Some people bring out the best in you in a way that you might never have fully realized on your own. My mom was one of those people.
My father died when I was nine months old, making my mom a single mother at the age of eighteen. While I was growing up, we lived a very hard life. We had little money, but my mom gave me a lot of love. Each night, she sat me on her lap and spoke the words that would change my life, “Kemmons, you are certain 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 I would never walk again. Every day, my mother spoke to me in her gentle, loving voice, telling me that no matter what those doctors said, I could walk again if I wanted to badly enough. She drove that message so deep into my heart that I finally believed her. A year later, I returned to school — walking on my own!
When the Great Depression (大萧条) hit, my mom lost her job. Then I left school to support the both of us. At that moment, I was determined never to be poor again.
Over the years, I experienced various levels of business success. But the real turning point occurred 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 angry that they charged an extra $2 for each child. That was too expensive for the average 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 for children. There were plenty of doubters at that time.
Not surprisingly, mom was one of my strongest supporters. She worked behind the desk and even designed the room style. As in any business, we experienced a lot of challenges. But with my mother’s words deeply rooted in my soul, I never doubted we would succeed. Fifteen years later, we 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 $ 1 billion a year.
You may not have started out life in the best situation. But if you can find a task in life worth working for and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you.
【小题1】What Kemmons’ mom often told him during his childhood was ______.

A.caringB.movingC.encouragingD.interesting
【小题2】According to the author, who played the most important role in making him walk back to school again?
A.Doctors.B.Nurses.C.Friends.D.Mom.
【小题3】What caused Kemmons to start a motel by himself?
A.His terrible experience in the hotel.
B.His previous business success of various levels.
C.His mom’s support.
D.His wife’s suggestion.
【小题4】Which of the following best describes Kemmons’ mother?
A.Modest, helpful, and hard-working.
B.Loving, supportive and strong-willed.
C.Careful, helpful and beautiful.
D.Strict, sensitive and supportive.
【小题5】Which of the following led to Kemmons’ success according to the passage?
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.

What can help you make a fortune in the future? Graduating from a top university might not be enough. A new study from the University of Essex in Britain has shown that the more friends you have in school, the more money you’ll earn later.
The idea that popularity could have a serious impact on one’s earning potential shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The researchers noted that if you want to get ahead in life, social skills and networking are easily as powerful as talent and hard work.
“If a person has lots of friends, it means that he or she has the ability to get along with others in all kinds of different situations,” said Xu Yanchun, 17, from Nantou High School in Shenzhen, who totally agreed with the recent finding. “Also, friends always help each other. They not only create wider social circles for you but lift your mood when you occasionally feel depressed,” said Xu. She believed that all this helps you “earn a higher salary”.
Maybe that’s why some people think the younger generations are in the age of Friendalholism(交友狂症). A woman even complained that the networking website Facebook’s 5,000-friend limit was too low for her large reserve of social contacts.
But what does a friend mean? Should friends be regarded as a form of currency?
“Call me uncool, but I think of a friend as an actual person with whom I have an actual history and whom I enjoy actually seeing. It seems, however, that this is no longer the definition of ‘friend’,” said Meghan Daum, who works with the Los Angeles Times in the US.
【小题1】The new study from the University of Essex in Britain shows that _______.

A.if you have more friends you will not live happily
B.the more friends you have in school, the more money you’ll earn in your late life
C.the less friends you have, the poor lives you will live
D.friends can make more money for you
【小题2】According to Xu Yanchun, when you have lots of friends, it means________.
A.you have the ability to earn more money
B.you will not feel lonely
C.you are quite content with your life
D.you have the ability to get along with others in various situations
【小题3】What’s the main idea of the passage?
A.The passage mainly tells us something about the friendship.
B.Friendship plays a more important part in our daily life than anything else.
C.Friends are currency.
D.Friends give you success.
【小题4】We can learn from the passage that _______.
A.if you have more friends, you can make a fortune in the future
B.graduating from college means that you can make a fortune in the future
C.friends mean a form of currency
D.friends can make you wider social circle and make you feel better when you feel depressed

If you think English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven’t you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?
According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.
The study also found the earlier people learn a second language, the greater the effect is.
A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London(UCL), took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of “early bilinguals(通两种语言的人)”, who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.
Scans showed that grey matter density in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference was.
“Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists.
It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.
Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills.
“Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible,” he said, “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas.”
The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of 2 and 34. Reading, writing and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the earlier they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.
【小题1】 What does the underlined part “grey matter” (in Paragraph 2) refer to?

A.Grey hair.B.Material of the brain.
C.Intelligence.D.Difficult situations.
【小题2】 The experience of learning a second language can ________.
A.change one’s brain completelyB.improve one’s maths skills
C.make one smarter than othersD.increase the ability to learn
【小题3】We can learn from the passage that ________.
A.the researchers from UCL did another study in Italy
B.a similar study was done on native Italian speakers who learn English as a second language
C.the research done on the Italians showed a totally different result
D.it will be easier for one to travel around the world by learning a second language
【小题4】What’s the main idea of the passage?
A.Learning a second language can help improve your brain power.
B.You should learn a second language that is not your native language.
C.If you want to learn a second language, you should do it at a certain age.
D.The research done by the researchers from UCL is very successful.


I entered St Thoma’s Hospital as a medical student at the age of 18 and spent five years there. I was an unsatisfactory student, for my heart, as you might have guessed, was not in it. I wanted, I had always wanted to be a writer, and in the evening, after my high tea, I wrote and read. Before long, I wrote a novel, called “Liza of Lambeth”, which I sent to a publisher and was accepted. It appeared during my last year at the hospital and had something of a success. It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that. I felt I could afford to give up medicine and make writing my profession; so, three days after I graduated from the school of medicine, I set out for Spain to write another book. Looking back now and knowing as I do the terrible difficulties of making a living by writing, I realize I was taking a fearful risk. It never even occurred to me.
The next ten years were very hard, and I earned an average of £100 a year. Then I had a bit of luck. The manager of the Court Theatre put on a play that failed ; the next play he arranged to put on was not ready , and he was at his wits’ end. He read a play of mine and, though he did not much like it, he thought it might just run for the six weeks till the play he had in mind to follow it with could be produced. It ran for fifteen months. Within a short while I had four plays running in London at the same time. Nothing of the kind had ever happened before. I was the talk of the town. One of the students at St Thomas’s Hospital asked the famous surgeon with whom I had worked whether he remembered me. “Yes, I remember him quite well, “he said. “ One of our failures, I’m afraid. “
1. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. The author was very pleased to have his book published but he didn’t realize it was something of an accident.
B. The success of his first book led the author to think he could afford to make writing his profession.
C. The author knew he was running a terrible risk when he decided to become a writer.
D. The author became a writer after graduation but was not a successful one.
2. In the second paragraph, “… he was at his wits’ end “means ________.
A. he was having a nervous breakdown       B. he was out of his wisdom
C. he did not know what to do            D. he almost went mad
3. The manager of the Court Theatre agreed to put the author’s play on the stage because _____________.
A. he thought it would run for fifteen months
B. he knew it was one of the author’s best plays shown in London
C. he had just put on a play that failed
D. the play he had arranged to put on was not ready
4. The author became the talk of the town. The reason was that __________.
A. he talked with a great many people in London about his plays
B. the plays he wrote were excellently performed in London
C. his performances in the Court Theatre were unexpectedly
D. he was criticized by an eminent surgeon as one of their failures

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