Peter sat at the kitchen table, having breakfast. It had been another bad night for his baby sister, Lily, and his parents were arguing in the sitting room. He heard his mother mention Tom, an old man who lived in the forest. Peter often explored the forest and knew Mr. Tom was a kind herbalist (草药医生). Was it true that he could help Lily? Peter wouldn’t rest until he found it out.
After breakfast, Peter immediately set off. It was a short walk from his home to the forest’s edge. Peter was so focused on his thoughts of his sister that he didn’t notice the strange crying sounds in the distance until he got close enough. He followed the sounds until they led him to a cave.
A flashlight lit up suddenly in the cave, and Peter saw a little boy lying on the dirt-covered stone. Peter learned that the boy called Cliff came to this forest with his mother but ran off by himself. Cliff was injured and didn’t see his mother. Peter decided to take Cliff to Mr. Tom. When they saw Mr. Tom and told him everything, Mr. Tom treated the injury with a bandage (绷带) and helped contact Cliff’s mother over the radio.
Peter moved closer to look at Cliff’s bandaged ankle and felt a sense of relief. Then Peter turned to Mr. Tom and said, “Mr. Tom, my baby sister is very sick. I overheard Mom mention you, so I came out here today to ask you for help...” Before Peter finished his words, Mr. Tom said, “I had tried to help, but your sister needed to be sent to a big hospital and a lot of money...” Peter realized his parents had argued because they couldn’t afford Lily’s treatment.
Mr. Tom was trying to comfort Peter when someone knocked on the door. Mr. Tom opened it and saw a lady, who claimed herself as Cliff’s mother.
“It’s you!” Mr. Tom shouted excitedly.
“You’re a fan?” the lady said. “I came to this area to spend a holiday with my son. Thankfully, you have saved him. Where is he?”
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。
Mr. Tom nodded and led the lady to her son.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The next morning, in his bedroom, Peter was woken up by a joyful scream.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Kevin was a schoolboy who was considered to be thoughtful. One day, Kevin returned home and said, “Mom! I’m home!” Kevin closed the door and dropped his books on a chair. “Hi, Kevin, home already?” his mom turned around and said.
“It’s spring. I was thinking more of our annual spring cleaning,” Kevin’s mom suggested. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Let’s do some cleaning, shall we?” “Okay,” Kevin agreed.
The next day, they cleaned upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, until everything was spotless (一尘不染的). Tired, they sank into the couch. Pointing to Grandpa’s chair, Kevin’s mom shouted, “Oh, my gosh! That old chair has got to go. We’ll buy Grandpa a new one.” Kevin’s grandpa had lived with them since Grandma’s death. She went on to say, “Kevin, Let’s take the chair to the curb (马路边). Tomorrow the garbage truck is coming to our block.”
As they attempted to move the chair, Grandpa walked toward them by dragging his feet through the door and quickly blocked their way. “Oh, no!” he protested (反对). “You can’t take my chair away.”
“It’s old and worn. We’ll buy you a new one,” Kevin’s mom argued.
“No,” Kevin’s grandpa replied, trying to push his chair back into place. “I don’t want a new one,” his voice trembled.
Kevin’s mom thought for a while and said she would discuss it with Kevin’s dad, who was still at work. Kevin’s mom left the living room to prepare the dinner. With a sigh of relief, the old man sat down in his chair and closed his eyes.
“Grandpa, why won’t you let us get rid of the chair? It’s so old,” Kevin asked his grandpa after his mom left the room.
“You don’t understand, Kevin,” Grandpa shook his head from side to side. After along pause, he said, “I sat in this chair, with your grandpa right here, when I asked her to marry me. When I sit in this chair and close my eyes, I feel as if she were next to me.” Grandpa softly stroked (轻抚) the arms of the chair. “And during the night when your father was born, I sat in this chair. I was nervous and scared when they placed the tiny baby into my arms, yet I felt so happy.” A smile flashed across his old face.
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Kevin said thoughtfully. “The chair gives you comfort and warmth. This is not just a chair. It is more like a friend.” However, that night when Kevin and his grandpa were asleep, Kevin’s mom and dad carried the chair to the curb.
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。
“Where is my old chair?” Kevin’s grandpa thought and searched for it in the house the next morning.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Oh, it can be called a treasure of our family,” Kevin’s mom said.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My kitchen was a mess. Clouds of flour dusted the counters, the floor, and the aprons of the women gathered there.
Peels from 40 pounds of apples were piled in the corner. Mixing bowls sticky with cinnamon and sugar tipped messily in the sink. The wrappers from 12 pounds’ worth of butter spilled from the trash. But, wow, it did smell sweet.
Six of us had gathered that Saturday morning to make apple pies. Once colleagues, now simply friends, we shared an intense curiosity about all sort s of things, and we loved to chat.
Today our curiosity and chatter were directed to pie-making. While I was no top chef, I knew how to use a rolling pin and I’d had years of practice serving up strawberry cakes, coconut cream, and sour cherry pies to my family.
Pie-making is a lot of work. Whoever coined the phrase “easy as pie” must have meant consuming, not creating. We spent hours peeling, coring, slicing, measuring, and learning to handle delicate dough (面团).
“It’s sticking to the rolling pin,” one of them said, her voice full of depression.
“Oh no, it’s cracking!” came another cry. I assured them the patched crust (皮) would simply serve as a reminder that these pies were home-made.
Outside, an October snowstorm struck heavily. Inside, though, it was all steamy windows, soft music and happy laughter as we finally put our pies into the oven.
When planning “Pie Day”, we decided that we would each make two pies: One for our families and one to donate to someone else.
By early afternoon, 12 pies had been placed on the counter, their perfectly imperfect crusts shining goldenly. We rushed to prepare for delivery, packing the pies messily in boxes and bags. We marched down the driveway. The snow had melted (融化); the roads were clear. It was time to deliver.
Then, disaster struck. One of the painstakingly crafted pies melted through the bag it was packed in and fell onto the driveway. Screams of horror followed.
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。
One friend ran back into the kitchen and returned with forks.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The best part was still to come: Handing out pies was even better than eating pies.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The very first speech I had given changed my life more than I could ever have imagined. I was a third-grader when I chose Susan B. Anthony to be the topic. When I got the assignment, I went to the library and began researching the Women’s Fight for the Right to Vote. I never really thought about a time when women had no voting rights and that their opinions didn’t count. I learned that Susan B. Anthony led the fight to give women a say in our society. She overcame a
lot of obstacles in order to do thatAbout a week after giving my school speech, my mom read a newspaper article about a statue honoring Susan B. Anthony. The problem was that few people ever got to see the statue. It was dedicated (落成) in 1921, but within twenty-four hours it was taken down to the basement and stored where it had remained for nearly eighty years.
When I read that article, I was getting angry! This statue belonged in a place of honor. I felt
that it should be in the Rotunda, along with the statues of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther KingJr, and Gcorge Washington.The article asked for donations because it would take $74,000 to move the thirteen-ton statue
out of the basement. I decided to write a letter with a self-addressed envelope asking my relatives and friends to send a Susan B. Anthony coin or a S1 bill to me to contribute to the Women’s Voting Statue Campaign. Every day I ran to the mailbox after school. But a month later, my piggybank was still far from full.So every night, after my homework, I wrote more letters at the kitchen table. Pretty soon the whole family got involved in the project. My seven-year-old brother, David, prepared stamps and envelopes. My mother and grandmother found addresses for people I wanted to contact and my dad drove me around and gave me tons of encouragement when I spoke to big groups.
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。
I passed around a piggy bank for donations at the end of each speech.
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I was interviewed on TV
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It was a perfect day for the beach. My brother and I were meeting our friends on the northeast side of the island, a beach we seldom visited due to the strong currents.
Dad dropped us off an hour before everyone was to arrive. I watched my brother take off into the blue ocean. He was a body surfing enthusiast. I decided not to wait for our friends either because the water began to rise, forming a perfect wave.
I held my breath and dove through the wave. I was under the surf, with my eyes wide open, the water like silk flowing over my body. It was cold, like liquid ice waking up my senses. I pulled my body to the surface, allowing fresh air to fill my lungs, and then went back under. I pretended to be a fish, a dolphin, anything that lived under the sea.
After a while, I thought it might be a good idea to head back in and see if our friends had arrived. I looked toward the beach and realized I had gone farther out than I should have. I was the only one this far out.
I was not too worried though. I was a pretty good swimmer. But, as I tried to swim in, I realized I was making no progress. After what felt like a long while, my body began to feel heavy, and my arms grew tired. However hard I tried to swim, I was not moving any closer to the beach. Worn out, terrified and desperate, I cried for help loudly.
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。
I began to think I might drown out there.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________A moment later, I regained my consciousness.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Sophie would make a good therapy(治疗) dog.”
The day my dog trainer said those words, I didn’t even know what a therapy dog was. I certainly had no idea what features my little dog had that would make her a candidate. But why not, I thought, if we can help people in need of some cheering up?
Last week, I accompanied Sophie to a hospital for our first day on the job. In the year and a half I had spent getting her certified, I had learned what to expect. I would bring Sophie into a patient’s room to be a pleaser, and then we would move on. Of course, Sophie herself couldn’t understand her purpose in all of this, but she was always happy to meet new people, and that was enough.
We walked through the wide automatic sliding glass doors and into the hall, where we were met by a nurse who ran the therapy dog program at the hospital. “Welcome,” Sophie, she said. “I’ll be taking you two around today.”
I followed the nurse down the hall. Sophie trotted (小跑) along at my side, just as she had been trained. “We’re a care unit,” the nurse explained. “Most of our patients are seniors.” I knew how important it was for Sophie to be her gentlest. “She was trained and ready for this, I reminded myself.
Up ahead was an old lady making her way down the hall with a walker. A nurse walked beside her, holding on to a gait belt (步态训练带)to keep her steady. We caught up with them, but the patient remained focused on her walker. As we were passing by at a safe distance, the lady turned her walker towards a chair against the wall. “Okay, we’ll stop for a rest,” her nurse said. Once the lady was settled, she pointed a finger at Sophie, as if to say “Please bring me that dog.”
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。
I picked up Sophie and placed her in the lady’s lap.
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“It’s a wonder! We had thought the lady lost the ability to speak,” the nurse told me excitedly.
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On the Saturday morning, I could see rays of sunlight as I said good morning to my brother, Willie aged six while I was nine. Breaking up for a summer holiday, I felt at ease and plotted (暗中策划) our own delightful day.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Mum smiled at me. “Get yourself dressed, Shawn. Run out and collect some firewood. I’ll fix you some hotcakes.”
I slipped on my clothes, grabbed the ax and headed straight for the outhouse. There father sat freely with a bottle of beer in hand. During the summer holiday, he would find time to take us to catch some fish for supper. However, his fishing pole missing, we could have no choice but to try something different.
I walked with my chin up as I thought about what a great day this was going to be. Willie and I were going to ride our bikes into town, and I was sure we’d find some empty bottles, maybe enough to buy some ice cream, my favorite while Willie had a preference for sweets. With the birds bouncing (跳动) up and down in the tree, I thought it was going to be a great day.
Everything done, Mum’s hotcakes were waiting for me. Willie finished his breakfast in a flash.
“Mum, can we go now?” I asked, as I swallowed down the last forkful of hotcakes.
“Now, Shawn, you be careful. Willie hasn’t gone out on the roads much, so you let him ride ahead of you. Keep a good eye on him. OK?”
“Take care, Willie,”I screamed when we cycled towards a mountain called Andover, the peak of which was the perfect spot to find empty bottles. Stark’s Store paid cash, two cents each, and we thought we were rich every time Mr. Stark handed us our reward in real money. Cycled up the mountain was a lot of work, but it was worth 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。
Paragraph 1: Tired but delighted, we arrived at the peak of Andover.
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Paragraph 2: In front of me was Stark’s shelves with everything kids dreamed of, but I hesitated.
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A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, immediately announces she never did care for pie.
—Tenneva Jordan
I knew I was not supposed to be quite so excited. I was too old for that. At age eleven, as the oldest and my mom’s “grown-up” girl, I had to keep myself cool. I was in middle school after all. But when I got every chance and I was alone. I checked each present under the tree. I read every tag(标签)and felt every package, guessing at the contents within. I examined each gift so often that I could tell which present went to which person without even looking at the tags.
It had been a tough year for my family. Whenever my mom looked over at the tree and scattered(撒)presents, she would sigh and warn us, “There won’t be as much for Christmas this year. Try not to be disappointed.” Christmas had traditionally been a time for my parents to spoil us. In the past, the presents would pile up and spill out from under the tree, taking up a lot of space of the living room. I had heard the phrase, “Giving is better than receiving”, but thought that whoever had said that must have been out of their mind. Getting presents was the whole point! It was the reason why I couldn’t get to sleep on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas morning, we eagerly waited in the hallway until Dad told us everything was ready. We rushed into the living room and let the wrapping paper fly. Some of us made weak attempts to wait and watch while other family members opened their presents, but as the time passed, we lost our self-control.
“Here’s another one for you,” said Mom as she handed me a package. I looked at it, puzzled. Having spent so much time examining the presents before Christmas, I recognized this one. But it was not mine. It was my mom’s. A new tag had been put on it, with my name written in my mother’s handwriting.
“Mom, I can’t…”
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。
“This is your present and it belongs to you,” said my mother.
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That Christmas is quite meaningful to me.
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You never know when a chance encounter will change your life. Sahil Singh certainly didn’t expect anything to come from yet another delivery he was set to make less than a week ago with Swiggy, a food delivering service in India.Before the life-changing moment, however, came a series of events that had Sahil feeling hopeless. It all started when he moved home.
Years ago, this well-educated young man had a job that gave him a good salary, but his circumstances since the move have changed drastically. With no other job prospects, he began working for Swiggy, where he was barely making ends meet. In fact, he found himself in debt and without a car, a scooter, or even a bike.
Then, on the day of his chance encounter, Sahil found himself completely out of money. He spent the last of his money on his roommate, who had developed a serious disease, leaving him with nothing to pay the landlord. To make matters worse, he was given an order to deliver what would take him nearly two miles, all on foot.
As he worked hard to get the food delivered as soon as possible, the customer, Priyanshi Chandel, was waiting patiently for her ice cream. After 30 to40 minutes, Sahil finally rang her doorbell. The state he was in left her shocked.
“I opened the door to see a young man panting for air, sitting on the staircase outside my flat,” Priyanshi said.” With all my alarms triggering(触发)within me, I asked him what happened.”
When given the opportunity to share his story, Sahil graciously took it. Here counted how he got to where he’s at today, including the fact that he had not eaten for a week and was, instead, getting by on water and tea.
Wanting to help, Priyanshi offered Sahil all that she could: a glass of water and some cash. But then, she thought of one more thing she could do that might help.
注意：
1.续写词数为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
On LinkedIn,Priyanshi made a post all about Sahil and her encounter with him.
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Priyanshi called out for help and folks listened!
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Missy was absolutely my best friend in the whole world. We had known each other since first grade, and we literally did everything together. We frequently visited each other’s homes, we knew each other’s families like they were our own. The interesting thing about our relationship, however the fact was that the older we got, the more our values seemed to differ. We still enjoyed a lot of the same things, but I was a bit more settled while she loved being associated with popular people and things. Although she was basically a good person, she had no problem with forcing things to go her way.
Perhaps this is why it seemed that her family actually trusted me more than they trusted her. So, on the day when Missy showed up at my house with a huge dent (凹痕) in her father’s car, I knew that we were in for a troublesome time.
She had banged the car into a tree while out that day, and she knew her father was going to have an explanation. So she stopped by my house in order to make up a story that would lessen her father’s rage. Missy decided to tell him that while in a parking lot, someone must have backed into the car and dented it. Looking at the dent with some crashed leaves and bark still sticking there, I attempted to perish (打消) her thought. “I don’t think your father will buy it.” “ Don’t worry,” she insisted,“even if my dad doesn’t trust me, he’ll trust you.” My role was to confirm for her. Now keep in mind that I had strong objections to lying and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the situation. I loved her parents just like my own, and I did not want to be a party to this lie that Missy was creating. Nevertheless, after much request and a general questioning of my loyalty to our friendship, I decided that the least I could do was to act as a silent witness. That way, I wasn’t actually lying; I just wasn’t telling the full truth.
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: An hour or so later, we presented Missy’s father with the car and the inquiry began.
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Paragraph 2: Her father looked at me with great disbelief.
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