1 . If I have a goal in life, it isn’t to be driving a Rolls-Royce. It’s to be giving away more than $1,000,000 a year and having an impact on people’s lives. I have the success today because I always had to work for what I wanted. I grew up accustomed to risks and disappointments, so I was used to moving forward, no matter what.
In 2008, I went to Los Angeles where I tried to get hired as an agent, an analyst and a financial broker. Unfortunately, all these doors slammed in my face. The world’s economy was in a bad state, so I knew I would have to do a little spinning of my own.
Youth involves a certain innocence but also perseverance. The word “can’t” wasn’t in my vocabulary. I partnered with a friend buying distressed multifamily properties around Houston. Even though we were enthusiastic and backed with start-up sums, I didn’t make a deal work. My friend moved on to other projects. Alone, I put all my money into the next real-estate project. I put the time in, I dreamed it, but once again the deal fell through. Two months later, though, the deal came back around. That was when the path opened, luck changed, and I was ready to form my own company. I haven’t looked back. Only ahead.
I’m now able to give back to communities and causes. I donate about $500,000 a year, much of that going to research to cure rare diseases. We also support a lot of services for disadvantaged children in Houston and other places.
I have always been someone who can see the big picture and have never been distracted by things that get in the way. There are lessons to be learned, and the biggest of those is to keep going. You may have to change the path, but always keep that vision in front of you.
1. Which of the following about the author is true?| A．He donated a lot of money to improve his company’s image. |
| B．He often encountered difficulties in the process of growing up. |
| C．He started his own company together with a friend. |
| D．He changed jobs several times while in Los Angeles. |
| A．look for a part-time job independently | B．make his contributions to the economy |
| C．give in to the disappointing reality | D．be self-employed to develop his career |
| A．Perseverance. | B．Optimism. | C．Innocence. | D．Kindness. |
| A．Saying No to “Turning Back” | B．Tips for a Successful Business |
| C．Jumping over Economic Downturns | D．A Life-time Pursuit of Dream |
2 . A voice reaches us, crying out from the depths of a profound silence: “I am alive, I can think, and no one has the right to deny me these two realities...”
The words were conveyed by a flicker (跳动) of the left eyelid. It came from a book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by a former journalist, Jean-Dominique Bauby. He worked for journals like the Quotidien de Paris and Paris Match. For four years until December 1995 he was the very successful chief editor of Elle.
Then the unthinkable happened. A cardiovascular (心血管的) accident sent him into a deep coma (昏迷), from which he emerged 20 days later in a hospital on the north-east coast of France. His brain remained undamaged, but its connection to his body left him with only the ability to blink his left eyelid. The poor man was diagnosed as suffering from the rare disease “Locked-in Syndrome (闭锁综合征),” unable to breathe or eat without assistance.
It was hard to accept the transition from an “earthman in perfect working order” to what his friends termed “a vegetable.” In this inert (无活动能力的) body, however, his brain was working furiously, trying to make people understand what he was thinking. With the help of a specialised nurse, Claude Mendibil, he was able to write his book, using only his ability to blink at the most frequently used letters of the alphabet. Mendibil pointed to them on a screen: one blink for “yes,” two blinks for “no.”
He would spend most of the night editing his thoughts and composing sentences. When Mendibil arrived in the morning he could dictate them to her in a succession of (一连串) blinks. It took him about 200,000 blinks to write his book of more than 100 pages. In it, Bauby describes his paralyzed existence as being trapped in an old-fashioned deep-sea diving bell while the “butterflies” of his mind flutter about freely.
One would expect from this process a formal factual report, but that is not the case. The book reads in flowing images that light up his predicament (困境). The style is clear and fresh, and not without elegance, imagination and shafts of humour.
He is also in search of past time, of memory itself, of the books he had read, the poems he had learnt by heart. Even sadder, he thinks of all the books he wanted to read and hadn’t gotten to. He has to listen to someone else reading them to him. He recalls meals, a horse race, his life and work as an editor, and his struggle in his hospital bed to twitch his nose when a fly lands on it.
“From this hell comes a great message of life and hope,” said Antoine Audouard, a friend of Bauby’s and the book’s publisher.
1. We can learn from the article that Jean-Dominique Bauby ________.| A．died of a rare cardiovascular condition |
| B．used to be a successful journalist and editor |
| C．suffered brain damage due to Locked-in Syndrome |
| D．continued to run magazines from his hospital bed with the help of a nurse |
| A．How Bauby was able to write his book. |
| B．What The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is mainly about. |
| C．What Bauby’s life was like after he had been paralyzed. |
| D．Why Bauby’s book was named The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. |
| A．It is written in a formal and serious style. |
| B．It focuses on Bauby’s memories from his time as an editor. |
| C．It gives readers an easy-to-understand introduction to Locked-in Syndrome. |
| D．It describes Bauby’s paralyzed existence with elegant and creative language. |
| A．adaptable | B．strong-willed |
| C．imaginative | D．odd-tempered |
3 . When I was four, I lost my sight by falling off a box car and landing on my head. Now I’m thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It’d be wonderful to see again, but a disaster can do strange things to people.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this belief. It had to start with the most trivial things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. “I can’t use this,” I was hurt, thinking he was teasing me. “Take it with you,” he insisted, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. By rolling the ball I could feel where it went.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. Had I not done that, I’d have broken down and become a chair rocker for the rest of my life. And the path to the belief is never smooth.
| A．I’d fail sometimes, but on average, I made progress |
| B．This gave me an idea on something I had thought impossible to achieve |
| C．As people always say, it takes steel and temper to make a difference |
| D．It came into my mind all of a sudden |
| E．It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do now if I hadn’t been blind |
| F．Life asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality |
| A. entry B. impressive C. potential D. conducting E. affordable F. meet G. heart H. expand I. denied J. custom K. entrepreneurial |
Last spring, Karly Bierma, an 18-year-old girl from Canby High School (CHS) in Oregon, US, carried with her a spirit of go-for-it mentality. And it’s that spirit that led her down an unexpected,
Growing up on a 75-acre farm, Bierma knew from an early age that art was going to be part of her life. Along with doing chores, Bierma’s passion for art started to really ignite as a seventh-grader when the plain white walls of Ninety-One School called out to her for color and vibrancy.
As Bierma grew as an artist, she realized that she wanted to share her passion and her creations with a larger audience. But how?
“I started selling my art in the beginning of high school at markets and coffee house shows, but I just didn’t see the
Ah, the stickers. It is here that Bierma was able to watch passion, art and reality
Soon, she was selling her stickers in the hallways of CHS all day long. She also hit up five to 10 stores each weekend across Canby and other locales, just looking for a(n)
In April 2020, a group of gift representatives saw Bierma’s stickers and those middlemen were able to
“That’s when I was forced to realize that this was a business. I had to figure out invoicing, credit cards, all that fun stuff,” she said. “I had become a full-on artist who had to learn to do business. It’s fun to see a design that’s close to my
5 . The student arrived early, sat front and center, and stood out in my classroom in more ways than one. I’d say that he was about 40 years older than his classmates in my undergraduate communications class. He eagerly jumped into class discussions, with his humor and wisdom of experience. And he was always respectful of the other students’ perspectives, as if each of them were a teacher. Jerry Valencia walked in with a smile — and he left with one too.
“These students gave me the confidence that I didn’t need to feel bad about my age,” Valencia says.
One day, I spotted Valencia on campus. He said he would have to stop taking classes that semester and reapply for next year. By then, he hoped to have earned enough money from construction jobs and have his student-loan papers in order. But he said he was still coming to campus to attend events or see friends. He asked seriously whether he could still sit in on my communications class.
Sure, I said. But he wouldn’t get any credit.
No problem, he said.
Soon there he was again, back at his old desk, front and center, jumping into our discussions on how to find and tell stories in Los Angeles — a 63-year-old man with as much energy and curiosity as any of the youngsters in class. For an assignment on changing neighborhoods, Valencia wrote about a favorite local chain restaurant that was “unceremoniously closed.” He called it a theft of childhood. “It is almost as if someone has stolen that childhood and rudely replaced it with a slippery hill where everything they treasure will slide away,” he wrote.
A lot of Valencia’s classmates apparently knew he couldn’t afford that semester’s tuition but was still doing the homework. “Here he is, willingly taking a class for the delight of it and benefit of learning,” says Jessica Espinosa, a 25-year-old junior. Afterward, I overheard Valencia wanted to stay in school until he earned a master’s degree, but it had taken him 12 years to finish community college, so he had a long way to go. He had earned his associate of arts degree over the summer, then transferred to LA to start on his bachelor’s.
There is something splendidly unreasonable about Valencia’s determination to get a four-year degree and then a master’s. At his current pace, he’ll be 90 when he finally hangs all that paper on the wall. But that doesn’t seem especially relevant. He’s found all the youthful energy and academic opportunity stimulating. Valencia’s grade in my class this semester will not show up on his transcripts (成绩单). But I’m giving him an A — and in the most important ways, it counts.
1. What made Valencia different from his classmates according to Para. 1?| A．He was an early bird to attract other students’ attention. |
| B．He took pride in his age, for he often wore a smile on his face. |
| C．He was eager to draw his conclusion in the communications class. |
| D．He may often share his wise and humorous ideas in the discussion. |
| A．he got enjoyment and treasured the chance of learning |
| B．he needed the credits to further study a bachelor’s degree |
| C．he desired to attend events and have an A on his transcripts |
| D．he wanted to keep up with his classmates by learning hard |
| A．Modest and independent. | B．Energetic and generous. |
| C．Considerate and intelligent. | D．Enthusiastic and motivated. |
| A．teachers like diligent and highly-motivated students |
| B．efforts will be paid off as long as we are determined |
| C．it is never too late to learn even though we start a little late |
| D．getting an A counts when it comes to learning at a higher level |
6 . For 38-year-old Justin Herald, the journey to wealth began one Sunday morning at a church in Sydney's northwest, when he was involved in a quarrel with a member of the church choir. "You have an attitude problem," she told him.
The accusation sparked something in him, and he borrowed $50 from his brother to have four T-shirts printed with the slogan: "I don't have an attitude problem; you have a perception problem."
"It was the best $50 I ever spent," laughs Herald. By the end of the morning, he had sold three of the four T-shirts. With the money he made, he had another six printed, then 12, then 24. "That first year the earning were $98,000," he says.
His business, Attitude Inc., is now a multi-million-dollar company with a wide range of products selling in 3,500 stores across Australia. His business was due to not just clever marketing - the public loved the slogan - but also he has to admit that in those days there was very little competition in his sector of the clothing industry, and he was in the right place at the right time.
The media spotlight also helped, with people paying attention to Herald's likeable personality and infections passion for his business: the night of one TV appearance, 187 stores rang to get his products into their stores.
Herald sold the business three years ago, by which time it was turning over $30 million a year, and now spends his time as a motivational speaker. His message: anyone can be financially successful if they set their mind to it. "You have to have a lot of stickability, because not everything is going to work the way you plan it."
Still living in Castle Hill with his wife and two children, Herald believes too many successful people become caught up in the trappings of wealth. "I have lived here since I left school at 16," he says. "In this area, you don't forget where you came from."
1. Why does Herald think it was the best $50 he ever spent?| A．Because that sum of money covered the cost of four T-shirt |
| B．Because that sum of money showed his accusation was wrong. |
| C．Because he received that sum of money when he was in need. |
| D．Because he gained more than expected from that sum of money. |
| A．good timing and cooperation | B．business sense and luck |
| C．fierce competition and passion | D．family background and motivation |
| A．competence | B．conscience | C．persistence | D．fortune |
| A．Attitude Pays Off | B．No Bravery, No Gains |
| C．Start a Business | D．Never Too Old to Challenge Yourself |
7 . To Be a Deaf DJ
I was born in England with perfect hearing. In 1990, when I was five, my family moved to the United States. I started getting ear infections every three months or so. We didn’t have health insurance at the time, and when I got a third infection, my parents couldn’t afford the treatment. I went deaf in my right ear and was left with 50 percent hearing in my left. Over time, my remaining hearing dropped to 20 percent, where it is today. My doctors predicted that I would be thoroughly deaf by now, and I think I’m doing pretty well.
There was always music on in my house in my childhood. I loved listening to Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson. My dad was a DJ, so he played disco, folk, rock, and music from other countries. For my 18th birthday, my dad asked me to deejay at the restaurant. After doing that for a few weeks, I was interested in it. I desired to learn more. I e-mailed DJ Shiftee, a distinguished New York City DJ, “I know you like a challenge. How about teaching a deaf person to deejay?” He wrote back the next day, “Challenge accepted.” He tutored me twice a week for two years, helping me develop correct technique. I practiced four hours a day.
Now when I’m performing, muscle memory takes over. When I started, I wouldn’t tell the club managers that I was deaf. I would just show up, introduce myself, and start playing music. At the end of the night, someone would say, “Oh, here’s the check.” And I’d say, “What? Oh, I can’t hear.” They were always so astonished. Sometimes I would bring doctor’s notes because they wouldn’t believe me. It was reassurance that they were giving me opportunities to perform because I was brilliant, not out of sympathy. Eventually people started calling me “that deaf DJ,” and the name stuck.
What fascinates me about deejaying is the creativity. I use software that turns the music into lines of color on a computer screen. I’m visually hearing the music. The next time you go dancing, cover your ears, and you’ll start seeing that you’re able to hear the music in a different way. Music is not all about hearing. I pay all sorts of get-togethers now, from college parties to corporate events. I also go to elementary schools for the deaf and talk to the students about motivation and believing in themselves. I tell the parents, “My advice to you is let your kids chase their dreams. I’m a deaf DJ, so why not?”
1. Which of the following might result in the author’s hearing loss?| A．Monthly ear infection. | B．Moving to the U. S. |
| C．Family financial hardship. | D．The doctors’ prediction. |
| A．He taught him correct skills. | B．He discovered his talent for DJ. |
| C．He played at the restaurant for him. | D．He cultivated his taste for foreign music. |
| A．the author was in low spirits | B．the author impressed people deeply |
| C．the audience felt disappointed by the player | D．the audience looked down upon the player |
| A．working as a DJ involves creating | B．music helps him to see the world virtually |
| C．he motivates the kids to realize their dream | D．he desires to challenge something impossible |
8 . Raynor Winn and her husband Moth became homeless due to their wrong investment. Their savings had been used up to pay lawyers’ fees. To make matters worse, Moth was diagnosed with a serious disease. There was no
Failing to find any other way out, they decided to make a
This was a long journey of unaccustomed hardship and
Wild camping is
Eventually, the couple found that their bodies turned for the better, with re-found strong muscles that they thought had
During the journey, Raynor began a career as a nature writer. She writes,"Homelessness had taken every material thing from me and left me torn bare, an empty page at the end of a partly written book. It had also given me a choice, either to leave that page
| A．cure | B．luck | C．care | D．promise |
| A．business | B．walking | C．bus | D．rail |
| A．satisfied | B．frightening | C．surprising | D．disappointed |
| A．frequent | B．occasional | C．abundant | D．constant |
| A．unpopular | B．lawful | C．attractive | D．illegal |
| A．soon | B．early | C．late | D．slowly |
| A．reduced | B．controlled | C．developed | D．increased |
| A．gained | B．decreased | C．wounded | D．lost |
| A．added | B．washed | C．worn | D．ironed |
| A．loose | B．blank | C．full | D．missing |
9 . When she was ten years old, Isadora Duncan dropped out of school to teach people dance. If that job was left to any other ten-year-old, it would have turned out frustrating, difficult, and a little discouraging.
But Duncan was different. Not only was she already talented enough to earn money even at that age, but she also had a rare kind of confidence that helped her treat troubles as fuel —something to elevate the fire that is already burning inside of her.
It’s no surprise, then, that when she moved to New York to join a theatre company, she found herself restricted. The existing dancing style, their way of operating—all of this seemed to her the work of a misguided past. Duncan was very direct about what she wanted, confidently telling people she had a different vision of dance that she was going to spread in the world. This, naturally, led to ridicule and laughs early on, but as she built up her work, these instances became less frequent. Today, she is remembered as “The Mother of Dance,” with much of the modern art owing its expressive style to her influence. Inspired by the ancient Greeks, she brought the style to life.
In her autobiography (自传), one of the things Duncan frequently refers to as the basis of her expressive spirit is the fact that she had a childhood where she wasn’t constantly watched. The expectations of her mother (who raised her) were open-ended. It was the freedom of this lifestyle that drove her to see what she could do.
Growing up, before she left school, she was told one of two things: that she was either completely useless or that she was a genius. There was nothing in between. Even when she started working, people either bowed to her or they basically ignored her. But there wasn’t one moment Duncan doubted her own genius.
There is an old quotation “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” And it captures an important truth. At school, Isadora Duncan was a failure. In the dance hall, she gave form to brilliance.
1. What does the underlined phrase “treat troubles as fuel” mean?| A．Duncan used troubles to push her forward towards her dream. |
| B．Duncan was good at burning away everyday troubles. |
| C．Troubles turned Duncan into a confident girl. |
| D．Troubles lit the fire of dancing in Duncan. |
| A．Her experience in New York was the foundation of her career. |
| B．Her teaching job when she was little destroyed her confidence. |
| C．Her dancing style was not very well received at the beginning. |
| D．Her mother set higher expectation on her than she could bear. |
| A．It is useless climbing a tree to catch fish. |
| B．Everybody is a genius in his own way. |
| C．Miseries come from human stupidity. |
| D．Teachers can impact students greatly. |
| A．Isadora Duncan’s childhood and her achievements today. |
| B．Duncan’s career development and other dancers’ opinions of her. |
| C．Isadora Duncan’s early experiences and the reasons for her success. |
| D．Duncan’s high status in the dancing world and her unique expressive style. |
10 . 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 Massachusetts in 1981. It’s where Elman fled during the darkest period of her life. When she was 27 years old, she went blind due to complications from Juvenile diabetes (青少年糖尿病) 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.”
Elman is now the founder of Alex Elman Wines, a growing collection of organic wines from all around the world: Chianti from Italy, Torrontes from Argentina. Elman doesn’t work alone. Her assistant, a guide dog named Hanley, is something of a wine taster, and quite a beggar. Hanley travels to all the wineries that Elman does, from South America to Europe.
At first, Elman resisted the idea of a seeing-eye 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 … He gets in the dirt with me. He scratches around. He makes sure that we see earthworms and butterflies. That’s how we know that the soil is actually organic, that there are no chemicals.”
Elman told CBS News she believes the loss of her vision was a gift. She said, “It allowed me to pay attention to what I thought was important and also to be able to teach people that the broken hang nail is not a big deal, you know what I mean? Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t sweat the big stuff either.”
1. From Para. 2, we know that Elman ________.| A．got through her hard days in the vineyard |
| B．liked playing hide-and-seek during her childhood |
| C．suffered from Juvenile diabetes from 27 years old |
| D．lost her sight while helping with farm work in 1981 |
| A．make Hanley drink it | B．turn to Hanley for advice |
| C．order Hanley to head away | D．have another taste herself |
| A．a nail which is of no use | B．a disadvantage you have in your life |
| C．a person who is hard to deal with | D．a take that is not easy to accomplish |
| A．there is no royal road to success |
| B．a single tree does not make a forest |
| C．the eye is blind if the mind is absent |
| D．when life gives you lemons, make lemonade |
