I am Lucky
I came from a large family and my mother couldn’t afford my college. I managed to apply for some grants (助学金), but still not enough for room and meals. So I washed dishes in the school cafeteria as part of a work-study program. However, washing dishes as well as trying to keep up with my study made me tired. As a result, I was often absent-minded, and my grades went up and down.
Just when I thought I would have to drop out, my advisor came to me. He explained that his grandmother needed house service and care on the weekends. The job paid twice the money I was making washing dishes. With more time to study, I accepted it.
Later I discovered the grandmother’s great love of music. She spent hours playing her old piano. One day, she told me that she would teach me the art. Weekends in their house became more than just books and cooking. They were filled with the wonderful sounds of piano and two out-of-tune (跑调的) singers. Amazed at my ability, Grandma encouraged me to continue. I was thankful and tried my best to practise my skills.
When Christmas break came, Grandma got a cold. I was afraid to leave her, but my parents expected me home anxiously as I hadn’t been home for long. Unwillingly, I agreed.
注意：
1. 续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头已给出。
Paragraph 1: However, two weeks later, I received a call, saying that Grandma had passed away.
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Paragraph 2: The envelope was from Grandma, in which was a letter.
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David was an 8-year-old boy living in Memphis with his family. When 4 years old, David got his face burnt by hot water, leaving scars (伤疤) on his cheeks. David was home-schooled by his mother, but as he grew older, his parents decided to send him to a private school. David was afraid of being made fun of, but his parents encouraged him to face everything bravely.
When he began school, other kids didn’t want to be his friends because of his scars. Luckily, a girl named Angel offered to sit with him and helped him go through that difficult time. They became good friends, chatting happily and sharing what they were interested in.
As time went by, David’s excellent learning ability and kind behavior made him popular with the students. Since David was good at science, his classmates would turn to him for help whenever they had problems with their studies. David was always glad to help them.
On Halloween, a variety of holiday activities were held on campus. Everyone wore costumes (化装服) they liked. David wore a mask (面具), and no one could tell it was him. Unrecognized, David was walking through the classroom backdoor when he overheard his classmate Tom’s comment, “David’s face is the ugliest one I have ever seen.” Hearing this, David felt upset and depressed. He ran away secretly. Angel happened to stand behind David and saw what happened, but it was too late to stop it. As David’s best friend at school, Angel thought David was a good boy who should be treated kindly.
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。
After thinking for a while, Angel walked up to Tom.
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Tom decided to say sorry to David.
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It was a rainy night in Portland. I was waiting at the airport for my flight to New York. With several long hours before the flight, I hunted for a novel in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies at the checkout counter and comfortably found a place to drop.
Several minutes later, I was absorbed in my book and didn’t notice somebody settled beside me. I continued to read and contented myself with my chocolate-chip cookies, but at this moment, I saw that the man sitting beside me, as bold (胆大的) as he could be, grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between! I was silently shocked and angry: “What?!” He looked decent and nothing like poor. Unbelievable as his rude act was, I tried to ignore it to avoid a scene.
So I munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the cookie thief cut down my stock. I was getting more annoyed as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I weren’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.” With each cookie I took, he took one too. The moment came when there was only one cookie left in the bag, I just glared at him and wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered me half, as he ate the other. I grabbed it from him and thought: “Oh, brother! This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude! He didn’t even show any gratitude!”
I finally sighed with relief when my flight was called. Gathering my belongings and heading to the gate, I couldn’t bear to look at the thief again! After boarding the plane and sinking in my seat, I sought my book, which was almost complete. As I reached in my baggage, I was astonished! There was my almost-full bag of cookies, in front of my eyes!
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。
“If mine are here,” I cried in silent despair, “the others were his!”
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When I was waiting to claim my luggage, a familiar figure caught my eye-the “cookie thief”!
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In the first grade in senior high school, I was extremely shy, I had friends, but it just wasn’t in my personality to be very outgoing, even when I knew someone. I was afraid I would do or say something wrong, so usually I just smiled and listened to other people’s conversations.
I did well in school and I loved to write. However, I would escape into my writing, where I could be myself and never had to worry about what other people thought of me. In my stories, I was never shy, I often imagined that I was the main character in the story. My teacher, Mrs. Sather, always encouraged me to write more and be myself. She told our class to go after our dreams and dig in with great efforts. I thoughts he was one of the first people to see my inner strength.
One day, she showed us a play she had written and announccd that our class was going to perform it. “I’ll begin to choose all the performers tomorrow” she said, “I need someone who is not afraid to be onstage in front of a lot of people to play the lead part of Dorothy. Anybody wants to try?” A few excited hands shot up -mine, of course, was not one of them and Mrs. Sather smiled. “We’ll talk more about it later,” she said. Then the bell rang and my classmates slowly left the classroom.
“I will never do that,” I thought. But after rereading the play, I was deeply attracted by the story and couldn’t help imagining myself to be the main character Dorothy. There seemed to be a new person inside me, a much more daring, outgoing person who had been hidden all along, just waiting for the opportunity to appear. However, I still felt shy and could never picture myself acting in a play in front of two hundred people. Having struggled for a few minutes, I still did not know how to make the decision.
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 I was packing my schoolbag, Mrs Sather asked me to go to her.
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One week later, it was time for me to perform on the stage.
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On a Friday night, a poor young artist named Anthony Perry stood at the gate of the New York railway station, playing his violin. The violinist was a student at an arts college and had planned to attend advanced studies in Vienna. He needed money to pay the tuition, so he played the violin at the railway station every day to make money. The music was so great that many people stopped to put some money into the hat of the young man.
The next day, Anthony came to the same place, and put his hat on the ground gracefully. Different from the day before, he took out a large piece of paper and laid it under his hat. Then he began to play the violin. It sounded more pleasant than ever.
Soon he was surrounded by people who were attracted by the words on that paper. It said, “Last night, a gentleman named George Sang put an important thing into my hat by mistake. Please come to get it soon.”
After about half an hour, a middle-aged man rushed through the crowd to the violinist and said, “Yes, it’s you. I knew that you were an honest man and would certainly come here.” The young violinist asked calmly, “Are you Mr George Sang?” The man nodded. The violinist asked, “Did you lose something?” “It’s a lottery ticket (彩票),” said the man.
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。
Anthony took out a lottery ticket and George Sang’s name was seen on it.
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Anthony’s good deed was posted on social media and went viral.
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As a senior editor in a famous press, I always think of days twenty years before when I was 18, I lived with my grandparents, and my parents earned their living in another city, struggling to support our family. I had taken to delivering newspapers to support myself and my education.
I would be up every morning by 5 am and walk five kilometres from where I lived to the newspaper office. By 6 am, I would collect 50 copies which must have weighed over five kilograms. My delivery range spanned (横跨) three kilometres. After distributing the copies, I would rush home—another three kilometres away—cook my breakfast, and be off to my school.
One Friday morning, I got home after my deliveries, finding Afzal, a boy from the neighbourhood, at my doorstep. Afzal said his mother wanted to see me. When I asked him why, Afzal said, “She will tell you.” Tired after walking around for over 11 kilometres, I was looking forward to breakfast and some rest. I assumed his mother wished to subscribe (定期订购) to the newspaper, so I followed him to his home nearby.
A woman in her 40s opened the door. I later learned she was Afzal’s mother, Mrs Kader. She asked me to sit, pulled up her chair next to mine and gently asked, “Tell me about your routine, right from the time you wake up in the morning.” I wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to know, but I told her about my morning job in a few words. She asked me, “How many miles do you walk every day?” I replied, “A little more than 11 kilometres.” My reply shocked her.
Then she patted my back and went inside, reappearing carrying a large plate full of food for breakfast for me. It was a heart y breakfast, one that brought back memories of happy days spent with my parents. Later, as I was about to leave after thanking them, Mrs Kader asked me to wait and she went inside again.
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。
Then Mrs Kader appeared again, with a new bicycle.
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I bowed to Mrs Kader gratefully and left for school.
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注意：
1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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I was born in a small village in the mountainous province of Lao Cai in Vietnam. In my poverty-stricken small village, girls hardly had the chance to complete their education. But I was lucky. I was born into a family where my parents supported our education. As one of the very few families that could afford all children to continue to study till high school, my parents faced a lot of negative opinions from our neighbors.
I was not always there for the criticism, however, as I lived in boarding schools for ethnic minority (少数民族) children. There were a lot of girls and boys from different ethnic groups in our schools. In these second homes, I learned from teachers and friends and most importantly, I was trained to live independently and with confidence. And this gave me the motivation to try harder every day.
In 2017, I came to Hanoi, the capital city, as a first-year student at the University of Languages and International Studies. It was a life-changing experience for me. I was thrilled at the fact that the students here were so bright and brilliant. The world became much bigger for me — far different from my small town. “Where are you from? Are you an ethnic minority?” Those were the frequent questions I had from my classmates at the beginning. At first, I was afraid of those questions and then I realized that when I began to talk openly about my culture, I was warmly received.
It goes without saying that confidence grows in a nurturing (滋养的) environment. Again, I found myself lucky. Slowly I started to engage in school activities and after some time, I volunteered for community activities.
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。
In 2019, I became the leader of a students’ group working on voluntary projects for our ethnic community.
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Mary Lee seemed to have everything. She was very beautiful with a wonderful figure and an attractive face. She was very rich. Her clothes were better than anyone else’s and she had more of them. Her books were always new and expensive as were her pens, school bags and bicycle. She was very clever too and without appearing to do very much work. She was always the first in all the examinations and always answered all the questions, while the rest of the class were still thinking.
With all this, or really because of all this, no one liked Mary Lee. She was too good, too clever and she was also very proud. No one was quite good enough to talk to her or to be seen with her or to be her friend. And so, with all her proud ways and riches and brains, she was lonely but she did not care because she was always the best in everything. She was like a princess in the class. She always thought that the other students kept their distance from her because she was too excellent. “Lions and tigers are always lonely, and only the weak get together,” she told herself.
As the end of term drew near, the pupils including Mary Lee began to think about the most important prize of all. This was the prize, offered by the principal, for the best essay to be written on one of two subjects: Happiness and Friendship. All the teachers and pupils paid close attention to the prize, for it was really a great honor. “I needn’t worry about that,” thought Mary Lee, as the others began to read and to think about the essay. “I shall easily win. After all, my compositions are always better than the other students’.”
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。
“Pride goes before a fall,” they say and it certainly did in the case of poor Mary Lee.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Mary Lee suddenly realized that how silly she had been.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I needed to do something in my community (社区) in order to complete the community service hours required to graduate from high school. Some of my friends had signed up to spend time at a soup kitchen, so I did, too. It seemed like a good thing to do.
I thought that we would just be passing out dinners to those in need, but I found out we would be doing everything from preparing to serving the dinner. We began preparing the food, from mixing salad dressing to separating frozen meat. Much still needed to be done before dinner was served, but already outside the building many homeless people were gathering. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that we opened the doors and began serving dinner.
As the line of people came toward me, I got a little scared. I’d come face to face with the homeless: How should I act? How would they treat me? Would they hate me for having more than they did? While some of the people looked very friendly, some of them looked so dangerous. I didn’t have too much time to worry about it. I was assigned (分配) to serve the salad with the lady next to me. She smiled at me and said if I needed help, she’d be right there, which I found quite comforting.
I had never seen so many people wanting food. They were of all ages and nationalities. Most of them wore clothes that were torn and dirty. Some looked like they had tally given up on life, while others seemed to be making the best of the situation, smiling and joking. Some were better off than others, but they all needed a good meal and a warm place to eat. It saddened me to think of how many people there were who didn’t have a place to call home and the only food they got came from a soup kitchen.
注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
As they came in my direction, I put on my brightest and happiest smile.
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Paragraph 2:
I was so happy that I had earned my service hours in this way.
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