八年级上册 课文

八年级上册U1

Look it up!

Da Vinci,Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519)was an Italian painter ,inventor,musician,engineer and scientist.

Da Vinci was born in the countryside.From an early age ,he showed great intelligence and artistic ability .As he grew older, he learnt to do many different things. His paintings are very famous ,and one, the Mona Lisa,is perhaps the most famous painting in the world.He also had many inventions. For example, his notebook include some interesting drawings of flying machines.(See Art)

Dinosaur

Dinosaur lived on Earth more than60 million years before human beings. They lived everywhere on earth.Some dinosaurs were as small as chickens. Others were as big as ten elephants.

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 from their fossils(See Earth history)

U2

The king and the rice

A long time ago, there was a king in India. The king’s favourite game was chess.

One day, a wise old man came to the palace and the king challenged him to a game.The king promised the old man “you can have any prize if you win the game.”

The old man said,“If I win the game,I’d like one grain of 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 of the 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 rice on the first square of the chessboard,two on the second,and so on.The king quickly realized the problem-even with all the rice in the countryside,he would still not have

enough rice to put on all the squares!

U3

Computer facts

Small and better

In the 1940s, the first computers were bigger than cars. Now computers are becoming smaller and better.

Some computers are tiny.You may be unaware of them. There is probably one inside you TV or washing machine.You depond on computers more than you realize.

What can we do with computer?

We can use computers to calculate. They can calculate. They can calculate at a faster speed than we can and almost never give wrong answers.We can also type and draw things with them. In addition, computers can do important jobs like operating railway and flying planes and spaceships.

Is a computer cleverer than me?

The answer is “no”.Your brain can produce new ideas but computers may be able to do a better job than human beings. For example, they may be better than doctors at doing their job.