It was 1948,and Eleanor Abbott was bored. The retired schoolteacher was stuck in a San Diego hospital surrounded by young children who,like her,were suffering from polio(小儿麻痹症) .The kids were lonely and sad,and Abbott,with nothing else to do,decided that a cheerful board game could be the perfect entertainment. So she supposedly grabbed a piece of thick paper and started drawing up plans.

   The end result was perfect for young children. No counting. No reading. Players simply needed to know colors and follow instructions on the cards to travel around the board,stopping at various delicious-sounding locations along the. way. Abbott shared it with the children in the polio ward,and they loved it. One year later,Milton Bradley bought the game,and it became a surprise hit: Vandy Land.

   While Milton Bradley kept that origin story a secret for decades,the game's connection to the disease didn’t stop there. It's possible that polio helped make Candy Land famous. In the early 1950s,a polio epidemic(传染病) swept the country. The best way to stay healthy was to avoid people. Public swimming pools and playgrounds were closed. Moviegoers were encouraged to sit far from each other at the theater. Parents wouldn't even let their kids outside to play. Healthy or sick,everybody needed entertainment to help pass the time. That,coupled with the fact that postwar Americans had more money and leisure time than ever,was the ideal condition for making a child's board game popular. Plus,it was about candy!

   Today,polio has practically been removed from the globe. Candy Land has sold more than 40 million copies and was introduced into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2005. But Abbott kept low profile(低姿 态) for the rest of her life. According to Nicolas Ricketts of The Strong — a museum in Rochester,New York,devoted to the history and exploration of play — when Abbott received her first royalty check,she gave much of the money right back to the children she met in the ward. How sweet!

6. Abbott used the board game in the hospital to.

   A. teach kids about colors

   B. cheer young patients up

   C. show her teaching skills

   D. try out her new invention

7. The young children in the hospital .

   A. enjoyed the board game a lot

   B. helped to make the board game

   C. learned to read through the board game

   D. learned to count through the board game

8. What is the main idea of Paragraph 3 ?

   A. The symptoms of polio.

   B. The origin of Candy Land.

   C. Candy Land helped to cure polio.

   D. Candy Land became popular due to polio.

9. We can infer that Candy Land became famous.

   A. in 1948   B. in the early 1950s

   C. in 2005   D. in recent years

10. Which word can best describe Abbott?

   A. Careful. B. Confident.

   C. Kind-hearted. D. Strong-minded.

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