Liquid Paper (修正液) was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham. She was 17 when she got a job at a Texas bank as a secretary, even though she didn’t know how to type. The company she worked for sent her to a secretary school, and she was typing in no time at all.

The 1950s had seen the widespread use of the electric typewriter, which typed faster but also meant more mistakes. Also, mistakes made by early electric typewriters were very hard to erase, which caused problems for Bette.

In order to make extra money she used her talent to paint holiday windows at the bank. Then one day, it suddenly occurred to her that she could create a paint to cover up type-writing mistakes.

It worked! In 1956, Bette sold her first bottles of the new product, which she called “Mistake Out”. She made it in her kitchen, and her son Michael and his friends bottled it in the family garage.

By 1957, she was selling 100 bottles a month and had gotten a patent (专利权) for her product, which she now called “Liquid Paper.” Sales continued to grow, as more and more people heard about Liquid Paper, through word-of-mouth and by reading about it in magazines.

In the 1960s, Bette bought a machine to help her produce Liquid Paper in large quantities. In 1971, she sold 2 million bottles. In 1979, she sold the company for 47.5 million dollars. She didn’t live to see the end of the contract (合同书), dying in 1980, at the age of 56, in Texas.

Bette’s invention continues to be used every day by secretaries and other people in the office and wherever typewriters are used.

1. When Bette began to work in a bank, she ______.

A.was too young to type

B. had graduated from secretary school

C.had no experience in typing

D. taught herself about typing

2. It can be inferred that the first Liquid Paper ______.

A. was produced by hand

B. was made by machine

C. was bottled in the kitchen

D. was tested in the factory

3. What is the passage mainly ab

Happy birthday! Do birthday really make people happy? Of course they do. Birthdays celebrate the day when we were born. Besides, that extra candle on the cake suggests another year of growth and maturity（完善）—or so we hope．We all like to imagine that we are getting wiser and not just older．Most of us enjoy seeing the wonder of growth in others, as well．For instance, seeing our children develop and learn new things makes us feel proud．For Americans, like people in most cultures, growing up is a wonderful process．But growing old? That is a different story.

Growing old is not exactly for people in youth-oriented (以年青人为基地)American culture．Most Americans like to look young, act young and feel young. As the old saying goes, “You’re young as you feel．”Older people joke about how many years young they are, rather than how many years old．People in some countries value the aged as a source of experience and wisdom．But Americans seem to favor those

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