江苏省太仓市实验中学2018届九年级中考英语调研测试卷

— I think you'd better separate _____ into different groups first.

—I've never seen a person with a better       of art.

—Sure, but all subjects can be learned well       hard work.

—Because there's       noise and fewer cars there.

—Terrible, and it       be an uncomfortable journey.

—Oh,       amazing experience! I'll never forget it!

—Yeah. It was hard for him to realize this dream, but he never gave up.

—No, I would like to read it again. I       it after dinner.

—The exam       to be much harder than I thought.

—"Rome was not built in a day." You should try to give it enough chances to become strong.

—That's right.       .

    Clothing(服装)is a language. We can look at the traditional clothing to know more about1.

    Africa has a long history and a rich culture, and this is 2 in traditional dress. The three colors-red, gold and 3are often used in the clothing. The first color represents the blood of millions of people who fought 4 freedom; the second, rich resources of the African earth; and the third, the grassland of home.

    Because clothing has strong social meanings, people are very5in choosing what to wear. It would be a serious mistake to wear the wrong clothes,6to dress in the wrong way. For example, in Ghana(加纳)，a woman should wear her waistband(腰带)7 according to the importance of the social event.

    Traditional dress also tells us about everyday life. African 8 are famous for loose(宽松的)clothing. The temperature there can be very high during the daytime but very low at night, so it 9that the clothes are comfortable for daily life.

    Today although more and more young people like wearing Western clothes, especially in big cities in Africa, traditional African dress is 10 quite valuable. This is because it has deep cultural meanings.

    Ukuleles(尤克里里)look like small guitars, but unlike guitars, they usually only have four strings. Ukuleles come from Hawaii(夏威夷)and make bright, happy sounds. They make people think of island vacations and summer days. Even though ukuleles come from Hawaii, they are now popular around the world. One of the reasons is because they are fun and easy to play.

    Playing a ukulele may be easy, but making one is not. Ukuleles must be made step by step. First the head and neck are glued to the body. As soon as the glue is dry, the fingerboard is glued onto the neck. Once(一旦)that is dry, the ukulele maker sands the fingerboard to make it smooth.

    Next, the bridge is glued onto the body. The bridge holds the strings and allows them to make sounds. After the bridge is in place, the ukulele can be painted and decorated. The next step is to connect tuning heads to the top of the ukulele. Then finally the strings are put on the instrument. Now a player can make music.

    The right name is important in the business world. All you have to do is to think of the names for some of the products you buy every day and you'll agree that the name and the product are connected in everyone's mind.

    In many countries, successful trade or brand(商标)names are protected by law so that other companies cannot make the same product by copying. Businesses register(注册)a company or a product name with the government. In fact, more than 1,000 product and company names are registered every hour. Many companies spend a lot of money to find the right name for their products. A good example of this is in the car industry. Some successful names for cars have powerful associations(联系).The Ford Mustang and the Jaguar are only two examples of choosing the names of animals that are fast and strong.

    When a U.S. company decides to sell its product in another country, it has to make sure that the product name translates properly. When Coca-Cola introduced its soft drink to China it looked for the right name. It wanted a name that would do two things. One was to present its image in Chinese and the second was to be close to its first brand name-Coke. It took some efforts before finding the right word-which sounds similar and translates as "happiness in the mouth".  Asian company names are not new to the United States. The brand names of Samsung and Sony have been successful. Finding the right brand name is a big business. Asian companies that sell to foreign markets pay to find a name that will connect with its customers. There are even naming companies that offer help in inventing product names. These companies can charge(要价)up to $ 100,000 a word for their good names. But it's worth it. Successful companies know how important the right brand names are for their development.

    For one group of children aged between ten and fifteen, Saturdays are spent_ learning the art of serious cooking. Their weekly lessons in small classes are so popular that there is a waiting list of 30 children who want to do the course. Parents pay $280 for the course where their children can have fun and learn how to make good food.

    Class member Bill, aged ten, says, "I love my mum's cooking and now I can do it better than her. The teachers make us laugh, especially when we sit down with them to share the food we've made."

    Flora is twelve, and she's having problems preparing onions. "I love cooking. I did a meal for ten friends which they really enjoyed. Then my mum suggested I take up a hobby, instead of doing nothing at weekends. I was happy staying at home, so I wasn't too active at first. I'm really glad I decided to come, though."

    Their teacher, Philippe, says, "It's great fun. Children pay attention and remember things better than adults, although the kitchen isn't always tidy when they're cooking! As adults, we're always learning more about food. If parents interest their children in cooking while they are young, they'll have enough skill to make food for themselves when they leave home."

—I hope it will like a book.

—I'm afraid we have toour sports meeting.

—Someone is on the door.

    A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held a sign which said, "I am blind. Please help me."

    There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words.

    Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized(认出) his footsteps and asked, "Are you the one who changed my sign in the morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way."

    What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it."

    Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

    Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.