文本1：
Tu Youyou Awarded Nobel Prize
6 October 2015
This year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Tu Youyou (co-winner), whose research led to the discovery of artemisinin, a crucial new treatment for malaria. Artemisinin has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and has led to improved health for millions of people. Over 200 million people around the world get malaria each year, and about 600,000 die from it. Artemisinin has become a vital part of the treatment for malaria, and is thought to save 100,000 lives a year in Africa alone.
Tu Youyou, a committed and patient scientist, was born in Ningbo, China, on 30 December 1930, and graduated from Peking University Medical School in 1955. After she graduated, she worked at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing. In 1967, the Chinese government formed a team of scientists with the objective of discovering a new treatment for malaria, and Tu Youyou was among the first researchers chosen. In the beginning, Tu Youyou went to Hainan, where malaria was more common, to study malaria patients. In 1969, she became the head of the project in Beijing, and decided to review ancient Chinese medical texts to find traditional botanical treatments for the disease. Her team examined over 2,000 old medical texts, and evaluated 280,000 plants for their medical properties. From their research, they discovered and tested 380 distinct ancient Chinese medical treatments that showed promise in the fight against malaria.
One medical text from the fourth century suggested using the extract from sweet wormwood to treat a fever. Tu's team tested a collection of dried wormwood leaves but found no effect. They then tried boiling fresh wormwood, and using the liquid obtained from this to treat malaria, but this did not work either. Their project got stuck. However, Tu Youyou would not acknowledge defeat. She analysed the medical texts again, and by chance, she found one sentence suggesting a different way to treat the wormwood. She concluded that boiling the sweet wormwood apparently destroyed its medical properties.
Using a lower temperature to draw out the extract, she found a substance that worked. After failing more than 190 times, the team finally succeeded in 1971. Tu Youyou and her team members even insisted on testing the medicine on themselves to make sure that it was safe. Later, the medicine was tested on malaria patients, most of whom recovered. This medicine, which was called artemisinin, soon became a standard treatment for malaria.
According to Tu Youyou, the discovery of artemisinin was a team effort. Upon hearing that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize, she said, “The honour is not just mine. There is a team behind me, and all the people of my country. This success proves the great value of traditional Chinese medicine. It is indeed an honour for China's scientific research and Chinese medicine to be spread around the world.”
文本2：
The Man Who Changed Our Understading of the Universe
Albert Einstein, who is perhaps the greatest scientist in modern physics, is often considered one of the smartest men who ever lived. He made numerous contributions to the world, the most well-known being the general theory of relativity and the famous formula E=mc². Einstein was not only a genius; he was a courageous and kind figure loved by many people.
This gentle genius was born in Germany on 14 March 1879. When he was 16, he tried to enter university in Switzerland, but failed due to his low scores in the general part of the entrance exam, despite obtaining exceptional scores in maths and physics. After studying for another year, he managed to pass the exam, entering university in 1896 and graduating in 1900.
After two years of looking for work as a teacher, Einstein took a job as a clerk in the Swiss patent office. While working there, out of a strong passion for knowledge, he continued to study, earning a doctorate in physics in 1905. That same year, which was later recorded as a miracle year in science, he published four extraordinary physics papers. Following this, he gradually became famous throughout the world as the new Isaac Newton. After four years, he was able to quit his job at the patent office and enter research full-time at a university. In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
Circumstances changed in 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany. Einstein, who was Jewish, found the doors of academic institutions closed to him. As a consequence, he had to flee Germany. After spending time in Europe, he finally took up a position as a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. Following that, he continued to make great achievements in physics and mathematics.
To the public, he was seen as a slightly odd-looking but kind and funny man. He had a thick moustache and long white hair, which sometimes stood on end as though he had just received an electric shock. Although he was a genius, he sometimes forgot things, like his friends' birthdays. But despite his peculiarities, he was loved by his friends and neighbours. There is even a story about how he helped a little girl who knocked on his door and asked for help with her homework. In fact, Einstein often encountered people on the street who would stop him and ask him to help explain things. After many such occasions, he finally started saying, “Pardon me! Sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein!”
On 18 April 1955, it was reported that Einstein had passed away, and the whole world mourned the great loss of a brilliant scientist.
文本3：
Heroses in Your Eyes
Everyone knows the people who have helped to change the face of the world in recent years. From Bill Gates to Steve Jobs to Jack Ma, few would not recognise their names. However, those who work tirelessly behind the scenes often go unnoticed, in spite of their great achievements. If you know anyone who deserves to have their contributions recognised, we would love to hear from you! Let us know how these people have helped to make a difference in your eyes.
The person I respect most is the geophysicist Huang Danian, who helped China to make many technological advances.
Huang was a remarkable scientist. He had studied and worked in Britain for 18 years, but when he felt that his country needed him, he gave up his well-paid job and returned to China. Over the next seven years, Huang worked to develop many devices needed for deep-sea exploration.
Unfortunately, such achievements didn't come cheap. Due to the frantic pace of his research, Huang was absent from his father's funeral, and even his own cancer went undetected as he had no time to see a doctor. To sum up, Huang sacrificed everything for his research, and I think more people should honour him.
(Zhang Keyu, Hubei)
I want to tell everyone about two teachers on Changyu Island, Wang Kaiquan and Lin Zhujin.
Few people know about this hometown of mine. The island is beautiful, but it's quite isolated, and there aren't many modern conveniences. In bad weather, even our water and power supplies are unstable. People who have never been to our island are often surprised by this and find it hard to adjust. Many who live on the island dream of leaving. These two primary school teachers, however, have stayed on for 23 long years! They are the only teachers here, and they plan to stay for as long as there are children who need to attend school.
I want to thank them, and let the world know about these teachers who work tirelessly every day for the sake of the children.
(Chen Xueyin, Fujian)
My mother, Liu Shurong, is my greatest inspiration. She is 47 years old and works as a cashier at a neighbourhood supermarket.
I used to think her job was pretty easy, but now that I am older, I realise that my mother deserves respect for doing an amazing job all these years. She works long hours every day for the sake of our family, and she still finds the time to help with household chores and spend time with me.
My mother takes pride in her work. She faces customers with a smile and works hard even when she is tired. Because of her, I have learnt to stay positive even when times are hard.
(Luo Tengfei, Jilin)
文本4：
Three Days to See (Adapted)
Helen Keller
I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.
Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song.
At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. And I have imagined what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say for just three days.
On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and companionship have made my life worth living. I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that “window of the soul”, the eye. I can only “see” through my fingertips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces.
For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five different friends? As an experiment, I have questioned husbands about the colour of their wives' eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they do not know.
I should like to see the books which have been read to me, and which have revealed to me the deepest channels of human life. In the afternoon I should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature. And I should pray for the glory of a colourful sunset. That night, I should not be able to sleep.
On my second day, I should like to see the pageant of man's progress, and I should go to the museums. I should try to probe into the soul of man through his art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. The evening of my second day I should spend at a theatre or at the movies.
The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, new revelations of beauty. Today, this third day, I shall spend in the workaday world, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life.
At midnight permanent night would close on me again. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realise how much I had left unseen.
I am sure that if you faced the fate of blindness you would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at least, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty, which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.
文本5：
Mother of Ten Thousand Babies
“Life is precious. ... To a person nothing is more precious than their life, and if they entrust me with that life, how could I refuse that trust, saying I'm cold, hungry, or tired?” These words of Dr Lin Qiaozhi give us a look into the heart of this amazing woman, and what carried her through a life of hard choices.
As a five-year-old girl, Lin Qiaozhi was deeply affected by her mother's death. At age 18, instead of following the traditional path of marriage like the majority of girls, she chose to study medicine. “Why should girls learn so much? Finding a good husband should be their final goal!” her brother complained, thinking of the high tuition fees. She responded, “I'd rather stay single to study all my life!”
Eight years later, Lin graduated from Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) with the Wenhai Scholarship, the highest prize given to graduates. She immediately became the first woman ever to be hired as a resident physician in the OB-GYN department of the PUMC Hospital. Within six months, she was named a chief resident physician, a position that usually took four years to achieve. After working for a few years, she was sent to study in Europe and then, in 1939, in the US. She greatly impressed her American colleagues, who invited her to stay. Dr Lin, however, rejected the offer. She wanted to serve the women and children at home.
In 1941, Dr Lin became the first Chinese woman ever to be appointed director of the OB-GYN department of the PUMC Hospital, but just a few months later, the department was closed because of the war. Thinking of all the people still in need of help, Dr Lin opened a private clinic. She charged very low fees to treat patients and often reduced costs for poor patients. At times she was even seen riding a donkey to faraway villages to provide medical care.
The new People's Republic of China saw Dr Lin Qiaozhi playing a key role. In 1954, she was elected to the first National People's Congress and, over the next several decades, she held many important positions. Her heart, however, was elsewhere. She was more interested in tending patients, publishing medical research on care for women and children, and training the next generation of doctors. “The OB-GYN department cares for two lives,” she told new staff in her department. “As doctors, we should be responsible for the patients and treat them as our sisters.”
Though Lin Qiaozhi never married, she was known as the “mother of ten thousand babies”, having delivered over 50,000 babies in her lifetime. Dr Lin did not retire until the day she died, 22 April 1983. Since she had no children of her own, she left her savings to a kindergarten and a fund for new doctors. And even as she lay dying, her final thoughts were for others. “I'm ready to go,” she said. “Don't try to rescue me any more. Don't waste the medicine any more.”
文本6：
A Pioneer for All People
Yuan Longping, known as the “father of hybrid rice”, is one of China's most famous scientists. Yet, he considers himself a farmer because he continually works the land in his research. Indeed, his slim but strong body is just like that of millions of Chinese farmers, to whom he has devoted his life.
Yuan Longping was born in 1930 in Beijing. His parents wanted him to pursue a career in science or medicine. However, what concerned him most was that farmers often had poor harvests and sometimes even had a serious shortage of food to eat. To tackle this crisis, he chose to study agriculture and received an education at Southwest Agricultural College in Chongqing.
After graduating in 1953, he worked as a researcher. Yuan Longping realised that larger fields were not the solution. Instead, farmers needed to boost yields in the fields they had. How this could be done was a challenging question at the time. Yuan was convinced that the answer could be found in the creation of hybrid rice. A hybrid is a characteristic of hybrids is that they usually attain a higher yield than conventional crops. However, whether it was possible to develop a hybrid of self-pollinating plants such as rice was a matter of great debate. The common assumption then was that it could not be done. Through intense effort, Yuan overcame enormous technical difficulties to develop the first hybrid rice that could be used for farming in 1974. This hybrid enabled farmers to expand their output greatly.
Today, it is estimated that about 60 percent of domestic rice consumption in China is comprised of crops generated from Yuan's hybrid strains, and his strains have allowed China's farmers to produce around 200 million tons of rice per year. Yuan's innovation has helped feed not just China, but many other countries that depend on rice as well, such as India and Vietnam. Because of his invaluable contributions, Yuan Longping has received numerous awards both in China and abroad.
Given that Yuan's hybrids have made him quite wealthy, one might think he would retire to a life of leisure. However, this is far from the case. Deep down, Yuan is still very much a farmer at heart. As a man of the soil, he cares little for celebrity or money. Instead, he makes large donations to support agricultural research.
What impresses people most about Yuan Longping is his ongoing ability to fulfil his dreams. Long ago, he envisioned rice plants as tall as sorghum, with each ear of rice as big as a broom, and each grain of rice as huge as a peanut. He succeeded in producing a kind of rice that could feed more people at home and abroad. His latest vision for “seawater rice” has also become a reality, and potentially opened up nearly one million square kilometres of salty land in China for rice production. Despite his advanced years, Yuan Longping is still young at heart and full of vision, and everyone is waiting to see what he will dream up next.