Thomas Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be in the dark. However, the electric light was not his only invention. He also invented the motion picture camera and 1200 other things. About every two weeks he created something new.
Thomas Edison was born in 1847. He attended school for only three months. His mother taught him at home, but Thomas was mostly self-educated. He started experimenting at a young age.
When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy on a train. He did experiments on the train in his spare time. Unluckily, his first work experience did not end well. They fired him when he accidentally set fire to the floor of the train. Then Edison worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time in experimenting his first patent(专利权) in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity.
Thomas Edison was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but he thought of his deafness as a blessing in many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he could have more time for work. He always worked 16 out of every 24hours. Sometimes his wife had to remind him to sleep and eat.
Thomas Edison died at the age of 84. He left a great many inventions that greatly improved the quality of life all over the world.
【小题1】How often did Edison make a new invention?

A．About every fourteen days	B．About every seven days
C．About once a week	D．About twice a week

【小题2】The underlined word “fired” in the passage means “__________”

A．Gave somebody a job	B．Set fire to somebody
C．Let somebody down	D．Forced somebody to leave his job

【小题3】Edison considered his deafness as______.

A．something bad

B．a gift from god

C．a kind of ability

D．a disadvantage

【小题4】which of the following sentence is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Edison had only 8 hours rest each day after his deafness

B．Edison got his education mostly by self-teaching

C．Edison had his first job in 1869

D．Edison’s inventions greatly improved the quality of people’s life

【小题5】What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The function of the electric light	B．Edison and his experiments
C．The importance of inventions	D．The whole life of Edison.

Thomas Edison made more than 1,000 inventions in his life．（A）他的许多发明已经改变了世界。His first invention was a vote recorder（投票投票记录器）in 1869．This machine allowed people to place a vote by pressing a button instead of saying“Yes”or“No”．（B）H ________，American government officials did not like Edison’s invention because they preferred to call out their votes．

    Then Edison started a company with his friend．Franklin Pope．（C）was，morning，night，busy，until，Edison，from，early，late．As a result of hard work，he invented telegraph to print the price of gold and silver．He sold it to Western Union Company for $15,000．

    With some of the money Edison started his own company．Next he invented a stock ticker．（D）This machine was used to record the price of stocks（股票）in New York．Western Union paid Edison $40,000 for this invention．

    Edison used this money to open a shop in Newark in the state of New Jersey．In 1875，Edison and his family moved to Menlo Park in the same state．There he built his own laboratory．

1．将（A）处画线部分译成英语：

2．根据首字母提示，在（B）处填写一个适当的单词：

3．将（C）处画线部分连词成句：

4．将（D）处画线部分译成汉语：

5．Which state of America does Menlo Park belong to?  _____________

Three kids have been learning chemistry for only a few months. But they have already begun to challenge (挑战) a world famous scientist!
Li Weichi, Huang Runling, and Xiao Yan are from Zhongshan Huaqiao Middle School in Guangdong. They have just found a red cabbage that could be a new kind of acid-base indicator (酸碱指示剂). They want it to take the place of litmus (石蕊) paper.
"We've learnt to think of and ask questions about life by ourselves," said Li, "We work well with each other."
British scientist Robert Boyle discovered the use of litmus paper over 300 years ago. Now it is used widely in experiments all over the world.
But when the kids did some experiments in class last winter, they saw that the litmus paper didn’t turn very blue with base matter. It's hard to get a clear result.
Will there be a better indicator than litmus paper? The three kids decided to try and find out!
How? They went to collect over 40 plants in parks, gardens and markets. Then they ground (研磨) leaves, flowers and stems (茎) to get the pigments (色素) from them.
The kids mixed pigments with acid and base. They spent months watching carefully to see which paper showed the best colour change. They decided it was the litmus paper!
"It's our first scientific journey, Huang said, "But it makes me want to try harder."
【小题1】 Whom did the three kids want to challenge?

A．Their chemistry teacher.	B．Their headmaster.
C．Robert Boyle	D．Thomas Edison

【小题2】 From the text, a red cabbage is a kind of ____.

A．plant

B．animal

C．paper

D．liquid

【小题3】What is widely used as the acid-base indicator now?

A．red cabbage	B．litmus paper
C．any plant	D．any flower

【小题4】The story mainly tells us ____.

A．how to make litmus paper	B．about the three kids' spirit
C．scientists were wrong	D．the kids are heroes