【正文】 s dry goods business．This gave him a chance to produce his famous invention．After the gold rush of 1949, Strauss decided to move to the West to seek his fortunes．Strauss did not want to be a person who searched an area for minerals．Instead, he knew he could make a good living by selling supplies to the miners．At first, he planned to sell sewing supplies and cloth． 3 When he heard miners plaining that their clothes were easily broken or they usually tore their pockets during mining, he decided to use a special fabric to make pants for the miners．These pants proved so popular that he quickly ran out of materials to make more．In 1873, Strauss received a letter from a Jewish tailor named Jacob Davis who had invented a process of connecting pockets with copper rivets（鉚釘）．This made the pants last a long time．Because Davis did not have the money to patent his idea, he offered to share it with Strauss if Strauss would agree to pay for the patent． 4 ．By the time Strauss died in 1902, he had made a great contribution to American fashion． 5 The business has been growing ever since and Levi Strauss39。 and then there are those who, through no active decision of their own, just seem to be in the right place at the right time. ___2____. He used to spend a lot of his free time down by the sea watching the tall ships, but never thinking that he might one day sail one of them. His father was a farmer, and being a sailor could never be anything for the boy but an idle dream. One day, on his usual wandering, he heard the captain of the ship plaining that he could not sail because one member of his crew was sick. Without stopping to think, the lad(少年) offered to take his place. __3___.__4__. If the lad had gone home to ponder（考慮）his decision for a week, he may have missed his chance. It is one thing to be offered an opportunity。4●s Day ,you can give your mother a gift designed by may have more good ideas if you do a lot of thinking.A. He must be very happy to keep it for years.B. These gifts are so special and interesting.C. They don39。t want to live like our ancestors. G．Modern people used to suffer from diseases of civilization.第十三篇For the rest of March, a disease will sweep across the US. It will keep kids home from school. 1 Employees will suddenly lose their ability to concentrate.The disease, known as “March Madness”, refers to the yearly 65 – team US men’s college basketball tournament (錦標(biāo)賽). 2 Teams pete against each other in a single – elimination (單局淘汰) tournament that eventually crowns a national champion.Nearly 20 million Americans will find themselves prisoners of basketball festival madness. The fun es partly from guessing the winners for every game. Friends pete against friends. 3 Colleagues against bosses.Big – name schools are usually favored to advance into the tournament. But each year there are dark horses from little – known universities.This adds to the madness. Watching a team from a school with 3,000 students beat a team from a school with 30,000, for many Americans, is an exciting experience. Two years ago, the little – known George Mason University was one of the final four teams. 4 College basketball players are not paid, so the game is more about making a name for their university and themselves. 5 About $ 4 billion will be spent gambling (賭) on the event. According to Media Life magazine, the event will bring in $ 500 million in advertising ine this year, topping the post – season ine of every US professional league, including that of the NBA. A. Husbands against wives. B. The players will go all out for the games. C. But that doesn’t mean money isn’t involved. D. College students will ignore piles of homework. E. People are willing to spend more money on watching it. F. It begins on March 15 and lasts through the beginning of April. G. Many people had never even heard of the university before the tournament.第十四篇Everyone knows that the Frenchmen are romantic, the Italians are fashionable and the Germans are serious. Are these just stereotypes or is there really such a thing as national character? And if there is, can it affect how a nation succeed or fail?At least one group of people is certain that it can. A recent survey of the top 500 entrepreneurs (企業(yè)家) in the UK found that 70% felt that their efforts were not appreciated by the British public. Britain is hostile (敵意的) to success, they said. It has a culture of jealousy(嫉妒). 1 Jealousy is sometimes known as the “green – eyed monster” and the UK is its home.Scientists at Warwich University in the UK recently tested this idea. They gathered a group of people together and gave each an imaginary amount of money. 2 Those given a little were given the chance to destroy the large amount of money given to others – but at the cost of losing their own. Two thirds of the people tested agreed to do this.3 . But there is also opposite evidence. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently reported that the UK is now the world’s fourth largest economy. That is not bad for people who are supposed to hate success. People in the UK also work longer hours than anyone else in Europe. So the British people are not lazy, either.“It is not really success that the British dislike,” says Carey Cooper, a professor of management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. “It’s people using their success in a way that seems proud or unfair or which separates them from their roots.” 4 They set out to do things in their way. They work long hours. By their own efforts they bee millionaires. 5 .It hardly seems worth following their example. If they were more friendly, people would like them more. And more people want to be like them.A. This seems to prove that the entrepreneurs were right to plain. one who owns most money in the end is the winner. a result, the survey said, entrepreneurs were