My Best Teaching Experience
Tyler was only in my senior class for a semester. He had been suspended (使停学) many times in previous years because of his anger issues. When he entered my class, I thought the worst.
Tyler sat in the back row. Every time I talked to the class, I would ask students questions, calling them by name. Unfortunately, every time I called on Tyler, he would respond with a joke. If he got an answer wrong, he would become angry.
About a month into the year, I was still trying to connect with Tyler. I can usually get students involved in class discussions or at least have them sit quietly and attentively (专心地). By contrast, Tyler was often loud and sometimes rude.
He had been in so much trouble over the years. He expected his teachers to know about his past; about how many times he had been sent to the office or suspended from school. I had found that these sorts of referrals (移交) were not very effective and that students would return from the office behaving worse than before.
One day, Tyler was talking over me while I was teaching. I stopped my lesson and said, “Tyler, why don’t you join in our discussion instead of having one of your own?” With that, he got up from his chair, pushed it over and yelled something. I can’t remember what he said other than that he included some impolite words. I sent Tyler straight to the office, and he received a week’s suspension.
To this point, this was one of my worst teaching experiences. Tyler’s anger was almost too much for me. The week Tyler was suspended from school was a wonderful time, and we got a lot accomplished as a class. However, the suspension week would soon come to an end, and I was fearful of his return.
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2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
On the day of Tyler’s return, I stood at the door awaiting him.
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was a sun-kissed spring afternoon along the beautiful Maryland coast, and Jonathan Bauer, a 51-year-old former firefighter, was enjoying a rare moment with his 13-year-old daughter, Ava. The two of them were heading home across the Route 90 bridge, over the waters of Assawoman Bay.
However, the peace of their drive was suddenly disturbed by the noise of tires and a horrible crash just ahead of them. A black truck was out of control, running into a concrete barrier, and finally coming to rest over the bridge’s railing(栏杆).
In that heart-stopping moment, Bauer hit the brakes in time to avoid the vehicles in his path, narrowly avoiding a crash with the truck ahead. But his heart sank as he saw a red car sliding backward towards him. He turned left, but too late——the car ultimately crashed into the trunk of his car.
Bauer stopped the car. “Ava, are you OK?” he asked. Thankfully, Ava emerged from the chaos, but otherwise unhurt. Bauer, however, couldn’t stand by. Rushing to the red car, he checked on its driver. “Are you OK?” he asked the driver. She nodded, too shocked to speak.
Then, suddenly, a scream of “HELP” cut through the air, coming from the overturned truck. As the truck driver climbed out and pointed toward the water, Bauer raced to his side. In the shallow bay waters below, he spotted a car seat and a terrified two-year-old girl, dressed in a pink dress.
Without hesitation, Bauer instructed Ava to call the ambulance as he removed his shoes. He knew the situation was urgent, and he had to act swiftly to save the baby. He climbed onto the bridge’s railing, preparing to make a jump of faith into the water. He was not sure about his chances jumping from this height into such shallow water. And were there rocks this close to the concrete pillar(柱子) of the bridge?
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。
Bauer jumped into the water.
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As the ambulance left, Ava anxiously turned to her father.
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Beth brought Louis to me when she came to visit me again.
I had to quit school and stay in the recovery center because of a rare disease. Beth was my best friend in the writing workshop. We just clicked. We both dreamed of taking writing as our career. So we often wrote about our life and shared it with each other. We even promised each other to co-author a book, a book of our own. But now ...
“I’m applying for my college this term. So I’ll be very busy in the following days. Please help me look after Louis, please ... Just drop me a quick note about it when it’s convenient for you.” She pressed her hands tightly together and looked at me anxiously. I stared at Louis, feeling bitter but hard to refuse. Beth kissed me goodbye.
That evening, I was left alone in the room, with the dog. Louis looked at me, shaking his tail. But I felt uninterested, so I lay on the bed, closing my eyes. Then some noises woke me up.
It was Louis, of course. This six-month-old puppy was laboriously(费力地) dragging his. large, hard-sided carrier. I watched in amazement. Then Louis dragged his worldly possessions, one by one: first, his bowl, then his ball and sweater. This project took most of the evening.
What happened next made me realize that not only did this dog have a mission but he obviously put thought and reasoning into each move. He took each of the personal items and put them in the carrier. After Louis finished packing his “suitcase”, he attempted to jump inside.
The message was quite clear. He wanted to go see his “mommy”—Beth. He must have seen her pack her suitcase and go away. He must do the same so he could find her.
It was so interesting that I couldn’t help taking out a pen and beginning to describe the whole thing in great detail and then emailed it to Beth. I almost got Beth’s reply immediately.
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。
“Tell me more about Louis.” Beth begged at the end of her email.
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That summer, Beth gave me a special gift—a book of Louis’ daily journal.
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As my parents worked a late shift, my three small sisters looked at me. “What’s for dinner?“ one of them said. The last time I made dinner was when I made pizza in high school. Now, I had three mouths to feed—ages two, six and nine—but I was short on ideas. Like a deer in headlights, I searched for a possible answer.
“Where’s the Twister (转盘游戏) game?”
“Not Twister,” Abby, my oldest sister, scolded, “Dinner. ”
I walked to the closet, pulled out the game. and tested the spinner (转盘). Then I slid a couple of sheets of paper between the plastic arrow and the cardboard base and divided it into four quadrant (象限). I looked at my sisters.
“Who wants chocolate?” Alice, my youngest sister, screamed happily. Abby crossed her arms. “Mum wouldn’t let that happen. ”
“Mum’s not here. ”I wrote in the upper right quadrant: chocolate. Andy, my middle sister, asked, “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see in a second.” I pointed at the second area. “How about noodles?” Alice started dancing around in a circle.
“When we get four options written on the spinner, we’ll spin to see what we do for dinner tonight.”
My youngest sister said, “Dress up like superheroes. ”
“Absolutely!” I wrote superheroes, with no idea how that would turn into a dinner idea, hoping the dial would land somewhere else. They debated the final section for a few seconds and then collectively decided on pizza. If they had suggested ”Run around at the mall“, I would have written it down. I set the spinner in the middle of the table. We gathered around the spinner, and I held up my hands. “We are going to spin it once, and whatever we land on、that’s what we’ll do tonight. ”
Abby shook her head. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” “It’s okay, honey. Mum will understand. ”
Alice yelled, “I want to spin it. ”Alice’s try sent the little, plastic arrow flying around and around until it landed on... pizza. Everyone shouted, “Pizza”, including me. I still had no idea what we were going to do. Abby looked at me. “But what are we going to do?”
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。
“Let’s buy some materials for making pizza first,” I said.
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We were excited about preparing dinner by ourselves.
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With my youngest, 11, it’s Tik Tok and FaceTime with her friends. With my middle one, 14, it’s SnapChat with his classmates. And with my eldest, 18, it’s Tinder with, well, God only knows.
What I do know, is that my kids’ reliance on their mobile phones is becoming pathological (病态的). They all wander around the house with smart phones permanently in their hands.
They walk in and out of the toilet staring at the screen, they come down to dinner staring at the screen and only put it down because they can’t feed themselves using the screen. God knows what their screen time weekly report notifications would read.
However, one house rule that I managed to enforce was that they weren’t allowed their phones in their rooms overnight and there was a bed time phone amnesty (赦免) in place where they would all, very reluctantly, hand over their device for overnight charging.
Now, I must confess that, occasionally, I “forgot” to charge one of the phones, so that at least I would get one of them to be a little more present the following morning at breakfast and I might hear something about their upcoming day, rather than being completely ignored.
I never forgot to charge the same phone twice in one week and so no one seemed to get wise to my tricks, however this emboldened me to take my cheating to new levels.
Any phone left unguarded would be quickly kidnapped and whisked away to an undisclosed location, only to mysteriously reappear when I deemed that its owner had engaged with the real world for a sufficient amount of time.
Then one night in February, it happened. A big storm hit our rural village and we had a power cut. “Dad!” They screamed, ignorant of the sudden lack of light and heat and only concerned with the sudden lack of Wi-Fi. It began to dawn on them that they were faced with the living hell of being off line and off their phones for an amount of time.
注意：1．续写词数应为150左右；2．请按如下格式作答。What followed was a peaceful period without the addiction to their phones.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________And so I tried it a few weekends later to see what the reaction might be.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I entered my freshman year of high school with a clear goal: work hard, stick to whatever I could succeed at and graduate with great achievements. I wouldn’t waste my time where I didn’t perform as strongly. And this belief served me well. My academic standards were high. I was the star player of all the teams I joined. My friends would joke about my pursuit of perfection, but in my eyes, it was the only sure path to success.
In the second term I joined the cross-country running club. When I came to the first practice, I was filled with the desire to make the varsity (校队) team. But as the distance we ran each practice gradually increased from three, to four, to six miles, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I was one of the slowest on the team. This realization disappointed me. And the pain in the muscles following every practice was unbearable. I wanted to quit! What was the point of putting myself through so much pain and being the slowest racer?
Then we had our first cross-country race. When we got off the bus, the sight of the other teams warming up made my hands sweaty. When we started the race, I felt the enormous pressure of expectations sink onto my shoulders. It was a challenging course, consisting of a series of winding and rocking hills.
After a while I stopped running and struggled up the last hill. The steps under my feet felt as heavy as thousands of pounds, mirroring the weight of my despair. With every racer passing me, frustration washed over me-I would never win honor for my team. I’d just be letting them down.
注意：
1.续词为150个左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
With every passing second, my ambition fell apart.
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My team’s support encouraged me to move on.
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Samuel, aged 49, was resting on the glass wall which encircled the tiger at the time. After a long wait, the opportunity to face the tiger arrived. Samuel was uncertain if the large cat could recognize him after his five-year absence because of his wife’s new job in another city.
Samuel has had a lifelong craziness with animals. Born and raised in a forest-surrounded area, he often brought home animals he had not seen before. Thus, when Samuel announced to everybody that he had been planning to become an animal keeper, nobody was shocked.
Nothing pleased Samuel more than being employed by someone close to his birthplace, who was a zookeeper. He finally did something that made him happy each day. Furthermore, this job paid well enough for Samuel! This made the situation even better!
Luna, the zoo’s sole (唯一的) female white tiger, liked Samuel. Samuel liked it too. Nobody could comprehend their extraordinary relationship. Luna seldom approached humans. When Luna was younger, it was mistreated at the hotel’s tourist attractions. When the zoo rescued Luna, it made no attempt to interact with anyone. Samuel was able to break through Luna’s fearful shell with a lot of support and patience.
Luna was going to have a baby as part of a plan to save white tigers. Luna had a rough pregnancy (怀孕), but its delivery was terrible. As Luna struggled, Samuel looked after it for hours. Unfortunately, Luna died during her delivery. Samuel was not able to stop crying over its death, but he needed Luna’s children out as quickly as possible!
Luna was taken to a veterinary hospital (兽医院). Samuel wandered outside, waiting for word. The veterinarian soon presented Samuel with a baby tiger. But who would look after it? As its mother passed away, Samuel took on the responsibility. He had been caring for the baby’s mum all along, and now the baby, which Samuel named Blanca.
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, things did not go well as expected.
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Five years later, Samuel persuaded his wife to return home.
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A golden haze settled over the cornfields. The sun prepared to rest for the evening, and I intended to follow. Saying goodbye to the clan (宗族) I was staying with, I headed back to camp. I looked forward to setting my camera aside for an evening to reflect on my time in Ethiopia.
It wasn’t long when I heard a voice behind me, “Photo, photo, photo.” A young Surma boy about eight years old followed closely at my heels. I breathed a tired sigh. I had no energy to press the shutter button one more time, no matter how beautiful or eager he was.
Over the past four days, many in the camp had wanted their photograph taken. I hoped the boy would find someone else to snap his photograph, but he kept following me and saying, “Photo, photo, photo.” He managed to catch my eye. With eyes wide full of hope, he asked me again with anticipation on his face.
As I looked at him, half interested, an idea for a composition flashed in my mind.
I kneeled in the cornfield and instructed the boy where to stand and how to pose. As I prepared to take the photograph, his energy suddenly shifted from eagerness to shyness to fear.
No matter what I told him to do—how to stand and how to look—I just couldn’t get the shot. Frustrated, I gave up. I looked at the boy, who looked alone and awkward. He’d wanted his photograph taken, and now he’d gone camera-shy.
In an effort to cheer him, I clapped my hands, saying, “That was great. You were great.” Others in his clan gathered around, cheering and clapping loudly. The boy’s face immediately broke into a smile. I intuitively (凭直觉地) took a few shots of the moment. That photograph turned out to be better than I’d imagined.
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 printed a large copy of the photograph and returned to the Surma boy’s clan.
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As I left Ethiopia, I held onto the memory of the Surma boy’s joyous tears and the collective hope of his clan.
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I worked at a local station of the Berlin fire department. We got an alert (警报) around 8:25pm that Friday and rushed to the fire engine, where the printout from the dispatcher (调度员) said there was a nine-year-old boy locked in a safe.
I asked myself: if it were a safe, would it be airtight? I was aware that it might already be too late by the time we arrived. I had to plan for a bad outcome. On the other hand, if we were in time, how long would it take us to open the safe? I knew it would be an incredibly difficult task. It’s what safes are designed for—not to be opened.
It took less than five minutes to reach the property. When I saw a woman crying on the street,
I knew the situation was serious. She was the boy’s mother and she led us into the basement. She told us the boy was alive and we started talking to him; he was very calm. We asked how it had happened: during a game of hide and seek with his five-year-old brother, he had thought the safe would be a good place to hide.
The boy’s parents had got the house from his mother’s father. The unlocked safe had been there when they moved in and was in an area they didn’t use much. The boy’s little brother had shut the safe, then, when he couldn’t open it again. The only person who knew the combination was the boy’s late grandfather.
From the outset, the biggest priority was getting oxygen to the boy. We got oxygen from the hospital. The boy said that he could feel a thin stream of air. I asked his parents if anyone had opened the safe before and they said no. So we had to guess a six-digit code (密码). We started typing them in—but we had to wait 10 minutes between each attempt before we could try again. So quickly we tried them all. No luck.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卷的相应位置作答。
We were fully prepared at this point to open the safe by force, starting with a drill.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then, just as we started to make the first cut, my workmate typed in the correct code.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I had ordered many gifts online for the upcoming Christmas. One day,when the doorbell rang, I was sure some of the packages arrived. I opened the door,but only to find a beautiful little dog sitting on the floor. It looked up at me with her big,cute eyes. I looked around, but there was no one in sight. It was obvious that someone had found the puppy somewhere and intentionally left her outside the door.
The lovely dog was a timely Christmas gift for me,indeed. The year marked a turning point in my life. In September,my husband was offered a new job in Africa. Feeling that I had hit a career bottleneck as a photographer journalist,I decided to relocate with him. While my husband was busy with his work,I didn’t know what to do anyway. I felt isolated,homesick and lacking purpose. We lived in a house near a river that cut across an expansive grassland. With few people around,I would take my camera and wander around,photographing aimlessly every day.
So we adopted the abandoned dog. My husband called her“our little angel”and I named it accordingly. Angel seemed to be very happy with us and she turned out to be a perfect companion for me. Always by my side,she enjoyed exploring the shady bushes and mysterious tunnels all over the grassland. Encouraged by her curiosity,I decided to explore,too.
There was a deep cave near our house and I had been eager to explore it. The only way in was narrow and slippery. I had promised my husband that I wouldn’t do it unless he was around. But he was always busy. With Angel as my companion,I figured that it was time to stretch the rule a little bit.
One day, I equipped myself with a good flashlight and carefully walked down the dark cave. Suddenly, Angel,who had been following me closely,rushed ahead and disappeared into the darkness.
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。
A few seconds later, it brought back a little bird.
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During the recovering process, I took many photographs of the little bird.
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