浙江省温州市绣山中学2023-2024学年九年级上学期期中考英语试卷

 Chase counted his valentines (瓦伦丁节卡片) for his classmates one more time as he put an eraser into each small bag. He was ready for the valentine party tonight ear Ms. Robins and. When Chase got to school, he found a new1 looking around shyly.

"This is Eva,"said Ms. Robins."Will someone show 2 around today?" Chase put up his hand. He liked showing the new kids around and helping them feel3 .

"Thanks, Chase," Ms. Robins said. "Now let's get busy with our work so we can finish everything in time for the4 ." That was when Chase realized he didn't have a valentine5 Eva. No one else would have one, either. All day long, he was6 not to mention the party. He didn't want to let Eva down.

At lunchtime, as Chase ate the heart-shaped candy on the plate, he suddenly7 that kids often give candy hearts as valentine gifts. He told it to the kids around him8 . Soon everyone at the table was nodding and talking about it.

When they were back in the classroom, Chase9 Eva to sit with him. He made sure Eva sat with her back to the room, 10 she wouldn't notice other students passing around a big paper heart.

Before long, it was party time. They played games and had fun. The room was filled with laughter. Chase saw the11 look on Eva's face as she found small gift bags on other's desks but nothing on hers.

Finally, they gave away their valentines. "Here's your valentine, Eva," Chase said, placing the big red heart in front of her. "It's from12 ." Eva stared at the beautiful valentine that was as big as her desktop. Then one by one, Chase and his classmates 13 some of their gifts and put them on Eva's desk. Soon fruit cakes, candy, erasers,and pencils14 Eva's desk too.

"We wanted you to have a15 Valentine's Day too," said Chase.

"Thank you," Eva said, smiling at the friendly faces around the room.

Falling on the 24t day of the sixth lunar (农历) month, the Torch (火把) Festival is an important and traditional event for the Yi ethnic group (彝族) in Southwest China. Cheering, singing and dancing, local Yi people and the tourists usually have fun around the fire during the three-day celebration.

The Yi ethnic group started the festival because of their natural respect of fire. The early Yi people lived in high and cold areas in the mountains. For them, fire was an important way to light, warm, and cook. There was an old tradition—before bringing meat home, people must light a small fire outside the door and put the meat over the fire. They believed it could drive away filth (污秽). That's why they had a popular saying, "Everything you eat must 'see' fire." In farming, fire was used to light leaves on the ground to make the land rich.

Nowadays, the Yi people still celebrate the festival and it has become a social event. Every year, several thousand Chinese and foreign visitors come and join the local Yi people. In the daytime, they drink and take part indifferent kinds of activities, like horse racing, bullfighting and so on. When the night falls, everyone holds a torch walks around their houses and fields. Then, they put the torches together to make a big bonfire. Around the bonfires young men and women sing and dance happily.

For thousands of years, the Yi's torch is passed from age to age. Through the festival, the Yi people not only share their joy and thanks for their good life, but also get more people to understand their traditions.

There are more than 1.5 billion people with hearing problems in the world Communicating freely can be difficult for them. However, with the help of Xiaomo, a digital (数字的) human on the Internet, the problem has been improved a lot.

Created by Alibaba Cloud, Xiaomo looks like a pretty girl from the south of China Xiaomo was designed (设计) based on the looks of a sign language (手语) teacher and an engineer who took part in the project.

In last month's Hangzhou Asian Para Games, Xiaomo served as a valuable tool for the people with poor hearing. During the games, she provided two-way translation (翻译) between Chinese spoken language and sign language. The users could just speak out what they needed, and then Xiaomo would change these voice messages into sign language. Of course, she could also change the sign language into spoken language. With its help, people found it easy to ask for directions, book tickets, watch games and so on.

It took the team about two years to develop Xiaomo. One of the challenges was that sign language has its own language system, vocabulary and grammar. They are different from those of Chinese spoken language. To get over the difficulty, researchers created a Chinese sign language translation dataset (数据库). It includes 25,000 signs collected from sign language teachers and the people with hearing problems across Zhejiang Province in China.

Besides, in sign language, one word can have many different meanings. To provide a more exact translation, the team improved Xiaomo's system and used the technology Machine Translation to choose and translate words at the same time.

Xiaomo was first created to help the people who are hard of hearing to enjoy the games better. Today, the company has already used Xiaomo in museums, tourist centers and cafes. In the near future, Xiaomo is expected to help more people with hearing difficulties in public services, such as medical help, banking services, etc.

Carl moved to the town of Silverbell in the Sonoran Desert (沙漠) this December. Growing up in the green mountains of Vermont, he was surprised to find mountains here were always brown. There were no evergreen trees like home but only prickly cacti reaching up toward a warm winter sun.

Silverbell sat near a river with the same name. But there was not a drop of water in this so-called river. It snaked through the desert and dropped suddenly into the huge Silverbell Canyon. But old local people said, "At special times, one can hear her ring like a silver bell... if she is asked in the right way."

Carl was homesick. He missed his friends, the snow, and especially his flute (长笛) teacher. Days later, he meta boy called Tadio, who liked playing the flute as well. They played music pieces that they both knew by hear. They stayed together all day long. The two boys got on so well that Carl began to mention his homesickness to Tadio.

Every year on the first day of winter, the whole town walks in a parade with a band. Carl was asked to play flute in the parade this year and he was nervous. "I don't want to play in front of everybody." He told Tadio.

"Don't worry. You play very well. Let's practise before the parade tomorrow by the canyon. Sometimes her echo(回声) sounds like she's singing with us."Tadio suggested.

"I wish the canyon would sing with a homesick kid from Vermont" Carl smiled.

The next day was sunny and warm, like always. The two boys came to the canyon for their practice. Together, they played their hearts out. Suddenly, they heard a noise far away. They saw dark clouds above the mountains. It had started raining hard in those far-off mountains. Soon, the Silverbell became a real river...a wild one.

The river then created a breathtaking waterfall beside the.canyon. It echoed back and forth and the whole canyon was ringing like a huge silver bell.

The parade passed beside the canyon. Carl and Tadio joined the other students in the band. Carl played his flute perfectly, and with every note, he felt more echoes from the canyon. "It was just starting to feel like home." Carl said.

Today, there are more than 85 million disabled people in China, but they seldom appear in public. There are all kinds of (原因) for this, but most people think they just want to hide themselves.

(在......之中) the disabled people, Niu Yu is different. (尽管)she lost her right leg in Wenchuan earthquake, she is confident and hopeful. She often shares her daily life online （代替) of hiding herself. 

Niu Yu first caught the public's attention when she decided to attend a marathon in 2018, the (第十) year after the earthquake. In the last few kilometers, Niu (几乎)ran out of her energy. But she never stopped (休息) and tried her best to finish it. People cheered her in a (响亮的) voice.

Last year, a short video of her walking in a fashion show became hot. Millions of people (讨论) it. They were amazed by her confidence and beauty.

Niu often says (无论什么) happens, we should face ourselves bravely. Disabled people can also shine brightly in their life. 

One day, Danny and Tommy were walking to school when they noticed something was under a tree. They came closer and saw old book named Buried Treasure. As they looked through the book, the (boy) found each page had one map. It seemed like a treasure  their town!

Danny and Tommy were excited. They hoped there was some treasure for them to discover. "If we find the treasure, we (have)much money and can travel around the world." They thought. What an (interest) adventure it would be!

Later that afternoon, they decided (begin) their journey immediately when the school was over. With the help pf the map, they soon stopped at a park. Then they searched around (careful). After some time, they finally found it, the treasure was just a piece of message carved on a tree. It said "The (good) treasure in the world is a good adventure with good friends.

Danny and Tom didn't get (something), but they both agreed it was a great daytime.

要求：
1.文中不得出现学校名称和真实姓名;
2. 词数 110 词左右，文章开头已给出，不计入总词数。

Dear students, thank you for trusting us and sharing your problems.