Back in the fifteenth century, in a tiny village near Nuremberg, lived a family with eighteen children.In spite of the hopeless condition, two of the children, Albrecht Durer and Albert, had a dream.They both wanted to pursue their talent for art.After many long discussions, the two boys finally worked out an agreement.They would toss a coin.The loser would go down into the nearby mines and, with his earnings, support his brother who attended the academy.Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his studies, in four years, he would support the other brother at the academy. Tossing a coin, Albrecht Durer won and went off to Nuremberg.Albert went down into the dangerous mines and, for the next four years, supported his brother, _ work at the academy was almost an immediate sensation .By the time he graduated, he had earned considerable fees for his outstanding works. When the young artist returned to his village, the Durer family held a festive dinner to celebrate Albrecht's triumphant homecoming.Albrecht drank a toast to his beloved brother for the years of sacrifice that had enabled him to complete his dream."And now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, now it is your turn.Now you can go to Nuremberg to look for your dream, and I will take care of you." Tears streaming down his pale face, Albert sobbed, "No...no...It is too late for me.Look...look at what four years in the mines have done to my hands!The bones in every finger have been broken at least once, and lately I have been suffering from arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a glass to return your toast, much less draw delicate lines with a pen or a brush." To show thanks to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Durer painstakingly drew his brother's injured hands with palms together and thin fingers stretched skyward.He called his powerful drawing simply "Hands", but the entire world almost immediately opened their hearts to his great masterpiece and renamed it "The Praying Hands".The next time you see a copy of... What can we learn from the story? A) One can achieve success simply on his own B) Any success requires the help of others. C) It's other people who contribute to one's success D) Nobody could succeed without good guidance
B
When it comes to cultural heritage protection, the Grand Canal of China is probably the world's greatest project of its kind. The big inland waterway system in the north-eastern and central eastern plains passes through eight of the country's present-day provinces. The Canal runs from Beijing in the north to Zhejiang Province in the south. Constructed in sections from the 5th century BC onwards, it was designed as a means of communication in the 7th century AD. The Canal is the world's greatest civil engineering project before the Industrial Revolution. The Grand Canal reached a peak in the 13th century, providing an inland navigation network consisting of more than 2,000 kilometers of artificial waterways, linking five of the most important river basins in China, including the Yellow River and the Yangtze. It entered a bid as a UNESCO cultural heritage site in 2008. The Grand Canal cultural square is located in Beijing's Tongzhou district. Ever since the Yuan dynasty 800 years ago, the Tongzhou section of the Grand Canal has been the life blood of Beijing. Grain and building materials were all transported to meet the endless demands of the big cities. Even today, the Grand Canal plays a major role in the lives of its citizens. "I grew up near the Grand Canal. In the past the waterway was a lot narrower, but now it's nice and wide and bridges are built over it. I think if the bid for world heritage status succeeds, it will greatly make Tongzhou more famous in the world, especially with Tongzhou aiming to be a sub-center of the capital Beijing," a citizen said. The result of the bid is set to be released next week, and no doubt it will certainly make it into the history books if the Canal is listed as a world heritage site. The Grand Canal was in the most glorious time _ . A) when it was aimed as a means of communication B) when it crossed the Yellow River and the Yangtze C) when it was born about six hundred years later D) when it was designed as an artificial waterway
C
Q: Traffic Management Traffic lights are key tools for regulating traffic How.They are not, however, perfect.Drivers exchange the traffic jams that would happen at unmanaged crossings for a pattern of stop-go movement that can still be annoying, and which bums more fuel than a smooth passage would. Creating such a smooth passage means adjusting a vehicle's speed so that it always arrives at the lights when they are green.That is theoretically possible, but practically hard.Roadside signs wired to traffic lights can help get the message across a couple hundred metres from a crossing, but such signs are expensive, and are not widespread.Margaret Martonosi and Emmanouil Koukoumidis at Princeton University, and Li-Shiuan Peh at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, however, have an idea that could make the process cheaper and more effective.Instead of a hardwired network of signs, they propose to use mobile-phone applications. For a driver to benefit, lie must load the team's software , named SignalGuru, into his phone and then put it on a special thing attached to the inside of his car's windscreen, with the camera lens pointing forward.SignalGuru is designed to detect traffic lights and track their status as red, yellow or green.It broadcasts this information to other phones in the area that are fitted with the same software, and --if there are enough of them ?the phones thus each know the status of most of the lights around town.Using this information, SignalGuru is able to calculate the traffic-light schedule for the area and suggest the speed at which a driver should travel in order to avoid red lights. Tests in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where five drivers were asked to follow the same route for three hours, and in Singapore, where eight drivers were asked to follow one of two routes for 30 minutes, revealed that SignalGuru was capable of predicting traffic-light activity with an accuracy of 98.2% and 96.3% respectively, in the two cities.This was particularly impressive because in Cambridge the lights... The tests in Cambridge and Singapore were impressive because SignalGuru _ . A) proved to be unreliable B) operated at a high speed C) functioned rather stably D) understood drivers' schedules
A: C