Dear Reader，
Today I'm going to ask you to support Wikipedia with a donation. Sounds unusual: Why does one of the world's five most popular websites ask for financial support from its users?
Wikipedia is built differently from almost every other top 50.We have a small number of paid staff, just twentythree. Wikipedia content is free to use by anyone for any purpose. Wikipedia is run by the nonprofit Wikipedia Foundation, which I founded in 2003.
Wikipedia's driven by a global community (群体) of more than 150,000 volunteers, all devoted to sharing knowledge freely. More than 275 million people come to our website every month to access information, free of charge and free of advertising.
Your donation helps us in several ways. Most importantly, you will help us cover the increasing cost of managing global traffic to one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Funds also help us improve the software that runs Wikipedia, making it easier to search, easier to read, and easier to write for. We're bent on growing the free knowledge movement worldwide, by employing new volunteers, and building strategic (战略的) partnerships with institutes of culture and learning.
Wikipedia is different. It's the largest encyclopedia (百科全书) in history, all written by volunteers.
Like a national park or a school, we don't believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia. We want to keep it free and strong, but we need the support of thousands of people like you, for your donation will help keep Wikipedia free for the whole world.
Thank you!
Jimmy Wales
小题1:In the letter, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikimedia Foundation tries to ________.
A．compare some top websites
B．explain how Wikipedia works
C．introduce a new website to the readers
D．appeal to Wikipedia users to make donations小题2:Which of the following is TRUE about Wikipedia?
A．Due to its less popularity, Wikipedia is no longer attractive to advertising at all.
B．Over 275 million people come to Wikipedia to access information for free weekly.
C．Wikipedia, the world's most popular website, is run by the Wikipedia Foundation.
D．Unlike others, Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in history, is written by volunteers.小题3:From the letter we can know donations will help do the following for Wikipedia EXCEPT ________.
A．take on some new volunteers
B．develop an effective new software
C．access free knowledge more easily
D．cover the increasing cost of management小题4:It can be inferred from the letter that ________.
A．Wikipedia aims to give free access to the sum of all human knowledge
B．those donating to Wikipedia will be eventually employed as its volunteers
C．most websites including Wikipedia rely on financial supports from its users
D．supported by Wikipedia Foundation, Wikipedia wants to be free from advertisements
