Columbus was born in a port city of Italy in 1451. As a teenager, he loved sailing and showed great interest in geography,     1     encouraged him to begin his career as a seaman.

Columbus insisted on searching for a direct sea route to the East Indies     2     sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. After continuous efforts, he received support from the King and Queen of Spain. On 3 August 1492, he set off from Spain with three ships     3     (carry) about 90 sailors. Regardless of many challenges he met with on the voyage, Columbus managed     4     (keep) everyone out of danger with his knowledge and bravery across the ocean and     5     (final), on 12 October, people on the ships     6     (spot) land in the distance. Columbus called the natives living on the islands Indians because he believed that he was in the East Indies,     7     actually the place they had reached was America.

Between 1493 and 1504, Columbus found more land later. His major     8     (contribute) is that he “discovered” the New World and     9     (he) discovery encouraged explorers such as Captain James Cook to explore and discover more vast areas of the world. His voyages opened     10     new chapter of the Age of Exploration, a period which saw many important geographical findings. This period also allowed for an international exchange of ideas and cultures.

2 . An 89-year-old man, Manfred Steiner, has reached a goal he spent 20 years working toward and nearly a lifetime thinking about: earning his Ph. D. And now he is a physicist

Steiner values this degree because it is what he always wanted and because he overcame health problems that could have affected his studies. “But I made it, and this was the most satisfactory point in my life, to finish it,” he said.

When he was young, Steiner wanted to become a physicist after reading about Albert Einstein. But his mother and uncle persuaded him that studying medicine would be a better choice. He earned his medical degree in 1955 and moved to the US soon after.

Steiner studied hematology（血液学）at Tufts University and biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a full professor and led the hematology department at Browns’ medical school from 1985 to 1994. Steiner helped establish a research program in hematology at the University of North Carolina. He directed that program until he retired from medicine in 2000.

Steiner found medical research pleasing, but it was not quite the same as his interest in physics. “It was something like a wish that was never fulfilled, that always stuck in the back of my head,” he said. At age 70, he started taking undergraduate classes.

Physics professor Brad Marston was surprised when Steiner entered his quantum mechanics class. But he became Steiner’s adviser for his dissertation（学位论文）after realizing how serious Steiner was about the subject and how hard he worked. “He has written many papers in medical science, more papers than I’ve written in physics,” Marston said. “One thing that’s really true about Manfred is that he perseveres.”

After the university published a story about Steiner on its website, people across the US contacted him to ask for advice on how to go after their dreams later in life. His advice is: Do what you love to do.

5 . While famous foreign architects are invited to lead the designs of landmark buildings in China such as the new CCTV tower and the National center for the Performing Arts, many excellent Chinese architects are making great efforts to take the center stage.

    1     Wang shu, a 49-year-old Chinese architect, won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize — which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture and—on February 28. He is the first Chinese citizen to win this award.

Before Wang's international recognition, many people thought most buildings with brilliant designs were completed by foreign companies and the Chinese people were only responsible for the construction work.     2    

Wang serves as head of the Architecture Department at the China A cadcmy of Art (CAA). His office is located at the Xiangshan campus of the university in Hangzhou. The campus, with an astonishing group of buildings in both number and scale, is just one of his masterpieces (杰作).     3     It was this campus that established his significant status in Chinese architecture.

The unique style of the campus makes it different from most Chinese universities.     4     Many visitors were shocked by the complex architectural space and building types. The curved (曲线) of the buildings match perfectly with the rise and fall of hills, forming a unique landscape.

Wang's works well explain modern architecture and show a good knowledge of traditions. Through such a balance, he had created a new type of Chinese architecture, said Tadao An do, a Japanese architect and the winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize.     5    

Helen Keller became blind and deaf at nineteen months old. Because she was deaf, Helen was unable to talk. She didn’t know how words sounded and couldn’t read     1     (they). Despite her disabilities, Helen learned to communicate.

Her teacher, Anne Sullivan,    2     (teach) her how to communicate with others. Anne wrote words on Helen's hand. Next, Helen learned how to make sounds in her throat.

Although her words didn’t sound very clear, she had learned to say words     3     her mouth. Helen also learned to read and write by     4     (use) Braille (盲文). She could read     5     (fast) with her fingers than people could read with their eyes! Helen Keller not only overcame many difficulties in her own life, but she also helped other people try to make their lives better. She became     6     writer and wrote about the challenges of being blind and deaf.

Helen travelled to towns and cities, and even other countries. She told people to be     7     (thank) for all their senses and to look at and listen to things as if they would never see or hear them again. Helen Keller was a kind of     8     (encourage) to others. She showed     9     a Person who couldn’t see or hear could achieve. For Helen, nothing could get in the way of her strong wish     10     (live) a full life.

7 . The moment he saw an organ, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knew what to do with it, Aged six, already skilled at the clavier（键盘乐器）, he came across pedals （踏板） and stops for the first time in an Austrian church. Within moments he was playing an accompaniment and composing on the spot freely. In the following year, 1763, an official in Heidelberg was so astonished by his organ-playing that he had a plate carved for his church to mark the boy's visit. Mozart composed his first symphony at eight.

Youthful promise often declines. With Mozart the opposite was true. Through him classical music may have found its most ideal expression. As Jan Swafford writes in his outstanding biography, Mozart's compositions displayed “a kind of effortless perfection so easily worn that they seem almost to have written themselves”. He drafted quickly, often without needing to revise. He “could express delight by the yard”. A man of his time, Mozart was equally at home composing for the concert salon or the opera stage.

He is the subject of many biographies, but the leading one, by Hermann Aber, is 100 years old and 1, 600 pages long. Safford, himself a composer and a programme-writer, offers an updated and authoritative life, easy to understand, beautifully written, and full of critical judgments and sharp notes on the works.

Mozart' s way with melody （旋律） and keen view of human nature-his letters reveal an almost Dickensian ability to paint characters-combined to promote opera from desserts to a serious medium, the author argues. “His wisdom, his ability to observe people and their weaknesses, his fascination with the craze for love - al this made him the perfect composer" of the form, Mr Swafford thinks.

He was admired in his time. Most of his music stuck to conventional structures yet went over the heads of the average listener. Legend has it that his most important fan, Emperor Joseph II, reacted to one performance with an impressive comment: “Too beautiful for our ears, my dear Mozart!”

8 . She was the 19th-century founder of modern nursing, known for her continuous care of wounded soldiers in the Crimean War. In an earlier age of contagion (接触性传染),she was far ahead of her time in realizing that cleanliness, fresh air and open-air exercise helped patients recover from injury and disease.

Now an unpublished letter that Florence Nightingale received as a teenager from her father shows that he was a major inspiration in shaping her approach to a healthy mind and body.

In 1835, William Nightingale wrote to his daughter setting out a routine for keeping fit. "Exercise for 10 minutes every day before breakfast. Before you dress do the exercise of the arms 20 times. In the course of the day, 20 minutes' exercise must be done and if not done well, another 10 minutes should be added ... Some new poetry to be learned and two things prepared for this evening. If any of these things aren't finished, you will work them up the next day."

The letter will feature in a book, Florence Nightingale at Home, to be published in November. The letter is among the unpublished materials on which the book's four authors have drawn and it offers new insights into her pioneering work.

Nightingale had a happy childhood at a time of widespread child labor and high baby death rates when most people lived in small, unclean houses and hospitals were dirty and badly run with many patients having little hope of coming out alive. When Nightingale first became famous, people were amazed at the idea that someone used to living in a country house would give that up in order to nurse the poor. Her own parents were also shocked to learn that she wanted to become a nurse in an age when nurses were thought of as morally wrong.

William Nightingale's 1835 letter was among the unpublished materials unearthed from piles of boxes at Claydon House where Nightingale's sister lived, now a National Trust property.

A 1973 job     1     (apply) filled out by Apple co—founder and former CEO Steve Jobs has sold for $222,400 at auction in London (via iMore). The rare employment form went up for auction on Feb 24 for a one—month bidding session.

As we all expect, most businessman are curious     2     the lives of those who have managed to create large companies and what are the contents in the form.     3     (date) back to 1973, the form was filled out with a handful of simple phrases containing spelling errors. Yet it gives a glimpse into the interests of     4     (ambition) young Jobs. In the form, he listed his special abilities     5     “electronics tech or design engineer,” and wrote “yes” next to computer skills. However, the     6     (invent) of the iPhone wrote “none” next to the column “Phone.”

Today, the company he was applying to     7     (remain) a mystery. However, in 1974 Jobs joined Atari as a technician,     8     he worked with Steve Wozniak and two years later they     9     (found) Apple. Jobs is believed to have completed the form after     10     (drop) out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon and it is listed as being in “very good condition,” with “light staining and old clear tape to the top edge.”

Buckingham Palace has announced that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has died at the age of 99.

"His Royal Highness passed     1     peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle." said a statement issued     2     behalf of the royal family. "    3     (far) announcements will be made in due course. The Royal Family join with people around the world in mourning his    4     (lose)."

Prince Philip     5     (marry) to Queen Elizabeth II for 73 years, during     6     time he accompanied her on her duties around the United Kingdom and the world, a 1986 trip to China     7     (include).     8     (addition), Prince Philip attended more than 22,000 activities and visited abroad 637 times alone.

Earlier this year, Prince Philip spent four weeks in hospital after suffering from     9     infection and undergoing treatment for a pre-existing heart condition.

His death will be marked by a period of public mourning, with     10     (detail) of the funeral to be announced at a later date.