Li counted his gifts one more time as he put a robot-shaped eraser into each envelope. “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.”
“Do you have one for everyone in your class?” Mom asked.
“Yep! And one for Ms. Zhang,” Li said. “I’m ready for the party tomorrow!”
When Li got to school the next day, he saw a new girl in his classroom. She stood near Ms. Zhang and looked around shyly. “This is Fan,” said Ms. Zhang. “Will someone volunteer to show her around today?” Li raised his hand. He liked showing the new kids around and helping them feel welcome.
“Thanks, Li,” Ms. Zhang said. “Now let’s get busy with our work so we’re done in time for the party.” That’s when Li realized he didn’t have a gift for Fan. No one else would have one either. Li pictured his classmates’ desks covered with gifts while Fan’s desk was empty. He had butterflies in his stomach.
At break, he was careful not to mention the party as he showed Fan around the playground. At lunchtime, he walked Fan to the lunchroom, still worried about what would happen at the party. Fan had brought a packed lunch, so Li showed her where she was supposed to sit and introduced her to some of the kids at her table. Li picked up a big plate and joined the rest of his classmates in the lunch line. It was “breakfast for lunch” day, his favorite. As the lunch server placed a heart-shaped cookie on Li’s plate, Li suddenly remembered that kids often included candy hearts or other treats with the gifts they exchanged. This won’t be a happy Children’s Day for Fan with no gifts or treats, he felt upset.
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。
But as Li sat down at his table, an idea occurred to his mind.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Here’s your gift, Fan,” Li said, placing the big red heart in front of her.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Two weeks after my husband and I moved into our new house, he went abroad on a business trip that would take a year. This was the first time I had had to take care of our three-year-olds son Cameron and four-month-old baby Colby alone for so long. I had met a few neighbors, including Karen, Tim and Mike in our new neighborhood, but everyone was busy with their careers. We hardly even spoke.
One afternoon, I glanced out the window and noticed something strange. I walked outside and saw a light green colour in the sky that made my hair stand on end. Before long, the tornado sirens (龙卷风报警器) sounded. I turned on the news to learn of a tornado forming above our town. I was nervous and scared.
“Get into your storm shelters immediately. If you don’t have one, go into a bathroom in your house,” the weatherman soon announced. I rushed to the kids’ room. “We need to get into the bathroom. There’s a big storm outside, and we’ll be safe in here,” I said, trying to sound brave. I then tried hard to pull a mattress over us, but it wouldn’t stay. The baby was crying; the dog was barking. I could hear the wind roaring outside. Fear hit me like never before. I felt anxious and completely alone as the tornado sirens screamed in the distance.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. It was our neighbour Karen from across the street. “Tim and I are leaving. You and the boys are coming with us,” She said. For a second, I hesitated. Where in the world were they going? If they were getting into their car, I think we’d be better off here. It was raining heavily with bright flashes of lightning. It looked like it would be the end of the world. My kids were firghtened, and I was lost and seemed to be in my dream.
注意：1.所续的短文词数150左右；2.续写部分分为两段。每段开头语以为你写好。
Paragraph 1
I stood before my door in terrible fear, afraid to move.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2.
I found several other neighbors already in Mike’s storm shelter.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Last weekend, I was standing at the finish line of the St. Francis Franny Flyer 5K (五公里赛) route, waiting for my nine-year-old son Kade to pass by.
Kade, though a fourth-grader, was already an experienced runner. He had been a part of a cross-country club since he was six years old. He had loved to run for as long as he could remember. He had been working hard to improve his endurance and running skills as he was determined to be a professional runner and compete in national and international races when he was older.
There were two St. Francis Franny Flyer races happening at the same time that day. The 5K race weaved through neighborhoods, from the church to Pinecone Road and back while the 10K followed the same route but extended north on Pinecone Road. Race volunteers were available on Pinecone Road to show runners the way, and there were also signs directing the two different courses.
I signed Kade up for the 5K race as a way to train him for the Junior Olympics. He had never run a 10K, not even in training, so the 10K race was never an option.
Kade was pretty fast and he set a 5K record for his age group at last year’s race, so I was surprised to see slower runners crossing the finish line before him. “This is weird. He should be ahead of them. He might just be having a bad race,” I thought to myself. But as the minutes passed, my worry intensified. My heart raced at the thought that Kade might be lost or injured.
Anxious and worried, I drove along the 5K race route in search of Kade, but he was nowhere to be found. A surge of fear and despair overwhelmed me, causing a flood of tears to pour down my face. I turned to race officials and volunteers for help, and people started looking for him.
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。
Later, a volunteer told me he had spotted Kade on the 10K course.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Finally, Kade appeared and crossed the finish line.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Jenny hated reading aloud in class. She was sure everyone got really bored listening to her. Once, when Jenny was reading out her holiday diary, Lee was even looking at his watch, a silver and blue one which seemed just magical（有魔力的）. It was time to go home.”Remember to work on your class speeches for homework,” Miss Walker called as everyone started talking and packing their school bags.
Jenny watched Lee walk ahead of her as they left school. He seemed so clever, and he had a certain sort of shining confidence. He was just one of those people who were good at everything. Jenny sighed（叹气）. As she turned the corner, she saw Lee's watch lying right in the middle of the path.
Jenny knew she should just pick it up and return it to him, but she didn't want to run after him. Jenny bent down quickly, picked up the watch and ran home. On arriving home, Jenny put it on almost without thinking. She was surprised it fitted so well. She walked to the mirror and started practicing her speech. Words just flooded out of her. “I'm going to talk about swimming. I have been lucky. I've won lots, of competitions. But when I'm in a race, I'm not really thinking about winning. I'm just loving the feeling of being in the water...” Jenny laughed with excitement. She walked across the room. She suddenly seemed to have a certain sort of confidence. Turning back to the mirror, Jenny saw a flash of light from the watch in the glass. The flashes of silver seemed almost magical. So maybe Lee's watch really have something magic about it.
The next day, as the lesson began, Miss Walker asked who was going to be brave and go first. Nobody moved. Jenny slowly raised her arm. Before Miss Walker could say anything, there was a shout from behind. “She’s stolen my watch!” Lee said angrily, “It went missing at school yesterday.”
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。
Everybody was fixing their eyes on Jenny, waiting for an explanation.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Miss Walker smiled and asked the class to listen to Jenny's speech first.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Walking out of the hair salon, Sally was happy like a bird. Her new hairstyle was satisfactory. She decided to walk down the busy street to the car park. Just then the first distant crash of thunder shook the air. Sally looked up at the sky. “Oh no!” she thought. “It’s going to rain, but I don’t have an umbrella!”
All of a sudden, with more thunder and lightning, large rain drops began to fall. Sally started to run. She was wearing high heels (高跟鞋), so she could not run very fast. She decided to go into a shop and wait for the rain to stop. Then she ran into the entrance to a book shop and waited. She anxiously looked at her watch. “Oh no! It’s 3:30! I have a very important meeting at 4:00! What am I going to do? I can’t wait here!” she thought uneasily.
She tried to look for a taxi, but there were no taxies. She hoped to take a bus, but there were no buses, either. She impatiently observed the sky from time to time, which was becoming even cloudier and darker.
Considering for a while, Sally decided to run to the car park. She stepped out of the bookstore entrance and rushed into the rain. Only several seconds later, Sally’s shoes, skirt, coat and newly styled hair were all wet. Just at that moment, she heard a voice behind her, “Excuse me! Excuse me!” It was a strong tall man. Sally felt a bit frightened. She began to run faster than before.
“Stop! Please wait!”
Sally pretended not to hear and kept running, even faster. But the man was very close to her now.
“Please! Stop! Stop!”
Sally was too tired to run any more. She had to stop and turned back. “Who are you? What do you want?” she shouted with an angry and scared voice. The man, who was wearing a suit and carrying a suitcase, looked like a businessman of around 40 years old. He did not say anything, but passed Sally his umbrella, then ran away quickly.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。Sally was very surprised.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“How can I return his umbrella?” Sally thought on the way.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr. Ward couldn’t stand students cheating the most. Whenever there was an exam, he watched very closely, making sure no act of cheating was neglected, and any student who cheated would be seriously punished.
I remember many times after tests, Mr. Ward found that the students sitting around me had better scores than the others and the further away a student was from me, the worse his grade. Mr. Ward suspected that some of the juniors “accidentally” got some of my answers. So he and I had a very interesting talk about cheating.
Mr. Ward once told me of some of the ways students tried to cheat. Student A intentionally “dropped” his pencil an unusually far distance from his desk. Then he stood up and walked slowly across the room to take it back. On the way, he glanced at the papers. Student B got a piece of paper and wrote down all the formulas (公式) on a tiny bit of paper taped to the inside of the kid’s palm. These incidents weren’t very rare.
The last day of the entire school year, all I had left was my math exam and there seemed to be some definite tension in the air because this was the biggest test of the year. I saw some kids trying to do some last minute studying, some trying to calm themselves down by breathing slowly and some saying a silent prayer.
Mr. Ward went to the front and started handing out the tests by rows. After explaining the rules of the test, he said very clearly, “If you cheat, I will take your test and tear it up. You will get a 0 for the biggest grade of the year.” Mr. Ward moved very effortlessly and efficiently about the room and during every test he went into a sort of RADAR mode. He sat at the front and watched the room for anything that might look like cheating. During this RADAR mode, if you were cheating, you would be caught. Guaranteed.
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。
Our test started and we were sitting there busy working on our papers.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then Mr. Ward asked the kid he was watching to go to his office.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When he was around 5-6 years old, my brother Ted, who is four years younger to me, suddenly found his legs unable to move one night. What followed was one of the hardest times of my parents'life. Months passed with them meeting various doctors, visiting different hospitals, and knocking at the doorstep of every possible chance — all the time with Ted in their arms, since he wasn't able to walk on his own anymore.
There were doubts of permanent paralysis（瘫痪）— the very mention of which was enough to break us down. From finding it extremely painful to walk, to not being able to get up on his own, and to not being able to stand at all, Ted's problem was worsening day by day. Most surprisingly, all this while, he was as strong as, perhaps, only children can be in such difficult times.
During this period, it was not unusual for my mother to have sudden breakdowns. Once, she burst into tears while watching Ted playing joyfully. He wiped off her tears, and said, “Don't cry, mummy. See, I can stand and even run on my own!” Saying this, he tried to get up, stood on shaking legs for just about a few microseconds and fell down, only to be safely caught in the arms of my mom, who hugged him dearly and cried some more.
This was the most heart-breaking thing that I had ever experienced. But it was also a powerful one for the simple fact that it was my little brother who taught us what life was all about—HOPE.
Witnessing my brother's strong will and positive attitude inspired me as well. As a brother, I could not stand by doing nothing at all. Hope was burning in my heart when I had the idea to train my brother to walk again. I firmly believe Ted could stand up and walk as he used to. Whenever school was over, I would put Ted into a pushchair and tell my mom that we'd just go to the park.
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。
In the park, I would put Ted one meter away from me, encouraging him to walk.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________We agreed to keep this a secret from our parents until mom's birthday.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Grandma tried to straighten out her fingers.“You know, Ann, I think I am done knitting.” she said.“My fingers just won’t do what I tell them any more.”
I looked at her hands.When I was little, she had taught me how to sew dresses for my dolls and how to embroider (刺绣) the faces of my dolls on the dresses.
But now she can hardly bend her fingers.The doctor said she should keep her hands warm.I made her cups of tea to hold and moved her chair closer to the fire.But it didn’t work.
I wasn’t used to seeing her hands so still.When I came downstairs, her quiet hands made even her voice stay still.I missed her voice more than ever.
I tried to help her find her voice.“Grandma, tell me about when you were a little girl,” I begged, knowing she loved to tell stories.“Tell me about Peti and Zoe.” Peti and Zoe were her brother and sister.“That was so long ago, Ann,” whispered Grandma.“I can barely remember.” But I still remembered her story about Peti cutting off Zoe’s two beautiful long braids (辫子) and then hiding them in the closet.Were those words still moving silently in her head?
Mom was sorting through our clothes for spring.“Ann, take these out to the trash,” Mom said.“There’s no need to keep worn-out clothes.”
I looked sadly at the pile of sweaters and then picked it up.
“Wait,” Grandma said as I walked by her and put the pile downstairs.“Let me see those.”
“Ann, wind the yarn (纱线) of the old sweater into a ball, like this.Then you can use the yarn to knit something new.” Grandma wrapped yarn around and around her fingers, first in one direction and then the other to keep the ball round.
After dinner Grandma fell asleep in her chair.
Mom came downstairs with an old pair of gloves with small holes to add to the pile of sweaters.
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。
Suddenly, the pair of old gloves gave me an idea.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Your family,” I said, handing the gloves with the faces of Peti and Zoe to Grandma.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My Best Examination
One day, while at work in a coal-mine in Malden, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for poor people in Virginia. It was Hampton Institute. The school was established to provide opportunities for poor but worthy students who could work out all or a part of the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.
I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to school. I decided at once to go to that school. Finally the great day came and I started for Hampton. I had only a small, cheap bag that contained what few articles of clothing I could get. The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare (路费) to Hampton.
By walking and begging rides in some way, I finally reached the grounds of the Hampton Institute after a number of days, tired and dirty. As soon as possible after reaching, I presented myself before the head teacher for assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and change of clothing, I was like a worthless loafer (游荡者).
I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I tried to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness. How I wished that I could get a chance to show what was in me.
After some time, the head teacher said to me, “The adjoining (隔壁的) classroom needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep 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。
It occurred to me at once that here was my chance.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The head teacher went into the room and inspected the floor and closets.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
