My father died when I was nine, and I remember doing the household chores to help my mother. I hated changing the vacuum cleaner (真空吸尘器) bag and picking up things the machine did not suck up.
Twenty years later, in 1978, I was doing chores at home alongside my wife. One day the vacuum cleaner was screaming away, and I had to empty the bag because I could not find a replacement for it. With this lifelong hatred of the way the machine worked, I decided to make a bagless vacuum cleaner.
Easier said than done, of course. I didn’t realize that I would spend the next five years perfecting my design, a process that resulted in 5,127 different prototypes (设计原型). By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our pennies. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash, and we were getting further and further into debt. These were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem.
I just had a passion for the vacuum cleaner as a product, but I never thought of going into a business with it. In the early 1980s, I started trying to get licensing agreements (许可协议) for my technology. The reality was very different, however. The major vacuum makers had built a business model based on the profits from bags and filters (滤网). No one would license my idea, not because it was a bad one, but because it was bad for business.
That gave me the courage to keep going, but soon after, the companies that I had talked with started making machines like mine. I had to fight legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic to protect the patents on my vacuum cleaner. However, I was still in financial difficulties until 1993, when my bank manager personally persuaded Lloyds Bank to lend me $1 million. Then I was able to go into production. Within two years, the Dyson vacuum cleaner became a best-seller in Britain.
Today, I still embrace risk and the potential for failure as part of the process. Nothing beats the excitement of invention. Go out and brainstorm your ideas. You are not bound to any rules — in fact, the stranger and riskier your idea, the better.
1.According to the article, which of the following statements about James Dyson is NOT true?
A.He lost his father during his childhood and lived with his mother.
B.He decided to develop an innovative vacuum cleaner for his wife while in his thirties.
C.He built over five thousand prototypes of the vacuum cleaner between 1978 and 1983.
D.The vacuum cleaner he reinvented became popular with British customers as soon as it arrived on the market.
2.According to the article, Dyson’s bagless vacuum cleaner was produced in large numbers _______
A.in the carly 1980s
B.before he obtained a patent on the product
C.after his bank manager agreed to lend him $I million
D.after he managed to get a S1 million loan
3.It can be inferred from the article that _______.
A.Dyson was a born businessman
B.Dyson's invention might have ended up in failure without his wife
C.Dyson had no confidence in his vacuum cleaner initially
D.Dyson's vacuum cleaner was never recognized by other vacuum makers
4.According to the article, which of the following would most likely be Dyson’s motto?
A.We are all failures — at least the best of us are.
B.The foundation stones for a success are honesty, faith, love and loyalty.
C.It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves.
D.The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
By the end of the 20th century, TV show producers had begun to turn to the cheapest performers available — their audience. It seemed that anyone who wanted fame could _______ it. And some people wanted it far too much.
Richard and Mayumi Heene, _______ , launched a large balloon 2,000 meters into the air and then called a TV network to say that their six-year-old son, Falcon, was inside it. Planes were re-routed and Denver International Airport was briefly _______ . However, Falcon was later found to have been hiding in the family’s garage the whole time. The “balloon boy” incident turned out to be a hoax (骗局) and the Heenes were _______ of doing it in the hope of landing their own reality TV shows. Instead, they got a fine and a short sentence each — but they were certainly _______ for a while.
So do we want fame? Research suggests that a large number of us do. According to one recent survey, 30 percent of adults regularly daydream about being famous and 40 percent of us expect to _______ some kind of fame in our lifetimes. Perhaps a better question is: should we want to be famous? Do we really want every _______ of our private lives exposed in newspapers and discussed on television? Some people, such as talent show contestant Susan Boyle, seem ill-euipped to deal with this kind of _______, despite their talent. Boyle gained international fame for her extraordinary singing voice after appearing on TV talent show Britain’s Got Talent and her first album became the fastest-selling of all time in the U.K. But the sudden fame didn’t seem easy for her at first, and after the final of the show, Boyle was _______ to a private psychiatric clinic.
Furthermore, people who achieve fame often don’t seem to like it once they have it. A survey of celebrities found that they worry about the press, critics, threatening letters, the lack of privacy, and the __________ on their children. These are hardly worries that __________ people have to deal with. They also, __________, worry about what would happen if they were no longer famous. And there are plenty of people to ask about that. Take, for example, Donato Dalrymple, a fisherman who rescued a boy from the sea and enjoyed the media spotlight for several months afterwards. When it ended, however, he __________ his job as a toilet cleaner. “I know I’m a nobody,” he said when the attention had __________.
“When the person has to go back to everyday life, there’s a sense of __________ loss and being cheated out of something,” says Dr. Robert Cancro of the New York University School of Medicine.
1.A.envy B.avoid C.afford D.get
2.A.for example B.on the other hand C.in contrast D.in comparison
3.A.shut down B.searched through C.sent off D.looked into
4.A.charged B.accused C.considered D.warned
5.A.supported B.ashamed C.crazy D.famous
6.A.involve B.increase C.beat D.experience
7.A.arrangement B.aspect C.variety D.zone
8.A.behavior B.crisis C.pressure D.reputation
9.A.accessible B.admitted C.used D.crowded
10.A.weight B.influence C.benefit D.energy
11.A.intelligent B.well-known C.common D.considerate
12.A.accidentally B.fortunately C.ironically D.understandably
13.A.held up B.gave up C.decided on D.returned to
14.A.disappeared B.arisen C.been paid D.grown
15.A.moderation B.achievement C.disappointment D.direction
The beautiful dress _______ Miss Jones went to the ball was borrowed from a friend of hers.
A.that B.which C.in which D.wearing which
The students in Shanghai are using the same textbooks _______ we are now using.
A.as B.that C.which D.whose
Last week, only two people came to look at the house, _______ wanted to buy it.
A.neither of them B.both of them C.none of whom D.neither of whom
Companies should understand the risks _______ they are exposed and monitor their control environments adequately.
A.on which B.in which C.to which D.with which
