Question

Do you know some great inventors and their inventions?

What factors (因素) are needed for their success?

Well, good timing for a start. You can have a great idea which the public simply doesn’t want ... yet. The Italian Giovanni Caselli invented the first fax(传真)machine in the 1860s. Although the machine was excellent, his invention quickly died a commercial(商业的) death. It was not until the 1980s that the fax became very common in every office... too late for Giovanni Caselli.

Money also helps. The Frenchman Denis Papin (1647-1712) had the idea for a steam engine (蒸汽机)almost a hundred years before the better-remembered Scotsman James Watt was even born... but he never had enough money to build one.

You also need to be patient (it took scientists nearly eighty years to develop a light bulb which actually worked)... but not too patient. In the 1870s, Elisha Gray, a professional inventor from Chicago, developed plans for a telephone. Gray saw it as no more than “a beautiful toy”. However, when he finally sent details of his invention to the Patent Office(专利局) in February， 1876, it was too late. Almost the same invention had arrived two hours earlier... and the young man who sent it, Alexander Graham Bell, will always be remembered as the inventor of the telephone.

Of course what you really need is a great idea—but if you haven’t got one, a walk in the country and careful look at nature can help. The Swiss scientist, George de Mestral, had the idea for Velcro（魔术贴）when he found his clothes covered in sticky seed pods after a walk in the country. During a similar walk in the French countryside some 250 years earlier, Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur had the idea that paper could be made from wood when he found an abandoned wasps’ nest（蜂巢）.

You also need good commercial sense. Willy Higinbotham was a scientist doing nuclear（核能的） research in the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, USA. In 1958, the public were invited to an exhibition in the Laboratory to see their work, but both parents and children were more interested in a tennis video game on the screen. Soon hundreds of people were ignoring the other exhibits to play the first ever computer game—made from a simple laboratory instrument called an “oscilloscope”. Higinbotham, however, never made money from his invention: he thought people were only interested in the game because the other exhibits were so boring!

1.How many factors do inventors need according to the passage?

A. 3. B. 4. C. 5. D. 6.

2.The word “ignoring” in the last paragraph probably means “_____”.

A. having no idea of B. doing no good to

C. getting no chance of D. paying no attention to

3.What can you learn from the passage?

A. Giovanni Caselli invented the first fax machine in the 1980s.

B. Denis Papin afforded to build a steam engine a hundred years ago.

C. Elisha Gray missed the chance to be the inventor of the telephone.

D. George de Mestral got an idea from a walk in a French countryside.

4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A. How to be a successful inventor

B. How to get a great idea from nature

C. How to have a good commercial sense

D. How to make money from inventions

1.C 2.D 3.C 4.A 【解析】【主旨大意】本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了成功需要的五个因素。 1.细节理解题。句意为：根据文章内容，发明家需要几个因素？根据第一段最后提出的问题“What factors（因素） are needed for their success？”后面紧接着的五段可知一共有五个因素。故选C。 2.词义猜测题。题干意为：在最后一段“...

Answer 1