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.
8 ]' i' e4 G9 N: F# @! O0 S 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.
6 A/ {( ^% K x0 r# b# t' m 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.0 A* Z7 g( ?( \5 g' 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.! ^3 l# F \) P0 c9 \: a% |
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.
# R9 n, C k3 c" Y 1. We can learn from the beginning of the passage that
: j5 B( P: F0 w% [ A. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.6 i `4 e0 T9 P! Y! V' v2 ^
B. the author wouldn't love life if the disaster didn't happen.% Y( J! K7 M- W4 k R
C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.
0 s f0 s- Y# \4 e9 ], y D. the disaster strengthened the author's desire to see.1 M9 W, H: V6 [$ t" H$ b
2. What's the most difficult thing for the author?6 z% X! g) S5 J
A. How to adjust himself to reality.- b2 V# b8 F$ Y# @9 p
B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.
$ O# C3 V3 V/ Z/ P C. Learning to manage his life alone., Z S& q# y& F. J! s7 Y; p) v: m
D. To find a special work that suits the author. T9 L$ A; o3 T1 ?
3. According to the context, "a chair rocker on the front porch" in paragraph 3 means that the author
. r6 u8 T6 M- x A. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.
1 \, W- t" g% o0 P B. was paralyzed and stayed in a rocking chair.
9 K( g2 }, \ d0 C7 s C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.
0 B' P Y7 F6 [- |# E D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.
5 ]: m% m2 o. J1 V- d 4. According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man
. e, P- G0 O, s, d: { A. hurt the author's feeling.
8 |$ C2 E2 }7 G, ~4 O B. gave the author a deep impression.
+ P$ g- j/ i+ o" ]% D* j2 v4 [: z C. directly led to the invention of ground ball.1 t0 }+ i* z9 l+ _$ T! { h: [5 K
D. inspired the author.; |1 z7 a1 x9 K
5. According to the passage, which of the following is CORRECT?
|5 l' w2 T1 A" p0 o- @ A. The author set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time.
X. S9 ~/ b# g& a' g B. The author suggested not trying something beyond one's ability at the beginning.
, N/ f0 r3 M; w l& F% o* G6 v& L, \3 _6 S# @% u
C. The bitterness of failure prevented the author from trying something out of reach. |