浙江省杭州市余杭区2020-2021学年八年级上学期12月月考英语试卷

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I arrived at my mother's home for our Sunday family dinner. The smell of food flew over from the kitchen. Mother was pulling out quilts, proudly showing me their beauties. I knew they were all made by herself. She was preparing for a quilt show on TV. When we began to fold（叠） and put them back into the boxes. I noticed something at the bottom of one box. I pulled it out,  "What's this？" I asked. "Oh!" Mom said. "That's Mama's quit".

"Grandmother made this？" I asked in surprise. My grandmother was really good at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made. "Yes, right before she died, I brought it home with me last year and made some changes." Mom said, "I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far. "I looked at it more closely. She had made a line straight. At the center of the quilt, she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words： "My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished, her last quilt. "

"Oh, this is so nice, Mom." I said. I was sure now that by finishing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring（ 尊敬） her own mother. I realized that I held in my hands a family treasure（财富）. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and went on with the loving hands of another.

How could we tell time if there were no watches or clocks anywhere in the world？

The sun was probably the world's first "clock", except in the far north, where the Eskimos（爱斯基摩人）live. There, it's dark most of the winter, and light most of the summer. But in most of the world, people have used the sun as a clock. Even today, if you don't have a clock, you still know that when the sun shines, it's day, and when it's dark, it's night. The sun can also tell you if it's morning, noon, or afternoon.

People who live near the sea can tell time from the tides（潮汐）. In the day time, for about six hours, the water rises higher and higher on the beach. And then it goes down and down for about six hours. The same thing happens again at night. There are two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours. Seaman（水手） on a ship learn how to tell time by looking at the moon and the stars. The whole sky is their clock.

In some places in the world the wind comes up at about the same time every day or changes direction or stops blowing. In these places the wind can be the clock. A sand clock is an even better clock. If you had fine dry sand in a glass shaped like the one in the picture, you would have what is called an hourglass（沙漏）. The sand in the hourglass goes from the top part to the bottom part in exactly an hour. When the hourglass is turned over, the sand will take another hour to go back again.

There is a famous English saying "You are what you eat", and it means what you put in your mouth will become part of you. Many experts（专家） use it to tell people it's important to have a good eating habit. For example, too much sweet food makes a person overweight. To keep from being fat, kids are told too keep off sweet food. However, a team of American scientists have found out something new about eating sweet food.

"When we say some people 'sweet', we mean they are kind and friendly to us. Perhaps this word can help us learn more about people's feelings and acts. " said Brian Meier, a scientist from the study team. "Taste is something we experience every day. What we have done is to find whether we can know someone's character and behavior（行为） depending on their taste. "

In one of their experiments（实验）, the scientists asked college students questions about their character whether they were soft-hearted or not. And then the students would make a list of their favorite food. According to their answers, the scientists found that the students who liked sweet food were nicer.

In their another experiment, the scientists found that people who liked sweet food such as cookies and chocolate were more willing to help other people in need, and those who ate non-sweet food such as chips weren't. For example, people with a sweet tooth were more likely to volunteer to clean up their city, visit sick children in the hospital and so on.

The result of the experiments is that people's helpfulness or being nice has something to do with their taste for sweet food. So eating sweet food is a useful way to make people nice and helpful. Next time, try some ice-cream.

Do you often make a resolution on New Year's Day？What will you do for it？Here's some advice on how to make a good resolution.

First，you should know what your goal is. Ask yourself what you want to do in the next year.

Holding a goal isn't enough. You need to think out some clear steps for the resolution. So make your plan. A good plan will tell you what to do next and how to make the goal come true at last. Making a plan is very important.

If you make your plan later，you may forget your resolution gradually（逐渐地）. It's important that you are making your plan right now.

You should write your resolution and plan in some places，such as a notebook or your diary.

Nothing big can be finished in one day. You make a resolution in one day. It doesn't mean you must finish it in one day. It may need a hundred small steps. New Year's resolution should be a starting point. You must keep a habit for achieving（实现） your resolution gradually.

When I was 15 months old, I had a bad fall. I landed on a glass rabbit and it cut one of my1badly enough to blind it. Since then my scarred（有疤痕的） and blind eye2on with me.

Not all people were friendly to me. Some asked uncomfortable questions about my eye or3played jokes on me. I grew up feeling that everyone4me. 5, every time Mom noticed I was unhappy, she would say to me,  "The world inside you is always colorful. 6 your head up high and face the world. " The7 helped me move on in life.

8a teenager, I always looked down to hide（隐藏） my shame（羞愧）, but I found that people liked me 9I kept my head up high. In high school I even became monitor（班长）, but outside I still felt like a freak（怪物）. All I really wanted was to look like other people. When things got really10 , I would cry to my mom and she would look at me with loving eyes and say, "Keep your head up high and face the world. Let them see the love that is11 . " Mom's love was like the12that made me bright. 13 I was able to face everything bravely. I learned not only to appreciate （欣赏）14 but to have love for others.

"Keep your head up high" has been heard many times in my home. Each of my children has felt its15 . It lives on with my children, too.

Happiness is important for everyone. Most people want to be happy butpeople know how to find happiness. Money and success don't bring lasting happiness. Happiness depends on themselves. In other words, we make our own happiness.

Here are someto help you be happier.

The first secret of happiness is to enjoy the simple things in life. We spend so much time about the future. You should enjoy life's simple pleasure, reading a good book or listening to your favorite music.

Thesecret is to be active. Many people go dancingplay sports. People can forget about their problems and only think about the activities.

Finally, many people findin helping others. According to students, when they volunteer their timemany meaningful things for other people, they get a feeling of satisfaction. If you want to feel happier, do something nice. You can help a friendhis or her studies or go shopping to get food for old neighbor.

Now，maybe you knowto find happiness!