When I was in middle school, my social studies teacher asked me to enter a writing contest. I said no without thinking. I did not love writing. My family came from Brazil, so English was only my second language. Writing was so difficult and painful for me that my teacher had allowed me to present my paper on the sinking of the Titanic by acting out a play, where I played all the parts. No one laughed harder than he did.
So, why did he suddenly force me to do something at which I was sure to fail? His reply: “Because I love your stories. If you’re willing to apply yourself, I think you have a good shot at this.” Encouraged by his words, I agreed to give it a try.
I chose Paul Revere’s horse as my subject. Paul Revere was a silversmith (银匠) in Boston who rode a horse at night on April 18, 1775 to Lexington to warn people that British soldiers were coming. My story would come straight from the horse’s mouth. Not a brilliant idea, but funny; and unlikely to be anyone else’s choice.
What did the horse think, as he sped through the night? Did he get tired? Have doubts? Did he want to quit? I sympathized immediately. I got tired. I had doubts. I wanted to quit. But, like Revere’s horse, I kept going. I worked hard. I checked my spelling. I asked my older sister to correct my grammar. I checked out a half dozen books on Paul Revere from the library. I even read a few of them.
When I handed in the essay to my teacher, he read it, laughed out loud, and said, “Great. Now, write it again.” I wrote it again, and again and again. When I finally finished it, the thought of winning had given way to the enjoyment of writing. If I didn’t win, I wouldn’t care.
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。
A few weeks later, when I almost forgot the contest, there came the news.
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I went to my teacher’s office after the award presentation.
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Henry Tyler made the catch of the year on the weekend. When he saw a young child hanging from a sixth-floor apartment balcony (阳台), Henry ran one hundred metres, jumped over a 1.2-metre fence, and held out his arms to catch the
Eric Brown, only three years old, knocked Henry down when he fell. The boy is in the hospital and doctors say he'll be OK.
Eric woke up a little later when he heard children playing outside. He pushed a chair onto the balcony, and climbed up
Henry
"He saved my
"I just didn't want the boy to be hurt," said Henry.
The Meredith family lived in a small community. As the economy was in decline, some people in the town had lost their jobs. Many of their families were struggling to make ends meet. People were trying to help each other meet the challenges.
Mrs. Meredith was a most kind and thoughtful woman. She spent a great deal of time visiting the poor. She knew they had problems, and they needed all kinds of help. When she had time, she would bring food and medicine to them.
One morning she told her children about a family she had visited the day before. There was a man sick in bed, his wife, who took care of him and could not go out to work, and their little boy. The little boy -his name was Bernard-had interested her very much.
“I wish you could see him,” she said to her own children, John, Harry, and Clara. “He is such a help to his mother. He wants very much to earn some money, but I don't see what he can do.”
After their mother left the room, the children sat thinking about Bernard. “I wish we could help him to earn money,” said Clara. “His family is suffering so much.”
“So do I,” said Harry. “We really should do something to assist them.”
For some moments, John said nothing, but, suddenly, he sprang to his feet and cried, “I have a great idea! I have a solution that we can all help accomplish(完成).”
The other children also jumped up all attention. When John had an idea, it was sure to be a good one. “I tell you what we can do,” said John. “You know that big box of corn Uncle John sent us? Well, we can make popcorn(爆米花), and put it into paper bags, and Bernard can take it around to the houses and sell it.”
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。
When Mrs. Meredith heard of John's idea, she thought it was a good one, too.
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With everything ready, Bernard started out on his new business.
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My husband and I enjoy seeing life through the eyes of our children. It’s amazing to watch as they discover their world.
While we were outdoors last summer enjoying the sunshine, our oldest daughter, Kaytlin, called me to the doorway. Beneath the steps was a baby red squirrel.
We watched it from a distance, not wanting to disturb it or scare off its mother. But after a long wait—and looking all around our house for signs of a nest or a mother—we realized the tiny squirrel was lost.
Shaking terribly, he was weak, thin, and hungry. We tried to find an expert to help, but the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife website showed that there were no wildlife experts in our area. After some quick research, we concluded that the best way to give the squirrel a fighting chance was to care for him ourselves. So a trip to the local store for milk and supplies was in order. More research taught us how much to feed him, how to estimate his age, how and when to wean (断奶) him, and that we should let him go as soon as he could survive on his own.
Our daughters and I took turns in feeding “Squirt.” Kaytlin took on the most responsibility. She taught him to eat from a bottle, and she woke in the night for his feeds.
To our relief, Squirt soon became healthy and strong. Within a few weeks he became more active. He would chatter (吱吱叫) for his next meal, playfully go around the girls, and lie down on them for sleep. It wasn’t long before he was weaned onto solid food and reintroduced to the wild.
His first few visits to the great outdoors were funny. Just like a child, he would play in the grass some and then run back to Kaytlin for safety. Soon she had him climbing trees and finding nest material.
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。
One day in the trees, Squirt met up with a family of gray squirrels.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________One night, Squirt didn’t come back to our house and it rained hard.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________One fall, my wife Elli and I had a single goal: to photograph polar bears. We were staying at a research camp outside “the polar bear capital of the world”-the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada.
Taking pictures of polar bears is amazing but also dangerous. Polar bears-like all wild animals should be photographed from a safe distance. When I'm face to face with a polar bear, I like it to be through a camera with a telephoto lens. But sometimes，that is easier said than done. This was one of those times.
As Elli and I cooked dinner, a young male polar bear who was playing in a nearby lake sniffed, and smelled our garlic bread.
The hungry bear followed his nose to our camp, which was surrounded by a high wire fence. He pulled and bit the wire. He stood on his back legs and pushed at the wooden fence posts.
Terrified, Elli and I tried all the bear defense actions we knew. We yelled at the bear, hit pots hard，and fired blank shotgun shells into the air. Sometimes loud noises like these will scare bears off. Not this polar bear though-he just kept trying to tear down the fence with his massive paws(爪子).
I radioed the camp manager for help. He told me a helicopter was on its way, but it would be 30 minutes before it arrived. Making the best of this close encounter(相遇), I took some pictures of the bear.
Elli and I feared the fence wouldn’t last through 30 more minutes of the bear's punishment. The camp manager suggested I use pepper spray. The spray burns the bears’ eyes, but doesn't hurt them. So I approached our uninvited guest slowly and，through the fence, sprayed him in the face. With an angry roar(吼叫), the bear ran to the lake to wash his eyes.
注意:1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph1:A few minutes later, the bear headed back to our camp.________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph2:At that very moment, the helicopter arrived._______________________________________________________________________________________________________
I had a secret. I had been considering the decision for some time, but hadn’t discussed it with anyone. As an English Language Arts teacher in my fourth year, I had to leave my beloved profession.
I kept praying for a sign to stay, but my father was very ill and needed someone to take care of him. Although many students liked my class and I had received hundreds of letters from former students appreciating my influence on their lives, I still made this difficult decision.
It was nearing the end of what I had come to think of as my last year. A senior named Lyric, who was my assistant, asked if I could meet him and another student named Ari for dinner to discuss how to prepare for college. I agreed but didn’t think anything of it.
It was on a Saturday evening and my schedule for that day was already packed. I attended an academic conference that morning and then spent the next four hours at the boys’ basketball game where I was the assistant coach of the school team. By the time the game ended, I had about an hour to get to the dinner. I was so tired that I almost called Lyric to re-schedule. But I had promised, so I got in my car and headed to the restaurant.
As I was walking up to the restaurant, I saw Lyric, Ari, and Sal, another former student, all dressed up. I asked Lyric, “Why are you guys so dressed up?” He responded, “Follow us and you’ll see. “The three of them led me to the outside patio (露台) where there was a long table full of some forty students. They had decorated the patio with fairy lights and flowers, and the table was adorned (装饰) with a beautiful tablecloth and candles. They had even prepared my favorite dishes and drinks!
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。
Paragraph1
When they saw me, they all stood up and started clapping.
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Paragraph2
A week later, I was voted Teacher of the Year.
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My dad and I had been looking forward to the Stale cross-country race of my senior year of high school, which would be the climax (顶点) of my existence.
I was the fastest runner on my team, and I was supposed to make it into the top fifteen. We had been working towards this race for three years. It was everything to me, and it was everything to my dad. He was a runner and was wild with joy by my success in running. He made it to every race, even flying home early from business trips to see me run. I always listened for his voice, which rang above the crowd-telling me to relax my arms, calling out my time. He pushed me. He cheered for me. He believed in me. We spent countless hours on the sandy canals of Arizona. Breathing in the dust of the desert, the blossoms of the orange trees, and the terrible smell of the dairy farm, we made our way across the city. We pounded miles and miles into our running shoes, marking with every step the path to greatness. It was a journey that was just ours. A dream passed on from one generation to the next.
Then the big day came. It was hotter than normal - too hot. My throat felt like a field of cotton, cracked with the summer heat, as I waited for the gun to fire. I gazed out at the crowd; dozens of familiar faces from church and school flickered across my view. They had come for me. They were counting on me. I saw my dad set his watch, worry and excitement etched across his face. With the sound of a gunshot, the race began.
For the first two and half miles, I felt great. I had never before been so ready for something. The weeks leading up to the race were filled with hard practices and a strict diet. The scorching sun beat upon my back, blinding me with its brilliance. Nothing was going to stop me, though.
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
However, without warning, my strength was running out.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I whispered, “I’m so sorry I disappointed you, Dad.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________With the start of new school, freshmen of Hendersonville High School in Nashville were excited to meet new classmates and teachers. Among them, however,15-year-old Sergio Peralta was feeling very nervous because his right hand had never fully formed since he was born. Going to a new school and being “different” is always scary. Sergio was particularly concerned with what his classmates would think of him.
Sergio’s parents had trained him to use his left hand from an early age. As he grew up, he was used to not using his right hand. He could write with his left one and do some things with special tricks or techniques. Despite this, in the first days of new school, Sergio always felt like hiding his underdeveloped right hand in his sleeve as if nobody would ever find out if he did so.
It didn’t take long for someone to learn Sergio’s secret. Jeff Wilkins, the teacher of Sergio’s engineering class, figured out that Sergio was missing part of his hand and decided to do something for the new student. Jeff had been leading a robotics project in the school and expert in 3D printing technology. Besides, he hoped to take advantage of this hands-on chance to help his robotics students learn more about engineering and how building a robotic hand worked.
So in his class, Jeff announced with great enthusiasm, “You’re supposed to be engineering, coming up with new ideas and solving issues. Now Sergio needs a new hand, so we’ll work together to build Sergio a robotic hand.” His words fueled everyone’s curiosity and creativity.
For the next four weeks, Jeff and his class including Sergio worked on the project. After some precise measurements and researches, the class put forward a design draft. Jeff made a few adjustments and gave them some practical suggestions. With access to online models and a 3D printer, they eventually created a robotic hand, which was intended to look good and work well, like catching something.
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 came the final testing day.
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The life-changing gift for Sergio drew huge attention.
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9 . Every Saturday morning Phoenix Young would take piano lessons with a family friend when he was a child. “At that time we would
But when Phoenix was 12, his teacher proposed that he need better
One day, however, Bade
“It was as if all I wanted was just a
That moment
“I went into
| A．walk | B．joke | C．look | D．stick |
| A．announced | B．sighed | C．regretted | D．recalled |
| A．instruction | B．behaviour | C．recognition | D．relationship |
| A．sweet | B．violent | C．tough | D．strange |
| A．expectation | B．standard | C．quality | D．reputation |
| A．something | B．everything | C．nothing | D．anything |
| A．pretended | B．admitted | C．rejected | D．decided |
| A．attended to | B．turned to | C．lied to | D．referred to |
| A．courage | B．faith | C．doubt | D．luck |
| A．in return | B．in vain | C．in time | D．in peace |
| A．promise | B．sign | C．notice | D．vision |
| A．recovered | B．transformed | C．ruined | D．clouded |
| A．stress | B．patience | C．fun | D．argument |
| A．acting | B．singing | C．composition | D．music |
| A．leave | B．lead | C．owe | D．add |
Outside the Box
The Harvestfest contest was falling on Friday and everyone in school was talking about it. All the students would show up in their self-made costumes and a winner would be chosen by the principal.
“Do you have your costume for the Harvestfest contest?” Alice asked. “I’m going as a chocolate bar. My mom and I have been working on it all week.”
“Yeah, I have a costume,” said Jordan Eastman, popping up the two front wheels of his wheelchair as he waited for his dad to pick him up. “But it’s boring.”
“Why? What is it?” Alice asked.
“MaxMag the superhero, but Danny, Tom and Izzy are all going as MaxMag too.” Jordan shook his head. “That’s too many to stand a chance at winning the contest.” He waved to his dad, who had just pulled up in front of the school.
Jordan rolled his wheelchair toward his dad, and Alice walked with him to the minivan.
“Maybe you should go as something else.”
“The contest is Friday night.” Jordan sighed. “It’s too late to change costumes.”
“Jordan, you have to think outside the box. Look around your house and see what you have. There’s hidden potential in everyday items.” She took a sip of her drink, and told Jordan that her chocolate-bar costume was made from old fabric her mom had lying around and recycled plastics.
On his way home, Jordan was quiet. He kept thinking about Alice’s words: Think outside the box. There’s hidden potential in everyday items. When he got home, he found his mum handling with some wooden pieces. She was putting a new desk together. On top of the desk was the huge empty cardboard box the pieces had come in. Mom smiled at Jordan, pointing at the desk, “What do you think?”
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。
Jordan’s eyes fell on the box and he smiled, “It’s perfect . … with my wheelchair.”
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Soon it was Friday night, and Jordan couldn’t wait to show his costume.
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