【推荐1】

Did you have cereal (麦片) for breakfast this morning? If you did you’re not alone. Lots of people eat cereal for breakfast every day. In fact, cereal is popular all over the world. It all started with one man, Will Keith Kellogg.

Will was born on April 7, 1860, in Battle Creek, Michigan. His first job was as a stock boy at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. A sanitarium is a special kind of place that is a little like a hospital. A sanitarium is meant for people who are ill for ạ long time or who are getting over a serious illness. Will had other jobs as he got older. But in 1879, he became a manager of the sanitarium. His brother, John, was the chief doctor there.

One big problem at the sanitarium was the patients’ diets. The patients needed healthy diets, but it was also important for the food to taste good. Will was trying to find a good food choice to take the place of the bread, but it wasn’t going very well. Then, by accident, Will found something even better. He left some wheat to cook too long. When it was rolled out, it formed large, thin flakes. He asked his brother to serve it to the patients, and they loved it! In fact, they liked it so much that they wanted breakfast flakes sent to them even after they left the sanitarium. So Will started a new business in 1884: selling packaged breakfast flakes. Before long, Kellogg’s breakfast cereal was popular in other countries, too. Today, there are many kinds of breakfast cereals. But it all started with one man and one idea.

Will did more than just create breakfast flakes. His company made a lot of money. But he always shared it with others generously. He used much of his money to help children. He also used his money to help in several other charities (慈善机构) . Will Kellogg died in 1951. But his most famous invention is as popular as ever.

【推荐2】Tim Berners-Lee is not the most famous inventor in the world. However, his invention has changed our lives.

He was born in London, England in 1955. When he was a small boy, Tim was interested in playing with electrical things. He studied science at Oxford University. He made his first computer from an old television at the age of 21.

Tim started working on early computers. At that time, they were much bigger than now. He worked in England then Switzerland. Tim was really interested in two things, computers and how the brain works. How could the brain connect so many facts so quickly? He had to work with people all over the world. They shared information about computers. It was hard to manage all the information. He answered the same questions again and again. It took a lot of time. It was even difficult for computers in the same office in Switzerland to share information.   Tim also forgot things easily. Could a computer work like a brain? Could it “talk” to other computers?

There was an Internet already but it was difficult to use. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW) all by himself. This had a special language that helped computers talk to each other on the Internet. When people wanted to share information with others, they used the World Wide Web. The Internet grew quickly after that.

Tim Berners-Lee doesn’t think he did anything special. He says that all of the ideas about the Internet were already there. All he did was to put them together. He says that many other people worked together to make the Internet what it is today.

Most inventors want to become rich. But Tim gave away the World Wide Web for nothing. He now works in America. He helps people share technology and wants the Internet to be free for everyone to use. Maybe he is the most important but least famous inventor in the world today!

【推荐3】

Alice Lewis is from America. She is a creative (有创造力的) girl. She likes to invent—to think of new ideas for things that no one has made before, and then make them.

One day, Alice’s mother showed her an article which explained how difficult it was to get sick people through the countryside to the hospital in Africa. Alice wanted to help.

Alice knew that in North America, before there were cars, horses pulled heavy things on a travois (旧式雪橇) which was made of wood. Alice thought people in Africa could do the same thing. She added wheels to the travois for the African people. To make her travois light to pull, she used bamboo, a plant that grows in Africa, instead of wood.

You need to wear a belt (腰带) to pull Alice’s travois. That means you can free your hands to carry. Alice thought her travois was perfect for carrying food home from the market, as well as taking people to the hospital. After it was finished, she wrote instructions (说明书) for building one. So people in Africa could make it by themselves.

Alice doesn’t know if she wants to be an inventor when she grows up, because she also likes music and writing. But she thinks it’s important for children to learn about inventing at school.

阅读以上文章，根据其内容回答其后各个小题。

【推荐2】Vegetables are good for our health. They give us different kinds of vitamins (维生素) and help us grow. Eating carrots is good for our eyes, because carrots can help us see better at night. Do you want to have strong teeth? Eat some beans. Beans have vitamin K in them. Vitamin K is helpful for our teeth.

Do you like tomatoes? They look nice. Doctors call tomatoes “healthy vegetables”, because they can stop illness (疾病). They also have vitamin P and it can keep our skin (皮肤) healthy. So it is important to eat some tomatoes. Don’t forget spinach. The spinach leaves have vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E. They can help us do our jobs better.

Vegetables are very important to us, but we can’t only have vegetables. We also need other kinds of food to keep healthy.

【推荐3】Do you know the whales in the sea? There are many relatives（亲属）in the whale family and they always live together with whales.

Few people know dolphins（海豚）are part of the whale family. Dolphins are not fish. They are mammals（哺乳动物）. They breathe air, and they have babies and feed them with milk. Dolphins are famous for their wonderful shows. They can jump high out of the water and show turns in the air. These jumps give the dolphins time to breathe.

Porpoises（鼠海豚）are also in the whale family and are quite like dolphins. But they are different in the size and shape of the mouth. The dolphin’s mouth is long and thin, but the porpoise’s is short and thick. Dolphins are also more talkative than porpoises. Dolphins make sounds to talk with each other under water. But porpoises do not do this. Both of them are smart and friendly to humans.

Not all the members of the whale family are friendly. Big whales are much easier to be angry than smaller dolphins or porpoises. An angry whale can be dangerous. Perhaps this helped to create the story of Moby Dick that sank（使下沉）a ship and made all the people on it die in the sea.