牛津英语广州版七年级上册原文Unit5.doc

Unit5 ReadingA DINOSAURS Dinosaurs lived on Earth more than sixty millionyears beforehuman beings．They lived everywhere．Some dinosaurs were as small as chickens．Others were as big as ten elephants．Some dinosaurs could even fly． Many dinosaurs were gentle and ate plants．Others were dangerous and ate meat． Dinosaurs all died outsuddenly．Nobody knows the reason．However，people can learn about the lives of dinosaurs from fossils of their skeletons，eggs and footprints．(See Earth History) DISNEY，WALT Disneyland is a famous park in the USA．Its founderwas Walt Disney (1901-1966)．He is famous for his cartoon characters such asMickey Mouse，Donald Duck，Goofy and Snow White． Disney was born in the USA．After leaving school，he sold newspapers and delivered letters．At the same time，he studied art at night．Finally，he got a job drawing cartoons for films． Sometimes a mouse sat on Walts desk when he was at work．He drew the mouse and put it in a cartoon．This became Disneys most famous cartoon character — Mickey Mouse．Mickey soon became a star and Disney became rich and famous．(See Cartoons) ReadingB Jean Champollion (1790-1832) was very good at languages．He learnt twelve languages in his life．When he was eighteen，he began teaching history at university．He was younger than many of his students! Jean was very interested in ancientEgypt and in 1821 he began to study the Rosetta Stone．A group of soldiers found this stone at Rosetta when Jean was still a young boy．It was under the sand for hundreds of years before they dug it up．There was a lot of strange writing on the stone．The writing was in three languages．One of the languages was ancient Egyptian．No one could read it at that time．But Jean worked out its secret． Ancient Egyptian was not a language with letters and words like English．It was full of signs．According to many experts，these signs showed things and ideas．Jean did not completely agree．He thought that some of them showed sounds．He found fifteen signs of this kind in his study