四川省眉山市东坡区2020-2021学年八年级下学期英语开学考试试卷

Christmas card is a wonderful holiday gift to show your best wishes to others. It is also the first paper card.

Henry Cole is the inventor（发明者） of the Christmas card and he is from Britain. Every time before Christmas, because Cole was too busy to write to his family and friends, he came up with an idea. Cole made some white paper cards and invited his friend Horsley, a famous painter, to help him design (设计) a painting. In the middle of the card, the Cole family was sitting around the table to celebrate Christmas. Under the painting it said, "Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!" On both sides, Cole was helping others. Besides, at the top of the card was drawn "to:

     " to write the name of the receiver, and the words "Masse, 1843" was drawn in the lower right corner. When the card was completed, Cole printed（复印）1000 copies. This was the beginning of the first Christmas cards in history.

From then on, people began to send Christmas cards to each other. Now, people usually send e-cards through the Internet.

We can play the piano. Of course we play the piano with our ten fingers. But Teotronica can play with its 19 fingers. Teotronica is not a person. It is a robot. It is a special robot which can play the piano like men.

Matteo Suzi is the inventor of Teotronica. Matteo Suzi comes from Italy and he is more than thirty years old. He was interested in science when he was young. He always likes to use his head to create （创造） new amazing things. He spent four years making the musical robot. He made the piano-playing robot for about $ 4,700.

Teotronica is a special and great robot. It has more fingers than men. It plays the piano faster than a man. Teotronica can sing as well when it plays the piano. It is the first robot to do so and many people feel excited to see it. Teotronica can even use its eyes to communicate with men because there are cameras in its eyes.

Mike and Dick work in the same office. They don't like the cold weather. And one day they decided to take their holiday in Australia. Their plane arrived in Sydney at nine in the morning. They had a good rest in a hotel. The next morning they rented（租） a car in the city and began their travel. A few hours later the sun was shining in the sky and there no shade trees beside the road. They had to stop to look around. Mike found that a river was about half a kilometer away from them. They were both very happy and drove the car quickly. Soon they got to the river. Before they jumped into the water, Dick saw a boy playing under a big tree. He asked, "Are there any sharks（鲨鱼） in the river, boy?"

"No, there aren't." answered the boy.

So they began to swim in the river. After a while, Dick felt something hit against his leg. He stopped swimming. Dick asked loudly, "Is it true that there aren't any sharks in the river?"

    "Yes, sir," said the boy, "There're a lot of crocodiles in the water. All the sharks swam away!"

We sometimes call the lion "the king of the forest" , because it is stronger and more dangerous than other animals. It can 1 faster than many animals and hunt the best. It is the highest animal in the 2food chain (食物链).

In the sea, the shark is one of the animals at the top of the food chain. It can swim faster than 3other sea animals, and it can use its big teeth to eat them.

What is at the top of the world's food chain？ People are! We are not the biggest or fastest, but we are the 4. We could not run faster than cheetahs (猎豹), so we 5cars and now we can move the fastest. We could not fight better than lions, so we invented guns. Now we can hunt the best.

There is an island(岛) in the north of Europe. The island is 1 in the world. Its2 is Greenland. Near Greenland there is 3island—Iceland. It's small. Do you think that Greenland is green and warm? Do you think that Iceland is white4icy? If you do, you are5.

Not many people live on the big island of Greenland. Greenland is not green. Greenland is 6, 7 most of the island is covered with lots of ice. The ice covering Greenland is8than the world's tallest building. What about Iceland? Is it colder than Greenland? No, it is not. Iceland has ice, but not so much ice 9Greenland. Iceland has a lot of hot springs. The climate is10than Greenland, and there are a lot of people living there.

You speak, write a letter, make a telephone. Your words carry some information. People talk to each other with words. Do you think you can talk without words? A smile on your face shows you are happy or friendly.

When you put up your hands in class, the teacher knows you want to say something or ask questions.     You nod（点头） and people know you are saying "Yes". Other things can also carry information. For example, a sign at the bus helps you to know which bus to take

    Do you ever think that there are a lot of signs around you and you get information from them all the time? People can communicate(交流) in many other ways.  Books are written to tell about all the wonderful things in the world and also about people and their ideas.

     They can help us to know what is going on in the world and what other people are thinking about.

—It was f. I went to Dalian and had fun on the beach.