16．　　Sometimes pets can get luck for people. There was once a cat named Skipper. He was just an ordinary cat. Skipper lived with his keepers Linda and Gary in Canada.
　　One evening Gary and Linda were at home (1)      television after working hard all day in their family business. Skipper was also in the room. He just sat near them. He was playing with one of the (2)       of Gary and Linda's children. This was a(3)      clear ball with a small hole (洞). There were lots of little numbered balls (4)      . Children use it to play a game Bingo. In this game, the players each have cards with different (5)      . A person shakes (揺) the big ball until a little ball (6)       out of the hole. Players who have this number on their cards can mark (标记) it. The first player to get all the numbers on the card (7)       "Bingo!" and wins the game.
　　Skipper was(8)       playing with the ball. He seemed interested in it very much. After a while(9)       numbers rolled on the ground. These numbers were 8, 11, 16, 25, 26 and 42. Gary noticed these numbers. He often played the State Lottery (彩票) . For the lottery, people have to choose six(10)      numbers. Then he got an idea. He (11)       the numbers Skipper had shaken out of the ball. The next day Linda bought a lottery ticket. The ticket had (12)       of these six numbers.
　　The(13)       were really surprising. These were the winning numbers of the lottery!Gary and Linda won the huge prize of US ＄3, 720, 000!They have given Skipper everything a cat could ever(14)      . Maybe Skipper(15)       realizes what he did!

17．HOT INFORMATION Global Times
September 182021
Welcome Home, Heroes!
　　The Shenzhou-12 with astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo aboard, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 1:34 p. m. yesterday.
　　Shenzhou-12 was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 17.
　　Zhang Hong, a reporter from China Daily, tells us more.
　　The three astronauts were in good health after the landing and have returned to Beijing.
　　Nie Haisheng said, "It feels good to get back, and it also feels good to be in space. We helped build the space station and did a lot of experiments during our three﹣month trip. We also had a chance to enjoy the beauty of space in our free time. "
　　Yesterday was also astronaut Liu Boming's birthday. And he said he would never forget it.
　　With the development of China's science and technology, more astronauts will be sent to space and make further progress.

18．　　Adam bought a standing room﹣only ticket from Liverpool to London. When he got on the train, he saw the carriage (车厢) was full of passengers. Adam was tired so he wanted to have a seat. Before he got on the train, he bought a toy snake for his daughter. He suddenly came up with a plan.
　　Adam took out the toy snake and threw it into the carriage. All the passengers were very frightened when they saw it. People ran out of the carriage as quickly as possible. Adam saw many seats were empty and lay down on the seats. He felt comfortable and fell asleep soon.
　　After a while, Adam woke up. He found the train was not moving and thought that it must have stopped at a station. He got out and asked a train attendant (乘务员), "Which station is it?"
　　The train attendant smiled and replied, "It is Liverpool. In fact, many passengers said there was a snake in the carriage. So they left it behind here. The other carriages went to London. "

19．　　After leaving the earth last summer, Zhu Rong circled Mars for several months and landed on it in May. In recent years, our country has sent up the world's first quantum satellite (量子卫星), and Chang'e﹣4 has made a soft landing on the moon. We have made great progress in space technology and will soon start building our own space station. 　　China has named the nation's first Mars rover (火星车) Zhu Rong. For all of us, Zhu Rong is a well-suited name.
　　In an ancient Chinese story, Zhu Rong had the face of a man and the body of an animal. He rode on two dragons. When he had a big fight with Gong Gong, the god of water, Zhu Rong won. But after the fight, the human world came into complete darkness. Then he brought fire from heaven (天国) to the world.
　　"Zhu Rong is regarded as (被认为是) the earliest god of fire in traditional Chinese culture," a space official said. "The first Mars rover was named Zhu Rong. The name symbolizes (象征) light and hope for space exploration (探索) in our country, and means to guide humans to go on with the exploration.

21．　　"Cool" is a word with many meanings. Its old meaning is to express a temperature that is a little bit c       (1). As the world has changed, the word has had many d      (2)meanings. "Cool" can be used to express feelings of interest in almost a       (3). When you see a famous car in the street, maybe you'll say, "It's cool. " You may think, "He's so cool, " when you see your f       (4)footballer.
　　We all maximize (使最大化) the meaning of "cool". You can use it instead of many words such as "new" or "surprising". Here's an i       (5)story we can use to show the way the word is used. A teacher asked her students to write about the waterfall they had v       (6). On one student's paper was just one sentence, "It's so cool. " Maybe he thought it was the b      (7)way to show what he saw.
　　But the story also s        (8)the scarcity (缺乏) of words. Without "cool", some people have n        (9)words to show the same meaning. Can you think of other words that m       (10)your life as colorful as the word "cool"?I can. And I think they are also very cool.

22．假如你是魏静, 请你向大家介绍你和你的朋友蒋冰和贾芳, 以及你们的新学期计划．词数60﹣80词．
内容要点如下:
1. 蒋冰比贾芳要高一点．蒋冰更喜欢音乐和体育, 他需要在英语和数学上更努力．
2. 在三个人中间贾芳的英语最好, 但是她也是最瘦的;她想在这学期变得强壮一些, 她计划多运动, 少吃垃圾食品．
3. 今年暑假你们三人一起骑车游览了东湖, 品尝了武汉美食, 拍了许多照片．这学期你们准备爬木兰山．
4. 可自由发挥一条．
参考词汇:努力hard﹣working 东湖East Lake 木兰山Mulan Mountain