"Mark Twain" was the name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) when he wrote books. His father was a lawyer, but a poor one, who lived at Florida, Missouri. The family was so poor that Samuel did not receive much teaching. He had to learn all that he could from the people whom he met. His father died when he was very young, and then there was even less money than before.
Many of the men in this part of America worked in the ships on the great River Mississippi, and he did this himself at one time (1857).
Where did he find the name "Mark Twain"? It came from the great river itself. It was part of one of the cries used by men who worked in the ships. When a man called "By the mark twain!" he meant that the river was "two marks deep" there, that is to say, six feet deep ( "Twain" is an old form of the work "Two".) Samuel Clemens often heard these words when he was young, and he used them as a penname all his life.
During his work on the Mississippi he met travelers of all kinds, and this helped him a great deal when he started to write. But the number of travelers became smaller when war started in America in 1861. Many of the great ships on the river stopped work. Samuel left then and went to Nevada with his brother, who was at that time Governor of Nevada. There, near the town of Carson, Samuel became a gold miner, but he never made much money at the time. He soon saw that life in the gold mines was not for him. He also tried writing for the newspapers in Nevada, and this seemed more hopeful. He found that he could write.
He went to Europe in 1867 and visited France and Italy. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon, and two years later he was spending nearly all his time writing. Among his books is his own story (1908).
He is now always known as Mark Twain, and many people do not even know that his family name was Clemens. He traveled in America and in England, and went to Oxford in 1907. He was one of the great American writers of the time, and could make his readers laugh – a thing which few writers can do. He died in 1910.
小题1:"Mark Twain" was _________.
A．a famous American writer
B．name of a book
C．a great river in America
D．a large ship小题2:As a child, Samuel did not get much education because _________.
A．his father died too early
B．the family was very poor
C．he disliked school very much
D．he could learn what he liked from the people he met小题3: What gave him a great deal when he started writing? _______
A．His poor childhood
B．The Mississippi river
C．All kinds of travelers he met
D．His brother小题4: We can infer from the passage that ________.
A．Samuel loved writing from his early age
B．Samuel did not love writing at the beginning
C．his writings to the newspaper were successful
D．his brother encouraged him to write more小题5:According to the writer of the passage, a good writer could _________.
A．write a lot for his readers
B．make a lot of money for his family
C．cause his readers to laugh
D．travel everywhere he wanted
