1 . It was 1939, and the Great Depression had made all our lives much harder. But we didn’t know how poor we were until our father sat my brother and me down on the couch in our living room to have a talk.
I will always remember the sad look in Father’s eyes as he stared down at his hands, rubbing them back and forth, while he searched for the words to tell us that our family wasn’t going to be celebrating Christmas this year.
A month later, on Christmas Eve, I lay awake in bed late into the night, trying to talk myself out of sneaking into our living room to see if Santa had come. I gathered my courage, then tiptoed down the hallway, hoping I would see the bright sparkling lights of our Christmas tree standing proudly in the corner of our living room, like it did every year.
Instead, I was greeted by my seventeen-year-old brother, Frank, who slept on our living room couch. “Hey, little one, what are you doing up?” he whispered.
I started to cry. “There’s no Christmas tree.”
There would be no presents, no singing, no Christmas dinner. It felt like we were the saddest family in the world. My disappointment overwhelmed me. I looked forward to Christmas each year. It wasn’t only the presents. It was that special feeling I got from seeing my family happy. We hadn’t been happy in such a long time.
On Christmas morning, the sun shone into our chilly bedroom, waking me up. “Maybe Santa came! Maybe he came!” I suddenly insisted. My eyes searched the living room, but there was no Christmas tree. I broke into uncontrollable tears.
I ran to Father in tears and threw my arms around him. “ We aren’t going to have Christmas this year.”
“Now, now, now, calm down. Go on in and see your mother. She will comfort you.” Dad slowly pushed the bedroom door open, leading me into the room.
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。
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something different in the bedroom.
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With my question answered, everything dawned on me.
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Christmas Day was coming. I was just a kid then, and my big sister told me there was no Santa Claus. I fled to my Grandma because she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told me the truth, Grandma was home, and I told her everything. She was ready for me."No Santa Claus!” She shouted. “Ridiculous! Don’t believe it.” That rumor has been going around for years,and it makes me mad, plain mad.
“Now, put on your coat, and let's go.”
“Go where, Grandma?” I asked. “Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. “Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's
I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people. competing to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, holding that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy and who to buy it for. I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker, who was a kid with bad breath and messy hair. He sat right behind me in Mrs Pollock’s grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess (休息) during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red one, which looked really warm, and he would like that.
“Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. " Yes,”
The nice lady smiled at me, put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.
注意：
1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.应使用5个以上短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4.续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1 ：
That evening Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper.
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Paragraph 2 ：
Grandma and I waited breathlessly for Bobby Decker’s front door to open and finally it
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My best friend's mother was a social worker in Detroit, Michigan. Because of that, my friend Victoria and I were introduced early to the world of volunteering.
We did plenty of charity(慈善) work. We always had a good time, and continued to volunteer whenever we had time, often even when we didn't. It became second nature. Hairstyles came and went, but Victoria and I found places to donate our time because that's how we were raised.
One particular morning we signed up for "Paint the Town",an organization in Detroit to help lowincome homeowners clean their houses. We were assigned(分配) a dilapidated(破烂的) house in one of the worst communities of the city. I was afraid as we got near to the front door, not knowing who we would find on the other side. We knocked three times quickly and stepped back, waiting to be let in.
When the door opened, my mouth did, too. Standing there was a little old lady with wisps(一束) of white hair and a purple apron(围裙) tied around her waist.
"Hello" she said, "I'm Amelia. Please come in and I will show you where to start."Her smile shone brightly. “I am just baking some cookies for you girls to eat.”
As she led us to the parts of her house that needed painting, my heart softened. Here was one of the scariest looking houses in the city, but behind its doors was a sweet old lady with a cane and a big smile.
Here we were coming to help her, and instead she was doing something for us—baking homemade cookies and serving us tea!
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。
There was no age barrier that day as we worked on Amelia's house.
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“Nonsense！” she criticized(批评).
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Lily was cleaning windows, and it was what she must do for her family's new Chinese restaurant. Everything had to be absolutely perfect: unique decorations, skillful employees, and delicious traditional food. Then customers would love the place, making the business a success.
Lily's family had just moved here from San Francisco, having bought a small restaurant, which was opened yesterday. She was new in the neighbor and had few friends. The first few days at her new school hadn't been easy, either. She found it hard to talk to people she didn't know and it seemed like the students hadn't even noticed her. She was eager for a friendship, though.
Lily shifted her vision to look outside the restaurant as a girl about her age, with abundant red hair, walked up the street. The girl paused to study the sign announcing their opening and then looked directly at Lily with a friendly smile. Lily smiled back shyly and lifted a hand, accidentally waving with the cleaning cloth. The girl smiled at her amusement and waved back happily.
Lily hesitated, not accustomed to starting friendship, but she felt courageous, so she opened the door. "Hello," she said, adding the first thing that entered her head, “do you like Chinese food?”
“I don't know, but I like to try new things," the girl remarked, and then she introduced herself as Gabriela.
Lily could not think of additional conversation until she had a sudden idea.
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The following day, Lily was doing her restaurant routine when she heard an unexpected knock.
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Whether we notice it or not, our child is a little reflection of ourselves. They grow up looking more and more like us. They even have similar personalities and hobbies. And in some cases, the standard of choosing a good friend.
One day, my 10-year-old Jane said, “Mom, I made a new friend at school today. Can she come over tomorrow?” Her words made me extremely happy because Jane was a shy girl and I wanted her to make some friends to bring her out of her shell.
“Sure, honey, that sounds great.” I said, thinking back to my own childhood best friend, Susan. We lived across the street from each other in Washington Heights, New York. We met at the age of 10, too. Like my daughter. I was shy and had trouble making friends. But Susan drew me out. She was one of the friendliest people in school, with shiny black hair and a mile-wide smile. Thanks to Susan. I was happy every day.
In senior high school, Susan went on a trip to Florida. This was the first time we had to be away from each other for a few days. “I’ll be back soon and I will write to you as soon as I arrive.” she told me. But I didn’t get her phone call nor receive any mail from her. Soon, my family moved to New Jersey, making my hope of seeing Susan impossible.
Whenever I thought of her, tears came into my eyes.
The next day Jane brought her new friend home. “Hi, Mrs. Smith.” the little girl said. Her hair was so shiny and black and she gave me a big smile. “My name is Jo. My mom will pick me up 2 hours later.”
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。
Paragraph1:
I was puzzled because my daughter’s new friend looked so familiar.
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Two hours passed really quickly, and there was a knock on the door.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Once there was a slave named Androcles, who was so badly treated by his master that he resolved to run away from him. He therefore secretly left his master’s house and hid himself in a forest, some miles distant from the city.
After wandering about for some time, he came to a large cave, and overcome by hunger and tiredness, he lay down in it, and soon fell fast asleep.
He was suddenly awakened by the roar of a wild beast; a great lion stood right at the mouth of the cave. There was no way he could escape!
Androcles expected nothing else than to be at once torn to pieces, but to his great surprise, the lion came gently towards him, without showing any signs of anger. It gave forth a low and mournful (悲哀的) sound, as if it were begging for his assistance. As the lion approached him, he noticed that one of its feet was swollen.
He then went up to the lion, took hold of the wounded paw (爪子) and examined it as a surgeon would examine a patient. He was not long in finding out the cause of the swelling, for he saw in the ball of the foot a very large thorn (刺). The slave pulled out the thorn, and pressed out of the wound a quantity of matter, which gave the lion immediate relief.
Then, the lion began to show his gratitude by every means in his power. He jumped about like a playful spaniel (西班牙猎犬), wagged his great tail, and licked the hands and feet of his physician. From that moment Androcles became his guest; the lion always shared his prey.
The slave continued to live like this for several months. At length, wandering carelessly through the woods, he was seized by a company of soldiers who were sent by the master to search for him.
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:
He was sentenced to be torn by a lion in the public arena (竞技场).___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
However, the lion didn’t act as most had imagined.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Once there was a ship travelling on the tough sea and on the ship there was a pair of couple. All of a sudden, the ship met with an accident and the couple had no choice but to run to the life boat without delay. After reaching there, they realized that there was space only for one person. At that very moment, the husband pushed his wife behind him and jumped onto the lifeboat himself, leaving his wife standing on the sinking ship, shouting something desperately to her husband eyes filled with tears.”
The teacher stopped her story-telling and asked her students, “Guys, guess what it was that she shouted.”
Most students answered. “I hate you!”
After listening to all this reply, the teacher glanced through the whole class again and noticed that there was a boy sitting silently throughout. Then she asked him the same question.
The boy answered, “I believe she would have shouted-Take care of our child.”
Listening to his remarks, the teacher was surprised and asked the boy doubtfully. “Have you heard of this story before?”
Shaking his head, the boy said softly and sadly, “No, I haven’t. But that’s what my mother said to my father before she died of a deadly disease.”
Moved and feeling sad, the teacher replied. “Your answer is absolutely right!”
Then she continued, “Let’s take up the story. The ship sank eventually and the husband went home and brought up their daughter alone. Many years later after the death of the man, their daughter was tidying up all his belongings when she found his diary. In his diary she found that when her parents were on the ship, her mother had already been diagnosed (诊断) with advanced illness and at the critical moment, the father rushed to the only chance of survival.”
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。
In his diary, the man mentioned he wished to sink to the ocean with his wife but for their daughter he had to live.
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________One fall,my wife Elli and I had a single goal:to photograph polar bears.We were staying at a research camp outside"the polar bear capital of the world”－the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada.
Taking pictures of polar bears is amazing but also dangerous.Polar bears-like all wild animals－should be photographed from a safe distance.When I'm face to face with a polar bear,I like it to be through a camera with a telephoto lens.But sometimes,that is easier said than done.This was one of those times.
As Elli and I cooked dinner,a young male polar bear who was playing in a nearby lake sniffed, and smelled our garlic bread.
The hungry bear followed his nose to our camp,which was surrounded by a high wire fence.He pulled and bit the wire.He stood on his back legs and pushed at the wooden fence posts.
Terrified,Elli and I tried all the bear defense actions we knew.We yelled at the bear,hit pots hard, and fired blank shotgun shells into the air Sometimes loud noises like these will scare bears off.Not this polar bear though-he just kept trying to tear down the fence with his massive paws(爪子）
I radioed the camp manager for help.He told me a helicopter was on its way,but it would be 30 minutes before it arrived.Making the best of this close encounter(相遇），I took some pictures or the bear.
Eilt and I feared the fence wouldn't last through 30 more minutes of the bear's punishment.The camp manager suggested I use pepper spray.The spray burns the bears' eyes,but doesn't hurt them. So I approached our uninvited guest slowly and.through the fence,sprayed him in the face.With an angry roar(吼叫），the bear ran to the lake to wash his eyes.
Para 1.A few minutes later,the bear headed back to our camp.
Para 2.At that very moment,the helicopter arrived.
Rescue in a Bottle
Curtis Whitson had rafted (v.乘筏) down the Arroyo Seco, a river in central California, several times before.
This year, Curtis Whitson knew the water-fall was coming. He figured he would get out of his raft into the shallow water, get down the rocks along ropes on either side of the falls, and continue on his way, as he had on a previous trip.
But this year was different. Heavy snow and spring rains had turned the usually manageable falls into something fierce. And this year, instead of his friends, Whitson’s companions were his girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, and his 13-year-old son, Hunter. As the three of them approached the falls late in the afternoon of the third day of their camping trip, Whitson could tell from the increasing roar of water in the narrowing canyon(峡谷) that they were in serious trouble. There was no way they’d be able to get down the rocks as planned.
“The water was just roaring through there with tremendous force,” recalls Whitson, 45.
They had no smart phone service, and they hadn’t seen a single person in the past three days. And Whitson knew that they’d be sharing the ground there with rattlesnakes and mountain lions.
As he was thinking what to do, Whitson hit on a bit of luck---he heard voices coming from the other side of the falls. He yelled, but the sound of the rushing water drowned him out.
“We have to get these people a message,” Whitson thought.
He grabbed a stick and pulled out his pocketknife to carve “Help” in it. Then he tied a rope to it so the people would know it wasn’t just any stick. He tried throwing it over the falls, but it floated away in the wrong direction.
“We’ve got to do something!” Whitson yelled to his son. “Have we got anything else?”
Then he spotted his water bottle. Whitson grabbed it and carved “Help!”on it. Ramirez also reminded him that he had a pen and paper in his backpack.
Whitson knew it was a slim hope. But he wrote “6-15 19:00 We are stuck here@ the waterfall. Get help please” and pushed the note into the bottle. This time, his throw over the waterfall was perfect.
“All right, that’s all we can do,” Whitson told Hunter.
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，每段开头语已为你写好；
Paragraph 1:
It took 30 minutes to get back upstream to the beach where they’d had lunch.
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Paragraph 2:
The next morning, the helicopter returned.
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The Meredith family lived in a small community. As the economy was in decline, some people in the town had lost their jobs. Many of their families were struggling to make ends meet. People were trying to help each other meet the challenges.
Mrs. Meredith was a most kind and thoughtful woman. She spent a great deal of time visiting the poor. She knew they had problems, and they needed all kinds of help. When she had time, she would bring food and medicine to them.
One morning she told her children about a family she had visited the day before. There was a man sick in bed, his wife, who took care of him and could not go out to work, and their little boy. The little boy -his name was Bernard-had interested her very much.
“I wish you could see him,” she said to her own children, John, Harry, and Clara. “He is such a help to his mother. He wants very much to earn some money, but I don't see what he can do.”
After their mother left the room, the children sat thinking about Bernard. “I wish we could help him to earn money,” said Clara. “His family is suffering so much.”
“So do I,” said Harry. “We really should do something to assist them.”
For some moments, John said nothing, but, suddenly, he sprang to his feet and cried, “I have a great idea! I have a solution that we can all help accomplish(完成).”
The other children also jumped up all attention. When John had an idea, it was sure to be a good one. “I tell you what we can do,” said John. “You know that big box of corn Uncle John sent us? Well, we can make popcorn(爆米花), and put it into paper bags, and Bernard can take it around to the houses and sell it.”
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 Mrs. Meredith heard of John's idea, she thought it was a good one, too.
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With everything ready, Bernard started out on his new business.
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