2017年12月英语四级美文:The Story of Sissa

2017-10-16 16:28:05来源:网络

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  2017年12月英语四级美文100篇汇总

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  The Story of Sissa

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  There was once a victim of overwhelming numbers

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  called King Shirham of India,

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  who, according to the old legend,

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  wanted to reward his grand Prime Minister Sissa for inventing

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  and presenting to him the game of chess.

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  The desire of the clever minister seemed very modest.

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  “Majesty,” he said kneeling in front of the king,

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  “give me a grain of wheat to put on the first square of this chessboard,

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  and two grains to put on the second square,

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  and four grains to put on the third.

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  And so, oh King, doubling the number for each succeeding square,

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  give me enough grains to cover all 64 square of the board.”

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  “You do not ask for much, oh my faithful servant,”

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  exclaimed the king,

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  secretly enjoying the thought

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  that his liberal proposal of a gift to the inventor

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  would not cost him much of his treasure.

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  “Your wish will certainly be granted.”

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  And he ordered a bag of wheat to be brought to the throne.

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  But when the counting began,

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  it was found that the bag was emptied

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  before the twentieth square was accounted for.

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  More bags of wheat were brought before the king

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  but the number of grains needed for each succeeding square

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  increased so rapidly

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  that it soon became clear that with all the crop of Indian

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  the king could not fulfill his promise to Sissa.

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  To do so would have required 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains!

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  Assuming that a bushel of wheat contains about 5 million grains,

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  one would need some 4×1012 bushels to satisfy the demand of Sissa.

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  Since the world production of wheat averages about 2×109 bushels a year,

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  the amount requested by the minister was that of the world’s wheat production

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  for the period of some two thousand years!

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  Thus King Shirham found himself deep in debt to his minister

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  and had either to face the incessant flow of the latter’s demands,

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  or to cut his head off.

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  We suspect that he chose the latter alternative.

  2017年12月英语四级美文100篇汇总

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