Many people begin to use pencils from an early age．There are many kinds of pencils：some have erasers on top；some are colorful．You may have used many kinds of them for many years，but do you know the history of pencils?

Many years ago，people in Egypt used lead（鉛）to write．Now，pencils are made from graphite（石墨）instead of lead．In l564，people found that graphite could leave black marks．In the beginning，the people used it to make marks on their sheep．Later they used the graphite to write．They thought it was lead．Graphite left a blacker mark than lead，but it was not strong enough so it needed something to hold it．

In 1565，Conrad Gesner first put graphite into something to hold it．Later，in the 1600s，German people mixed graphite with some other things and used them for writing．Later，F(xiàn)rance couldn't get pencils from both the English and the Germans，so Nicholas Jacques Conte began to  make pencils．In  France，there was little graphite，so he mixed graphite with clay（粘土）．

In 1812，William Munroe made the fist American wood pencils．Later，a man put a small eraser on top of a pencil．A new kind of pencil was born．

1．People began to write with lead first in ________．

A．Egypt                  B．England               C．Germany

2．Graphite is ________ than lead．

A．blacker and softer   B．blacker and harder   C．softer and lighter

3．The first people to mix graphite with other materials are ________．

A．English                B．German                 C．French

4．The first person to put graphite into something to hold is ________．

A．William Munroe                                       B．Nicholas Jacques Conte

C．Conrad Gesner

5．The passage is mainly about the ________ of pencils．

A．kinds                   B．history                 C．materials