浙江省新目标（Go for it）版初中英语九年级上学期期中模拟试卷（9）

    "The day will be the most memorable in the history of America," wrote John Adams in 1776. "People will honor it with parades, fireworks and celebrations," he added.

    Since 1776, Americans have celebrated July 4 as the country's Independence Day. Several early presidents of the United States died on July 4. They include John Adams, who became the second president. Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the country's third president, both died on the country's 50th anniversary of Independence Day. James Monroe, the fifth US president, died on July 4, 1831. And the 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, was born on July 4.

    Most Americans celebrate Independence Day with barbecues, parades and fireworks. But a few celebrate by eating all the hot dogs they can, Since the early 1970s, a restaurant called Nathan's Famous has organized a competition to see who can eat the most hot dogs in a short time. In 10 years, Joey Chestnut has won the men's contest nine times, In 2016, he set a record at the competition by eating 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes. The 2016 women's winner, Miki Sudo, has won in each of the past three years. In 2016, she ate 38 and a half hot dogs. Sudo and Chestnut each won a $ 10, 000 prize.

    Let's go back to those fireworks, probably the most common image related to Independence Day. Americans really love fireworks. Where do many of our fireworks come from?          . By the way, we also import most of our American flags from China, too.

要求：1）词数80左右;

2）请先简要介绍表格中的4组图片, 再根据生活实际列举1～2个方面，作适当发挥；

3）文章中不得出现真实的人名、校名和地名；

4）字迹工整，语言流畅，表达正确，逻辑清晰。

How life changes

    I remember the green coat in my fifth and sixth grades. When I needed a new jacket, my mother asked what kind I wanted, I described something like bikers' wear. She listened long. I thought she understood for sure the kind I wanted.

    The next day when I got home from school, I discovered, on my bed, a jacket which was not what I had expected. I went close to the jacket slowly, as if it were a stranger.

    From the kitchen Mother shouted that my jacket was in the closet. I rushed and pulled the clothes in the closet, hoping the jacket on the bed wasn't for me but my brother. No luck, I wanted to cry because it was so ugly and so big. But I knew I'd have to wear it for a long time before I'd have a new one. I looked at the jacket, like, an enemy, thinking bad things before I took off my old and small jacket.

    I put the big jacket on. I stood in front of the mirror(镜子)，turning right and left. I looked ugly.

    I threw it on my brother's bed and looked at it for a long time before I put it on and went out, smiling a "thank you" to my mom.

The next day I wore it to school. At the morning break, my best friend, Steve, looked at me for a long time. The girls turned away to whisper. The teachers looked at me and talked about how foolish I looked in my new jacket.  When it was time for the whole school to get together on the playground,   ▲   . Although they didn't say out aloud,“Man，that's ugly," I heard their talks and even laughter.

    And so I went, in my jacket. So embarrassed, so hurt, I couldn't even do my lessons for the rest of the day. I received Cs on tests.

    I wore that thing for three years. All in those years no love came to me.

    I blamed(指责) that jacket for those bad years. I blamed my mother for her bad taste and her cheap ways. It was a sad time for the heart. Anyway, I spent my sixth-grade year, looking forward to something good to happen to me.

    And it was about that time I began to grow, still in that green jacket, which had become my brother who went along wherever I went.

    The bicycle is one of the simplest and most useful inventions in the world. What is most surprising is that it was not  (发明) earlier, although the great inventor Leonardo da Vinci had drawn pictures of bicycles and also of flying machines and some other things. Those things were not produced until long after he  (死).

    A person riding a bicycle uses a little energy to make the bicycle  (移动), and there is no  (污染) at all when you are riding. Even so, in  (发达的) countries, most people don' t travel to work by bicycle. It is not because the bicycles are expensive or people feel  (疲劳的) if they ride to work. It's because the number of cars on the roads becomes  (更大的). It certainly becomes more  (危险的) to ride a bicycle.

    As a result, more people put their bikes away and go to work in their cars, and in this way, the situation is made more serious. Perhaps the best way to make riding safer and more popular is to  (创造) paths only for bicycles, and to make it so difficult and expensive for (驾驶员) to take their cars into the city that they will go back to using their bicycles.