Already Perfect
Each one of us struggles with self-worth to some degree. I spent much of my time attempting to achieve perfection in every aspect of my life. What I didn’t realize was that in my efforts to be perfect, I almost lost my life.
During my childhood, I wanted everyone’s praise and acceptance. After I graduated from high school, my struggles with self-worth increased. I began to put pressure on myself to succeed in the adult world. Meanwhile, I wasn’t feeling very confident and successful. I started to believe that my difficulties and “failures” in life were caused by my weight. I had always been a thin-to-average sized person. Suddenly, I was convinced that I was overweight. In my mind, I was FAT!
Slowly, I began to control my food by trying to diet, but nothing seemed to work. I continued to reduce what I ate each day and told myself that I would succeed, and in turn, I felt good about myself.
People around me began to notice my weight loss. At first, they weren’t alarmed; maybe some were even envious. But then the comments showed some concern. “You’re losing too much weight.” “Elisa, you’re so thin.” “You look sick.” “You’ll die if you keep this up.” All their words only made me believe that I was on the right path, getting closer to “perfection.”
My poor nutrition (营养) began to cause me to lose sleep. I found it hard to concentrate on my work or to focus on anything for a long time. I was pushing myself harder and harder at the gym, struggling to burn fat. My parents tried to stop me but I disagreed that I had a problem. None of my clothes fit, and it was hard to buy any, since I had become too thin!
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 one night, I couldn’t sleep again, and my heart beat its way out of my chest.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When I lay on the hospital bed, I began to rethink what I did to my body.
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After retiring from a long career teaching English at Huntington East High School, my brother, Bob, planned to travel the world. Instead, I was visiting him in the hospital where he had undergone a heart operation. He had a long road to recovery ahead.
Bob didn’t have much experience with being a patient. Certainly not as much as I did. He had always been healthy and kept in good shape, working part-time as a volunteer since retirement. I had grown up with chronic (慢性的) illness, had dozens of surgeries. Even now I was facing a puzzling condition my doctors hadn’t yet identified. A condition that gave me symptoms similar to the ones Bob’s heart illness gave him. I didn’t want to burden him with my own fears right now. I touched his arm, wondering if I would soon face the same questions. “I sure wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Bob said. “A failing heart. I can’t believe it.”
“I know it’s a shock. But we’re all here for you. You’re so blessed and loved. Your wonderful wife. Kids. Grandkids. More friends than you can count. I never go anywhere that someone isn’t saying something wonderful about your teaching days.”
“Thanks. You always say the sweetest things.” But I heard an “If you say so” in his voice. I tried to reassure Bob about how valuable his life was, but I was trying to convince myself about my own life as well. I’d spent so much of my time trying to help others, both before my retirement as a nurse and now as a storyteller. But the world was full of those. Would anything I’d done really last after I was gone?
One day, a housekeeper entered the room with her mop and nodded to Bob in his bed. “Hey, Coach!” she said. “Huh?” Bob said. I could tell he didn’t know who she was. The housekeeper smiled. “I knew it was you. My daughter played on your soccer team. I still remember her reciting all those lines of poetry. She loves poems to this day. What a great effect you have had on her! I should thank you very much.” I was very surprised when hearing these.
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 shouted excitedly, “You once coached soccer? How great you are!”
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Both Bob and I got good news from doctors.
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| 不聚集，戴口罩，保持社交距离 | 勤洗手，常消毒，确保空气流通 | ||
| Keep Healthy to Prevent COVID-19 | |||
| 多喝开水，安全饮食 | …… | 咳嗽发烧，及时就医 | |
2） 可适当发挥，100 词左右，已给出的句子不计入总词数。
参考词汇：novel coronavirus （新冠病毒），keep social distance （保持社交距离），masks（口罩），disinfector（消毒液）
Keep Healthy to Prevent COVID-19
As is known to all, COVID-19 is spreading around the world. As ordinary people, how can we protect ourselves from the novel coronavirus?
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If all of us follow the ideas above, we are sure to keep healthy and stay away from the coronavirus.
I am a doctor, so I love my job. I always have, but I feel particularly proud to do it at the moment. With COVID-19 sweeping through Wuhan, people are avoiding hospitals as possible they can. However, pregnant women still need to come into the hospital. Babies still need to be born.
Right now, it is even scarier for these women, as they have to come in on their own, often feeling frightened. Their families are separated from them due to safety measures. We’ve always provided physical support, but now we are doing so on a different level — we also have to keep them company and offer emotional support. Unfortunately, some of the women have caught corona-virus, and being at the hospital puts me at risk. Personally, I feel protected because we have full personal protective equipment, which we wear all through our 13-hour shifts. You don’t know if someone is carrying corona-virus or not.
I didn’t want to put my family in danger by bringing the virus home and possibly passing it on to them. As a single parent to my children, Xiaohua, 12 years old, and Xiaoyong, 9, I realized I had to make a very tough decision about my family’s safety when the country went into lockdown. Giving up work wasn’t an option for me. I wanted to be able to look after the women who were feeling poorly and very scared, but I could not leave my little angels behind either.
At this point, my sister suggested that the children stay with her and her husband for the time being and leave me to my hospital duties. I thought it was a great idea, so we set a date for her to pick them up. When I explained the situation to my angels and told them they needed to stay with their aunt for a while, they both seemed upset, but agreed to go. On the day I saw them off, they kept looking back at me until they were too far to be seen.
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。
After that, my workload increased because some of my coworkers fell ill.
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A week later, it came to Xiaoyong’s birthday.
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