Here’s the story of my growth over the past year. It’s a story of how I found the strength to change myself for better and then how I get rid of my fears to be even better. If anyone is inspired by this, that’s wonderful.
I’d been stuck as this incredibly insecure, under-confident and just scared individual for years and years. Since childhood I’d been stuck like this. Kids I met for the first time looked at me rudely and unkindly. Even my friends—actually, I had very few friends because I just felt too ashamed and frightened to make some, though I was eager to and felt extremely lonely in the depth of my heart—laughed at me and gave me bad nicknames. I felt terrible, but I’d just resigned to a life where I’d be afraid of everything and be this “introvert” (内向的人) or whatever. I thought I would never be able to change, never, for my whole life.
But then it all started changing. Something clicked. I suddenly determined to go on a diet, and lost some weight. It was tough. I felt hungry all the time. I was always tempted by the smell of bread and hamburger, even when I didn’t see them. But the toughest thing was that even if I had just had my meals, I felt hunger mentally. However, I held on. In over a period of 6 months I finally managed to stick to one of my diets. I didn’t know how. But I did make it.
The loss of 90 lbs brought me from overweight straight down to underweight. This isn’t the best part. More importantly and inspiringly, I suddenly found strength in me. I realized I could be totally different. And maybe, I could even be whatever I wanted to be. This taught me that I could change myself.
Then I wondered, perhaps, I could also get rid of those of my fears, just like I succeeded in losing my extra pounds. It might not be easy, but it might not be that difficult.
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。
Chance presented itself soon.
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It was from that point on that I started changing rapidly.
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As a young boy, I was always a troublemaker and up to no good. I liked playing tricks and enjoyed treating animals in an unfriendly way, like running after cats crazily, making them scared at the sight of me. Besides, I often used a handmade catapult (弹弓) to shoot at birds on the trees.
All this did afford me indescribable pleasure but also got me unkind stares and blames from people around. My parents disapproved of my behavior and were constantly criticizing me for the tricks I played. I was even given a good beating from my father from time to time. Nevertheless, I ignored their warnings and did not correct my ways until an incident occurred.
One summer noon when I was eight, I was alone at home and just finished lunch. Feeling very hot and bored, I decided to hang around the neighborhood, holding my trusty catapult.
Soon, I came to Mr Smith’s house. His pet dog, big and strong, was tied to a post outside his house, lying in the shade lazily. Looking around, I found that no one was in sight. I decided to make good use of my catapult to play tricks on the massive dog. Picking up a few small stones from the ground, I aimed at the dog and fired them one by one. Several stones hit the poor dog and it began to bark (吠) loudly in pain and jump up and down. But I felt so fun that I didn’t stop doing so. Eventually, the dog’s anger was fueled and it barked wildly at me while struggling to break away from the rope. Not realizing anything wrong with my crazy behavior, I was just laughing happily.
Suddenly, the rope that tied the dog loosened and the big dog got free from its bonds. In no time, with a few powerful steps the dog was on me. Its sharp teeth sank into my leg. I screamed with pain and fright and fell to the ground, shouting out for help.
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。
Luckily, my miserable shouts caught Mr Smith’s attention.
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His words left me ashamed and I decided to make a change.
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One of my most memorable trips took place during the summer vacation about three years ago, when my sister, my aunt and I took a trip to Spain because we were moving. On the day of the trip, I lay in bed thinking about my friends whom I was going to leave behind and thoughts were flooding in.
When we arrived at the hire station, we seemed to have some problems with our luggage because it was too much for a taxi, so we had to book a van (厢式送货车) to take our luggage to the airport. We waited for a long period to find a perfect van that would fit our luggage.
Before leaving, I felt very bad because I was going to a different country and was going to miss all my friends and family. I was not comfortable and cried.
The journey was almost perfect at the beginning, but soon it began to rain. Because of the rain, the drivers could not see far away, which caused a huge traffic jam. I was sitting by the window with a can of Coke that I had bought in the store earlier. My aunt and sister fell asleep, and during this time. I felt bored and thought about other things that bothered me. My eyes turned to the mountain in front of us.
A bus suddenly appeared in the picture. It was very close to us. Cars sped past us without any speed limit. Beside me was a very deep lake: I wondered to myself what if something or someone fell inside it. Suddenly, a bus in front of our van stopped, and because it was raining heavily and the van was going fast, no one could see what was going to happen. Then, bang, we bumped into each other. Our van overturned, but luckily, it didn’t fall into the lake. People came to help us get out of the van because we were blocked and the driver was half-dead.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
We struggled to get out of the van and everything we had was gone.
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I was losing a lot of blood and then the emergency aid came.
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A New Addition to the Family
For the initial ten years of his life, Victor was the prince of the household. As he was an only child, his parents petted him and showered all their love and attention on him. Whatever toys his parents bought, they were always meant for him. Whatever food was in the refrigerator, there was no one to compete with him to polish it off first. Victor could leave his toys or books around the house with complete ease of mind, knowing that there was no one who would get their hands on his belongings and cause any damage.
However, all that was to change overnight when Victor’s parents brought back his new baby sister, Lina, from the hospital. With her rosy cheeks, wide open eyes and angelic smile, Lina caught the hearts of her parents, grandparents and relatives. Everyone focused their attention on the cute bunch of joy. Whenever she cried, her mother or father would rush to her bed. She simply cried because she wanted to be carried. There was little time left for Victor.
Now that Victor’s mother had his baby sister to take care of, she expected Victor himself to do most of the chores he can do. Victor was asked to clean his own room, iron his own school uniform and clean his own shoes. Before Lina’s arrival, he had never lifted a finger to help out with these tasks. The whole family also went out less because it was unhealthy to expose Lina to the bacteria(细菌) being in the outside world too often.
Victor felt neglected by his parents. He felt that they loved Lina more than him. As a result, he tried to attract his parents’ attention by becoming resistant. One evening, Victor’s parents were called up by his teacher because Victor had got into a fight at school. His teacher had noticed Victor’s behaviour and work attitude changing downwards in the past two months. Before that, he had been a model student.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡相应位置作答。
Upon hearing the teacher’s feedback, Victor’s parents got lost in thought.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Victor realized that his parents still cared for him.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Anxiously and hurriedly, two young firemen，Adam and Ben arrived at the apartment of a single mother with two children after they answered a 911 call. To their surprise, they discovered that there was no emergency at all, only to find that the younger child, about three years old, was playing with the phone. Adam told the mother that she should let the kids play their own toys instead of the telephone. The mother said sorry to them, promising that she would make the kid far away from the telephone. The similar things would happen many times a year. All the firemen were not angry about it, especially with a three-year old kid. Adam and Ben looked around their house again and made sure there was really not any danger before they left their house. After they go on their fire engine (消防 车), Adam asked curiously, “Have you noticed something strange in their house?” Ben thought for a while and answered, “All of them weren't smiling. It seemed like they weren’t happy at all.” “Yes, you are right! But anything else? I still felt there was something wrong in their house." The two young men looked at each other, and cried almost at the same time, “There was no Christmas tree!”
It was December 23rd. It was a day when all families were preparing their Christmas buying gifts, making the delicious food, decorating their Christmas trees and so on, busy but happy. But the family they just met didn't have a Christmas tree in their house! It was pretty obvious that the family was having a poor life and they couldn't afford to buy a single Christmas tree! “Maybe they weren't going to have a Christmas this year. It was terrible!” Ben murmured (低声说) to himself.
注意：续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:Two young firemen left the house with a plan.
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“We are not firemen this time!" Adam said.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After 20 years as a full-time wife and mother, I decided to be a school bus driver for I loved kids. When I think about my years of bus driving, many things crowd in, but mostly, I remember Charlie.
Charlie, eight years old, with blond hair and crystalline gray eyes, began riding my bus in September of my fourth year driving. They all had stories to tell me about their summers. Charlie, though, ignored me. He didn’t even answer when I asked his name.
From that day on, Charlie was a trial. If a fight broke out, I didn’t have to turn my head to know who had started it. If a girl was crying, chances were Charlie had pulled her hair. No matter how I spoke to him, gently or firmly, he wouldn’t say a word. He’d just stare at me with those big gray eyes of his.
I later found out Charlie’s father was dead and he didn’t live with his mother. He deserves my patience, I thought. To my cheery “Good Morning”, he was silent. When I wished him a happy Halloween, he sneered (冷笑). Still I was sure that this child needed to feel some warmth from me. So, when he’d pass by, I’d pat him on the arm or sometimes gave him a hug.
Toward the end of that year, the kids on my bus gave me a small trophy inscribed (刻) “To the Best Bus Driver Ever”. I propped it up on the dashboard (仪表盘). On top I hung a small tin heart that a little girl had given me. In red paint she had written, “I love Polly and Polly loves me.”
The next day, I was delayed a few minutes talking to the principal. When I got on the bus I realized that the tin heart was gone. “Does anyone know what happened to the little heart that was up here?” I asked. For once with 39 children, there was silence.
One boy piped up, “Charlie was the first one on the bus. I bet he took it.” Other children joined the chorus, “Yeah! Charlie did it! Search him!”
I asked Charlie to come forward, stuck my hand into his pocket and immediately I felt it—the small tin heart. Charlie stared at me and seemed to be waiting for what he’d come to expect from the world. I was about to pull out the tin heart when I stopped myself. Let him keep it, a voice seemed to whisper.
“It must have fallen off before I got here,” I said to the kids. “I’ll probably find it back at the depot.” Without a word, Charlie returned to his seat. When he got off at his stop, he didn’t glance at me as usual.
That summer Charlie moved away.
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150词左右；
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
3. 请按如下格式作答。
Paragraph 1:
A dozen years after my retirement I was in a department store, when someone said, “Polly?”
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Paragraph 2：
That night I thought over his words.
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At the beginning of the new term, a teacher at Ringrose Kindergarten decided to do something different to choose “the Excellent Kid” of this term. One day the teacher brought a bag of boiled seeds, and then called the kids together, and said, “I am going to give each one of you a seed today, a very special seed. You are to plant the seed, water it and come back here at the end of this term with what you have grown from the seed you bring to me, and the one I choose will be “the Excellent Kid”.
Like the others, a boy named James received a seed. He went home and told his mother the story excitedly. She helped him get a pot and soil, and he planted the seed. Evert day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other kids began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.
James kept checking his seed, but nothing grew. Four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were all talking about their plants, but James didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure.
Two months went by, there was still nothing in James’ pot. He just knew he had ruined his seed. Everyone else had tall plants, but he had nothing. James didn’t say anything. However, he just kept watering the fertilizing (给……施肥) the soil, expecting the seed to grow.
A term finally went by. All the kids brought their plants to the teacher for inspection. James told his mother he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she encouraged him to go, and to be honest about what happened. James felt restless because it would be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his mother was right.
Paragraph 1:
He took his empty pot to the classroom.
Paragraph 2:
All the other kids looked at the teacher in surprise.
It was eight o'clock on a May morning, and Micah, my 17-year-old daughter, was in our bonus room upstairs. It had been her temporary eleventh-grade classroom ever since schools had moved to remote learning due to the pandemic （疫情）.
From the kitchen, I listened for the sound of her tapping on her laptop. I resisted the urge to check on her. Way too often, Micah was texting friends and commenting on their posts about the fun they were having together. We'd barely left the house for 10 weeks straight.
"Mom, everyone is hanging out today!" Micah's voice came from upstairs. "Why can't I?"
I went up the stairs. Micah was lying on the floor wearing pajamas（睡衣）, her laptop, school iPad and cell phone in front of her. "It's not fair," she said. I have no one I can be with. I can't wait until I'm 18 and can do what I want."
We'd had this conversation before. Still, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. I was sick of having to stay at home too. Even though Micah and I were home together more than we had been in years, we might as well have been living in separate worlds. "Wanna watch TV later?" I asked. "No, thanks." Micah shook her head.
"In a few weeks you'll be going to sports camp,'' I added "That's something you can look forward to." I closed the door. I was used to Micah's rejection, but it still hurt. Teenage independence is heathy, but I worried if I didn't find a way to bond with my girl soon, I might never be close with her again. She'd be 18 in the fall and had already convinced herself she didn't need me anymore. Maybe she was right. No matter what I did, I couldn't seem to reach her.
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。
That evening, I was surfing online and saw a friend's children playing with their new cat.
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"This is the one I want," she said, smiling.
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In 1968, I was a student at the Sophia Hagopian High School in Beirut, Lebanon. One day, I went to the head teacher’s office and told him that my parents could not pay the tuition (学费). Although I was the top student in my class, I was sent home because of being short of money. This was a heartbreaking experience for me, as I really wanted to continue my education.
I went home and spent my day at my father’s tire-repair shop. One day, a very old man saw me in the shop and wondered why I was not in school. I told him the reason. He offered to help by calling the head teacher of the Hovaguimian-Manougian High School and asking him to accept me without tuition. The next day, I took a city bus to the school and went to the head teacher’s office. However, when I told the head teacher the reason for my visit, he shouted at me that there was no free tuition. I immediately turned around and rushed back to my home.
On the third day, one of my classmates from Sophia Hagopian High School came to inform me that the head teacher had sent him to tell me that I should come back to school and register (登记). When I arrived at school, I told the registrar that I could not pay the tuition. She said that my tuition had been fully paid. I asked the registrar who paid for my tuition so that I can thank him, I was told that the kind person wanted to remain unknown.
I went to my classroom, but kept wondering who was the person that gave me the golden opportunity to continue my education. I went back to the head teacher's office after classes and begged the registrar to tell me the name of the kind person. Finally, on the condition that I wouldn’t go and express the thanks, she told me that it was my English teacher, Olivia Balian. I promised that I would not talk to her.
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。
A year later, I came to the United States and finally received two Master’s degrees.
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After visiting my former high school, I really wanted to see Ms. Balian and thank her for her generosity (大方).
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By morning, Afiq knew what he had to do. He had not slept a wink but had sat in the balcony all night thinking. He stretched his body and went back to his room. His brother Affin was still asleep.
It was Saturday and there was no school. Afiq's mother asked him to buy some groceries for her. On his way out, he glanced at his motorcycle with the broken front lamp and scratches on the side. Afiq straightened his shoulders and went to complete his purchase.
It was late morning when Afiq was free to carry out his plan. He marched down the road to Osman's house. When he arrived, Aniya appeared at the doorway and greeted him warmly. She invited him in and served him tea and some cakes. Afiq nervously asked to speak to Osman. She told him that her father was out but would be home very soon. Sure enough, the elderly man returned in ten minutes.
Afiq cleared his throat a few times and said that he had come to confess (坦白). “I'm so sorry. I was careless yesterday and knocked into your parked car,” Afiq said. Osman looked at the 17-year-old youth, surprised, “So, you are saying that you are the culprit (肇事者) who crashed into my car and then ran away?” Afiq went red. He nodded, “I'm sorry for not telling you earlier. I was too frightened.”
The elderly man smiled and said, “But you're not too frightened to confess now?”
Afiq said uncertainly, “I could not sleep last night thinking about it. I knew I had to do the right thing.”
Osman was silent for a minute before saying in a kind voice, “Do you think it a right thing to cover up for your brother?”
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右。
2. 请按下列格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Afiq went pale, “I... I…you know the truth?”
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Afiq thanked Osman for his kindness and then set off home happily.
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