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
36 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
37 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
38 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 didn’t want to be bad enough. She
39 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（大蕭條）
40 , my mom lost her job. Then I left school to support（支撐） both of us. At that moment, I decided never to be
41 again.
Over the years, I experienced various levels of business success. But the real
42 point happened on a vacation I took with my wife and five kids in 1916. I was dissatisfied with the second-class hotels for families and was angry that they charged（收費）an extra $2 for each child. That was too
43 for most American families. I told my wife that I was going to open a hotel for families that would never charge extra for
44 . There were plenty of doubters at that time.
Not
45 , 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 hard time. But with my mother’s words deeply rooted in my heart, I
46 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 situations. But if you can find a
47 in life worth working for and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you. | 【小題1】 | | A．quiet | B．boring | C．hard | D．strange |
|
| 【小題2】 | | A．a(chǎn)ccept | B．change | C．disturb | D．check |
|
| 【小題3】 | | A．study | B．speak | C．listen | D．walk |
|
| 【小題4】 | | A．drove | B．expected | C．explained | D．covered |
|
| 【小題6】 | | A．excited | B．brave | C．patient | D．poor |
|
| 【小題7】 | | A．leading | B．breaking | C．turning | D．celebrating |
|
| 【小題8】 | | A．expensive | B．fantastic | C．different | D．special |
|
| 【小題9】 | | A．husband | B．parents | C．children | D．wife |
|
| 【小題10】 | | A．successfully | B．surprisingly | C．interestingly | D．importantly |
|
| 【小題11】 | | A．a(chǎn)lways | B．sometimes | C．a(chǎn)lmost | D．never |
|
| 【小題12】 | | A．task | B．hotel | C．company | D．wor |
|
worker 5. （雖然）he could not read or
write. He began to learn English letters when he was seventeen years old. Every
day after he did twelve hours of hard work, he walked along way to have 6. （功課） from a young school
teacher. On his eighteenth 7.
（生日）, he wrote his own name for the first time
in his life. George 8.
（發(fā)明） many things in his life. The train was the greatest
one among 9. （他們）. Today
when we take trains from one place to 10. （另一個）,we’ll think of this great man —George Stephenson.
