Passing Kindness On
Mrs. Brown was in the store with her little boy Jack, having just come from Urgent Care Center to get him some medicine for a virus. While Jack looked around in the store, she couldn’t wait to get him home to warm soup and a warm bed.
“Mommy, look!” Jack said when they got close to the register. He pointed at a row of toy cars for sale. “Can I have one? Please?”
“No, Jack. You have plenty of cars,” said Mrs. Brown. “Besides, it’s very close to Christmas. Who knows what Santa will bring you?” Jack accepted his mother’s decision, but it didn’t help his mood. Now he was tired and disappointed.
When they got up to the counter, the lady at the register handed Jack one of the toy cars. “The woman in front of you in line bought this for you,” she said. “I chose the yellow one, but you can have any one you want.”
Jack looked so happy because it was the very thing he wanted. Mrs. Brown looked around for the mysterious (神秘的) benefactor, but she was long gone. “That was very nice of that lady,” she said. “Maybe we can also give an anonymous (匿名的) gift to someone else today.”
“Yes, we should!” Jack agreed. The unexpected kindness made him feel better than any medicine could. Immediately he thought of the little girl who was badly ill in Urgent Care Center. “Mommy, why not give the girl we saw in Urgent Care Center something nice to comfort her?” he suggested.
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。
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Mrs. Brown.
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When she woke up, the girl found the doll(玩具娃娃) beside her.
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A Bowl of Noodles
Jenny was the only child in her home. She had a quarrel with her mother that afternoon and she ran out of the house angrily. She couldn’t help crying sadly when she thought of he scolding from her mother. Having wandered aimlessly in the street for hours, she felt a little hungry and wished for something to eat, but it was not even possible for her, since she had nothing with her. She stood beside a stand for a while, watching the middle-aged seller busy doing his business. However, with no money in hand, she sighed and had to leave.
The seller behind the stand noticed the young girl and asked, “Hey, girl, you want to have the noodles?”
“Oh, yes... but I don’t have money on me...” she replied.
“That’s nothing. I’ll treat you today,” said the man,
“Come in.”
The seller brought her a bowl of noodles, whose smell was so attractive. Jenny thanked the man and started to gobblle (狼吞虎咽) up the delicious food...then cried silently.
“What is it?” asked the man kindly.
“Nothing, actually I was moved by your kindness!” said Jenny as she wiped her tears, “Even a stranger on the street will give me a bowl of noodles, while my mother drove me out of the house. She showed no care for me. She is so mean and cruel!”
Hearing the words, the seller smiled “Girl, do you really think so? I only gave you a bowl of noodles and you thanked me a lot. But it is your mother who has raised you since you were a baby. Can you number the times that she has cooked for you? Have you expressed your thanks to her?”
Jenny sat there, speechless and numb with shock; she remembered her mother’s familiar face and weathered hands. “Why did I not think of that? A bowl of noodles from a stranger made me feel grateful, but I have never thanked my mum for what she has done for me.”
On the way home, Jenny made up her mind to make an apology to her mother for her rudeness as soon as she arrived home.
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:
Approaching the doorway, Jenny took a deep breath.
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Her mother came back home, which called her mind back.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . As countless unmade beds and unfinished homework assignments prove, kids need rules. Yet how parents make demands can powerfully influence a child’s social skills, psychologists at the University of Virginia recently found after the conclusion on a study investigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Initially 184 13-year-olds filled out multiple surveys, including one to assess how often their parents employed psychologically controlling strategies, such as threatening to withdraw affection. The kids rated, for example how typical it would be for Dad to suggest that “if I really cared for him, I would not do things that caused him to worry” or for Mom to become “less friendly when I did not see things her way.”
The researchers followed up with the subjects at ages 18 and 21, asking the young adults to bring along a close friend. These pairs were asked to answer questions that were purposefully written to cause a difference of opinion. “We wanted to see whether they could handle a disagreement in a healthy way,” says study leader Barbara Oudekerk, now at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Statistics.
In the October issue of Child Development, Oudekerk and her colleagues report that the 13-year-olds who had highly controlling parents floundered in friendly disagreements at age 18. They had difficulty stating their opinions in a confident, reasoned manner in comparison to the kids without controlling parents. And when they did speak up, they often failed to express themselves in warm and productive ways.
The researchers suspect that controlling parents affect their child’s ability to learn how to argue his or her own viewpoint in other relationships. Although parents do need to set boundaries， dominating strategies imply that any disagreement will damage the bond itself. Separate findings suggest that parents who explain the reasons behind their rules and turn disagreements into conversations leave youngsters better prepared for future disagreements.
The consequences of tense or dominating relationships appear to worsen with time. This study also found that social difficulties at 18 predicted even poorer communication abilities at age 21. Psychologist Shmuel Shulman of Bar-llan University in Israel, who did not participate in the work, thinks these conclusions convincingly reveal how relationship patterns “carry forward” into new friendships.
1. What did the researchers from the University of Virginia do in their research?| A．They asked kids about how they got along with their parents. |
| B．They surveyed some parents about what rules kids needed. |
| C．They inquired into what the kids’ friends thought of them. |
| D．They traced their subjects for nearly eight years. |
| A．struggled with | B．dealt with | C．looked over | D．took over |
| A．Shmuel Shulman thinks more evidence is needed for the new research. |
| B．Controlling parents’ influence on their kids gets stronger as time goes by. |
| C．21-year-olds are more eager to be free of parents’ control than 18-year-olds. |
| D．Kids can handle disagreement better if their parents get along well with each other. |
| A．Pushy parents could harm their kids’ social skills. |
| B．Kids should learn what friendly disagreements are. |
| C．Parents; affection matters in terms of kids; personality. |
| D．Few parents explain the reasons why they set boundaries. |
The Doctor’s Son
My parents moved to the small town Enosburg when I was still a baby. A soft-spoken man, my father settled quietly into his medical practice. Within a few months the people of Enosburg accepted him as one of their own. The neighbors greeted my father as “Doctor Eppley”. And I always was known as “Doctor Eppley’s son”.
Throughout the first years of my life, I never tired of letting others know that my father was one of the town’s most respected citizens. Somewhere in my teenage years, however, something changed. I was 16 years old and the neighbors still called me “Doctor Eppley’s son”. They said that I was growing up to be an honorable young man just like my father. I complained whenever I heard these words. So when strangers asked me if I was Doctor Eppley’s son, I replied, “My name is Harold.”
I survived my last year of high school. The next fall I went to college. I chose to attend a school far from Enosburg, a place where nobody called me “Doctor Eppley’s son” because nobody knew my father.
I returned home for winter break that year feeling proud of myself. In four months at college, I had become popular in my own right, without my father’s help.
For two weeks I enjoyed being back in Enosburg. The main topic of interest at home was my father’s new car.
“Let me take it out for a drive,” I said.
My father agreed, but not without his usual warning, “Be careful!”
“All right then,” he replied. “The keys are in the kitchen.”
I got into the car and drove a few miles and then stopped at a busy intersection in a nearby town. As I stepped on the accelerator(油门), my mind went blank, and I failed to hear the loud high noise of brakes(刹车)in front of me. I only heard a great crash as I reacted too late.
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。
The woman in the car I had struck jumped out of her vehicle unhurt.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________On hearing what I had just said, the woman gave me a smile of recognition.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was a chilly Friday night, and I had just returned from climbing one of the red rocks of Sedona. My father telephoned me as I walked through the arches to my dorm room and told me that my mother had been in a terrible car crash and had been taken to the intensive care unit (重症监护病房) of a nearby hospital.
When I got to the hospital, my father led me down a wide hallway with machines all around. A strong smell of medicine brought a sick feeling to my already tuning stomach. As I turned into my mother’s ward, the cadaverous (形容枯槁的) condition of her body shocked me. Her face had swollen, her eyes had huge dark bruise, and she had tubes down her throat and in her arms. Gently holding her cold swollen hands, I said “hi” in a calm voice, controlling my urge to cry out.
She kept looking at me as she pounded her hand against the bed, looking painful. I turned my face away from her, trying to hide the tears that were rolling down my face. That was when it struck me that I really might lose my mother.
From that night on, my life completely changed. Up to that point, I’d had the luxury of just being a kid, having to deal with only the exaggerated melodramas of teenage life. As my mother struggled first to stay alive and then to relearn to walk, my sense of priorities changed sharply. My mother needed me. The trials and trouble of my daily life at school, which had seemed so important before, now appeared insignificant. My mother and I had faced death together, and life took on a new meaning for both of us.
After a week of treatment in intensive care, my mother’s condition improved enough to be moved to a regular hospital ward. She was finally out of danger but, because her legs had been crushed, there was doubt whether she would be able to walk again. I was just grateful that she was alive. Two months later, a sort of hospital suite was set up in our family room, and she was allowed to come home.
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。
My mother’s return home was a blessing for us all, but it meant some unaccustomed responsibilities for me.
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My mother’s reliance on me changed our relationship.
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6 . When I was growing up in America, I was ashamed of my mother’s Chinese English. Because of her English, she was often treated unfairly. People in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.
My mother has realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on phone to pretend I was her. I was forced to ask for information or even to yell at people who had been rude to her. One time I had to call her stockbroker (股票经纪人). I said in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, “This is Mrs. Tan”.
And my mother was standing beside me, whispering loudly, “Why he doesn’t send me check, already two weeks late.” And then, in perfect English I said: “I’m getting rather concerned. You agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.”
Then she talked more loudly. “What he want? I come to New York tell him front of his boss.” And so I turned to the stockbroker again, “I can’t tolerate any more excuse. If I don’t receive the check immediately, I am going to have to speak to your manager when I am in New York next week.”
The next week we ended up in New York. While I was sitting there redfaced, my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting to his boss in her broken English.
When I was a teenager, my mother’s broken English embarrassed me. But now, I see it differently. To me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It is my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, and full of observation and wisdom. It was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed ideas, and made sense of the world.
1. From Paragraph 2, we know that the author was ________.| A．good at pretending |
| B．rude to the stockbroker |
| C．ready to help her mother |
| D．unwilling to phone for her mother |
| A．they forgave the stockbroker |
| B．they failed to get the check |
| C．they went to New York immediately |
| D．they spoke to their boss at once |
| A．It confuses her. |
| B．It embarrasses her. |
| C．It helps her understand the world. |
| D．It helps her tolerate rude people. |
| A．She was unable to speak good English. |
| B．She was often misunderstood. |
| C．She was not clearly heard. |
| D．She was not very polite. |
Though Max’s mum sees him every day, she wrote a letter to him, in which she showed her worries about Max’s
In her opinion,Max seems to be checking his phone all the time, even when they
Of course, she has ever tried to talk with Max about this problem, but Max always puts it off. She even doesn’t remember the last time she communicated with Max face to face. As
She knows that Max is a good boy, who won’t hurt her
Long ago, there was a big apple tree. A little boy loved to come and play around it every day. He climbed to the top of the tree, ate the apples, and took a nap under the shadow. He loved the tree and the tree also enjoyed playing with him.
As time went by, the little boy grew up and he no longer played around the tree.
One day, the boy came back to the tree, appearing sad. “Come and play with me,” the tree asked the boy gently.
“I am no longer a kid; I won’t play around trees any more,” the boy replied. “I want toys. I need money to buy them.”
“Sorry, but I don’t have money. However, you can pick all my apples and sell them. Then, you will have money.” The boy was so excited that he picked all the apples on the tree and left happily. The boy didn’t come back after that.
The tree was upset.
One day, the boy returned and the tree was so joyful. “Come and play with me,” the tree said.
“I don’t have time to play. I have to work for my family. We need a house for shelter. Can you help me?” “Sorry, I don’t have a house. But you can cut off my branches to build your house.” So the boy cut all the branches of the tree and left with delight.
The tree was glad to see him happy but the boy didn’t appear since then. The tree was again lonely and sad.
One hot summer day, the boy returned and the tree was delighted. “Come and play with me!” the tree requested.
“I am sad and becoming old. I want to go sailing to relax myself. Can you give me a boat?”“Use my trunk to build the boat. You can sail and be happy.” So the boy cut the tree trunk to make a boat. He went sailing and did not show up for a long time.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Many years later, the boy finally returned.
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The apple tree is our mother.
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My mother always told me it was better to be smart than to be beautiful. “If you are smart, finally you will afford to be beautiful.” All I needed were the brains, and someday, I would be a really beautiful lawyer.
My mother worked at a TV station and I would come along and watch the magic of filming TV shows. But all the same, I was learning.
When my father’s business failed, I was able to continue to attend one of the best bilingual (双语的) schools in Mexico City thanks to scholarship. Scholarship followed me into middle school and high school.
However, during my senior year in high school my family moved to my dad’s country, the United States. For the first time in my life, I had optional (可选择的) classes. So I decided to take psychology class. While I found the public school system to be a joke, I did find my psychology class attractive. My mother, in her dreams for my life, did not see psychology as a good choice, but I was like her, strong-willed to the subject.
I married young, even before I had a degree under my belt. Worst of all, I married a kid who wanted to be poster (牧师). My mother loved Andy dearly but she would ask him occasionally, “When will you have a real job?” I did finish my degree and I became a social worker, but when I had my first child at age 24, I quit my job. Then at 26, another baby girl joined our family. Unfortunately, this baby girl had Down syndrome (唐氏综合征).
How would I be able to break the news to my mother? “It is better to be smart than to be beautiful.” I knew what “smart” meant in the statement, and I doubted if my baby with an extra chromosome (染色体) would meet those expectations. My mom was coming to the hospital to meet her new grandbaby. I would tell her then. I needed time to gather my thoughts. I was afraid, afraid that she would see Nichole as one that would never be smart...or beautiful.
Paragraph 1：
My mother arrived at the hospital midmorning, ready to meet her new granddaughter.
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Paragraph 2：
Six years later, Nichole runs to mom whenever we see each other.
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I pulled the car into the garage and got out, just like every night for the past 16 years. The difference was that I wouldn’t have to work in the morning.
I slammed the car door. I used to be a leader of a national bank until it was closed. I’d put my heart and soul into my job. Not only did I work long hours, but also I was on call 24 hours a day, on weekends and holidays. If someone had a technical problem, even at 2:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, I was on it.
My kids joked that even though they were teenagers, I was the one who was absorbed in my cell phone and had to be told not to text at the dinner table.
My wife, Michelle, had been able to go to work full-time as an office manager once we heard my job was threatened. But our son, TJ, was a high school senior, and the girls, Sarah and Tara, were in ninth grade. And I wanted to give them the education and opportunities they deserved. “If I can’t provide anything for my family,” I asked, “what good am I?”
I opened the garage door and stepped out into our yard. The lawn and flower beds that my mum had tended so carefully were overrun with weeds. There was a maple tree in the middle of the yard that my parents planted when I was a boy. It needed caring. But I’d put on a lot of weight—no time to exercise with my crazy hours. I went up to the house. Michelle greeted me at the door with a hug. “It’s going to be okay. We will get through it,” she said. “Maybe you should think of this time as a break. You deserve one.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” TJ said. “I know how much your job meant to you.” His concern was mirrored in the girls’ faces.
“I’ll take care of this,” I told them. “I’m going to work round the clock to find a new job and make our lives go back to normal.”
注意：
(1) 续写词数应为150左右；
(2) 请按如下格式作答。
The next morning, I got up before everyone else.
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The new lawn I’d planned for so long began to take shape and so did I.
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