Listening Comprehension Test
for 10th Form Students
This story is about love and loss. I was lucky – I
found what I loved to do early in life. We started Apple in my parents’ garage
when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the
two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We
had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I
had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company
you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very
talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went
well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had
a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I
was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life
was gone, and it was devastating.
I really did not know what to do for
a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs
down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with
David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I
was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away. But something
slowly began to down on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at
Apple had got changed that bit. I had been rejected but I was still in love.
And so I decided to start over.
I did not see it then, but it turned
out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever
happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness
of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one
of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I
started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love
with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went to create the
world’s first computer animated feature
film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the
technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current
reinaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I am pretty sure none of this would
have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine,
but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a
brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going
was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is true
for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part
of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe
is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the
heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just
gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it.
Don’t settle.
Listening Comprehension Test
for 10th Form Students
Assignments
Task 1. Put
“+” if the statement is true, put “–“ if
it is false.
1. The narrator
is probably connected with growing or selling apples.
2. The business
seemed to be quite profitable.
3. The person
telling the story had to retire at an early age.
4. There always
was a complete unity of opinion in the company.
5. One of the
events in the company became widely known all over.
6. The narrator
eventually lost the sense of life.
7. It is easier
to start something new than to run something existing.
8. The firing
brought the narrator more good than evil.
9. The narrator
was one of the fathers of a new technology.
10. As a whole,
the story is rather discouraging.
Task 2. Circle the correct letter A, B, C or D
11. The narrator
started his own business:
A. alone B. with a friend C. with 20 workers D. with 4000 workers
12. As his best
creation the narrator views:
A. a sort of
fruit B. a sort of garage C. A sort of computer D. a sort of raincoat
13. The conflict
between the narrator and the management was growing for about:
A. 10 months
B. 12 months C. 10 years
D. 30 years
14. The narrator
must have felt somehow:
A. guilty B. proud
C. surprised D. encouraged
15. The
narrator’s resignation must have received:
A. a big press
B. a great failure C. a great
support D. little attention
16. The narrator
was considering:
A. starting
another business B.
returning to the old company
C. inventing a new technology D. moving somewhere else to
live
17. The narrator
regarded getting fore from the business as:
A. the saddest
event B. the complete crash of dreams
C. his own fault D. a
lucky chance
18. It can be
inferred from the story that:
A. a failure is
always good B. life
is always unfair
C. owing a big
business is very hard
D. it is good to let the people down
19. What does
the narrator feel about his personal life?
A. He was
happy. B. He was indifferent. C. He was upset. D. He was furious.
20. The story
can let one believe that the narrator is:
A. trying to
accept being guilty.
B. not interested in his future
C. currently
working in his original company
D. looking for a new job.
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