浙江省湖州市南浔区锦绣实验学校八年级下学期英语5月素质检测试...

    Sixteen years ago, I learned an important life lesson in a New York City taxi. I was on my 1to the station, and we were driving in the right lane（车道）when a black car 2 jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My driver hit the brakes（刹车）hard, skidded（滑行）, and at the last moment our car stopped just one inch from the back of the front car. The driver of the other car, the man who had just nearly caused a huge accident, started 3 at us. But then here's what really 4 me. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at him. He was really 5!

    "Why did you just do that?" I asked him, "This guy almost destroyed your car and could have sent 6 to the hospital!"

    This was when my taxi driver told me what I now call the "Law of Garbage Trucks（垃圾车法则）".

    "Many people 7 garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of 8, and full of disappointment," he said, "As their garbage piles up, they needed a place to dump（倾倒）it, and if you let them do, they'll dump it on you. 9 when someone wants to dump on you, just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be 10 because of what you do."

    I started thinking, how 11 do I let garbage trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and dump it on other people at work, at home, or on the street? I began to see garbage trucks. I see the "garbage" that people are carrying. I see them coming to dump it. And like my taxi driver, I don't feel hurt. I just 12 , wave, and move on. It was on that day that I said, "I'm not going to dump anymore."

News Review

    Head-on Train Crash On May 18,two trains had a head-on crash （正面相撞） near New York City. Over 250 people were on the trains then. About 60 people were hurt, but no deaths were reported.

    Travel Time Tourists came together to Mount Tai on May 1.Over 180,000 tourists visited the place of great interest during the three-day holiday, from April 29 to May 1.

    Brave Volunteer Liao Zhi, a dance teacher from Chengdu who lost her 1-year-old daughter and her legs in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, arrived in Ya'an 13 hours after the earthquake. The dancer said she had had a terrible time herself and knew what people needed most, so she decided to come and offer help.

    Tomato Competition A tomato competition was held in Huainan, Anhui Province, on April 16. The best tomatoes were chosen according to their shape, color and taste. The competition hoped to encourage the farmers to grow better tomatoes.

    Long ago a small village, there was a place known as the House of 1,000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned about this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he jumped happily up the stairs of the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway. His ears lifted up, and his tail wagged（摇摆）as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself looking at 1,000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile and was answered with 1,000 great smiles that were just as warm and friendly. As he left the house, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back to visit often."

    In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the other one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the doorway. When he saw the 1,000 unfriendly-looking dogs looking back at him, he growled（咆哮）at them. He was afraid when he saw 1,000 little dogs growling back. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a terrible place. I will never go back there again."

    All the faces in the world are mirrors of you. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of people you meet?

    When Matty Sallin, 34, was working on a degree in art and technology at New York University, he got interesting homework in electronic class. He decided to invent an alarm clock.

    "Everybody has to stand it every day, and it is really unpleasant!" he says. He asked different people what they would like to be woken up instead of a noisy alarm. A lot of them said, "The smell of bacon (培根肉)". So Sallin and two classmates invented a new kind of alarm clock: a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon instead of the sound to wake someone up. He explains, "There's no danger of burning, because I built it carefully. It uses halogen light bulbs (钨卤灯) instead of a fire for cooking and turns off automatically (自动地) after ten minutes. Yes, the clock itself can do it. Just a few easy steps are needed to set the alarm."

    "What you do is to put some frozen bacon in the night before and set the alarm," says Sallin.

    "If you set the alarm for 8:00, it will turn on at 7:50 and slowly cook for ten minutes under the halogen bulbs," he says. Then the bulbs turn off and a fan blows the smell out through the nose of the pig.

    "So instead of an alarm, you get a bacon smell awake," says Sallin. "Then you can open the door on the side and pull the bacon out and eat it."

    When Sallin was a kid, he spent a lot of time making drawings of inventions. "I wanted to make a lift in my backyard and a special tree house," he says. "But I never really thought I could be called an inventor!"

    Sallin got an A in the class and went on to other things — but people continue to hear about his invention and email him every day asking where they can buy his alarm clock.

    Learning to read is one of the most important periods in anyone's development as it opens up so many opportunities. So many things in everyday life depend on your being able to read clearly. Here are a few examples.

    If you want to find out the latest news about your favorite film star or the result of the latest match, you will pick up a newspaper and read what it has to say about these topics.

    If you are on a long train or plane journey, you will probably have a book, a magazine or an e-book to help you pass the time. Even if you are someone who "doesn't read books", it is possible that you will have to read the rules of the computer game that you are playing.

    Very often, you read something without realizing that you are reading. For example, you might check the time table at an airport or make sure that you drive carefully as you see the road sign "HILL". If you are unable to read, these necessary actions become either very difficult or impossible to achieve.

    So, you understand how important a part reading plays in your life. Everybody who is using this textbook, To Be A Better Reader, has got the art of reading more or less. Why, then, you may ask yourself, is it necessary to have to read a book that tells you how to become a better reader — if you can read already, what is there to improve? Well, please think very carefully about what you mean by "reading". Does it just mean that you know the meaning of words on a page and then speak them aloud or to yourself? Or is it something more than that?

    In fact, reading without understanding is worthless. The main purpose of reading is to help you understand the world better and achieve a more colorful life. So no matter where you are, try to read with understanding and be a better reader.

Help Fight World Hunger

    What would you do if you wanted to help hungry people in the world but you didn't have billions of dollars? We asked some students for their ideas.

    Simon: If a friend would join me, I'd volunteer with an organization or foundation that works to fight world hunger. Maybe we could travel to another country to help people. It would be a good education about other countries for us, too.

    Gwen: I would get photos of children who don't have enough to eat. I would put the photos on a website with this question: What would you do if these children were yours? I would also list the names of organizations that help fight world hunger. Then I would send the link for the website to people and ask them to donate money to help these hungry children.

    Ray: I think we can also ask celebrities for help. They are famous people and usually have a lot of fans. If they can stand out and call on people to do the thing, I believe that many people will follow them. I'd write a letter to a celebrity and ask the celebrity to come and talk at our school. I'd ask all the students in our school to sign the letter. People would pay money to go to the talk, and we would use the money to help fight hunger.

These are great ideas—but send us yours! What could you do to help hungry people?

    Jack used to play soccer a lot. He was so tired that sometimes he fell（睡着的）in class. He never thought about his schoolwork when he was playing soccer. As a result, his grades （掉下）.With the help of the teachers and classmates, Jack came to （意识到） that he couldn't go on like this(不再）.

    Now, Jack has（改变）a lot. After playing soccer, he usually leaves himself enough time to have a rest before he goes to the classroom. He listens carefully in class and never （允许）himself to make any mistakes. Thanks to his hard work, he has progressed a lot. He feels （兴奋的）about it.

    Next term, he is going to be a student in Grade 9 and the year is really important in his（整个的） life. He knows that nobody will （实现））his dream unless he works hard. So he will keep on trying and never give up . I hope he will have a（明亮的） future.

    When I was told to play for a play competition, I became nervous. I had never  (do) anything before. But after reading Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, I was (excite) about what to come. I was playing Sir Toby Belch, a very funny Knight. I had to remember a lot of funny words. I worked hard (act) well, like a real knight from the old days. But the (difficult) thing was to be funny in all my acting. "OK. It's time to be a different me now!" I said to myself. I didn't know what to do when acting this stupid way. But I always told myself that I was Sir Toby now and I should forget who I really was.  I was in the bath, I was thinking about Sir Toby's words. The competition day finally came. I tried hard to make my words clear enough to be understood and my actions funny enough to make everybody laugh. When the (result) were finally read out, I immediately knew we had won the (one) prize. I made it.

    From this experience, I've come to know that I can be  different person. It doesn't mean I've changed my personality, I can do something I had never imagined possible.

Sister: Paul, could you please help outa few things?

Brother: Could I at leastwatching this soccer game?

Sister: No, I think two hours of TV is for you.

Brother: Fine. What do you want me to do？

Sister: Could you do the dishes, take out the rubbish and fold the clothes?

Brother: So ?

Jenny: Yes, because Mom will be back any minute now. She won't beif she sees this mess.

Brother: OK, I'll do them right away.

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