浙江省宁波市奉化区2020届九年级上学期英语期末考试试卷

    Once upon a time, there was a farmer named Harry. He worked very hard, 1his time in the field brought him no harvest. One day, he sat down under a tree for a rest. Then he saw a snake, and thought, "This is surely the goddess of the field, and I have not once paid her homage (敬意). That is2nothing grows in my field." After thinking it over, he got some3to the snake. The next day he returned and found a gold coin in the basin. And it continued4. He brought the snake milk, and always found a coin there the next morning.

One day, Harry asked his son to take the milk to the snake. The son did so. He brought the milk,5it there, and returned home. When he came back the next day, he found a coin. "This place must6gold coins. I will kill the snake and take them all at7!"

    Having8this, the son returned the next day with the milk and a stick. As he gave the milk to the snake, he suddenly hit her9the head with the stick but the snake didn't die. Filled with10, she bit the boy with her sharp, poisoned teeth. The boy fell dead at once.

    When Harry found why his son had died, he said that the snake had done11wrong. The next day, he once again took milk to the snake and praised the snake with a12voice. The snake appeared and said to him, "You come here from greed (贪心), letting even your pain for your son13. Your son, in his lack of understanding, hit me. I bit him. How can I forget the stick's blow? How can you forget the14for your son? From now on friendship between you and me will no longer be15." After saying this she gave him a pearl and said, "Do not come back." Then she disappeared into her cave.

    The school convenience store is a place where many students enjoy a snack and a chat. However, it may become a thing of the past.

    China's educational and health authorities (当局) have announced to close convenience stores in all schools across the country. The regulation (规定) requires that schools should record each meal and solve any food problem as soon as possible. It also requires schools to try to make sure students follow a healthy diet. Parents can also eat with students at school and give suggestions to the school on food safety and nutrition.

    The regulation caused heated discussions. Many students were sad. They thought that without convenience stores, their school life will be less interesting. However, many parents expressed support for the regulation. The father of a junior school student said that cheap, low-quality snacks sold at these stores were bad for children's health. A teacher said that students ran to shops to buy snacks as soon as a class was over, which influenced the normal teaching order.

    And in fact many foreign countries have their own ways to make students eat healthily. For example, many parents in Australia volunteer in schools. They do their best to see that their children are served nutritious food. In Japan, there is food and nutrition education. Students eat lunch in their classrooms, where they learn about diet and nutrition, and Japanese food culture. They also take turns serving meals to each other, cleaning up, and recycling. This helps children get "a sense of thankfulness "and "appreciate (尊重) foods and social manners".

     Some mortar rounds (迫击炮弹) landed in a primary school in a Vietnamese (越南的) village. Several children were hurt, including one eight-year-old girl. After a few hours, an American doctor and a nurse arrived. They said that the girl would die of loss of blood without quick action. They required a person with a matching blood type. A quick test showed that only several of the kids had the correct type. The two Americans spoke a little Vietnamese and French to the kids. Together with much body language, they tried to explain to the children that unless they could give some blood to the girl, she would certainly die. Then they asked if anyone would be willing to give blood to help.

     The kids were in silence. After a long time, a small hand slowly went up. "Oh, thank you," the nurse said. "What's your name?" "Heng," he replied.

    The doctor inserted a needle (针) in Heng's arm. After a few minutes, he cried in a low voice, covering (遮) his face with his free hand. "Is it hurting?" the doctor asked. Heng shook his head. But some time later, he cried again and once more he tried to cover up his crying. Again the doctor asked him if the needle hurt, and again Heng shook his head. The medical team was worried. At this time, a Vietnamese nurse arrived to help. She spoke to Heng in Vietnamese, listened to his reply and answered him in a soft voice. Then he stopped crying and a look of great relief spread over his face.

    The Vietnamese nurse said to the two Americans, "He thought he was dying. He misunderstood you. He thought you had asked him to give all his blood to the little girl so she would live."

    "But why would he be willing to do that?" asked the doctor. The Vietnamese nurse repeated the question to the little boy, who answered simply, "Because she's my friend."

     Plastic is one of the most-used materials for making many things. Things made of plastic can be very strong and last a long time. Plastic is also much lighter than metal and can easily be formed into different shapes. But the wide use of plastics across the world is causing big problems for the environment. Plastics can take hundreds of years to break down on their own. And very few kinds are highly recyclable.

     But a team of researchers working at the U.S. Department of Energy says it has created a kind of plastic that could lead to products that are 100 percent recyclable. It recently reported the discovery in a study in the journal Nature Chemistry.

    The researchers say the new material is a plastic polymer (聚合体) named polydiketoenamine, or PDK. The team reports that the material can be broken down in parts at the molecular (分子的) level. It can then be built up again to form plastics of different shapes, textures, colors and more. The researchers say this process can be repeated over and over again.

    "Most plastics were never made to be recycled," lead researcher Peter Christensen said in a statement. "But we have discovered a new way to recycle plastics at a molecular level."

    The team explained that all plastics are made up of monomers (单体). Many plastics have different chemicals (化学品) added to them to make them more useful and powerful. The problem is that these chemicals will remain in the monomers even after the material gets processed at a recycling factory. The research team reported that, with the newly discovered PDK material, the monomers could be separated from any chemicals and recycled.

    Next, the researchers plan to develop PDK plastics "with a wide range of thermal and mechanical properties." These plastics could be used for many kinds of cloth, as well as things such as 3D printed materials and foams. What's more, the team is looking to include plant-based materials in the process.

What's the Deal with Sleep

    You go to bed at night, close your eyes, and go to sleep. Actually, when you fall asleep, you go through the four stages of the sleep cycle. Let's explore what happens.

    Stage 1. When you feel yourself becoming sleepy. Your muscles begin to relax and your brain activity slows down. Your eye movements are slow. It lasts several minutes and you can be woken up easily.

    Stage 2. you won't wake up easily. The slow eye movements continue and your brain waves slow down even more. Your body temperature goes down and your heart rate slows down.

    Stage 3 is known as deep sleep. It's more difficult for you to be woken up. So all those sleepwalkers out there may not actually remember doing anything strange in their sleep the next day.

    Finally, you move into REM( rapid eye movement). This is caused by certain brain activity. You may have vivid dreams during this stage. Your waves are more active, and they're similar to when you're awake. It's easier to wake you up, but you may feel sleepy.

    Once your REM phase is over, the cycle starts all over again. Stage 1 and 2 are considered light sleep, while Stage 3 is deep sleep. You'll go through about four or five of these cycles each night, depending on how long you sleep.

    Chinese Spring Festival has over 4,000 years of history. It is also Lunar New Year. It comes on the first day of Chinese lunar calendar and lasts almost half of a month. Being one of the traditional Chinese , it is the most important one for Chinese people. It is also the time for the whole families to together, which is similar with Christmas Day to Americans. All the family members are together to welcome the new year. It is of rich and colorful activities, such as house cleaning, eating dumplings and setting off fireworks. People from different places and different groups celebrate it in their special ways.

    Leo was a small and thin boy. Some boys in the village often made fun of him, which makes him sad. One day, a wizard saw Leo being (make) fun of. When the other boys left, the wizard went over to Leo and gave (he) a magic lion's tail. "When the person wearing it acts bravely, he (turn) into a lion."

    Leo hung the lion's tail behind his body. But when the boys came, Leo was still very scared and he tried (run) away. All of a sudden, Leo felt the tail behind his body and remembered the wizard had said. He made two fists and became brave. He looked them in the (eye) and said he would make them feel sorry for what they did. Hearing this, the looks the boys' faces were changing. They looked at each other, and finally ran off as quickly as possible. Leo was very happy. He must have turned into a lion just now. But he was a bit (disappoint) that his new lion body had lasted only a short time, so that he couldn't fight them.

    The wizard saw everything. "No one fights with lions, they know lions are very brave and strong." Leo understood everything. There had been no magic and no transformation. Those bad boys never dare to face a (true) brave boy. Bravery is power.

注意：⑴不能出现真实的校名和姓名；

⑵文章应包含所有要点，并适当发挥；

⑶词数: 80-100，开头已给出(不计入总词数)。

Dear editor,

    I'm Zhang Hua, a middle school student from Ningbo. We students have too much learning stress now. I hope the school and our parents can take some methods to lower our pressure.

Yours sincerely,

Zhang Hua