About 20 years ago, on the way to a student’s house, Zhang Guimei 【小题1】(learn) that a 13-year-old girl was forced to get married by her parents. She felt sorry for not 【小题2】(be) able to help. That inspired her to build a free high school for girls from the far-away mountains. After years of efforts, in 2008 a free public high school was founded at the foot of the Shizi Mountain in Huaping, 【小题3】 Zhang has been the headmaster since then. Over the years, Zhang has walked 【小题4】(thousand) of kilometers, persuading girls to go back to school. Now more than 1,800 graduates have been admitted 【小题5】 college, which is regarded a “miracle (奇迹)” in the area, because most students didn’t do 【小题6】(good) in academic study before the school was founded.

Zhang Guimei wants children from the mountains to attend the best universities. She told the media a girl can influence three generations. “【小题7】 educated, responsible mother will not let her children 【小题8】(drop) out of school,” she added, “And the goal is to prevent poverty from passing down from generation to generation”. Her 【小题9】(move) stories inspire many people. In early December, she was named a 【小题10】(nation) outstanding member of the Communist Party of China (中国共产党) for her contribution to education in rural China.

Do you know the story how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? In fact, he invented it accidentally.

It was the exploring around problems and his dynamic spirit 【小题1】 led to his most famous invention — the telephone in 1876. Bell never set out to invent the telephone and what he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This 【小题2】(origin) telegraph sent a message over distances 【小题3】(use) Morse code. But only one message could go at a time. Bell wanted 【小题4】(improve) it so that it could send several messages at the same time. He designed a machine that would separate different sound waves and allow different 【小题5】(conversation) to be held at the same time. But he found 【小题6】 problem difficult to solve. One day as he was experimenting with one end 【小题7】 a straw joined to a deaf man’s ear drum and the other to a piece of smoked glass, Bell 【小题8】(notice) that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on the glass. Suddenly he had a flash of 【小题9】(inspire). If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could 【小题10】(send) along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph, Bell had invented the first telephone!

Tao Yuanming and Henry David Thoreau were both poets, and they shared an intense respect for nature, which made them each an 【小题1】 (influence) figure of their time.

In 405, Tao Yuanming 【小题2】 (quit) the service of the court for good. He spent the next 22 years until his death 【小题3】 (work) the land in a poor, rural area. From his poetry, we can learn that although his life was arduous, he succeeded in finding 【小题4】 (content) in its simplicity and in drawing pleasure from nature.

While Tao’s return to nature was 【小题5】 reaction to a lifestyle he was opposed to, Thoreau’s was a personal decision 【小题6】 (transform) the way he lived.

Although Tao and Thoreau do not treat nature 【小题7】 quite the same way, their works show its beauty and value. 【小题8】 takes considerable courage to reject the easy and familiar and instead try to live closer to nature. Their choices led them to quiet and reflective lives with 【小题9】 (few) material desires. In today’s modern world, their ideas about living 【小题10】 (simple) and being at ease with nature may take us a step closer to attaining personal well­being and fulfilment.