41 |
P a g e
UNIT 9
READING COMPREHENSION 4
Terry Fox A real-life hero
Pre-reading
Do you know any real-life heroes?
What actions turn ordinary people into heroes?
󠄀Saving a person’s life
󠄀Rescuing a child or animal in trouble
󠄀Helping a disabled person
󠄀Finding and returning someone else’s valuable possession
󠄀Preventing or stopping a crime
󠄀Doing volunteer work
󠄀Raising money for a good cause
󠄀Overcoming difficulty or hardship
󠄀 ______________________________
Reading text
1
At
Mile Zero, the western starting point of Canada’s Number 1 Highway in
Victoria,
British Columbia, there stands a life-size bronze statue of a young, curly-
headed long-distance runner. He is wearing a
prosthetic limb where his right leg had
been, and the expression on
his face is a mixture of pain, exhaustion,
and sheer
determination. He has cancer and he is running against time. The young man’s name is
Terry Fox.
2
Terry Stanley Fox was born on July 28, 1958, and grew up in Port Coquitlam,
British Columbia. Throughout his school years, he was active in sports.
He loved
basketball, and although he was too short to qualify for the school team in Grade 8, hard
work and
persistence earned him a place the following year. In Grade 12, he and his