湖南省株洲市荷塘区2020年中考英语一模试卷

    Many students want to be scientists when they grow up. A 15-year-old girl, Hannah Herbst is no exception. She is very young, but she has already been a 1. Lots of people know her because she once 2 the America's Top Young Scientist Award. She is still a student and studies at Florida Atlantic University High School, US.

    Herbst made a turbine called Beacon. It could made 3 by using ocean currents. It helped her win the award. Herbst is not only4but also warm-hearted. One day, she had a great idea. She wanted to help people in developing countries, 5did she get such an idea? In fact, her idea came from her 9-year-old pen pal in Ethiopia, Africa. Her pen pal said her country6 electricity. "They don't have any 7 to get electricity. I really want to help them." said Herbst.

    Herbst dreamed of making a turbine which could make electricity  She 8 four months making the turbine model. Then she tried to make her 9 come true. Of course she 10 the turbine successfully. She said the turbine could change three cars in less than an hour.

    China has unveiled ambitious plans to drastically reduce single-use plastics by 2025. China's National Development and Reform Commission is fast-tracking a number of measures designed to slash the production and use of plastics over the next five years. It announced that by the end of 2020, non-biodegradable plastic bags will be banned in supermarkets and shopping malls in major cities. The ban will also apply to food delivery services, which use vast amounts of the plastics. Single-use plastic straws and cutlery used by food takeaway services will be banned nationwide by the end of this year. China will encourage the use of alternative materials such as non-plastic products and biodegradable shopping bags.

    Single-use plastics are one of the world's biggest sources of plastic pollution. They have become a ubiquitous part of daily life and a part of our throwaway culture. The Chinese authorities set a goal of reducing the "intensity of consumption" in order to reverse our reliance on single-use plastics. Previous regulations to curb plastic use, in 2008, led to an estimated cut in plastic bag production of 67 billion bags. The United Nations said it is urgent that all countries adopt policies similar to those China is introducing. It said: "We are already unable to cope with the amount of plastic waste we generate, unless we rethink the way we manufacture, use and manage plastics."

    Millions of Americans return from long-distance trips by air, but their luggage doesn't always come home with them. Airline identification tags (标签) can come loose, and the bags go who-knows-where. And passengers leave all kinds of things on planes.

    The airlines collect the items and, for 90 days, attempt to find their owners. They don't keep them, since they're not in the warehouse business. And by law, they cannot sell the bags, because the airlines might be tempted to deliberately misplace luggage.

    So once insurance companies have paid for lost bags and their contents, and they no longer belong to passengers, a unique store in the little town of Scottsboro, Alabama, buys them. The "Unclaimed Baggage Center," is so popular that the building, which is set up like a department store, is the number-one tourist attraction in all of Alabama. More than one million visitors stop in each year and take one of the store's shopping carts on a hunt for treasures.

    Each day, clerks bring out 7,000 new items, and veteran (老练的) shoppers rush to paw over them. You can find everything from precious jewels to hockey sticks, best-selling novels, leather jackets, tape recorders, surfboards, even half-used tubes of toothpaste.

    The store's own laundry washes or cleans all the clothes found in luggage, then sells them. The Unclaimed Baggage Center has found guns, illegal drugs and even a live rattlesnake.

    The store has a little museum where some of its most unusual acquisitions (获得物) have been preserved. They include highland bagpipes, a burial mask from an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb, and a medieval suit of armor.

    Statistics indicate that less than one-half of one percent of luggage checked on U.S. carriers is permanently lost and available to the store.

    Science can't explain the power of pets, but many studies have shown that the company of pets can help lower blood pressure (血压) and raise chances of recovering from a heart attack, reduce loneliness and spread all-round good cheer.

    Any owner will talk you how much joy a pet brings. For some, an animal provides more comfort than a husband/wife. A 2002 study by Karen Allen of the State University of New York measured stress (紧张) levels and blood pressure in people-half of them pet owners-while they performed 5 minutes of mental arithmetic (算术) or held a hand in ice water. Subjects completed the tasks alone, with a husband/wife, a close friend or with a pet. People with pets did it best. Those tested with their animal friends had smaller change in blood pressure and returned most quickly to baseline heart rates. With pets in the room, people also made fewer math mistakes than when doing in front of other companions. It seems people feel more relaxed (放松) around pets, says Allen, who thinks it may be because pets don't judge.

    A study reported last fall suggests that having a pet dog not only raises your spirits but may also have an effect on your eating habits. Researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital spent a year studying 36 fat people and their equally fat dogs on diet-and-exercise programs; a separate group of 56 people without pets were put on a diet program. On average, people lost about I1 pounds, or 5% of their body weight. Their dogs did even better, losing an average of 12 pounds, more than 15% of their body weight. Dog owners didn't lose any more weight than those without dogs but, say researchers, got more exercise overall-mostly with their dogs-and found it worth doing.

    1）每个人都有梦想。Catherine's is to own a bakery (蛋糕店). The 14-year-old American girl became fond (喜爱) of baking and decorating(装饰) cakes when her mother first taught her how to do it. 2）Her parents found that she is talented in making cakes. 3）She made her first cake for her sister's birthday. "I had never really done anything like it before," she said. "It was pretty good and I actually realized how much I liked cake decorating." Catherine had thought about starting her own business years ago. 4）But she didn't start receiving orders until she put pictures of her cake designs on Facebook.

    A few hours later, somebody saw Catherine's cake designs and called to order a cake for $15. That was her first paid cake. It proved to be a successful experience. Realizing the public's interest in Catherine's designs, her family decided to create a business for her. 5）自从她开店以来, 她已经制作了35个蛋糕。 And she made her cakes without drawing sketch (草稿) first.

    Soccer is the world's favorite sport. It has around 3 billion fans—nearly half the world's population! And about 300 million people play this game. That's nearly 4 percent of the world's population!

    It's hard to say where soccer's birthplace is. Many people in old days played early forms (形式) of this modern game. Cuju (蹴鞠), a ball-kicking game in China, was reported as early as 2, 500 B.C.. Around the same time in Greece, people were also playing a similar ball game without using their hands. But modern soccer didn't become official (官方的) until 1863. An Englishman called Cobb Morley introduced the idea of a soccer association (联盟). He also wrote the sport's official rules. From then on, other associations in the countries were set up. They came together to make up the FIFA, which organizes the World Cup.

    It's not easy to tell what makes soccer so popular. But one reason is how simple the sport is. Soccer needs only two feet and a ball. This makes it a sport that developing countries can easily play. Some of the sport's best players come from these poor nations.

    Soccer performances are pleasing to the eyes. The sport's no-hands rule makes beautiful dance-like movements on the field. What's more, this sport excites the heart. Teams might score only a few times each match, so matches can turn around suddenly.

    No one knows who will win at the next World Cup. But one thing is certain: The world will be watching.

1）佳节时间（农历（lunar calendar）五月初五）、纪念屈原；

2）学包粽子、观看龙舟（下午两点，地点：湘江）。

注意：

1）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；

2）字数90词以上，开头部分已给出，不计算在总词数内；

3）文中不能出现可能透露考生真实身份的任何信息。