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Passage 35
Conrad Hilton really wanted to be a banker. Instead, he successfully changed the _1_purchase of a Texas low-end hotel into a multimillion-dollar hotel empire that earned him the _2_ “innkeeper to the world.”
Born in New Mexico in 1887, Hilton was 19 when his parents began renting out rooms in their home. The business didn't interest him, however, so he became a _3_ legislator, founded a bank and went off to war. In 1919, after Hilton’s father died, a friend suggested he go to Texas to make his _4_. Hilton ended up in Cisco; when his bank deal there _5_, he headed to a nearby hotel, the Mobley. It _6_ to oil-field workers, so its 40 rooms turned over every eight hours. A week later, Hilton owned it. He soon acquired more hotels—and started to build new ones. His first, the Dallas Hilton, opened in 1925. By the late 1940s, Hilton’s list included the Town House in Beverly Hills and Chicago’s Palmer House, as well as _7_ nightclubs featuring A-list stars. He also expanded internationally. And in 1949, he bought the “greatest of them all”: New York City's magnificent Waldorf- Astoria. Typically American, Hiltons were _8_ too: the first to have rooms with air-conditioning, TVs, ironing boards and sewing kits. Even modern hotel-reservations systems _9_ from one Hilton which was established in 1948.
Today the Hilton Hotels Corp. owns some 3,300 _10_ in 78 countries. Last year more than a quarter-billion guests checked in.
A) soured B) motivated C) nickname D) catered
E) previously F) luxurious G) properties H) features
I) fortune J) evolved K) casual L) severe
M) inherited N) creative O) state
