1990 was a significant year in world enents. In Febbruary, Nelson Mandela was set free after 27 years in prison. In October, East and West Germany became one country again. Then at the end of 1990, the World Wide Web was born. For this final event we have one man to thank, Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the Web.

Berners-Lee was born on June 8, 1955 in London, England. His parents, both computer designers, encouraged him to think and work creativelhy as he grew up. He was an excellent student and naturally took an interest in computers and science.

After graduating from Oxford University, Tim went to work at a science research centre in Sfwitzerland. There be developed some of the different systems that would later become the Web. The first was HTML, the computer language used to make web pages. The second was an address system that let  computers anhywhere find each other and send and receive information. In 1990, while still at the science centre in Switzerland, he put them together to make the first Internet browser. It could run on any computer and allowed people to create  share their information with the rest of the world.

Tim knew that the more people used the Web, the more useful it would be. He wasn’t interested in money but knowledge, so he gave out his invention for free to anyone who was interested. Many were interested and the growth of the Internet began.

Today Tim works as a professor at the MIT in America, researching new and interesting ways to use the Web. He has received many awards from governments and organizations for his efforts. He is still not very interested in money. That is why he is so admired by his students and workmates. It may also be one of the reasons that few people outside the world of technology know his name.

1. The underlined word “significant” (in Paragraph 1) most probably means “       ” .

2.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

3. What can we learn about Berners-Lee from the passage?

4. Where does Berners-Lee live today?

5.What is the passage mainly about?

The Internet joins millions of computers all over the world, and it’s used by people all over the world. It was invented in the 1960s in the USA. The American government needed a network of computers for its army. Then in the 1970s scientists and businesspeople also wanted to use the Internet to send and receive messages. For some years, they weren’t allowed to use US network, and when they were allowed to, the messages were in very simple text without photos.
The World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist named Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. He wanted to send documents to other scientists. So he developed the World Wide Web. This allowed him to send and receive scientific documents with text, drawings and photos. In the 1990s, more and more people began to use the Internet and the World Wide Web.
So, what’s the difference between Internet and the World Wide Web? The Internet is the hardware .It allows us to communicate with other people. The World Wide Web is the software. It allows us to create , see, and read multimedia documents.
The web is made up of millions of documents called web pages. These pages are held in computers all over the world. Many people have a favourite website with a number of web pages on the same subject.
Email is a way of using your computer to send and receive messages. It’s cheaper and quicker to use email than send normal mail. New users call normal mail “snail mail” because it’s so slow.
It took 50 years for 100 million people to listen to the radio. It took 15 years for 100 million people to watch television. By the year 2000, it had taken only about three years for 100 million people to use the Internet. What will happen next on the Internet?
【小题1】When was the Internet invented?

单词拼写10%

1.I called you last night but you didn’t answer me. What was h__________.

2.I looked for my cat e_________, but I didn’t find it.

3.He is good at math, but he failed the exam this time. I can not i_______ how strange it is.

4.Both Tom and Tim have t__________ to the ball game. They’ll go and watch it.

5.Liu Yang becomes a national h________ because she is the first Chinese woman that has been to the space.

6.Lily m_________ her English teacher while she was shopping in the mall.

7.There are still lots of p________ families in China. We should help them.

8.This problem is too s_________. Even a kid can work it out.

9.I had a car accident yesterday. L________, there was nothing wrong with me.

10.--- Do you make the bed for your parents?

--- No, they make the bed by t___________.