第三部分 名人故事（四）
16. Alexander Graham Bell and His First Telephone
亚历山大?格雷厄姆?贝尔和他的第一部电话机
亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔，美国着名发明家和企业家。他发明了世界上第一台可用的电话机，创建了贝尔电话公司，被誉为“电话之父”。他出生在苏格兰的爱丁堡，并在那里接受了早期的教育。除了发明电话外，他还研制了助听器，改进了爱迪生发明的留声机。他对聋哑语的发明贡献甚大。从1875年到1922年间，他从美国政府那里就取得了三十项专利权。
Today, as we look up over our bead at the telephone wires that carry our words from one place to another, we cannot help thinking of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland, but when he was young his family moved to Boston, USA. His mother was almost deaf, so Alexander became interested in helping deaf people communicate and in deaf education. This interest led him to invent the microphone.
Bell never set out to invent the telephone and what he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This original telegraph sent a message over distances using Morse code. But only one message could go at a time. Bell wanted to 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 conversations to be held at the same time. But he found the problem difficult to solve. One day as he was experimenting with a straw joined to a deaf man’s ear, Bell noticed that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on a piece of smoked glass. Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration. If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could be sent along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph, Bell invented the first telephone!
On March 10, 1876, Bell and his friend Thomas Watson were at their posts several rooms apart, ready to begin another experiment. While working, Bell got his leg hurt, and he cried for help. “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!” and Watson heard Bell crying over his receiver! That was the first sentence ever spoken over a telephone.
That night Bell wrote to his mother: “This is a great day with me. I feel that the day is coming when the telephone wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas, and friends will talk with each other without leaving home.”
Two years later, telephones were installed in many cities in the United States. The number of telephones in use kept going up very fast year after year, and in 1922 there were over 20 million telephones in the United States only.
C. he was almost deaf.
D. his mother was almost.
2. Bell invented the telephone ______
A. because he had a deaf mother.
B. but he had never intended to do so in the beginning.
C. because he had made up his mind to realize this dream.
D. so that he could talk to his assistant, Mr. Watson.
3. The first sentence ever spoken over a telephone was ______
A. said by Bell.
B. to ask for help.
C. to ask Watson to come to Bell's place.
D. all mentioned above.
4. The original telegraph had a disadvantage because ______
A. it could send several messages at the same time.
B. only one message could go at a time.
C. it sent a message over distances using Morse code.
D. it separated different sound waves and allow different conversations to be held at the same time.
5. During Bell’s funeral, all the telephones in North America were silent ______
A. because there was an electricity failure.
B. in order to show respect and admiration of the people to the great inventor.
C. to celebrate the invention of the telephone.
D. remember the day of Bell’s death.
(DBDBB)
17. Alexander Fleming, Discoverer of Penicillin
青霉素（也叫盘尼西林）的发明者亚历山大·弗莱明，于1881年出生在苏格兰的洛克菲尔德，
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doing any harm to man.
Fleming wrote a paper in which he described penicillin in details. The paper was published in 1929. Because of the lack of enough means, he could not get enough quantity of penicillin to be used for man. It was only 12 years later that two other scientists succeeded in getting enough penicillin for the doctors to use in hospitals.
In his lifetime, Alexander Fleming received a lot of awards for his achievements. For his discovery of penicillin, he won the Nobel Prize in 1945.
Comprehension Questions:
1. Fleming began his search for such a substance as penicillin ______
A. while studying at college.
B. as soon as he graduated from college.
C. during the First World War.
D. when World War I ended.
2. Penicillin ______
A. can cure any patient.
B. can kill the dangerous germs without doing any harm to man.
C. is only used on wounds.
s.b.poloD. was widely used in the 1920s.
3. Penicillin was first used in hospitals ______
A. in 1928. B. in 1929. C. in 1950. D. in 1941.
4. Fleming became world-famous for ______
A. his experiments in the laboratory.
B. a lot of awards he had received.
C. his discovery of penicillin.
D. the paper in which he described penicillin in details.
5. The passage mainly ______
A. gives us a brief introduction of Alexander Fleming.
B. tells us how penicillin was discovered.
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