Abstract: A highly water-absorptive soft contact lens made of a copolymer comprising(A) 10 to 40 parts by weight of an acrylate or methacrylate polymer having a hydrophilic group and at least one polymerizable group in its molecule and(B) 90 to 60 parts by weight of a hydrophilic monomer selected from the group consisting of a N-vinyllactam, acrylamide, N-substituted acrylamide derivative, methacrylamide and N-substituted methacrylamide derivative;the total amount of the components (A) and (B) being 100 parts by weight. The soft contact lens has a high water content, excellent oxygen permeability, transparency and excellent physical properties.

Abstract: A water-absorptive contact lens made of a copolymer consisting essentially of:(a) from about 50 to about 95 parts, by weight of the total monomer units, of hydrophilic monomer units consisting essentially of from about 25 to 100 parts, by weight of the total hydrophilic monomer units, of N-methyl-3-methylene-2-pyrrolidone represented by the formula: ##STR1## and from 0 to about 75 parts, by weight of the total hydrophilic monomer units, of N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone; and(b) from about 5 to about 50 parts, by weight of the total monomer units, of reinforcing monomer units consisting essentially of at least one monomer selected from the group consisting of alkyl acrylates, alkyl methacrylates, styrene, alkyl styrenes, benzyl acrylate and benzyl methacrylate.