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.
1. Why did the author initially want to use the first bill to pay? (no more than 15 words)2. How do you understand the underlined word in Paragraph 2? (no more than 5 words)
3. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about? (no more than 10 words)
4. Which word would you use to describe the author’s personality or character? (1 word)
5. What can you learn from the story? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
“Every life is a boat, the dream is the boat sail.” Every child has a dream of what they want to be. When Renee Butts was little, her dream was to become a volunteer firefighter because her father was one. Sadly, when she was 14, her beloved father died and she was never able to do volunteer work with him. However, Renee’s story didn’t end there. She was determined and never gave up, which makes for a good firefighter.
Now Renee is a member of the Carmel Fire Department, where she is required to be an Emergency Medical Technician. She should also be ready to deal with any emergency, like fighting a fire, dealing with a car accident or helping someone who’s sick. Sometimes she is in the driver’s seat or using the water pump. Renee works nine to eleven days a month on 24-hour shifts. She also has a family to care for, as her husband is also a busy firefighter. Dealing with housework and working so much can show her great determination.
When I asked Renee what the best part of her job was, she replied, “Helping people and saving lives.” I think that shows signs of being a true hero. She’s always willing to do anything for anyone in need. Renee says that her job is frightening at times, but extremely exciting. “The worst part of my job is that I see death. Actually, sometimes people die in the accident, for which I am very sorry.” With 140 people in her station, Renee is one of the only three women, but that doesn’t bother her. She says everyone can get a fair shot and do the same jobs.
I was inspired by this because I knew I would be very scared to do her job and didn’t know if I could handle seeing people die. We would never live without people like her who have the courage to risk their lives. Renee’s determination rubs off on me and makes me believe that I can do anything.
1. What’s Renee’s job in the Carmel Fire Department? (no more than 5 words)2. How does Renee feel about her job? (no more than 5 words)
3. Why does the author think Renee Butts is a true hero? (no more than 15 words)
4. How do you understand the underlined part in Paragraph 3?(no more than 5 words)
5. What do you think of Renee? Please give your reasons. (no more than 25 words)
I recently gave my adult class homework. The assignment was to “go to someone you love and tell them you love them. It has to be someone you have never said those words to before or haven’t shared those words with for a long time”.
That doesn’t sound like a tough assignment, but most of the men in that group were over 35 and were taught that expressing emotions is not “macho（男子汉的）”.
At the beginning of our next class, I asked if someone wanted to share what happened when they told someone they loved them. One of the men raised his hand. He appeared quite moved and a bit shaken.
He began by saying, “I didn’t feel that I had anyone to say those words to. But as I began driving home, I knew exactly who I needed to say ‘I love you’to. Five years ago, my father and I had a disagreement and never resolved it. We hardly spoke to each other.” “The next morning, I called my dad. When he answered the phone, I said, ‘Dad, can I come over tonight? I have something to tell you.’ I assured him it wouldn’t take long, so he finally agreed.”
“At 5：30, I was at my parents’ house ringing the doorbell. As luck would have it, Dad answered the door.”
“I took one step in the door and said, ‘Dad, I just came over to tell you that I love you’”
“His face softened, his wrinkles（皱纹）disappeared and he began to cry. He reached out and hugged me and said, ‘I love you too, son, but I’ve never been able to say it.’”
“Dad and I hugged for a moment longer. I hadn’t felt that great in a long time.”
“Two days after that visit, my dad had a heart attack and ended up unconscious in the hospital. I don’t know if he’ll make it.”
“My message to all of you is this：Don’t wait to do the things that need to be done. Take the time to do what you need to do and do it now！”
1. Why might the assignment challenge the students?（no more than 10 words）2. What happened to the author’s student and his father five years ago?（no more than 15 words）
3. What is the meaning of the underlined part in Paragraph 5?（no more than 5 words）
4. Why did the student’s father cry? （no more than 10 words）
5. What do you often do when you have disagreements with your parents? Please explain.（no more than 20 words）
