Before I even started school, people felt that I was not going to
amount to much. At the age of four, I started speech lessons because even I could not speak well enough to be understood.
First grade was a struggle. I not only had difficulty speaking, but I was expected to learn to read and I just couldn't do it. My parents grew more and more frustrated. They bought books and offered great rewards if I could read one of them from start to finish to them. Well, with my speech problems and now my reading problems, I did not like to do reading and so refused to do it whenever possible.
Second grade was not much better. It was in the second grade that the teacher decided that I needed special education. I remember the days of taking the physical exams. However, after all that, they decided that I did not qualify for special education.
It was in third grade that a new school was built close to where I lived. I remember going there with my parents and helping to get the school ready so that we could transfer(轉學). It was a happy day that we started school at Vandalia. However, things did not get better as my parent expected.
It was now time for fifth grade. Mrs. Wakefield was my teacher, and if ever there was a teacher that deserved a gold star, it was her. She did not make me feel upset. Instead, she helped me in so many ways and built my self-confidence so that I actually did believe that I could do something special. And that is just what I did.
For the past 22 years, I have been a fifth grade teacher. Because of Mrs. Wakefield's influence in my life, I am now encouraging students who have had difficulties in their lives to believe that they can overcome and become someone. I have won a large number of awards but I know that all of them belong to one fifth grade teacher who believed in me and challenged me to be all that I could be.
I still have a class picture of her with her fifth grade class hanging on the wall of my office, encouraging other teachers to reach out to their students.
小題1: What does the underlined phrase “amount to much” mean in Paragraph l?
| A．get rich. | B．get successful. |
| C．get recovered. | D．become healthy. |
小題2:From the second paragraph we know that______________.
| A．the writer's parents lost confidence in the writer completely |
| B．the writer's speech problems didn’t stop him from reading |
| C．the writer's parents tried many things to encourage him |
| D．the writer couldn't improve his speech ability from reading |
小題3:What can we infer from the passage?
| A．The writer’s parents believed he could get improved in his speech ability. |
| B．The new school was not far away from where they lived. |
| C．The teachers in the new school were gold stars |
| D．The writer himself wanted to transfer to a new school. |
小題4:In which grade did the turning point in writer's life appear?
| A．In Grade Two. | B．In Grade Three |
| C．In Grade Four | D．In Grade Five |
小題5:.What can we learn from the passage?
| A．A good teacher is hard to find in our lives. |
| B．Many students have speech difficulties, |
| C．Confidence is very important in one's life |
| D．Different teaching methods work the same |
