1 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

A Vacation with My Mother

I had an interesting childhood. It was filled with surprises and amusements, all because of my mother---loving, sweet, yet absent-minded and forgetful. One strange family trip we took when I was eleven tells a lot about her.

My two sets of grandparents lived in Colorado and North Dakota, and my parents decided to spend a few weeks driving to those states and seeing all the sights along the way. As the first day of our trip approached, David, my eight-year-old brother, and I unwillingly said good-bye to all of our friends. Who knew if we’d ever see them again? Finally, the moment of our departure arrived, and we loaded suitcases, books, games, camping equipment, and a tent into the car and bravely drove off. We bravely drove off again two hours later after we’d returned home to get the purse and traveler’s checks Mom had forgotten.

David and I were always a little nervous when using gas station bathrooms if Mom was driving while Dad slept: “You stand outside the door and play lookout(放哨) while I go, and I’ll stand outside the door and play lookout while you go.” I had terrible pictures in my mind: “Honey, where are the kids?” “What?! Oh, Gosh…I thought they were being awfully quiet.” We were never actually left behind in a strange city, but we weren’t about to take any chances.

On the fourth or fifth night, we had trouble finding a hotel with a vacancy. After driving in vain for some time, Mom suddenly got a great idea: Why didn’t we find a house with a likely-looking backyard and ask if we could set up tent there? David and I became nervous. To our great relief, Dad turned down the idea. Mom never could understand our objections(反对). If a strange family showed up on her front doorstep, Mom would have been delighted. She thinks everyone in the world is as nice as she is. We finally found a vacancy in the next town.

注意：

1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；

2. 至少使用5个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。

2 . Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.     1    

Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right.     4    The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.

If Tononi’s theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night’s, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.

Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size.     5     “You keep what matters,” Tononi says.

4 . For years, doctors have given blood to patients who need it to survive. These transfusions (输血) usually include giving red blood cells to patients.

Blood transfusions aren’t as simple as taking blood from one person and giving it to someone else. There’re several different blood types that don’t all mix well. If someone gets a transfusion of the wrong kind of blood, their body will reject the blood cells, causing problems. For the first time ever, scientists from the University of Bristol, Britain, are carrying out a new trail: testing red blood cells grown in a laboratory on human volunteers. The scientists have used stem cells (干细胞) from a blood sample to grow billions of brand new red blood cells.

This could be even better than a regular blood transfusion. For one thing they can be adjusted for people with different blood types. That’ll be extremely helpful for people with rare blood types. Also, a normal transfusion has red blood cells of all different ages, which means only a small part of them are brand new. The red blood cells grown in the lab are brand new, and this means they last longer and that patients will need fewer transfusions.

To test its safety, researchers have given a couple of teaspoons of the blood to two healthy people, both of whom seem to be doing just fine after the transfusions. In all, they’ll be tested on 10 people, and compared to normal transfusions. The new process doesn’t indicate that normal blood transfusions will disappear. Meanwhile, growing red blood cells in a lab is extremely expensive. And a lot of work and testing still need to be done. But if it’s successful, the process could make life much easier for patients who often need transfusions-even those with rare blood types.

5 . A robot created by Washington State University (WSU) scientists could help elderly people with dementia (痴呆) and other limitations live independently in their own homes.

The Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, uses sensors installed in a WSU smart home to determine where its residents are, what they are doing and when they need assistance with daily activities. It navigates (定位) through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, provides video instructions on how to do simple tasks and can even lead its owner to objects like their medication or a snack in the kitchen.

“RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected,” said Bryan Minor, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Currently, an estimated 50 percent of adults over the age of 85 need assistance with every day activities such as preparing meals and taking medication and the annual cost for this assistance in the US is nearly $2 trillion. With the number of adults over 85 expected to triple by 2050, researchers hope that technologies like RAS and the WSU smart home will relieve some of the financial strain on the healthcare system by making it easier for older adults to live alone.

RAS is the first robot researchers have tried to incorporate into their smart home environment. They recently published a study in the journal Cognitive Systems Research that demonstrates how RAS could make life easier for older adults struggling to live independently.

“While we are still in an early stage of development, our initial results with RAS have been promising,” Minor said. “The next step in the research will be to test RAS’ performance with a group of older adults to get a better idea of what prompts, video reminders and other preferences they have regarding the robot.”

Be Wise Internet Users

Yours,

Li Hua

9 . Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.

Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.

Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.

It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.