1 . A little girl ran to her bedroom and pulled out her piggy bank (储蓄罐) from a secret drawer in her closet. She took the change from it and counted it carefully three times.

She carefully placed the coins in a jar and twisted on the cap. She took the jar and slipped out of the back door. She made her way six blocks to a drug store. She waited patiently for the pharmacist (药剂师) to give her some attention but he was too busy attending other customers at that moment. She tried several times to get his attention but failed. Finally, she took a quarter from her jar and hit it on the glass counter, which was finally able to get her some attention.

“What do you want, little Miss?” the pharmacist asked the tiny girl in the front of his counter. “My brother is really, really sick and I want to buy a miracle,” the girl answered back. “I beg your pardon?” said the pharmacist. “My brother is really sick and my daddy says only a miracle can cure him now. So, I want to get a miracle for him. How much does it cost?” “I’m sorry but I can’t help you. We don’t sell miracles here, little girl,” the pharmacist said, softening a little.

Next to the little girl was a tall well-dressed man. He lowered himself and asked the little girl, “What kind of a miracle does your brother need?” “I don’t know,” the girl replied with her eyes in tears. “I just know he is very sick and has something bad growing inside his head. Doctor says he needs an operation. But daddy can’t afford it, so we need a miracle to save him now. I can use all my money to save my brother.” “How much do you have?” asked the man. “One dollar and twelve cents, it’s all the money I have now, but I can get some more if needed,” the girl answered in a whisper. “Well, what a coincidence,” smiled the man. “That is the exact price of a miracle for a little brother. Take me to your brother. Let’s see if I have the miracle your brother needs.”

The man was a famous nuerosurgeon (神经外科医生). He was just the right person needed to save the little boy’s life. The operation was completed without any charges and it went successfully.

Her mommy wondered how much it would have cost. The little girl just smiled, but said nothing.

2 . He really did look like a tourist, with a camera around his neck and a bottle of sunscreen cream sticking out of his bag. The fat man sat on the terrace (平台), sipping lemonade and pretending to look at a tourism brochure. His sunglasses masked his eyes, but I knew he wasn’t looking at the brochure: he hadn’t turned a page for the last ten minutes. As I brought him his dishes, he coughed up a “thank you” and looked at me briefly. I tried not to stare at the tiny scar across his left eyebrow.

I walked back inside with my empty tray, shaking my head. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Then it hit me — the car accident. The mysterious stranger who helped me out of my crashed car, just before it exploded. I rushed back to his table. He was gone.

I moved his saucer and found his tip, along with a card: I am deeply grateful to you. The night of your car accident, I was on my way to rob a jewelry store. Saving your life brought things back in a right way. I now live an honest life, thanks to you. Mr. D.

I shivered (震颤). The night of my car accident, I was heading for an interview in an illegal dance club. Seeing human kindness through his heroic gesture turned my life around and bought faith back into my life. I unfolded the tip he left. Among the singles was a grand (一千块) with a pen mark underlining “Thank you.” I said a silent prayer for him and got back to work, smiling.

3 . 阅读下面短文，并按照题目要求用英语回答问题。

Luke has always been my closest companion these past five years. As you already know, there have been a lot of forest fires during the summer season. Many forests are badly damaged by fire each year. Not far from our shelter, a forest caught fire during this hot summer. We are on July, a heat wave which has been going on for three days.

Luke rushed towards the forest where flames send out a fierce heat. There’s no longer any hope at the moment to wait for Luke to come back to the shelter. In fact, I was waiting for the fire brigade(消防队) to announce me his death in the forest. Suddenly, a fireman burst into my office and informed me that my dog Luke succeeded to save four kittens who were trapped by the flames. According to the fireman, Luke seized the kittens, one by one moving them to a safe place.

I immediately accompanied the fireman to the forest to pick up the rescued kittens. Once on the scene of the incident, Luke was not there. Then we heard the sound of a dog came from the forest barking. I recognized the sound of my dog Luke. The firemen followed the tracks of the dog until they found him barking loudly by the side of an injured fireman who was lying on the ground and desperately waiting for rescue.

Thanks to Luke, four kittens and a fireman were saved. That day, I was very proud of Luke for his two heroic actions. Luke showed much compassion for both animals like him and for a human being who was trying to put out the fire with his colleagues. Truth to tell, my happiness is great and immeasurable.

I paid a visit to the fireman in his house accompanied with my lovely Luke. What a memorable scene when the fireman hugged Luke tightly to his chest! “One thousand thanks, Luke, for saving my life,” the fireman said.

This true story of love and compassion shows us that pets are loving, caring and compassionate. We should love and protect them. Don’t belittle them. Little animals can make enormous things for humans.

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4 . Our house was across the street from a big hospital, so we rented our spare upstairs room to outpatients (门诊病人). One evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly sick-looking man.

His face looked terrible - it was swollen (肿胀的) and red. Yet his voice was pleasant. He told me that he came for treatment and that he’d been hunting for a spare room since noon. but no one would give him one. “I guess it’s my face. . . ”

For a moment, I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I’ll sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning. ”

The old man had a huge heart inside his tiny body. He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, his daughter’s five children and her disabled husband. He didn’t complain while telling me his story. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was seemingly a form of skin cancer.

The next morning, he said, “Can I come back and stay the next time I need treatment?” I told him he was welcome to come again.

On his next trip, as a gift, he brought a big fish and some large oysters (牡蛎). In the years that he stayed with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us gifts like these. My neighbor warmed me that I could lose potential renters by putting up the old man after he left the first morning.

Maybe we did lose renters once or twice. But if they had known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family will always be grateful to have known him. From him, we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude.

6 . In March 2022, I was recovering from an operation for breast cancer and going through a terrible time. I spent my days at home ________ everything to myself. Then one of my colleagues suggested ________, “Why don’t you pick a couple of days and go to Ireland and escape?” I ________ the tip.

The trip was fun, but when I got on the ________ to go home, I wasn’t feeling well. My plan was to sleep for the ________ journey, but the guy next to me looked ________, eager for a conversation because he had kind eyes.

“I had an operation,” I said ________. “I had breast cancer.” He paused for a moment and said, “What’s wrong with that? Breast cancer is just a small ________ of your life, like going to college or getting married.”

I could feel my eyes ________ up with tears.

“Don’t think too much of your problem,” he said. “Instead, think about how many people you could help.”

I had tears coming down my face, and said, “I can’t ________ I’m crying in front of you. I don’t ________ know you.”

“Look, you have a ________ in life,” he said. “You can either ________ your things deep in your pockets and take them to your grave (坟墓), or you can help someone.”

I’ve not been a very outgoing person, and except the few people who needed to know, I’d kept my illness ________. I didn’t want to be ________ as a defective (有缺陷的) person.

But this man, whose name was Ken Duane, showed me that my illness gave me ________, because it gave me the ability to ________ someone else’s load. I decided at that moment that I was going to try to help others by sharing my story ________, in the hope of inspiring those who were in the same or similar situation. Later that year, I talked about my illness and my ________ with Ken on air.

I am forever ________ that I never took a nap on the flight over the Atlantic.

It was a few years ago. A friend sent me a restaurant gift card for Christmas and I picked a pretty, sunny Sunday afternoon to use it. It felt good taking my two grown sons and daughter to a nice sit-down restaurant instead of the fast food places we usually ate at. The meal was delicious and we all had a good time. When the waitress brought the check, I looked down at it. The gift card covered almost all of it. I reached into my wallet to get enough cash to cover the rest. I saw two bills in my wallet. The first would cover the rest of the bill and give the waitress a nice tip. The second bill was much larger, so I reached down to pick out the first one.

At that moment, my mind flashed back to 30 years ago. I was working as a waiter in a restaurant much like the one we were in now. It was long hours of hard work for low pay. I went home just only making enough to feed my young family. I also remembered how more than once I saw the waitresses counting their meager tips while worrying about how they were going to pay the rent and buy their kids things they needed. I remembered the pain in their eyes and sadness in their faces at the end of the day.

I blinked (眨眼) and was back in the present again. My fingers touched the smaller bill in my wallet. I smiled, pushed it back down, and picked out the much larger bill. I folded it around the gift card and covered both of them with the check. As we all got up from the table, I handed them to the hard-working waitress. “You keep the change,” I said with a smile and a happy heart.

We are all one family in this world. We live together, laugh together, and suffer together. Do your best to be a good person and love others. Replace the suffering with joy.

8 . The mission of Faces of Santa Ana is to lovingly engage the homeless through art. In July 2015, Brian Peterson and his wife had just moved to Santa Ana, California with a burning desire in their hearts to love their neighbors. Outside the couple’s fourth-floor apartment, a(n)____ man was often yelling on the street corner, sometimes keeping them ______ at night. Peterson, 28, would pass the guy on his way to work as a car designer, but they never _____ .

One day, Peterson was relaxing in his living room, reading the book Love Does, about the power of love in action, when his ____ disturbed by the homeless man. _____ by the book’s compassionate (有同情心的) message, Peterson made a(n)_____ decision: He was going outside to introduce himself.

In that first _____, Peterson learned that the man’s name was Matt Faris. He’d moved to Southern California to pursue a career _____, but he soon fell on hard times and _____ living on the street for more than a decade.

“It was a strange thing to me,” Peterson recalled later. “I saw ______ on the face of a man who hadn’t shaved in probably a year. And the ______ inside of him inspired me. ”______ Peterson, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in about eight years, he found himself asking if he could ______ Faris’s portrait. And Faris said yes.

Peterson’s _____ with Faris led him to form Faces of Santa Ana, a nonprofit organization focused on _____ and painting portraits of members of the community who are unhoused. Peterson sells the 30-by-40-inch canvas(画布) — signed by both subject and artist—for a few thousand dollars, and put half into what he calls a “love account” for his _____.

Many of Peterson’s new friends use the donations to secure immediate ____ — medical care, hotel rooms, food. Faris used the funds from his portrait to record an album, realizing his ____ dreams.

Peterson has painted 41 of these portraits himself. He’s discovered that the buyers tend to connect to the story of the person in the painting, finding ______ and often friendship with someone they might have otherwise overlooked. “People often tell me, ‘I was the one that would cross the street. But I see homeless people ____ now,” Peterson says. “I didn’t know that would happen. ”

9 . A Narrow Escape

Shortly after the war, my brother and I were invited to spend a few days’ holiday with an uncle who had just returned from abroad. He had rented a cottage in the country, although he hardly spent much time there. We understood the reason for this after our arrival: the cottage had no comfortable furniture in it. Many of the windows were broken and the roof leaked (漏水), making the whole house wet.

On our first evening, we sat around the fire after supper listening to the stories our uncle told of his many adventures in distant countries. I was so tired after the long train journey that I would have preferred to go to bed; but I could not bear to miss any of my uncle’s exciting stories. He was just in the middle of describing a rather terrifying experience he had once had when there was a loud crash from the bedroom above, the one where my brother and I were going to sleep.

When we got to the top of the stairs and opened the bedroom door, a strange sight met our eyes. A large part of the ceiling had fallen right on to the pillow of my bed.