江苏省南通市2023年中考英语真题

—Right. I went there last year.

—So he is. We all like him.

—I can't agree more. So we should learn to deal with all kinds of difficulties.

—That's true. Once you make one, be sure to keep it.

—It's about ten minutes if you take a taxi.

—I'd love to, but could you tell me ____?

—____. They're valuable qualities.

Jatto's mother was doing housework while Jatto was reading a book aloud in English.

Jatto didn't always like 1 to his mother. She spoke only Esan, one of the languages in Nigeria. Wasn't it a waste of time to read to someone who couldn't understand? His mother didn't even realize when he made 2 . Still, she insisted he read aloud every day.

"Let's bottle nuts when you finish reading," she said in Esan.

Jatto shook his head. He had so much homework to do. "I'll never finish reading."

Jatto said "never" in English because there was no word for never in Esan.

"What's ‘never'?" she asked.

Jatto cleared his throat to3 the English word. "It means I won't stop reading today, tomorrow, or 4 ." He drew circles in the air. "Nor the day after the day after tomorrow, the day after the day after, the day after…"

"Oh, OK! That's forever," his mother said.

Jatto stared at the nuts. Each one looked delicious.

Now would be a 5 time to eat some. But he couldn't ask. He remembered the 6 he'd drawn in the air.

Jatto's mother whistled. Tam-tam, their cow, came up to them. Jatto could 7 cow-milk air as his mother milked her. Tam-tam's milk was the best he'd ever tasted.

Jatto needed to take his mind off the 8 . "Mama, why do you make me read to you even though you don't understand?"

"I want you to practice speaking English often," she said.

"I can practice English in my head," he said, not 9 .

His mother smiled. "We share our stories aloud with others, not in our heads where 10 can hear them."

Jatto nodded. He'd learned about that in school.

She decided to tell him a story and handed him some nuts and milk. "You can eat 11 I talk."

He ate as she started. Soon, Jatto was singing the story with his mother.

"You never tell me stories," he said when they stopped 12 .

She sighed. "I used to, but when you started school, I wanted you to focus on English."

"I make a lot of mistakes when I read to you," Jatto said.

His mother 13 . "I guessed so. But I like hearing the sound of your voice while I work."

Jatto knew what she meant. He had enjoyed listening to her story as he bottled the nuts. It made the work seem 14 . "I have an idea," he said. "Next time, I will read a story to you in English, then I will tell you the same story in Esan. We can even make up songs together."

"Great! And I will tell you stories in Esan and you can say them back to me in English. Let's ‘never' stop 15 stories."

Jatto smiled. His mother's understanding of never was even better than his own.

There is nothing wrong with having an accent (口音). In fact, most native English speakers won't care if you do. You should feel confident about your accent! But as you improve your language abilities, losing your accent might be something you've started to think about. And, if you're entering the workforce in an English speaking environment, it is important to get your pronunciation to a level that native speakers can understand without difficulty. So, here, we're looking at some tips to help you sound like a native speaker.

Learning how to sound like a native speaker can be a hard task. But it's something you'll have to do on your language learning journey. If you want to improve your pronunciation, the tips above will be of great value to you.

The Drama Festival will run in and outside China from June 20 to July 7. Sixty-five works will be put on both in theaters and online. "The festival is all about imagination connecting drama with the latest technology," says Liu Chang, manager of the festival, who is also a drama director. Technology has improved design, performances and so on. Artists like Liu aren't sure if the new technology can take drama to the future.

A Chinese play directed by Meng Jinghui, , inspired (赋予灵感) by the two-part drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, will be on as the opening play of the festival. In the first half of the play, Meng introduces the story to 400 real audiences (观众) sitting in the Fengchao Theater in Beijing. The second half of the play will have more audiences, who use their cellphones, computers and headsets to be part of the play online.

Zhang Zhouxiang is a director full of imagination. His work, inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's paintingThe Garden of Earthly Delights, will be shown from June 30 to July 2. Supported by AI, audiences can explore thefictitious scene, similar to the feeling in the real world, as the painting describes.

"The stage (舞台) design is done by AI, which is like an assistant realizing the ideas of me and my team, "says Liu, "Now I try to use the latest technology, such as ChatGPT, to write the script, and I am still working on it because the language model is difficult to understand."

Now technology is playing a more and more important role. Many artists want to use it to improve drama. They are very interested in the relationship between people and the latest technology, especially when connected in drama—a scene to dream.

Climate change(气候变化)has brought a serious warning to the living areas of the Siberian crane, increasing the need to better protect the birds and their migratory channels (迁徙路径), an expert said.

The Siberian crane breeds (繁殖) in northeast Siberia in Russia and flies to Poyang Lake for the winter in East China's Jiangxi Province. About 95 percent of the birds spend the season in Poyang.

Qian Fawen, a research professor from the National Bird Banding Center of China, said that Poyang's water levels decide whether it is suitable for the birds to live there. However, climate change has made the levels change often. "In some years, the lake experiences floods; in others, it experiences droughts. Both of these situations create food shortages in the cranes' living area," he said.

The Siberian crane is listed as seriously endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. "We need to protect their living area, which is mainly wetland, so that we can protect them," Qian said.

In the recently announced National Action Plan for the Protection of Bird Migration Channels (2021-35), 1, 140 places in China were considered as important breeding grounds, wintering grounds and staying stops, including Poyang and the Yellow River wetland in Ningxia. The plan said that the government should watch and count the number of migratory birds and pay farmers for losses caused by the birds.

Since China joined the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1992, it has designated (指定) 202,600 hectares of wetland as Wetlands of International Importance. They store and clean water, keep all kinds of living things, help store floods and prevent droughts. According to a plan announced by the central government in October, by 2025, China will have protected 55 percent of its wetlands.

After the Wetlands Protection Law, the nation's first law to protect wetlands, was introduced on June 1, 2022, complete protection was strengthened. The law clearly explained what the government should do and introduced strict punishment for people who destroy wetland areas. It limits building at important national wetlands and it doesn't allow harmful activities, including using them as farmlands, leaving wastewater everywhere, harvesting and fishing too much.

Key nature reserve management offices in China have reported more birds wintering in the nation's wetlands, including some new rare kinds.     ▲    

Jordan had his eye on a scoring record. Jordan took a deep breath as he stood in the doorway, looking in at the basketball court. Maybe today I'll make history, he thought.

The city's youth basketball league was holding a celebration. Today's championship game marked 50 years since the league's first title game (冠军争夺赛).

Before the game, Jordan looked over a special program. It listed the winners of each championship game and the top scorers.

Jordan stopped when he read the name of the top scorer from a game 30 years before. "Devin, look!" he said to his friend, "You see who has the all-time record? My dad! Twenty-four points. But he never told me that."

"Twenty-four points," Devin said. "That's great."

Jordan's best was 19 points. He was the league's top scorer.

When his parents showed up at the gym, Jordan brought the program over to them.

His dad laughed. "I had quite a game that day," he said. "But look at the score. I prefer to trade all my points for a win."

Jordan hadn't noticed that his dad's team had lost by one point.

"That was great group of teammates," Dad said. "I'm still friends with a lot of them."

As game time came near, Jordan slapped hands with his teammate Tara and then started to warm up. The courts filled up quickly.

Jordan felt strangely calm. He'd played so many games in this gym that it was like his own home. Jordan had led his team to a victory over the Lions last season. Why shouldn't today be like that?

Jordan grew even more confident when he hit the first 2 shots (投篮).

The Lions called a break. Jordan ran to the bench and jumped up and down with excitement.

"Great start,"Coach said. "But those guys are tough. They'll come back on us."

He was right. By half time, the Lions had pulled ahead, 27-24.

Jordan looked up at his parents. His dad nodded and called, "Great work!"

But Jordan didn't feel quite as confident as he had before.

The teams traded baskets throughout the second half, with neither building a lead.

Eleven seconds left. The scoreboard was clear: LIONS 51. BADGERS 51.

Coach told Jordan to bring the ball up the court. "Look for Devin inside, but take the shot if you're open," he said.

Jordan glanced at his dad again. His dad pointed to Jordan, then held up two fingers on one hand and three fingers on the other.

"Me?" Jordan mouthed.

Dad nodded. Jordan had scored 23 points. Another basket would break the record. And it was the right time to do it!

Jordan ran right, then left, but he was still a long way from the basket.

The viewers started counting the seconds. "Four... three... two."

Jordan rose to shoot. As the Lions rushed toward him, he passed the ball to Devin—wide open near the basket.

Devin turned and shot. The ball fell cleanly through the net for the winning points.

"Yes!" Jordan shouted. After celebrating with his team, he ran to hug his parents. "You still have the record," he told his dad.

Dad smiled. "You have something more important. A championship. And great teammates. Congratulations on your history!"

Moving the strings (弦) of the nation's heart

When talking about the history of the guqin, Wu Wenguang, a famous performer of the ancient zither (古筝), likes to tell a folk story about the sincere friendship between a musician and his biggest fan.

D the Spring and Autumn period, there was a musician named Yu Boya. He lived alone in a forest where he often played the guqin. One day, a passing woodcutter, Zhong Ziqi, was attracted by the sounds of the ancient zither and stopped to l. It was the best that he once heard. Yu's playing created different p in Zhong's mind, such as clouds flowing and waterfalls falling. They became good friends. After many years, when Zhong Ziqi passed away, Yu decided never to play the guqin again because he knew that he wouldn't have anyone e like Zhong to so truly understand his music.

"With the power to e the deepest feeling, the guqin becomes the connection between performing and listening," says Wu. "Today when we talk about t Chinese culture, the ancient zither, which was played by many famous people on literature, is surely in the center of the ancient culture."

Indeed, the guqin, a p musical instrument of ancient China's educated group, was also the favorite instrument of Confucius (孔子). In 2008, it was a to the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

In April, when President Xi Jinping m with French President Emmanuel Macron, a classic guqin piece, High Mountain and Flowing Water, was played to celebrate the friendship between the two c. The instrument not only shows the past greatness of Chinese civilization (文明), but also continues to shine today.

Karlsson, a Swedish teacher at Beijing Union University (BUU), has lived in China for over 15 years. The seeds (种子) of his China journey were sown when he joined in a program for East Asian studies at Lund University in Sweden in 1997. Back then, cellphones and the Internet hadn't yet come into wide use. Learning Chinese meant using textbooks, heavy dictionaries and audio tapes. He would read the dictionary carefully for hours to understand a one-page Chinese article.

"In those days, it was a real challenge," he said.

In 2006, with a high score in the official Chinese language test, he won a scholarship for a five-week summer program at Beijing Language and Culture University.

After finishing the study program, Karlsson was offered a Beijing-based job as a market researcher. In 2008, the year Beijing succeeded in hosting the Summer Olympic Games, he got married. In the next year, he started to teach business at BUU.

Life in Beijing has been a wonderful adventure (异乎寻常的经历), especially as a witness to the great achievements China has made. It has offered him many chances for personal growth. Today, thanks to high-speed broadband and 5G, he can connect with students at BUU's partner universities in Russia, Montenegro or Mexico while riding on the Beijing subway.

"When you open your eyes to these great projects, it is impossible not to want to be part of them or at least support them somehow," he said.

Although he was busy on teaching days, Karlsson applied for a full-time scholarship at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. In 2022, at 44 years old, he got his Ph.D. in economics. "I am quite interested in blockchain technology, and I know that China is quickly becoming the leader in blockchain applications outside the cryptocurrency space. So, I always write my articles in this area," he said.

"There is always time to follow your dreams unless you decide to give up," he said. "Taking on seemingly impossible challenges and also helping those around you are what makes life worth living."

注意：1. 词数90左右，短文开头已给出，不计入总词数。

2. 表达中请勿提及真实校名及姓名。

参考词汇：responsibility n. 责任；义务

The summer holiday is coming. In order to develop my sense of responsibility, I plan to have a social practice activity.