【正文】 ying basketball and running. In high school, she was a track star, and then she went to the Olympics.Wilma Rudolph retired from her career as a runner when she was 22 years old.She then became a teacher and track coach. Her story encouraged many people to work hard and to overe difficulties.(244 words)11 The Puffer FishMost people avoid eating dangerous foods. They don39。 pany.Some people call ballpoint pens Bics. Australians call them biros. Whatever we call them, we use them every day.(256 words)4 The UmbrellaThe umbrella is a very ordinary object. It keeps the rain and the sun off people.Most umbrellas fold up, so it is easy to carry them.However, the umbrella has not always been an ordinary object. In the past, it was a sign of royalty or importance. Some African tribes still use umbrellas in this way.Someone carries an umbrella and walks behind the king or important person.Umbrellas are very old. The Chinese had them more than 3,000 years ago. From there, umbrellas traveled to India, Persia, and Egypt. In Greece and Rome, men wouldn39。中學(xué)生百科英語(yǔ)2:Thoughts amp。t write with fountain pens in airplanes because the ink leaked out. Later, a French pany called Bic bought the Biros39。t win just one gold medal. She won three. At the time, people called her the fastest woman in the world. As a young child, Wilma Rudolph could not participate in sports. She had a series of serious illnesses, and then, at the age of 4, she got polio. She lost the use of her left leg, and the doctors said she would never walk again.The people in Rudolph39。s made from milk. Birgit is from Sweden. She traveled to Australia on vacation. I was in a restaurant that specialized in fish, and I heard some other customers order flake. So I ordered some, too, and it was delicious. Later, I found out that flake is an Australian term for shark. Now, whenever I see a new food, I try it on purpose. You know why? I remember how much I enjoyed flake.Chandra is a dentist in Texas. She is from India. I39。s an ingredient in the main course of a meal. Mexicans make a hot chocolate sauce called mole and pour it over chicken. The Mexicans also eat chocolate with spices like chili peppers.Chocolate is a product of the tropical cacao tree. Cacao beans taste so bitter that even monkeys say ugh! and run away. The word chocolate es from a Mayan word. The Mayas were an ancient people who once lived in Mexico. They valued the cacao tree. Some of the Mayas used cacao beans for money, while others ground them to make a bitter drink.When the Spaniards came to Mexico in the 16th century, they started drinking cacao, too. Because the drink was strong and bitter, they thought it was a medicine.When the Spaniards took the drink back to Europe, people discovered that sugar removed the bitter taste of cacao. Wealthy Spaniards heated the sweet drink and thought that it was good for their health.In the 19th century, an English pany made the first solid block of sweetened chocolate. Now people could both drink and eat chocolate. Later, a Swiss pany mixed milk and chocolate together. People liked the taste of milk chocolate even better.Besides the chocolate candy bar, one of the most popular American snacks is the chocolatechip cookie. Favorite desserts are chocolate cream pie and, of course, an ice cream sundae with hot fudge sauce.(280 words)14 The Blue RevolutionThe population of the world is increasing rapidly. By 2020, there could be people on earth. Will there be enough food for all these people, or will we have a food shortage? Some scientists think fish farming could solve this problem. However, other scientists worry that fish farming could cause serious environmental problems.Fish farming is not a new thing. There were fish farms in China 3,000 years ago. Today, about onethird of the fish we eat es from fish farms.Most fish farms raise planteating fish. Popular kinds of planteating fish are carp, tilapia, and catfish. Unfortunately, many fish farms are starting to raise meateating fish. A popular type of meateating fish is salmon. These meateating fish live on processed food made from wild fish. However, it takes up to 5 tons of wild fish to produce just 1 ton of farmraised salmon. The supply of wild fish is already decreasing. Eventually, many types of wild fish could bee extinct. What will we do then?Critics of fish farming also say that farmraised fish is unhealthy for humans. They say the fish contains dangerous chemicals. They also criticize fish farming because it pollutes the water. Another criticism is that farmraised fish can spread diseases to wild fish.Some people say that the farming methods being used now won39。s diary. Why?There were many different explanations for the mystery of the Marie Celeste. Some people thought that a huge octopus ate the crew. Others said bad weather carried them away. A few people believed that the Marie Celeste was under a curse, because it sank on a later voyage. Now that the Marie Celeste lies somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, no one can ever solve the mystery.(274 words)17 The Roanoke SettlementOnly a few Europeans lived in North America in the 16th century. Most of them settled on the northeast coast. In 1587, a small group of about 100 people decided to 11/20go south. They moved to the small island of Roanoke. That area later became part of the state of North Carolina.Unfortunately, the Roanoke settlers weren39。t explain the missing pieces of a meteor. A more recent theory suggests something pletely different. Perhaps it wasn39。t explain the absence of bodies.Many years later, more settlers came to North Carolina. One of them met a Native American group called the Lumbee. They were unusual looking pared to the blackhaired, browneyed Native Americans in the north. Some Lumbee had blonde hair and gray eyes. Then he listened to their speech and almost fell off his horse. They seemed to speak an odd kind of English!He asked where they