Grandma tried to straighten out her fingers.“You know, Ann, I think I am done knitting.” she said.“My fingers just won’t do what I tell them any more.”
I looked at her hands.When I was little, she had taught me how to sew dresses for my dolls and how to embroider (刺绣) the faces of my dolls on the dresses.
But now she can hardly bend her fingers.The doctor said she should keep her hands warm.I made her cups of tea to hold and moved her chair closer to the fire.But it didn’t work.
I wasn’t used to seeing her hands so still.When I came downstairs, her quiet hands made even her voice stay still.I missed her voice more than ever.
I tried to help her find her voice.“Grandma, tell me about when you were a little girl,” I begged, knowing she loved to tell stories.“Tell me about Peti and Zoe.” Peti and Zoe were her brother and sister.“That was so long ago, Ann,” whispered Grandma.“I can barely remember.” But I still remembered her story about Peti cutting off Zoe’s two beautiful long braids (辫子) and then hiding them in the closet.Were those words still moving silently in her head?
Mom was sorting through our clothes for spring.“Ann, take these out to the trash,” Mom said.“There’s no need to keep worn-out clothes.”
I looked sadly at the pile of sweaters and then picked it up.
“Wait,” Grandma said as I walked by her and put the pile downstairs.“Let me see those.”
“Ann, wind the yarn (纱线) of the old sweater into a ball, like this.Then you can use the yarn to knit something new.” Grandma wrapped yarn around and around her fingers, first in one direction and then the other to keep the ball round.
After dinner Grandma fell asleep in her chair.
Mom came downstairs with an old pair of gloves with small holes to add to the pile of sweaters.
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。
Suddenly, the pair of old gloves gave me an idea.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Your family,” I said, handing the gloves with the faces of Peti and Zoe to Grandma.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My parents worked very hard at ensuring that everything seemed pleasant and peaceful for me. I had a very calm childhood and I mostly ignored the fact that my elder sister was different. The child psychologist had term edit as “Asperger Syndrome”(阿斯伯格综合征). This diagnosis turned my parents’ world upside down, but they never let it affect me.
Only at the age often, I started to notice the differences, and became conscious of my social life and self-image that I had carefully cultivated. My sister, on the other hand, was socially awkward. She could not look at people in the eye. She would mumble(咕哝) to herself and repeat the words she had just said under her breath. She, however, was academically capable and hence we attended the same primary school. Despite this, I never, ever acknowledged in public that she was my sister. It was the incident that changed how I viewed my sister. It was the incident that changed me.
Being in primary six, about to graduate, my sister and her fellows had to put up a performance, whether in a group or individually. Due to her inability to integrate, my sister was the only one left without a group. The school had made it compulsory for everyone to put up an item, so my sister had to perform individually.” I’ll sing,” my sister told my parents, somewhat confidently. Hearing that, I was taken a back and completely shocked. How could my sister, who was socially awkward, sing in front of the school? I knew so very well that if I allowed this to happen, she would embarrass me, one way or another. “No!” I protested. My parents shot me a look and then turned to my sister, saying “Good idea!” That was when I knew my sister was going to perform anyway and I was going to be part of the audience watching her.
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 sat in the hall, waiting for her performance to start.
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Finally, my sister started to sing.
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Into the cave
Standing outside the cave entrance, Grandfather admired the green-carpeted hills of Guilin. “Next to heaven,” he said, “Guilin is most beautiful.”
“I would rather be anywhere else in China,” Lin thought.
Lin came here today only because of Grandfather, a stubborn and old-fashioned man, who insisted on using the guano, the waste matter of bats(蝙蝠), to fertilize(施肥) his crops. But he was too weak to do the whole job alone. Grandfather only had the ability to gather the guano and bring it out of the cave in the basket, but he wanted to carry it home in the wooden cart, so he needed Lin a lot.
Lin hadn’t been in the cave since the 2-month-ago terrible day of the bats. On that day, as Lin had walked in the cave, a swarm of black bats had appeared out of nowhere, making him extremely terrified.
Grandfather took a shovel(铁铲) and flashlight(手电筒) from the cart. “Come inside with me?” he asked Lin. “Bats hurt no one,” Grandfather said. But nothing could make Lin forget the horror he had felt in that black cloud of bats.
“I dare not go in there now,” he told Grandfather.
“OK” Grandfather said. As he started into the cave with his own shovel and flashlight, he called over his shoulder to Lin, “I’ll be out in no time.”
Lin parked the cart and glanced at his shovel and flashlight inside it. He had used them back in the days when he always helped Grandfather. Now they only reminded him of his fear.
Time flew by very quickly before he came to know it. Then Lin realized that Grandfather’s “in no time” had turned into a long time. What happened? Something had gone wrong? Did he slip down and get hurt?
Looking into the dark cave, he thought, “I can’t go in there”. Then he imagined Grandfather, hurt and alone.
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。
Hesitantly, Lin reached for the flashlight and started into the cave.
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Recalling Grandfather’s words, “Bats hurt no one.” Lin calmed down.
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4 . A True Champion
When our second child was born, Jim and I thought she was perfect, but the doctor pointed out that her feet were turned inward. “If they are not
When she was only two weeks old, I had to
After many attempts, it turned out that she
When she turned six, we enrolled her in skating lessons and soon she was
I thought back to the early years of
| A．broken | B．corrected | C．controlled | D．cut |
| A．carry | B．move | C．bring | D．take |
| A．Eventually | B．Unfortunately | C．Importantly | D．Previously |
| A．chose | B．skipped | C．struggled | D．preferred |
| A．regretful | B．proud | C．fearful | D．anxious |
| A．minds | B．positions | C．steps | D．performances |
| A．stretch | B．treat | C．revise | D．strengthen |
| A．loved | B．mastered | C．escaped | D．tried |
| A．dancing | B．gliding | C．walking | D．running |
| A．flexible | B．awkward | C．special | D．active |
| A．paid for | B．paid off | C．paid back | D．paid out |
| A．earned | B．gathered | C．won | D．acquired |
| A．achievement | B．adventure | C．devotion | D．challenge |
| A．expect | B．ignore | C．recover | D．seek |
| A．explorer | B．youth | C．champion | D．volunteer |
I was studying for a huge science test when my little brother and sister burst into the kitchen, singing at the top of their lungs: Squirrels in the garden, Squirrels in the tree, I’m a happy squirrel, Look at me…Then, just as soon as they finished, they started singing all over again.
“Wow! That’s a pretty catchy song,” I said after the third time around. But I asked them to stop singing as I was trying to study.
“Sorry, Zona,” said Indi. “But we really do need to keep singing it. Our music teacher said so!”“Yeah,” said Tex. “Our class is putting on a squirrel play for Parents Night, and we have to memorize every single word by Friday!” Indi added that they had to make their own tails and ears and dumped out a bag full of furry costume parts. “Can you help us?”
“Maybe in a little while,” I said. “Right now, I need to read my book.”
Tex and Indi sang that song while they were making their costumes, while they were doing their chores, and even while they were brushing their teeth!
Since Tex and Indi squeaked(吱吱叫)and sang every day that week, I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be for my test on Friday. And in the middle of taking my test, the squirrel song started playing over and over in my head. It was almost impossible for me to focus on the last few questions.
When I got home that afternoon, all I wanted to do was collapse on the couch. The only thing was, Tex and Indi had beaten me to it.
“Can you please let me sit too?” I grumbled. “I had a rotten day!”“We had a rotten day too!” said Tex. “Yeah,” said Indi. “A bunch of kids in our class got sick, so tonight’s play is canceled!”
We were just three miserable lumps sitting in silence for a really long time. Even though I had been complaining about their singing, it broke my heart to see them disappointed. They had been so excited about the show.
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 said after a while, “I can’t let all of your practicing go to waste.”
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After everything was ready, I arranged for our parents to attend the performance.
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6 . Sharon Estill Taylor has no firsthand memories of her father. The World War II fighter pilot was shot down over Germany in April 1945, when Taylor was just three weeks old. When Taylor was young, her grandmother often shared stories about their fallen hero. “Nana, it’s OK,” Taylor assured her, “I’m going to find him and bring him home.”
Grandmother gave Taylor a silver box containing some 450 handwritten letters between her parents, spanning from their high school to the year 1945. Also included were six months’ worth of unopened letters. Taylor learned that on April 13, 1945, Estill had taken off to attack a railway station and destroy Nazi supply lines. She found a reference to a possible crash site near the town of Elsnig in eastern Germany.
With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it became possible for Taylor to visit the potential crash site. She connected with German military historian Hans-Guenther Ploes, who agreed to help her try to find and identify any aircraft and human remains. In 2005, a team, accompanied by Ploes and Taylor, led a three-week unearthing. From the moment she set foot on the site, Taylor could feel that her dad was there. DNA analysis confirmed that the remains were his. On a sunny day, Taylor and her family buried her father’s remains at Arlington National Cemetery. Beyond fulfilling her promise to her grandmother, Taylor says her mission has been to get closer to her father and his legacy.
She has also come to realize that there’s an entire population of Americans who’ve lost parents and loved ones in military conflicts overseas and wish they knew more. Taylor shares her story widely, raising awareness of soldiers who never return from war and the significance of recovery efforts. An estimated 81,000 American service members’ bodies remain unaccounted for from past conflicts, but fortunately there are constant efforts to locate the fallen and bring relief to their families.
Taylor will never know exactly what her father’s final moments were like but she feels, in a way, that father has finally come home.
1. What can we infer from the first two paragraphs?| A．Taylor’s father delivered supplies in the war. |
| B．Taylor got along well with her father as a kid. |
| C．The battle Taylor’s father attended was documented. |
| D．Taylor’s grandmother got to know all about the letters. |
| A．No one was willing to assist her. | B．Germany wasn’t reunited at that time. |
| C．There weren’t any clues about the battle. | D．Science and technology were not advanced |
| A．To help make her grandmother’s wish come true. |
| B．To let the readers know more about World War II. |
| C．To pay her respect to fallen heroes like her father. |
| D．To show the possibility of regaining heroes’ remains. |
| A．Cherish Parents’ Love | B．Let Heroes Return Home |
| C．Never Forget the History | D．Meet Grandmother’s Wish |
7 . My father never kept anything for emotional purposes-except once. I was the only one in my family who cared about baseball and I always
The following Sunday, he told me, “Let’s put away some money into a
Each of us
On the morning of the last game, I was waiting hopelessly with no
I could hardly
In 1963, my father died suddenly while working. In his bedroom, I noticed a
| A．dreamed of | B．passed down | C．tried out | D．called for |
| A．inspiring | B．checking | C．tearing | D．examining |
| A．bottle | B．jar | C．brochure | D．package |
| A．officially | B．patiently | C．immediately | D．unwillingly |
| A．attached | B．identified | C．created | D．protested |
| A．referred | B．contributed | C．donated | D．attended |
| A．accused | B．informed | C．inquired | D．warned |
| A．rescued | B．scolded | C．comforted | D．encouraged |
| A．signal | B．sign | C．reply | D．company |
| A．images | B．riddles | C．tickets | D．couplets |
| A．breathe | B．imagine | C．stand | D．jump |
| A．filled with | B．decorated with | C．equipped with | D．coupled with |
| A．pretty | B．plain | C．fresh | D．faded |
| A．brought | B．abandoned | C．produced | D．saved |
| A．impression | B．gift | C．honor | D．memory |
My little brother is a five-year-old boy named Tex. When it comes to being funny and lovable, he is the best. But when it comes to keeping secrets, he is the worst!
It just so happened that my parents’ wedding anniversary was near Valentine’s Day, and they planned to celebrate by going away for a couple of days. But at the last minute, my dad came home from work with bad news.
“I’m afraid our trip will have to wait. The shop assistant has the flu, so there will be no one to manage the grocery store if we go.”
“It’s OK,” my mom said, biting her lip. “We’ll have lots more anniversaries to celebrate.”
That was when I came up with the idea to surprise my parents with an extra-special cake. Luckily, the grandmother of my good friend Ollie, a very generous person who lives right next door, was an amazing baker with a kitchen full of most of the stuff you need to make a yummy valentine-anniversary cake.
I called Ollie if she and her grandmother could help me make a valentine-anniversary cake. I wanted to surprise Mom and Dad after dinner tonight. As usual, Ollie was happy to help me. Then, I asked my mother if I could go to Ollie’s and promised I would be back soon. Once I had my mom’s permission, I looked for perfect ingredients and a perfect heart-shaped pan just to make my cake more interesting and tasty. As I packed all the things I needed, I noticed Tex was glued to TV, which I thought was a perfect opportunity to leave secretly.
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。
As I went out for Ollie’s, Tex stopped me, asking where I was going.
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I was about to hide the cake in the kitchen when Tex yelled, “Mom”.
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9 . As the fifth of seven children, I went to the same public school as my three elder sisters and brother. Every year, my mother went to the same ceremony and had parent-child interviews with teachers. And every child participated in an old school tradition — the annual plant sale held in early May, just timely for Mother’s Day. What was different was the child.
Third grade was the first time I was allowed to join in the plant sale. Originally, I wanted to surprise my mother. For lack of enough money, I went to my eldest sister and shared my thought, after which she supported me financially. When arriving at the plant sale, I carefully made my selection, inspecting each plant for the best geranium (天竺葵) and taking it home in secret. When Mother’s Day arrived, I remember how proud and delighted my mother was to receive the special gift.
The year I was fifteen, my younger sister reached third grade. In early May, she came to me full of wonder and secrecy and told me that a plant sale was to be held at school. As my elder sister did for me, I gave her some money and off she went. She arrived home full of nervous excitement, the geranium hidden in a paper bag under her sweater. “I looked at every plant,” she explained, “and I know I got the best one!”
When she gave my mother the geranium, they were both bursting with pride and delight. My mother also noticed me and gave me a soft, secret smile. With a tug at my heart, I smiled back. I had been wondering how my mother could pretend to be surprised at this gift from her sixth child, but as I watched her eyes light up with delight as she was presented with that most precious gift, I knew she was not pretending.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Our siblings were from different schools. |
| B．Mother repeatedly went for similar interviews. |
| C．The annual plant sale was intended for recreation. |
| D．The old school tradition was held every other year. |
| A．Because she didn’t like the gift at all. |
| B．Because she was pretending to be happy. |
| C．Because she knew I gave money to my sister. |
| D．Because she didn’t want me to let out the secret. |
| A．Reliable. | B．Considerate. |
| C．Honest | D．Frank. |
| A．Secret smile | B．Mother’s Day |
| C．Geranium of love | D．Annual plant sale |
One Wednesday, many years ago, when I was working as a psychologist (心理医生) at a children's institution in England, a boy showed up in the waiting room. I went out there where he was walking up and down uneasily.
I showed him into my office and pointed to the chair on the other side of my desk. It was in late autumn, and most trees outside the window had lost all their leaves. "Please sit down," I said.
David wore a black rain coat that was buttoned all the way up to his neck. His face was pale, and he stared at his feet while wringing his hands nervously. He lost his father in a car accident 3 years ago. Before he came, his head teacher called and told me, "After his father's death, the boy becomes very sad and depressed. He refuses to talk to others or attend any activities or clubs. He has no social life at all. However, when his father was alive, the boy was active and talkative. After school, they would play chess games happily!"
I looked at David. How could I help him? Perhaps the best thing I can do is to listen openly and to be there for him. But I am still not sure what to do.
David didn't say a word, and only looked at the children's drawings on the wall behind me. As he was about to leave, I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn't step back, but he didn't look at me either. "Come back next week this time, if you like," I said. I hesitated a bit. Then I said, "I know it hurts."
Finally, he came and I took out a set of chess.
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。
Staring at the chess set in silence for long, he whispered in tears, "Father liked it…"_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Another Wednesday, David appeared with a box of chocolate, smiling brightly._____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
