八年级上册英课文.docVIP

Look it up Here are two articles from an encyclopedia Da Vinci, Leonardo Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), was an Italian painter, inventor, musician, engineer and scientist. Da Vinci was born in the countryside. Form an early age, he showed great intelligence and artistic ability. As he grew older, he learned to do many different things. His paintings are very famous. And once, the Mona Lisa is perhaps the most famous painting in the world. He also had many inventions, for example, his notebooks include some interesting drawings of flying machines. Dinosaurs Dinosaurs lived on Earth for more than 60million years before human beings. They lived everywhere on Earth. Some dinosaurs were as small as chickens; others were as big as ten elephants. Some could even fly. Many dinosaurs ate plants. However, some dinosaurs liked to eat meat. Dinosaurs lived on Earth for more than 150 million years. Then suddenly, they all died out. Nobody knows why. However, we can learn about them form their fossils. The king and the rice A long time ago, there was a king in India. The king favourite game was chess. One day, a wise old man came to palaces and the king challenged him to a game. The king promised the old man, “If you win the game, you can have any prize.” The old man said, “If I win the game, I’d like one grain of the rice for the first square of the chessboard, two for the second, four for the third, and then double the amount for each of the rest squares.” “Is that all?” asked the king “Wouldn’t you like gold or silver instead?” “No, just rice.” Replied the old man. The king and the old man played the game for a long time. Finally, the old man won. So the king ordered his men to collect a bag of rice. He put one grain of the rice on the first square, two on the second, and so on. The king quickly realized a problem. Even with all the rice in the country, he would still not have enough rice to put on all the square! Computer facts Smaller and Better In the 1940s, the