I try to be a good father. Cook my kids good dishes, and take them to photo shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, in marathons.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled (缠住)by the umbilical cord(脐带)during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs (四肢). “He’ll be a vegetable(植物人)the rest of his life,” doctors told Dick and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.” But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room.
When Rick was 11, they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University. Equipped with a computer, Rick was finally able to communicate. After a high school classmate was paralyzed(使瘫痪)in an accident, and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick said, “Dad, I want to do that.” How was Dick, a man who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”
That sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. They even decided to try marathons. “No way,” Dick was told by a race official. They weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years, Dick and Rick joined the massive field and ran anyway. In 1983, they ran another marathon so fast that they made the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon the following year.
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons and 85 marathons. “ My dad is the Father of the Century,” Rick typed.
4. What does the underlined sentence in paragraph 2 mean?
A.The Hoyts didn’t believe it was true. | B.The Hoyts couldn’t afford any institution. |
C.The Hoyts couldn’t deal with the situation. | D.The Hoyts had no money for their son’s treatment. |
5. What’s discussed in the third paragraph?
A.Why Rick became paralyzed. | B.How Rick started running. |
C.Why running changed Rick’s life | D.How Rick communicated with others. |
6. They got the chance to join the 1984 Boston Marathon because __________.
A.they ran a marathon very fast | B.they got support from a charity |
C.they met a sympathetic race official | D.they had become very famous in the process |
7. Which can be a suitable title for the text?
A.A boy with a rare disease | B.The greatest dad in the world |
C.A tough road to world champion | D.Parents' influence on children's future |