Tomato Changed My Life
Doing things-without being planned was never my strength.
As a 14-year-old, I would refuse to go for walks around the block with my friends if I was the least bit behind in my schoolwork.
Unlike most teenagers, I lived not in my room, but in an unused kitchen upstairs where I spread my books and papers on a large round table. I spent considerable time there, working continuously for hours, and my mother worried. She would try to lure (引诱) me away. “Come and watch the parade!” she would call from downstairs. “All neighbors are out there!” She thought of all kinds of tricks-the swimming pool, ice cream, stray cats and turtles-to remove me from my -studies, but nothing ever worked.
Later, in college, the pattern continued. The library and my college dorm replaced the unused kitchen at home. When spring came along friends would stop by my dorm or peer into my library room to persuade me to play Frisbee on the lawn. “No, I would almost always say.” I have too much to do.
My college study days were gone, but not my need and love for schedules. My friends and sisters tried to keep me away from my plans, but they were hardly ever successful.
This summer, though, while house sitting for my parents, I was persuaded to change my plans in the most unexpected way. The sight of tomatoes growing in my mother’s garden lured me out of my tightly scheduled world. They drew me with the power of a lover’s gaze. Hundreds of them were turning ripe and red by the minute, decorating the garden like decorations on a Christmas tree.
“If I have time, I’ll make tomato sauce (番茄酱).” I told myself. But my long week in the house by myself was already filled with things to do: writing, and finishing a project that I brought home from the office.
Then, watching the fascinating tomatoes continuously falling to the ground in ever-greater numbers, again I mentally argued about all the things I had planned and needed to do.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Finally, I gave in.
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A month later, my parents came back.
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I sat down to watch a recorded TV play after my husband left for his night-shift job. Not ten minutes into my favorite TV play, I was alerted to the unmistakable beep (哔哔声) of the smoke alarm indicating a low battery. Sighing, I paused my program and got up from the sofa.
I got a stepladder, climbed up it and quickly replaced the battery. The second I sat down and started watching my play, the beep started again. Evidently, the replacement battery was dead, too, so I went through all the motions again. I’d barely picked up the remote and pressed Play a third time when the alarm went off yet again. I gave out some unladylike comments. This time, I was one rung down when the same thing happened.
By then, I was out of all the batteries. I had to search the entire house for some electronic equipment that housed the same kind. I finally found one in an old clock. I crossed my fingers, hoping the battery still had some juice, and popped it in.
No luck! That round, plastic thing that was designed to save lives was about to make me have a nervous breakdown! Frustrated, I pulled the entire thing out of its “nest” and actually yelled at it to shut up before I tore it up into pieces. Holding it, I climbed back down and almost killed myself by practically falling over the dog and two cats who always watched every move I made and every breath I took. Driving my pet s away, I threw the alarm on the table and reminded myself to sleep fully clothed in case I smelled smoke. Carbon-monoxide (一氧化碳) detection would be taken care of by our back up alarm downstairs.
I glared at the troublesome item once more before walking off to seat myself on the sofa again. My program was already forty-five minutes into the play because I’d forgotten to pause it. Within seconds, that sound hit my ears again!
注意：
1．续写词数应为150左右；
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I realized that my frustration was not the solution to the problem.
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The technician arrived shortly.
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My best friend, Cocoa, and I live in a senior-citizen apartment complex in a lovely small town. Cocoa is a ten-year-old poodle(卷毛狗) and I am a sixty-nine-year-old lady, so you can see we both qualify as senior citizens.
Years ago, I promised myself that when I retired I would get a chocolate poodle to share my golden years. From the very beginning, Cocoa has always been exceptionally well-behaved. I never have to tell him anything more than once. He is extremely neat—when taking toys from his box to play, he always puts them back when he is finished. I have been accused of being obsessively neat, and sometimes I wonder if he mimics me or if he was born that way, too.
He is a wonderful companion. When I throw a ball for him, he picks it up in his mouth and gives it back to me. He does many amusing things that make me laugh, and when that happens, he is so delighted that he just keeps it up. I enjoy his company very much.
But almost two years ago, Cocoa did something that challenged comprehension. Was it a miracle or a coincidence? It is certainly a mystery.
One afternoon, Cocoa started acting strangely. I was sitting on the floor playing with him when he started pawing and sniffing at the right side of my chest. He had never done anything like this before, and I told him, “No.” Usually, one “no” is sufficient, but not that day. He stopped briefly, then suddenly ran toward me from the other side of the room, throwing his entire weight—eighteen pounds—at the right side of my chest. He crashed into me and I yelled in pain. It hurt more than I thought it would have.
Soon after this, I felt a lump (肿瘤). I went to the doctors, and after X-rays, tests and lab work were done, they told me I had cancer.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When cancer starts, a wall of calcium(钙) builds to which the lump or cancer attaches itself.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Was Cocoa just aware of what he was doing?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Being a single parent can be extremely difficult. I recently went through a rough time while raising my four daughters on my own. Things had not been going well for me ever since we decided to take care of ourselves. My financial situation was not great since I had four growing girls to feed on my own. As a result of that, my family car was left in bad shape. As it broke down from time to time, I only used the car when it was absolutely necessary to do so.
But one rainy night, we desperately needed groceries so the five of us went for a quick run to the store. Once we had loaded groceries to the car, it wouldn’t start no matter how I tried. I was helpless in the parking lot with my four daughters aged 9, 5, 2 and a 6-weeks old. To make matters worse, I was not able to call anyone because my phone was disconnected.
One of my girls had mistakenly left a light on, and my battery was dead. I had no family to speak to and was on my own. I must have asked more than twenty people for help during the two hours. They all ignored me. Not even a no. They just acted like I didn’t exist. My 5-year-old was melting down. My newborn screaming, my two-year-old crying she was hungry, and my oldest desperately trying to help. I was crying and felt like the worst mom ever
When everything seemed hopeless, an elderly man, most probably in his 70s, came over and gave me a plate of chicken strips, biscuits and some water. He asked me to feed my girls and myself. He also said that he arranged for a tow truck to come get my car and his wife was on the way to fetch us back home. The tow truck came, the old man’s wife arrived to fetch us and we were finally back home.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右：
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The next morning, the old man appeared at my front door along with a mechanic （修理工）.
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After the mechanic left, I tried to find the old man.
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【推荐1】The New Year’s Surprise
At the age of fifteen, I became crazy about the idea of recording an album (专辑) for our parents for New Year, 1988. My sister Lucy, age six, my brother Allen, age eight and I would sing some of our favorite songs of the era. As you can imagine, this was an unusual task.
Especially for a child in those days, and our plan was to be kept a secret from our parents I was proud that, as an elder sister, it was I that was behind the scenes and everything was under my control. My sister and I always took time out while washing the dishes, so we could practise the songs we had listed to record without being noticed. Meanwhile, I found a local recording studio, not too far from where we lived. I rang and asked the cost of making a recording. Hearing the price, I was relieved because I had enough money to pay for it. In the past few months, I had saved the money earned from helping my grandma in the school holidays with her typing and printing business. For fear of being found out, we could not practice at home, so I persuaded my Aunt to allow us to practise at her house.
Later, I arranged for Aunt Mae to take us secretly to the studio at the appointed time. When we arrived, we waved her goodbye, because she had other things to do and she would pick us up in one hour. Everything went smoothly. The moment we entered the building, our hearts sank. It was an old building and while we were climbing the creaking stairs, it seemed to start an adventure. Hand in hand, we carefully stepped into a dimly lit room where there was an upright piano and microphone in one corner. A heavy silence blanketed the nearly dark room. Suddenly, we saw a figure standing in the shadows, which made Lucy burst into tears. Later, with the lights on, we realized he was the staff in the studio. He was sorry about the darkness of the room.
注意:
1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
Paragraph 1:
However, Lucy didn’t recover from the shock and was too nervous to record her best voice.
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Paragraph 2:
New Year’s Day came and we knocked on the door of our parents’ bedroom in excitement.
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Another term had started and I had to attend the first lecture of the new course. The lecturer told us to make groups of two students for a project. I looked to the right and there was my classmate Jack sitting there. And I decided myself that he would be my group member. On the left side, there was an older woman who was from an open university. We talked about the project and decided to make a group of three. During the break, she told me that, last year, she didn’t manage to pass the course, so she would try again.
Later we got an email from our lecturer saying it was not allowed to make groups of three students. The old lady then tried to find some groups, but failed. I knew she wouldn’t find other groups, so I told her that we could do the project together. I had to say good bye to Jack.
After many meetings, we finished the project. In the last meeting, I told her I had difficulty in finding a summer job. I was living in a small town and there weren’t many jobs available and neither had I any previous experience. She advised me to keep doing it, as one would finally answer someday. She then thanked me for helping her and before leaving she said “see you”.
Two weeks later, I got an email from a company saying they had received my job application and decided to call me for a job interview. I appeared for the interview and answered the questions interviewers raised. In the end, they asked me where I had learned about the open job position. In fact, I had no idea so I told them I didn’t remember well. They called me three days later and told me I could start in May. That would be the first time I would be working as a software engineer and I couldn’t describe what I felt like.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One day, I arrived at work and I noticed one familiar car.
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She told me that she really understood me at that time.
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As a Texan, I’m not experienced in driving in snowy, icy road conditions. So, that snowy February morning I was unwilling to travel twenty-five miles to work, hoping to receive a text message from my school telling me that school would be closed for the day.
However, the text message never came. So I warmed up my car, melting (融化) the fresh layer of ice on the window, and then left for campus, slowly driving my car along city streets. To my relief, the road workers had treated streets with sand and salt, making them less dangerous. Nevertheless, I still drove carefully, keeping a safe distance between my car and the cars in front of me. Despite all my carefulness, I was still afraid of hitting another car because of the bad road conditions.
My heart raced and I told myself, “Relax. You will be fine.”But in a flash, the clouds disappeared and blinding snow came. My heart beat even faster. Within minutes, the blowing snow mixed together with the existing snow. Visibility was instantly reduced to near zero. Directional signs quickly were out of sight. The road itself disappeared, as did all the cars around me. I had no sense of direction, and no idea what I should do.
Suddenly, I hit a large piece of ice and my car began sliding. I was scared out of my mind. There were too many vehicles running slowly on the street. A sense of complete helplessness and fear enveloped me. I held the steering wheel (方向盘) harder, staring at my sweaty, trembling (颤抖的) hands, unsure what to do because I didn’t have the skills or experience to control myself out of the slide, let alone avoid crashing into other cars.
注意：1．续写词数应为150个左右;
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Just then, a truck appeared out of nowhere．
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I thanked the driver again, watching him disappearing in his damaged truck
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