It was a beautiful day with a clear, blue sky and a soft wind. Everything was quiet and the book in my hands was lovely until I felt my chair ________. I noticed the little round table moving. At that moment, I thought to myself, “It is an earthquake.” I was ________ as I ran to tell my parents. But when I reached them, the earthquake stopped.

Nothing happened in the next few hours. My family and I were not ________ and our house was still standing. We watched the news about the ________. The epicenter (震中) was very close to Hualien. We felt very ________ to be far away from it. After we watched the situation in Hualien on TV, I decided to volunteer to help those people right away.

I arrived in Hualien county with a few other volunteers. We tried to ________ the people there. After hours of ________, we found a few people who were lucky to be alive. We ________ sent for doctors to make sure that they were all right. When they met their families, they cried for _________. That made me happy. However, not everyone had a happy ending. We also found ________ of those not making it through the earthquake. And I felt terrible when I saw the tears of the people crying for those dead people.

Last Sunday, Mark’s grandma invited him to her pottery studio (陶器工作室). He was excited, because Grandma didn’t give her other grandsons such an invitation.

As soon as Mark stepped into the studio, he began to look forward to putting his hands into some wet clay (粘土) and placing his bowl into the hot kiln (窑). “Be careful with that,” Grandma said as Mark picked up one of her bowls. The boy carefully put the bowl back on the table. Then Grandma showed him some of her bowls and asked him to make one himself. Mark started happily.

However, five hours later, Mark was sad. His first bowl, a blue one, looked more like a rock. His second bowl, a red one, was hardly any better. “I’ll never make it!” Mark said angrily, looking at his work.

Hearing this, Grandma stopped what she was doing and went to Mark. After seeing what he had made, she said, “Don’t worry. You just need to be more patient.” She sat next to Mark and helped him with his work. About one and a half hours later, they finished making a beautiful yellow bowl together.

Mark was happy when he looked at his work. “Thanks,” he said to Grandma. Grandma looked at him and smiled. “You’re great. Remember not to give up easily no matter what you do in the future,” she said. Mark said he would follow Grandma’s words.

At the end of year 2022, the Singaporean government announced that all drinks sold locally must use nutritional grade labels (营养等级标签) A, B, C, or D on their packaging, marking the percentage of sugar and saturated fat (饱和脂肪) in the drinks. So recently several Singaporean drink companies have already started to put these labels on every drink. In March, 2024 Shanghai, China did the same. The labels are from A to D. The more sugar and saturated fat a drink has, the less healthy the drink is.

Almost everyone today has a smartphone. However, many people cannot get rid of (脱离) smartphones because phones have become part of daily life.

As the addiction (瘾) to the smartphone has become a serious problem, it brings many results in life. Most phone users look down at their phones for a long time. When hunching (弯) or bending their neck, they put serious pressure on the neck and backbone. And this will cause a sore back or a neck ache. According to studies, as high as 45% of the young people from age 16 to 24 these days suffer back pain because of the heavy usage of smartphones. Also, trying to focus on and look at the screen of the phone for a long time will discomfort eyes and may cause loss of vision (视力). Besides, if someone brings the phone to sleep with, he or she will spend more time on the phone than sleep without noticing it. It’s true that phones make life more convenient, but that doesn’t mean they can take control of life.

To get rid of phones, you can create a phone-free time. For example, turn off your phone or stop it from the Internet after 8:00 p.m. At that time, you can spend time on anything but phone so that you won’t check on your phone. Just like smoking, phone addiction is habitual. You must replace the habit with another if you want to stop it. So find a few things to do whenever you are not using your phone, such as reading a book or exercising.

Of course, it’s not easy to get rid of a habit and the beginning is the most challenging. That’s why having a strong mind really makes a big difference. Remember, do not let your phone become your ______. Instead, improve your self-control and put smartphones into good use.

A．

B．

C．

D．

Scientists have created an underwater robot that can tell different kinds of pollution at the bottom of the sea. The robot will help clean-up teams find the rubbish and give them a chance to remove the things that can cause the most harm to the environment.

The robot, which weighs nearly 100 pounds and uses special cameras to take 3D pictures, was created by a team at Skarv Technologies.

The researchers put their work to the test at a lake. First, the robot swam up and down in rows at about six feet above the lake bed, collecting information with the special cameras. Then a computer turned the information into a map, which showed different kinds of rubbish in different colors.

A total of 3, 894 objects were found in the lake and divided into different kinds. “There’s too much rubbish,” a member of the Skarv Technologies team, Fossum, told New Scientist. “There’s somewhere around 165 to 300 tons of rubbish in the lake.”

It is not always possible for clean-up teams to remove all the rubbish they find underwater, because there is something more important to clean. The robot will be used to help the teams find the most harmful things. And the teams spend their time, efforts and money in removing them first. “Glass isn’t really polluting,” said Fossum. “So if you know there’s an area with a lot of glass, you probably can ignore (忽视) that. Instead, you should pay more attention to the things that are putting heavy metals (金属) into the environment.”

Besides helping to check the pollution, the robot can also tell the positions of animals in the sea. It can avoid hurting the animals while the clean-up teams remove the rubbish.

I lost my smart watch on a school trip. My parents were mad     41     me and told me they wouldn’t buy me a new one. I thought I could get one by     42     (I). I started thinking of ways to make and save money.

My parents usually gave me 25 yuan every week, so the     43     (one) thing I did was to keep the money in a small box. My uncle was often away on business. I     44     (walk) his dog at that time. After some time, my uncle’s neighbors asked me     45     I could help with their cats, dogs and rabbits, too. So, I started working for three     46     (family).

In about three months I had enough money to buy     47     new smart watch. It was the same as the one I had lost, but to me it was much     48     (nice). I paid for it with my own money and it felt very different.

Through the experience I have learned not only what it     49     (mean) to work hard, but also I must be     50     (care) with the things I have, because they take a lot of hard work.

56. 英语课上，老师让同学们分享一下独自在家的经历。请你根据以下表格里的提示，写一篇英语短文，讲述你第一次独自在家的经历。

I’d like to share my first experience of being home alone now. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________