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1、Unit1 IN SEARCH OF THE AMBER ROOM Frederick William I, the King of Prussia, could never have imagined that his greatest gift to the Russian people would have such an amazing history. This gift was the Amber Room, which was given this name because several tons of amber were used to make it. The amber
2、 which was selected had a beautiful yellow-brown colour like honey. The design of the room was in the fancy style popular in those days. It was also a treasure decorated with gold and jewels, which took the countrys best artists about ten years to make. In fact, the room was not made to be a gift. I
3、t was designed for the palace of Frederick I. However, the next King of Prussia, Frederick William I, to whom the amber room belonged, decided not to keep it. In 1716 he gave it to Peter the Great. In return, the Czar sent him a troop of his best soldiers. So the Amber Room became part of the Czars
4、winter palace in St Petersburg. About four metres long, the room served as a small reception hall for important visitors.Later, Catherine II had the Amber Room moved to a palace outside St Petersburg where she spent her summers. She told her artists to add more details to it. In 1770 the room was co
5、mpleted the way she wanted. Almost six hundred candles lit the room, and its mirrors and pictures shone like gold. Sadly, although the Amber Room was considered one of the wonders of the world, it is now missing. In September 1941, the Nazi army was near St Petersburg. This was a time when the two c
6、ountries were at war. Before the Nazis could get to the summer palace, the Russians were able to remove some furniture and small art objects from the Amber Room. However, some of the Nazis secretly stole the room itself. In less than two days 100,000 pieces were put inside twenty-seven wooden boxes.
7、 There is no doubt that the boxes were then put on a train for Konigsberg, which was at that time a German city on the Baltic Sea. After that, what happened to the Amber Room remains a mystery. Recently, the Russians and Germans have built a new Amber Room at the summer palace. By studying old photo
8、s of the former Amber Room, they have made the new one look like the old one. In 2003 it was ready for the people of St Petersburg when they celebrated the 300th birthday of their city.Unit3 WHO AM I? Over time I have been changed quite a lot. I began as a calculating machine in France in 1642. Alth
9、ough I was young I could simplify difficult sums. I developed very slowly and it took nearly two hundred years before I was built as an analytical machine by Charles Babbage. After I was programmed by an operator who used cards with holes, I could think logically and produce an answer quicker than a
10、ny person. At that time it was considered a technological revolution and the start of my artificial intelligence. In 1936 my real father, Alan Turing, wrote a book about how I could be made to work as a universal machine to solve any difficult mathematical problem. From then on, I grew rapidly both
11、in size and in brainpower. By the 1940s I had grown as large as a room, and I wondered if I would grow any larger. However, this reality also worried my designers. As time went by, I was made smaller. First as a PC (personal computer) and then as a laptop, I have been used in offices and homes since
12、 the 1970s.These changes only became possible as my memory improved. First it was stored in tubes, then on transistors and later on very small chips. As a result I totally changed my shape. As I have grown older I have also grown smaller. Over time my memory has developed so much that, like an eleph
13、ant, I never forget anything I have been told! And my memory became so large that even I couldnt believe it! But I was always so lonely standing there by myself, until in the early 1960s they gave me a family connected by a network. I was able to share my knowledge with others through the World Wide
14、 Web. Since the 1970s many new applications have been found for me. I have become very important in communication, finance and trade. I have also been put into robots and used to make mobile phones as well as help with medical operations. I have even been put into space rockets and sent to explore t
15、he Moon and Mars. Anyhow, my goal is to provide humans with a life of high quality. I am now truly filled with happiness that I am a devoted friend and helper of the human race!Unit4 HOW DAISY LEARNED TOHELP WLDLIFE Daisy had always longed to help endangered species of wildlife. One day she woke up
16、and found a flying carpet by her bed. Where do you want to go? it asked. Daisy responded immediately. Id like to see some endangered wildlife, she said. Please take me to a distant land where I can find the animal that gave fur to make this sweater. At once the carpet flew away and took her to Tibet. There Daisy saw an antelope l
