I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
% o' \" ?/ c' [- W$ r, T Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.0 E5 q& F5 u# s; _
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
8 c8 s0 N& y. x4 b. S+ y It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.1 ^7 I- }8 i" M" T1 l
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.- `) _7 \. E( O5 Z
1. We can learn from the beginning of the passage that
2 `4 c3 F' z2 @! g8 f" _2 p3 }6 u A. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.- J5 f2 ^, h6 i! P
B. the author wouldn't love life if the disaster didn't happen.+ H) `2 l1 I2 v& v. c+ ^
C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.- U6 f/ ~6 Q6 H0 }! ?5 q
D. the disaster strengthened the author's desire to see.1 o; X5 h6 D% \9 B1 G# ~1 S
2. What's the most difficult thing for the author?+ e+ I) q7 l/ K
A. How to adjust himself to reality.$ B( b3 q& d3 F! K' r7 |
B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.9 ~: [& F+ m7 r
C. Learning to manage his life alone." Y) O5 C3 m8 u% A; N
D. To find a special work that suits the author.8 |$ A: {, B3 E, z; k
3. According to the context, "a chair rocker on the front porch" in paragraph 3 means that the author% s7 S, d9 F$ e G7 ]* H' k+ g& d
A. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life., _0 G1 K4 W. s! Z% q9 H
B. was paralyzed and stayed in a rocking chair." o# i2 n9 v' t1 p. S. ~* A/ E
C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.
1 }0 W5 ?" _, K1 J8 p D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.
! L' ^. Z7 |& q2 w, e; z+ M, X1 u 4. According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man
9 L6 e* Y* ~( o) ]- l A. hurt the author's feeling.
, F" ~7 b3 L7 U B. gave the author a deep impression.* X% J; L, c5 _# F- J& {
C. directly led to the invention of ground ball.2 O" }5 d& k/ u1 _' l6 P$ e
D. inspired the author.! S% I2 R( m4 |
5. According to the passage, which of the following is CORRECT?2 f' ]5 k) G0 z
A. The author set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time.
; \$ }, Q2 Z- c B. The author suggested not trying something beyond one's ability at the beginning.
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; y# x( s) z- U, O6 h) Z( J: z9 z C. The bitterness of failure prevented the author from trying something out of reach. |