2023年湖北省襄阳市中考 - 阅读理解C

When September comes, the new term begins. Parents are all excited because their kids are going back to school. There's nothing better than this. Looking back at the online-class period, what woke up the parents every morning was not their alarms, but their kids' coming online classes. Cooking meals, signing-in learning apps and handing in homework pictures were daily activities for parents to get everything ready for kids. At the same time, the parents had to pay full attention to their kids because there's no difference between giving a kid an electronic product and sending the Monkey King to guard the Peach Garden.
九月来了，新学期开始了。家长们都很兴奋，因为他们的孩子要回学校了。没有比这更好的了。回顾网课阶段，每天早上唤醒家长的不是他们的闹钟，而是他们孩子即将到来的网课。做饭、登录学习app和提交作业照片是父母为孩子准备一切的日常活动。与此同时，父母必须全神贯注地照顾孩子，因为给孩子一个电子产品和派美猴王去守卫蟠桃园没有什么区别。

What a coincidence! In ancient times, the new term started around White Dew in September, too. People used to have “four big ceremonies in life” which included the ceremony of “starting school, becoming an adult, getting married and burial". The ceremony of starting school was a big thing. It showed everyone's best wishes for a kid.
真是巧合！在古代，新学期也始于九月的白露。人们过去有“人生四大礼”，包括“开学礼、成人礼、婚礼和葬礼”。开学典礼是一件大事，它表达了每个人对孩子最好的祝愿。

Not every kid could go to school. Most of them had to work. But if you were a boy, your father could send you to school. Luckily, beginning in the Han Dynasty, the school fees were paid by the emperor. Boys studied very hard. They went to school every day, with no weekends, from about 6: 00 a.m. to about 4:00 p.m. The school prepared them for the government tests, and whoever scored high in the tests could get a good job. There weren't any math or science lessons. The students learned how to read, write, and paint pictures.
不是每个孩子都能上学。他们中的大多数人都必须工作。但如果你是个男孩，你父亲可以送你去上学。幸运的是，从汉代开始，学费由皇帝支付。男孩子们学习很努力，他们每天上学，没有周末，从早上6点到下午4点左右。学校为他们准备科举考试，任何在考试中得分高的人都可以找到一份好工作。没有数学或科学课，学生们学习如何阅读、写作和画画。

Education has played an important role in the development of China's society. Nowadays, China has provided nine year free education for each child, and all the kids have a fair chance to enter school.
教育在中国社会的发展中发挥了重要作用。如今，中国为每个孩子提供了九年免费教育，所有孩子都有公平的入学机会。