备战2020年中考英语专题复习——阅读理解 1（真题）

    A farmer had a friend and his friend was famous for growing wonderful apple trees.

    One day, the farmer's friend gave him a young apple tree and told him to take it home and plant it.

    The farmer loved the gift. But when he got home, he did not know where to plant it. He was afraid that if he planted the tree near the road, strangers would steal the apples. If he planted the tree in one of his fields, his neighbors would come at night and steal the apples. If he planted the tree near his house, his children would take the apples. Finally he planted the tree in his wood. Nobody could see it, but there was no sunlight in his wood, the tree soon died.

    Later, the friend asked the farmer why he planted the tree in such a poor place. "What's the difference?" the farmer said angrily, "If I plant the tree near the road, strangers may steal the apples. If I plant the tree in one of my field, my neighbors may come at night and steal the apples. If I plant the tree near my house, my children may take the apples."

    "Yes," said the friend. "but at least someone could enjoy the apples. Now no one could eat the apples, and the apple tree died!"

    In many places the weather changes during the year. These changes are called seasons. In the north and south there are four seasons in a year. At the North and South Pole, there are only two seasons. In tropical (热带) places near the Earth's equator (赤道), there are two seasons: a 'wet' season and a 'dry' season. Each season brings changes. They are important for plants and animals that live in different parts of the world.

    Spring starts when the day and night are the same length. The weather gets warmer and sunnier. Trees and plants start to grow. Many animals have their babies in spring.

    Summer begins on the longest day of the year. In the north this is on June 21 or 22. Summer is usually the warmest and sunniest time of the year. Fruit grows faster on trees and plants. Young animals grow bigger and stronger.

    Autumn starts when the day and night are the same length again.

During autumn, the leaves change color and fall down from the trees. Some animals collect food before winter comes.

    Winter begins on the shortest day of the year. In the north this is on December 21 or 22. The weather is colder and in some places there is lots of snow. Plants and trees stop growing. Some animals, like bats and bears, find places to hide and sleep. This is called hibernation.

    Tina graduated from college. Several days later, she got a new job. She would work in the biggest company(公司)in her city. Her friends admired her very much.

    On her first workday, Tina arrived at 8:45 a. m. She took the lift to the 11th floor(楼层), and a clerk showed her where her desk was. As a green hand, she didn't know what to do, so she tried to talk to the girls who sat near her in the office. However, they were not friendly to her. After a while, a young boss came in. Tina was surprised that the boss was not the old man who interviewed her several days ago. The boss gave her a lot of reports to write. But when she began to write, she found that she had much trouble understanding the reports. She spent almost the whole day trying to do the work. At5:30pm., it was time to go home. Although most of the reports weren't finished, she got into the lift. On the 10th floor, she was greeted by John, the old man who interviewed her several days ago. "Tina!" He said, "Why didn't you work with us today?" All of a sudden, Tina realized she mistook the 11th floor for the 10th floor. "Oh, my God!" She answered, "     " After hearing this, John couldn't help laughing.

    Do you often run outdoors to keep healthy? Have you ever thought about how running helps to clean up the earth? Sometimes a creative mind can bring us a win-win(双赢)situation.

    Plogging, a new way to exercise, began in Sweden(瑞典).The name "plogging" comes from two words the Swedish(瑞典的)word "plocka", which means" to pick up(捡起)", and the word" jogging", which means "to run slowly". A Swedish man called Erik started the movement. He saw rubbish here and there when riding to work each day. He became worried about the dirty environment and decided not to go to work by bike any more. Instead, he began to run to work and pick up the rubbish at the same time. To his joy, more and more people followed him and soon plogging became popular.

    Many people choose plogging instead of just jogging because they think plogging is a good way to help clean up the earth. Sometimes rubbish is difficult to collect because it may scatter all around. But if the runners pick up the rubbish on the way, it is quite different. After all, many hands make light work. Another reason is that plogging burns more calories(卡路里).According to a research, plogging for 10 minutes burns 48 calories, while usual jogging for 10 minutes burns about 39 calories.

    Everyone on the earth should play a part in cleaning it up! It's time for us to take action together. So ready? Let's plog tomorrow!

    Sitting among the cheering fans of the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team in Rio de Janeiro, a Polish fan caught a lot of attention. It is not because he is not Chinese, but because he has followed the team closely from the very beginning

    The 60-year-old Jozef fell in love with the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team at the first sight when he watched the girls at the London Olympics on TV in 2012. The Polish man was crazy about the performances of the young team, especially by its core player Hui Ruoqi. Before that Jozef was a loyal fan of his home team﹣ the Polish men's volleyball.

    Since then, Jozef has become crazy about the team and has kept track of almost all their international competitions. Back in the 2013 Montreux Volley Masters of Switzerland, the Polishman, for the first time, came to cheer up for the team on site. He also drove all the way from Polandto Italy to lend support for the girls during the 2014 Women's World Volleyball Championship.

    The hardcore fan traveled hundreds of miles from Poland to Brazil, and booked tickets for allmatches of the Chinese Women's Volleyball. This time, Jozef was interviewed by TV and has been recognized by not just fans, but millions of Chinese TV audience.

    The" Polish grandpa" was a nickname given by Chinese volleyball fans. He has 18,000 followers on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, where Jozef has been sharing his obsession with Chinese internet users since 2013.

    "I'm going to bed earlier tomorrow!" But no matter how we decide, there are still many chances that we break our promises.

    This behavior is called "bedtime procrastination"(睡眠拖延症), and results from being short of self﹣control and our body clock.

    Bedtime procrastination is a common problem. According to a study, Among 2, 400 people, 53 percent of them couldn't follow their sleeping time they had planned, delaying(推迟)it at least twice a week. They delayed bedtime not because they liked to stay up late, but they couldn't stop doing some other things.

    Accordingly, People who usually have trouble resisting temptations(抵制诱惑) and adhering to their intentions(坚持己见) are more likely to delay going to bed.

    However, scientists think being short of self﹣control is not the only problem. Our body clock also lays an important role when it comes to bedtime.

    In order to check the influence of the body clock on sleep, scientists studied the sleep patterns (t模式)of 108 people. It was found that those who got up late are more likely to delay their bedtime than those who woke up early every morning.

    And more surprisingly, night owls(夜猫子)would go to bed late at the very beginning of the weekday, even though they had to get up early for work and school. It's their special body clock that plays a part in delaying their bedtime.

    People always think that bedtime procrastination isn't a big problem, but the choices we make that affect (影响)our sleep could finally be pretty important for our health.

    People have told stories about Robin Hood for over 700 years. Nobody knows if he was a real person or an invented character. In the legends, Robin was extremely smart and humorous, he helped strangers, and later his kindness paid off.

    The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood was just a young man, who was good at archery (射箭术). One day he was walking through Sherwood Forest, a royal hunting forest near Nottingham in England. There he got into trouble with a group of men. Among them, he killed the cousin of the Sheriff (郡长) of Nottingham. Robin became a legendary outlaw, and soon the leader of one hundred outlaws, known as his "Merry Men".

    Robin and his "Merry Men" always looked for rich people and asked them to their camp in Sherwood Forest. When they arrived, Robin gave them a good meal and played music for them. Then he took their gold away to help the poor. Robin became most famous for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor."

    The Sheriff of Nottingham was Robin's greatest enemy. He was cruel and treated the poor badly. It was his job to keep the woods safe and to make sure that nobody stole the king's deer. He hated Robin because Robin was an outlaw. But most of all, he hated Robin because everyone else loved him. The Sheriff of Nottingham kept trying to catch Robin Hood and his "Merry Men", but never succeeded.

    At about 6 p.m. on Saturday, a forest fire broke out in a village in Mu Li, Liangshan. The local government acted quickly and 689 people were sent to put out the fire. Fire groups were fighting the fire on Sunday when a sudden change of wind direction caused "a huge fireball". 27 firefighters and 3 locals lost their lives. Most of the firefighters were in their twenties and two of them were less than twenty, though several were older. Their death touched our hearts all over China. There is reason enough to regard them as heroes. President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and many other leaders cared for the heroes and expressed condolence to the heroes' families and friends.

    We should remember all the heroes and their spirit, bravery showed in fighting the fire. As the old saying goes: a nation is lost without its memories. Forest fires are common in spring, rules to prevent fires have come out in Liangshan. Many experts believe there are some reasons for forest fires. The first reason is weather change. Warmer and drier weather leads to dangerous fire conditions. Next, lightening is another reason. Dry grass and trees easily catch fire. Finally, hot winds add to the possibility of forest fires. The wind spreads a fire quickly. However, 90% of forest fires are caused by humans, according to a report. Forest fires can burn at over 900⁰C and reach heights of more than 50 meters. Forest fires can move at speeds of up to 23 kilometers an hour, burning everything—trees, brush, homes, even people... Experts remind people to be careful during the holiday of Qingming, known as Tomb Sweeping Day. Millions of people travel to their homes during the holiday, so the risks of fires in mountains are high.

    In order to keep the heart-broken lesson in mind, we should stop fires from happening again.

    A man once visited a temple that was still being built. He saw a sculptor making a sculpture(雕塑).As he watched the man work on the sculpture, he noticed that there was a similar sculpture lying nearby.

    He felt very strange and asked the sculptor, "Why are you making two same sculptures? Do you need two to put in different places?"

    "No, "the man said without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one became damaged before I could finish it, so I'm making a new one."

    The visitor picked up the damaged sculpture and examined it. But he couldn't find anything wrong with it.

    "Where is the damage?" he asked.

    "There is a scratch(擦痕)on the sculpture's nose." the sculptor said while continuing his work.

    The man then asked, "Where are you going to place the sculpture?"

    The sculptor replied that it would be placed on a 20﹣foot﹣high platform(平台)."If the sculpture is up that high, who is going to notice that there is a scratch on the nose?" the man asked.

    The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the man and said, "I will know it".

    The sculptor chose to stick to a high standard of excellence in his work. Even if other people didn't notice it, it mattered to him that his work should be of the best quality. This is an attitude we should all work hard to keep.

    When Reginald Johnston, a British scholar (学者) , first walked into the Forbidden City in 1919, most palaces weren't allowed to visit. But a century later, when the People' Republic of China is to celebrate its 70th founding anniversary (周年纪念) in October, the 599-year-old palace complex (宫殿群) becomes the world's busiest museum.

    Open to the public

    In the old days, ordinary people could only imagine what it looked like inside. When the Palace Museum was founded in 1925, the public could go into the palaces. Now 80% of the total area of the museum is open to the public and it will increase to 8500 in 2025.

    Embracing (拥抱) the world

    "It felt like you were hit by hundreds of years of history," Christopher Allen from Britain said. "I begin to love its history and culture.”

The Forbidden City is becoming more open and friendly to visitors. It attracted about 3. 5 million visitors from abroad and 9 overseas (海外的) exhibitions were held in 2018. The Palace Museum exhibition becomes a cultural phenomenon (文化现象) everywhere it goes.

Attracting the youth

    On the Palace Museum's online store on Taobao, you can find more than 10, 000 cultural products. The ones with cute and humorous pictures of emperors are very popular.

    Some favourite products also go offline. For example, the "Kangxi Emperor's Favourite Chocolate", the most popular drink, always has people lining up (排队) to get a taste.

    As a child, Xu Jing often rode a bike in front of the Meridian Gate (午门) . "I had little memory of the museum then, but now I am more willing to visit it after watching several popular TV shows about the museum," she said.

Clouds

On a beautiful spring afternoon

I relax—and lie down

On the soft greengrass

Breathing in the fresh smell that I can feel all around

My attention is taken up to the clouds.

For up there in the bright blue sky

Is a fluffy white world of cotton on candy animals

And castles built with marshmallow bricks.

But I must be creative and take the time

To bring this world into focus

So I take a breath

And squint my eyes just a little bit.

And before I know it—there they are—A big bear

Soft as a pillow, quietly curls up to sleep

As a tiny, cotton ball mouse

Jumps out from a lion's house

What a treat to spend my afternoon

With these newly found friends moving by!