I was confident at the audition (试演) for the school play and felt pleased to get a role. It just felt good to be in the play, even if I had only four or five lines. I worked hard at perfecting those lines. I repeated them over and over again. I put in the emphases and intonations (语调) that my drama teacher had suggested and, because I was on stage much longer than for just four or five lines, I had many actions to rehearse (排练) and perform. “Do them in front of a mirror,” my drama teacher had advised me. “Watch how you look; practice and rehearse as often as you can.” I did just that. I worked and worked at it. It was fun and exciting rehearsing.
Then finally the big night came. Suddenly, things felt different. The theater was full of people. As I dressed, I could hear the chatting and noises of the audience. I looked around at the other more experienced actors and saw that their previous confidence seemed to have disappeared. Had they got their makeup right? Was the costume done up correctly? What if they forgot their lines? The more people talked about their anxiety, the more nervous everyone became. The worries spread from person to another—like a baton (接力棒) being passed in a relay race—until the whole of the backstage area seemed to be full of tension and worry.
I was on stage early, at first performing my non-spoken role in the background with several other guys around the same age. When, suddenly, I heard my cue (出场提示), the lights were bright in my eyes, I couldn’t see the audience but knew there were hundreds of people out there all watching me. The words that had flowed so easily when I stood in front of a mirror didn’t want to come, and when they did I found myself hurrying into them. I tried to slow down my thoughts and my words.
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。
But I suddenly realized I had missed a sentence.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I bowed to the audience excitedly and went back to my drama teacher.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Grandpa Dixon’s last grandson passed away from a rare disease. With all of his relatives gone, the man grew lonely as he entered his late 80s. His house was big and empty, and he often thought about his lost family. His grandson had lived with him after his parents passed away, and the old man loved him dearly. Grandpa Dixon took care of him in his final days, and he struggled to overcome the loss when he was gone. He even gave up his woodworking hobby.
With no one left to care for, the elderly man started looking towards his community, and he slowly got to know his neighbors. His one neighbor, Sarah, was always pleasant, and he discovered they had much in common. She was a single mother with no other family left. She didn’t have much, and she made a bed for her little Cherise in an empty drawer every night. So, when Grandpa Dixon found out about this, he gave her his late grandson’s old crib (婴儿床) that he had made himself.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you! The woodwork is lovely, Grandpa Dixon. Where did you get it?” she asked when he showed up at her house with the crib.
He explained he had built it for his grandson before the boy was born. She gave him an impressed look, thanked him again, and the two carried the crib into her room. That night, baby Cherise slept very well, only waking up once. Sarah was so happy about the new crib that she showed it off to all her friends.
“My goodness, Sarah! Where did you find this?” they all wanted to know.
“Grandpa Dixon, the sweet man next door, showed up on my doorstep with it and said he had built it for his grandson. The poor man has no one left after his grandson passed away. I feel so bad for him. I wish there were something we could do.”
The story of Grandpa Dixon and his incredible crib spread through the community.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式作答。
Paragraph 1: Soon people showed up at his front door, asking whether he would build them a crib as well.
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Paragraph 2: After a while, he made it his late career out of the hobby.
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I remember that I was worn out when I got home that afternoon. I'd had to be at the theatre for the audition (试演) at nine that morning, and then I'd been waiting around for about three hours before the director finally saw me. I performed my song and almost at once he told me I could go home. “I am very sorry,”he said,“but your voice isn't quite right for the part.”It had been a similar story at all the auditions that I'd done over the past few weeks.
It had been my dream for years to be in a famous musical like The Sound of Music or Mamma Mia, so I'd taken lessons in singing and dancing, and had come to the city to try and get a part in a show. I'd been really pleased when I'd managed to set up no fewer than ten auditions, but so far all of them had gone the same way. As I arrived back that afternoon at the little apartment where I rented a room, I really wondered whether I should bother going to the eleventh the next morning. It was a show I'd have loved to be in — but really, what was the point? Someone I knew had told me about a job at a local coffee shop, and had said that if I called in for a quick chat at ten the next day, I'd almost certainly get the job. It meant missing the audition, but right now, it seemed like a much more sensible thing to do.
I always sing when I need to cheer myself up, and because there was no one else in the apartment, I slipped off my shoes, went and stood in front of the mirror and started singing.Quite quickly I found myself belting out (大声唱) one of my favourite songs, Bridge over Troubled Water. As I finished the song, I suddenly heard applause. I looked around the room thinking that my roommate had perhaps slipped in without me noticing — but there was nobody. Then I went over to the open window of the apartment, and saw an elderly woman standing on the far side of the pavement below, looking up at me.
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。
Paragraph 1:
She reached her arms up towards me with a great smile on her face.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
The next day I went to the eleventh audition.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Charm (魅力) of Schoolyard
In the charm of school life, where classrooms are seats of knowledge and the schoolyard becomes source of memory, there are a fund of stories mixed with humor, warmth, and teacher-student relationships.
Mr. Smith was a country teacher, but not an ordinary one; he was a storyteller, a mentor (人生导师) , and a friend to all his students. His classroom was a world of its own, full of colorful characters and brilliant ideas. One day, during the noon break, a student named Alice noticed a wandering kitten padding (潜行) through the familiar grounds where many schoolyard tales were born. Alice took her to Mr. Smith, who had magical Tricks for handling even the smallest things. With Mr. Smitt’s permission, Alice and her classmates built a shelter for the kitten in a corner of the campus.
The days turned into weeks, and the kitten grew under the tender care of Mr. Smith and his students. Once in a while, she became a temporary resident of the classroom, much to the delight of the whole class. They named her “Schoolyard”, a name that generalized the spirit of their school days.
As the year progressed, Schoolyard became not just a kitten, but a tie connecting each of them and a thread of continuity in their lives. She played on desks, slept in chairs, and hid in folders, thus becoming an unofficial mascot (吉祥物) of the classroom. The students found comfort in her presence, and Mr. Smith, joy in watching them grow through her company.
As graduation neared, Mr. Smith gathered his students for one last lesson. He told them that they would soon be exploring new horizons. He reminded them that life was full of unforeseeable twists and tums along with unexpected potentials, just like the appearance of a kitten in their schoolyard. At the moment, the students were greatly touched and deep down there arose a strong love for those memorable warmth and hearty laughter of their school days.
Thereafter, Mr. Smith and the students agreed to meet here once again in ten years.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式作答。
A decade later, Mr. Smith greeted his former students at the school gate.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Isn’t that our Schoolyard?” cried Alice, gazing at the classroom door.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Javon was the shortest kid in the class. It had been that way since the third grade. He’d had to ask to get his gym locker changed so that he didn’t have to struggle so much to reach it. For most kids, being short would be a problem, but Javon didn’t let being short bother him at all.
That was Javon’s attitude about most things except school work. And Javon had worked hard. By the middle of seventh grade, Javon was one of the top kids in the class. So, he hadn’t been too concerned when Mr. T announced they were starting a new unit in math. For Javon, math used to be easy. He figured that since he had ten fingers, he could do most of it. But when Mr. T threw letters into math problems, he couldn’t wrap his mind around using these letters. Mr. T had given them all sorts of rules for what to do when there were letters in math problems. But Javon couldn’t remember what they all were and he didn’t think he even understood the rules he did remember. Soon he was hopelessly lost in math class. Even worse, it was time for the class to take the chapter test.
The test was quite demanding. Javon was confused by the very first question. He was nervous and kept losing track of what he was doing. When the class period ended, he hadn’t finished all of the problems.
The day came when the class finally got their papers back. Seeing “D” written in red ink on the corner of the paper, he felt desperate. In the seat next to him, Tyler sighed slightly, catching Javon’s attention. He couldn’t help but see the big, red “C” on Tyler’s paper. He felt so upset.
When they started packing up to leave after class, Tyler accidentally told Javon he got extra time on the test. Upon hearing this, Javon burst out, “It was unfair!” He dropped his books, face hot.
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。
At this very moment, Mr. T came up to see what happened to them.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Eventually, Javon understood what a reading disorder was and how to ask for help.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________One year ago, when we were in the fifth grade, a new classmate named Jack joined us. He was often late for class and had a strange smell on him, which made the girls not want to be “neighbours” with him, let alone sit next to him. It is said that once, a naughty boy curiously opened his backpack and many crushed soda cans and empty drink bottles that we usually throw into the trash fell out. Therefore, the boys in our class mocked (嘲笑) him as the “trash king”.
Later, during a class meeting, our teacher, Ms. Zhang, told us about his story of using garbage to make inventions. It turns out that Jack is not an ordinary elementary school student, but a “garbage-inspired inventor” who has won the city invention award. According to Ms. Zhang, most of his inventions were picked up from garbage dumps (堆). During that class meeting, Jack showed us his invention of a“domestic wastewater separation system”.
Afterwards, some of us became deeply interested in these small inventions and started to admire Jack’s way of “picking up trash”. We even joined him in picking up trash on weekends and during holidays. From then on, we no longer called him the “trash king“. Instead, we formed a group of five boys and actively searched for usable materials in various garbage dumps around the city. Under Jack’s guidance, we learned that there are many uses for seemingly useless trash. Once, we stayed at school to process the collected materials. Jack mentioned that he was facing a problem with his latest invention—a small cart for buying vegetables that needed to be lightweight. All other materials were solved except for the wheels. How could we find a suitable material for the wheels? We racked our brains (绞尽脑汁) and came up with different ideas, such as using soda cans or taking off the wheels from suitcases. However, Jack reminded us that our group should focus on making inventions from waste rather than causing damage to create them. We were all deep in thought.
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 I got home and drank a bottle of water, I suddenly had an idea.
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Jack indeed adopted my suggestion and fixed a row of bottle caps as wheels on his vegetable cart.
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Digital Nomads (游牧人)
How would you like to answer your work emails from a beachfront café in Thailand or a coffee shop in Portugal? If that appeals to you, being a digital nomad might be for you. Digital nomads can literally work from anywhere as their jobs are online. Digital nomads rely on portable devices with wireless Internet capabilities such as laptops, tablets and smartphones. Typically, they work from coffee shops, restaurants, co-working spaces, apartments or internet cafés — places with an Internet connection.
Worldwide, statistics show the number of digital nomads hit 35 million in 2021. So what is it that makes the lifestyle of digital nomads so fascinating? First and foremost, digital nomads get to live in different countries and cultures while they work, providing them with opportunities to have adventures and experience new things. These folks have also found the most flexible means of online incomes, allowing them to head out at a moment’ notice and go where they please. “I’m free,” says Nimisha Walji, “I can go where the wind takes me and live any place I choose! If I feel like a change, I can pursue that in a matter of days, sometimes hours.”
You may think that being a digital nomad is all sunshine and rainbows. It is not necessarily so. Job finding is one of the hardest tasks for the digital nomad, given that they have no permanent home, no office address, and no one knows them. To apply for a job, they need to find the employer and persuade him to hire them. Most of the employers hire from their own city, and that’s why it’s so hard for a nomad to find a job. Access to stable Wi-Fi and adequate workspace can be difficult. If someone struggles to stay focused at home, there can’t be a worse place than a fascinating holiday location. Few people can manage to be productive faced with the temptations and distractions. It seems that living the life of a digital nomad isn’t for everyone.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Susie Smith came home from school one day, and had no sooner entered the sitting room than she burst into tears.
“What is the matter, my dear child?” said her mother, drawing her daughter to her side and smiling.
“All our class must bring in compositions tomorrow morning, and I never, never can write one. We must write twelve lines at least, and I have written only a few words after trying nearly all the afternoon. See what work I have made of it!” sobbed Susie.
Mrs. Smith took the rumpled (皱巴巴的) and tear-stained paper which Susie held in her hand, and glanced at what she had written. In a careful hand she had tried to write upon three themes: Time, Temperance, and Industry.
Time is short. We should all improve our time.
Temperance is a very useful thing.
We should all be industrious if we wish to do anything in the world.
These sentences were all she had written. Susie continued, “I can’t think of another word to say upon any of these subjects, and I know I shall have to go to school without a composition, for I won’t be so mean as to copy one from a book, or to ask you or papa to write one for me.”
“That is right, my dear,” said her mother. “You will be far happier with a poor composition, if it is all your own, than with a fine one written by somebody else. But cheer up. You have not begun right—you have been trying to write upon subjects that you know nothing about. Run into the garden and play. I will call you in half an hour.” “But my composition,” began Susie. “Don’t think about your composition while you are gone,” said Mrs. Smith, “but have as pleasant a time as you can.”
It seemed but a few minutes to Susie before she heard her mother’s voice calling her. She went into the house at once—her hands full of sweet flowers, and her cheeks rosy with exercise. “Now, Susie,” said her mother, “I want you to sit by the window with this nice sheet of paper and a pencil, and write something about what you can see.”
“But my composition, mother,” said Susie, “when shall I begin that?” “Never mind your composition, my dear. Do this to please me, and we will talk about that by and by.” replied Mrs. Smith.
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。
Susie thought her mother’s request was a strange one.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“A composition!” exclaimed Susie. “Is that a composition?”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My political career in the Student Union(SU)began by throwing frisbees (飞盘) on the campus lawn. I would throw a frisbee to someone I didn’t know and they would throw it to someone they didn’t know. Before long, we had built a community of people who met every day at lunch to throw frisbees.
Besides frisbees, the group decided to climb the mountain near our campus. When we reached the peak, it felt like we were at summer camp. We laughed, danced and told jokes.It was totally fun. While playing like little children in the cool mountain air, we all decided to do it again the following week. Our motto (座右铭) was “Bring a Friend” . We started out with a small group of hikers. But as the word spread, the number of participants increased.We made it a rule to climb the mountain every weekend. All of us were passionate about the fantastic experience, which we were looking forward to.
One day on campus, I decided to throw my frisbee to some strangers, run over and invite them to climb the mountain. Much to my surprise, a girl sitting in a wheelchair got hold of it. Her name was Grace. I asked her if she had ever been to the top of the mountain.She said she hadn’t. Holding the wheelchair tightly, she hung down her head in awkward silence. Then she told me that she had suffered from lung disease when she was young and depended on oxygen twenty-four hours a day. So, it was impossible for her to move without help. Fortunately, things got better.
With continuous efforts and treatment, she managed to live on her own with the assistance of the wheelchair: I told her that my friends and I would carry her if she were up for it. On hearing what I said, she refused without hesitation, adding that it would be a bother to carry her. But I tried my best to persuade her to come along with us by talking about the interesting experiences.
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。
Having thought for a while, Grace still refused my offer.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________On the downhilt path, Grace asked me why not run for the SU election.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When I woke up, I felt pains all over. A pool of sticky blood surrounded my head. I lay trapped in the bottom of n smooth-walled pit (坑) with an empty water bottle.
I thought of what had happened. I was climbing down the mountain as I was admiring the beautiful scenery. Accidentally. I stepped on a loose rock. Then I slipped, fell with the rock and got stuck somewhere below the top. It was getting dark in the pit. Only my mother knew where I’d gone. I promised to have lunch with her. Thinking of this. I took my phone out and dialed her number with shaking fingers. No service. The silence, which earlier I’d valued, was now horrible.
With a sharp pain in my head, I was terrified. I knew I’d fallen far, but I wasn’t sure where I was. I called 911 because I knew by the pain that my back was severely injured, if not broken. My ear was torn badly. There was still no service. I dug through my bag to assess my supplies and found a whistle and some wipes.
I put the whistle around my neck and blew, though I knew no one would hear me. It was 1:15 pm and I was miles from the town where I lived. I used the wipes to clean off as much blood as I could. I rested. Then I screamed, blew my whistle, and let myself think the unthinkable. What if they can’t find me? What if this is it?
I decided to get moving. I climbed through a small opening, but when I peered over the next edge, my heart sank: there was a 30-foot drop. There was no way down. I was trapped.
I knew with that extreme Arizona heat in the day and bitter desert cold at night, I wouldn’t last long. But I thought my mother was sure to call the police for help if she couldn’t get in touch with me. With a little hope, I prayed the police would send a helicopter (直升机) to my resecu.
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。
Around five hours later, a growing buzz (嗡嗡声) in the air broke the silence.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Though the pilot saw me, it was difficult for the team to get to me.
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