Kyra Komac，28 years old，now has 25 furniture stores all over the country．The new store，in London’s Camden High Street，takes her back to where it all started．She tells us about how the business began．

    When I was little，my mother began selling flowers in Camden Market．She couldn’t leave me at home on my own，so I had to go to the market with her．

    To begin with，I didn’t have to do anything．I just sat there，and my mum told me jokes and stories so I didn’t get bored．When I got older，I gave my mum a hand and I really enjoyed it．

    Then，one year，my grandma gave me a book for Christmas．It was all about making candles and I loved it．I was 14．and I didn’t have to go to the market any more because mum could leave me at home on my own．I spent my free time making candles of all shapes and sizes．I made hundreds of them．

    One day，my mother was ill so I had to go to the market on my own．I decided to take some candles with me and see if I could sell them．They were sold out in twenty minutes !The next week，my mum gave me some money to buy some wax （蜡） to make more candles．They sold out really quickly，too．

    Nine months later，we decided to stop selling flowers．My mum and I couldn’t make enough candles during the week，so some of my school friends started to help us．I paid them one pound for every candle，and we used to sell them for three or four times that．It was fun and my friends worked with me in the market．

    At the age of 22，my uncle lent me some money and I opened my first shop in Portobello Road．Since then，I’ve never looked back，even in difficulties．In the first store，we only sold candles，but now we sell everything from designer furniture to paintings．Oh，and candles，of course．

1．How many furniture stores does Kyra Komac have now?

2．Where did Kyra’s mother sell flowers?

3．What did Kyra do in her free time when she was fourteen?

4．Did the candles sell well on the first day in the market?

5．Who helped Kyra and her mum when they couldn’t make enough candles during the week?

6．How did Kyra’s uncle help her to open her first shop?

 He helped her ________________________________

7．What do you think of this story? 

    I think ______________________________

I shook hands with my father in the truck, and for a long time he looked straight ahead and didn’t say a word. But I knew he was going to say a little to me. “I can’t tell anything,” he finally said. “I never went to college, and none of your brothers went to college. I can’t say don’t do this and do that, because everything is different and I don’t know what is going to come up. I can’t help much with money either, but I think things will work out. ”

He gave me a new check-book. “If things get pushing, write a small check. But when you write one, send me a letter and let me know how much. There are some things we can always sell.” In four years all the checks I wrote were less than a thousand dollars. My part-time jobs such as reading to the blind student and sitting with the teachers’ kids filled in the financial gaps.

“You know what you want to be, and they’ll tell you what to take,” my father went on. “When you get a job, be sure it’s honest, and work hard.” I knew that soon I would be alone in the big town, and I would be missing the cool winds and a life where your thinking was done for you.

Then my dad reached down beside his seat and brought the old, broken Bible that he had read so often, the one he used when he wanted to look something up in a friendly quarrel with one of the neighbours. I knew he would miss it. I knew, though, that I must take it.

He didn’t say read this every morning. He just said, “This can help you if you will let it.”

Did it help? I got through college without being a burden on the family. I have been able to make money since.

1. What is the writer’s main purpose （目的） in writing this passage?

  A. To tell the readers his life story.

  B. To tell people what kind of person his father was.

  C. To let people know how poor he was.

  D. To tell the readers what present he got from his father.

2. Why did the father not ask his son not to do this and do that?

  A. Because he felt quite confident of him.

  B. Because he was born from a poor family.

  C. Because he was a man of few words.

  D. Because he didn’t want to be much too strict with him.

3. What would someone learn from this passage?

  A. How to live by oneself.            B. How to stand on one’s own feet.

  C. What a good father should do.       D. What the self-important is like.

4. What may be the proper Chinese for the underlined part in the passage?

A.闲暇时光.     B.学费.     C.经济不足.     D.精神空虚.

5. What kind of book did the Bible seem to be to the writer’s father?

  A. It was a book which told you how you should get on well with others.

  B. There were many good examples for you to copy in it.

  C. It was a book that told you how to get a good job and a good future.

  D. It was a good book that could help you when you were in trouble.