As I unzipped my lunchbox, the whole place was turned into a spicy curry (咖喱) dream. I immediately hid it under my seat, hoping no one would take notice.
Mom had really outdone herself with masala — our family’s all-time favorite dish back in India. But today, it wasn’t just about me and my lunch. A warm smile on his face, Ricky invited me, a new transfer student from India to New York city, for lunch.
“Ava, come sit here!” Ricky called out, gesturing towards a vacant seat.
As I made my way over, memories of those awkward lunchtimes when I studied in Kansas, one of the most conservative states, flooded back. I could still recall how everyone would wrinkle their noses and stare curiously when I unpacked my Indian food. It always made me feel like an outsider, like I didn’t belong.
Therefore, before my first day in this school, I had demanded my mom pack “normal” western-style food for me. I still remembered the look on her face upon hearing it, as she signed in disappointment and confusion, “Isn’t there a moment when you feel proud of your origin?” That was hurting, but not more hurting than others’ giggles and whispers. Honestly, long queues were common in Indian restaurants in New York city, a cultural melting pot, but I wouldn’t take that risk.
Unfortunately, this morning, Mom had forgotten to make sandwich or any “normal” food, so I had to bring leftovers from our dinner. At the thought of the possible oh-no-second (社死), I felt like being thrown into darkness.
However, before I came back to reality, Ricky noticed my sneaking (躲躲藏藏). “What do you have for lunch?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with interest. I tried to brush it off (搪塞), claiming I wasn’t hungry. But Ricky wouldn’t let it go, and before I could protest, he had the lid of my lunchbox open and I prepared myself for such familiar responses as “Ew” or “What is that?”
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。
However, I did not get what I was expecting.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After school, I found Mom preparing sandwich for tomorrow’s lunch.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The day I met Hani Irmawati, she was a shy, seventeen-year-old girl standing alone in the parking lot of the international school in Indonesia, where I teach English. The school is expensive and does not accept Indonesian students. She walked up to me and asked if I could help her improve her English. I could tell it took great courage for the young Indonesian girl in worn clothing to ask for my help.
“Why do you want to improve your English?” I asked her, fully expecting her to talk about finding a job in a local hotel.
“I want to go to an American university,” she said with quiet confidence. Her idealistic dream made me want to cry.
I agreed to work with her after school each day on a volunteer basis. For the next several months, Hani woke each morning at five and caught the city bus to her public high school. Then at four o’clock in the afternoon, she arrived at my classroom, worn out but ready to work. With each passing day, I grew more fond of her. She worked harder than most of my wealthy students.
Her parents’ combined yearly income was 750 U. S. dollars. It wasn’t enough to meet the expenses of even one month in an American university. Hani’s enthusiasm was increasing with her language ability, but I was becoming more and more discouraged.
One morning in December 1998, I received the announcement of a scholarship opportunity for a major American university. I excitedly tore open the envelope and studied the requirements, but it wasn’t long before I dropped the form in depression. There was just no way, I thought, for Hani to meet these qualifications.
She did, however, have more determination than any student I’d ever seen. When Hani came into the classroom that day, I told her of the scholarship. I also told her that I believed there was no way for her to apply. I encouraged her to be realistic about her future and not to plan so strongly on coming to America. Even after my lecture, Hani remained firm.
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。
“Will you send in my name?” she asked.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I jumped about the room excitedly, shocked.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Our school holds an annual book fair each January, where new and used books are available for students to purchase. Our librarian, Mr. Egan, is the school sponsor (主办者) for it. Traditionally, the tenth-grade students are responsible for the planning, set-up, and selling at the fair. I am sure that Mr. Egan consulted our teacher, Ms. Cates, for suggestions as to who would be the student directors, and I was pleasantly surprised when he approached me to be one of the students in charge. I was even more surprised when he told me that the student I would be working with was Charlie Lyons.
Charlie and I have known each other since kindergarten but have never been close. Ever since we were partners for the science project last year, there is very little we choose to say to each other. Needless to say, the science project fell short of our expectations. In light of that event, I was shocked that Mr. Egan and Ms. Cates found us a suitable match.
At the meeting with Mr. Egan, we divided the responsibilities between us. I would be in charge of setting up the room and getting the volunteers to work the sale for all three days. Charlie would be in charge of all the books. We were both quite satisfied with our jobs, and even more satisfied that there would be little contact between us.
With only two weeks to plan, I knew I could not waste time. I asked John and Rachel to help me with the set-up and twelve other classmates to work at the fair. I figured that, between Mr. Egan, the friends who volunteered to help, and me, we would be just fine.
Meanwhile, I tried on two separate occasions to start a conversation with Charlie about the progress he was making, but each time his response was, “Everything’s cool.”
On the day of the set-up, my friends and I arrived, only to find Charlie with his head in his hands, surrounded by a million boxes of books. I asked him, “Charlie, what’s wrong?”
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。
Paragraph 1: He responded in despair, “There are a lot more books here than I expected.”
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Paragraph 2: After the book fair was over, I couldn’t stop wondering why Mr. Egan put us together.
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Jake Stonehall was gifted. He had a passion for sports.
When he was five, his father took him to see the top two hockey (冰球) teams in the country play each other for a chance to lift the cup of victory. The boy could vividly remember how his heart pumped and how he wished to play there on the hockey ground with the players.
Since then, Jake became a hockey lover. With the company of his father, he spent most Saturdays skating in the ice rink (溜冰场).
When he got old enough, he joined his school’s hockey team. With the guidance of the coach, he progressed rapidly, which made the coach and his father really proud. Jake was soon appointed as captain of the team. He was a great team player and the whole team admired him.
Over time, his passion for hockey deepened. Beyond his own training, he would watch practices of his school’s disabled ice hockey team. These players worked together on specialized sleds (冰车), engaging in matches in an astonishingly incredible manner. Each game and practice became a passionate display of toughness and teamwork, setting off even more curiosity and admiration within him.
One day, he was on his way back home from training when a car crashed into him, throwing him several feet away.
The accident took away his ability to use his legs, which meant he could no longer play hockey. After he was out of hospital, he became a totally different person. Any talk about hockey would make him cry. He avoided seeing the coach and other players in his team. He even threw away the hockey sticks.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.开头已给出。
Jake sank into the world of hopelessness.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Jake began to practice hockey on the sled, like a kid learning to walk.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Eva spent the first week of high school trying to keep her head above water. One of the major headaches for her was finding her way in the huge school building. It was a six-story building. On each floor, hallways stretched in four directions, leading to classrooms, laboratories, and teachers’ offices. Somewhere in the building, there was also a library, a cafeteria, and a gym.
Having a poor sense of direction, Eva found it impossible to get around in such a huge building. All the different hallways and rooms were too much to think about, let alone commit to memory. She decided that she would memorize where her classes were and then pretend that the rest of the place didn’t exist.
In her first PE class, Eva was shocked when Coach Pitt announced that everyone had to run one mile around the track outside. She searched the faces of her classmates for signs of panic. There was nothing she feared more than having to run a whole mile. To Eva, “a mile” was used to describe long distances. It was ten miles from her home to her grandfather’s, and that always seemed like a long way, even in a car!
When Coach Pitt blew his whistle (哨子), Eva figured she would be left in the dust. However, while some of her classmates edged ahead, others actually fell behind. ” It’s just the beginning, “she thought.” I’ll come in last for sure. “
Soon Eva began to breathe hard, with her heart pounding and legs shaking. Feeling desperate, Eva started using a mind trick on herself. She stopped thinking about the word” mile. “Instead, she focused on reaching the shadow cast on the track by an oak tree up ahead. Then she concentrated on jogging to the spot where the track curved (拐弯). After that, she tried to see if she could complete her first lap. One lap turned into two, then three, then four.
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:
When Coach Pitt said “Nice work!” to her at the finish line, Eva was surprised.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
Eva decided to use the same trick to deal with the school building.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was a beautiful sunny morning in early summer, when the world seemed full of sunlight and new green leaves. I was in a good mood as my parents had just given me $300 for my daily expenses during the week that they would be away in Mexico to visit my mother’s sick grandfather. I was extremely overjoyed, thinking hard about the things I could do with the money. If I survived on bread and butter the whole week, I would have an unexpected windfall of $ 200 to buy the latest Kobe Bryant basketball shoes! What a terrific idea!
As usual, the physical education class was thrilling. I felt most at case on the basketball court. After playing several fierce games, I could hardly catch my breath as I headed back towards the classroom, sweaty and exhausted. When I entered, I found my classmates gathered around Steven’s desk as he searched through his books and some other personal items anxiously. Steven had always been popular. Not only was he intelligent and well-mannered, but he also came from a well-off family. And he shared everything he had with us.
Right away, I learned Steven had lost the money he would donate to a children’s welfare institute that afternoon. Then I informed Miss Jones, the class teacher. She rushed over immediately and organized a search around the classroom. We stood by our desks and emptied the contents of our schoolbags onto the desk for inspection.
It was my turn. As Miss Jones took out the $ 300 from my wallet, the class fell into a shock. I didn’t know the amount lost was exactly $ 300 until then. I kept proving my innocence, but in vain. Miss Jones confiscated (没收) the $ 300 and decided I was getting kicked out of the school. I stayed home alone the whole week, living only on bread. I felt wronged, angry, and loss of self-esteem.
注意：1.续写词数应为150个左右；
2.按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Finally, my parents returned home and talked with me.
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Miss Jones had just accepted my parents’ advice when Steven came.
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In 2017 I graduated from a medical school and started to train the seniors for recovery as a therapist in the Brookdale Lake Senior Living Center where I met Hoffner, who had lived there for roughly the past decade, for the first time.
Hoffner, a lady of 104 years old now, grew up in Chicago and worked as a telephone operator for Bell Company for more than four decades. She never married or had children, but she enjoyed beach vacations and driving her small blue car touring all over the country.
She loved sports and was kind to everyone she met. She watched every Chicago Cubs game on a TV in her room and also enjoyed watching “MASH” runs. She stayed active, walking several blocks to the grocery store multiple times a week and going on walks to have a look at the neighbor’s dogs. She was known for carrying candies — Heath bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and dark chocolate — in her walker. She shared her candies with everyone she met, but she always kept some for me.
I remembered that afternoon I and one of my patients were figuring out when the meal was served when Hoffner invited us to eat supper with her in the dining area. Since then, we three ate dinner together almost every night and Hoffner started calling me grandson.
One night two months ago, I carelessly told Hoffner over dinner that I was going skydiving in Ottawa. When Hoffner said she wanted to go, too, I thought she meant as an observer. “No, no, no, I want to jump out of a plane,” Hoffner said. My heart sank because I knew clearly what it meant to jump from an airplane at about 13,500 feet high. It might injure her.
But she made up her mind and started to do everything to prepare for it. She went to the doctor to have a check and asked me to make a training plan. With her walker she kept training every day.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2.开头已给出。
One day, I went to the dining hall and saw her sitting in a corner, sad and alone.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Jump,” with the order of the pilot, I jumped out of the plan e following her.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In a small town, there lived a young girl named Emily. She had a deep passion for table tennis and dreamed of becoming a professional player. Despite her young age, she was determined to work hard and make her dream come true.
From the moment when Emily picked up a table tennis paddle, she was impressed by the sport. She spent every spare moment practicing her shots, focusing on her footwork and mastering different techniques. Each time she stepped on the court, she was eager to improve and pushed herself to the limit. Unluckily, Emily faced a visual impairment (缺陷) that threatened to slow her progress. She was born with a condition that affected her sight. Some people doubted her ability to play table tennis and said, “Emily, your impairment is a disadvantage. It is impossible to play table tennis well!”
But Emily refused to let their doubts consume her. With solid determination, Emily turned her impairment into strength. She used her other heightened senses to her advantage, relying on touch and sound to anticipate her opponents’ moves. While others relied on sight, she developed an incredible sense of intuition (直觉) and strategy.
Emily finally excelled in table tennis, achieving incredible milestones and representing her town in many competitions. She became an advocate of the sport in her town. However, Emily decided not to settle for winning in her comfort zone but to challenge for something higher. She joined a training team guided by a world-class coach, which brought together the world’s top table tennis players.
In the training team, Emily went through a series of trials. She carried out high-intensity training. She needed to improve not only the batting skills but also perseverance and the sense of teamwork. Her coach often encouraged her and said, “Anyone, regardless of ability, could find success.”
A few years later, Emily’s efforts paid off. She got her chance. As a member of the national team, she took part in an important international competition. That was the stage for her to show her skills, and it was also the important moment for her to realize her dream.
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 the competition, Emily found herself facing a strong opponent, Lily.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After the competition, Emily’s story spread throughout the table tennis community.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As my feet pound(咚咚地走) the pavement and my breath comes in shallow gasps, I pray that I won’t collapse(崩溃) and lie in a heap on the side of the road. I want to finish my first real race.
At 31, I am the oldest person in my running class. And I am the last to cross the finish line for every race.
My breathing is steady. My heartbeat establishes a rhythm(节奏) with the swinging of my arms and the pounding of my feet. I am no longer tired.The birds cheer me on with their song. The breeze ruffles my hair. This is why I love running. I am at the edge of my limits, but I am exhilarated.
I can sense the end getting closer. Then I see the finish line, surrounded by people cheering and waving their arms. My legs churn, and I imagine myself leaving a trail of smoke in my wake.
I cross the finish line, my husband hugs me tightly and wipes my tears.This is my fourth real race outside of my running class. This real race is an incredible challenge — one that I never thought I’d be up for.
When I was 17, I was in a car accident. The doctors told my parents I wouldn’t make it. I broke my collarbone(锁骨), pelvis, and both legs. Yet, I survived.
Then my parents were told I would never walk again. But I did. Every afternoon, I placed my hands on a walker and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. I graduated to crutches(拐杖). And then to a cane. And finally to my own strength.
I spent months in physical therapy. Unluckily, I broke my leg again when I sat down hard at the bus stop one day. After six months of intense physical therapy, I was back to normal.
I was active from that point on. I walked, rode my bike, hiked with my husband, and worked out at gyms. And then, 13 years after the accident, I started running. And I loved it! I made a goal for myself of working up to running three miles. A girl at the gym encouraged me to enter a 5K race. I’d never run in a race, but I thought, Why not?
I started at the line with everyone else, but I was a slow runner.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Today, I’m running a 10K.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Sometimes, life just throws a huge curveball at you, and you have to deal with it. For this girl, she kept going even though that curveball took away most of her.
Kate, 17, was riding home from Bear Lake with her families when they were hit by a truck. It was not a very serious traffic accident.
It was just a crash without causing any deaths. But it brought misfortune to Kate. She suffered the worst out of anyone in the car. In other words, she was the worst injured in her family.
Kate was badly injured from the waist down. There was no blood flow in her legs, and things weren’t looking good. She needed both legs amputated(截肢) above the knee and spent two months in the hospital. At that age, most of her classmates would be getting ready for college. But fate wasn’t so kind to her.
It was not easy to get back on track after such a misfortune, but life was still worth living on. At this time, Kate knew that she must encourage herself to be even stronger and fight with every challenge more bravely than before. She had to gain more confidence to shoulder the burden that nobody in her age had ever faced.
She was a cheerleader(啦啦队队员) at school, after all. She knew better than anyone that some encouragement and hard work can really make a difference. As a to-be adult, she also showed her uncertainty about her own future. She sometimes asked her mum whether she would ever drive or swim again. Her mother answered yes to everything she asked.
However, one thing was for sure: Kate would need a wheelchair for the rest of her life. What would you do if you had to live on a wheelchair? What would you do if you wanted to return to your stage? Luckily, Kate didn’t feel or do as you did.
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。
Kate had to relearn how to live on a wheelchair.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then the last football game of the season arrived.
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