辽宁省实验中学分校高二英语上学期期中试卷.docVIP

辽宁省实验中学分校2014-2015学年高二英语上学期期中试卷 本试卷分为第I卷（选择题）和第II卷（非选择题） 第I卷 第一部分：听力（共两节, 满分30分）略 第二部分：阅读理解（共两节, 满分40分） 阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分, 满分分） 阅读下列短文, 从每所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中, 选出最佳选项, 并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy––they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. ––Jeff Bezos 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 me 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 to not 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. 21. What inspired the author with the idea of building an online bookstore? A. His dream of bei