13．Steven's New Sled
　　Steven woke on Christmas morning to find a new sled. "Oh, wow!" he shouted. This was the best Christmas (1)______! Steven was still excited as the rest of his family opened their gifts. Secretly, he hoped he could get outside quickly to try out his new sled.
　　Finally, Steven asked, "Dad, is it okay if I try out my sled?" Dad (2)______. Soon, Steven was sledding down Twin Hills in the neighbourhood park. He felt the wind against his face as he flew down.
　　Later that day, Steven carefully leaned (靠) the sled up against the outside of his house under his bedroom window.
　　The next day, Steven ran outside as soon as he could. "Oh, no!" Steven shouted. His sled was missing! He ran as fast as he could to the park. There at Twin Hills he (3)______ it! Steven's neighbour, Kevin, was on Steven's new sled! "Kevin! That's my sled! You stole my new sled!" But Kevin just laughed and headed up the hill for another run down.
　　Steven ran home, crying all the way. He found his dad in the garage and told him what had happened. Steven's dad said, "Calm down, Son. There may be another (4)______ for the missing of your sled."
　　Steven couldn't believe his dad was (5)______ with Kevin. "But, Dad. Kevin's at Twin Hills using my sled right now! We need to go to get it!"
　　Dad said (6)______ , "First of all, you need to make sure your sled is actually stolen. Look over there." Steven was (7)______ at what he saw. His sled leaned against the wall of the garage next to his bicycle. Dad put his arm around Steven and said, "I put your sled away last night when I saw you had left it outside." Steven (8)______ his head. He felt bad about the way he had spoken to his neighbour. "I should say sorry to Kevin," he said. Dad replied, "There's no time like the present."

15．　　I started middle school this year, and this caused some painful changes for me. All of my closest friends go to different middle schools in the area. The only classmate I know from my old school is Jake, who's talented in math, but since it's not my favorite subject, we never became friends.
　　Another big change is that my new teachers set a lot of homework, especially in math. So you can imagine why my heart wasn't exactly dancing when I started middle school.
　　By the end of October, Jake and I had become good friends. It happened because I was so hopeless trying to do my math homework. One day, I came to Jake after school.
　　"Hey, Jake," I began, "I was wondering if you could."
　　"Help you with the math homework, right?" he said, completing my sentence. "Sure, I'd be happy to help you, Miguel." I was surprised because, to be truthful, I wasn't sure until that moment if Jake even knew my name. And yet here he was happy to save me from drowning in my sea of math problems.
　　That night, Jake and I studied together, and it was time well spent. I must say that Jake is an excellent math teacher.
　　The next day in class, I was even able to answer one of the math problems. Our teacher was surprised when I raised my hand, and guess what — so was I!
　　They say time flies when you're having fun, and I guess it's really true. I can't believe winter vacation is almost here! The school days have been flying by like a jet plane. I suppose it's because I'm a much more focused student — especially in math — than I ever was before.
　　Jake and I plan to hang out together during winter break. He promised to show me the Math Museum downtown. I believe it will be an unforgettable experience for us.

16．　　Most adults show less interest in climate (气候) change than young people. Yet it's adults who have the power to influence the policies (政策) causing climate change. Now a new study shows that teenagers may be able to raise their parents' interest in human effects on climate.
　　In the study, a new curriculum (课程) was used in some schools in coastal North Carolina. The students worked on four activities centered on the connections between climate change and local wildlife. They also took part in a community-based project and interviewed their parents about the changes in weather they had noticed in their lifetimes. To see how attitudes changed as a result of the program, the researchers surveyed both students and parents at the beginning and the end of the study.
　　The study shows the students who completed the climate change module cared more about the issue (问题). The effect was even stronger among parents. Experts say the program's success had a lot to do with how teachers dealt with climate change in the classroom.
　　"Reading a textbook and completing a worksheet are unlikely to lead students to talk about their day at the dinner table," says Martha Monroe, an expert on environmental education at the University of Florida. Instead, the researchers designed hands — on lessons focused on local issues. For example, one task involved monitoring the weather outside the school and comparing it with historical information about the area.
　　Those activities may have helped increase parental involvement. "If you can get kids so excited and talking with their parents about what they are learning in schools, parents will want to learn,"says Danielle Lawson, a social scientist and leading researcher of the study. However, she adds, "We are not telling the students what to think or what to say. That way, kids didn't feel that there was all this responsibility put on them to change their parents' minds about anything."
　　Lawson is hopeful that kids can boost their parents' understanding of climate science. "I know how powerful kids can be," Lawson says. "Kids don't need a special curriculum to discuss climate change at home. They just need to talk to their parents about what they see going on."

17．　　I recently watched a TV program Real Sports where the presenter looked into the culture of handing out participation (参与) trophies to children. There's no doubt that today's kids live in a world of scoreless games and everyone gets a trophy. Sometimes when a league decides to award (奖励) just the winners instead of all participants, the parents buy their own trophies for the whole team!
　　However, when we try to protect children from losing at the early ages, are they less prepared when real competition kicks in?People who support giving trophies say they want to make each child feel special, but how does this make them feel special? Stanford University looked at this recently and found that although kids react positively to praise — they enjoy hearing that they're talented, smart and so on, they break down at the first experience of difficulty. Discouraged by their failure, they say they'd rather cheat than risk failing again.
　　There are also endless social-science studies showing the harmful effects of easy competition, not just on the psyche (精神) but more surprisingly on achievement. If children know they will get an award simply by showing up, what is the reason for improvement? Jean Twenge, writer of Generation Me, warns that when living rooms are filled with participation trophies, it's part of a larger cultural message: to succeed, you just have to show up. In college, those who've grown up receiving these endless awards do the required work, but don't see the need to do it well. In the office, they still believe that attendance is all it takes to get a promotion (晋升).
　　When I was a child, I earned my fair share of trophies but none of them was for just showing up. I also missed out on even more and had to watch my friends collect them while I stood by and clapped. I realized that in life, I'm going to lose more often than I win, even if I'm good at something, and I've got to get used to that to keep going.
　　When children make mistakes, our job should not be to turn those losses into decorated (装饰性的) victories. Instead, our job is to help kids overcome difficulties, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a certain win or loss, and to help them politely congratulate those who succeed when they fail. To do that, we need to refuse all the meaningless trophies.

18． Young Inventor Creates Plastic from Fish Scales
　　Lucy Hughes, a 24-year-old English inventor, has used fish skin and scales (鳞) to create a new kind of plastic that will break down in about six weeks. Her invention won 2019 James Dyson Award, which was created by the famous English inventor James Dyson to encourage students to try to use their creativity to solve problems in the real world.
　　Lucy Hughes studied how to design products at the University of Sussex in England. As a designer, she knew a lot about how wasteful many products are. Plastic bags, for example, are often used once for a short time and then thrown away. She decided to challenge herself to make something out of waste instead
　　The University of Sussex isn't far from the coast. Ms. Hughes spent some time studying the fishing business and the waste from fish that were thrown away. After some tests, she decided that the fish skin and scales seemed like the most likely parts for her product. She tried more than 100 different experiments before getting things just right. Ms. Hughes called her finished product "MarinaTex". It solves two problems: the single-use plastic and fish waste.
　　MarinaTex is clear and feels like plastic, but it's stronger than normal plastic that is of the same thickness. It is also cheap to make since it's made from fish waste. The process of making MarinaTex also doesn't use much energy. Most importantly, MarinaTex doesn't take hundreds of years to break down. On its own, it breaks down in four to six weeks.
　　For winning the contest, Ms. Hughes will earn f, 30,000. Her school will get f, 5,000. She is looking forward to moving ahead with her idea. She hopes the award money will help her with the process of getting MarinaTex into use as quickly as possible. She thinks that one of the best uses for MarinaTex will be in some kinds of food packaging.

(1)What did Lucy Hughes create?
                                                                                
(2)How many experiments did Lucy Hughes try?
                                                                                
(3)What problems does MarinaTex solve?
                                                                                
(4)What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?
                                                                                
(5)How will Lucy Hughes possibly spend the award money?
                                                                                

19．题目①
假如你是李华，你校要举办“传统工艺作品展(Chinese Arts & Crafts Show) ”，展示同学们制作的作品.请你用英语写一封邮件，邀请你校交换生Peter来参观，告诉他展览举办的时间和地点，以及在作品展上他能看到什么、做些什么，并说明邀请他的原因。
提示词语： paper cut, kite, make, traditional culture
提示问题：
When and where is the show going to be held?
What will Peter see and do at the show?
Why do you want to invite him?

20．题目②
“盛年不再来， 一日难再晨”这句诗告诉我们时间宝贵， 不可倒流。合理安排时间可以让我们在有限时间内完成更多有意义的事情。
某英文网站正在举办以"时间管理"为主题的征文。假如你是李华， 请用英文写一篇短文投稿。 谈谈你是如何管理自己的时间的，以及这些做法给你带来的好处。
提示词语： do homework, limit, make a plan, free time
提示问题：
How do you manage your time?
What benefits have you got from doing so?