A 13-year-old American has made a cheap machine that can help blind people read.

The blind canreadby using Braille – a system of small bumps (隆起物) that the blind touch to read the letters. The machine that makes these small bumps usually costs at least $2,000. It is called Braille writer. The American schoolboy, Shubham Banerjee, made a new Braille writer from a Lego tool that lets people create robots. Banerjee has called his new machine the Braigo – a combination (组合) of the words Braille and Lego. It costs just $ 350. It works by changing electronic text into Braille and then printing it using a computer or mobile machine.

Banerjee designed (设计) his Braigo last year for a school science exhibition. Since then, he has caught the interest of Silicon Valley in the USA. The big technology company Intel spent money on Banerjee's machine last November, but they did not say how much money they put in. Banerjee also got $35, 000 from his father to help him start the project. His father works as a computer engineer (工程师) at Intel. He spoke about why he gave so much money to his son, saying:”We as parents started to be interested more, thinking that he's on to something and this invention has to continue.” Banerjee told the AP News: “My dream would probably be having most of the blind people…using my Braigo.”

    A farmer had a faithful（忠诚的） horse who was old and couldn't do much work. So the farmer no longer wanted to give him anything to eat and said, “If you can bring me a lion here, I will keep you.”

    The horse was sad, and went to the forest. There he met a fox. After the fox heard the story, he said. “I will help you. Just lie down, as if you were dead, and do not move."

    The horse did what the fox asked, and then the fox went to the lion and said, “A dead horse is lying out there. Just come with me, and you have a rich meal.”

    The lion went with him, and they were both standing by the horse, the fox said, “Now let me tie the horse to your tail and you can take it home and eat it.”

    The fox's words made the lion very happy. But the fox tied the lion's legs together with the horse's tail. When the fox finished his work, he said to the horse, “Pull the lion to the farmer.”

    Then the horse pulled the lion away with him at once. The lion was very angry but he couldn't do anything. When the farmer saw the lion, he was in a good mood（心情）, and said to the horse, “ You can stay with me." And he give him enough food to eat until the horse died. 

    There was a small river near Xue Yong's town．It went through several villages．The water was clean and there were lots of fish in it．

    Women would like to wash clothes along the river．It was a good place for them to talk about interesting things in their daily(日常的)life．Xue Yong liked eating noodles．So his mum often asked questions about how to cook noodles with different vegetables when she washed clothes there．

    It was also a good place for children．They caught fish and played water games there．At that time，Xue Yong had a small black dog．Every time he caught fish in the river,the dog followed(跟着)him．A fish was a good present for its work．

Now,Xue Yong lives in a city with his parents．

4.．They are interested in his town．Last Friday,Xue Yong and his parents watched a programme about some towns．Their town was one of them．

根据材料内容选择最佳答案。

    When my first wartime Christmas came, I was in basic training in New Jersey and not sure if I would make it home for the holidays. Only on the afternoon of December 23 was the list of men who would have the three-day holiday posted. I was one of the lucky soldiers. It was Christmas Eve when I arrived home, and a little snow had fallen. Mother opened the front door. I could see beyond her, into the corner of the living room where the tree had always stood, there were lights, all colors, and ornaments (饰品) shining against the green of a pine.

    “Where did it come from?” I asked.

    “I asked the Gates boy to cut it,” my mother said. “I wouldn't have had one just for myself, but when in great need…such a rush! He just brought it in this afternoon.”

    The pine reached to the proper height, almost to the ceiling, and the Tree Top Crystal Star was in its place. A few green branches reached out a little awkwardly(难看) at the side, I thought, and there was a bit of bare trunk showing in the middle. But the tree filled the room with warm light and the whole house with the pleasant smell of Christmas.

    “It's not like the one you used to find,” my mother went on. “Yours were always in good shape. I suppose the Gates boy didn't know where to look for a better one. But I couldn't be fussy because he had tried his best.”

    “Don't worry,” I told her. “It's perfect.”

    It wasn't, of course, but at the moment I realized something for the first time: all Christmas trees are perfect.

    One day a man found a cocoon (茧) of a butterfly in the forest. He sat there for several hours and watched the butterfly. Suddenly a small opening appeared, and the butterfly made its great effort to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further.

    So the man decided to help the butterfly. He cut off the remaining bit of the cocoon so that the butterfly could come out easily. But to his surprise, the butterfly got a heavy body and very small wings when it came out of the cocoon.

    The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that the body would grow smaller at any moment and the wings would become larger and be able to fly. But neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling (爬) around with a heavy body and small wings. It was never able to fly.

    The man was in his kindness, but he did not understand the nature rules. Before the butterfly came out of the cocoon, fluid (流体) from its body must be forced into its wings, and then it would be ready for flying. It must have a hard struggle (拼搏) to get through the small opening to get its freedom from the cocoon.

    Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any difficulties, it would make us fail. We would not be as strong as we could have been; we could never fly.

    In 2011, when British photographer David J. Slater was visiting a park in Indonesia, his camera was taken away by a group of black monkeys. The result was hundreds of monkey selfies(自拍照). The best ones show a female monkey smiling toothily for the camera. Slater then sold the photos and they became popular on the Internet.

    Nobody knew they would create a copyright battle some years later.

Last month, Wikimedia Commons put the monkey selfies online under a collection of free photos without Slater's permission. Slater asked the website to take them down since he owns the copyright.

    However, Wikimedia Foundation-the organization behind Wikimedia Commons-refused Slater's request. They said that according to US copyright law, whoever pushes the button on the camera owns the copyright to the photo. It was the monkeys but not Slater that pushed the button. What's more, monkeys don't own copyright. "US copyright law says that works that come from a non-human source(血统)can't ask for copyright, " said Katherine Maher, Chief Communications Officer of Wikimedia.

    Slater argues that the pictures belong to him as they were taken from his camera. He said he bought the cameras, he spent a lot of money to travel to Indonesia, and it was his carelessness that allowed the monkeys to take his cameras away. All these have made him the author of the picture, no matter who pushed the button. In a sense(在某种意义上), the monkeys could be regarded as his assistant, Slater said.

    As of now(到目前为止), there has been no result in the Monkey Selfie case. Who do you think will win this interesting battle?