Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy – they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most start-ups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced 高三阅读理解翻译Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choiceme to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision not to try at all. 

After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.

 

24. What inspired the author with the idea of building an online bookstore?

 

A. His dream of being an inventor.             

 

B. The support of his wife.

 

C. The greatly increasing usage of the Internet.   

 

D. Millions of exciting titles.

 

25. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined sentence?

 

A. The idea of not trying would keep coming to his mind and disturb him.   

 

B. He would be very excited if he tried it out.   

 

C. He would be always having a doubt if he didn’t try.     

 

D. The decision not to try the online bookstore would terrify him.

 

26. We can know from the passage that ______________.

 

A. the boss thought the idea was suitable for the author

 

B. the author wanted someone else to try the idea

 

C. the author might not regret if he failed the idea

 

D. the author might go back to his boss if he failed

 

27. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

 

A. Cleverness and Kindness            B. The Starting of Amazon

 

C. Following My Passion          D. We Are What We Choose

答案   24-27 CACD    

 

阅读原文出处：亚马逊创始人Jeff Bezos在普林斯顿大学2010年学士毕业典礼上的演讲

 

 We Are What We Choose

 

选择塑造人生——杰夫·贝索斯

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially "Days of our Lives." My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we'd join the caravan. We'd hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather's car, and off we'd go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

 

在我还是一个孩子的时候，我的夏天总是在德州祖父母的农场中度过。我帮忙修理风车，为牛接种疫苗，也做其它家务。每天下午，我们都会看肥皂剧，尤其是《我们的岁月》。我的祖父母参加了一个房车俱乐部，那是一群驾驶Airstream拖挂型房车的人们，他们结伴遍游美国和加拿大。每隔几个夏天，我也会加入他们。我们把房车挂在祖父的小汽车后面，然后加入300余名Airstream探险者们组成的浩荡队伍。我爱我的祖父母，我崇敬他们，也真心期盼这些旅程。那是一次我大概十岁时的旅行，我照例坐在后座的长椅上，祖父开着车，祖母坐在他旁边，吸着烟。我讨厌烟味。

 

At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I 高三阅读理解翻译Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choicepoked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"

 

在那样的年纪，我会找任何借口做些估测或者小算术。我会计算油耗还有杂货花销等鸡毛蒜皮的小事。我听过一个有关吸烟的广告。我记不得细节了，但是广告大意是说，每吸一口香烟会减少几分钟的寿命，大概是两分钟。无论如何，我决定为祖母做个算术。我估测了祖母每天要吸几支香烟，每支香烟要吸几口等等，然后心满意足地得出了一个合理的数字。接着，我捅了捅坐在前面的祖母的头，又拍了拍她的肩膀，然后骄傲地宣称，"每天吸两分钟的烟，你就少活九年!"