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  3. Chris Gardner’s unlikely road to riches started in the parking lot of San Fran

Chris Gardner’s unlikely road to riches started in the parking lot of San Fran

游客2025-01-01  29
问题   Chris Gardner’s unlikely road to riches started in the parking lot of San Francisco General Hospital in 1982. Then age 29 and the father of year-and-a-half-old Christopher, he was barely making ends meet as a medical equipment salesman. He was about to get into his car when he saw a red Ferrari searching for a parking space. Impulsively, he waved the driver over and said, “I’ll give you my spot, but I want to ask you two questions: What do you do, and how do you do it?"
  The Ferrari’s owner said he was a stockbroker. Gardner asked what the job paid. At the time, the top salespeople where Gardner worked were making $ 80, 000 a year. "This broker was making $ 80, 000 a month, "Gardner recalls.
  The two men hit it off. Over occasional lunches, the broker explained how the business worked and how to break into it. He even gave Gardner a list of referrals. Gardner began knocking on doors--but had them slammed in his face. "At the time, brokerage firms were starting to require MBA degrees, "he explains.
"I didn’t even go to college. It wasn’t racism. It was place-ism, I did not have a college degree. I did not come from a politically connected family. I had no money. So Who was going to do business with me?"
  After ten months of pursuing fruitless leads, Gardner found someone willing to give him a shot. He quit his job and showed up for his appointment, only to discover his contact had been fired. No one knew who he was or why he was there.
  It was back to the beginning, but without steady employment. "I was doing everything I could that was legal to take care of my family-- cutting grass, cleaning basements, hauling rubbish. I learned roofing. I did house painting. And I continued to pursue a career on Wall Street."
  But life remained precarious. After an argument Gardner had with his girlfriend, someone called the police. A routine check of his license plate number turned up a backlog of unpaid parking tickets. And that led to ten days in jail.
  To make matters worse, while he was incarcerated, his girlfriend took their son and moved out. "I was devastated. I grew up without a father, and I had promised myself that I would never leave my son in a situation where he wouldn’t know his father. Those were the most terrible days of my life. I was there with murderers and rapists, and all I could think about was: Where is my child? Will I ever see him again?"
  Before landing in jail, Gardner had lined up an interview at Dean Witter, the brokerage firm. Unfortunately, the interview was scheduled for the day before he was to be released. "I begged the guard to let me make one phone call to reschedule."
  Once out of jail, Gardner went to the interview wearing all he had--the Windbreaker and bell-bottom jeans he had been arrested in. The interviewer glanced up and said, "Deliveries in the rear."
  Gardner decided to take a desperate chance. "I could not think of a lie bizarre enough, so I told the truth. I said, I just got out of prison on a parking ticket charge, my ex left me, and I don’t know where my child is. But I am here because I believe I am supposed to be in this business. "The interviewer had been through a couple of divorces and could sympathize. Gardner won a place in the training program. Now he had to do well enough to be offered a job.
  Gardner took to the trade and, within a few years, fulfilled his dream of working on Wall Street. In 1987, he opened his own brokerage firm, Gardner Rich & Co. , in Chicago. And he bought his own Ferrari.
  Gardner doesn’t see his story as a rags-to-riches fairy tale. Rather, he says, "mine is a story of how to empower yourself and beat the odds stacked against you. My life could have been easily derailed by domestic violence and homelessness, but I made a choice to not let those things sink me. You can break the destructive cycles that ensnare you. Be smart, have a plan and hold on to the people you love."  [br] The word "place-ism" in tile third paragraph suggests that
选项 A、Gardner’s background created more barriers in his pursuit of a career.
B、the place from which Gardner came prejudiced people against him.
C、Gardner was unfit for his applied job for lack of money.
D、Gardner’s background didn’t matter at all in his job hunting.
答案 A
解析 语义理解题。文章第三段指出，由于当时股票经纪公司都要求雇员拥有工商管理硕士学位，由于加德纳役有大学学位，屡次面试都被拒之门外。加德纳认为这并不是由于他是黑人因此雇佣公司对他有种族歧视，而是由于没进过大学，没政治背景，不名一文的背景导致他在求职中障碍重重。[A]与此意思相符，故为答案。[D]上下文并未提及他国出生地受到歧视，[B]项属于字面意思。而文章也未提及到他因缺钱而没资格申请工作，[C]项也可排除。[D]项太过绝对，而且敢在上下文中无法使文意通顺。
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