When I was about six years old, my mother came home one day and found that I had collected half dozen babies of the neighborhood----all of them too young to walk----and had them sitting before me on the floor while I was teaching them to wave their arms．When she asked the explanation of this, I informed her that it was my school of dance．She was amused, and placing herself at the piano, she began to play for me．This school continued and became very popular．Later on, little girls of the neighborhood came and their parents paid me a small sum to teach them．This was the beginning of what afterwards proved a very well-paid occupation．

My mother took me to a famous ballet teacher, but his lessons did not please me． When the teacher told me to stand on my toes, I asked him why, and when he replied “Because it is beautiful,” I said that it was ugly and against nature and after the third lesson, I left his class, never to return．This stiff（僵硬的）and commonplace gymnastics which he called dancing only disturbed my dream．I dreamed of a different dance．I did not know just what it would be but I was feeling out towards an invisible world into which I guess I might enter if I found the key．

My art was already in me when I was a little girl, and it was owing to the heroic and adventurous spirit of my mother that it was not stifled（窒息）．I believe that whatever the child is going to do in life should be begun when it is very young．I wonder how many parents realize that by the so-called education they are giving their children, they are only driving them into the commonplace, and refuse them of any chance of doing anything beautiful or original．

1．The attitude of the author’s mother toward her school of dance was ______．

     A．negative             B．neutral        C．supporting           D．indifferent

2．The author thought that ballet was ______．

     A．elegant, graceful and gentle                 B．stiff, ugly and unnatural

     C．charming, attractive and cool                D．touch, inviting and challenging

3．From this passage we know that the author owed her success in art to ______．

     A．her strict and adventurous ballet teacher

B．the good training that her parents gave her

     C．the support and understanding of her mother

     D．the inspiration gained from the neighborhood babies

4．The key message we may get from the passage is that ______．

     A．parents should help to develop the natural gift of their kids

     B．parents should give a hand to their kids doing something original

     C．a good mother should be both heroic and adventurous in education

     D．ballet is no good as a form of dance and thus should be forbidden