1 . Remembering Maki Kaji, the “Father of Sudoku”
Maki Kaji, a Japanese man who was known as the “Father of Sudoku”, has passed away from cancer at the age of 69. Mr. Kaji was a puzzle lover who helped turn Sudoku from a simple number challenge into a game played around the world.
Though Mr. Kaji finished high school, he dropped out of college. After Mr. Kaji left college, he started Japan’s first puzzle magazine in 1980 with two of his friends. They named their magazine company Nikoli, which has become very popular over the years. It publishes puzzles and books for people all over the world. But Sudoku is probably the puzzle that most people think of when they remember Mr. Kaji.
While it’s not clear where the original number puzzle came from, Mr. Kaji is the one who gave it the name “Sudoku” and made it popular. By 2004, it was one of the most-played puzzles in the world. Now millions of people play Sudoku every day. Nikoli says that roughly 200 million people from about 100 countries have played the puzzle. People even compete in a Sudoku world championship every year.
Sudoku isn’t just popular—it’s also a huge moneymaker, bringing in millions and millions of dollars. But Mr. Kaji never made much money from the puzzle, since he didn’t protect Sudoku legally. He said that didn’t bother him, since he focused on the pleasure it brought for people.
Mr. Kaji believed the secret of making a great puzzle was to make it easy for anyone to play. He said discovering a new puzzle was “like finding treasure”. It’s that kind of spirit that has left many people in the puzzle world so sad to hear that Mr. Kaji has passed away. Puzzle experts and fans around the world have thanked Mr. Kaji for his work, and honored him as a true lover of puzzles.
1. How does the writer show the popularity of Sudoku?| A．By listing numbers. | B．By showing examples. |
| C．By giving explanations. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．He failed to enter university. | B．He centered on the joy the puzzle brought. |
| C．He was good at playing Sudoku. | D．He earned a large sum of money. |
| A．Making it instructive. | B．Giving it a fun name. |
| C．Keeping the rules simple. | D．Publishing it on magazines. |
| A．A game review. | B．A self-biography. |
| C．A news report. | D．An announcement. |
1. How old was Omar Hegazy when the motorcycle accident happened?
| A．15. | B．24. | C．31. |
| A．To let out his anger. |
| B．To improve his skills. |
| C．To set a world record. |
| A．A coach. | B．A diver. | C．A speaker. |
Volleyball star Zhu Ting,
But she wants to leave a legacy (遗产)
Even on the court, Zhu says her “captain” label doesn’t apply and she is just one of the squad (运动队) members. “Being the captain is just an idea to the public, but within the team, I’m not really ‘leading’ my
She has told China Central Television that she aims
That would mean
4 . The next time you have cheese, remember the French scientist Louis Pasteur who discovered that bad milk, and many diseases are caused by bacteria(细菌).
Louis Pasteur is known as the father of microbiology. In his lifetime, he not only proved that bacteria are the cause of diseases, but also discovered the process of vaccination (接种疫苗) which has saved billions of lives.
When Pasteur worked with chickens that were suffering from cholera(霍乱) during his experiments, he accidentally spread cholera to his chickens. Pasteur’s chickens became mildly sick but did not die. This was strange as every chicken that came near cholera earlier had died. He realized soon that the cholera had become weak. By the time he tried again, the chickens he had cured earlier did not get cholera anymore. He realized that a weak cholera helped his chickens develop an antibody against it.
Later, Pasteur went on to try this on cows, pigs and dogs. All his research helped him develop different vaccines. We now know that the process of vaccination introduces a weakened kind of bacteria into our body. Our body reacts by creating antibodies to fight the bacteria. Now, when our body comes across the same bacteria which are much stronger, it can fight them off.
Louis Pasteur received numerous awards for the advancement of biology, chemistry, and medicine. He founded the Pasteur Institute to study diseases. It was the first university to teach microbiology and today there are 32 institutes across 29 countries. For every child vaccinated against a deadly disease, we have Louis Pasteur to thank.
1. What do we know about Louis Pasteur?| A．His discoveries weren’t used at his time. |
| B．He discovered the connection between bacteria and diseases. |
| C．He was a professor at the Pasteur Institute. |
| D．His discoveries brought many profits and awards to him. |
| A．Cholera was not a deadly disease then. |
| B．Pasteur spread cholera to chickens on purpose. |
| C．All chickens suffered from cholera died at last. |
| D．The weakened cholera couldn’t kill the living creatures |
| A．It builds up people’s body. |
| B．Without it, people will die. |
| C．It improves people’s ability to avoid diseases. |
| D．It can kill all the diseases and make the sick bealthy. |
| A．Because he wants to honour Louis Pasteur and his contribution to the world. |
| B．Because he wants to show the discoveries of the vaccination. |
| C．Because be wants to call on children to learn from Louis Pasteur |
| D．Because he wants to introduce an important invention in microbiology. |
As one of the top contemporary Chinese painters
Fan Yang
After graduating from high school, Fan chose to work at the Nantong Arts and Crafts Research Institute. He applied
In 1978, Fan Yang
During his four years of college life, Fan absorbed the skills and knowledge of his predecessors (先辈)
After many years of
Yu Rong, a Chinese artist, thinks of a new way to introduce
Hua Mulan,
To better tell the story, Yu Rong takes inspiration from her several
7 . Jim Thorpe is one of the greatest athletes of all time. He had amazing athletic abilities and was well-known during his lifetime, yet that did not make Thorpe a stranger to adversity.
Thorpe was an American Indian from Oklahoma who developed his extraordinary athletic skills in his youth through hard labor. It was also in his youth that he learned to endure hardship brought upon by racial prejudice. Many would say his childhood was not easy. He grew up poor and at age 9 his twin brother passed away and a few years later he lost both of his parents.
But that did not stop him from doing what he loved and pursuing his dreams. Nothing seemed to stop him, not even stolen shoes. Just hours before Thorpe was going to compete in the 1912 Olympics, somebody stole his shoes. Thorpe improvised (临时拼凑) by getting shoes out of the garbage. The shoes were two different sizes. He wore an extra pair of socks on one foot to even them out.
He still went on to win two gold medals—winning each event he competed in except for one, the javelin (标枪). The javelin was the only event he didn’t win, probably because he had never competed in that event before. It is interesting to note that Thorpe had tried to throw the javelin once before in the Olympic trials. At the time, he didn’t know that he could throw it with a running start. He threw it standing still and was placed second.
At the Olympics，he also took part in the decathlon (十项全能运动). He finished first in two events, third in four events, and fourth in two more. Thorpe ended up finishing third in the world. He was undoubtedly a dominating force that couldn’t be stopped and just kept on going.
I think Paul Dughi said it best, “It’s hard to imagine now that pro athletes get paid millions of dollars just to wear a particular brand of shoes. For Jim Thorpe, it didn’t matter what kind he wore.”
1. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．The adversity Thorpe met with led to his success. |
| B．Thorpe’s success was no guarantee of a better life. |
| C．Thorpe’s career brought him both gains and losses. |
| D．Thorpe suffered many hardships despite his success. |
| A．To prevent the foot from injury. | B．To make the shoe fit the foot. |
| C．To stop the shoe from being stolen. | D．To show his problem-solving skills. |
| A．Loss of his own sports shoes. | B．A casual attitude towards the event. |
| C．Lack of experience in the event. | D．A shortage of talent for the event. |
| A．Loyal and enthusiastic. | B．Genuine and creative. |
| C．Tough and strong-minded. | D．Selfless and good-tempered. |
| A．A movie. | B．An athlete. | C．An interview. |
1. What do we know about the writer?
| A．He never travels around the world. |
| B．He is a teacher. |
| C．He was born disabled. |
| A．Encouraging. | B．Polite. | C．Strange. |
10 . Compared with physicists such as Marie Curie or Richard Feynman, Wu Chien-shiung is not a household name in China but she was one of the most influential nuclear physicists of the 20th century, one that “completely” changed human’s view of the universe.
Wu’s father, Wu Zhongyi, founded the first school for girls in Taicang, aiming to break the old idea that it was women’s virtue to have no talents, which had the greatest influence on Wu Chien-shiung’s life. Working in the scientific world dominated (支配) by men, she never gave up or lowered her standards even if unequally treated. After graduating from the former National Central University in Nanjing in 1934, Wu registered at the University of California, Berkeley at the age of 24 to continue her study in physics.
During her 44-year career as a nuclear physicist, Wu’s pioneering achievements won her nicknames such as “Chinese Madame Curie”, “queen of nuclear research” and “first lady of physics”. She was the first woman to be president of American Physical Society, the first female winner of the Comstock Prize in physics given by the US National Academy of Sciences, the first person to receive the Wolf Prize in physics, the first honorary doctorate awarded by Princeton University to a woman, and the first female professor of physics in the history of Columbia University.
To get accurate results from experiments, she worked very hard day and night at a laboratory and gained a reputation (名声) for accuracy. There was a saying among physicists: If the experiment was done by Wu, it must be correct. She was always very careful in experiments, spending a great deal of time calibrating (校准) instruments. She didn’t start collecting data until she fully understood the instruments. Her experiments overturned many previous experimental results and theories, said Samuel Chao Chung Ting, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner.
On Feb 16, 1997, Wu died in the US. According to her will, she was buried in her hometown Taicang. She was a distinguished world citizen, and was forever a Chinese.
1. What influenced Wu Chien-shiung when she was young?| A．Her life in America. | B．Her love for physics. |
| C．Her family background. | D．Marie Curie’s achievements. |
| A．Awards are usually gained through great efforts. |
| B．Wu Chien-shiung was “a pioneer” in many ways. |
| C．No scientists were better than Wu Chien-shiung. |
| D．We cannot stress the importance of physics enough. |
| A．Caring and responsible. | B．Courageous and creative. |
| C．Stubborn and sensitive. | D．Cautious and hardworking. |
| A．An influential woman nuclear physicist. | B．An important contribution to physics. |
| C．The influence of modern education. | D．Nuclear researches in scientific world. |
