Your particular relationships with your parents, not God or genes, determines your academic performance. In my case, it was my father who made the difference. I had three sisters and my father never showed much interest in their success. He took no notice of the school reports of one of them. They all made it to university. But this was largely because of my mother's encouragement. However badly I did, and it was usually very bad, he always told me I was clever and that I could do well. When I was eight and remained at the bottom of my class, he tried to coach me in Latin and maths. His main goal was to show me that, if I could make myself concentrate on the dull tasks, I could do them. He chose the head of my house at public school with great care. He found a man who made a huge effort to teach _ with which he started when I was 13. Together, they convinced me to take exams seriously. But the most important factor was that I knew my dad loved me. He expressed this in many kind letters. When we were together, he would take me in his arms. He encouraged me to think for myself and to enjoy what I enjoyed. He once watched me eating a huge amount of chocolate and said, "Eat as much as you like -- you won't always enjoy it that much." So I started working hard. I agreed with his own clever ways. And I started to enjoy the learning of knowledge and the expression of ideas. Although exams gave little opportunity for that, I could sort of see _ . A lot of parents do not realize how important the emotional aspect of the relationship is. It determines their child's performance. I recently heard a parent discussing what school their child might get into. "I don't know how bright he is," she said. Many parents are troubled by their children's marks at school. Their relationship with the child is almost wholly built around this. It was not at all like that with my dad. Until I was eight, he did not seem to worry about marks. And, after that, it was never exam performance that he was concerned... According to the writer, which of the following influences your school performance most? A) Your interest in your success. B) The effort your teacher makes. C) Opportunity or luck that you have. D) Your emotional relationship with your parents.
D
A few days ago, I was sitting in a Thai restaurant enjoying a meal when I got on a phone call from a friend I hadn't spoken to in a long time. In my enthusiasm and excitement, I talked quite louder than usual voice and in Spanish, my mother tongue. A few minutes into the call, an old lady sitting at the table beside mine got up, seemingly offended, and asked the restaurant staff to relocate a table as far away as possible from this man who seemed to be impolite. I sank in my seat out of embarrassment. I ended the call soon afterwards and felt the urge to apologize. Before getting up, I looked around to see where she was and she was at the table farthest away from me. I noticed that the lady was alone and staring out the window. I found a tinge of sadness or anxiety and perhaps a desire for aloneness and peace. But I had obviously destroyed it minutes earlier. Right then I abandoned my plan for a conventional apologetic gesture. Seeing those funny smile cards in my wallet, I took one out and wrote some words to express my apology. On signing my restaurant bill, I asked a waiter to secretly charge the lady's meal to me and hand her the smile card instead of her bill. Did she take it the wrong way, I wondered? Did she get confused? Did she refuse the anonymous offer? And so on. I just waited and felt nervous to learn the outcome. To my pleasant surprise, things turned out the best possible way. The waiter approached me in a joy, telling me, "In the many times she had dined here before, I had never seen the old lady smile as she did when receiving the smile card and the $0 bill. She thanked me even though I explained that someone else did the job." Which of the following is the best title of this passage? A) A Misunderstanding Caused by Different Cultures B) An Unpleasant Experience in Thailand C) A Smile Card for a Sincere Apology D) An Old Lady Who Never Smiles
C
(Question)
At the age of 11, Peter Lynch started caddying at Brae Burn Country Club in Newton, Mass. "It was better than a newspaper carrier, and much more profitable," the Fidelity vice chairman recalls. He kept it up during the summers for almost a decade. "You get to know the course and can give the golf players advice about how to approach various holes," he says. "Where else, at age 15 or 16, can you serve as a trusted adviser to high-powered people?" One of those people was George Sullivan, then president of Fidelity's funds, who was so impressed with Lynch's smarts that he hired him in 1966. "There were about 75 applicants for 3 job openings," Lynch says now. "But I was the only one who had caddied for the president for 10 years." In between caddying and managing money, Lynch went to Boston College on a scholarship from a program called the Francis Ouimet Fund. Named after the 1913 winner of the U.S. Open, the fund launched in 1949 which is open to Massachusetts kids only. Ouimet executive director Robert Donovan says, "Help with college is a logical extension of friendly relation between golfers and their favorite caddies, because there is a close tie to train up them to be excellent that happens between the players and the kids who carry their golf poles. And for the teens, caddying is all about being around successful role models." It is obvious that caddies who are finally successful include all kinds of outstanding personnel, from actor Bill Murray, to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, to former GE chairman and CEO Jack Welch. Of course, the great number of financial giants who caddied in their youth might be coincidence, but Dick Connolly thinks not. "Caddying life teaches you a lot about business, and about life," he says. "You learn to show up early and look people in the eye when you shake their hand, and you learn how to read people -- including who's likely to cheat and who isn't." Connolly is a longtime investment advisor at Morgan Stanley's Boston office, a former Ouimet scholarship student... Why was the Francis Ouimet Fund set up to support Massachusetts kids only? A) Because of the advice from the rich golf players. B) Because of those giants with caddying experiences. C) Because of the great success the caddies have achieved. D) Because of the friendly relation between golfers and their caddies.
(Answer)
D