16．　　Once upon a time, there was a traffic (交通) light. She had magic to turn herself into (1)       colors—red, yellow and green. With the traffic light, people and cars kept in order. Day by day, she always felt lonely because she thought (2)       gave her much attention (关注). Sometimes people stood by and waited for the light to (3)      , and she felt a little happy. (4)       when the light changed into green, people would leave and cross the street, so she felt upset. One day, she noticed that there was a little red car. The car (5)       by early every morning and again every afternoon. It was a mother and two little kids in the car. Sometimes when the light was red, the red car stopped and the two kids would wave (挥手) to the traffic light and show her their toys. That made her very (6)      . When the light was (7)      , they didn't even look at the light and just drove away. That made her really sad.
　　The traffic light wanted the attention of the two little children and made a(n) (8)      . Next time she saw the car, she would turn herself red. That would give kids a chance to wave to her. She thought the idea sounded very nice. So the light (9)       red. As a result, a huge line of cars are waiting and honking. Then the repairmen came and opened her. They worked for several hours and found the problem. The repairmen said to her, "You are a little old. Now you break, so all the people in the cars can't get to where they want to go." Suddenly, the traffic light realized the (10)       of herself to all the people in the cars. She knew that the traffic would be in a mess (11)       her. Then she felt very bad that she (12)       these problems.
　　The traffic light understood that she couldn't only think about (13)      , so she decided to work well. She would only turn herself from green to red when it was the (14)       time. She still could see the kids every day, though it was (15)       a few seconds (秒). That made her very happy, and from that day on, she was never lonely again.

17．Molly: Hi, David. What are you busy doing here?
David: (1)      
Molly: What?
David: A toy plane. (2)      
Molly: Sounds interesting. You can make toys by yourself. Do you sell them?
David: No. I often hand them out when I visit sick children. (3)      
Molly: They must be very happy. But it looks so difficult to make the toy plane. (4)      
David: My grandpa taught me a lot. Do you want to learn it? I can teach you.
Molly: Really? (5)      

18．　　Mrs. Brown lives in a city. She likes growing all kinds of vegetables very much. There is a small garden behind her house. And in spring she usually plants some vegetables in it. Every day, she waters them and looks after them very carefully. When summer comes, they look very nice.
　　One evening, Mrs. Brown looked at her nice vegetables and said with a smile, "Tomorrow I am going to pick them. Then I will have some delicious vegetables." After that, she went into her house happily.
　　But early in the next morning, her son ran in and shouted, "Mom! Mom! Come quickly! Our neighbor's duck is eating our vegetables in the garden."
　　Mrs. Brown ran out quickly, but it was too late. All the vegetables were eaten up by the duck. Mrs. Brown sat on the ground and cried, and her neighbor was very sorry, but nothing could change the result.
　　One day before Christmas, the neighbor brought Mrs. Brown a nice and fat duck, and on the duck's back was a piece of paper with the words: Enjoy your vegetables!

20．　　The elephant is another animal that lives in groups. An elephant herd (群) usually has from twenty to forty members. The elephants in the herd usually depend on each other for help when they are in trouble.
The leader (头领) of the group is usually a clever and strong female (雌性的). She travels at the head of the herd and is followed by the other females and their young. The male elephants follow last. When the danger comes, the male (雄性) elephants make a circle (圈) around the weaker (更虚弱的) animals and protect them. A sick elephant is not left behind to die. If an elephant is sick, the whole herd stops traveling until it gets well. When an elephant is hurt, two others walk on both sides of it and support it with their bodies. A member of the herd may be caught in a trap (陷阱). Then the others try to help it. An elephant herd is just like a human's family.
　　Elephants love the young in the group and give them special care and love. For example, they help young animals stay afloat (漂浮着) when the herd crosses a river. They work together to help a baby elephant to get to the safety when it goes to a dangerous place. The way elephants love and care the youngsters is like ours.
　　When a female elephant gives birth to her young baby, she will go out of the herd and she usually leaves the herd for a short time. However, she takes another female along to act as an "aunt". The aunt stands beside and helps the mother with her new-born baby. In this way, the whole herd protects its newest member.
　　That's the elephant herd. Do you like it?

21．　　You need some bread and milk. But half an hour later, you leave the supermarket with a trolley (手推车) full of food.
　　What games do supermarkets play to make us spend so much money?
　　The tricks (把戏) usually start before you walk in. Outside the supermarket, anybody who walks past can smell warm, fresh bread. That makes us hungry and ready to buy lots of food, not just bread.
　　Now you're inside and, of course, a small basket (篮子) would be fine, but all they have are trolleys. And of course the problem with a trolley is that it looks sad and lonely with just one or two products (产品) inside. So we may put other things. In fact, supermarket trolleys are actually getting bigger so that we buy more.
　　Of course, many people shop in supermarkets because they think everything is cheaper than in other shops. So supermarkets offer very cheap prices on some things but then have higher prices for other products. One new trick is to put red stickers (贴纸) on products. Customers (顾客) usually think red stickers mean lower prices so the red stickers are easy to be noticed, even the price is not off! Interestingly, this trick seems to work more with men than with women.
　　There is a story behind the position (位置) of everything in the supermarket. For example, customers often only go to buy milk. So they put it right at the back and you need to go past hundreds of shelves (架子) full of other products. The position of products on each shelf is also important. For example, the products that children might like are on lower shelves so that kids can see and even reach them.
　　Except (除了) what you see and smell in a supermarket, what about the music you listen to? In most supermarkets, they have soft, slow music. It's so relaxing that you slow down and spend more time in the store.
　　So, next time you go into a supermarket, remember these tricks and see if you can come out with just the things you want.

22．阅读短文，从方框中选择适当的单词填空(每词限用一次)。

　　Henry was a kind boy. His father was dead, and his mother was very poor. He had a little sister about two years old. He wanted to help his mother because she could not always make (1)       money to buy food for her little family.
　　One day a man gave him one dollar to thank him (2)       finding a watch he had lost. With the dollar, Henry bought a box, three brushes and some shoe polish (擦亮剂). He then went on the street, and said to everyone, "(3)       your shoes, please?"
　　He was so kind that people began to notice (4)      , and to let him clean their shoes. The first day he brought home fifty cents. When he gave the money to his mother, she cried with (5)      , "You are a good boy. I didn't know how I could make enough money to buy bread, but now I think we can live a better life."

23．
　　A man from the countryside was very lazy. He just wanted to get everything without working.
　　One day, while he (1)       out on the street in the city, he met his old friend who was an officer (军官). The officer was very happy (2)       him because they haven't seen each other for years. He took out a telephone and said, "Bring a good meal." To the man's surprise, a beautiful girl brought the meal right away. How nice the meal was! There were eggs, meat and some other nice food. "How wonderful the telephone is!" The man thought.
　　After the meal, the officer asked the man, "Do you need anything else? You can (3)       me for help."
　　"I... I... I want nothing but... no, no."
　　But the next day, after the man went back to his hometown, the officer (4)       that the telephone was lost.
　　As soon as the man was back home, he (5)       up the telephone and said, "Hello, bring a good meal." Then he waited, waited and waited. But nothing was brought to him at all.

24．　　(1)       Some people don't need much sleep. But they all need to dream, scientists say. Most of us have dreams when we are sleeping. Dreams take up about one quarter of our sleeping time. People have several dreams each night.
　　Sometimes we always have the same dreams. (2)       That may be because the dreamer is worrying about something. Dreaming may be a way of trying to find an answer.
　　Some people get new ideas about their work from dreams. They could have been thinking about their work all day. (3)      
　　People have all kinds of dreams. These dreams can be good or bad which also make us feel different. Sometimes we wake up with a good feeling from a dream. (4)       Dreams can disappear quickly from memory.
　　Too many dreams can be harmful (有害的). The more we sleep, the longer we dream. (5)       That is why we may have a long sleep and still feel tired after getting up.

25．情景应用根据所提供的图片情景，完成下列句子。

26．你受邀作为八年级代表给学校英语俱乐部的同学们做一次题为"To Be a Better Student"的英文演讲。请根据以下表格提示完成一篇演讲稿。

要求：
1. 内容必须包含以上三方面，可以根据内容适当发挥；
2. 词数不少于100，文章的开头已给出，不计入总词数；
3. 文中不得出现真实校名和姓名等相关信息。
To Be a Better Student
　　Good morning, everyone! It's my great honor to be here to share a few ideas on how to be a better student with you. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ That's all. Thank you for your listening.