1 . About five weeks ago, I noticed the skin of our pet lizard was growing dusty. Later, our lizard emerged (出现) from its tank with its old skin flowing behind it. I didn’t think about it much until a morning last week when I knocked my favorite teapot off the table. It burst into hundreds of pieces. As I swept up the mess, I wondered why we had been breaking so many things over the months.

The destruction started three months ago. It was my husband’s birthday. He had just lost his job. The uncertainty was starting to wear on us, so I wanted to do something special.

“Let’s make a cake for Dad!” I cried. My kids screamed with joy. We baked, iced and sprinkled for most of the day. Candles on the cake! Balloons on the walls! Flowers on the table!

Two hours before my husband came back home from another job interview, my daughter climbed up to grab a glass vase from a high shelf. It fell and crashed beside the cake. Tiny pieces of glass were everywhere. She sobbed loudly as I threw the cake away. My husband had banana pudding for his birthday.

Three days ago, the light in our living room suddenly went out. After several frustrating hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix it, my husband suggested watching the Michael Jordan documentary series The Last Dance.

The poignancy (酸楚) of Jordan retiring from his beloved basketball to play baseball and what had pushed him to make such a tough decision took me by surprise. As I watched him take off his basketball uniform and replace it with a baseball uniform, I saw him leaving behind the layer that no longer served him, just as our lizard had. Neither of them chose the moment that had transformed them. But they had to live with who they were after everything was different. Just like us. I realized that we have to learn to leave the past behind.

Humans do not shed skin (蜕皮) as easily as other animals. The beginning of change is upsetting. The process is tiring. Damage changes us before we are ready. I see our lizard, raw and nearly new.

Jordan said that no matter how it ends, it starts with hope. With our tender, hopeful skin, that is where we begin.

2 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

When Marco was a boy, he tried everything to get his father’s love and attention. He worked hard to earn good marks; he tried to be obedient (顺从的), he chose inspiring friends and always tried to behave well.

Sensitive and shy, he was so timid (胆怯的) that he always wore turtleneck shirts. He hid behind his hair, which he wore long around his face and ears. To make it worse, Marco was naturally shorter than the other kids. And because his good marks had allowed him to skip second grade — he was younger than everyone else. This added nothing to his already low self-confidence.

When Marco was eight his parents divorced, and Marco was sent to a boarding school. Six years later, he and his young sister Sandra moved in with their dad and his new wife in S-Leonard, a French Canadian and Italian neighborhood on the east side of Montreal, It felt to Marco that his father had little time for him and Sandra. Except for his demands around chores (日常琐事) after school, communication was nonexistent. It seemed to Marco the only time his dad ever spoke to him was to be demanding. He began to fear to come home from school every day.

Marco sank further into his low self-confidence, feeling unappreciated, inadequate, depressed and confused.

One day, his aunt called him. To Marco, this seemed like a miracle. Aunt Ginette usually only called once a year, on his birthday. She said she had just seen some young teenagers participate in a public speaking contest called Gala Personnalite sponsored by Club Optimiste — and she thought about him. She thought he, should give it a try. She told him she firmly believed he could perform on stage like the other kids.

Marco was greatly surprised. Him? Onstage? In a public speaking contest? To agree would be contrary to his entire shy, timid personality. But Aunt Ginette was so confident. She seemed really serious. She was sure it was something he could do. She truly believed in him. And feeling her strong belief, Marco agreed to enter the contest.

注意：

1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；

2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。

Paragraph 1:

An energy flooded him, which he never felt before.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paragraph 2:

When the big night arrived, his family were all in the audience.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was Women’s Day. I decided to give my mother a surprise. Immediately after the school, I started to prepare dinner. It is the first time that I had cooked something on her own. Not knowing the exact procedures to cook, I read some recipe first. Keeping that I had learned in mind, I set about cook. Almost an hour later, three simple but deliciously dishes were ready on the table. No soon had everything been ready than she came back. A big smile with both surprise and satisfaction spread on Mom’s face when she found the hearty dinner but the tidy room. At that moment, pride rose the bottom of my heart.

4 . A farmer owned an old mule(骡子) One day the mule _________ into the farmer’s well(井)unluckily   The farmer heard the mule _________ He tried every possible way to save the mule, but _________ .

After carefully thinking about the situation, the farmer _________ that neither the mule nor the well was worth greater efforts _________ , he called his neighbors together, told them what had happened, and asked them to help carry dirt to cover the old mule in the _________ and put him out of his _________ .

At first, the old mule was mad! But as the farmer and the neighbors _________ shoveling(铲土) and the dirt hit his back, an idea _________ to him.   Every time a shovelful of ____________ landed on his back, he would shake it off and step up!

This he did, blow after blow. “Shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up!” He repeated to ____________ himself.   No matter how painful the blows, or how ____________ the situation seemed, the old mule overcame his fear and just kept right on shaking it off and stepping up!

It wasn’t long before the old mule, tired out, stepped ____________ over the wall of that well! What seemed to have destroyed him actually ____________ him all because of the way in which he dealt with his adversity(逆境)

That’s life! We should face our problems and respond to them ____________ , and refuse to give in to fear, bitterness, or self-pity.

On our way to the house, it was raining     1     hard that we couldn’t help     2     (wonder) how long it would take     3     (get) there. It was in the middle of Pearl City.

We were first greeted with the barking by a pack of dogs, seven to be exact. They were well trained by their masters     4     had great experience with caring for these animals. Our hosts shared many of their experiences and     5     (recommend) wonderful places to eat, shop, and visit. For breakfast, we were able to eat papaya (木瓜) and other fruits from their trees in the backyard.

When they were free from work, they invited us to local events and let us know of an interesting competition to watch, together with the story behind it. They also shared     6     us many     7     (tradition) stories about Hawaii that were     8     (great) popular with tourists. On the last day of our week-long stay, we     9     (invite) to attend a private concert on a beautiful farm on the North Shore under the stars,     10     (listen) to musicians and meeting interesting locals.

8 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

9 . A five-year-old dog named Kelsey has been praised as a hero for helping to save the life of her owner who slipped in the snow and broke his neck.

The man, Bob, was alone when he left his Michigan farm house on New Year’s Eve to collect firewood. Expecting a journey of only several meters, Bob was wearing just long johns (衬裤), a shirt and slippers when he went outside, although the temperature was around -4℃.

After the accident, he was unable to move in the snow. Fortunately, Kelsey came to his assistance. “I was shouting for help, but my nearest neighbor is about 400 meters away, and it was 10:30 pm,” Bob explained. “But my Kelsey came. By the next morning, my voice was gone and I couldn’t yell for help, but Kelsey didn’t stop barking.” Kelsey’s companion kept him warm by lying on top of him. She licked his face and hands to keep him awake. “Kelsey kept barking but never left my side,” Bob recalled. “She kept me warm. I knew I couldn’t give up and that it was my choice to stay alive.”

Bob spent 20 hours in the freezing cold. When he finally lost consciousness, his dog kept barking. Finally, hearing the barking, Bob’s neighbor discovered him at 6:30 pm on New Year’s Day and called the emergency services at once. When Bob arrived in hospital, his body temperature was below 21 ℃. However, doctors were surprised to find that he didn’t have any frostbite (冻疮). They believed it was because of Kelsey’s determination to keep him warm. Dr. Chaim Colen, the doctor who treated Bob, said, “Animals can help and his dog really saved him...He was very fortunate.”

Bob said, “I was very grateful to both Dr. Colen and my Kelsey. They saved my life. They are truly heroes!”

This morning, I was jogging in the park while I caught sight of a wallet on a bench. Clear, someone had left it there in accident. I picked up and checked the contents. Inside it, I found some money or a card with a phone number. Believing that the owner would be worried, I immediately try the number. A man answered it in an anxious voice. Hearing that I had his wallet, he sighed with relief and told me he would come right away. Ten minutes late, the man arrived. After confirm he was the owner, I returned the wallet back to him. With his thumb up, he expressed his thanks to me repeatedly. Seen the smile on his face, I felt happy that I was able to help.