Many objects that people use each day started with a simple idea. These objects have often changed the way we  46 . Some help us to do a job more   47 . Others fill a need or solve a problem.
In 1858, Lipman had such an  48 . He took out a pencil, a piece of paper,   49 an eraser. Then he began to write. Sometimes he needed to  50  a word. Each time he had to search under his books and papers to   51  the eraser. “ I wish my eraser would stay in one 52 !” he said.
Then Lipman had his simple idea. He   53  a groove(凹槽) in one end of the pencil. He glued(粘牢) the eraser into the groove. Lipman had solved his problem. Later he thought that others might like to have such a pencil. So he sold his  54 .Some pencils with erasers were 55 . His design earned $ 100000.

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe is born 10 feet high and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over its legs under its body. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its children to the reality(現(xiàn)實(shí)) of life.
In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a new-born giraffe learns its first lesson.
The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she puts herself directly over her child. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable(不合情理的) thing. She throws her long leg and kicks her baby, so that it’s sent sprawling(四腳朝天).
When it doesn’t get up, the process is repeated again and again. The struggle to rise is important. As the baby giraffe grows tired, the mother kicks it again. Finally, it stands for the first time on its shaky(搖晃的) legs. Then the mother giraffe kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, a baby giraffe must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with its group, where there’s safety.
Another writer named Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing stories about such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin.
Stone was once asked if he had found something that runs through the lives of all these great people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life have a dream of something. They’re beaten over the head, knocked down and for years they get nowhere. But every time they stand up again. And at the end of their lives they’ve realized some small parts of what they set out(著手) to do .”
【小題1】What does the underlined part “a tall order” in Paragraph 1 mean?

If you have failed in the past to try to make big changes in life，try again now，one tiny step at a time．

Every year it’s the same．As December comes to an end，you think about the new year and all the ways you want to improve your life. But as you start to write down your hopes for the new year，you think about the last year．You excitedly write down all the changes you are going to make，but by the end of January those ideas get lost in your busy life．

Here’s a suggestion：Forget the too big，hard-to-achieve goals(目標(biāo)) and just think about the small ones．“We often think that we have to do everything in big steps, even though it’s so hard for us to reach it．” said Robert Maurer，who recently wrote the book One Small Step Can Change Your Life．“What we try to do is to begin with such a small step that we can’t find any excuse not to do it．”

“Kaizen”，a Japanese word，is used to mean to change behavior and attitudes（態(tài)度）．During World War Il，American factory managers were able to increase productivity by trying small, continuous improvements instead of sudden changes．After the war，the idea was brought to a rebuilding Japan．It made Japan develop fast. The Japanese called it “kaizen”, which means “improvement”．

Maurer studied the idea and did some experiments with it. “Kaizen” could possibly help people succeed in doing everything

1.Robert Maurer wrote a book to tell us           .

A．we should do everything in big steps

B．how to change one’s life with one small step

C．we should try a lot of sudden changes

D．how to find a small step without any excuse

2.The writer of the passage suggests we should           .

A．make changes at the end of the year

B．do few experiments with “kaizen”

C．do things with hard-to-achieve goals

D．take a tiny step to achieve big goals

3.Which of the following is TRUE from the passage?

A．Robert Maurer studied “kaizen” and found it helpful.

B．You can achieve your goals if you are not too busy.

C．You can’t find any excuse not to reach a big goal.

D．“Kaizen” was brought to Japan during World WarⅡ.

“At three or four in the morning and I surf the net.”
“I often check my e-mail forty times a day.”
“I often spend more than three hours during one time on the net.”
“I spend more time in chat rooms than with my ‘real-1ife’ friends.”
Do you know any people like these? They are part of a new addiction（癮）called Internet addiction. Internet addicts spend at least thirty to forty hours online every week. The use of the Internet can be an addiction like drug(毒品) use. People lose control of the time they spend on the Internet. For example, one college student was missing for several days. His friends were worried, and they called the police. The police found the student in the computer lab: he was surfing the net for several days straight.
Studies show that about 6 to 10% of Internet users become addicted. And people worry about the teens because the Internet is changing the playing field for some of them. They spend more time in cyberspace than in the real world of friends and family.
Is “surfing the net” a hobby or an addiction for you? You may have a problem if you have these symptoms（癥狀）：
●You do not go to important family activities or you do not do school work because you like to spend hours on the Internet.
●You can’t wait for your next online time.
●You plan to spend a short time online, but then you spend several hours.
●You go out with your friends less and less.
【小題1】What does the beginning of the passage tell us？