Do you know some great inventors and their inventions?

    What factors (因素) are needed for their success?

    Well, good timing for a start. You can have a great idea which the public simply doesn't want … yet. The Italian Giovanni Caselli invented the first fax（传真）machine in the 1860s. Although the quality is excellent, his invention quickly died a commercial(商业的) death. It was not until the 1980s that the fax became very common in every office… too late for Giovanni Caselli.

    Money also helps. The Frenchman Denis Papin (1647-1712) had the idea for a steam engine （蒸汽机）almost a hundred years before the better-remembered Scotsman James Watt was even born… but he never had enough money to build one.

    You also need to be patient (it took scientists nearly eighty years to develop a light bulb which actually worked)… but not too patient. In the 1870s, Elisha Gray, a professional inventor from Chicago, developed plans for a telephone. Gray saw it as no more than “a beautiful toy”. However, when he finally sent details of his invention to the Patent Office(专利局) in February，1876, it was too late. Almost the same invention had arrived two hours earlier and the young man who sent it , Alexander Graham Bell, will always be remembered as the inventor of the telephone.

    Of course what you really need is a great idea—but if you haven't got one, a walk in the country and a careful look at nature can help. The Swiss scientist, George de Mestral, had the idea for Velcro(魔术贴) when he found his clothes covered in sticky seed pods after a walk in the country. During a similar walk in the French countryside some 250 years earlier, Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur had the idea that paper could be made from wood when he found an abandoned wasps' nest(蜂巢).

    You also need good commercial sense. Willy Higinbotham was a scientist doing nuclear (核能的)research in the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, USA. In 1958 the public were invited to an exhibition in the Laboratory to see their work, but both parents and children were more interested in a tiny 120cm screen with a white dot which could be hit back and forth over a “net” using a button and a knob. Soon hundreds of people were ignoring the other exhibits to play the first ever computer game—made from a simple laboratory instrument called an “oscilloscope”. Higinbotham, however, never made money from his invention: he thought people were only interested in the game because the other exhibits were so boring!

    Do you still get free plastic bags from the supermarkets? Things have changed.

    China has banned(禁止) free plastic bags in shops and supermarkets, and people have to pay for using plastic bags. The rule started on June 1st. It came because our country tried to make less litter. Making super-thin plastic bags has also been banned.

    The Chinese once used about 3,000,000,000 plastic shopping bags a day, and they have caused the pollution of the environment. The bags have become a main cause of plastic pollution because they are easy to break and people throw them away here and there. So the Chinese people are encouraged to bring their own bags for shopping.

    What kind of shopping bag is the best to bring? Some students in Chongqing have a good idea. They make their own shopping bags. They use old clothes to make cloth bags, and send them to their parents as presents. They also ask their parents and friends to use cloth bags instead of plastic ones. They think it is their duty to protect the environment.

    In most parts of the world, many students help their schools make less pollution. They join environment clubs. In an environment club, people work together to make our environment clean.

    Here are some things students often do.

    No-garbage lunches. How many lunch bags do you throw away after lunch? Environment clubs ask students to bring their lunches in bags that can be used again. Every week they will choose the classes that make the least garbage and report them to the whole school.

    No-car day. On a no-car day, nobody comes to school in a car including the students and the teachers. Cars give pollution to us, so remember：

    Walk, jump, bike, or run!

    Use your legs! It's lots of fun!

    Turn off the water! Do you know that some toilets can waste twenty to forty cubic meters of water an hour? In a year, that would fill in a small river. In the environment clubs, students mend those broken toilets.

    We love our environment. Let's work together to make it better.

My 9-year-old daughter and I were flying from our home in Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend a week with my

husband Mike in Miami, Florida. 1 had been working in Florida for five months. Kallie       2 her dad terribly. 

The plane was full. I had3 a group of Boy Scouts(童子军) at the gate and said to my daughter that 4

anything happened, we would be OK with all those scouts on our5 !

Because we did not get our boarding passes until we6 the gate, Kallie and I could not get seats together. That wasn't such a big deal, except that Kallie had counted on me reading to her the whole way. 

When the 7 in my row boarded the plane, I asked if they would change places with Kallie or me. They 8 , saying they wanted to stay in their own seats. 

At the same time, a mother and her two children several rows ahead of us also met the same 9 . The mother could hold her baby, but her 6-year-old son had to sit with strangers.  10 nobody offered to help her. 

Suddenly, the scout leader stood up and said: "Ma'am, I think we can help you. " He then 11 five minutes

rearranging his group so there was space available for the family. And then the mother was much more12 . 

Amazingly, the man sitting next to the scout leader, turned to me and asked: "Would you and your daughter like our13 ?" We changed seats and continued on our trip, very happy to be together. 

Would that man have 14 us his seat if the scouts hadn'tdone so for the mom and her children? I don't know. But

I do know that 15 is good, and good deeds cause more good deeds! Being kind is important and can be an example for everyone around you. One act of kindness can in turn cause many more kind acts. 

某校以"正确评价自己"为主题，在学生中开展征文活动，请你写一篇英语短文投稿。

内容包括：（1）your idea about yourself；（2）an experience you evaluated yourself correctly；