In 1975, a San Diego homemaker named Marjorie Rice came across a column in Scientific American about tiling (瓷砖). There is a problem which has interested mathematicians since ancient Greek times. After Rice’s chance encounter with tiling, family members often saw her in the kitchen constantly drawing shapes. “I thought she was just drawing casually,” her daughter Kathy said. But Rice who took only one year of math in high school, was actually discovering never-before-seen patterns.

Born in Florida, she loved learning and particularly her brief exposure to math, but tight budget and social culture prevented her family from even considering that she might attend college. “For Rice, math was a pleasure,” her son David once said.

Rice gave one of her sons a subscription to Scientific American partly because she could read it carefully while the children were at school. When she read Gardner’s column about tiling as she later recalled in an interview: “I thought it must be wonderful that someone could discover these beautiful patterns which no one had seen before.” She also wrote in an essay, “My interest was engaged by the subject and I wanted to understand every detail of it. Lacking a mathematical background, I developed my own symbol system and in a few months discovered a new type.”

Astonished and delighted, she sent her work to Gardner, who sent it to Doris, a tiling expert at Moravian College. Doris confirmed that Rice’s finding was correct.

Later, Rice declined to lecture on her discoveries, citing shyness, but at Doris’s invitation, she attended a university mathematics meeting, where she was introduced to the audience. Rice still said nothing of her achievements to her children, but they eventually found out as the awards mounted.

【小题1】Why did Rice often draw shapes in the kitchen?

A．To become a mathematician.	B．To fill her leisure time.
C．To explore the secret of tiling.	D．To show her passion for drawing.

【小题2】What can we learn about Rice from Paragraphs 2 and 3?

A．She longed to start a column.	B．She succeeded in developing a system.
C．She was good at designing patterns.	D．She was rejected from a college.

【小题3】What is the text mainly about?

A．The magic of math.	B．The patterns of tiling.
C．The modesty of Rice.	D．The efforts of Rice.

【小题4】What can we learn from the Rice’s experience?

A．Every cloud has a silver lining.	B．Actions speak louder than words.
C．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.	D．Great minds think alike.