2 . Do you have bright ideas? Ideas for inventions that change society or, at least, make life easier for somebody? Perhaps we all do sometimes but we don’t often make the idea come true. Recently, in Britain, there was a competition called British Designers for Tomorrow. The competition encouraged young people to carry out their bright ideas. There were two groups in the contest: Group One was for school children over 16. And there were eleven prize-winners altogether.

Neil Hunt, one of the prize-winners, was called “Sunshine Superman”. It’s important when people study the weather to be able to record sunshine. We need to know how many hours of sunshine we have and how strong it is. Most sunshine records only record direct sunlight. Neil’s is accurate and this is very important for research into way of using its power.

You can do so much with animated cartoon. Look at Simon West’s idea for animated road signs. He uses pictures which appear to move as you go nearer to or farther from them. This isn’t a new idea. But it is new to use these pictures on road signs. “We found that people were likely to see moving signs,” said Simon. So now, you can really see rocks falling, trains moving, horses running or car falling over the edge of a cliff. Quite a warning!

The ideas in the competition were so inventive that we are surprised that British industry doesn’t ask more school children for suggestions. Perhaps this will be the start of “pupil power”!

3 . The disposable culture

The disposable (一次性的) culture started small. In1892 William Painter, founder of the Baltimore Bottle Seal Company, patented the bottle cap. The bottles were returned and refilled, but the bottle caps were ________. They only worked once. Painter’s chief salesman at the time was called Mr Gillette, who went on to apply the same principle to his own invention, the disposable version-cameras, contact lenses, barbecues- but the ________ has been taken a step further. For ________ reasons, most of the electrical equipment that we buy for the home is effectively disposable. This is because it is usually cheaper to ________ them than to mend them. This applies not just to radios and toasters, but also to fridges, televisions and dishwashers. We now live in a disposable culture.

Most people feel ________ this new trend. We know we should be reducing the amount of waste we produce and recycling as much as possible although despite all our efforts, landfill continues to increase. It’s hard to slip a CD player into the bottom of the rubbish these days without feeling ________ especially if you suspect that all it needs is a simple repair. But who ________ that sort of thing these days? And how much would they charge you?

With persistence, one may still ________ someone out there willing to make the necessary repairs to your broken bread-making machine, but even they will feel obliged to inform you that, given the likely price of the ________, you’ d probably be better off throwing away the old one and buying the latest model. To ________ that something should be mended even though that will cost more than a brand-new replacement is weird, to say the least.

This dilemma (困境) occasionally ________ the possibility of fixing the damaged goods yourself. If something is next to ________ anyway, why not take it apart and see if you can figure out what’s wrong? I have had particular luck with cheap, plastic, battery-operated children’s toys, where bad manufacture is usually the cause of the ________ and some strong glue or tape is usually all it needs to put it right. Small children tend to be impressed by this sort of thing, which is probably the only reason I bother. I wouldn’t suggest you attempt to repair your own microwave, although I managed it once. It was one of the most ________ experiences of my life a difficult success to mention in casual conversation, perhaps, but I’m still trying.

While some repairs are certainly beyond the ability of the ordinary consumer, many are unbelievably simple. Finding willing ________ may be almost impossible, but tracking down spare parts has never been easier now that you can look on the Internet. There are also hundreds of sites offering step-by-step instructions for making repairs.

The History of Snacks

Hamburgers, sandwiches and pizza are some of the worlds’ favourite snacks, but have you ever wondered     1     first ate them? Read on to find out more.

The hamburger started life as small pieces of raw beef     2    (eat) by the Tartars, a tribe who invaded Europe in the Middle Ages.     3     they ate it, they used to put the meat on their horse under the saddle (马鞍) they were sitting on in order to make it soft. When the Tartar s arrived in Hamburg, the people mixed the beef with local spices, fried it and called it the Hamburg Steak. Germans who came to the USA took this recipe with them and it became known     4     a hamburger there.

People say that it was John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich,     5    invented the sandwich. Montague enjoyed playing cards in his favourite restaurant, the Beef Steak Club in London. He could     6    (find) there most days and some of his games lasted for hours. One day, instead of stopping     7    (eat) lunch, Montague asked a servant to bring him some meat between two slices of bread to prevent the cards from getting dirty. When the other players saw this, they began to order’ the same as Sandwich’, and so the sandwich got its name.

In 1889, Queen Margherita of Italy invited chef Rafaelle Esposito from his pizzaria to visit the royal palace and     8    (bake) a selection of pizzas for her.     9    (want) to impress the queen, Rafaelle made a very special pizza. It was large and topped with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh herbs to represent the Italian flag,       10     is red, white and green. The Queen was delighted with this design and the pizza became one of her favourite foods. When people heard about this, they all wanted to try it and so the pizza Margherita was born.

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