Jenny was the only child in her family. She had a quarrel (吵架) with her mother that afternoon and she ran out of the house angrily. She couldn’t help weeping sorrowfully when she thought of the scolding from her mother. Having wandered aimlessly in the street for hours, she felt a little hungry and wished for something to eat. She stood beside a stand (货摊) for a while, watching the middle-aged seller busy doing his business. However, with no money in hand, she gave a sigh and had to leave.
The seller behind the stand noticed the young girl and asked, “Hey, girl, you want to have the noodles?”
“Oh, yes, but I don’t have money on me.” she replied.
“That’s nothing. I’ll treat you today,” said the man, “Come in.”
The seller brought her a bowl of noodles, whose smell was so attractive. As she was eating, Jenny cried silently.
“What is it?” asked the man kindly.
“Nothing. Actually, I was just touched by your kindness!” said Jenny as she wiped her tears. “Even a stranger on the street will give me a bowl of noodles, while my mother drove me out of the house. She showed no care for me. She is so merciless compared to a stranger!”
Hearing the words, the seller smiled, “Girl, do you really think so? I only gave you a bowl of noodles and you thanked me a lot. But it is your mother who has raised you since you were a baby. Can you remember the times she cooked for you? Have you expressed your gratitude to her?”
Jenny sat there, speechless and numb with shock: she remembered her mother’s familiar face and weathered hands. “Why didn’t I think of that? A bowl of noodles from a stranger made me feel grateful. Why haven’t I thanked my mum for what she has done for me?”
On the way home. Jenny made up her mind to make an apology to her mother for her rudeness as soon as she arrived home.
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。
Nearing the doorway, Jenny took a deep breath.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________At that time, her mother came back and touched her hair gently, which called her mind back.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When I was in middle school, my family moved to Seattle, where my parents started their new business — a small grocery store downstairs my house. As a girl of shy and reserved nature, I had to take a fresh start to fit into the sophisticated city life.
One sunny day, my school announced an exciting event, a talent show for the local food bank. Students were encouraged to showcase their unique talents in front of the public in the city hall on National Day. A buzz of excitement fed the school as everyone began preparing for the big day. Deep down, I felt a spark of curiosity and a desire to participate. However, my self-doubt held me back, “I don’t have any special skills to share.”
Days turned into weeks, and the talent show drew closer. I couldn’t shake the upsetting feeling until one day, Emma, one of the most popular girls in my class, came to me while I was helping in the grocery store after class. “How about singing together in the talent show?” She grinned, “I heard you singing a tune, along the way back home. I can’t help following you here.” Gosh, I couldn’t believe my ears. Emma, with personality and popularity, acknowledged my little talent. Since Emma had the world’s prettiest voice, I felt like being favoured by fortune.
“You two? The talent show for the food bank?” My mum bent towards us and her face lit up. “A big occasion.” Then a light bulb seemed to go in her head. “Why not practise right now upstairs? I bet you’ll be a perfect match.” Winking at us, she seemed to know we were thinking alike.
Emma and I embarked on rehearsing almost every single day after school. We brainstormed, exchanged ideas and rehearsed the scene. As the days rolled by, I was feeling pretty good about our act. But the day before the performance, Emma called that she had an acute stomachache and was not in any shape to perform.
注意：1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
I was completely knocked out by the news.
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Finally came the big moment.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________An Unforgivable Mistake
A few years ago, the company I work for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I’ve always loved jogging, so I was really happy when I found the apartment they had rented for us was next to Central Park. This meant that every morning I could go for a run before I went to work.
Because a lot of people had told me to be careful of muggers (行凶抢劫者) in the park, I didn’t usually take anything with me. How could they rob me if I didn’t have anything? But one morning my wife asked me to buy some bread on the way home, so I put a $10 bill in my back pocket.
It was a beautiful morning and the park was quiet with very few people walking or jogging around. While I was running, another jogger bumped (撞) into me. He apologized and continued running. For a while, I didn’t think too much of it. However, when I noticed the wide path where I was running, I thought it was kind of strange. The warning of muggers in the park occurred to me. It could have been a mugger! I suddenly became alarmed, so I checked my pocket. The money was missing! I immediately started to run after the jogger. I finally caught up with and grabbed him firmly by the arm. I started shouting and demanding that he give me the $10 bill. I’m not usually a hot-headed person, but I really lost my temper at that moment. I couldn’t believe the robbery was actually happening to me. Filled with anger, I shook my fist at him. This seemed to frighten him. He quickly put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money. Then he ran away as fast as he could.
I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my wife the story. “You won’t believe what happened to me,” I started with pride. She immediately interrupted (插话), “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”
注意：续写词数应为150左右。Paragraph 1:
Looking at the money on the table, I stood there, shocked.
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For several days, I waited at the same place.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. What is the talk mainly about?
| A．How to improve self-confidence. |
| B．How to write a good speech. |
| C．How to get high grades. |
| A．His classmate. | B．His teacher. | C．A drama actor. |
| A．Sales. | B．Education. | C．Drama. |
| A．Facing mistakes bravely. |
| B．Taking part in the school play. |
| C．Talking with the head teacher. |
5 . A Swiss radio station recently, carried out a social experiment on air, testing robot-created voices and content. The 13-hour experiment took place at the French language. station Couleur3. During the period, listeners heard the cloned voices of five human presenters. The station s programming also included music created by artificial intelligence ( AI) methods. The programming informed listeners about the experiment every 20 minutes. “AI is taking your favorite radio by storm,” a voice said. “Our voice clones and AI are here to unsettle, surprise and shake you. And for that matter, this text was also written by a robot.”
Recent AI developments have led to the creation of a series of tools that permit robots to lead different human activities. These tools belong to a group of systems known as “generative AI”. The tools use machine learning methods to train AI systems on huge amounts of data to produce human-quality results. One of the most highly publicized “generative AI” tools received wide attention by showing the ability to quickly produce written answers to questions at a level and quality similar to humans. However, the development of “generative AI” systems has led to some criticism of the technology. Critics have alerted people to the dangers of such systems. They say if used incorrectly, the systems can have economic, cultural and social harms.
The Swiss station’s chief, Antoine Multone, defended the project as a lesson on how to live with AI. Antoine said if we became ostriches(鸵鸟), we would put our heads in the sand, blindly worrying about the new technology. He thought when AI was coming, we should study the technology, so we could then properly put limits on it. He added that about90 percent of the listener reactions suggested the experiment was a good idea. But many said they found the human element missing and noted, “You can sense these are robots, and there are fewer surprises, less personality
1. Why was the experiment conducted at Couleur 3?| A．To test the texts the robot writes. |
| B．To test the vocal sounds the robot creates. |
| C．To test the capabilities of the human presenters. |
| D．To test the audience’s abilities of composing music. |
| A．Warned. | B．committed | C．Devoted | D．Applied. |
| A．Limit and prevent its progress |
| B．Take human elements out of it. |
| C．Take advantage of it without defense. |
| D．Research and make use of it sensibly. |
| A．Putting AI Voices on Radio. |
| B．Replacing Announcers with Robots |
| C．New. Technologies Changing Our Lives |
| D．Language barriers in the Development of AI |
6 . More often than not, people look at the phone screen to check for new messages or have a quick look a Meta. Researchers have now found why we often feel such a strong need to look at our phones. Using the mobile phone, according to them, is contagious (有传染性的).
The team said people were twice more likely to pull out their phones to check their text messages or e-mails if they were with someone who had just done the same. They also found that women were more likely to use their mobile phones than men. The team watched students in dining halls and coffee shops around the college, observing pairs of college students sitting at the tables for as long as 20 minutes and recording their cellphone use. “What we found most interesting was just how often people were using their mobile phones.” said Dr. Daniel Kruger, the study’s co-author. “Every person we studied used his or her phone at least once,while one woman was on hers about half of the time. People saw others checking their incoming messages and began to check their own.”
“Cellphones create another choice for one’s attention and may both support and disagree with live social activities,” the researchers wrote. Kruger believed this could be explained by the effects of social inclusion and exclusion. If one person in a pair starts a conversation through his phone, the other one may feel excluded and then feel the need to get in touch with others so as not to feel left out. The researchers noted that they might not get the same result in a study of different people for example, older adults might not have a habit of using cellphones so often.
1. What can we learn from the study?| A．People can affect each other by using mobile phones. |
| B．Using mobile phones has nothing to do with social activities. |
| C．Men are more likely to be affected by others’ using mobile phones. |
| D．The sound of mobile phones makes using mobile phones contagious. |
| A．will find that older adults don’t like to use mobile phones |
| B．will find that mobile phones are harmful to health |
| C．will no longer like using mobile phones |
| D．may reach a different conclusion |
| A．Supportive. | B．Objective. | C．Indifferent. | D．Opposed. |
| A．How to Use Mobile Phones Correctly |
| B．Why College Students Like Mobile Phones? |
| C．The Relation Between Mobile Phones and People’s Hobbies |
| D．Something Interesting About the Habit of Using Mobile Phones |
In my childhood, my teacher Mrs. Hunter announced that our class would complete a pen-friend project. We would write letters to children in some African countries to make friends with them. So all of us needed to bring stationery (信纸) to school the next day.
Finding some beautiful stationery which was designed with lovely cartoon characters, such as Minnie Mouse and Snow White in the store, I asked my mother to buy it for me. At the store, we learned that a pack of ten pieces of such stationery cost close to seven dollars.
“You’ll have to use common paper,” my mother said. Then, she bought a pack of cheap common paper for me. Obviously, there weren’t any cartoon characters on the paper, so I was upset and disappointed. At that time, I didn’t know my mother was facing some financial (财政的) problems and was trying hard to support the family.
That night, my mother, a lover of schedules, sent me to the bed at the usual time of 9：30. But then instead of going to bed as she normally did, she remained in the living room. When I didn’t hear the voice of a news host through the TV, I wondered what exactly kept my mother up past her bedtime. Walking up to her I found she bent beneath our single lamp, sketching (画素描). When I asked what she was drawing, my mother just covered the page with her arms and ordered me to return to my bed. A week ago, I had begged her for a new box of crayons and she refused. Now I wanted beautiful stationery and she refused again. That night, I lay in bed looking at the moon, believing I was the unluckiest girl in the world.
The next morning, my mother’s eyes were black-ringed, and she looked so tired while preparing the breakfast of oatmeal (燕麦糊) in the kitchen. “Drink it before school,” she said, pointing at the food.
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：
“I don’t want any,” I said unhappily, still upset she didn’t buy beautiful stationery for me.
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“Mom, the cartoon characters are so beautiful”I said, with a smile.“Thank you.”
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One day before Christmas, Mom and Dad called me into the family room. I knew what we were going to discuss. Every year we would choose a family who needed some help, and we would secretly take gifts to their house. Dad said, “It’s time we decided which family to help this year.”
Some years it had been really easy to decide, but this year I couldn’t think of anyone. When none of us said anything, Dad looked at Mom, “Maybe Mom has some advice.” Mom smiled, “Actually, I do know of someone who needs our help. This year I think we should help Mrs. Brown.”
“But, Mom,” I said, “she’s not poor or sick. She doesn’t even like kids. Besides, she seems to have plenty of money, we always see her dressed in nice clothes.”
“I know that Mrs. Brown has enough money to take care of herself,” Mom said. “And I know that she isn’t very pleasant to be around. But that’s exactly why I think she needs our help.”
I listened as Mom continued. “Mrs. Brown has three children who have children of their own but they never come to see her. She is very lonely and unhappy. I think she needs someone to let her know that she is loved.” “You mean she’s poor in love?” I asked. “Yes, and sometimes it’s much more painful to be poor in love than it is to be poor in money.”
We were all quiet for a few minutes. Then Dad said, “Let’s take a vote. How many of us would like Mrs. Brown to be our special family this year?” Mom’s hand went up. Dad raised his hand. Looking around, I slowly raised mine.
All the following week we cut out snow flakes, made popcorn strings and red and green chains from paper strips to decorate the Christmas tree, and prepared cookies and candies. We carefully put everything inside one big box on which was Mrs. Brown’s name.
Then came the big day. We decided to give Mrs. Brown a surprise. Since the box was very big, we decided Dad would carry it to the door. After he returned, it would be my job to ring the doorbell and run back before Mrs. Brown opened her door.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按照如下格式在相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
Dad carefully set the box beside the door before he left to hide himself away.
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Paragraph 2:
On Christmas Eve, my family decided to visit Mrs. Brown.
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9 . Sportsmen in the running races of the Olympics are great athletes, but even the slow runners of the running world — joggers in the park — have good health. A study out this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology finds that even 5 to 10 minutes a day of slow running is enough to extend life by several years, compared with not running at all.
The new study focused on a group of more than 55, 000 men and women aged 18 to 100. About a quarter of them were runners. Over 15 years, those who ran just 50 minutes a week or fewer at a slow speed were less likely to die from either cardiovascular (心血管的) disease or other causes, compared with those who didn’t run at all.
The study suggests relatively low efforts are necessary to benefit from jogging, but it can be better to exercise more often. “A little bit is good but a little more is probably better,” says Dr. Aaron Baggish. A 2013 study in Denmark suggested that the secret of maximum longevity is up to 2. 5 hours of running a week.
Although running can make you less likely to have cardiovascular disease, it doesn’t entirely take the risk away from you. “There is no question that the healthier you are and the more exercise you do, the longer you’ll live and the better your quality of life will be,” Dr. Baggish says. “But it doesn’t mean you’ll never get sick.”
“Many long-term runners do not run because they want to live longer,” Dr. Baggish notes. “They run because it makes them feel better every day.”
For these runners, the cost of feeling good can be injuries, so Dr. Baggish supports the value of what he calls “active rest.” His belief, not supported by any recent research, is that it’s a good idea to spend 25% of exercise time over the course of a year running at a slow speed or doing other activities like swimming or biking.
1. What does the new study mainly show us?| A．The best way to run. | B．The best time to run. |
| C．The importance of running. | D．The popularity of running. |
| A．It can result from running often. | B．It’s not completely preventable. |
| C．It’s not so serious as most people think. | D．It can be treated by some kind of exercise. |
| A．Staying active all the time. | B．Swimming more, run less. |
| C．Having a big rest after doing sports. | D．Taking a little light exercise. |
| A．Health. | B．Business. | C．Society. | D．Medicine. |
Asad was a 13-year-old boy who was very honest and hardworking. Recently, he had entered a new school, so he had no friends yet. On Monday morning, he was nearly late for school. The night before, his family attended his cousin’s wedding and reached home late, which was why he couldn’t get up on time as usual.
At school, Asad could not pay attention to anything and wanted the bell to ring so that he could buy something to eat. After a few hours, when the bell rang, Asad quickly opened his schoolbag to find his money, but just then he remembered that he had left for school in a hurry in the morning and forgotten to take money. He looked under his books, hoping to find some money but there was nothing.
Not knowing what to do, he walked out of the classroom and sat on a bench in front of the canteen. He saw a few of his classmates there, among them was Fahad. He was one of the richest kids in his class, but he was a very arrogant(傲慢的)boy who thought everyone else was a loser. But as Asad was new, he didn’t know much about Fahad.
When he went towards Fahad and asked if he could borrow some money for his lunch, Fahad laughed a lot and said, “I knew you were a loser, maybe a beggar?” Fahad laughed out so loud that other kids also heard and made fun of the situation. He didn’t answer Fahad, and slowly walked back towards an empty bench.
When he reached the bench, he noticed something lying near it. It was a wallet. He picked it up and recognized it as Fahad’s, as he remembered Fahad showing it to his friends and telling that his uncle bought it for him from the UK. There was quite a lot of money inside for a kid.
At first, Asad wanted to keep it a secret and punished Fahad.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then Fahad said, “Why are you giving back?”
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