As a senior editor in a famous press, I always think of days twenty years before when I was 18, I lived with my grandparents, and my parents earned their living in another city, struggling to support our family. I had taken to delivering newspapers to support myself and my education.
I would be up every morning by 5 am and walk five kilometres from where I lived to the newspaper office. By 6 am, I would collect 50 copies which must have weighed over five kilograms. My delivery range spanned (横跨) three kilometres. After distributing the copies, I would rush home—another three kilometres away—cook my breakfast, and be off to my school.
One Friday morning, I got home after my deliveries, finding Afzal, a boy from the neighbourhood, at my doorstep. Afzal said his mother wanted to see me. When I asked him why, Afzal said, “She will tell you.” Tired after walking around for over 11 kilometres, I was looking forward to breakfast and some rest. I assumed his mother wished to subscribe (定期订购) to the newspaper, so I followed him to his home nearby.
A woman in her 40s opened the door. I later learned she was Afzal’s mother, Mrs Kader. She asked me to sit, pulled up her chair next to mine and gently asked, “Tell me about your routine, right from the time you wake up in the morning.” I wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to know, but I told her about my morning job in a few words. She asked me, “How many miles do you walk every day?” I replied, “A little more than 11 kilometres.” My reply shocked her.
Then she patted my back and went inside, reappearing carrying a large plate full of food for breakfast for me. It was a heart y breakfast, one that brought back memories of happy days spent with my parents. Later, as I was about to leave after thanking them, Mrs Kader asked me to wait and she went inside again.
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 Mrs Kader appeared again, with a new bicycle.
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I bowed to Mrs Kader gratefully and left for school.
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My family and I were taking a well-deserved vacation to Disneyland. I had never been there before and was eagerly anticipating experiencing the magic.
There was another reason that this trip was special. My father was a workaholic who worked long hours. I longed to spend time with him. I wanted to be able to sit down with my father, who I loved more than life, and just talk. It always seemed like there was never time.
The day finally arrived when I was allowed to pack my clothes. I chose only my favourite outfits. I threw in my autograph book and then muscled the suitcase zipper around the overflow of clothes. I set my suitcase on my comforter and smiled. I was ready.
I didn’t get any sleep that night. I lay in my bed and stared out the window. I knew that my father’s work was going to be left at home, finally.
After a brief breakfast we hit the open road. It was all smooth sailing for the first couple of hours until I unexpectedly felt a sharp stop. We coasted to the side of the road, and my dad said something was wrong with the engine. We were in the middle of four lanes of traffic, so he decided the easiest thing to do would be to signal someone to stop and get a ride into town.
An hour later, my dad was still waving his hands at each and every passing car but it wasn’t doing any good. Not a single person would stop to assist my helpless family. Finally, Father gave up and decided to walk into town. I was certain it was a very long distance. I pleaded with him to stay and try again, but he was deaf to my pleading. He just said that he wouldn’t let anything ruin this trip for me. My heart ached as he put on his coat and began to walk away from our car. My dad has a back problem, and he was too stubborn to admit that he wasn’t in any condition to even walk a couple of miles.
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 I saw a man out of the window, who was a truck driver.
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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________We had just relocated to Germany and moved into a big and old country house with a mysterious abandoned wine cellars (地窖), which my husband warned me many times not to explore without him. After settling down, we began slowly releasing our large family of rescue cats and dogs into the woods behind our house so that they could get used to the area and venture out on their own. So, it wasn’t long before we gained a reputation for having lots of rescue animals with us in the neighborhood.
One day, the doorbell rang and I was sure some of my Christmas packages had arrived. I ran to the door and swung it open, but no one was there. I sensed something and looked down, only to find a beautiful calico (有斑点的) kitten sitting there, looking up at me with big, intelligent eyes. There was no way that she could have rung the doorbell by herself, was there? Were my new neighbors playing tricks on me? Perhaps, someone had found the kitten somewhere and left her there, and then rang the doorbell and ran away. They accurately guessed we would welcome an additional family member and take care of her.
My husband called her our little angel, so we named her Angelica accordingly. It seemed as if she was always meant to be in this big family and she turned out to be a perfect companion. Always by my side, she was more like a puppy than a kitten. Wise beyond her years, she enjoyed exploring through the mysterious house as much as I did, but with much less fear. Angelica was courageous.
So, I decided to be brave, too. I had promised my husband that I wouldn’t explore dangerous areas unless he or someone else was around, but he was away on a business trip for a week and I figured that Angelica would count as my companion. I was ready to explore the cellar, and so was she.
The only way in was through a hatch (盖子) that was partially hidden by the grass that covered it, then down a shaky ladder to its dark depths, probably twelve feet deep. I equipped myself with a good flashlight and warm clothes. Angelica sat on the edge and watched me carefully start down the ladder. Suddenly, there was a crash at the foot.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
I woke up with a splitting headache and pieces of the broken ladder lying around me on the stone cellar floor.
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Angelica could sense my dilemma.
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I was invited to a cookout on an old friend’s farm in western Washington. I parked my car outside the farm and walked past a milking house which had apparently not been used in many years. A noise at a window caught my attention, so I entered it. It was a hummingbird (蜂鸟), desperately trying to escape. She was covered in spider-webs (蛛网) and was barely able to move her wings. She ceased her struggle the instant I picked her up.
With the bird in my cupped hand, I looked around to see how she had gotten in. The broken window glass was the likely answer. I stuffed a piece of cloth into the hole and took her outside, closing the door securely behind me.
When I opened my hand, the bird did not fly away; she sat looking at me with her bright eyes. I removed the sticky spider-webs that covered her head and wings. Still, she made no attempt to fly. Perhaps she had been struggling against the window too long and was too tired? Or too thirsty?
As I carried her up the blackberry-lined path toward my car where I kept a water bottle, she began to move. I stopped, and she soon took wing but did not immediately fly away.
Hovering (悬停), she approached within six inches of my face. For a very long moment, this tiny creature looked into my eyes, turning her head from side to side. Then she flew quickly out of sight.
During the cookout, I told my hosts about the hummingbird incident. They promised to fix the window. As I was departing, my friends walked me to my car. I was standing by the car when a hummingbird flew to the center of our group and began hovering. She turned from person to person until she came to me. She again looked directly into my eyes, then let out a squeaking call and was gone. For a moment, all were speechless. Then someone said, “She must have come to say goodbye.”
注意：1. 续写词数应为 150 左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
A few weeks later, I went to the farm again.
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My writing career began quite accidentally. It was all because of my friend Henry.
Born into a poor family, Henry had no chance to attend school. He couldn’t read but he liked my reading for him greatly. One day I played a little trick on Henry. I was reading him a story from my textbook. Suddenly I moved away from the story and made up my own, pretending to turn pages regularly. Henry, of course, had no idea at all. Upon finishing the story, Henry began to clap.
“That was the best story you’ve read me in a long time,” he said, still clapping.
I laughed. “Really?”
“It was great. Will you read me more of it tomorrow?”
“Fascinating,” I thought, feeling like a man who discovered a buried treasure in his own backyard. That same night, I tried writing my first short story. It was a story about a man who found a magic cup. If he cried into the cup, his tears turned into pearls (珍珠), but he was a happy man and rarely cried. So he managed to find ways to make himself sad. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, unable to feel happy any longer.
The next day, I ran to Henry after school, asking him to hear the story and told him I wrote it last night. Henry was totally absorbed in it, his face shifting as the story developed.
“Some day, you will be a great writer,” Henry said. “And your stories will be read all over the world. But can I ask a question? Why didn’t the man just eat some onions to make himself cry to get pearls?” I was shocked because I never expected Henry could be helpful to my writing. I rewrote it and with Henry’s encouragement, I sent it to a magazine. To my surprise, it was published and sold well.
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。
Whenever I finished a new story, I would turn to Henry.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I decided to use the money to help Henry.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Random Acts of Kindness
I was driving along Clarendon Street in South Melbourne on my way to Castlemaine to visit my parents. As I stopped at a traffic light, I noticed a man lying on a bench seat on the footpath beside the road. It was early evening and his rough appearance and the fact that he was holding a bottle wrapped in newspaper confirmed my immediate suspicions — he was a drunk.
As soon as I saw him, I felt a strong feeling of sympathy for him. But like so many other people, I had other places to be and other things to do. As I watched, I saw two policemen approach and instantly I felt relieved. After all, it was their responsibility to clean up the streets and make sure men like him got a chance to be somewhere safe for the night. As I sat waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, I couldn’t believe what I saw. The two police walked around and when they reached the man, both of whom turned their heads the other way, as if not to see, and walked right past. Suddenly, a firm belief streamed through my mind, “Life is never so busy that there is no time to serve.”
Right then I looked up and the traffic lights turned green — and I had a decision to make. I knew that if I drove off, I would have no peace, so I turned left, drove around the block, parked the car and walked back to the man. As I approached him, I felt completely unconfident to deal with the situation and even a little foolish. What was I going to say? What was I going to do? At the very least I could drive him home — if he had a home. I found him sleeping soundly and at first, he didn’t respond to me at all, so I reached out and gently shook him awake.
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。
He woke up, staring at me angrily.
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Much to my relief, the man agreed to get into my car.
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I had just walked in the door after dropping off the costume I had made for a friend’s daughter when I noticed the light blinking on my answering machine. It was my friend saying, “I know you worked hard on the costume and it looks very nice, but Janet doesn’t like all those decorations. Could you change them?”
Annoyed, I started to call her back-until I suddenly thought of Grandma’ love and what she had once done for me long ago when I visited her in New York City.
It was in the summer when I was eight. I could still see the chalk on the sidewalk marking a game of hopscotch (跳房子) outside her building. As I entered, I could smell the pine oil the cleaner used to wash the hall floors. Flying upstairs, I knocked on Grandma’s door. Grandma had something special planned every day. She had saved a few coins so we could go to a picture show. One day we threw bread to pigeons; another day we watered the evergreen on the fire escape.
At the end of the week, Grandma decided to curl my hair. She told me I was going to look like Shirley Temple. She spent a long time on each curl, and I could tell she enjoyed styling my hair.
When she was finished, she sighed with delight. She was so proud. She had me stand on a chair to look in the mirror. My heart sank. I looked ridiculous.
“You can go out and play now,” Grandma said, smiling.
I nodded and slowly walked down the stairs. I looked out the small window in the door and could see the neighborhood kids playing hopscotch. My best friend, Ducky, spotted me and began to jump up and down. She waved to me to come outside, but I couldn’t move. I knew everyone would laugh at the curls. At the same time I couldn’t go back and tell Grandma how I felt.
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。
Paragraph 1:
Finally I went upstairs.
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Paragraph 2:
It was when Grandma combed out the curls that I knew she loved me
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Pride and Defeat
I had always prided myself on my talent in debates and arguments. Thus, when I was selected to represent the school in the national debate series, I was naturally confident of my readiness for the task Little did I know that this would turn out to be one of the most important lessons in my life.
The run-up to the finals was a breeze for my team. Our teacher was very experienced and we were all good speakers. My teammates were open to communicate so we showed perfect teamwork. But I was undoubtedly the most outstanding. In each round, the judges had always selected me as the best speaker. This means that my confidence was at an all-time high by the time we found ourselves with one week to train before the finals. I had no reason to even think that I would not be voted the overall best speaker for the debate series.
Unfortunately, I began to get self-focused about the whole business and started putting on airs with my teammates. I saw myself as the natural debater who would be let down by their bad performance. I became so dissatisfied that I began missing practices, which disappointed my kind teammates and teacher. They had no choice but to continue their training schedule.
The day of the finals dawned bright and fine. Actually, I just passed my teammates to enter the hall of the debate finals, feeling the excitement of being able to finally show off my debating power. But the reality was something quite different. My absence from the practices had created a gap between my teammates and me. We could not work perfectly as we did previously. Instead, our teamwork was so bad that even our school supporters were shamed into silence. When it was my turn to conclude as the last speaker of the team, the hall was quiet. Everyone knew that I was the most likely to win the overall best speaker for the series.
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。
But as I launched into my speech. I knew that things were very wrong.
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Suddenly, one of my teammates came up and patted me on the shoulder.
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There is a farm not far from the coastline. It belongs to a man called Tom. Tom couldn’t do everything by himself on the farm. Thus, he needed to hire one man to help him run the farm. However, no one worked on his farm for long. Why？Because the work was too tiring. Since the farm is near the sea, there are often storms from the sea that strike his farm. When a storm comes, Tom and the man he hired have to get up quickly and try to reduce the losses caused by the storm. Therefore, no one liked working there. Tom had to look for people to work for him all the time.
One day, a man called Henry read the poster that Tom had put up and then came to his farm.
“Sir, I can work for you ,” said Henry.
Tom looked at Henry. This young man was neither strong nor tall.
“Are you sure?”asked Tom.
“Yes, sir. I can do the work well. But you must pay me twice what you paid others before,” said that young man.
Tom was surprised. He didn’t really believe such a man could do the work well. But it was really hard for him to find someone else to work for him. At last, he decided to give Henry a try. However, before hiring him, he said, “Can you really be a good helper？The work on the farm is hard and tiring. And there are often storms.”
Henry smiled and said, “Don’t worry. I can be a good helper. You’ll see. And storms won’t be a problem. They won’t even disturb our sleep. We can sleep very well even on stormy nights.”
And then Henry stayed on the farm. To Tom’s joy, Henry worked hard and did his work well. It was obvious that he hadn’t lied.
However, one night, there was a big storm. Tom was woken up by the strong wind. He was worried that the storm would cause great losses for his farm. And he saw his helper nowhere.
Paragraph 1
Tom thought Henry must still be sleeping.
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Paragraph 2
Tom thought he had hired the wrong man.
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Many years ago there lived in Holland a boy named Peter. Peter's father was one of the men who tended the gates in the dikes(堤坝)，called sluices. He opened and closed the sluices so that ships could pass out of Holland's canals into the great sea.
One afternoon in the early fall, when Peter was eight years old, his mother called him from his play. “Come, Peter,” she said. “I want you to go across the dike and take these cakes to your friend, the blind man. Remember that you shall be home before dark.”The little boy was glad to go on such an errand (跑腿)， and started off with a light heart. He stayed with the poor blind man a little while to tell him something about his walk along the dike-the sun, the flowers and the ships far out at sea. Then he remembered his mother's wish that he should return before dark. Bidding his friend goodbye, he set out for home.
As he walked beside the canal, he noticed how the rains had swollen the water, and how they beat against the side of the dike, and he thought of his father's gates. “I am glad they are so strong,” he said to himself.“If the dike gave way what should we do? These pretty fields would be covered with water.” As he walked along the dike he sometimes stopped to pick the pretty blue flowers that grew beside the road, or to listen to the rabbits' soft tread as they rustled through the grass.
Suddenly he heard a noise. It was the sound of trickling water! He stopped and looked down. There was a small hole in the dike, through which a tiny stream was flowing. Any child in Holland is frightened at the thought of a leak in the dike. Peter understood the danger at once. If the water ran through a little hole it would soon make a larger one, and the whole country would be flooded. In a moment he saw what he must do. Throwing away his flowers, he climbed down the side of the dike and thrust his finger into the tiny hole. The flowing of the water was stopped! “Oh!” he said to himself. “I can keep the water back with my finger. Holland shall not be drowned while I am here. ”
This was all very well at first, but soon it grew dark and cold. The little fellow shouted and screamed. “Come here; come here,” he called. But no one heard him; no one came to help him.
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。
It grew still colder, and his arm ached, and began to grow stiff and numb.
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The moon and stars looked down on the child crouching (蹲) on a stone on the side of the dike.
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