In March 1987, I started a new magazine called Creating Excellence. It was a very proud moment for me. I’d worked hard for over a year to create it, and the premiere issue (首次发刊) was a real success.
Shortly after we mailed 25,000 copies, I received one in the mail. But this one wasn’t as beautiful as the ones we’d sent out. It was marked in red ink correcting the grammatical errors (语法错误) in it. A talented editor had read the issue carefully and found more errors than I could have imagined.
I felt
abashed. A magazine called Creating Excellence should be perfect in its content (内容). The stories were good, but the errors this woman had found showed that we were far from being excellent.
At first, I was upset with my editor for not having caught more mistakes, and also upset with the woman who seemed to have taken pleasure in pointing them out. Later, I was upset with myself for not having employed a better editor.
Then I realized that I had to face up to my mistakes. I called the woman who had shown me that we were not so excellent. I thanked her for taking the time to read our magazine so carefully. As painful as it was, I accepted responsibility for it.
Then I offered her the job of editing our publication. The result was a great improvement in it; we could now be very proud of our magazine.
From this I learnt that an upsetting moment could be an opportunity to see the truth, and accepting responsibility could help to prevent one making the same mistakes for a second time, and to make "excellence" a reality.
小题1:From the first paragraph we learn that _____.
| A．the author put little effort into his first magazine |
| B．the author’s job was selling magazines |
| C．the author was very satisfied with his work |
| D．the author experienced a total failure |
小题2:What does the underlined word "abashed" mean?
| A．excited. | B．embarrassed. | C．interested. | D．exhausted. |
小题3:What do we learn about the woman who had found the errors in the magazine?
| A．She was causing trouble on purpose. |
| B．She liked pointing out the errors of others. |
| C．She contributed a lot to the success of the premiere issue. |
| D．She ended up joining the magazine. |
小题4:What do we learn from this passage?
| A．Pride is the biggest enemy of success. |
| B．Success is behind many failures. |
| C．Picking holes in something can help you find a job. |
| D．Accepting responsibility for one’s errors can lead to real excellence. |