Đề thi học sinh giỏi cấp trường môn Tiếng anh Lớp 9

Nội dung text: Đề thi học sinh giỏi cấp trường môn Tiếng anh Lớp 9

1. ĐỀ THI HỌC SINH GIỎI CẤP TRƯỜNG LỚP 9 Bài thi môn: TIẾNG ANH Thời gian làm bài 120 phút (bao gồm cả phần nghe) ĐIỂM HỌ TÊN, CHỮ KÍ GIÁM KHẢO SỐ PHÁCH Bằng số: Giám khảo 1: . Bằng chữ: Giám khảo 2: . . SECTION A. LISTENING SECTION B. VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR I. (5 points) Choose the correct answer from A, B, C or D to complete each of the following sentences. 1. Can I ask a favor ___ you, Mark? Could you please move this sofa backwards? A. for B. of C. with D. to 2. I read the contract again and again ___ avoiding making spelling mistakes. A. with a view to B. In view of C. by means of D. in terms of 3. This kind of product has to be used ___ 3 days ___ purchase. A. by / of B. within / of C. on / on D. on /after 4. Too many tests and exams have put high school students ___ pressure. A. in B. on C. under D. into 5. The president refused to make any judgement ___ the situation. A. on B. with C. for D. of 6. ___ your effort and talent, we wonder if you can work full time for us. A. Regarding B. In regard of C. With respect to D. On behalf of 7. Let’s move ___ to the next item on the agenda. A. in B. by C. up D. on 8. I am fed ___ hanging around here with nothing to do. A. up on B. out of C. up with D. by 9. I do not know my uncle is ___ doubt ___ everything he sees. A. with / about B. in / of C. of / for D. in / with 10. ___ Xmas, more shopping is done. A. On B. For C. At D. In Your answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. II. (5 points) Read the text carefully. Some of the lines are correct and some have a word which should not be there. If a line is correct, put a tick (√) in the space provided: If a line has a word which should not be there, write it in the space provided.
2. Letter of apology O Thank you for your letter of 25th March informing √ 00 us of the faulty equipment we were sent you. were 1 We would like to express about our deep regret 2 for the error, together with an explanation of it what 3 happened. There was a mix-up with the orders at the 4 manufacturing plant and they sent us the wrong 5 equipment already packaged and sealed. Our clerk he failed 6 to check the equipment inside and much carelessly 7 sent on the box to you. We assure you of the actual 8 equipment is not faulty but so simply the wrong 9 model. We would like for you to accept our 10 sincere apologies for the incident and we promise that 11 this will not to happen again. Please find 12 enclosed a cheque for all the shipping and 13 transportation costs as well as and a cheque 14 for £200 for an inconvenience caused. We hope 15 you will continue to do the business with us in the future Your answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. SECTION C. READING I. (10 points). Read the passage below and decide which answer (from A, B, C or D) best fits each gap. Write your answers in ‘Your answers’ part. The first question we might ask is: What can you learn in college that will help you in being an employee? The schools teach (1) ___ many things of value to the future accountant, doctor or electrician. Do they also teach anything of value to the future employee? Yes, they teach the one thing that it is perhaps most valuable for the future employee (2)___. But very few students bother to learn it. This basic skill is the ability to organize and express ideas in writing and in speaking. This means that your success as an employee will depend on your ability to communicate with people and to (3) ___ your own thoughts and ideas to them so they will (4) ___ understand what you are driving and be persuaded.
3. Of course, skill in expression is not enough (5) ___ itself. You must have something to say in the first place. The effectiveness of your job depends (6) ___ your ability to make other people understand your work as they do on the quality of the work itself. Expressing one‘s thoughts is one skill that the school can (7) ___ teach. The foundations for skill in expression have to be (8) ___ early: an interest in and an ear (9) ___ language; experience in organizing ideas and data, in brushing aside the irrelevant, and above all the habit of verbal expression. If you do not these foundations (10) ___ your school years, you may never have an opportunity again. 1. A. a great B. large C. a large D. great 2. A. to know B. how to know C. knowing D. of knowing 3. A. transfer B. present C. interpret D. represent 4. A. both B. as well C. either D. not 5. A. on B. by C. in D. for 6. A. on most B. much on C. most on D. on much 7. A. truly B. really C. quite D. hardly 8. A. lied B. lain C. lay D. laid 9. A. in B. by C. if D. for 10. A. when B. for C. of D. during II. (10 points). Read the text and think of one word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each space. Write your answers in ‘Your answers’ part. BUYING A NEW BIKE Until recently, few people went cycling, but during the last few years more bikes have been sold in Britain (1) ___ cars. Now approximately two million are bought each year, the major- ity of (2) ___ are mountain bikes. There are over 500 different models to choose from and the prices vary enormously. The cheapest can be bought for under £200, (3) ___ you will need over £4,000 for a bike at the top end of the range. The reason (4) ___ this difference is the quality of the frame. Bikes costing less than £350 are not recommended (5) ___ they are very heavy and therefore not much fun to ride. Furthermore, they often break because they are not very (6) ___ made. The more expensive models are (7) ___ lighter because they are made of metals like aluminium. When buying a new bike it is best to go to a specialist bike shop (8) ___ than a toy shop or garage. One reason for this is that a specialist will make certain that the bike fits you properly, as a bike which is the wrong size can be (9) ___ uncomfortable and dangerous. To reduce the risks of injury, cyclists are advised to wear a helmet. Although bikes travel at slower speeds than motorbikes, you can still suffer serious injuries to the head (10) ___ you fall off. Your answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. III. (10 points). You are going to read an article about Do Something Different. For question 1 – 10, choose from the advertisements (A-D). The advertisements may be chosen more than one.
4. Which of the advertisements mention(s): 1. something participants in the experience must bring with them? 2. particular historical period? 3. givingyou something to take home with you? 4. that the experience is designed exclusivelyfor children? 5. giving you the chance to take a break from normal life? 6. regret that a specific type of visitor cannot enter the place? 7. something which makes it possible for the disabled to participate? 8. that young children arc not allowed to take pan in the activity? 9. that those taking pan should be in good physicalcondition? Do Something Different A. Indoor Skydiving C. Traditional Circus Skills If you have always wanted to try skydiving. Do you want to learn some new skills? But are afraid of flying. here is the Arc you fed up with the usual routine answer - indoor skydiving. You will feel and want to do something a llule more like you are freefalling from a plane, even exciting than walking around the though you are only about two feet off the shopping centre on Saturday ground, as a giant propeller blasts air at 200 mornings? Theo roll up, roll up - come mph, suspending you in the airflow. It and join the circus! During your session is a al Britain's top circus skills school, freefall experience that everyone must try. you will learn about the physical at the world's biggest skydiving wind strength required for the trapeze and tunnel, in Bedfordshire, England. acrobatics, practise your coordination Compared to other similar experiences on skills while juggling and attempt to the market, you will get more 'flight time' acrobalance (otherwise known as in the wind tunnel and, when you finish, a tightrope walking). All the instructors are DVD containing footage of your night for professionals with first-hand knowledge of you to remember the experience. This the techniques and equipment used. You'll facility also caters to international be learning the basics in no Lime, so you skydiving teams, so be assured that can impress all your friends with your new you'll be in the safest hands. skills when you get home. The tunnel was originally built over fifty It is recommended that you wear years ago to study aerodynamic forces, and casual clothes that don't restrict your later to test the strength of aeroplane parts movement - a tracksuit and trainers such as ejector seats. Four decades later, would be ideal. Participants must be at the tunnel was restored. least 14 years old, and although they A reasonable level of fitness is required don't need to be in absolutely tip-top in order to participate. Spectators can shape, a reasonable level of fitness is watch the dive from the free viewing required if you want to get the most from
5. gallery, but the loud noise makes it this course. Spectators are welcome unsuitable for very young children. throughout. Unfortunately, there is no disabled access al the school. B. The Cathedrals Express Steam D. Scuba Diving Train Are you having trouble finding things Step back into the 19th century as you to do with the kids? Here's an idea. At the take a train ride on the Cathedrals Aqua Fun Programme, young Express, which runs from central London adventurers are introduced to the thrill of to some of England's most beautiful breathing under water. They arc first cathedral cities. It's the perfect experience taught the basic procedures for scuba for romantic couples, Harry Potter fans diving, including safety and and those who want to relive the good communication with fellow divers, and old days. As you travel, you will dine oo familiarised with the equipment before superb food while sitting at a table with dipping their toes into the water, All the lovely views of the countryside. The train instructors are qualified Dive is an exact replica of one that operated I.nscluctors. Then, under constant during Victorian times, and the carriage supervision, they get to dive and swim interiors are beautifully decorated. It is around in a swimming pool, at a an unusual sight, so expect people to wave maximum depth of only 6m, but still at you as you go by. Of course, you may experience what it would feel like wish 10 wave back! When the train pulls to be in a natural diving into the terminus, you environment. are released from the fantasy for a short Parents are welcome to watch as their spell, as you have the chance to shop or see children learn to scuba dive and enjoy the sights. splashing around making bubbles Trains and stations have ramps for underwater. Children don't have to be wheelchair users. Spectators are strong swimmers and previous experience welcome to see the train depart and meet is not needed. You must bring your own it on its return. swimwear, but all other equipment will be provided. Your answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. IV. (10 points). Read the following passage carefully and choose the best option for each question/sentence. The new way to be a fifth-grader I peer over his shoulder at his laptop screen to see the math problem the fifth-grader is pondering. It's a trigonometry problem. Carpenter, a serious-feced ten-year-old, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on ”0 degrees." The computer tells him that he's correct. "It took a while for me to work it out," he admits sheepishly. The software then generates another problem, followed by another, until eventually he's done ten in a row.
6. Last November, his teacher, Kami Thordarson, began using Khan Academy in her class. It is an educational website on which students can watch some 2,400 videos. The videos are anything but sophisticated. At seven to 14 minutes long, they consist of a voiceover by the site's founder, Salman Khan, chattily describing a mathematical concept or explaining how to solve a problem, while his hand-scribbled formulas and diagrams appear on-screen. As a student, you can review a video as many times as you want, scrolling back several times over puzzling parts and fast-forwarding through the boring bits you already know. Once you've mastered a video, you can move on to the next one. Initially, Thordarson thought Khan Academy would merely be a helpful supplement to her normal instruction. But it quickly became far more than that. She is now on her way to "flipping" the way her class works. This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home. Then in class, they focus on working on the problem areas together. The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed in the children's own time and homework is done at school. It sounds weird, Thordarson admits, but this reversal makes sense when you think about it. It is when they are doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to want someone to talk to. And Khan Academy provides teachers with a dashboard application that lets them see the instant a student gets stuck. For years, teachers like Thordarson have complained about the frustrations of teaching to the "middle" of the class. They stand at the whiteboard trying to get 25 or more students to learn at the same pace. Advanced students get bored and tune out, lagging ones get lost and tune out, and pretty soon half the class is not paying attention. Since the rise of personal computers in the 1980s, educators have hoped that technology could save the day by offering lessons tailored to each child. Schools have spent millions of dollars on sophisticated classroom technology, but the effort has been in vain. The one-to-one instruction it requires is, after all, prohibitively expensive. What country can afford such a luxury? Khan never intended to overhaul the school curricula and he doesn't have a consistent, comprehensive plan for doing so. Nevertheless, some of his fans believe that he has stumbled onto the solution to education's middle-of-the-class mediocrity. Most notable among them is Bill Gates, whose foundation has invested $1.5 million in Khan's site. Students have pointed out that Khan is particularly good at explaining all the hidden, small steps in math problems—steps that teachers often gloss over. He has an uncanny ability to inhabit the mind of someone who doesn't already understand something. However, not all educators are enamoured with Khan and his site. Gary Stager, a longtime educational consultant and advocate of laptops in classrooms,, thinks Khan Academy is not innovative at all. The videos and software modules, he contends, are just a high-tech version of the outdated teaching techniques—lecturing and drilling. Schools have become "joyless test-prep factories," he says, and Khan Academy caters to this dismal trend. As Sylvia Martinez, president of an organization focusing on technology in the classroom, puts it, "The things they're doing are really just rote." Flipping the classroom isn't an entirely new idea, Martinez says, and she doubts that it would work for the majority of pupils: "I'm sorry, but if they can't understand the lecture in a classroom, they're not going to grasp it better when it's done through a video at home." Another limitation of Khan's site is that the drilling software can only handle questions where the answers are unambiguously right or wrong, like math or chemistry; Khan has relatively few videos on messier, grey-area subjects like history. Khan and Gates admit
7. there is no easy way to automate the teaching of writing—even though it is just as critical as math. Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it is not clear that schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a ten-year- old who has already mastered high-school physics? Khan's programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who have seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it "to stop students from becoming this advanced." Khan's success has injected him into the heated wars over school reform. Reformers today, by and large, believe student success should be carefully tested, with teachers and principals receiving better pay if their students advance more quickly. In essence, Khan doesn't want to change the way institutions teach; he wants to change how people learn, whether they're in a private school or a public school—or for that matter, whether they're a student or an adult trying to self-educate in Ohio, Brazil, Russia, or India. One member of Khan's staff is spearheading a drive to translate the videos into ten major languages. It's classic start-up logic: do something novel, do it with speed, and the people who love it will find you. 1. What do you learn about the student in the first paragraph? A. He has not used the maths software before. B. He did not expect his answer to the problem to be correct. C. He was not initially doing the right maths problem. D. He did not immediately know how to solve the maths problem. 2. What does the writer say about the content of the Khan Academy videos? A. They have been produced in a professional manner. B. They include a mix of verbal and visual features. C. Some of the maths problems are too easy. D. Some of the explanations are too brief. 3. What does this reversal refer to in line 40? A. going back to spending fewer hours in school B. students being asked to explain answers to teachers C. swapping the activities done in the class and at home D. the sudden improvement in students’ maths performance 4. What does the writer say about teaching to the ‘middle’ of the class? A. Teachers become too concerned about weaker students. B. Technology has not until now provided a solution to the problem. C. Educators have been unwilling to deal with the issues. D. Students in this category quickly become bored. 5. Students praise Khan’s videos because they A. show the extent of his mathematical knowledge. B. deal with a huge range of maths problems. C. provide teaching at different ability levels. D. cover details that are often omitted in class. Your answers: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
8. V. (5 points). There are seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Tackling Hunger in Msekeni A. There are not enough classrooms at the Msekeni primary school, so half the lessons take place in the shade of yellow-blossomed acacia trees. Given this shortage, it might seem odd that one of the school’s purpose-built classrooms has been emptied of pupils and turned into a storeroom for sacks of grain. But it makes sense. Food matters more than shelter. B. Msekeni is in one of the poorer parts of Malawi, a landlocked southern African country of exceptional beauty and great poverty. No war lays waster Malawi, nor is the land unusually crowded or infertile, but Malawians still have trouble finding enough to eat. Half of the children under five are underfed to the point of stunting. Hunger blights most aspects of Malawian life, so the country is as good a place as any to investigate how nutrition affects development, and vice versa. C. The headmaster at Msekeni, Bernard Kumanda, has strong views on the subject. He thinks food is a priceless teaching aid. Since 1999, his pupils have received free school lunches. Donors such as the World Food Programme (WFP) provide the food: those sacks of grain (mostly mixes maize and soyabean flour, enriched with vitamin A) in that converted classroom. Local volunteers do the cooking –turning the dry ingredients into a bland but nutritious slop, and spooning it out on to plastic plates. The children line up in large crowds, cheerfully singing a song called “We are getting porridge”. D. When the school’s feeding programme was introduced, enrolment as Msekeni doubled. Some of the pupils had switched from nearby schools that did not give out free porridge, but most were children whose families had previously kept them at home to work. These families were so poor that the long-term benefits of education seemed unattractive when set against the short-term gain of sending children out to gather firewood or help in the fields. One plate of porridge a day completely altered the calculation. A child fed at school will not howl so plaintively for food at home. Girls, who are more likely than boys to be kept out of school, are given extra snacks to take home. E. When a school takes in a horde of extra students from the poorest homes, you would expect standards to drop. Anywhere in the world, poor kids tend to perform worse than their better-off classmates. When the influx of new pupils is not accompanied by any increase in the number of teachers, as was the case at Msekeni, you would expect standards to fall even further. But they have not. Pass rates at Msekeni improved dramatically, from 30% to 85%. Although this was an exceptional example, the nationwide results of school feeding programmes were still pretty good. On average, after a Malawian school started handing out free food it attracted 38% more girls and 24% more boys. The pass rate for boys stayed about the same, while for girls it improved by 9.5%. F. Better nutrition makes for brighter children. Most immediately, well-fed children find it easier to concentrate. It is hard to focus the mind on long division when your stomach is screaming for food. Mr. Kumanda says that it used to be easy to spot the kids who were really undernourished. “They were the ones who stared into space and didn’t respond when you asked them questions,” he says. More crucially, though, more and better food helps brains grow and develop. Like any other organ in the body, the brain needs nutrition and exercise. But if it is starved of the necessary
9. calories, proteins and micronutrients, it is stunted, perhaps not as severely as a muscle would be, but stunted nonetheless. That is why feeding children at schools works so well. And the fact that the effect of feeding was more pronounced on girls than on boys gives a clue to who eats first in rural Malawian households. It isn’t the girls. G. On the global scale, the good news is that people are eating better than ever before. Homo sapiens has grown 50% bigger since the industrial revolution. Three centuries ago, chronic malnutrition was more or less universal. Now, it is extremely rare in rich countries. In developing countries, where most people live, plates and rice bowls are also fuller than ever before. The proportion of children under five in the developing world who are malnourished to the point of stunting fell from 39% in 1990 to 30% in 2000, says the World Health Organization (WHO). In other places, the battle against hunger is steadily being won. Better nutrition is making people cleverer and more energetic, which will help them grow more prosperous. And when they eventually join the ranks of the well-off, they can start fretting about growing too fat. List of Headings i. Why better food helps students’ learning ii. Becoming the headmaster of Msekeni iii. Surprising use of school premises iv. Global perspective v. Why students were undernourished vi. Surprising academic outcome vii. An innovative program to help girls viii. How food program is operated ix. How food program affects school attendance x. None of the usual reasons xi. How to maintain academic standard Your answers: A. B. C. D. E. F. G. SECTION D. WRITING I. (10 points). Use the word in brackets, complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one. DO NOT change the word given. 1. This is her landlady. She came back from Mexico last week. who => This is her landlady, last week. 2. I haven't seen her for two months. time => The last two months ago. 3. Despite being hungry, he didn't have anything to eat. was => He didn't have anything to eat hungry. 4. John fixed the leaking tap for me yesterday. had => I by John yesterday. 5. Jim and Brian went to the same school. as => Jim went to Brian. II. (10 points). This is part of a letter you receive from an English penfriend, Alex.
10. “I’ve just seen a brilliant program about dolphins on television. Which program have you enjoyed recently? How much television do you watch?” Now write a letter, answering your penfriend’s questions. DO NOT write any addresses. Write your letter (about 100-120 words) . III. (10 points). Your English teacher has asked you to write a story (120-150 words) for your school story writing competition. Your story must begin with the following sentence: It started to rain heavily - THE END-