暑假过后，新初三生们迎来了初中最重要的一年——初三。为方便2013年中考考生及家长查询相关信息，出国留学网中考频道特别搜集汇总了中考英语阅读素材以供参考：
a fish and a lamb 小羊羔与小鱼儿
Once upon a time were a little brother and a little sister who loved each other with all their hearts. Their own mother, however, was dead, and they had a stepmother who was not kind to them. She secretly did everything she could to hurt them.
It so happened that the two of them were playing with other children in a meadow in front their house. There was a pond in the meadow that came up to one side of the house. The children ran around it, caught one another, and played a counting out game:
Eenie, meenie, let me live,
And to you my bird I'll give.
The little bird will bring me straw,
The straw I'll give then to the cow.
For which the cow will give me milk,
The milk I'll to the baker take.
With which he then will bake a cake,
The cake I'll then give to the cat.
Little cat will catch some mice for that,
The mice I'll hang up in the smoke,
And after that I'll cut them up.
While playing this game they stood in a circle, and the one to whom they were pointing when they said "cut them up" had to run away, and all the others would run after him and catch him. While they were thus running about so joyfully the stepmother was watching them from the window, and grew angry. Because she understood the art of witchcraft she bewitched them both, transforming the little brother into a fish, and the little sister into a lamb.
The little fish swam back and forth in the pond and was sad, and the little lamb walked back and forth in the meadow and was sad, and would not eat. She would not even touch one blade of grass. Thus a long time passed, and then some strangers came as guests to the castle.
The treacherous stepmother thought, "Now is my chance," and called the cook and said to him, "Go and fetch the lamb from the meadow and slaughter it. We have nothing else for our guests."
The cook went and got the little lamb, took her into the kitchen, and tied her feet together. She bore all this patiently. The cook then took out his knife and was whetting it on the doorstep in order to kill the little lamb when he saw how a little fish was swimming back and forth in the water in front of the gutter and looking up at him. This was the little brother, for when the little fish saw the cook take the little lamb away, he followed them, swimming along the pond as far as the house.
Then the little lamb cried down to him:
Oh little brother in the lake
My sad heart is about to break.
The cook, he makes his knife so sharp
To stab it then into my heart.
The little fish answered:
Oh little sister, way up there
My sad heart also soon will break,
Deep down here in this lake.
When the cook heard that the little lamb could speak, saying such sad words to the little fish down below, he was frightened and thought that this could not be an ordinary little lamb, but must have been bewitched by the wicked woman in the house.
He said, "Don't worry. I won't kill you."
Then he took another animal and prepared it for the guests, after which he took the little lamb to a good peasant woman and told her everything that he had seen and heard.
Now this peasant woman had been the wet nurse for the little sister, and she suspected at once who the little lamb was, and took him with her to a wise woman. The wise woman pronounced a blessing over the little lamb and the little fish, and they regained their human forms. After this she took them both to a little hut in a large forest, where they lived by themselves, contented and happy.
从前有个小弟弟和小妹妹，非常相爱。他们的母亲已谢世，他们又有了一个继母，继母待他们很不好，常常暗地里想方设法虐待他们。有一次，兄妹俩正在屋前的草坪上和其他的孩子们玩，草地旁有个水池，水池紧挨着屋子。孩子们围着圈儿不停地跑啊，跳啊，做着数数的游戏。
“内克，贝克，饶了我，
我将给你我的小鸟;
小鸟儿得帮我寻草，
草料我拿来喂母牛;
母牛儿吃草产牛奶，
牛奶我送给面包师;
面包师给我烤面包，
面包我拿来喂小猫;
小猫得替我逮耗子，
耗子要熏在烟囱里，
熏好的耗子好细切。“
他们玩游戏时站成了一圈，这个“细切”落到谁的身上，谁就得马上跑开，其他的人就去追他，逮住他。就在他们玩得正起劲时，继母从窗口看见了，十分恼火。由于她会巫术，便念着咒语，把小弟弟变成了一条鱼，把小妹变成了一只小羊羔。于是，小鱼儿在池塘中游来游去，十分忧伤;小羊羔在草地上走来走去，心里悲凉，丝毫不肯吃草。就这样过了很久，有些生客来到城堡里，狠毒的继母心想：“现在机会来了!”便叫来了厨子说：“去草地上把那头羊牵来宰了，咱也没什么别的好东西来待客。”那厨子去了，把羊儿牵到厨房，捆住了她的四蹄。这一切，小羊羔顺从地忍了。当厨子拔出刀子，在台级上磨了磨，正要下手宰羊时，他看到了似乎有条鱼儿在来回地游动，并抬起头望着他。这鱼儿就是那个小弟弟，因为他看见了厨子带走了那羊羔，它便尾随着从池塘游到了屋里。于是小羊羔对他苦叫道：
“深池里的小哥哥啊，
我的心儿多悲凉!
那厨子正把他的刀磨亮，
就要把我的命儿丧。“
那小鱼答道：
“啊，那上面的小妹妹，
我在深深的池水里，
我的心呀多忧伤。“
厨子听到小羊羔会说话，而且对着下面的小鱼说着那样悲凉的话，不禁大惊失色，知道了这只羊不可能是只普通的羊，而是北屋里那位狠毒的女人念过咒的东西，于是他说：“别害怕，我不会杀你的。”于是另外换了头羊，宰了给客人做菜，接着他把这只小羊羔牵去送给一位好心的农家妇，还向她讲诉了自己的所见所闻。
这农家妇恰巧做过小羊羔的乳母，她立刻猜到了这只羊羔是谁，便把它带到女先知那儿去。女先知为小羊和小鱼儿念了几句咒语，他俩立刻恢复了人形。这以后她又把他们俩带到了一座大森林中的一间小屋里，从此他们独自住在那儿，生活过得惬意而快活。
中考相关信息请关注留学群中考频道......
| 中考政策 | 中考状元 | 中考饮食 | 中考备考辅导 | 中考复习资料 |