阅读理解
Have you ever hiccupped (打嗝)in a quiet room full of people? Have you ever hiccupped so hard that you had to stop what you were doing? The hiccups is a problem that almost everyone has experienced.
The reasons for getting hiccups
People get hiccups for some reasons. Hiccups might result from eating or drinking too much or too quickly. A sudden change in the stomach's temperature, such as drinking hot water immediately after drinking cold water, may also cause hiccups. They may even happen because of being excited or being under a lot of stress.
Making hiccups go away
Ideas on how to stop hiccups have been created, shared, and tried for years. However, what works for one person may not work for everyone. Perhaps the most common method people use is to hold their breath for a few seconds. If this doesn't work, you can try swallowing (吞下)hard while holding your breath. There are also some strange-sounding ways, like drinking a lot of water. Someone might even try to scare away hiccups.
Ideas for curing (治愈)hiccups often include things found in the kitchen. Some people put sweet and sour things into water. Many people believe that eating some sugar can make hiccups go away.
Award-winning method
In 2010, a young girl named Mallory Kievman couldn't make her hiccups go away. None of the ideas that she knew worked for her. So she decided to find her own cure for hiccups. She knew that sweet and sour things were commonly used to cure hiccups, and she knew that swallowing hard could also help. She decided to use the two ideas to make a special lollipop(棒棒糖). She experimented with different things in the kitchen. After she failed many times, Mallory invented a lollipop that worked by putting water, sugar and vinegar (醋) together. She named her invention Hiccupops.
Mallory wanted to find out whether her lollipops would help others. She gave her lollipops to friends. Most of them were cured of their hiccups after eating the lollipops.
Mallory entered a competition with her lollipop and won three awards for her creative idea.