Most nights, there was a light coming from the tiny island on the other side of the lake. I always thought that was strange because supposedly, no one lived there anymore. That’s why people called it Ghost Island. Stranger still, one night, the light flashed.

“There’s the light again,” I said to my brother, Dale.

“Yeah, strange,”he said.“Take a look, Ben,”Dad said. He had set up his telescope to view the planets, but now it was aimed at Ghost Island. I found that there was a spotlight (聚光灯).Dale looked too and guessed it was a tree branch, blowing back and forth in the wind.

Then I asked Dad what he knew about Ghost Island. “Mr. Mori has owned it since I was a kid. I remember he once served in the Coast Guard. And he must be quite old by now,” Dad said. “He used to spend summers there, but I wonder if he still comes up at all.”

The next day, we planned to go fishing. We always go before sunup and I was so worried about oversleeping that I woke up extra early. Dale was already on the boat. I looked across the lake, which was smooth as glass. “Huh,” I said. “There’s the light again. Only this time there was no wind, and the flashes appeared in a specific way. “It’s an SOS distress signal!” I said immediately. Dale laughed. “Morse code (摩斯密码)? No one uses that old thing anymore.”

“No, watch,” I said. “It goes dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot. That’s SOS. I learned it at Boy Scouts. I had to send and receive messages using Morse code.”

“You guys are going to scare all the fish away!” Dad said. “What’s going on?”

I told him about the light but it had stopped. And he advised us to check if Mr. Mori was at his cabin (小木屋). He might know Morse code due to his Coast Guard experience.

Dale doubted if we’d find anyone, but we set out for Ghost Island.

We visited Mr. Mori several times after he returned to Ghost Island from the hospital.

Jack is in the fourth grade and he joined the noisy children of his class as usual. “Children! Silence!” Ms. Benette suddenly entered the class. She announced next week would be maths week. “I’d like each of you to work on a project. You could do it individually or in a group,” she instructed. “The topic for the project needs approving tomorrow and it has to be showed at the maths week exhibition. The best project will be awarded and there is also a surprise gift from my side,” she added.

Jack, who is extremely good at maths, sat in the corner seat of the first bench with Cathy, an average. Cathy asked Jack if they could work on the maths project together. Jack replied in a prideful tone, “Ha-ha you want to join me. I think I will do the project on my own.” Jack wanted to get awarded and the surprise gift all for himself from Ms. Benette.

After deep consideration, Jack decided to work on a maths magic quiz on the circuit board (电路板). The next day in school, Ms. Benette arrived in the classroom and all the children submitted their topics for maths exhibition. They all chose to work in a group except Jack. In the following days, Jack gathered all the materials for the project such as wires, bulbs(灯泡), a switch and a thin plywood board(胶合板). He worked out a few mathematical basic operations to be fixed on the board so that when the wire of the circuit touched the right answer, the bulb glowed(发光). Jack completed the project and was happy with the result.

The evening before the exhibition, while packing his school bags, Jack again checked the project to see if it was working fine. Alas! All the lights that were to glow did not seem to light at all. Without finding the reason, Jack was anxious. However, he decided to take the same project to the school as he couldn’t change the topic at the last minute. Then came the next day, and everybody was fascinated in the exhibition.

It was Jack’s turn to show his project.

Finally, the teacher announced Cathy’s team was the winner.

Last Saturday, David was taking a walk in the park near his home when he noticed a woman with a boy of about eight years old. When David passed them, he heard the woman yell. “How stupid you are! You’re good at nothing.” David stopped and looked at the little boy. The boy said nothing. He just stood there, looking upset.

David was reminded of his English teacher Mrs Brown in middle school. After he entered a middle school, David lacked self-confidence because he was often made fun of by others. He was often told that he was good at nothing, which David behaved. But one day it all changed.

One day, in an English writing class, Mrs Brown asked them to read a novel. They were asked to write a new chapter of the novel after they finished reading it. A few days later, David handed in his story. He didn’t give it much thought. But the next day, to his surprise, the comment “well done” from Mrs Brown came into view the moment he turned to the page where the story was written. When David read that, he almost burst into tears. He never expected to be praised one day. He suddenly gained some self-confidence.

That day after he returned home, he wrote a short story and gave it to Mrs Brown the next morning. And again he was praised. David became very interested in writing. He often wrote short stories and asked Mrs Brown to read them improve writing skills. One year later, David joined the school newspaper and became an editor of it. He was no longer that boy who lacked self-confidence. He gained his confidence, and was hopeful about his future.

He succeeded in entering a college and kept writing. Several years after graduating from college, he had his first book published. With some more books coming out, he became famous as a writer in his country. And he owed his success to Mrs Brown’s encouragement. Without her encouragement, his life might be very different now.

Inspired by his own life story, David decided to do something for that boy.

The mother was ashamed when she heard that.

6 . 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。

When Marco was a boy, he tried everything to get his father’s love and attention. He worked hard to earn good marks; he tried to be obedient (顺从的), he chose inspiring friends and always tried to behave well.

Sensitive and shy, he was so timid (胆怯的) that he always wore turtleneck shirts. He hid behind his hair, which he wore long around his face and ears. To make it worse, Marco was naturally shorter than the other kids. And because his good marks had allowed him to skip second grade — he was younger than everyone else. This added nothing to his already low self-confidence.

When Marco was eight his parents divorced, and Marco was sent to a boarding school. Six years later, he and his young sister Sandra moved in with their dad and his new wife in S-Leonard, a French Canadian and Italian neighborhood on the east side of Montreal, It felt to Marco that his father had little time for him and Sandra. Except for his demands around chores (日常琐事) after school, communication was nonexistent. It seemed to Marco the only time his dad ever spoke to him was to be demanding. He began to fear to come home from school every day.

Marco sank further into his low self-confidence, feeling unappreciated, inadequate, depressed and confused.

One day, his aunt called him. To Marco, this seemed like a miracle. Aunt Ginette usually only called once a year, on his birthday. She said she had just seen some young teenagers participate in a public speaking contest called Gala Personnalite sponsored by Club Optimiste — and she thought about him. She thought he, should give it a try. She told him she firmly believed he could perform on stage like the other kids.

Marco was greatly surprised. Him? Onstage? In a public speaking contest? To agree would be contrary to his entire shy, timid personality. But Aunt Ginette was so confident. She seemed really serious. She was sure it was something he could do. She truly believed in him. And feeling her strong belief, Marco agreed to enter the contest.

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。

Paragraph 1:

An energy flooded him, which he never felt before.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paragraph 2:

When the big night arrived, his family were all in the audience.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Catherine had stayed at home all her life to look after her three children, but now, she, who lost her husband in a car accident, had to step out and earn money to make ends meet. With zero work experience and no professional degree, her chances of getting hired for a well-paid job were next to zero.

One day, after dropping her children at school, Catherine spotted a construction site. “I think I can work here,” she thought and approached the manager.

“Hi, are you hiring?” she asked. “Yes, we are,” the manager looked at Catherine from head to toe. “Are you sure you can work here? This job requires a lot of hard work.” “I’m ready for it,” she told the manager and signed a contract to work a 12-hour shift.

However, Catherine kept her new job a secret from her children. She thought they would feel embarrassed after learning their mother worked at a construction site.

Every morning, after dropping her children to school, she would go to the construction site and work until her shift ended. She would pick up heavy bricks on her shoulder to transport them from one part of the site to the other. One evening, Catherine’s son, Peter, told her about an upcoming contest in school that required mothers to participate. In the competition, students will wear blindfolds and have to recognize their mothers without looking at them. “That sounds like such a cool event, Peter!” Catherine said excitedly. “I can’t wait for it!” “I won’t go therewith you, mom,” Peter replied. “But why?” What her son said next was something Catherine wasn’t prepared to hear.

“Mom, I would have to touch your hands to recognize you, and everyone would look at them,” Peter explained. “Your hands are so ugly. They’re so hard and rough,” he added. “I will feel so embarrassed when my classmates look at your hands,” the boy said. “I won’t attend the event.” Catherine felt terrible but couldn’t say anything in her defense.

A few weeks later, Peter was walking home when something unexpected caught his attention.

On his way back home, he kept thinking about how he would apologize to his mother:

A couple of months before I started high school, my parents gave me the greatest gift any teenage boy could ask for: a cellphone. I lived on that phone all summer with my face buried in its screen. I ignored my family and my surroundings. Being connected was more important than being present.

So, you can imagine my displeasure when I learned what my dad had planned for our family vacation that year. “This year,” my dad said, “we’ll be doing something special. We’re going camping!” His excitement was met with a disappointed sigh. It wasn’t my dream vacation because mind was on my phone. I was so buried in the screen, in fact, that the first time I can remember truly looking up was when we drove across a bridge on the way to our campsite.

I stared out the window and saw redwoods towering above us, their branches threatening to pierce (刺破) the blue sky. I saw a roaring river, with slivers of silky black water appearing between crashing white rapids. The air blowing into the car from the open windows was hot. But none of that mattered to me. The reason I had looked up was for something far more serious: my phone no longer had service.

The last hour of the drive was increasingly tense. My dad announced that he had chosen a campsite that had no cell service, and that my phone would be useless until we returned home. I would be trapped in the forest for four days with no way to contact the outside world! I went through the full cycle of teenage emotions during the first day of the trip. I raged. I bargained. I begged. I flip-flopped (转变) from a depressive state to anger and back.

I went to bed angrily that night. But when I awoke in the morning, something had changed.

Instead of burying myself in my phone, I focused on something else: my surroundings.

The next four days passed in a flash with many fun activities.