“She needs me.” Those were the exact words I spoke to my husband when I spotted Dottie, a little dog we found at a local shelter eight years ago.
Dottie leaned (倾斜) away when I tried to pet her and refused to let me hold her. While the other dogs jumped and barked, Dottie returned to the back of the cage, curled up in a ball, hoping us to leave her alone.
On the entire drive home, Dottie was in fear. So, upon arrival at our house, we got right to work. I held her as much as possible, touching her head and softly singing in her ear. We learned that she loved belly touch, so every time we passed by, we would offer a gentle touch. Eventually, we noticed her presenting her belly as we walked by her. I knew we were making real progress when I found her quietly sleeping on a chair one day, her head resting on one of my shoes. My heart melted (融化) as I realized she had brought it there because it contained my smell, and she wanted it nearby.
Ever so slowly, our little dog came to life. She began to play with toys, enjoy walks, and rest on our laps. There was no special treatment, no fancy food or toys. All we did was love her. And she grew well. She was so broken when we first met her that we had no idea what her true personality would be. But now we found a sweet, playful, loving soul.
One day, a few years after her adoption, I was busy doing housework around the house, doing laundry and climbing the stairs from the basement up to the main floor. When I finished, I sat down and enjoyed a well-deserved break. That’s when I realized I hadn’t seen Dottie for a while. I called to her and began searching. My heart raced and my pace quickened as I began checking under beds and behind sofa.
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。
Suddenly, I remembered the door to the basement.
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I held her in my arms tightly, telling her how sorry I was.
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I was eating breakfast at home in Hampshire in March this year, scrolling through social media on my phone, when a story caught my eye. It was about a nine-year-old dog, Charlie, dubbed (称为) the loneliest in Britain. He had been in a rescue centre in Somerset for more than 500 days.
For some reason, nobody wanted to adopt him. I clicked on the link and straight away these huge, sad eyes stared back at me. I was emotional. I turned to my husband, Sam, and said: "We’ve got to have him.” He read the article over my shoulder and felt exactly the same way. We wanted to give Charlie a happy home and a new lease of life.
Over the past few years we have tried to adopt a few different dogs, but we haven’ had any luck — we were never top of the list. Sam and I got used to filling in forms and not hearing anything. We’d almost given up hope.
But Charlie is an older dog and we felt we’d be suited — even older dogs have a lot of love left to offer. So we took our time with the application, sent photographs of our house and garden. We explained why Charlie would be happy with us, and then forgot all about it.
A few days later we received an email from Brent Knoll animal centre, saying we’d been shortlisted. We were thrilled. They asked us to visit Charlie to be interviewed and to see if he liked us.
When we arrived we were taken to the staff room. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been told much about Charlie’s circumstances, but as he had been given up for adoption and hadn’t been placed with a new owner for so long, we thought there might be issues. But the dog that bounded (蹦跳) in was full of joy and charisma.
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。
He came straight over to us.
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We feel proud that we’ve given Charlie a new home and a second chance.
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The year 2013 marked a turning point in my life. In June, my husband was offered a new Job in Ghana. Feeling that I had hit a career bottleneck as a photographer and copywriter (广告文字撰写人), I, without any hesitation, made the decision to relocate with him.
While my husband engaged in work, my visa didn’t grant me the same privilege. But that’s okay. I didn’t know what to do anyway. I was left isolated, homesick and lacking purpose. Our new home was a bungalow near a river that cut across expansive grasslands. With few people around our home, I turned to nature, which had been a fondness of mine since childhood. Every day, I would take my camera and wander around, photographing aimlessly.
It wasn’t long before September arrived, bringing the full flow of the rainy season. After one particularly bad thunderstorm, I found a finch (雀) — a poor little thing barely a month old with one wing broken — on the ground. Evidently, he had been abandoned by his flock, his nest blown from a tree. The sight was heartbreaking. He was the size of my lite finger. His eyes were tightly shut and he was shuddering, too young to survive alone. I somehow felt a connection with it. Immediately I scooped him up and cautiously placed him in a cardboard box with towels, mimicking a nest, and stayed up all night researching how to care for him.
The next day, he seemed to regain some energy. He woke with his mouth open, though still too weak to let out a call. I fed him some food and chirped (叽喳) at him. To my amusement, he chirped back and even climbed into my hand. I affectionately gazed at this adorable creature, who was now boldly pecking (啄) my fingers now and then. A surge of warmth ran through me. Tenderly stroking his feathers, I chirped a lullaby, singing him to sleep. Gradually, his eyes drooped and he drifted off. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene — as far as he was concerned, I was his mother.
Para 1. “I will take care of you.” I murmured, making my promise to him.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Para 2. At that moment I realized that as I dedicated myself to the finch’s care, something within me changed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Last week, I went back to my hometown, which used to be a beautiful place, with green trees all over the mountains and a small river winding through the whole countryside in mind. I couldn’t wait to see my hometown, which I had always been dreaming of. The mountains, the trees, the river and the people there have always been in my mind these years.
While I was on the way to my hometown, I looked out of the bus window to enjoy the beautiful scenery at the same time. My hometown came nearer and nearer. However, I couldn’t believe something strange came into my eyes: all the trees along the road were gone and lots of sand was blowing in the wind! I wondered if I had taken a wrong bus. In fact, I hadn’t.
The bus finally arrived. I quickly got off, looking around the place I used to live in. Everything had changed！Trees were gone, leaving the bare mountains and a dry river. Seeing this, I couldn’t help bursting into tears. I rushed onto a mountain, trying to find a single tree there, but I failed. There was nothing but sand. I stood still, lost in thought. In the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. I was just wondering why people cut down all the trees and the river dried up.
It was not until the next day that I had a chance to talk with my grandfather, who had lived there for over eighty years. I expressed my puzzlement to him directly. “Well,” he said in a sad voice, “nobody here wants to cut down trees and make the river dry up, if possible. But all of us have no choice！” My grandfather continued, getting a little excited. “As the population grows larger and larger, people needed more food to feed themselves. They had to cut down the trees to make room for growing rice to make a living. Besides, people had to channel water into the fields. Day by day, trees were gone and the river dried up.”
Paragraph 1：
After I came back from my hometown, it took me a long time to calm down.
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Nowadays, science and technology is developing rapidly.
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I still remember the sunshine that came in from the floor-to-ceiling windows of Pudong Airport on the morning of the 29th. It was brilliant and brilliant. The anxiety and excitement of careful thought were not obliterated（抹杀）by the three-hour rumbling sound, so that he almost lost his pass when he passed the customs.
The first thing I saw was the red double-decker airport bus, quietly nestling in the same bright sunshine in Hong Kong. The bus passed a bridge, followed by a green area, and then a bridge. On the sea were various cargo ships, unconsciously matching each other with colorful containers to create the colors of Hong Kong. The clouds are like cotton candy just out of the oven, densely crowded in the sky not too far away.
I started walking around on the first day. After packing my luggage at the hotel, I went to a small well-known "Yishun Milk Company" near Jordan. I ordered double skin milk and a portion of something else. I don’t remember the taste. I just remember that the uncles and aunts over there are very friendly. I sat under the air-conditioning blower silly to eat, and the uncle greeted me to change my seat and told me to be careful of catching a cold. It's really easy to have a good impression of a city. One sentence makes the mood as crystal clear as the weather in October.
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Then I went to the most prosperous area in Yau Ma Tei.
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Paragraph 2：
Suddenly, it rained heavily in the sky.
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