我生命中最重要的一天The Most Important Day in My Life
海倫·凱勒/ Helen Keller
海倫·凱勒（1880—1968），美國著名殘疾人作家、教育家，生於美國亞拉巴馬州。兩歲時，一場疾病使她變成了盲、聾、啞人。後來，她的父母請來家庭教師莎莉文女士對她進行特殊教育。同時，凱勒通過自身頑強的努力，於1904年畢業於麻省波士頓的拉德克利夫學院。後來，凱勒專職於寫作和殘疾人教育事業。她一生共寫了19本書，其中《我生活的故事》最為著名。
Practicing for Better Learning
Read the article quickly and answer the following questions.
1. What was the first word Helen learned?
2. Why did Helen feel angry and sad?
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers fingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line,and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was.“Light! Give me light!”was the wordless cry of my oil, and the light of love shone on me in that very tour.