متن کتاب متون انگلیسی پایه

A Lazy Student

John is a student who isn't interested in studying. He prefers to have a good time. Naturally. when he took his examinations. he didn't get good marks. Since he was sure his father would be angry with him, he sent a telegram to his brother's house. In the telegram, he asked his brother to prepare his father for the bad news. The next morning, he received the following answer:

"Father is prepared. You 'd better prepare yourself"

Thunderstorm safety

Question: Where can you be safe in a thunderstorm when there is a lightning?

Answer: If you are swimming get out of the water immediately. Water attracts lightning. Tall trees attract lightning, too. Never stand under a tall tree during a storm. If you are in an open, flat place, get down. Do not carry metal things such as shovels during a thunderstorm.

Cars are usually safe from lightning because they have rubber tires. Most buildings are also a good place to be, but remember to stay away from windows. It is also a good idea to wait until the storm passes to talk on the telephone or to work on a computer.

Touchy Topics

In English speaking societies when people meet each other for the first time, they talk about things like family, work. school, or sports. They ask questions like "Do you have any brothers or sisters '', ''Where do you work?''. ''What school do you go to?. and "Do you like sports? They also ask questions like "Where do you come from?'' and "Where do you live?'' These are polite questions. They are not personal or private.

But some things are personal or private, and questions about them are not polite. People do not ask questions about a person's salary.They do not ask how much someone paid for something. It is OK to ask children how old they are. But it is not polite to ask older people their age. It is also not polite to ask people questions about politics or religion unless you know them very well. People do not ask unmarried people ''Why are you single?'' and they do not ask a married couple with no children "Why don't you have any children?''

Martial Arts

The martial arts are types of self-defense. They began in Japan hundreds of years ago as ways of fighting. martial arts developed because soldiers needed to train for real wars. After some time people began to think of these training exercises as sports, but they didn't become real sports with competitions until about a hundred years ago.

Judo, for example, is a type of wrestling without using weapons. Judo wrestlers wear special white jackets when they are in competition.

Karate is another way of fighting without weapons. It became a sport in the 1920s. The feet and the hands are very important in this sport. Karate is different from judo because you do not try to throw the other person to the ground in karate.

Kung fu is the Chinese form of karate.

Kendo is completely different. In kendo you use long sticks made of wood. In competition you have to try to hit the other person with your stick. The one who does this is the winner.

Martial arts like these are very popular now because they are often seen in films. Because people like to see this type of action, there are now hundreds of clubs where you can practice martial arts.

Titanic

One of the greatest sea tragedies that has ever occurred was that of the steamship Titanic. It was the first trip of the giant ship. There were more than two thousand people aboard on their way to the United States from England

It was on the night of April 14, 1912. The sea was calm, the weather beautiful. People were dancing in the spacious saloons. Music, laughter , and singing could be heard everywhere. The thought of danger was far away.

Suddenly, just before midnight, the sailor on guard cried: "Iceberg!"

Before, the ship could change her course. The iceberg had torn a huge hole in the bottom of the ship. Nothing could be done. The new ship went down into the sea. More than fifteen hundred people lost their lives on that tragic night.

Headaches

All people have headaches at some time during their lives. Some headaches are very weak and some arc very strong. Some people with strong headaches go immediately to the doctor. In the past, doctors gave these people aspirin and told them to go home. Now doctors think they made a mistake. A headache is not a disease, but the result of a disease. Now they want to find the disease that causes headaches.

Toothaches and hunger can cause headaches. A dentist and food can cure these headaches. A continuous, strong headache, however, might be caused by a bad disease, such as a brain tumor-an extra growth inside the brain.

Nervous headaches are usual in today's life. A person who must drive in crowded streets might gel a headache. A doctor has found that hard-working people have the most headaches. These people work very hard to get what they want. The best cure for a nervous headache is sleep. Another kind of headache is caused by sadness. The person gets headaches because he has a problem that he cannot solve. He needs help from a psychiatrist to stop his headaches.

People have tried many ways to cure headaches. Long ago some people opened the head to let out devils that they thought made the head hurt. Today, modern medicine uses drugs to make the blood vessels smaller. Any medicine or drink that makes the blood vessels larger only makes the headache worse.

Things You Can Do to Help the Environment

Our environment is in trouble. People and industries are polluting the air, rivers, lakes, and seas. You may think that there is nothing you can do to help. That's not true. In fact, there are many things you can do to help the environment. Here are a few.

The burning of gasoline is one of the biggest sources of carbon mono oxide(CO) in the atmosphere. Some people believed that C O is causing global warming. They think CO thins of the ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's rays. So try to walk, bicycle or use public transportation. And if you drive a car, drive at steady speed- this is more efficient than speeding up and slowing down.

Don't use disposable products. If you use disposable products, use products made from recycled materials. Also, recycle whenever possible. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.

The biggest use of home energy is for heating and cooling homes. So turn the heat down, especially at night. Replace regular light bulbs with fluorescent or halogen bulbs, which use less energy.

Showers use a lot of water. Buying a special low flow shower head or taking short showers can cut this use in half. Also fix any leaky faucets.

Second-hand Smoke is Dangerous

Second-hand smoke is the smoke from a burning cigarette, pipe or cigar. It is also the smoke exhaled by a smoker.

When a person smokes near you, you breathe in a second-hand smoke. Many of us breathe it in whether we know it or not, in public places, around doorways of buildings and at work. When someone smokes inside a home or car, everyone inside breathes second-hand smoke.

Cigarettes produce about 12 minutes of smoke, yet the smoker may inhale only 30 seconds of smoke from the cigarette. The rest of the smoke remains in the air for non-smokers and smokers to breathe. Second-hand smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals. Many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer.

Children, pregnant women, older people and people with heart or breathing problems should be especially careful to avoid second-hand smoke.

Second-hand smoke causes sore eyes and throat, headache and dizziness. You are also more likely to get cold and the flu.

Breathing in second-hand smoke can also cause asthma attacks and increase your chances of getting the bronchitis and pneumonia.

If you have been exposed to second-hand smoke for a long time, you are more likely to develop and die from heart problems, breathing problems and lung cancer.

The Solar System

The moon and the stars are not the only objects shining in the sky. There are also planets. The sun has nine planets going around it. We live on one of these, the third planet from the sun Earth.

The earth moves around the sun once every year. It's about 150 million kilometers away from the sun. The planets that are nearer to the sun take less than a year to go round the sun once. Mercury is the closest to the sun, just 58 million kilometers away. Then comes Venus.

Planets that are farther away from the sun take more than a year to orbit the sun. The most distant planet is Pluto. It takes over 247 years to go round the sun.

Planets do not send their own heat or light like the sun. They shine in the sky only because the sun shines on them. They reflect the sun's light just like the moon does. The planets nearest to the sun are too hot to live on, while those farthest away are too cold. Living things would not be able to survive on these planets.

The biggest planet by far is Jupiter. It's larger than all the other planets put together. The most beautiful is Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun. Its beauty comes from the rings around it, which stretch for 65,0(R) kilometers.

Modern Buildings

There are buildings like this all over the world today but a hundred yours ago, there were no buildings more than five or six storeys high. Why is this? What change has taken place?

A hundred years ago most buildings were built in the same way. The builder used bricks and cement to make walls. The walls held up. the floor above them. On this floor the builder put up more brick walls which held up next floor. In this way it was not possible to make buildings more titan five or six storeys high. All the weight of the building was on the brick walls. To make higher buildings, the walls on the lower floors would have to be very thick and strong and there would be no space for moms.

The modern builder does not use brick walls to carry weight, or 'load's it is called. He makes a frame of metal, which may be iron or steel, and this is very strong. It can take the weight of all the building. The walls do not need to take any load.

The builder begins by clearing the land where the building will be. This is called the 'site'. Then he makes the 'foundation'. This is the bottom of the building below the pound. It must be very strong because it has to carry all the weight of the building. If the ground is rock, it is easy. Rock is a good foundation. The builder digs holes in rock and puts the metal pieces into the holes. Then he pours cement or concrete into the holes. What is cement or concrete? It is all around you. Do you go up or down steps when you come to college? Steps are usually made of cement or concrete.

If there is not rock and the ground is not very strong, the builder has to dig deep holes. The long pieces of metal are placed in these holes and concrete is poured in. The concrete becomes very hard. When the foundation is ready, the iron or steel pieces are built on top of it. As the pieces are joined together, the frame of the building rises higher and higher.

The floors and walls are made of concrete and metal. The walls do not have to be very strong because they have no weight to carry. The inside walls can be very thin. Then the builder adds doors and windows and all the pipes and wires that a building needs.

When a building is made in this way, it can be very high. There is a building in America which has 110 storeys and is 412 meters high!

Why Do Women Live Longer than Men?

Women generally live about six years longer than men. Evidence suggests that boys are the weaker sex at birth, which means that more die in infancy. Also, women do not have as much heart disease as men. In terms of lifestyle, men smoke more than women and thus more die of smoking-related diseases. They are more aggressive in behavior, particularly when driving cars, so they are more likely to die in accidents. Also, they generally have more dangerous occupations, such as building work.

Historically, women died in childbirth and men in wars. Hence nuns and philosophers often lived to great ages. Now, childbearing is less risky and there are fewer wars. The country with the highest life expectancy is Japan, where the average age for men is 76 and for women 82.

The Old Man and the Sea

On the coast of Cuba lived an old fisherman. He was thin and had many deep lines in the back of his neck. His skin was very brown, and his hands were marked by pulling heavy fish at the end of ropes. But all these marks were old. Every part of him seemed old except his eyes. These were cheerful and the same color as the sea.

For eighty-four days the old man didn't catch any fish. People said that he was unlucky. But the old man still loved the sea. He was still strong and a good fisherman. On the eighty-fifth day the old man sailed farther out to sea than any of the other boats. He sailed to where the water was very deep. Then he felt his fishing-line being pulled gently by a big fish which was swimming very deep in the water.

The fish was so powerful that it pulled the boat after it. It took the small boat far out to sea. The old man could no longer see the land.

'Fish,' he said softly, aloud, 'I'll stay with you until I am dead.'

The old man pulled the line a little tighter, but he did not dare to pull it suddenly. The fish might jump and escape. Or it might dive down into the sea and pull the boat after it. But the fish was strong and brave. It pulled the boat on and on.

When the fish rose at last to the top of the water, the old man saw that it was two feet longer than his boat. The old man had seen many great fish, but this one was the greatest fish he had ever seen. It was also the most beautiful.

On the morning of the third day, the end came. Tired and full of pain, the old man threw his harpoon into the heart of the great fish. The fish rose high out of the water, showing all its power and beauty. The next moment it was dead.

Slowly and painfully, the old man tied the fish to the side of the boat. Then he returned back and sailed towards the distant shore. He sailed well and he looked often at the huge fish.

Then the first shark came. The old man killed it, but he lost his harpoon and all his rope. Two hours later two more sharks came. The old man fought them with his oar and his knife. Then he used a stick. Then the tiller. But he knew he was beaten. When he sailed into the little harbor and pulled his boat on shore, no fish was left. Only the giant white backbone.

The next morning the fishermen in the village gathered round the small boat They measured the big bone of the fish. It was eighteen fret long. 'What a fish it was,' someone said. 'There has never been such a fish.

Intelligence

What makes one person more intelligent than another? What makes one person a genius, like the brilliant Albert Einstein, and another person a fool? Are people born intelligent or stupid or is the intelligence the result of where and how you live? These arc very old questions and the answers to them are still not clear.

We know, however, that just being born with a good mind is not enough. In some ways, the mind is like a leg or an arm muscle. It needs exercise. Mental exercise is particularly important for young children. Many child psychologists think that parents should play with their children more often and give them problems to think about. The children are then more likely to grow up bright and intelligent. JE on the other hand, children are left alone a great deal with nothing to do, they are more likely to become dull and

unintelligent.

Parents should also be careful about what they say to young children. According to some psychologists, if parents are always telling a child that he or she is a fool or an idiot, then the child is more likely to keep doing silly and foolish things. So it is probably better for parents to say very positive things to their children, such as ~That was a very clever thing you did' or 'You are such a smart child.'

What do you think? Are people born intelligent or do they become intelligent with the help of good parents and teachers?

Springs

If you pressed a tennis ball very hard, it would change its shape. If you then stopped pressing it, it would go back to its original shape. A tennis ball is elastic. Rubber is elastic. it returns to its original shape after being pressed, pulled or pushed. Springs are elastic. If you pressed a spring, and then let it go, it would return to its original shape.

In the first picture a spring is being pressed hard. In the third picture the man has let the spring go. It has returned to its original shape.

There are many different sorts and sizes of springs. The fifth picture shows the sort of spring that is used in motor-cam. These springs make travelling by road comfortable. If, because of bad roads, the springs of a car broke, the journey would be very uncomfortable.

Another kind of spring is the spring balance. It weighs objects only up to 5 lb. When an object is placed on the hook at the bottom of the balance, it pulls the spring. There is a needle fixed to the spring. As the spring is pulled down the needle moves down, too. When the needle is pointing to the figure 3, the weight of the object is 3 lb. If we took the object from the hook, the spring would return to its original position. The needle would move up, too. it would go

back to zero.

What would happen if we placed a very heavy object, for example, something weighing 50 lb., on the hook? The spring would break.

The fourth picture shows part of a bed. There is a mattress, filled with wool, feathers, or hair. The mattress has been lifted at one corner to show the springs underneath. These springs are made of thick wire. Springs of this sort are used in some arm-chairs.

The word spring has many meanings. You already know spring as the name of one of the four seasons of the year. If you look up the word in a dictionary, you will find that it also means a place where water comes up from the ground. We often find springs along the sides of hills and valleys. Some kinds of rock do not allow water to pass through. Rain falls and sinks into the ground. This underground water cannot pass through hard kinds of rock. When the water reaches the surface of the rock, it flows out. There is a spring.

Spiders

An insect is a very small animal with six legs and a body with three parts. A spider is not really an insect because it has four pairs of legs and its body has only two parts.

Some spiders have eight eyes and some have fewer than eight but they are not very good eyes and spiders do not see very well. They can smell and feel things very well so they do not need their eyes. They have little teeth and when they bite something, for example an insect or mother spider, poison goes from these teeth into the insect. The insect then cannot move and it may die. The spider then eats it. Some spiders can kill big animals in this way but most spiders can

kill only little insects.

When we think of spiders, we usually think of their webs. You can see a web in the picture. Many spiders make webs like this to catch insects.

Webs are made of thin strings which come out of the spider's body. The spider is very clever and its web is very beautiful. First it makes the outside of the web. Then it makes lines from the middle to the edges. Then, starting in the center, it makes circles until the web looks like the one in the picture.

The web is sticky and when it is ready, the spider sits in the middle and waits. If a fly or another insect touches the web, it cannot get way. The spider feels the web move and walks across the web to kill the insect. The spider has oil on its feet and it can walk on the web without sticking to it.

Not all spiders make webs to catch insects. Some dig holes, go inside and make a cover for the hole. When an insect touches the cover. the spider jumps out of the hole and catches the insect.

Some spiders do not use holes or webs. They run after insects and catch them. Some spiders can spit at other insects. The spit is sticky and when it hits the insect, it cannot move.

But spiders have many enemies. Birds, bees, wasps and other bigger spiders often kill them. The next time you see a spider, look at it carefully.

An Unusual Friend

I have an unusual friend - he likes to cook. He is an engineer whose work has taken him all over the world. I do not know how many countries he has visited, but last week ho told me that ho had boon around the world twenty-two times. He likes to eat, and ho likes all kinds of food. When he is served a particularly delicious dish somewhere, he learns how to make it. If no one will toll him how to make it (and many people won't, you know), ho experiments until ho learns how to cook it himself

He buys cookbooks everywhere he goes. He must have about two hundred in his library. I know he does not read all those languages, but he has cookbooks in French, Greek, German, Spanish and in several other languages. Of course, most of his cookbooks are in English.

1 enjoy reading some of them myself. He has one written by the cook who worked for President John Kennedy. In addition to telling how to make some very fine French dishes, the author tells interesting stories about cooking for the First Family.

Of all his books, my favorite is a Chinese cookbook written by Mrs. Buwei Yang Chao. Her husband, Dr. Yuen Ren Chao. is a famous professor and linguist. While he went about China studying Chinese dialects, Mrs. Chao traveled with him and learned how to prepare various regional Chinese dishes. The book is an excellent one to read if you wish to learn how to cook real Chinese food. It is sometimes funny. For example, Mrs. Chao says that, in cooking nothing takes the place of a little thinking. She writes, "If you cannot get beef, get pork. If you cannot find an egg-beater, use your head."

Some of my friends think it's strange that a man should be interested in food and cooking. However, some of the best cooks in the world are men, and a man is usually in charge of cooking in the biggest and best restaurants of the world.

The same people who think it is strange for a man to be cooking. are the first to arrive when my friend invites them to dinner.

Flying Saucers

In 1947 the pilot of a small aeroplane saw nine strange objects in the sky over Washington in the USA. He said that they looked like saucers. Newspapers printed his story under the headline: Flying Saucers.

Since then, all over the world, people have reported seeing similar strange objects. No one knows what they are or where they come from. Some people say that they do not exist, but others say that they have seen them. Usually people on the ground have seen them but not always. Airline pilots also have reported seeing them and so have astronauts - the men who fly spaceships.

Perhaps some people saw them only in their imagination. Perhaps some people made a mistake. But airline pilots and astronauts do not usually make mistakes of this kind. Captain Ed Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the Moon in 1974, said that he believes some flying saucers are real. Many other people now believe that these strange flying objects are visiting the Earth from other worlds in space. 'They have come to look at us,' they say.

The American Government tried to find out more about these objects. It listened to a great many people who said they had seen them. But the government committee could not decide on what the objects were. It called them UFOs, which is short for Unidentified Flying Objects.

Some say they have seen people in the flying saucers! In 1964, a driver of a police car in New Mexico saw a UFO landing a mile away. When he reached it, there were two small figures standing near it. ~y looked like little men. When he reported it on his radio, they got inside the object and flew away.

In 1973 two men were out fishing in the Mississippi. They say they saw a UFO shaped like an egg. There were three creatures like men but their skins were silver in color. They had no eyes. and their mouths were just slits. Their noses and ears were pointed. They made the fishermen get inside the UFO for a while. Then the creatures photographed them and took them back to the place where they had been fishing.

There are many other similar stories. Some are probably untrue. No one knows.

Good Manners

We say that a person has good manners if he or she behaves politely and is kind and helpful to others. Everyone likes a person with good manners but no one likes a person with bad manners. 'Yes,' you may say, 'but what are good manners? How do I know what to do and what not to do?'

Manners change as time goes by. In the pictureو you see Sir Walter Raleigh, a famous Englishman, who lived four hundred years ago. He is laying his cloak over a puddle of water so that Queen Elizabeth shall not get her feet wet. This pleased the Queen at the time but no one would do this nowadays. You would look silly if you did this for your teacher!

Different countries and different races have different manners. Before entering a house in some Asian countries, it is good manners to take off your shoes. In European countries, even though shoes sometimes become very muddy, this is not done. A guest in a Chinese house never finishes a drink. He leaves a little, to show that he has had enough. In a Malaysian house, too, a guest always leaves a little food. In England, a guest always finishes a drink to show that he has enjoyed it.

We must find out the customs of other races, so that they will not think us ill-mannered. But people all over the world agree that being well-mannered really means being kind and helping others, especially those older or weaker than ourselves. If you remember this, you will not go very far wrong.

Here are some examples of the things that a well-mannered person does or does not do.

He never laughs at people when they are in trouble. Instead, he tries to help them. He is always kind, never cruel, either to people or animals. When people are waiting for a bus, or in a post office, he takes his turn. He does not push to the front of the queue. If he accidentally bumps into someone, or gets in their way, he says Excuse me' or 'I'm sorry'.

He says 'Please' when making a request, and 'Thank you' when he receives something. He stands up when speaking to a lady or an older person, and he does not sit down until the other person is seated. He does not interrupt other people when they are talking. He does not talk too much himself. He does not talk loudly or laugh loudly in public. When eating, he does not speak with his mouth full of food. He uses a handkerchief when he sneezes or coughs.

Some Strange Journeys

Jules Verne was a Frenchman who was born in 1828. He was not an inventor and he was not a scientist, but he read a great many scientific books. He had a very strong imagination and he loved adventure although he did not have many great adventures himself. He wrote a number of exciting books about the things which he thought that scientists and inventors would one day be able to do. At the time, his stories seemed like fairy stories!

Many of Jules Verne's attempts to look into the future, however, were surprisingly accurate. For example, one book was called from Earth to the Moon. In this, three men and a dog made a journey around the Moon. They did this in a hollow 'ship' fired from a gun. After going round the Moon, they returned to Earth and splashed down into the sea not far from where the first real Moon travelers landed in July 1969. about a hundred years later.

Jules Verne's most famous book is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (A 'league' is an old word meaning about five kilometers.) In those days submarines had not been invented but he describes an underwater ship very like a modern submarine. The captain of the submarine in this book is called Captain Nemo (which means 'no man') and he and his crew have many strange adventures and find many strange things at the bottom of the ocean. This book has been made into a film. Perhaps you have seen it.

In all his books, Jules Verne used his scientific knowledge as well as his imagination in describing future inventions. Sometimes he was wrong, of course, but often the accuracy of his descriptions is very surprising.

Jules Verne died in 1905 when he was seventy-seven. Many years later, explorers really did go to the Moon and one part of the Moon was given Jules Verne's name.

Sports and Games

Some people seem to think of that sports and games are unimportant things that people do at times when they are not working, instead of going to the cinema, listening to the radio or sleeping. But in actual fact, sports and games can be of great value, especially to people who work with their brains most of the day, and should not be treated only as amusement.

Sports and games make our bodies strong, prevent us from getting too fat, and keep us healthy. But these are not their only uses. They give us valuable practice in making our rays, brain and muscles work together. In tennis, for example, our eyes see the ball coming, judge its speed and direction and pass this information on to the brain. The brain then has to decide what to do, and to send its orders to the muscles of the arms legs and so on, so that the ball is met and hit back where it ought to go. All this must happen with very great speed and only those who have had a lot of practice at tennis can carry out this complicated chain of event successfully. For those who work with their brains most of the day, the practice of such skills is especially useful.

Sports and games are also very useful for character training. In their lessons at school, boys and girls may learn about such virtues as unselfishness, courage, discipline and love of one's country; but what is learned in books can not have the same deep effect on a child's character as what is learned by experience. The ordinary day school cannot give much practical training in living, because most of the pupil’s time is spent in classis, studying the lessons. So it is what the pupils do in their spare time that really prepares them to take their place in society as a citizen when they grow up. If each of them learns to work for his team and not for himself on the football field, he will later find it natural to work for the good of his country instead of only for his own benefit.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa in 1918. He had an eventful life right from the beginning. While he was in high school, his father died, and went to live with his cousin. After he finished high school, he went to Fort Hare University College. In 1940, before he was able to graduate, Mandela was told to leave the college because he had taken part in a student strike.

At about this same time, his family had chosen a girl for him to marry. Mandela wanted to choose his own wife, however, so he ran away from home and made his way to the city of Johannesburg.

Soon after Mandela moved to Johannesburg, he got a job as a policeman in a mine. Later, he began studying to be a lawyer. He also became involved in politics and joined the African National Congress, an organization that sought equality among all ethnic groups in South Africa. At the same time, he studied for two university degrees, then, in 1952, he and his friend Oliver Tambo opened the first black law firm in the country.

During the next 12 years, Mandela practice law and was sent to prison several times for opposing the government's policy toward black South Africans.

Mandela's life changed completely in 1964 when a court found him guilty of trying to cause a revolution against the government. He was given life imprisonment. During the next 26 years, Mandela became the world's most famous political prisoner. Mandela was finally released on February 9, 1990. Four years later, in the country's first free election, he became the first black person to be elected president of South Africa.

Reading

Some people think that as more and more people have televisions in their homes, fewer and fewer people will buy books and newspapers. Why should you read an article in the newspaper when the TV news can bring you the information with pictures in a few minutes'? Why should you read a novel, when a play on television can tell you the same story with color, picture and action? Why should you read the biographies of famous men and women, when an hour-long television program can tell you all that you want to know?

Television has not killed reading, however. Today, newspapers and magazines sell in very large numbers. And books of every kind are sold more than ever before. Books are still a cheap way to get information and entertainment. Although some books with hard covers are expensive, many books are published today as paper back books, which are reasonably cheap. A paper back novel, for example, is almost always cheaper than an evening at the cinema or theater, and you can keep a book for ever and read it many times.

Books in the home are a wonderful source of knowledge and pleasure and some types of books should be in every home. Every home should have a good dictionary. Every home should have an atlas of the world, with large clear maps. It might be expensive, but a good encyclopedia is useful, too, because you can find information on any subject. In addition, it is useful to have on your bookshelves other non-fiction books such as history books, science books, cookery books, books about medicine and health, etc. It is equally important to have some fiction on your shelves, too. Then you can relax with a good story, or from time to time you can take a book of poems off your shelves and read the thoughts and feelings of your favorite poets.

Mountaineering

Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling or swimming, or, in winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some kind - football, hockey, golf, or tennis. It may be mountaineering.

Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with astonishment. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risks on high mountains? This astonishment is caused, probably, by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity, to which men give their leisure.

Mountaineering is a sport rather than a game. There are no man-made rules, as There are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different kind which it would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.

If we compare mountaineering and other more familiar sports. we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a 'team game'. We should be mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no 'matches' between 'teams' of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face, linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.

The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than man. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high mental and physical qualities.

A mountain climber continues to improve in skill year after year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty, and most international tennis champions are in their early twenties. But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they probably climb with more skill and less waste of effort, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.

Computers

A computer is a machine to manipulate data according to a list of instructions.

Computers take numerous physical forms. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers. Today, computers can be made small enough to fit into a wrist watch and be powered from a watch battery. Society has come to recognize personal computers and their portable equivalent, the laptop computer, as icons of the information age; they are what most people think of as a computer. However, the most common form of computer in use today is by far the embedded computer, (embedded computers are small simple devices that are often used to control other devices-- a for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and even children's toys.)

The ability to store and execute programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. Any computer with a certain minimum capability is capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks as long as time and storage capacity are not considerations.

Energy Sense Makes Future Sense

The world is running out of oil, and energy experts believe that there could be serious shortages in ten years' time. It was so cheap and plentiful that the whole world came to depend on it.

The increase in the price of oil has brought the world to its senses. Governments are searching for a suitable alternative, but so far in vain. They are considering how they can make better use of the two other major fuels, coal and natural gas, but they have found that neither can take the place of oil in their economies.

The answer would seem to lie in nuclear power stations. They need very little fuel to produce enormous amounts of power and they do not pollute the atmosphere. Their dangers, however, are so great and the cost of building them so high that some governments are unwilling to invest in them.

Scientists have recently turned their attention to natural sources of energy: the sun, the sea, the wind and hot springs. Of these, the sun seems the most promising source for the future. However, solar energy can only be collected during daylight hours, and in countries where the weather is unreliable. an alternative heating system has to be included.

Another source of energy which would be more widely used is that generated by hot water or steam from under the earth.

Many scientists are optimistic that new ways of generating large amounts of energy will be successfully developed, but at the same time they fear the consequences. If the world population goes on increasing at its present rate, and each individual continues to use more energy every year, we may, in fifty years' time, be burning up so much energy that we would damage the earth's atmosphere.

Tobacco and Lung Cancer

Many scientists have tried to produce lung cancer in rodents by exposing them to tobacco smoke. They have not been successful. This is because of two serious difficulties. Human smokers take in smoke through their mouths. Mice and other small rodents breathe in smoke through their noses. The nose of a mouse has a very good filter that stops particles from being drawn into his lungs.

Furthermore, mice and other small animals are quite sensitive to the poisonous effects of nicotine or other substances in cigarette smoke. One scientist exposed mice to cigarette smoke so that they were forced to breathe approximately the same amount of smoke as human cigarette smokers breathe. Many of the animals went into convulsions and died within a few minutes. The remaining animals lived only a short time. The scientist reduced the concentration of smoke and the animals lived. But under such conditions, it is doubtful that their lungs were any more heavily exposed to cigarette smoke than the lungs of a nonsmoker sitting in a small smoke-filled room.

Because it is hard to produce lung cancer in rodents by forcing them to inhale cigarette smoke, scientists often use a chemical test to support their theory that tobacco can cause cancer. They shave the back of a mouse and, over a period of months, apply chemicals found in tobacco and known to be carcinogens. The mouse develops cancer and dies. Of the several hundred known chemicals that cause cancer, 15 are found in tobacco.

Hibernation

We share our environment with all sorts of birds, animals and insects. Some of tern migrate to warmer places when to weather turns cold and come back in to spring. Some of to animals stay wit you, but you will not see all of them through the winter, because they hibernate in the cold winter.

In warm countries, where the winters are not very long or cold, hibernation is not necessary. And in vow cold parts of to world, like the north of Russia, not many animals hibernate, the ground is so hard that they cannot make a deep hole to spend their winter in. But animals in a large part of the northern hemisphere spend every winter fast asleep.

They go to sleep in all kinds of places. Red squirrels, for instance, disappear inside trees, bears use caves, frogs go deep under the mud, and many other animals dig tunnels in the earth. A good many animals sleep under the snow, there is a lot of air in loose snow, and this helps to keep the cold out

Some warm-blooded animals, like cats, dogs, or wolves do not need to hibernate;they lead an active life which keeps up their usual body temperature oven in very cold winter weather. But for a coldblooded creature, such as a frog or a snake, it is a different matter. When the air temperature is below freezing, its blood temperature drops, it cannot move about as usual, and it has to lie down and sleep.

Hibernation is more than sleep. It is a very deep sleep in which the animal's temperature drops to slightly over zero degrees centigrade, its heart beats very slowly, and people who find it asleep often think that it is dead. The body feels so cold and the creature may breathe only once every five minutes. A hibernating animal can not feel any pain. It can even live in a poisonous atmosphere for a long time without any bad effects.

How does a hibernating creature manage to live without eating? First of all, it uses the supplies of fat that it has stored during the summer and autumn. Secondly, it reduces movement too far below the ordinary level. Therefore, it hardly uses any energy and needs hardly any food.

Madam Curie and Radium

A certain scientist had discovered that a metal called uranium gave off a kind of radiation, which Marie Curie was later to call radioactivity. But where did this radiation come from, and what was it like? Here was a secret of nature which she set out to discover. Only a scientist could understand all that this pursuit meant. The experiments were done most carefully again and again. There was failure, success, more failure, a little success, a little more success. All seemed to prove that in the mineral, which she was examining, there was some form of radiation which man knew nothing about.

Four years before this, Marie had expressed her thoughts in words much like these: 'Life is not easy for any of us. We must work, and above all we must believe in ourselves. We must believe that each one of us is able to do something well, and that, when we discover what this something is, we must work until we succeed." This something in Madame Curie's own life was to lead science down a new path to a great discovery.

At this time her husband left his own laboratory work, in which he had been very successful, and joined with her in her search for this unknown radiation. In 1898, they declared that they believed there was something in nature which gave out radio-activity.. To this something, still unseen, they gave the name radium.Allthis was very interesting, but it was against the beliefs of some of the scientists of that day.These scientists were very polite to the two Curies, but they could not believe them.The common feeling among them was: "Show us some radium, and we will believe you.

There was an old building at the back of the school where Pierre Curie had been working. Its walls and roof were made of wood and glass. It was furnished with some old tables, a blackboard, and an old stove. It was not much better than a shed, and no one else seemed to want it. The Curies moved in, and set up their laboratory and workshops. Here for four very difficult years they worked, every moment that they could spare, weighing and boiling and measuring and calculating and thinking. They believed that radium was hidden somewhere in the mass of mineral dirt which was sent to them from far away. But where?

The shed was hot in summer and cold in winter, and when it rained, water dropped from the ceiling. But in spite of all the discomforts, the Curies worked on. For them, these were the four happiest years of their lives.

Then, one evening in 1902, as husband and wife sat together in their home, Marie Curie said: "Let's go down there for a moment." It was nine o'clock and they had been "down there" only two hours before. But they put on their coats and were soon walking along the street to the shed. Pierre turned the key in the lock and opened the door. "Don't light the lamps," said Marie, and they stood there in the darkness. "Look! ... Look!"

And there, glowing with faint blue light in the glass test tubes on the tables, was the mysterious something which they had worked so hard to find: Radium.

paintings

Art experts have to be very cautious when buying paintings because deception is quite common in the art world. Overpainting is one of the many problems facing art museum directors who are responsible for buying and evaluating works of art, who also have to be on guard for the false use of famous artists' names, false copies, or even fragments of paintings sold as whole works of art.

Overpainting, the most common problem, results from the fact that quite often older works of art have been extensively changed. When a painting is carefully restored or repaired according to the artists' original design, it is called inpainting, but when the repairs change the work to make it more marketable or appear to be more valuable, it is overpainting. Modern science, however, now aids the buyers of works of art. Ultra-violet light and X-ray machines can detect these alterations.

Another form of deception but one that is less frequent is putting the name of a famous artist on an inferior painting, a practice which occurred quite frequently in the 1920's and 1930's when the level of art scholarship was not very high in the United States and American buyers were easily fooled by European art dealers.

In addition to these two forms of deception, copies of famous paintings are sometimes sold as original works of art because some of the old masters painted a popular scene several times if it sold well or their students would copy their better works to practice style and technique. Furthermore, there are dealers who have been known to halve or quarter painting because it is much more profitable for them to sell four small paintings than one large one.

Industrialization

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, about 1800 AD, England led the world in trade. British merchants were rich and powerful and supplied the money to set up factories because they wanted to produce goods which they could sell all over the world.

In Russia, industrialization came later. At the beginning of the twentieth century, only a few Russians lived in towns or worked in industry. Most of them worked on the land. After the 1917 Communist Revolution, the industrial workers in the few industries which then existed formed a government and became the masters of their own factories. Then the government set up new industries and planned what the farms and factories should produce to meet the country's needs. This was called the First Five-Year Plan.

Many countries are still underdeveloped. This means that they are not yet industrialized, or are only partly industrialized. Most of them are in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are the poorest parts of the world.

Every country, nowadays, wants to industrialize itself in order to increase its wealth. For this purpose, factories must be built, workers must be trained, and power must be supplied. To pay for all this, an underdeveloped country must have something to trade with, like oil, gold, or pain. It must also develop better methods of working on the land. Of course, the country would be in a safer position if it could sell a variety of goods instead of only one kind.

When a country produces a variety of goods, it is usually able to sell some of them. There will probably be a demand for some of its products at any given time even if the others are difficult to sell. So its trade with foreign countries will be more regular and continuous than trade carried on by a country which sells only one or two kinds of goods.

Educated people, such as scientists and engineers, are also needed. Self-government and industrialization help people to enter their local industries. But they cannot do the kind of work required of them without suitable training.

Predicting the Weather

In many cities and large towns, there are weather observatories, suitably situated. The local observatory is probably familiar to most geography students. Here, scientists make observations and collect and classify facts about the weather, either recorded from their own observations or by special instruments which can also observe more accurately than any human eye. An observatory of this kind belongs to the people of the town where it is situated; its purposes are both scientific and practical.

Weather scientists, or weathermen as they are often called, are not only interested in recording features of the weather at the time when they occur. They are also interested in future occurrences, for example in tomorrow's rain and next week's sunshine. It is their job not only to observe and describe the weather but to predict it. They must tell people what kind of weather to expect in the future.

It is obviously important to a farmer, a fisherman, an airplane pilot, and a ship's captain to know what the weather will be like. Unless they know what weather to expect, they cannot plan their activities or operations. A farmer may wait for the weather to improve before he sows his grain; an airplane pilot may wait for the weather to improve before he climbs into his plane and begins his journey. The meaning of the word 'improve' may, of course, differ

for the farmer and the pi]ot. For the fam~er 'better weather' may mean wetter weather' and for the pilot, it may mean 'drier weather'.

But farmers, pilots, and captains are not the only people \vho are interested in the weather. Almost everyone at some time listens to weather reports on the radio. Outdoor games cannot be played Llnless the weather is suitable. Housewives listen to the weathermen's predictions (which are generally called weather forecasts) and wait for the weather to improve before they wash a lot of clothes. Businessmen driving to work or driving home after office hours need information about the surfaces of the roads and any other information which will enable them to avoid accidents. Even school children may want to know if it ~vill be warm enough to go out without a coat.

How can scientific workers predict rain or sunshine, cold weather or hot weather? They keep records of a very large number of occurrences rainfall, clouds of various kinds, winds, temperatures. They observe the exact time and place of each occurrence, and also the order and connection of the occurrences. They observe how weather changes, how clouds and winds travel from one place to another, how a 'cold front' replaces a 'warm front'. These facts enable them to form a map or chart of the weather.

They notice that weather changes often follow the same pattern, and so they are able to take certain events as signs that others will follow. When a scientist makes a prediction, this is because his knowledge of weather patterns and of causes and effects has Lnahlcd him to take certain events as signs of others.

We all know that dark, heavy clouds are often a shin of rain. This means that when we see such clouds, we often predict that it will rain after a short time. A barometer, recording air pressure, also enables. us to predict rain in the near future. But a weatherman can obtain reliable information from distant places by radio and use the information to predict rain two or three days before it actually arrives.

It is true that a weatherman does not always predict correctly. His estimates of future occurrences are often slightly inaccurate and sometimes completely wrong. This is not because he is careless or irresponsible but because the weather at a particular place and time is not the result of a single cause but the result of several causes operating together. For this reason, future weather events cannot be predicted without some error. The weatherman is never in a position to know all the facts or all their possible patterns.

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