As Alina sat gently rocking and singing, her two-year-old son was lying on her chest (胸口). He was suffering from a serious disease. It was December 22nd, and they were staying at the hospital.
As Alina rocked, her mind was working overtime. She was worrying about money. She was working as a manager for a retail(零售) chain, and it was the busiest time of the year. Alina had already taken almost all her vacation time and knew she would not be paid for the days she was now taking off. And she had only a couple of hundred dollars in the bank.
But Alina s main concern was her son. His health had not been good. She didn' t know how she would be able to manage, working full-time and looking after him. Feeling sad, Alina felt the tears well up and spill over (溢出).
And that' s when Lorna arrived. She had been Alina s assistant.Quickly blinking (眨眼睛) back the tears, Alina welcomed her in.Lorna had come to offer some support and had brought a card signed by the office staff, about fifteen people. Alina was touched they were thinking of her during a completely crazy work week. But as she read the card, she discovered there was more. Inside the card was this note.Dear Alina. We want to help. Each person who has signed this card has donated one vacation day into your account. We know you need to spend some time with your son and don' t want you to worry about having to take time off without pay."
Even the company owner had donated a day to her. Alina was speechless and got quite choked up (哽咽). The tears held back earlier now threatened to spill over again. She was so touched by such kindness.
After Lorna left, Alina felt an inner peace and a deep gratitude. If only they could get home in time, she felt sure she could pull some sort of Christmas celebration together for her kid. Alina went to sleep that night with renewed hope.
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 Alina was surprised by what she received from the community.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In the years following, Alina wanted to pay forward the blessings she had received.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My mom only had one eye. I hated her. She was such an embarrassment.
She ran a small shop at a flea market, and collected old clothes and some other things to sell for the money we needed. Once during elementary school, it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed and wondered how could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ignored her. The next day at school, my schoolmates asked me, “your mom only has one eye?” and taunted me.
I was so angry with my mom and wished that she would just disappear from this world. So l said to my mom, “Why don’t you have the other eye?! If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock!” My mom did not respond, I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, I felt so good to have had said what I wanted to say. Maybe it was because I was full of anger then and there, I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.
For the words I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty. I told myself that I would become successful in the near future and get out of that house for good, so I studied very hard. Later I got accepted by the Seoul University, I left my mother and came to Seoul to study. Then I got married there.
I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I enjoy the life in Seoul because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom past. This kind of happiness was getting bigger and bigger, until one day someone knocked at my door. It was my mom! And still with her one eye! It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom’s eye.
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。
Para 1:
I screamed at her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!”
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After the funeral (葬礼), the neighbor gave me a letter saying, “My dearest son...
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was in the afternoon before the end of the Second World War that Antonio Black, who was twelve, caught sight of a beautiful brooch (胸针) in a shop window. The brooch is so beautiful that he was unwilling to leave the store until he had purchased it. But it was too expensive — $5. His family was very poor and his parents struggled to make ends meet. Five dollars would buy almost a week’s food for his family.
Antonio couldn’t ask his father for the money. Everything his father made through fishing went to his mother, Susan. Slim and beautiful, his mother was the center of the home and the glue that held it together. The housework was never-ending, and she struggled to feed and clothe their five children, but she was happy as her family and their well-being were all she cared about.
Nevertheless, he opened the shop’s door and went inside. Standing proudly and straight in his flour-sack (面粉袋改做的) shirt and washed-out trousers, he told the shopkeeper what he wanted, adding, “But I don’t have the money right now. Can you please hold it for me for some time?”
“I’ll try,” the shopkeeper smiled. “People around here don’t usually have that kind of money to spend on things. It should keep for a while.”
Antonio respectfully touched his worn cap and walked out. He would raise the money and not tell anybody, for he thought Mum would be surprised when she saw that brooch. On hearing the sound of hammering (锤打) from a side street, Antonio suddenly had an idea that he could raise money by selling the used nail bags. People built their own homes in Bay Roberts, using nails bought in bags from a local factory. Sometimes the used bags were thrown away at the construction site, and Antonio knew he could sell them back to the factory for five cents a piece. That day he sold two nail bags and hid the money in a rusty soda tin.
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。
Every day after school, Antonio started his plan.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The day finally came!
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My 10-year-old son and two friends attended a wonderful basketball camp on 6 August 2023. The camp was over two hours long, with more than 60 kids in attendance. I watched how much fun my son was having throughout the day.
A few minutes before the session (一场) ended, there was a shooting contest. Only a few kids were chosen to compete, and my son was not one of them. The contest winners received prizes and recognition, and some children were also selected as “All Star” due to their excellent performance. Again, my son was not selected.
My son was struggling to deal with his disappointment. Of course, as his mother, I would have loved to see him win an award. He absolutely loves the sport, and he is impressive at rebounding (篮板球). He would have enjoyed the honors. It would have also been fun to see either of his friends selected. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.
When the camp ended and we walked out, I could see how disappointed he was. I love my kid’s confidence and his competitiveness, but it can also lead to dealing with disappointment and frustration.
At the camp, he played a basketball game with kids he had never met, guarded them fiercely and took shots easily against them. As his mom, I was thrilled he spent the day without his iPad. All in all, the day felt wonderful. The last thing that I wanted was for these awards to ruin the experience.
I could see how he was feeling about the day. I decided to simplify it for him. I did the math and figured out the shooting contest and awards were about 6% of the total camp. The rest of the camp, the parts that he enjoyed, were 94% of the day. Even though the kid loves math, it was hard for him to see the contests and awards as a small part of his day.
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:
At night, I went to chat with him.
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Indeed, we should learn how to be more positive.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In 1940, I worked in the checkroom of the railway station. I saw everybody that came up the stairs.
Harry was a young man who came to the station and waited at the head of the stairs for the passengers from the 9:05 train.
I remembered seeing Harry that first evening. He wasn’t much more than a thin, anxious kid then. He was all dressed up and I knew he was meeting his sister, who he hadn’t seen for many years.
Well, the passengers came up and I had to get busy. I didn’t look toward the stairs again until nearly time for the 9:18 and I was very surprised to see that the Harry was still there. His sister didn’t come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40, and when the passengers from the 10:02 had all arrived and left, Harry was looking pretty upset. Pretty soon he came close to my window so I called out and asked him what his sister looked like.
“She’s small and dark. She is nineteen years old and very neat in the way she walk,” he said. “She has a face that has lots of spirit. I mean she can get mad but she never stays mad for long, and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle. She’s got a brown fur, but maybe she isn’t wearing it.”
“I couldn’t remember seeing anybody like that,” I told him.
He showed me the telegram he’d received: ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME AT THE STATION. MAY. It was from Omaha, Nebraska. “Well,” I finally said, “why don’t you phone to your home? She’s probably called there if she got in ahead of you.”
He gave me a sick look. “I’ve only been in the town for two days. We were going to meet and then drive down to the south of the city where I’ve got a job. She doesn’t have my address.”
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 came on duty the next day, Harry was still there and I asked more about his sister.
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One day, after about two weeks, I thought I could say something encouraging to him.
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It was a pleasant Tuesday afternoon. 78-year-old Rose was brimming with excitement as she entered the nursing home with her favorite tulips (郁金香), her lips endlessly calling out to just one name—Emily!
“Emily! Where are you? I got flowers…” Rose spoke aloud when she didn’t see her best friend, 79-year-old Emily, waiting for her on the usual spot, a wooden bench on the main gate.
Whenever Rose returned from the local hospital after getting her blood tests done, Emily would run toward her with fresh hand-picked flowers. But that afternoon, Emily was not there, and the bench was empty. Emily was nowhere to be found in any of her favorite spots, which unsettled Rose even more. Just then a doctor said to Rose, “Emily’s family came hours ago while you were at the hospital... They took Emily with them. She’s not going to come back.”
The ground seemed to shake beneath Rose’s feet when she heard that. Rose went back to her room. Every step started feeling heavy, and every corner reminded her of her best friend and their laughter. Nothing but loneliness and silence surrounded Rose from all sides, and she felt her heart crack.
The scent of freshly picked flowers Emily had last left in the vase lingered (继续存留) in the still air. And beside the vase was an old recorder that endlessly played Just the Two of Us, their favorite music they listened to every day.
When approaching the table, she noticed a note with a message in messy handwriting, “Dear Rose, please write to me at this address: Maple Ridge Ave, Springfield, VA,7…”
“Oh dear... The rest of her address is becoming blurred (模糊不清的).” Rose grew unsettled. In spite of that, Rose knew she could not just let Emily go like that. After a deep thought, she decided to reunite with her best friend.
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。
Packing the recorder in her luggage, Rose got on the bus to start her journey to the unfamiliar city, Springfield.
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Not knowing the exact house number of Emily, an idea suddenly struck Rose.
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At a neighbor’s pool the summer after sixth grade, Charley shouted out those famous last words, “Hey, watch this!” As he dove into the pool, Tad froze. It wasn’t the deep end!
Charley was hurt bad when he hit the bottom of the swimming pool. The doctor said he might have broken his back and could lose the use of his legs. His life would change forever. Tad didn’t see Charley for over a month after he was carried away in the screaming ambulance.
When Tad went to visit Charley in the hospital, his “Hey, dude, how’s it going?” was greeted by an annoyed grunt (嘟哝声) . Looking small and pale, Charley cried, “I can’t walk-how do you think I feel? I wish I was dead!”
“Bro, you’ll get well! You’re tough.”
“No, the doctor said I won’t.”
“Aw, man. That’s horrible!” And the conversation died right there.
Tad didn’t go back after that. He just didn’t know what to say. When Charley got out of the hospital, Tad went over to his house a few times and played video games, but it just wasn’t the same. Not only was his friend’s body damaged, so was his spirit. Tad had made friends with other boys who enjoyed all the things he and Charley used to do. Even if he felt sad and guilty, he wasn’t spending more time at Charley’s. Tad wanted to help and be a good friend but didn’t know how now.
Charley just became sadder and sadder, and Tad spent less and less time with him as the school year passed.
When summer break started again, Tad didn’t see much of Charley. He had made the baseball team and didn’t have time for video games. At least he told himself that was the reason. He was shocked right before eighth grade started when he saw Charley sailing down the sidewalk with a big black dog by his wheelchair. “Wow, what’s this?” Said Tad, running over to his friend.
“This is Rowdy! He helps me.”
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式作答。
“Wow, what does he do?” Tad was interested.
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After that, Tad could sense something had changed.
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One day, when I was a first-year student in high school, I saw a kid from my class walking home from school. His name was Kris. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd (书呆子).”
I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking, I saw a gang of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up, and I saw terrible sadness in his eyes.
My heart went out to him. So I jogged over to him, and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw tears in his eyes. As I handed him his glasses, I said, “They are bad guys! They really should be punished.” He looked at me and said, “Hey, thanks!” There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.
I helped him pick up his books and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to a private school before. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before, but we talked all the way home, and I carried his books.
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。
He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________We always hung out on weekends, and the more I got to know Kris, the more I liked him.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In a warm home, a young girl named Shireen was busily preparing for a special occasion. As she tiptoed (踮着脚走) to tie a balloon, hunger was evident in her eyes. How did her family do this every year? It was so hard to go without food or drink from lunch until sunset. She found this period especially challenging, because today also turned out to be her grandfather Babajoon’s birthday.
Suddenly the phone rang. Shireen answered to find her friend Amy on the other end, inviting her to the park. “Can I join Amy and Maya? They want to show me their new toys,” Shireen begged her mom. Understanding the struggle of Shireen, her mother gently replied, “Sorry, sweetie. You’ll get tired and thirsty running around in the sun, especially on an empty stomach.”
Disappointed, Shireen felt angry, thinking of her friends enjoying themselves. The burst of hunger and anger made Shireen question the significance of giving up meals of the period. Realizing Shireen’s upset, her mom explained that the most important thing was to know how it felt to be hungry, allowing them to understand those less lucky people’s feeling and experiences and developed compassion (同情).
To cheer Shireen up, her mom suggested baking a birthday cake for her grandfather. Her dad was passing by and heard their conversation. He considered it a bad idea, fearing that it would be too hard for Shireen on an empty stomach. However, Shireen had made her mind. She wanted to surprise Babajoon with a cake, not just any cake, but a beautiful chocolate one.
Shireen and her mom set out the materials: cocoa powder, sugar, flour (面粉),eggs and butter. Her mom selected the cocoa and flour. Shireen measured sugar into the mixer and added the butter. She liked watching the mixer turn the separate materials into a soft yellow paste. She cracked the eggs one by one into the bowl. “Oops! There’s some shell.” Shireen tried getting it out with a spoon.
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 process of making the cake brought moments of joy.
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Finally evening approached.
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His father said, “All set, boy?” and Jeremy nodded quickly, picking up his gun. Finally, they arrived at the marsh. Normally, Jeremy would ask his father to wait while he tried to record the beautiful place with his camera, but not this morning. This was the morning when 14-year old Jeremy was to have duck shooting.
Actually, he hated duck shooting since his father bought him a gun, taught him to shoot and promised him this trip. But he loved his father, and wanted to make his father pleased.
Jeremy put down the camera, sat down and waited anxiously.
“Better get ready. Sometimes ducks are on top of you before you know it,” his father said. He watched Jeremy break his gun, put in the bullets and close it again. “I’ll let you shoot first,” he said. He stopped suddenly, eyes narrowed. “There is a small group of ducks heading this way now. Keep your head down. I’ll give you the order.”
Jeremy’s heart was beating wildly. He prayed, “Don’t let the ducks come, please.”
But they kept coming. “Four black ducks and one mallard (绿头鸭),” said his father.
High above, Jeremy heard the sound of wings as the ducks went over and began to circle. The mallard was leading; his bright orange feet dropped down, reaching for the water. Closer, closer...
“Get set,” his father whispered.
“Now, shoot!” cried his father in a loud voice.
Jeremy felt his body obey. He stood up, his hands holding the gun the way his father had taught him.
At the same time, the wild ducks saw the gunners and flew. “Shoot!” said something sharply in Jeremy’s brain, but the expected sound didn’t come. Up went the mallard, until it flew away.
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。
His father asked in a controlled voice, “Why didn’t you shoot?”
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His father was handing the camera to him and said softly, “Here comes another duck.”
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