【 Information Matching 】 把1-9题的信息匹配至某个段落,段落用字母表示,其中一个字母会被使用2次,其余为1次。 A】 They say a cat has nine lives, and I am inclined to think that possible since I am now living my third life and I’m not even a cat. B】 My first life began on a clear, cold day in November 1904, when I arrived as the sixth of eight children of a farming family. My father died when I was 15, and we had a hard struggle to make a living. I had to wait until the early years of my marriage before I really began to enjoy my first life. But then I was very happy, in excellent health, and quite a good athlete. My wife and I became the parents of two lovely girls. I had a good job in San Jose and a beautiful house in San Carlos. Life was a pleasant dream. C】 Then the dream ended. I became afflicted with a slowly progressive disease of the motor nerves, affecting first my right arm and leg, and then my other side. Thus began my second life ... D】 In spite of my disease I still drove to and from work each day, with the aid of special equipment installed in my car. And I managed to keep my health and optimism, to a degree, because of 14 steps. E】 Crazy? Not at all. Our home was a split-level affair with 14 steps leading up from the garage to the kitchen door. Those steps were a gauge of life. They were my yardstick, my challenge to continue living. I felt that if the day arrived when I was unable to lift one foot up one step and then drag the other painfully after it — repeating the process 14 times until, utterly spent, I would be through — I could then admit defeat and lie down and die. So I kept on working, kept on climbing those steps. And time passed. The girls went to college and were happily married, and my wife and I were alone in our beautiful home with the 14 steps. F】 You might think that here walked a man of courage and strength. Not so. Here hobbled a bitterly disillusioned cripple, a man who held on to his sanity and his wife and his home and his job because of 14 miserable steps leading up to the back door from his garage.3 As I became older, I became more disillusioned and frustrated. G】 Then on a dark night in August, 1971, I began my third life. It was raining when I started home that night; gusty winds and slashing rain beat down on the car as I drove slowly down one of the less-traveled roads.4 Suddenly the steering wheel jerked in my hands and the car swerved violently to the right. In the same instant I heard the dreaded bang of a blowout. I fought the car to stop on the rain-slick shoulder of the road and sat there as the enormity of the situation swept over me.5 It was impossible for me to change that tire! Utterly impossible! A thought that a passing motorist might stop was dismissed at once. Why should anyone? I knew I wouldn’t! Then I remembered that a short distance up a little side road was a house. I started the engine and thumped slowly along, keeping well over on the shoulder until I came to the dirt road, where I turned in — thankfully. Lighted windows welcomed me to the house and I pulled into the driveway and honked the horn. H】The door opened and a little girl stood there, peering at me. I rolled down the window and called out that I had a flat tire and needed someone to change it for me because I had a crutch and couldn’t do it myself. She went into the house and a moment later came out bundled in raincoat and hat, followed by a man who called a cheerful greeting. I sat there comfortable and dry, and felt a bit sorry for the man and the little girl working so hard in the storm. Well, I would pay them for it. The rain seemed to be slackening a bit now, and I rolled down the window all the way to watch. It seemed to me that they were awfully slow and I was beginning to become impatient. I heard the clank of metal from the back of the car and the little girl’s voice came clearly to me. “Here’s the jack-handle, Grandpa.” She was answered by the murmur of the man’s lower voice and the slow tilting of the car as it was jacked up.6 There followed a long interval of noises, jolts and low conversation from the back of the car, but finally it was done. I felt the car bump as the jack was removed, and I heard the slam of the truck lid, and then they were standing at my car window. I】 He was an old man, stooped and frail-looking under his slicker. The little girl was about eight or ten, I judged, with a merry face and a wide smile as she looked up at me. He said, “This is a bad night for car trouble, but you’re all set now.” “Thanks,” I said. “How much do I owe you?” He shook his head. “Nothing. Cynthia told me you were a cripple — on crutches. Glad to be of help. I know you’d do the same for me. There’s no charge, friend.” I held out a five-dollar bill. “No! I like to pay my way.” He made no effort to take it and the little girl stepped closer to the window and said quietly, “Grandpa can’t see it.” J】 In the next few frozen seconds the shame and horror of that moment penetrated and I was sick with an intensity I had never felt before.7 A blind man and a child! Fumbling, feeling with cold, wet fingers for bolts and tools in the dark — a darkness that for him would probably never end until death. I don’t remember how long I sat there after they said good night and left me, but it was long enough for me to search deep within myself and find some disturbing traits. I realized that I was filled to overflowing with self-pity, selfishness, indifference to the needs of others and thoughtlessness.8 I sat there and said a prayer. K】“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”9 To me now, months later, this Scriptural admonition is more than just a passage in the Bible. It is a way of life, one that I am trying to follow. It isn’t always easy. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes expensive in both time and money, but the value is there. I am trying now not only to climb 14 steps each day, but in my small way to help others. Someday, perhaps, I will change a tire for a blind man in a car — someone as blind as I had been. 【1】.The author’s happy dream ended because he contracted a disease of the motor nerves. 【2】.Because of the disease, the author became miserable and frustrated. 【3】.The old man is blind but he helped him in the storm; while the writer assumed that a disabled man deserved other people’s help but never helped others. 【4】.The author learned from the incident that he should always be ready to help others as the blind man was, while struggling against his adversity. 【5】.The author had a flat tire in a stormy might on his way home and he asked for help. 【6】.The author realized that he was filled to overflowing with selfish to the needs of others and thoughtlessness. 【7】.The author’s challenge to continue living, and misery he had to accept and cope with in order to hold on to his sanity, his wife, his home and his job. 【8】.The author’s first phase of life in which he began to enjoy everything pleasant: excellent health, a good job, a nice house, a happy family and lovely daughters. 【9】.Mainly consists of conversations between the author and the old man and the little girl, in which the old man declined the author's payment.