Though traveling is not a big deal for me today, before my trip to the mountains, I used to be a homebody. I had friends to hang out with, several hobbies, and I felt completely comfortable spending weeks or even months in my hometown — or sometimes even on my block — without going anywhere. All my demands of novelty were satisfied by the Discovery and National Geographic channels, and I seriously thought there was no difference between seeing something on the TV and with one’s own eyes.
The situation changed when one day David, my best friend who always has a couple of colorful bugs in his head (or, in other words, was always carrying out several crazy plans at once), walked into my room and declared his disgust (厌恶) for civilization. I will not describe how he managed to persuade me to join him on his journey to the Rocky Mountains; all I will say is that we departed in five days. This was my first time in the mountains, so I was turning my head in all directions. Unfortunately, the weather was foggy most of the time, and the higher we got into the mountains, the worse the visibility was.
Even despite this fact, I still enjoyed the hike — I felt like I was Bear Grylls, whose show I used to watch with excitement: in the wild, with food and water in my backpack, carrying a flashlight and a knife. On the first day, we were making our way along the foothills; but the next day, we started to climb on one of the peaks. Though it was not that steep and high, I was still excited. I regularly hastened, and because of that, I ran out of energy long before we got to the top; David, on the other hand, was more well-paced.
When we finally got to the top, nothing had changed. The same fog was covering the surroundings, and even though I was filled with positive emotions, I felt disappointed, because I counted on seeing the view from above and perhaps being able to take some photos.
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。
We spent a couple of hours on the top, and decided to turn back.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Seeing all this scenery with my own eyes was truly an eye-opening experience for me.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It all started after a routine doctor visit. I’d been planning on getting healthy, but the number s showed that my vague efforts weren’t working at all. Weijing 325pounds, I found my blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure were all way over target. Things had to change. Dradically.
But I was definitely not doing another diet of cramming (塞满) denial and shame down my throat until I hit some number on a scale. I was tired of watching the weight return again and again. bringing with it more guilt and shame. Clearly, I needed to make lifestyle changes.
It occurred to me that I knew a lot about what didn’t work, since all my previous attempts had led me to this sorry state. I needed to get healthy, but in a slow, steady, rest-d-my-life kind of way.
I’ve been a software developer for twenty-five years, so naturally I went to that skill set. I thought. “What if the system I need to redesign is me?” I decided to reboot (重启) my own system. Could I make it easy? Make it fun?
That idea seems radical (过激的). It goes against diet culture and the advertising messages we’ve been bombarded with our entire lives. We’re told over and over that getting health y is difficult. No pain, no gain, right?
But I found out it doesn’t have to be that way. I started upgrading my system by reviewing all the times I tried to get healthy in the past. I made a list of what didn’t work. Then I wrote down what did work, or at least worked for a while, and why it stopped working. There were some surprises. My membership at 15-Minute Fitness, for example, was a huge success. I worked out with a trainer for an intense fifteen minutes twice a week and saw huge gains.
One by one, I went through every failed attempt. I realized that the consistent elements across all of them were guilt, shame and internal bullying.
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。
Then I came up with new rules.
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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It has been another long, hard winter here in the mountains of my home. High winds, heavy snows, freezing cold, and heavy rains have all hit us, causing damage to people, power lines, and even the trees around here. And today, as I look at the broken branches filling my daughter’s yard, memories from another hard winter several years ago flood me.
It was a day of dark clouds and bitter wind, and soon it began to rain. The rain was falling more and more heavily, and the wind blew wildly. You could see only a few meters on the road. At this moment, I was at work, looking through the window at the rain. I began to worry about how I would drive home from work. Luckily, the rain stopped before I finished my work.
It rained heavily for hours. The rainwater from the hills made the rivers full, filled the fields and formed water holes in the road. In addition to this, broken and fallen tree branches were everywhere.
I was driving home. Suddenly, I saw one of these branches had broken off a tree hanging above the road and fallen across it. It was big enough to crash my car, so I slowed down my car and turned on my emergency flashing lights.
Thankfully, there were no other cars there yet, but I knew that it would only be a matter of time before one crashed into that branch, maybe causing an injury or even a death. I quickly got out of my car and tried to pull the branch to the side of the road.
Just as I did, though, a little red car raced around me, hit a pool of water in the road and made my trousers dirty with rainwater.
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。
Before I said something, the red car pulled up.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then we tried our best to remove the branch together.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Steven Green was a hardworking man who worked all his life to support his family. He never finished college, so he had to take hard labor jobs around the neighborhood. He worked as a builder and a carpenter through the years. He often helped his neighbors whenever needed. However, as he grew older, he could no longer do these jobs. His knees grew weak, and his health condition made it difficult for him to do difficult jobs.
Steven’s kids didn’t live in the same state as him and could only send him a little money because they also led a poor life. Unfortunately, Steven experienced constant physical pain after doing hard labor jobs for years, and he needed to take medicine every day. The money his kids offered was only enough for food, and his savings were small. Realizing that he needed more money, Steven decided to get a job again. Finally, he found a job as a doorkeeper. At first, his salary was enough to pay for the groceries and the medicine he needed. However, due to his advanced age, he started to need more medicine, and it cost a whole lot.
To pay the growing bills, Steven began to take things from his home to a second-hand store to get some money. One day, as he was carrying an old radio to the store, his neighbor, Ben, saw him. “Mr. Green, it’s so good to see you! How have you been?” Ben asked. “I’m doing great. I’m just selling couple of things I no longer use at home for some cash. Being weak is terrible when you’re old, so take care of yourself when you are young, alright?” he said almost jokingly. Ben nodded.
“Thanks for the tip, Mr. Green!” he said before waving goodbye. That same day, Steven was cooking dinner when he heard the doorbell ring. He wasn’t expecting anyone, so he curiously walked towards the door.
Paragraph 1:Surprisingly, he saw Ben standing there with a jacket in his arms.
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Paragraph 2:
“Ben must have forgotten about the check inside the pocket,” Steven thought.
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This new stepsister (继妹) was really annoying me. She wouldn’t stop talking. What was Dad trying to prove with this family vacation? We couldn’t quickly become the perfect family. I just became a teenager, and Christina was eight.
Dad and I finished putting up the large tent (帐篷) he’d just bought. I walked back to the car to get my backpack. Getting my backpack out of the car, I knocked a pink backpack to the ground. Before I could pick it up, Christina appeared.
“Why’d you throw my backpack on the ground?” She picked the pack up and went into the tent before I could say anything.
After lunch, Dad suggested I take Christina to see redwood trees. He took out a map and circled on it where there was a stand of big redwood trees. I put the map into my pocket, and then set off down the road at the edge of the campground. When I looked back at Christina, all I saw was a pink ball cap. I shook my head. Dad and my new stepmom were crazy if they thought we’d quickly develop a relationship of trust. I was not cut out to be a big brother.
Christina walked quietly behind me. “She doesn’t want to be here either，”I thought.
Reaching a small round hill, we climbed the switchback (之字形坡路) to its top. Christina kept up. We passed a large rock at the top and started down the other side. I looked around and could see the tops of redwood trees popping out above the forest canopy (树冠层). I pointed them out to Christina and saw a smile light her face.
Before I knew it, she took hold of my hand and pulled me down into the field. Then I saw it, sitting on a rock in the middle of the field: a young bear. I held Christina’s hand tightly.
“Ow! Why’d you —”
I pointed to the young bear.
“Can we get closer and pet it?” Christina asked quietly.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;2．请按如下格式作答。“No,” I said quietly, “stay near me and don’t talk.”
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Once we got to the redwood trees, Christina forgot all about the young bear and became happy.
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Catia Lattouf de Arída has been using her apartment in Mexico City as a hospital and shelter for injured and abandoned hummingbirds(蜂鸟)for the last 11 years.
Hummingbirds are a very important part of Mexico’s ecosystem, but because of the ever-expanding urban landscape, they face all sorts of serious threats. That’s where 73-year-old Catia comes in. As a self-taught hummingbird caretaker, she devotes most of her free time and resources to nursing the tiny birds back to health. She has been doing it for over a decade and her home in Mexico City has become known as a hummingbird hospital.
Catia’s story as a hummingbird nurse began in 2011, at a very difficult moment in her life. She had lost her husband two years prior and she herself was battling cancer. She was walking on the street one day when she noticed a hummingbird that had suffered a serious eye injury. The kindhearted woman took it home, but she knew nothing about taking care of a bird, let alone such a tiny one. However, a veterinarian(兽医)friend encouraged her to look after the hummingbird, and that led to a life devoted to rescuing hundreds of tiny birds.
“It wrote me a new life,” Catia recently said about Gucci, the first hummingbird she ever cared for. Catia managed to nurse Gucci back to health, but she claims it was the tiny bird that saved her. She had sold her five high-end boutiques(精品店)in the city to focus on her battle with cancer and had fallen into a depression, but the hummingbird managed to pull her out of the sadness and loneliness that had taken over her life. And it was only the beginning.
注意：
1. 续写词数应在150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Word of her success spread among Catia’s friends, and before long some of them began bringing her injured and abandoned hummingbirds.
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In order to raise awareness of the difficulty of hummingbirds in Mexico, Catia started posting videos of the patients on social media and many of them spread quickly.
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I was never a fast runner and thus I always didn’t like running. Throughout my childhood, whenever we competed in the 50-meter run, the 400-meter, or any other type of race, I would finish in the bottom half. In my late teens, as a member of a baseball team, I was the slowest runner on the team. In the preseason training, I was always the one running by myself at the end.
Therefore, twenty years later, when I entered my first official running race — a 3,000-meter challenge in my city — at age 38, I certainly didn’t expect to win or come close to winning.
I was there because my college friend Jim Hosek was the director of the race, and he asked me to run. The race was aimed at raising money for the unfortunate patients in a hospital and encouraging the patients and their fanilies to be brave, determined, and confident with sportsmanship.
It was a heartwarming program.I wanted to support it, so I showed up, paid the entrance fee, had a number pinned (把……别住) on my back, and moved over to the starting line. There, I waited with about 300 other runners for the race to begin. I was nervous. Would I be the last one to finish a race again? Could I even finish the race? I wondered.
Before long, someone spoke into a microphole, “Anyone weighing over 200 pounds comes down to the scale (秤), please.” Knowing I was over 200 pounds, I walked down to the scale. A man told me to stand on it. “Two hundred and three pounds,” he said. Then he wrote down the race number that was on my back. Out of curiosity, I asked him why he did so,and then I was told there would be an award ceremony (仪式) after the race. One award was for the first finisher in the over 200-pound group, and this special award would be announced at the end of the ceremony.
Not expecting the award, I ran towards the starting line, never realizing there were only two runners weighing over 200 pounds.
Paragraph 1:Soon after, the race started.
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Paragraph 2:
Then came the last award, and to my surprise, my name was announced.
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In 1945, a 12-year-old boy saw a beautiful brooch (胸针) in a shop window that set his heart racing. But the price — five dollars — was far beyond Reuben Earle’s means. Five dollars could buy almost a week’s food for his family. Reuben couldn’t ask his father for the money. Everything Mark Earle made through fishing went to his mother, Dora, who struggled to feed and clothe their five children.
However, he opened the shop’s weathered door and went inside. Standing proud and straight in his old but clean shirt and trousers, he told the shopkeeper what he wanted, adding, “But I don’t have the money right now. Can you please hold it for me for some time?”
“I’ll try,” the shopkeeper smiled.
Reuben respectfully touched his worn cap and walked out. He would raise the five dollars and not tell anybody. On hearing the sound of hammering (敲打) from a side street, Reuben suddenly had an idea. People built their own homes in Bay Roberts, using nails (钉子) bought in large bags from a local factory. Sometimes the used bags were thrown away at the construction, and Reuben knew he could sell them back to the factory for five cents a piece.
That day he found two bags, which he sold to the man in charge of packing nails.
The boy’s hand tightly held the five-cent pieces as he ran the two kilometers home. Near his house stood the ancient barn (谷仓). Reuben found an old soda tin and dropped his coins inside. Then he climbed into the barn and hid the tin in it.
It was dinner time when Reuben got home. His father was ready to serve dinner as Reuben took his place at the table. He looked at his mother and smiled. Slim and beautiful, she was the center of the home, the glue that held it together. Her chores were never-ending. But she was happy. Her family and their well-being were her most important things.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
Soon the summer vacation came, and no student was more delighted than Reuben.
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Paragraph 2:
Racing home, Reuben burst into the house, where his mother was busy in the kitchen.
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I spent almost three years in food service doing everything from washing dishes to working as a service director at a country club, Firstly, I waited tables, and it was actually one of my favorite jobs, mostly because of the people, One thing I learned is doing your job right .and focusing on ensuring that your customers have the best dining experience.
During college, I worked at a place called O’Malleys. It’s not open anymore so I don’t have to worry about getting anybody in trouble, and besides, this isn’t that kind of story.Every Sunday, these two ladies and a little girl would come in, and nobody wanted to wait on them because they were super cheap and never tipped, so I volunteered, and they became my regulars, I quickly learned that it was a mom, her young daughter, and her mother. They always ordered the same thing. They’d each get water, The two women would split an entree (主菜), and the young girl would get something off the child’s menu. And they’d leave no tip. I didn’t really care because Sunday lunch was always busy with the crowd, and their check was so small that even a 20% tip would have been just a few dollars. Besides, they were super nice, and I understood that this was their special time out. Going out just wasn’t something they could do. I did my best to treat them just like everybody else，which they appreciated.
This went on for over a year, Every Sunday, they would come in their pretty dresses, sit in my section, order the same thing they always did, and not leave me a tip... until one day,they did.
That day, they came in and ordered iced tea and a soda for the girl, I knew something was up. The two ladies each got their own entree nothing share, The little girl got a full order of chicken strips. I’m not sure why I remember exactly what she ordered.
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。
Of course, I asked what the celebration was.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The mother said they were moving to Dallas the next week.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My five-year-old daughter Ruthie seemed very small standing at the base of the huge rock-climbing wall as a young employee double-checked her equipment. It was our second time at this indoor crowded climbing gym. On our first visit, Ruthie had begged my husband and me to let her try climbing the wall, but I denied her, afraid that she was undersized.
But life had dramatically changed since then. After receiving a cancer diagnosis (诊断), I felt that my life was too short to deny her a chance. I stood outside the waiting area, watching the employee attach Ruthie to a safety rope. Then he gave her a thumbs-up sign, and my daughter began climbing!
With that rope, she couldn’t possibly fall. She might slip, but she wouldn’t fall. I was surprised at how she did that so easily and joyfully. “If my cancer is the rock wall, I want to be Ruthie,” I thought.
When she touched the ground again, I leaned over the low fence and asked, “How do you do that?”
“I just trust the rope. It’s very easy,” she said with a shrug, and started on her second climbing.
Apparently, if I had known the secret, I could have climbed the wall myself. When I was sixteen, I once failed to climb a rock wall. With added weight and reduced muscle tone, I doubted if I could even do it. I didn’t see any other moms trying to climb the wall. Several months earlier, embarrassment would have stopped me from trying. But my cancer did funny things to my brain. It made me realize that I needed to be braver than I thought.
With determination, I decided to try it and the same young employee checked my safety rope and gave me the thumbs-up sign. As I began my climb, I was excited by my own bravery for trying something so new. However, only ten feet up, my fingers and toes started to tire, and there was absolutely no place to rest. My excitement began to disappear and I was afraid that I was going to slip and fall.
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。
But I knew if I wanted to make it, I had to trust the rope.
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That day’s successful experience inspired me in my cancer battle.
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