A boy named Raj was upset because he had done poorly in his English test. His grandmother came and ________ him. His grandmother sat beside him and gave him a pencil. Raj looked at his grandma and said he didn’t deserve (配得上) a pencil after his ________ in the test.

His grandma explained, “You can learn many things from this pencil because it is just like you. It experiences a ________ sharpening (削尖), and you have experienced the pain of not doing well on your test. However, just as all the good that comes from the pencil itself, you will also find the ________ to overcome this difficulty. And finally, just as this pencil will make its mark on any surface, you too shall leave your mark on anything you choose to.”

After hearing this, Raj promised ________ that he would do better.

Dream culture is an important part of ancient Chinese culture, and there are many stories about dreams in China.

Zhuangzhou dreamt of butterfly

In ancient China, there was a man named Zhuangzhou. One day, he dreamt of himself becoming a butterfly. When he woke up, he asked a question: Was I dreaming of myself becoming a butterfly, or was a butterfly dreaming of itself becoming me?

Golden millet (谷子) dream

The story is about a poor, unhappy scholar who fell asleep while waiting for his lunch. He dreamed he became an officer and enjoyed a life of wealth and comfort. But when he woke up he found that the pot of millet was still cooking for him on the fire.

Jiang Yan dreamed about his writing brush

Jiang Yan was an officer from the Southern Dynasty. One night when he fell asleep, he dreamed of Guo Pu, a famous writer in the Jin Dynasty. Guo said that he once gave Jiang a colorful writing brush, and Jiang had to give it back. After returning the brush, Jiang’s creative power soon disappeared.

Ancient Chinese people thought that dreams could suggest good and bad things. The book Duke of Zhou Interprets Dreams was usually used to explain dreams.

Duke of Zhou was a famous politician (政治家) in the Western Zhou Dynasty and made the Western Zhou Dynasty peaceful and rich. Confucius praised him highly for his political achievements. As the most respectful person in his mind, Duke of Zhou often appeared in Confucius’s dreams.

It was a hot sunny summer day. A tired man was walking through a desert with no more water. He felt     61     and thought he would certainly die. Suddenly, he saw a small house and decided to walk     62     to have a look. The house was abandoned (废弃的), but had a hand pump (泵) inside.

“What a blessing!” the man thought. However his     63     soon came down when he saw no water coming out of it. As he was about to     64    , he noticed a bottle of water in the corner of the room. There was a niece of paper under that bottle. It said, “Use the water to start the pump. Don’t forget     65     this bottle.”

What should he do? He could simply drink that bottle of water and save his life. In that case, he couldn’t carry along any water on his way     66    . Also, no one else would turn up there to get a     67     to save his life. But if he follow the instructions and that didn’t work, he would simply die.

He closed his eyas and picked the     68     choice finally. In any case, he had to take a risk. To his great     69    , cool clear water came out of the pump. He drank it like a thirsty cow, refilled the bottle and put it back in the corner. Moreover, he     70     some words on the paper, “Believe me, it works.” with a smile on his face.

Cotton or plastic: which kind of bag is better for the environment? Many of us would naturally say that the cotton bag is best, but that might only be true if you use that bag thousands of times.     71    

There is no doubt that plastic is harmful for the environment in many ways.     72     Thrown-away plastic can sit and stay for centuries, or can pollute the sea causing harm to wildlife and breaking down into polluting microplastics.

Because of these factors (因素), many people are looking for ways to reduce their plastic use. However, it’s not as easy as they think.     73     It’s certainly more biodegradable (可降解) than plastic, but this might be only advantage. The production of cotton requires far more energy, water and so on. As the bags are heavier, transporting them will lead to higher carbon emissions (碳排放). An article from Columbia University suggests that cotton shopping bags need to be used over 7, 000 times before they are more valuable than plastic ones.

    74     Lightweight plastic in cars and planes help reduce oil use and emissions. If we didn’t use so much plastic in clothing and footwear, we need plenty of land, water and other things for enough natural products.

The fact that plastic lasts for centuries is what causes much of the environmental harm, but it also means it can be used to make things that can be re-used again and again.     75     Plastic can cause serious harm to the environment, and efforts to throw less of it away can reduce this. Re-using it more could be one way to achieve this.

81. 假如你是李欣，你校English club将在毕业之际举行主题为“Thank you, my…”的英语交流分享，请根据以下图示及要点，用英语写一篇讲稿。

I’m Li Xin. Today, I want to say “Thank you” to my

Thanks for your listening!