曹冲称象
How Cao Chong weighed an elephant
Name: ________________ Date: ________
一千八百多年前，曹操收到了一个很特别的礼物：南方的孙权送来了一头大象。
大家都围过来看。这么大的动物，到底有多少斤呢？曹操也很想知道。
他问身边的大臣们，可是没有一个人能想出办法。有人说：“做一个大秤吧！”可是，这么大的秤，谁能提得起来？有人说：“把大象切成小块，再放到秤上！”曹操听了，脸都黑了：“那我的大象怎么办？”
这时候，曹操的儿子曹冲站了出来。他还是个小孩子，可是从五六岁开始，就跟大人一样聪明。
他说：“先让大象走到一条大船上。大象一上去，船就往下沉了一点儿。我们就在船边上，水到的地方，画一条线。”
“然后，让大象走下船，再往船上放石头。放啊放，一直放到船又沉到那条线。”
“最后，把这些石头放到秤上。石头一共多少斤，大象就有多少斤！”
大臣们你看看我，我看看你，都不说话了。曹操高兴极了，马上让人照他说的去做。
今天，很多中国小学生都读过这个故事。一个太大的东西放不到秤上，曹冲就把它换成了很多块小石头。所以，遇到一个很难的大问题，人们会说：“学学曹冲吧，把它变成很多个小问题，一个一个地解决。”
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 大象 | dàxiàng | elephant |
| 围 | wéi | to surround; to encircle |
| 切 | qiē | to cut; to slice |
| 黑 | hēi | black; dark |
| 石头 | shítou | stone; rock |
| 大臣 | dàchén | minister (of a monarchy); high official |
| 线 | xiàn | line |
| 秤 | chèng | scale; steelyard (for weighing) |
English (for the teacher)
More than eighteen hundred years ago, Cao Cao received a very special gift: Sun Quan in the south sent him an elephant.
Everyone crowded round to look. An animal this big: how many jin could it possibly weigh? Cao Cao wanted to know too.
He asked the ministers around him, but not one of them could think of a way. Someone said, “Let’s build a huge scale!” But who could lift a scale that big? Someone else said, “Cut the elephant into small pieces and put them on the scale!” Cao Cao’s face darkened: “And what happens to my elephant?”
Just then, Cao Cao’s son Cao Chong stepped forward. He was still only a little boy, but from the age of five or six he had been as clever as a grown-up.
He said, “First, let the elephant walk onto a big boat. As soon as the elephant is on, the boat will sink down a little. Then, on the side of the boat, right where the water comes up to, we draw a line.”
“Next, let the elephant walk off the boat and put stones onto the boat instead. Keep adding them until the boat sinks back down to that line.”
“Finally, put the stones on the scale. However many jin the stones weigh altogether, that’s how many jin the elephant weighs!”
The ministers looked at one another and said nothing more. Cao Cao was delighted and had it done exactly as his son said.
Today lots of Chinese primary school pupils have read this story. The elephant was too big to go on a scale, so Cao Chong turned it into lots of small stones. So when people hit a big, hard problem, they say, “Be like Cao Chong: turn it into lots of small problems and solve them one by one.”