广东省广州市天河区2016年中考英语一模试卷

    I had never noticed her. She was not the kind of girl who could draw attention. She was not tall1looked ordinary. In class, she liked sitting at the back, reading or writing notes. One day I asked her2aloud the text. When I heard her standard （标准）American English, I looked at her with new eyes. And I remembered her name—Kelly. Later on, the National College Speech Competition would be held. One student in our school3to attend. I thought it over and filled in her name. Kelly practised4for the competition. However, I was a little worried

    5she was always too quiet. Could she really6well in the competition?

    7the night of the competition, I sat in the front row of the hall very early. I told her to take it easy. Her face turned red and she said nothing8seemed that she was really nervous. I felt upset, but I just patted her on9shoulder and let her go to draw lots （抽签）. As a result, she drew No. 9 while No. 8 was a boy who was very good at giving speeches.

    Sure enough, No. 8 was very10The whole audience made a warm applause.

    While they11about his speech with excitement, Kelly appeared on the stage. I with no courage to look at her. It was her12time to go up the stage, so I couldn't be angry with her for any small mistakes. But at that moment, I found13I was so afraid of her failure（失败）.

    The strong spotlight and large hall made14so small that nobody seemed to notice she had been on the stage. I felt hopeless.

    But the moment that surprised me came. I clearly heard a voice, a very loud voice, “Now, please focus on me.”

    Three times in all, louder and louder.

    The whole audience fell silent.

    I could hardly believe that loud voice came from the girl, who was usually soft-voiced and didn't catch attention at all. She gave a perfect speech.

I think I will never forget this touching lesson15my student taught me — never underestimate（低估）the power of the silent people.

    A game of catch is simply two people throwing a ball back and forth（来回地）. It seems a little1and many people may not be interested in it. The two people are close enough to talk, but too far to touch. They might have baseball gloves, or they might use their hands.

    In fact, playing catch is part of2practice—to make you get used to using a ball and glove. But any American kid will teach you it's much more than that. Playing catch is a time for kids to3with your father. It's a time when there's4to worry about except catching a ball. It's a time when words move as seamlessly（准确不误地） as the ball itself, back and forth, easy and relaxing. It's an excuse to5time together.

    Because baseball is an American sport, and a big part of being American, playing catch is kind of an all-American dad activity. In the suburbs（郊区）, most people have backyards — not6enough to play baseball in, but just big enough for a game of catch. Those who have no7can play in the street or in the park.

    When adults are asked to talk about the good8of their dads, many of them will say something about playing catch. Why? Probably because dads are usually very9. A catch game is a time that is only for one thing. This is a time when a kid has her dad's10. There is no work, no phone and no other people around to take your dad away from you. For the time that it takes to play a game of catch, your dad is all yours.

      Feeding a crowd of hundreds doesn't make Kenny Seals-Nutt nervous.

In fact, he does well and successfully in the kitchen. He's in his perfect place when dicing tomatoes, making salads and baking cakes.

      By the time Kenny, 16, reached his third year of high school at Hickory Grove,

      North Carolina, US, he had become president of his school's cooking club. He also opened his own food company, called Modern Fusion. 

      Kenny said he developed his love of cooking by watching his mother, and his grandmother, who owned a catering business（饮食业）. Kenny helped them both in order to remember their tips: how long to cook chicken so it stays wet, and the right amount of tomatoes to add to the noodles or fishes.

      At the age of 5, he cooked his first dish. Taking it for his school lunch, he warmed it up in the school's microwave, while the other kids ate their sandwiches.

      “I love to eat, and it started to become more fun to cook than to use a microwave,” he said.

      Cooking came easy to Kenny, and he enjoyed adding new ingredients （作料） into common dishes. “It started with a strong interest and I wanted to know more,” he said.

      He began to watch the Food Network and read chef（大厨）blogs.

      Last summer, Kenny put his skills to the test by working with his grandmother to cater（备办食物）for his uncle's wedding. While she cooked traditional dishes, Kenny wanted to add something new to them.

      Now Kenny spends his weekends catering his own events: weddings, birthday parties, baby showers and so on. Kenny's dishes are always a hit.

 Chef Frederick Mookie Hicks, owner of a catering business, said Kenny's success comes from his ability in the kitchen. Hicks said he has asked Kenny to cook with him on jobs three times now, and he presents Kenny as a positive example of a good chef to the students in his cooking classes.

“He's so smart at cooking that he doesn't let anything stop him,” Hicks said. “I knew in the first five minutes of working with the kid that he is something special.”

     POSB（Post Office Saving Banks ）PAssion Run for Kids 2016

     Who are the kinds we're helping？

     The PAssion Kids Fund aims to support the children in the community through different programmes．We are happy to partner People's Association this year to organize PAssion Run for Kids 2016to support the children in the community so that can have a happier childhood and a brighter future．

     What can I do for the kinds？

     You can make a difference in the lives of the children simple by running to support this cause!

     You can also make a donation （捐款）to the POSB Passion Kids Fund

    The following are some tips for becoming a successful businessman by Michael Bloomberg. They are based on his experience of building a company from the ground  up, leading New York City as mayor（市长）, and so on.

Take Risks

    Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure.

    In 1981, at the age of 39, I lost my job. The next day I took a big risk and began my own company. In 2001, when I was debating whether to run for mayor, most people advised me not to do it. But one person said, “If you can imagine yourself giving a concession（败选）speech, then why not go for it?” That was the best advice I received, and I followed it.

    In order to succeed, you must first be willing to fail— and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.

    Make your own luck

    Luck plays a part in success. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

    Whatever you choose to do, even if it's not the job of your dreams, always work hard at it. Be the first person at work in the morning and the last to leave at night. Hard work creates chances.

    Never stop learning

    The most powerful word in English language is “why”. There is nothing so powerful as an open, inquiring mind（探究精神）. Whatever field you choose for starting a business — be a lifelong student.

    Give back

    You are responsible for your success and failure, but you only succeed if you share the reward with others.

    My first donation was a $ 5 check to my alma mater （母校） . And while the checks（支票）may be bigger today, they come with the same spirit.

    You don't have to be wealthy to give back. You can give back by giving your time and talents.

    Soon computers and other machines will be able to remember you by looking at your eyes! The program works because everyone's eyes are different. So in the future you won't have to remember the number of your credit card when you want to use a machine or take money out of a bank. You'll just have to look at the machine and it will be able to tell who you are.

    The eye-recognition（眼睛识别）program has already been tested in shops and banks in the USA, Britain, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Soon this technology will take the place of all other ways of finding out who people are.

    Eye-recognition is a course of recognizing iris（虹膜）, which includes the following steps. First, a kind of machine needs to collect different examples of one's iris from his eyes and store them. Second, when this person goes to the bank to take out money, this machine will have iris feature extraction（采集）. Then, this machine will compare the examples kept in it with iris feature extraction. Once the examples and the feature extraction are the same, this person will be identified, and he will take out the money from the bank successfully.

    However, scientists are also working on other systems. Machines will soon be able to know you from the shape of your face or hand or even your smell! We already have machines that can tell who you are from your voice or the mark made by your finger.

    Eye-recognition is better than other kinds because your eyes don't change as you get older, and don't get dirty like hands or fingers, and even twins have different eyes. So the eye-recognition program can be up to 94% correct, depending on how good the technology is. However, some other programs may only be 51% correct now. In Britain, it was found that 91% of people who had tried it said that they liked the idea of eye-recognition.

    In the future your computer will be looking you in the eye. So smile!

    March 20th is World Water Day every year. According to a report from the United Nations, more than half of the world's major rivers have serious water loss and are polluted.

    The Yellow River, the world's fifth longest river, watered some of the oldest farms on earth.

    Its source（源头）on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is drying up. In most of the past 35 years, it didn't reach the sea.

    The Nile in Egypt, running 6, 650 km, is the longest river in the world.Now it is down to 2 billion m³ or so. Australia's Murray River reaches the sea only every other year. One fifth of America's Rio Grande has no water, either.

    Mostly it's damming（筑坝）and global warming that make rivers dry.Now about 45, 000 of them lie across the world's rivers. They hold back around 15% of the world's fresh water from running to the sea.

Warmer weather takes water away. The glacier（冰川）are becoming smaller. The source of the Yellow River is drying up because of it. Global warming has had certain effects on water sources. Droughts （干旱） happening around the world make people pay more attention to this fact.

    Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Guangzhou. It's my great honor to introduce our Tianhe Culture Center, Huacheng Square.

    
    Huacheng Square is really a good place to visit. I hope you can visit it one day.