Marcus sat by his window, staring at the lights on other buildings. He thought of his Papa who was visiting Marcus' sick Grandpa in the hospital. "I will try to help Mama while you are gone," Marcus had promised his father.
His little brother, Peter, sat beside him. "When are we getting our Christmas tree, Marcus?" Peter asked. "I can't wait to decorate it with Mama's straw bird." "We're not getting a tree this year, Peter." "Why not?" "Too many bills with Grandpa sick. Mama said we can't afford one."
Someone knocked on their apartment door, and they hurried to see who it was. It was Jack from downstairs. They let him in and he looked around. "No tree yet? I helped put up our artificial tree a week ago. It's up to the ceiling. Just two more days till Christmas! I guess you're not getting a tree." Jack's words left Peter quite unconvinced. "Of course not! We are going to buy a real Christmas tree, a real one!" Jack shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Marcus walked slowly to his room and gathered his pocket money. It's only seven dollars. He thought that, with school out, he could earn enough money in two days to buy a tree and surprise Mama.
The next day, he stayed busy carrying goods to help shoppers. By the time he left, six more dollars were earned into his pocket. It was his lucky day and he expected that thirteen dollars should buy a small tree.
He whistled all the way to the tree lot（场地）. But even the smallest trees were fifteen dollars or more. Tomorrow would be busy with more shoppers. Marcus had to earn those extra dollars. He asked the seller in the tree lot: "Can you save this tree for me, sir?" "I can't," the man said, "but come back tomorrow. It might still be here." "I will be back." Marcus waved and dashed off.
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。
The next day, Marcus and Peter came to the tree lot, only to see an even smaller tree.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
They went to a nearby store to buy decorations with the spare dollars.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We have that one person in our life who constantly tries to make us a better person. That person sacrifices his time and energy for the pursuit to put us in the right path and not let us wander away into dangerous waters. I have had the experience of having such a person who managed to change my life for better.
I picked up the habit of smoking right after my high school. From wanting to have first-time experience with holding a cigarette, I started developing a minor addiction towards it. In company with friends who smoked, I started smoking regularly and became heavily addicted to smoking. I used to secretly smoke in the house so that my parents wouldn’t find out. There were days when I used to smoke a full packet of cigarettes, which changed my life.
I was proud of my brother, but he was also a chain-smoker and had started suffering lung problems because of the heavy smoking. He quit smoking because of the regular chest pains and other complications which started developing. Since he faced a lot of health problems, he started understanding the bad impacts of smoking.
He knew I had become badly addicted to smoking. Since he was very close to me and loved me, he started asking me to quit smoking. I never listened to him. He used to hide my packet of cigarettes or throw them in the bin.
Despite his regular pains and problems, he made it his aim to make me quit smoking. However, on one particular day he complained of severe chest pains so we rushed him to the nearby hospital. His condition worsened in the hospital and the next day, he was declared dead. We were in great shock and the whole thing seemed unbelievable. I missed my brother a lot and was frequently reminded of his repeated warning to me to quit smoking.
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 saw how he lost his life because of smoking.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My brother’s words rang in my ears every day.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Every afternoon after school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass, beautiful flowers, and peach trees whose pink pearly blossoms came out in spring, and that in autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat in the trees and sang so sweetly. The children used to play games, crying and laughing.
“How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.
One day the selfish Giant came back. When he arrived, he saw the children playing in the garden.
“What are you doing here?” he cried loudly, and the children ran away.
“The garden is my own garden,” said the Giant. “I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all around it, and put up a notice board reading, “No Entry!”
The poor children had nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, so they did not like it. They used to wander around the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there!” they said to each other.
Then the spring came, and all over the country there were blossoms and birds. Only in the garden of the selfish Giant was it still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. When they saw the notice board they were so sorry for the children. The only ones who were pleased were the snow and the frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all year round.” The snow covered up the grass, and the frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the cold north wind to stay with them.
“Why is the spring so late in coming?” said the selfish Giant, looking out of the window at his cold white garden. “I hope there will be a change in the weather.”
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:
One morning when he looked out of the window, the Giant saw a most wonderful sight.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
And the Giant was touched by what he saw outside.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My best friend Lisa and I carefully wrote our words with a No. 2 pencil. We took turns writing down the sentences. "Dear Miss Hanley," we wrote, "you like Kathleen better than you like us. That isn't fair."
Miss Hanley was our fourth-grade teacher. She was in her 20s, with short, dark, curly hair and lively grey eyes. It was her first-year teaching in our public school in the northeast Bronx. "You're a very talented writer," Miss Hanley often told me. This excited me. A few weeks into this school year, Lisa and I had co-authored a play based on our favorite novel, Little Women. And we performed the play in front of the class. When the curtain came down, the applause from the students was light. But Miss Hanley clapped strongly, saying, "Great! Great!" Lisa and I ignored the other kids, and were high on her praise for days.
I didn't envy Lisa's relationship with Miss Hanley. Sharing Miss Hanley was a bond between us. In Miss Hanley's class, we behaved ourselves, although we couldn't help comparing ourselves with Kathleen, whose demeanor (风度) and dress were perfect. Kathleen lived in her family's big house with a beautiful garden. Lisa and I lived in small apartments. Her eyes were as huge as those of most film stars. She spoke softly and politely. Her hair was waved, clean and tidy. My hair was loose and wild. Lisa and I wore clothes that didn't always match. I sometimes wore my sister's hand-me-downs. Kathleen did best in her studies and of course Miss Hanley liked her. The funny thing is that I didn't like Kathleen and neither did Lisa. In fact we didn't know why.
Lisa and I continued writing our note to Miss Hanley, "You call on Kathleen more than you call on us. You like her because she is a goody-goody (讨好卖乖的人).That's not fair! Just that we are not goody-goodies does not mean you should like us less."
注意: 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。
My heart was pounding (怦怦直跳)as we left the note before class on Miss Hanley's desk.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
At three o'clock, Miss Hanley asked us to stay after class for a few minutes.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I couldn’t stop thinking about watermelons. I’d saved all y money to buy one. One giant, juicy wonderful watermelon all for me. I was going to eat it all up, for the seeds.
At the store I searched carefully, looking for the biggest, juiciest, and most wonderful one I could find. There it was. I picked up my dream watermelon and put it on the floor. I rolled my treasure to the checkout line and waited for the cashier to weigh. Fifteen pounds!
After paying,I rolled it out the door , then along the sidewalk, three blocks to my house. Sweat fell in drops from my forehead onto the watermelon. in drops from my forehead onto the watermelon.
＂Lucy! What are you doing with that watermelon?" Mom asked in surprise.
“I saved up my money and bought it at the grocery store. I’m going to eating it all by myself.”
Mom frowned,and warned, “You'll get sick.”
＂Please,” I begged. “I've been saving all my money for it.”
Mom thought for a while, and then smiled meaningfully as if she knew something.She asked me to roll my giant,juicy,wonderful watermelon out the back door to our picnic table in the yard. She brought out a knife and some paper plates. My sister followed her.“Oh,watermelon,"she exclaimed with joy. “I want some.”
“Sorry,”I told her. “I'm going to eat it all by myself.”“Mom!” she cried,deep disappointment in her eyes.
“Your sister saved her money and bought it herself. She decides what to do with it.”
My brother came out next.“Watermelon! Can I have some?” he asked eagerly.“No way,"I refused him without hesitation. “I'm going to eat it all by myself.” “Mom!” my brother protested loudly.
“It's your sister's watermelon. She decides.”
“You can't eat that all by yourself," he challenged.
“Yes,I can!”I declared firmly.
My father came out. “Oh,watermelon!” he said, seeing it.
＂Don't even ask,”said my brother.
“She won't share,” my sister added.
Mom cut the watermelon into eight pieces in total.I reached for my first piece and took a bite.Red juice ran down my chin(下巴）.
注意：
2.请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
1.续写词数应为150左右；
Para 1:
The four of them stood together around he picnic table,Watching me.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Para 2:
Suddenly felt I was greedy as I was the only one having fun.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alice had just been appointed in the multinational bank. After one month of severe training, today was her first day to go to work.
She got up a bit earlier than usual, and decided to skip her gym workout as she did not want to risk being tired or getting late to her office on her first day. She went through her morning routine and spent a lot of time in selecting what to wear. None of her dresses seemed to appeal to her—they were either a little too casual or too dull and she definitely wanted to make an impression right from the start. Finally she settled on the white embroidered (刺绣的) dress.
She waved bye to her mom and set off cheerfully towards the bus stop. But she saw a bus leaving the stop just as she crossed the street. Now she would have to wait for a good 15 minutes. 15 minutes passed and then 30 minutes and there was no sign of the bus. “It must be stuck in heavy traffic”, a kind lady who was also waiting for the bus told her. Hearing that, Alice got anxious. She had to reach her office on time. Then she saw a taxi approaching but when she tried to stop it, the taxi driver sped by without even taking a glance at her. Alice was wondering what she could do.
It was then that a car stopped near her and a man waved to her. The driver asked her where she was going and after Alice told him that she was going to the bank at Nariman Point, the man said “Oh, my office is in the nearby building. Can I give you a lift?” Alice hesitated for a moment and got into the car. They exchanged names and began to talk for a while. Then the driver switched on the radio and was absorbed in the song. Alice looked out of the window and imagined her first day at work, worrying whether she was capable of the new job, and if she could get along well with her colleagues. After about ten minutes, Alice realized they were not on the familiar route to her office.
注意:续写词数应为150左右；
Paragraph 1:
She began to worry that she might get into the car of a bad man.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
Then the car turned around a corner and Alice saw the tall building where her office was unexpectedly.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The eleven-year-old had just arrived in famous Carnegie Hall. He was to appear as a violin performer with the New York Symphony Orchestra. On his way from the stage entrance to the artists’ room, he saw a large fire ax (斧子) on a wall. “What’s that for?” he asked a guard.
“To cut the heads off the performers who don’t play well,” was the reply.
“And how many heads have you already cut off?”
“Oh, quite a few,” said the guard, with a friendly smile.
Some in the audience that night, especially the music critics, expected the boy’s head to roll. He was to play a difficult violin piece by Beethoven. Critics felt that this great piece should be attempted only by a mature artist. For a child, the complicated fingering would be impossible, they added.
It was November 25, 1927. That night Carnegie Hall was packed. All eyes in the audience watched for Yehudi Menuhin, the eleven-year-old violin performer, to appear on the stage. News of his talent had already excited the public imagination. There was an outburst of applause when he came out in his white silk shirt and black pants.
In a businesslike manner, Yehudi took his place near the conductor and handed his violin to the first violinist to be tuned. There was a breathless silence in the hall. When the kettledrum (定音鼓) announced the opening of the music, Yehudi stood calmly, so absorbed in the music that some people feared he would not come in on time. But, with only seconds to spare, he adjusted his violin and raised his bow. At the great singing tone that filled the hall, there was a slight excitement, and then a silence.
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。
Listeners were impressed by his pure tone, expert fingering and wonderful skill.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Even the newspaper critics stayed on to applaud Yehudi.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was a dull, cold and cloudy Monday morning. I had planned to take a journey and visit my grandfather who lived in Tennessee. As I set out on my journey and boarded the bus whose final destination was Tennessee, joy was written all over my face.It had been quite a long time since I last visited the countryside. Though the road leading to Tennessee was quietly rocky, the journey was interesting and fantastic. I enjoyed myself so much since I was able to take pictures of wild animals like giraffe and antelopes(羚羊）and along the way.
After about five hours’ drive, we were finally at Tennessee. I carried my luggage and followed the other passengers. However, I realized that there were many people at the bus station who had come to meet their relatives. My grandfather had informed me that there was no need for anyone to come for me as I would easily find my way to his home.
I tried to talk to a few people to ask about the road leading to my grandfather’s home, but unfortunately, we couldn’t understand each other because of the language barrier. I had to make signs, pointing towards the direction where my grandfather lived to see if they could help me. However, the people I asked seemed not to understand me very well, and ended up giving me mixed directions. I felt so desperate because it was already getting late. What’s worse, the countryside had network problems, so I could not reach my grandfather over the phone. I had no option but to look for a suitable place of shelter for the night. I carefully walked through the bushes, along the road and found a tree that had a lot of thick bushes around it. I felt that this was a nice place for me to hide for the night before daybreak.
注意:1. 续写词数应为150个字左右;
2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Luckily enough, before I could close my eyes, I heard the sound of a vehicle in the distance.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The couple told me that day they were on their way back home from their son’s wedding. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was 8 a.m. Kathy, a 25yearold nurse, had just finished a 2hour night shift at a hospital. She was tired, but glad to be sailing along highway to where she lived. Although the local government had posted a snow alert, the calm grey sky convinced Kathy the drive would be safe. “I figured I'd be in bed in an hour,” she says.
Snow began when she was halfway home. Listening to the radio, Kathy learned the highway was closed because a tractor had slid off the road. She texted some friends and her mom, and tried not to sleep as she waited.
After a couple of hours, however, conditions worsened. Strong winds began rocking Kathy's car. She couldn't see anything outside, and snow was drifting up her doors. It was, she says, “a total white out and rows of cars and trucks”.
Late in the afternoon a police officer came and asked if she was in any difficulty. She said she was fine. She asked the police officer if there was any way to get past the trucks. “No, ma'am,” he answered. “You're not going anywhere.”
Once as it got dark, Kathy began to worry. She texted his brother Cris, telling him to drive snowmobiling buddy to get to the highway and find her.
As Cris rode slowly alongside the rows of cars and trucks, people would roll down their windows and ask for help. “I was the first person they'd seen in six hours.” He explained he was picking up his sister. He told them, “Nobody's coming and I can't take you.”
Near 10 p.m., Cris reached Kathy. He directed Kathy to pull her car onto the shoulder and asked her to get into his snowmobiling buddy.
As they headed for home, the fun started. About five kilometres into the journey, Cris made a mistake. What he thought was a shallow ditch turned out to be a deep trough. Instead of coming out the other side, they just kept going down. They were trapped. And feathery snow was over their heads.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
At that moment, they had to take action and get out.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When they arrived at their home, their mother was waiting for them.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Kirk Alexander, 48, who lives alone in a small town in Oregon named Salem, has been ordering pizza from Domino’s Pizza for the last ten yeas. He doesn’t usually go outside of his home unless it’s to get his favorite food: pizza and due to his frequently ordering, the staff was well acquainted with the man.
The manager of Kirk’ local Domino’s, Sarah, said that he was always so polite to the delivery staff. Throughout the seven years of him placing orders and supporting the particular Domino’s store, there’s never been a problem.
None of the employees at Kirk’s local Domino’s seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary for the first couple of days. However, this quickly changed once Sarah and a few of the team members realized that they hadn’t had an order from Kirk for quite some time.
Some of the staff members believed that Kirk might have taken a long-overdue trip away for a little while. Maybe he had decided that he needed a change of scenery after seven years of being in the same place. However, his silence didn’t sit well with the team.
“I went and looked up to see how long it had been since he last ordered and it was 11 days, which is not like him at all.” Fuller, a staff in Domino’s Pizza, said in an interview with KATU.
The next morning, Sarah asked Hamblen to pay their loyal customer a visit and make sure everything was all right.
That’s when Hamblen noticed something was wrong.
“When Hamblen arrived on the scene, Alexander wasn’t answering the door, but there were lights on and could hear the TV playing.” Sarah told KATU.
They then tried to phone Alexander several times, but each call went straight to voicemail. Finally, Hamblen dialed 911.
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。
When the police arrived on the scene, they could hear a man calling for help.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last weekend, employees at the Domino’s paid their loyal customer visits at the Salem Hospital.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
