Some people bring out the best in you in a way that you might never have fully realized on your own．My mother was one of those people．
My father died when I was one-year-old．While I was growing up, we led a very hard life, but my mom gave me a lot of love．Each night, she seated me on her lap and, spoke the words that would change my life, "Kemmons, you are sure to be a great man and you can do anything in life if you work hard enough to get it．"
At fourteen, I was hit by a car and the doctors said that I would never walk again．Every night my mother spoke to me in her gentle, loving voice, telling me whatever those doctors said, I could walk again if I wanted to．She drove that message so deep into my heart that I finally believed her．A year later, I walked on my own to school!
When the Great Depression broke out, my mother lost her job．Then I left school to support the two of us．At that moment I decided never to be poor again．
Over the years, I experienced a lot of business success．But the real turning point happened on a vacation I took with my wife and five kids in 1951．I was dissatisfied with the second-class hotels available for families and was very angry that they charged an extra $2 for each child．That was too expensive for an ordinary American family．I told my wife that I was going to open a motel （汽车旅馆） for families that would never charge extra money for children．Many people did not believe me at that time．
Not surprisingly, mom was my strongest supporter．As in any business, I experienced a lot of difficulties．But with my mom's words in my heart, I never doubted I would succeed．Fifteen years later, I had the largest hotel system in the world—Holiday Inn．In 1979 my company had 1,759 inns in more than fifty countries with an income of $l billion a year．
You may not have started out life in the best situations．But if you find a task in life worth working for and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you．
1．What Kemmon's mother often told him during his childhood was____．
A．caring B．moving C．encouraging D．interesting
2．Who played the most important role in making the author walk back to school again?
A．Doctors． B．Nurses． C．His friend． D．His mom．
3．What caused Kemmon to start a motel by himself?
A．His terrible experience in the hotel． B．His wife's suggestion．
C．His previous business success． D．His mom's support．
4．Which of the following best describes Kemmon's mother?
A．Modest, helpful and hard-working．
B．Loving, supportive and strong-willed．
C．Careful, beautiful and helpful．
D．Strict, sensitive and supportive．
5．Which of the following led to Kemmon's success?
A．Self-confidence, hard work, higher education and a poor family．
B．Mom's encouragement, clear goals, self-confidence and hard work．
C．Clear goals, mom's encouragement, a poor family and higher education．
D．Mom's encouragement, a poor family, higher education and opportunities．
When I heard the piano, I walked to Mrs. Windsor’s house and waited outside as I always did. That meant she was working with another student, and I was not supposed to bother them by ringing the bell. I stood against the wall and daydreamed what I’d rather be doing. “Almost anything”, I sighed dejectedly. I had been tutored enough to read, understand, and even write some musical compositions, but I just didn’t have a gift for it. It didn’t come to me naturally. I thought back to happier times when I was writing stories and acting them out with my friends, cutting up old clothes to make dresses that performers wear in plays, and building scenery out of old things we found. But Mrs. Windsor had offered to give me the lessons for free, so I felt my duty to try.
The door opened and Wendy Barton came out. I walked in, sat down on the piano bench and began to sort through my sheet music.
“Hello,” I heard a voice behind me say softly. I turned around to see a little girl standing behind me, eating an apple. But before I could make any response, Mrs. Windsor walked into the room in her usual urgent manner and announced,“Jennifer, this is my niece, Pasha. Pasha, this is Jennifer. Pasha will be giving you your lesson today. I’m up to my ears in something else!” she then exited to the kitchen.
Pasha set her apple down on the side table and slid beside me on the piano bench.
“What piece do you like best?”she asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “They’re all the same to me. I don’t know.
“You mean you don’t have a favorite?”
“No, not really.”
Pasha looked at me, rather puzzled, then opened my sheet music to the beginning page and asked me to play. I arranged my fingers on the keys and studied the notes on the page for a moment. Then I frowned and concentrated to make the notes on the page match the finger movements. I have to admit I was a rather mechanical pianist.
After about a page or two, Pasha gently put her hand on top of mine as if to calm my fingers. There was a long pause. “What are you hearing in the music?” I looked at her rather strangely and admitted I didn’t know what she meant.
“Like a story. What story is being playing out within the music?”
“I guess I’ve never thought about it before. I don’t know.”
“Here, let me try and you listen,” Pasha advised.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her fingers dance lightly over the keys. Then, she began to play. “See, it begins here beside some kind of river. Hear the water flowing beside you?”
Her fingers rose and fell gently on the keys.“Now the princess appears and she’s picking flowers from the water’s edge.”A carefree, happy piece of music filled the air in time to Pasha’s dancing fingers. “Oh, but she slips!”The music changed. “And our princess is being carried off by the fast-flowing stream. Quickly, the princess’s horse sees her plight (困境),” Pasha continued, and races to the river’s edge where he swims out to let her catch hold of him. They make it to the bank and she hugs her faithful horse and swears she will never again wear princess skirts that weigh her down. She will only wear jeans and T-shirt from now on.” Pasha finished with a big smile and then looked at me.
“Aren’t you the girl who tells the stories?” she asked.
“I guess. I do tell a lot of stories.”
“Oh, yes! All the kids talk about them. I’ve heard about you. Well, all you have to do is learn to hear the stories in the music. That’s all there is to it.”
“I’ve never thought it that way.”
“Let’s try another one, shall we?”Pasha smiled and together we played that afternoon, finding the stories in the music and learning that sometimes it takes a friend to pull you out of the river onto dry land again.The underlined word “dejectedly” in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______
| A．nervously | B．desperately |
| C．impatiently | D．unhappily |
Jennifer got lost in thought when she ________
| A．played the piano with Pasha for the first time |
| B．listened to Pasha tell her story about the princess |
| C．remembered happier times of writing stories and acting them out |
| D．discovered that Mrs. Windsor’s niece would be giving the piano lesson |
By describing herself as a mechanical pianist, the author showed ______
| A．she could remember the notes in a short time |
| B．she was playing the piano without thinking |
| C．Pasha was showing off her skills |
| D．it had been a long time since she played last time |
58. Which of the following can best describe Pasha?
| A．Creative | B．Naughty |
| C．Humorous | D．Brave |
Which of the following is the best title for the text?
| A．Never Give up | B．A Piano Lesson |
| C．Why I Hated Playing the Piano | D．A Friend for Ever |
This text would be probably found in ______
| A．a collection of stories about friendship and learning |
| B．a book of daily records about famous young musicians |
| C．a magazine series about the challenges of overcoming fears |
| D．a series of newspaper articles about musical instruments |
The latest research suggests that the key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success. Instead, it’s purposeful practice. Top performers spend more hours practising their craft. It you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, you’d take a girl who possessed a slightly above average language ability. It wouldn’t have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet, say, a novelist, who coincidentally shared some similar qualities. Maybe the writer was from the same town, had the same family background, or shared the same birthday.
This contact would give the girl a vision of her future self. It would hive her some idea of a fascinating circle who might someday join. It would also help if one of her parents died when she was 12, giving her a strong sense of insecurity and fueling a desperate need for success. Armed with this ambition, she would read novels and life stories of writers without end. This would give her a primary knowledge of her field. She’s be able to see new writing in deeper ways and quickly understand its inner workings.
Then she would practise writing. Her practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused. By practising in this way, she delays the automatizing process. Her mind wants to turn conscious, newly learned skills into unconscious. Automatically performed skills. By practising slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, she forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance. Then she would find an adviser who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance form the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. By now she is redoing problems — how do I get characters into a room—dozens and dozens of times. She is establishing habits of thought she can call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.
The primary quality our young writer possesses is not some mysterious genius. It’s the ability to develop a purposeful, laborious and boring practice routine; the latest research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is affected by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do. And it’s true that genes play a role in our capabilities. But the brain is also very plastic. We construct ourselves through behaviour.The passage mainly deals with.
| A．the function of I.Q. in cultivating a writer |
| B．the relationship between genius and success |
| C．the decisive factor in making a genius |
| D．the way of gaining some sense of distinction |
By reading novels and writers’ stories, the girl could.
| A．come to understand the inner structure of writing |
| B．join a fascinating circle of writers someday |
| C．share with a novelist her likes and dislikes |
| D．learn from the living examples to establish a sense of security |
In the girl’s long painstaking training process, ________.
| A．her adviser forms a primary challenging force to her success |
| B．her writing turns into an automatic pattern of performance |
| C．she acquires the magic of some great achievement |
| D．she comes to realize she is “hard-wired” to write |
What can be concluded from the passage?
| A．A fueling ambition plays a leading role in one’s success |
| B．A responsible adviser is more important than the knowledge of writing. |
| C．As to the growth of a genius, I.Q. doesn’t matter, but just his/her effort. |
| D．What really matters is what you do rather than who you are. |
Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job’s pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas;
1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
There are isolating jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.
2) How do you handle change?
Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don't happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.
3) Do you enjoy working with computers？
I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.
4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？
This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won't know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.
5) How do you like to get paid?
Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.
Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.What is unnecessary in your job hunting?
| A．Assessing your skills |
| B．Going to different areas |
| C．Matching your skills with a position |
| D．taking your personality into consideration |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Isolating jobs usually drive people mad. |
| B．Interactive jobs make people shy easily. |
| C．Extreme people tend to work with others. |
| D．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs. |
What does the underlined sentence in paragraph one mean?
| A．Before you select your job, you should assess your skills and match them with your position |
| B．There are more important things than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job. |
| C．Nothing is important than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job. |
| D．You should ignore your skills when you select job. |
What is the missing word about a job search in the following chart?
| A．Design. | B．Changes. |
| C．Cooperation. | D．Hobbies. |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Lifestyles and Job Pay | B．Jobs and Environment |
| C．Job Skills and Abilities | D．Personalities and Jobs |
It all began with a stop at a red light.
Kevin Salwen was driving his 14-year-old daughter, Hannah, back from a sleepover in 2006 . While waiting at a traffic light, they saw a black Mercedes Coupe on one side and a homeless man begging for food on the other.
“Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal.”Hannah protested. The light changed and they drove on, but Hannah was too young to be reasonable. She pestered （纠缠）her parents about inequity, insisting that she wanted to do something.
“What do you want to do?” her mom responded. “Sell our house?”
Warning! Never suggest a grand gesture to an idealistic teenager. Hannah seized upon the idea of selling the luxurious family home and donating half the proceeds to charity, while using the other half to buy a more modest replacement home.
Eventually, that’s what the family did. The project —crazy, impetuous（鲁莽的）and utterly inspiring — is written down in detail in a book by father and daughter scheduled to be published next month: “The Power of Half.” It’s a book that, frankly, I’d be nervous about leaving around where my own teenage kids might find it. An impressionable child reads this, and the next thing you know your whole family is out on the street.
At a time of enormous needs in Haiti and elsewhere, when so many Americans are trying to help Haitians by sending everything from text messages to shoes, the Salwens offer an example of a family that came together to make a difference — for themselves as much as the people they were trying to help. In a column a week ago, it described neurological evidence from brain scans that unselfishness lights up parts of the brain normally associated with more primary satisfaction. The Salwens’ experience confirms the selfish pleasures of selflessness.
Mr. Salwen and his wife, Joan, had always assumed that their kids would be better off in a bigger house. But after they downsized, there was much less space to retreat to, so the family members spent more time around each other. A smaller house unexpectedly turned out to be a more family-friendly house.The best title for the passage should be “______”.
| A．The Less, the Better |
| B．An Expected Satisfaction |
| C．Something We Can Live Without |
| D．Somewhat Crazy but Inspiring |
What does the underlined word “inequity” most probably mean in Paragraph 3?
| A．Unfairness. | B．Satisfaction. |
| C．Personal attitude. | D．Reasonable statement. |
What does the underlined sentence “Never suggest a grand gesture to an idealistic teenager.” mean? ______
| A．Never give a quick answer to an idealistic teenager. |
| B．Unless a child is realistic, never give an answer immediately. |
| C．Give an answer if the child is reasonable. |
| D．Don’t respond to a child's demands firmly without consideration. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．The Salwens regretted selling their house. |
| B．The relationship between the family members of the Salwens is much closer. |
| C．Small houses can bring happiness. |
| D．The Salwens intend to buy another big house. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Mercedes Coupe is only an ordinary car which is quite cheap. |
| B．Unselfishness has nothing to do with people’s primary satisfaction. |
| C．Hannah asked her parents to do something charitable and they sold their house. |
| D．The writer’s children asked him to sell their house. |
Why Advertise on EASYUNI?
Easyuni.com is an online destination for finding your dream university or college. We help people search and compare universities, find information, and connect with the university counselors.
Choosing a University or College is Difficult and Time-Consuming!
If you are considering studying at a University or College, how do you decide which to choose? Maybe it's your brother who graduated from that University. Maybe it's your uncle. However, most likely you search online or you google, going from one University website to another, reading about the university and taking note of important stuff like application and tuition fees, entry requirements, duration of the course, etc. You attend education fairs and speak to many different university representatives. The bottom line is that it is difficult and time-consuming.
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We want to give you an online destination where you can:
· search for universities, colleges and courses.
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All of these in the comfort of your home, office, or nearby Starbucks. For free.
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With more than 1,5million page views a year and growing and huge database of students, you’ll get exposed to a large number of daily visitors internationally.
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We’ll deliver the leads directly to you while it’s still warm and you’ll be given access to contact and prospect those leads for the successful into your institution. All leads comes with name, contact details, courses interested and question(s) from student.
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More effective ads performance
Our promoted Premier Listing customers generate between 10-20 times more leads compared to non-premier listing customers. EASYUNI is the correct internet marketing tool for universities and colleges.The passage shows that EASYUNI.com_______.
| A．decides which university a student should go. |
| B．offers varieties of practical information to all. |
| C．helps students find appropriate universities. |
| D．provides lectures online for students. |
In what way is EASYUNI better than other sites?
| A．It’s more effective and convenient. |
| B．It can connect with university students. |
| C．It costs less to use EASYUNI for students. |
| D．Universities can EASYUNI free of charge. |
“Leads” in the fifth paragraph are most probably______.
| A．goals of students |
| B．practical data |
| C．positions available |
| D．key universities |
The main purpose of the passage is______.
| A．to tell students how to find what they want |
| B．to recommend universities to students |
| C．to persuade universities advertise at Easyuni.com |
| D．to introduce a website to students and universities |