（浙江）2023-2024学年八年级上学期期中复习专练：阅读理解（话题2 故事类）

It was Sunday morning. Peter, a seven-year-old boy, was watching TV in the room while his brother was doing his homework. Their father was watering the flowers in the garden and their mother was going out to do some shopping. At ten their mother came back with a heavy basket. Peter ran up to her. He wanted to know what his mother bought. He found a bag of oranges in it. He liked them very much and wanted to eat them. His mother stopped him. She gave five to each son and went to the kitchen. Peter ate up his oranges but his brother was busying doing his homework and didn't eat them. Suddenly the telephone rang and his brother Bill ran to answer it. Bill's friend asked him to play football with them. And when Bill talked with his friend, Peter took two oranges away and ate them. Bill found it, called Peter out and beat him behind the house. He didn't tell his parents about it. 

The next morning Miss Ball taught the students subtraction. She asked Peter a question. Peter didn't listen to the lesson carefully and couldn't understand it. Miss Ball began to give him an example, "If your brother has five oranges and you take two away from him, what will the result be?" Peter thought for a moment and said, "I'll be beaten. "

As soon as the woman got into the house, her eight-year-old daughter told her that her younger brother drew so many pictures on the clean wall of his bedroom and left the white wall in a mess.

When the woman heard this, she was angry. "Where's your brother now?" "He's hiding himself in the cupboard in his bedroom." The little girl answered. The woman got even angrier. She complained about her son when she went towards her son's bedroom.

The six-year-old boy was staying with fear in the cupboard when he heard what his mother said. He knew she got really angry this time.

The woman pushed the door open with a loud noise. But when she saw the words and pictures on the wall, her anger soon went away. "I love you, Mum!" covered the whole wall, with so many hearts around them, and so many stars in the sky.

The mother's eyes were full of happy tears. She opened the door of the cupboard, and hugged her son tightly. The boy said "I love you, Mum!" to her mother in a low voice when he was in his mother's arms.

It's the most expensive present from her son — "Love on the wall". Eight years later, the boy suddenly died of heart disease. The mother had kept the wall tidy with great care for nearly fifty years until she was dead.

In the mother's heart, it seemed that her son was alive, and always looking at her in the sky with many shining stars around him.

Mrs. Smith has two children now. She tries to keep thin and never eats any meat or eggs. She likes all kinds of nice clothes. Mr.Smith has to spend much money on them. But the man always wears old clothes. He has not enough money to buy new clothes. Mrs.Smith hopes to keep young. She doesn't want others to know how old she is. It was snowing heavily one afternoon. The head of her office went to a meeting. The woman had nothing to do. So she began to tell Mr.Smith about her birthday party. Mr.Smith works in the same office. 

"You should have seen the cake, " said the woman.  "It was nice and delicious! I put nineteen candles on it—one for a year! "

"Was it possible? " asked Mr. Smith.  "You couldn't burn at both ends at all! "

The Beets were a new couple. Mr Beet worked in an office. He worked hard so that he was paid more. The things in the rooms, such as the television, the computer, furniture and so on, were all left by his parents. They only paid some money for their food and clothes. But they tried their best to save money. If they had something important to tell their friends, they preferred to visit them than call them. Sometimes one of them felt sick, they bought some medicine instead of seeing a doctor.

One day, it was a quarter past nine. Mr Beet didn't come back. His wife was worried. The supper was cold and she had waited for two hours and a half. She was sitting by the table in the dark room.

Suddenly the woman heard someone coming. She hurried to open the door. In the dark she could hear his deep breathing. As soon as he sat down, she turned on the light and found he looked very tired.

"Why do you come back so late, dear?"asked the woman, "Haven't you caught a bus?"

"Yes, but I didn't take it."

"Yes? But why now?"

"I ran after it so that I saved two dollars this evening."

"That's great!" the woman said happily, "Run after a taxi next time and you'll save both more time and money!"

Where is Love? How can we find Love?

Once, a little boy wanted to meet Love. He knew it was a long trip to where Love lived, so he got his things ready with some pizzas and drinks and started off. When he passed three streets, he saw an old woman sitting in the park and watching some birds. She looked very hungry. The boy gave her a pizza. She took it and smiled(微笑)at him. The smile was so beautiful that he wanted to see it again, so he gave her a coke. Once again she smiled. The boy was very happy.

They sat there all afternoon, eating and smiling, but they said noting. When it grew dark, the boy decided to leave. Before leaving, he came up to the old woman and gave her a hug(拥抱).The woman gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door of his house, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face and asked what had made him so happy. "I had lunch with Love. She has got the most beautiful smile in the world." said the boy.

At the same time, the old woman's son was also surprised at his mother's pleasure(快乐)and asked why. I ate a pizza in the park with Love," she said, "and he is much younger than I expected(预料)."

If the world is full of love, we can enjoy a better life.

Once upon a time, there was a child ready to be born. One day he asked God, "They tell me you are sending me to the earth tomorrow but how am I going to live there? I'm too small and helpless." God answered, "I'll choose one of the angels for you and she will look after you". But the child said," But I'm happy here. I sing and smile every day. I don't want to leave." "Your angel will sing for you and will also smile at you every day. And you will feel your angel's love and be happy. "

"And how can I understand what people say?" the child asked.

"Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweetest words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak."

At that moment, the child knew he had to start on his trip very soon. He asked God one more question, "God, I am leaving now, so could you tell me my angel's name?"

God smiled at the child and answered, "Your angel's name is not hard to remember. You will call her Mother. "

Twelve years ago, Mr. Brown, a friend of my parents' went to Africa to help in a poor country.

One afternoon, Mr. Brown took a walk in a town. The town was destroyed(破坏) during a war. He saw something moving in the long grass and thought it was an animal. As he got closer, he found it was a baby boy. The boy got hurt a little. Mr. Brown asked a guide," Can we find his family?" The guide looked around and said," I don't think so. "Finally, Mr. Brown adopted (收养) the baby with the help of many friends. The next year, Mr. Brown took him back to America and gave him the name Liam

Liam isn't as big as the other kids, but he is a good student and he is on our school football team. Everyone in our school likes Liam. Whenever there is a need, he is always the first one to help out.

Last year, our school decided to sponsor ten poor children. We needed to raise money and sent it to them every month. Liam spent plenty of hours setting up the whole thing. In the end, we raised so much money that we were able to sponsor twenty children.

Do you know why Liam always works so hard? Because many people have worked hard to give him a chance in life.

Two seeds(种子) lay in the soil(土壤).

The first seed said, " I want to grow to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the beauty of the fresh dew(露水) on my flowers in the morning! I will make friends with other plants, and we can grow together." So she grew. Then she saw that the other seed did nothing. She asked, "①"

The other seed said," I am afraid. You know first I should go into the ground below, but I don't know what I'll meet in the dark. Second, before I open my flowers, I should push my way through the hard soil above me to be a strong plant, but I might hurt. At last, when I open my flowers, a child might pull me out of the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it's safe."

The first seed didn't know what to say. The second seed sat there still. A big hen was walking nearby and looking for food. She found the second seed and ate it.

Like this seed, if we don't try our best to grow, life may give us a lesson.

One day, an owner of a boat asked a man to paint a boat for him. When the man was painting, he found there was a hole and repaired (修理) it. When he finished painting, he got his money and left.

The next day, the owner of the boat came to the painter and sent him with a nice check (支票) and it was much higher than the money for painting.

"You have paid me for painting the boat!" he said in surprise.

"But this is not for the paint job. It's for repairing the hole in the boat," answered the owner of the boat.

"It was just a small service. You don't have to pay me such a high price!"

Then the owner told the man what happened. When he asked the man to paint the boat, he forgot to tell about the hole. After the paint was dry, his children took the boat to fish but they didn't know the hole. The owner wasn't at home at that time. So when he came back and heard they had taken the boat, he was worried. Luckily, his children came back soon from fishing. He was excited.

Then he checked the boat and found that the man had repaired the hole!

"You saved the lives of my children! I don't have enough money to pay your ‘small' good deed," said the owner.

Most children don't enjoy doing housework. They like playing computer games rather than cleaning the rooms. But in Australia, Jim and Robert's mother, Mrs Black, have good and proper ways to get their children to do housework.

Here is an example.

"Mum, have you worked out next week's housework? Let Jim and me choose the cards. I can't wait. It's fun!"

When Robert shouted out, his mother had already put ten cards on their big table. On the cards, there are some words like these, "sweep the floor, clean your bedroom, help mum cook, wash vegetables, make beds, feed the fish, cut the wood, clean the bathroom" and many others, Jim and Robert chose two cards for each day from Monday to Friday. Then they would hang them on the weekday task board. Jim likes to clean the bathroom, so he picked up the card "clean the bathroom". Robert loves to make the bed so he picked up his favorite card. Jim again picked up "wash vegetables" and Robert chose "feed the fish". Soon the two boys were happy to take away all the cards.

To help the children do housework, their mother thought hard and came up with this idea. Of course, the parents did the housework on the weekends and left Jim and Robert two days free.