浙江省温岭市实验学校2021-2022学年九年级上学期（11...

In 1867, an engineer named John Roebling was given the job of building a bridge to connect New York with Long Island. The project started off just fine, but only a few 1 later, Roebling died in a terrible accident. The following month, his son Washington was asked to 2   his work.

Building the bridge was a long and 3 job. Not only did John Roebling die, but also up to 30 other men lost their 4. Washington himself had the same bad luck as his father. In the early summer of 1872, he became 5ill. He couldn't walk, talk or even 6.

"We told them so."

"Crazy men and their crazy dreams."

"It's foolish to follow 7 ideas."

Everyone criticized(批评) the bridge project. People said it would never 8.

But Washington didn't 9. He kept his mind on the job.

One day, as he 10 on his bed in his hospital room, an idea 11 him. He could still move one finger. He decided to make the best use of it.

He touched his wife's arm with that 12. He wanted her to call the engineers. Then 

13the same way, he told the engineers what to do. The project started again.

For 11 years Washington 14 out his words with his finger, 15 the bridge was completed. Today the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory. It tells the world a sad story, but also one of determination(决心). 

During my first year of high school, I was a thin boy who weighed just 55 kg. At that time, I always 1 being a football player. I played a little bit, but 2 most of my time sitting on the bench(板凳). Over the summer, I found a special way that 3 builders use to become strong. Drinking a lot of whole milk and lifting weights every day helped me411 kg more of muscle (肌肉).

When the football season started, I felt 5. I was soon upset, though, when I saw that I was still smaller and6 than most of the other boys. I found myself on the bench 7.

That was to change during one of our first games of the season. We had already built up a lead8 the coach felt safe enough to send me in for a while to play halfback (前卫). I was so9.

On the very first day, I met with 10. When the quarterback (四分卫) handed the ball off to me，I thought it was my time to show 11. However, soon I was hit by three of the other team's players. They threw me hard to the ground. As a result, I 12 up and walked off the field, back to the bench.

Over the years, I have lost count of how many times I have dreamt of 13something, only to find that the world had other 14. I hated this for a long time. It was not until I became a football commentator (评论员) that I 15realized that maybe the world's plans for me are better than my own.

Lizzie's diary from Antarctica (南极洲)

Day 3: Tuesday December 2

We planned to go to Rothera that morning. We'd be staying there for the next two weeks. Because Antarctica is the windiest place on the earth, sometimes you can't fly at all.

We had a nervous wait over breakfast to find out if we'd be leaving that day. People have to stay in Stanley for weeks while the pilots wait for good weather.

It turned clear at 9:30 and we took off at 10:30 on a little red plane called a Dash-7. But even when we were in the air, there was still a chance we wouldn't be able to fly the whole day.

Day 4: Wednesday December 3

After waking up in the Antarctic for the first time today I can understand why everybody who comes here falls in love with the place. It is really beautiful.

We're staying at Rothera Survey Base with mountains of ice all around. It's about -2℃ today, which for me is very cold, but I often see the regulars (常客) here walking around in T-shirts.

Day 5: Thursday December 4

I woke up to another beautiful sunny day here in the Antarctic. I'm told it's a bit colder today, about -1℃, but it's not very windy so it feels warmer. Those of us who are new to the base have to do a special training course before we're allowed to go off base to other stations or to go snowboarding over the nearby hill.

Day 7: Saturday December 6

Not a cloud in the sky and it's warm enough to sit outside (in a jacket).

The most amazing thing about this place is how the scenery（风景）changes every day. At first, I thought I was going mad. I'd step outside in the morning and think," I'm sure that big mountain of ice wasn't there yesterday." It's because the sea ice is always moving—slowly thankfully!

Have you ever entered a tropical rainforest(热带雨林)？Rainforests make up only a small part of the Earth's surface, aboutsix percent, but there are more kinds of trees than any other area in the wholeworld.

Tropical rainforests are in Africa, Asia, Central and SouthAmerica, Australia, and on the Pacific Islands. The largest tropical rainforestis the Amazon (亚马逊) Rainforests in South America, which covers 1.2 billion acres, oralmost five million square kilometers. The second largest rainforest is inWestern Africa.

Rainforests provide us with many things. In fact, the AmazonRainforest is the "lungs of our planet" because it produces 20% ofthe world's oxygen(氧气). One fifth of the world's fresh water is found in the AmazonRainforest. Furthermore, one half of the world's species of animals, plants andinsects live in the Earth's rainforests. 80% of the food we eat first grew inthe rainforest. 25% of the drugs we take when we are sick are made of plantsthat grow only in rainforests. Some of these drugs are often used to fight andcure cancer.

There are four different levels of trees in a rainforest. Theforest floor is the lowest layer full of animal life and receives theleast amount of light. The understorey is the dark, coolenvironment under the leaves but over the ground. The canopy layeris the upper parts of most of the trees. The emergent layercontains a small number of very tall trees.

These different parts of a rainforest exit(生存) together to createan ecosystem for many animals, plants and human beings.

Have you ever bought something and then changed your mind? For Alison Jenson, 15, this used to happen several times a week. Alison was a shopaholic. She just couldn't stop shopping and she loved special offers.

Alison's bedroom is full of stuff. "I've been to every shop in Birmingham, I think," says Alison. She picks up some earrings. The labels are still on them. "These were half price," she says. "I've never worn them." Alison's problem wasn't just jewellery. She also bought a lot of clothes, though not many shoes, because they were usually expensive. She has also bought lots

of other small things — like 20 new covers for her phone. She hasn't used any oof them.

According to experts, we all feel excited after we buy something new. For shopaholics, it's a little different. Soon after they buy something, they think they've made a mistake and start to feel unhappy. So they buy themselves something else to feel happier.

Psychologists(心理学家) first described the problems of shopaholics in 1915. However, there was very little research on the subject until recently. Now, doctors think thousands of people suffer from the problem, and the situation is getting worse. There are also more teenage shopaholics now, although most young people don't have enough money to go shopping very regularly.

Alison knew she had a problem. "I often bought something every day. Usually it was so small, but I just needed to buy it," she says. "I spent money that I got for my birthday, and when I was short of cash, I borrowed money from friends or my parents. When I couldn't go shopping, I felt anxious. Then one day, my parents just looked at all the stuff in my room and said,‘This is crazy！'I knew they were right." I needed some big changes in my life.

Alison now gets help with her problem and feels she has changed. She no longer thinks she's a shopaholic. "When I want to buy something in a shop, I ask myself two questions," she says. "Do I need it? Can I afford it? The answer to both questions is usually 'no', so I walk away. It's great!"

①The world has been troubled by COVID-19 for over a year. A recent report may help us understand more about it. On March 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) worked out a report on the global tracing of origins(溯源) of COVID-9.

②The report followed a WHO study that was done with the help of China. A total of 34 experts from the WHO and China did research from Jan. 14 to Feb. 10 in Wuhan.

③In the report, the WHO says that it is "extremely unlikely(极不可能)" that the origin

was a leak(泄露) from a lab. In 2020, there were rumors(谣言) saying that COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, but this is not true.

④The WHO pointed out that it is "very likely" that humans got COVID-19 from at least two animal species. And it is "possible" that the introduction of the virus was through cold food chain products(冷链食物).

⑤The research noted that the Huanan seafood market was not the original source of the COVID-9 outbreak. They found some suspected(疑似的) positive samples（阳性病例）that dated back even earlier than the first case in Wuhan.

⑥As for the future, experts said there is still a lot of work to do. They will do more research to find out whether the virus was spreading in Europe early in 2019. They will also test wildlife and other animals in the place for signs of the virus.

⑦This joint(联合) research will provide a scientific guide for the human race to better understand the virus, said Chen Xu, head of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations.

Teenage diver(跳水运动员) Quan Hongchan set the women's 10-meter platform final alight at the Tokyo Olympics in Japan on Thursday. At the final round, she scored  (完美的) 10s in three of her five dives to win the (金色的) medal. The (十四)-year-old girl is the event's youngest athlete and also the youngest member of Team China.

The baby-faced Quan, the latest prodigy(神童) of China's diving training system, rarely made a ripple in the water during her final (表现) and got 466.2 points, followed by teammate Chen Yuxi with 425.40 and Australia's Mellisa Wu with 371.40.

Born in a small village in South China's Guangdong (省), the reason why Quan chose to become an athlete is heartbreaking — she wanted to win  (奖项) as early as possibleto help her seriously ill mother. Her calmness impressed reporters during her interview after the event, "I was a little nervous but not very, just a little bit." Quan said, " I don't feel different competing at the Olympics compared to the (国家的) championships. I just did my routines and tried to execute my dives the way my coach told me to." Quan said her parents had previously "told me that it doesn't matter  (是否)I get a medal or not and to just be myself". "Those words really helped me," Quan (补充说), saying she planned to eat latiao, a popular Chinese street (零食), to celebrate tonight.

Haley Evans loves books very much. When she was little, she made a family newspaper with her mother. In third grade, she worked with an  (organize) to collect around 2,000 books for children. In total, she  (donate) about 8000 books so far.

In March 2017, the middle school student from the United States worked on another amazing project. She opened a Free Little Library in Oakland University with her friend Megan MacKenzie.

The Free Little Library is not a new idea. People decorate a box outside their house and fill it  books. People can take or leave any books they want. They are welcome to donate books as well. It is becoming popular in (west) countries.

Hayle came up with  idea after reading about it in the news. In Detroit, US, people make Free Little Libraries for kids who don't have enough money (buy) books.

Megan told the Oakland Post，"I like doing that  I never got to read as much when I was a kid. And it really  (encourage) reading, so hopefully kids can grow up with a real big vocabulary and become more  (interest) in reading.

Haley and Megan's first Free Little Library is mainly for （child）books now. But the girls plan to put in more books for adults.

Imagine this. You come back home from school and your robot housekeeper is already waiting for you at the door. It turns on the lights, air conditioner and television. While you are having dinner, it cleans the floor. Before you go to sleep, it tells you the weather report, then reads you a bedtime story. Alpha 2 can make all these things possible – and perhaps even more. Alpha 2 was a star at the 2017 World Robot Conference.

More than 150 universities and companies from around the world brought their robots to the event. Some robots work in factories. Some robots can explore outer space(外太空) or the deep ocean. But the highlights(亮点) of the event were service robots.

This kind of robot is more useful for common tasks. From cleaning to teaching, music to sports, service robots have been used to do many kinds of jobs.

Teotronico is also a popular service robot, as well as an artist and music teacher. His 53 fingers allow him to play the piano. He played John Lennon's song Imagine at the conference.

There is another service robot called Bestic. It acts as a human arm to feed people with a spoon. It can be a good helper for little kids, the elderly and those who have difficulty using their hands.

注意：

1）文中不得出现真实的人名或校名等相关信息。

2）必须包含所有信息，可适当添加。

3）开头已有给出，不计入总词数。

I'm Li Hua, a middle school student in Hangzhou. I'm proud to hear that 2022 Asian

Games will be held in Hangzhou.