Kuang Heng was born in a poor family. He liked reading books very much. He needed to work at daytime, so he had to read books during night. But he was too poor to buy a candle.

One day, he found his neighbour had candles, but the light couldn’t go through his room. So he dug a small hole on the wall so that he could use the light to read books. From that day, he read books every night until the light went out.

However, he finished reading all his books and there were no books for him to read. Then he went to a rich man’s house and worked for him without payment. The rich man asked: “ Why don’t you want the money?” Kuang Heng said: “ Because I only want to borrow your books.” The rich man agreed. Kuang Heng read the books one by one.

Finally, he became a great scholar.

匡衡出生于一个贫穷的家庭。他非常喜欢读书，可是他一天到晚在地里干活，只有中午歇晌的时候，才有工夫看一点书，有时只能在晚上读书。因为家里穷，买不起点灯的油，怎么办呢？

有一天晚上，匡衡躺在床上背白天读过的书。背着背着，突然看到东边的墙壁上透过来一线亮光。他嚯地站起来，走到墙壁边一看，原来从壁缝里透过来的是邻居的灯光。于是，匡衡想了一个办法：他拿了一把小刀，把墙缝挖大了一些。这样，透过来的光亮也大了，他就凑着透进来的灯光，读起书来。

匡衡就是这样刻苦地学习，后来成了一个很有学问的人。

重难点词汇及短语：

candle：蜡烛

go through：穿过

dug：dig的过去式，挖，凿

so that：以便

go out：熄灭

payment：报酬

scholar：学者