It was exam time at Marc’s school. Every day, their teachers gave them loads of homework and told them the test was very important and that they ought to spare no effort to perform well in it. Everyone followed the teachers’ instructions and made preparations for it, except Marc. He just turned a deaf ear to it. He thought he would rather play football than study.
His mum and dad repeated the importance of revision for exams over and over again. They told him that he should be working hard preparing for the test. But the weather was sunny and he thought he had better things to do.
“Shall we go to the park?” he said to his friend Huck one afternoon. “It’s a nice day. We could play football and kick around.” Huck shook his head. “I’m supposed to review my lessons,” he said. “I’m going home to do some math.”
Marc was amazed. “You’d rather do math than play football?”
“Math is important. Besides, my mum says she will buy me a mountain bike if I do well in the math exam.”
“That’s crazy,” said Marc. Huck shrugged (耸肩) and replied, “Wait until I beat you in the test and you will watch me riding past on my mountain bike!”
“You won’t beat me,” said Marc.
“Oh yes, I will.”
“Oh no, you won’t! That will never happen. Just wait and see!”
For the first time ever, Marc wanted to perform well. He couldn’t bear it if his friend came top and he did badly. So when he got home, he opened his math book. But there was so much to do. All of a sudden, he felt like he’d forgotten everything he had learned that year! He didn’t know where to start. When his sister Lily came in, he was sitting expressionlessly by the desk, just staring out of the window.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式作答。
“You don’t look happy, Marc. What’s wrong?” she said.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________On the day of the exam, Marc went to school with great confidence.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Keeping up seemed so important when I was a teenager. Back in 1973, if you weren’t wearing Penn Loafers (乐福鞋) you’d just as soon go around in your bare feet. There was only one problem that year, I had bought Oxfords—but Penny Loafers were in.
“I need some money for Penny Loafers.” I told my dad one afternoon at the place where he worked as a car mechanic.
Dad looked at me for a full minute before he answered, “Wear those shoes one more day. Look at every pair of shoes you see at school. If you can tell me that you are worse off than the other kids, I’ll buy new shoes for you.”
The next day, I did what Dad said. I saw many schoolmates wore torn shoes of the likes I’d never had to wear, and shoes with holes in them, but I had no intention of telling him the results.
When school was out, I rushed to the place where Dad worked. It was quiet. Only an occasional clank (叮当声) of metal could be heard as Dad worked under a car. Then dad’s shoes came into my sight. They were old and black, the kind mechanics and service-station attendants wore. I saw the mended soles (鞋底) and the spliced laces (拼接的鞋带) .
“You do what I told you today?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what do you want to do?” He looked as though he might know what my answer would be.
“I still want the Penny Loafers.” I forced myself not to look at his shoes.
Dad handed me ten dollars. I took the money and went to the store two blocks down the street. A rack (货架) on a far wall appeared as if it had a million pairs of black Penny Loafers resting on it. On a rack next to it was a sign that reads “CLEARANCE 50% OFF”.Below the sign sat several “young” versions ofDad’s shoes.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为 150 词左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
My mind was playing Pingpong
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I ran back to the shop and put Dad’s new shoes on the seat in his car.
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