be luxurious and special. |
| C．It should be purchased from a store. | D．It should be made with personal effort. |
| A．Making strawberry cakes. | B．Finding the sweetest strawberries. |
| C．Going strawberry picking. | D．Baking strawberry cookies. |
| A．Making homemade gifts for her father. |
| B．Devoting time and attention to the plant. |
| C．Waiting for the strawberries to get ripe again. |
| D．Searching for fields for the plants to take roots. |
| A．How to cook with strawberries. |
| B．The importance of giving and receiving. |
| C．How to cherish homemade gifts. |
| D．The procedure of growing strawberries. |
【推荐1】It was a dream born in fire. Andrea Peterson was five when she and her mother were trapped on the ledge (窗台) of a burning building.
“Throw the kid down!” said one of the firemen below, and little Andrea leaped into lifesaving arms and a life-long ambition: She wanted to fight fires like her rescuers did.
She told that to the men who had saved her, and they laughed good-naturedly the way grown-ups do when a kid says they want to be an astronaut or a sports star. But this was back in a time when little girls weren’t even allowed to fantasize about such grand goals.
“You’ll be a good mommy,” the firemen told her, “you’ll be a good teacher, maybe you’ll be a nurse, but you can never be a fireman.”
And then, as it tends to do, life sidelined her dreams. She was studying for a degree in aviation (航空) technology — the only female in her class — and that’s where she met her husband, Dennis.
Later, Dennis was diagnosed with cancer, and Peterson spent 31 years caring for him. At 61, she went on an ambulance ride-along. It turned out to be a life-and-death situation, and Peterson felt that long-ago childhood calling. She earned her emergency medical technician license and responded to fire calls with the ambulance. She found that her years of tending to Dennis had prepared her for dealing with various hurts and ills.
After a year, she told her boss she wanted to be a firefighter.
The fact that everyone else in her training unit was between 18 and 21 didn’t stop her. She passed the written test, she cleared the physical and, finally, that little girl’s dream became a reality.
1. What inspired Peterson to be a firefighter?| A．Her physical abilities. | B．Her being rescued in fire. |
| C．Her mother’s expectation. | D．Her lifesaving experience. |
| A．They thought it was a satisfying dream. |
| B．They thought she was gifted in being a nurse. |
| C．They thought it was just a childish dream for a girl. |
| D．They thought kids should dream of being an astronaut. |
| A．Curious and wise. | B．Talented and educated. |
| C．Creative and devoted. | D．Determined and caring. |
| A．She was most experienced in her training unit. |
| B．Her dream came true because of her childhood calling. |
| C．Her aviation technology enabled her to realize her dream. |
| D．Years of attending her husband contributed to realizing her dream. |
【推荐2】As an adult, I realized that I had no skills, so I went to trade school. I entered a cabinetmaking program. I didn't think I would be good at building furniture. I’m not handy. Nobody in my family is.
I had great teachers, but making furniture is hard. There are so many steps and something can go wrong at each one. I couldn't even get organized. My toolbox always looked like hurricane had gone through it.
I didn’t fully know what I was devoting myself to at the beginning, but I kept going to class. I tried to wrap my brain around the math. The projects forced me to solve new kinds of problems. My brain started to build new connections. Working in this new physical manner and giving it 100 percent of my effort had huge benefits for my mental health. I got over fear of embarrassment and asked for help at every opportunity.
I spent that year truly learning. True learning is a humbling experience, especially for those of us who are learning a new set of skills. I could understand exactly what was wrong with the furniture I made, but I couldn't fix my mistakes. And yet, I kept trying. And failing. And failing again. Until I learned to fail better.
You're going to be bad at anything when you start out, but I was pretty bad right to the end. Even so, I finished the program — with honors! My grades were helped by my good written wort Having to constantly push beyond my comfort zone has made me a better-rounded person. Maybe most importantly, trade school gave me a more realistic idea of my strengths and limitations. I'm stronger than I thought!
1. Why did the author attend the program?| A．To develop new skills. | B．To become a handy designer. |
| C．To get more organized. | D．To learn to make furniture. |
| A．He had a gift for making furniture. |
| B．He became stronger mentally and physically eventually. |
| C．It is challenging to know how to correct mistakes. |
| D．Good written work helped him a lot. |
| A．Hard-working and confident. | B．Devoted and determined. |
| C．Intelligent and creative. | D．Modest and independent. |
| A．Practice makes perfect. | B．Learning is more than a skill. |
| C．Be a well-rounded person. | D．A good make ugly. |
【推荐3】I loved weightlifting and began to do that at 12 years old. During my first year of high school, increased the amount of training and put everything into my dream to one day compete internationally. Unfortunately, I was not a naturally-gifted athlete. But I worked hard. When I was a senior in high school, I won two national championships and earned nine national-level medals in all.
However, I didn’t make it to compete for Team USA. I didn’t meet the requirements for the IWF Youth World Championships team and was later an alternate(侯补者) for the Pan-American Youth Championships team. I struggled to accept the fact that I never achieved the one goal I worked for during the last four years, representing Team USA internationally. I lost the passion I once had for the sport and took a step back from competing for a few months.
After I started college, I once again came into contact with barbells(杠铃) during my PE classes. Once I touched the barbell again, I just wanted to continue lifting weights and see how far I could physically and mentally push myself. I decided to start training full-time again to see what I could achieve during the rest of my college years.
I stopped caring about the weight on the bar, the girls I was competing against and the idea of being on Team USA. I started focusing on being confident and consistent with every lift-training with consistent weights on the barbells, skills and positive self-encouragement. Training and weightlifting became a competition with myself, rather than with other weightlifters.
During University Nationals 2022, I represented Temple as a university student. It was the first competition in my eight years of competing where I felt confident during every lift. The work I put into the six minutes spent on the lift paid off in every way. Later, I became a 2022 All-American athlete and finally made my first international team.
1. What did the author achieve in weightlifting as a senior in high school?| A．Discovering her great weightlifting talent. | B．Competing in an international game. |
| C．Becoming a member of Team USA. | D．Winning several national medals. |
| A．Honoured. | B．Discouraged. |
| C．Nervous. | D．Satisfied. |
| A．Making progress for herself. | B．Increasing weight on the barbells. |
| C．Competing with other weightlifters. | D．Entering international weightlifting games. |
| A．Set goals and stay focused. | B．Push our limits until success. |
| C．Be ourselves and enjoy the process. | D．Get along with those better than us. |
