1 . Do you know the highest bridge in the world? Is it in America? Is it in the UK? NO, It’s in China. It’s called the Beipanjiang Bridge, and it is the highest one in the world. It’s near Bejie in Guizhou Province. The bridge stands 565 meters above （在……上面）a deep river. It connects the provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan.
Guizhou Province is already home to seven of the ten highest bridges in China. The Beipanjiang Bridge has just overtaken（超过）the Sidu River Bridge in Hubei Province to become the world’s highest. The Beipanjiang Bridge is five meters higher than the previous（以前的）record holder. The third highest bridge in the world is also in our country.
The building of the Beipanjiang Bridge started in 2012 and it was opened to traffic on December 29, 2016. It cost about 100 million yuan. Over 10,000 engineers and technicians（技术人员） worked on this project, which took over three years to complete.
The Beipanjiang Bridge is part of highway（高速公路）connecting Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province and Ruili City in Yunnan Province. The bridge is 1341.4 meters long and it cuts the travel time from Liupanshui in Guizhou to Xuanwei in Yunnan from around five hours to over an hour.
1. How high is the Beipanjiang Bridge？2. What was the world’s highest bridge before the Beipanjiang Bridge？
3. Where is the world’s third highest bridge？
4. When did the Beipanjiang Bridge start being used？
5. How long does it take people to travel from Liupanshui to Xuanwei now？
2 . Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart. He or she will, in a lifetime, push it many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who invented it.
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers carrying the shopping baskets hard.
One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels.The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help increase more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention. But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try. After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied. But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success as long as he didn’t give up. Later, Goldman came up with a good idea. He hired(雇佣) a group of people to push carts around his market as if they were shopping. His creative idea achieved a great success.
As Goldman had hoped, larger and larger numbers of customers came to his market after a short period. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers bought a greater number of things than before.
Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s earliest model. Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did in 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart. Perhaps the shopping cart is one reason.
1. When was the shopping cart invented?2. Did shoppers like to try Goldman’s invention when it first appeared in his market?
3. Why did Goldman hire people to push carts in the market as if they were shopping?
4. Will you be one of the first users when a new invention appears? Why or why not?
