After a few moments, my passenger started a conversation. It began ordinarily enough, “How do you like driving a cab?”
“It’s OK,” I said. “I make a living and meet interesting people sometimes. How about you?” However, his reply intrigued me.
“I would not change jobs even if I could make twice as much money by doing something else.”
I’d never heard that before. “What do you do?”
“I’m in the neurology (神经学) department at New York Hospital.”
Then I decided to ask for this man’s help. We were not far from the airport.
“Could I ask you a big favor? I have a son, 15, a good kid. He wants a part-time job, but a 15-year-old can’t get hired easily. Is there any possibility that you could get him some kind of summer job?”
He didn't respond for a while. Finally, he said, “Well, the medical students have a summer research project. Maybe he could fit in. Have him send me his school record.” I tore off a piece of my brown lunch bag, and he wrote his name and number on it and paid me. It was the last time I had ever seen him.
After I nagged (唠叨), yelled, and finally threatened to cut off his pocket money, my son Robert sent off his grades to the guy the next morning.
Two weeks later, when I arrived home from work, my son was excited. He handed me a letter from my passenger, saying he was to call my passenger’s secretary for an interview.
Robert got the job. He did minor tasks, unpaid, but he fitted in well. The following summer, he worked at the hospital again with more responsibility. As high school graduation neared, Dr Plum was kind enough to write letters of recommendation for Robert and he was accepted by Brown University. Finally, Dr Robert Stern, the son of a taxicab driver, became the chief resident (首席住院医师) at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.
Some might call it fate, and I guess it is. But it shows that something as ordinary as a taxi ride can change your life.
1．What does the underlined word “intrigued” in the second paragraph mean?
A．Interest. B．Confuse.C． Benefit. D．Challenge.
2．After the author got the passenger’s information, he ____________.
A．helped his son get the summer job immediately
B．found his son wasn’t interested in getting a summer job
C．had difficulty persuading his son to send his school record
D．asked for the passenger’s help more than once
3．What can we learn according to the last two paragraphs?
A．Robert was paid well for his hard work in the summer job.
B．Robert achieved little progress during his summer job.
C．The small summer job led to Robert’s career.
D．Robert became a doctor in Dr Plum’s hospital.
4．The author develops the article mainly by ________.
A．providing examples B．following the natural time order
C．making comparisons D．presenting causes and effects
