The [A] of Benjamin Franklin is of importance to [B] American primarily [C] of the part he played in securing [D] independence of the United States and in establishing it as a [E]. Franklin [F] also interesting to us because by his life and [G] he has done more than any other American to advance the material prosperity of [H] countrymen. Although not the wealthiest [I] the most powerful, he is undoubtedly, in the versatility of his genius and achievements, the [J] of our self-made men. Word list: or · his · not · because · rich · every · is · greatest · go · country · the · teachings · water · life Adapted from: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. B. Franklin, Project Gutenberg 2008

Near the [A] of his life Miyamoto Musashi [B] The Book of the Five Rings in a cave in Kumamoto [C] a guide to his style of swordsmanship. [D] is a practical book about real combat, [E] about theory, and that is its main feature. The Way of strategy [F] in The Book of the Five Rings explains how to cut down one's opponent in a life and death struggle, and it also [G] the strategy involved in large-scale battles. More than anything it is a guide for how to win in combat. An [H] translation of this classic was published in 1974 and to this day continues to be [I] in the West. After The Book of the Five Rings was adopted by Harvard Business School, it became widely read in the United States as a business guide and a book of general interest, eventually [J] a best seller. Word list: as · English · there · not · hurt · becoming · end · read · find · described · explains · it · sport · wrote Adapted from: The Book of Five Rings. M. Musashi. ICB Publishing

In the western part of North America lie the Rocky Mountains. These mountains offer some of the most scenic and rugged country in the world. In the 1850's the only people living here were the Native American Indians and the mountain men. Not much was known about this wilderness area. [A], little by little information reached its way across the country to the big cities in the east. There were a lot of stories about the "Wild West" but a few of these stories told of a very special place high in the mountains. A very mysterious place. The mountain men who saw this place told of rivers that boiled over and the earth itself seemed to be on fire. There are thousands of national parks throughout the whole world. But it all started right here. Yellowstone National Park is the world's first national park, created in 1872. The park is all about firsts. First national park, first national forest, it was also the first area where they tried to rescue an endangered species, the American bison. And it was also the first area where they managed by complete ecosystems rather than political boundaries. Adapted from: Experience America! T. Rucynski, S. Berlin. Kinseido 2006

The ketchup we eat today is nothing like the original version created many centuries ago. Few people today would recognize the link with the original ke-tchup, a Chinese fermented fish sauce first made in Fujian province [1]. From the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries Chinese traders settled in ports throughout Southeast Asia and brought Chinese fermentation methods [2]. They fermented local fish into ke-tchup - a fish sauce like the modern Vietnamese fish sauce nuoc mam. When English and Dutch sailors and merchants came to Asia around 1650 to trade for silk, porcelain, and tea, they developed a taste for the local fish sauce. The traders brought ke-tchup back to Europe and [A] the next 400 years the dish evolved to fit Western tastes, losing its original ingredient, the fermented fish. Early recipes replaced the fish with mushrooms or walnuts. By the nineteenth century there were many recipes for ketchup. Eventually the most popular one added tomatoes and then came to America, where sugar was added to the recipe. Then more sugar. This version eventually became America's [3] national condiment and then was exported back to Asia and the rest of the world [4]. Adapted from: The Language of Food. D. Jurafsky. W.W. Norton & Company 2015

By the 1920s it was thought that no corner of the earth fit for human habitation had remained unexplored. New Guinea, the world's second largest island, was no exception. The European missionaries, planters, and administrators clung to its coastal lowlands, convinced that no one could live in the treacherous mountain range that ran in a solid line down the middle of the island. But the mountains visible from each coast in fact belonged to two ranges, not one, and between them was a temperate plateau crossed by many fertile valleys. A million Stone Age people lived in those highlands, isolated from the rest of the world for forty thousand years. The veil would not be lifted until gold was discovered in a tributary of one of the main rivers. The ensuing gold rush attracted Michael Leahy, a footloose Australian prospector, who on May 26, 1930, set out to explore the mountains with a fellow prospector and a group of indigenous lowland people hired as carriers. After scaling the heights, Leahy was amazed to see grassy open country on the other side. By nightfall his amazement turned to alarm, because there were points of light in the distance, obvious signs that the valley was populated. After a sleepless night in which Leahy and his party loaded their weapons and assembled a crude bomb, they made their first contact with the highlanders. The astonishment was mutual. Leahy wrote in his diary: It was a relief when the natives came into sight, the men in front, armed with bows and arrows, the women behind bringing stalks of sugarcane. When he saw the women, Ewunga told me at once that there would be no fight. We waved to them to come on, which they did cautiously, stopping every few yards to look us over. When a few of them finally got up courage to approach, we could see that they were utterly thunderstruck by our appearance. When I took off my hat, those nearest to me backed away in terror. One old chap came forward gingerly with open mouth, and touched me to see if I was real. Then he knelt down, and rubbed his hands over my bare legs, possibly to find if they were painted, and grabbed me around the knees and hugged them, rubbing his bushy head against me. The women and children gradually got up the courage to approach also, and presently the camp was swarming with the lot of them, all running about and jabbering at once, pointing to everything that was new to them. That "jabbering" was language - an unfamiliar language, one of eight hundred different ones that would be discovered among the isolated highlanders right up through the 1960s. Leahy's first contact repeated a scene that must have taken place hundreds of times in human history, whenever one people first encountered another. All of them, as far as we know, already had a language. No mute tribe has ever been discovered, and there's no record that a region has served as a 'cradle' of language from which it spread to previously language-less groups. Adapted from: The Language Instinct. S. Pinker. Harper Collins 1994