“Hurry up you guys, or you will be late for school!” called Mom. We went downstairs and had a quick breakfast. I was eating my favorite — very sweet porridge, and Sara was. having eggs. When I rose to have my bowl washed, Mom whispered, “You know you need to be cautious today when you’re walking Sara to school. It’s your job to assure (保证) me she gets there all right.” Then she cast me. a very serious look. I thought to myself, wondering why Mom was making such a big deal out of this. It was Sara’s first day of Kindergarten, but I could manage it. I wish Mom would treat me like an adult.
Then Sara ran out of the house, and I went behind her, skipping down the front walkway to the sidewalk. Along the way, I could feel Mom’s gaze on us.
I grabbed Sara’s hand. “Are you eager and excited for your first day of school?” I asked, trying to sound like a grown-up. Sara smiled and nodded her head yes. Meanwhile, my mom was staring at us through the window. “When will she treat me like an adult?” I thought. “I will show you the way.” I said. I felt proud to be the elder sister. We walked past beautiful gardens and big, leafy trees. Suddenly, I heard a growl (低吼) and saw a dog walking towards us. He was big and fierce looking with long sharp teeth. “GRRRR!!!” the dog barked. I didn’t see its owner or anyone who could help us. My hand became sweaty and Sara stopped walking. “I’m scared, Julie,” she said. I didn’t want her to be scared. I wanted to appear brave. “Everything will be okay,” I said.
“GRRRR!!!” The dog stepped closer and we could see it was the size of a small horse — with red eyes and sharp teeth.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
I was trying to make my voice sound calm.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I told Mom what had happened.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan’s mother died when he was very young and his father brought him up. Both of them shared a very special relationship. Football was not just a game for Jonathan; it was a bond between him and his father. Every match, regardless of whether he played or not, his father would be there, a constant source of firm support.
Though his size prevented him from joining the main team, Jonathan’s determination burned brighter than ever. With each practice, he improved his skills, fueled by the belief that someday his perseverance would pay off. Despite the doubts cast upon him, he pushed forward, never allowing anything to make his passion disappear.
One day, as the sun cast long shadows on the field, the coach approached Jonathan with a telegram (电报) in hand. The weight of the message pressed heavily on the young man’s heart as he read the words that forever changed his world. He swallowed hard and his voice shook as he turned to the coach.
“My father... he died this morning,” Jonathan uttered, his voice filled with sorrow. His body trembled with the weight of his sadness, threatening to consume him. Tears flooded his eyes, rolling down his cheeks.
The coach, understanding Jonathan’s loss, enveloped him in a comforting embrace. The warmth of his arm around Jonathan’s shoulder provided a temporary comfort. Softly, the coach spoke words of relief and understanding, giving Jonathan the time and space he needed to process his overwhelming sorrow.
“Take the rest of the week off, son,” the coach said gently, his voice filled with sympathy. “And don’t even plan to come to the game on Saturday. Your well-being matters more than anything.”
On the day of the game, Jonathan’s college team was losing badly to the opponent team. The coach and the players had all lost hope when they saw Jonathan coming towards them. Jonathan ran up to the coach and begged him to allow him to play this match.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按照如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
At first, the coach wouldn’t allow him to play.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After the match, the coach found Jonathan in the corner of the locker room.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Growing up, I was always around my grandma Meredith. She was the one who originally inspired my love for cooking and my dream of becoming a chef. Yet, one day I received a text that would turn my whole life around: “Grandma is seriously ill”, the text read. “We need your help in assisting with her care.”
Without a second of hesitation, I agreed to travel back home. Thankfully, my boss at the restaurant let me take unpaid leave for the next several months so I could come home to help out with grandma. After driving across several states, I finally got back to our family home in West Virginia. Yet, what I saw was really hard for me to bear. The Meredith I saw then was not the lively, joyful Meredith I had seen while I was growing up.
“Tony!” she called to me from her bed, “It’s so good to see you!”
“Grandma,” I sighed, “I’m not Tony. That’s dad, your son. I’m Hank.”
This was the start of a months-long journey of helping out around the house—cooking, cleaning, and, most of all, keeping grandma in good health and good spirits.
Every day, I cooked delicious food to keep everyone’s spirits high. But, secretly, I hoped that cooking some dishes that we had made together in my. Childhood would somehow help get grandma’s memory of me back, if just for a moment.
Stews (炖菜), chops (排骨), roasts— I served all of these to grandma and my parents around the clock. When I wasn’t taking grandma out for a walk in her wheel chair or changing her bed sheets, I was cooking. I had cooked for celebrities while at the restaurant in New York City, but never had I poured my heart out into my meals than I did then for grandma. However, it didn’t work at all.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答.
Then I decided to make something simple.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After taking a few bites, grandma finally called out my name-my actual name.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4 . As usual, Lily bought expensive gifts for her children Alice and Peter before Christmas. Her job kept her busy, and she
Lily
On Christmas Eve, Lily
All the guests present were moved by the scene. Lily
| A．usually | B．rarely | C．always | D．never |
| A．around | B．beyond | C．without | D．for |
| A．family | B．heart | C．body | D．job |
| A．watched | B．laid | C．hid | D．made |
| A．Fortunately | B．Eventually | C．Suddenly | D．Amusingly |
| A．shocked | B．touched | C．happy | D．free |
| A．attend | B．throw | C．delay | D．rule |
| A．blesses | B．regards | C．letters | D．invitations |
| A．confident | B．warm | C．relaxed | D．cool |
| A．shy | B．worried | C．easy | D．eager |
| A．welcomed | B．led | C．signaled | D．waved |
| A．uncomfortable | B．refreshed | C．surprised | D．calm |
| A．respect | B．pity | C．enthusiasm | D．love |
| A．noticed | B．realized | C．learned | D．witnessed |
| A．money | B．passion | C．knowledge | D．attention |
Returns
When I saw my mother at her home last month, it was a hot Sunday. I travelled there by train. As the train reduced its speed, I knew I was going to see her.
Leaving the station, I headed to the town center where I bought cakes — the kind she used to tell me to bring home. And I bought a cat, which I think can accompany her for along time. Until I got home, I didn’t think anything besides, I’m going to see her again and she’s waiting for me.
I knocked on the narrow door of the ground-floor apartment. She called out, “Yes. Come in!” “You should lock the door!” “I knew it was you. There’s no one else it could have been.”
When she saw the cat, she was very pleased as if it were my kid. She took the cakes, a little uneasy, but thanked me with a happy tone to her voice. That’s because she had already bought some for us on her way back home.
She was laughing, standing by the table. She put her hand on my shoulder, tilting her face up for me to kiss. At the same time, she was firing off questions about my trip, my children, my husband, my work...
We sat opposite each other at the table that, along with the meal she had already prepared for me, almost filled her apartment. She bought it big — it can seat at least ten people! But in six years, not once...
After meal, she tried to come up with more subjects of conversation, so that I wouldn’t go too soon, leaving her alone with her desire for me, her longing to live with me, her daughter, forever. Meanwhile, the cat approached us, which kept us busy for along time — watching it, taking turns holding it... My mother was the happiest she’d been since I got home. She seemed to have forgotten that I was going to leave.
注意：续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
It’s time for me to say goodbye to her.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A month later, I, along with my husband and kids, came back to visit my mother.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 . Geo-tracking apps such as Find My Kids and Google Family Link are fast growing in popularity, handing parents powers to monitor their children. But how are the latter experiencing what previous generations might have la-belled as an invasion of their privacy? Could these devices even hurt youths’ sense of independence?
We set out to answer these questions in our research, which involved a series of one-on-one interviews with parents who geo-tracked their children, and teenagers who were geo-tracked.
Overall, the parents who took part in our survey claimed they were driven to use these apps not by nosiness(多管闲事),but a sense of care in the face of what they perceived as dangerous or uncertain environments. Knowing a child’s geographical position cannot guarantee their safety when faced with an incident in real time, but checking where they are can help ease parental fears. Other parents surveyed admitted to monitoring their children only in the case of unanswered phone calls or unfulfilled requests. Rather than a systematic method of monitoring, geo-tracking acted as a “lastresort” option after parents failed to reach their children.
While some teenagers were sympathetic to their parents’ anxieties, most of them perceived the use of geo-tracking apps as an invasion of their privacy. When seen as a tool to contact, geo-tracking appeared to be quite well accepted by them in our survey. However, most teenagers in our sample were worried about their parents’ use of monitoring apps.
Geo-tracking is not without its ill effect on family relationships. Xavier, for instance, said that discovering he was being tracked has profoundly weakened the trust between him and his father. Furthermore, tensions among parents and children may also arise, thus widening the gap between them. Geographical monitoring also directly challenges young people’s need to go into the world independently, both holding back teenage autonomy and generating tensions in parent-child relationships.
1. Why are the two questions raised for Geo-tracking apps in paragraph 1?| A．To display their function. |
| B．To indicate their intelligence. |
| C．To show the worry about privacy. |
| D．To describe parents’ magic power. |
| A．Their desire to monitor their kids. | B．Their concern for their kids’ safety. |
| C．Their eagerness to reach their kids. | D．Their curiosity about their kids’ life. |
| A．Critical. | B．Confused. | C．Indifferent. | D．Mixed. |
| A．It can make children more dependent. |
| B．It may badly influence family relationship. |
| C．It may relieve the tension within the family. |
| D．It can increase children’s trust in their parents. |
It was Christmastime 1974. I was ten years old, but I was not looking forward to Christmas. The previous spring my mother had moved our family from rural Alabama to sunny Southern California. My little brother Todd, and I were leaving behind all of our extended family. This would be my first Christmas away from Alabama.
I was a fat, awkward child with a high-pitched voice and a heavy southern accent. My first day at my new school, I went to the front of my fourth grade class to introduce myself. All I said was my name and where I was from. The class burst into laughter with jeers of “He talks funny”. It took the teacher two minutes to restore order.
I was so disappointed that I went to a gas station afterschool and used the phone booth (亭子) there to place a call to my grandmother. I was going to ask her whether I could return to Alabama and live with her and whether she would send me the money for a bus ticket home. But the line was busy, and despite several attempts, I didn’t get through.
My Granny was everything good about Christmas. Her language of love was food. She would spend weeks cooking for Christmas Eve when all of her children and grandchildren would gather at her house. Every favorite dish dessert and cakes was made. Her table and sideboard groaned (发吱嘎声) under the weight of the food. My cousins, my brother and I would burst through her backdoor, our arrival announced by the rhyme of five silver bells, which hung on the door. Her house was tiny but to us children, it was glorious.
She sewed new night dresses for all of her grandchildren. She searched catalogs, newspaper advertisements, and stores all over town to get us exactly the toys we had requested. She was my comfort. She was magical. I missed her desperately.
Fortunately, there was only one week left before the Christmas break. I was longing for my familiar southern Christmas.
注意：1.续写的词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The next morning, a large enough package from Granny was delivered to our new house.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Just then the phone rang.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I used to be the only child in the family. Everything changed when Tex was born, and I was ten at that time. It seemed to me that Tex got too much attention from Mom and Dad, and I constantly felt a sense of depression. However, my little six-year-old brother had no idea about that, sticking with me all day long, which sometimes really annoyed me.
Last week, I was creating a birthday book for Dad. I worked forever making each picture as perfect as possible. Every time I messed up, I started all over again, so the floor under the kitchen table was covered with half-finished drawings.
“It’s family chore time,” Mom announced. “And you’re on laundry-folding duty,” she told me.
“OK,” I said. “After that, I’ll just put the finishing touches on Dad’s present.”
“I can help, too!” said my little brother, Tex.
I felt a little uncomfortable. But Mom touched his head gently and said, “Of course, baby, you can.” Then she turned to me, “And, Anna, please always remember to move those papers from the floor to the recycling bin in the yard when you’re done with your project.”
I folded the laundry as fast as possible. Just as I was about to get back to the birthday book, my friend showed up. After checking with Mom, we headed to the park. But as soon as we arrived there, the sky filled with giant gray clouds and rain started pouring down. I was upset as I headed back home, dripping wet. That’s when my heart pretty much stopped. Right there, in front of the recycling bin, was a box full of wet-through papers. And not just any papers ... I ran to rescue my birthday book drawings. But it was too late. As I picked up my once-perfect pictures, they were totally ruined!
I cried, “Tex, how did they get out here in the rain?”
Nervously, he came out and said, “Sorry, but I meant to help. I heard what Mom said, and I did it for you. But I had no idea why your birthday book was in those papers.”
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。
Needless to say, I was going to explode.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We two decided to make one big present for Dad.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“A nursing home would be safer, Dad,” Arlyn told her father, Jim.
“No way,” Jim interrupted. His wife passed away just a year before. At 91, he still wanted to remain in the cottage he and his wife had built.
Jim started experiencing an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Arlyn found his decline was indeed all-consuming. However, she herself was in her late sixties; her house was a 40-minute drive from the cottage. One day, when she read about a new eldercare service called Care. coach, it fueled her interest. For about $200 a month, a computerized avatar (头像) (controlled remotely by a human caregiver) would watch over a home-bound person 24 hours a day. She signed up immediately.
A week later, a tablet arrived. Following the instructions, Arlyn uploaded dozens of family pictures. Then an animated dog appeared on the screen. She presented the tablet to Jim, pointing to the screen pet, and said excitedly, “Here Dad. You have a new companion.” Jim, doubtful about the dog’s service, knew he had to learn how to get along with the dog before Alzheimer’s took hold.
Within a week, Jim and his dog, whom he named Pony, settled into a routine. Every 15 minutes or so, Pony would look for Jim calling his name if he was out of view. Sometimes Jim would “pet” to awake the sleeping Pony on screen. Pony reminded Jim which caretaker would be visiting to do the tasks: preparing meals, driving him to a senior center, etc. Pony would read poetry aloud or discuss the news. When Pony praised Jim’s sweater, Jim repaid by petting Pony’s screen with his finger sending hearts floating up from the dog’s head. One evening when Arlyn came to visit her father as usual, she was amazed to find that Pony was holding up a photo of her late mum to her dad between its paws.
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。
Jim stared at the photo fondly, with tears welling up in his eyes.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Seeing the close bond between Pony and her dad, Arlyn felt a relief.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 . The Language of Flowers
Ding dong! I looked up from the couch. Who in the world could that be? My body was troubled with illness, so I’d
I
Instead of returning to the couch, I
The group had followed him and picked very
The more I understood what the flowers were
| A．hidden | B．given | C．driven | D．broken |
| A．forbid | B．accept | C．act | D．respond |
| A．cautiously | B．reluctantly | C．instantly | D．cheerfully |
| A．size | B．style | C．uniqueness | D．shape |
| A．go together | B．stand out | C．mix up | D．fade away |
| A．informed | B．thanked | C．rewarded | D．telephoned |
| A．delivery | B．program | C．mystery | D．scene |
| A．companion | B．message | C．commitment | D．gift |
| A．expensive | B．rare | C．specific | D．fresh |
| A．explained | B．clarified | C．defined | D．analyzed |
| A．pain | B．fortune | C．sympathy | D．sunshine |
| A．modest | B．tolerant | C．formal | D．meaningful |
| A．involving | B．saying | C．smelling | D．signing |
| A．advocated | B．confirmed | C．required | D．earned |
| A．ambition | B．value | C．curiosity | D．fantasy |
