My hero — Domi
Five years ago, I had a strange dream, directing me to adopt a particular dog. It was obvious from the dream that I would know the dog by his unusual face. But when I woke up, I could never recall what the unique facial feature was.
I was very curious. So early one Saturday morning, I went to the specified shelter to check the available adoptees. After looking carefully at all the dogs, I was disappointed that not one dog had anything unusual about its face.
On my way out of the shelter, I noticed a box of puppies (小狗) just outside of view from the main area. My attention was drawn to one puppy named Domi who appeared to have no fur on his face. I was worried about this strange-looking puppy, and hoped he hadn’t been injured. However, on closer inspection, I found he did have fur on his face, but it was a very odd shade of gray that made it look like skin. Satisfied and relieved that he was okay, I turned to leave the shelter.
And then it hit me: The face — it’s the dog with the unusual face! Immediately, I returned to the puppy. As I lifted him from the box, we bonded instantly. I knew I could not leave without him so I headed for the adoption desk. In that short amount of time, he had wrapped his paws around my heart; his barks, quite different from other dogs’, had a soothing (抚慰的) and comforting quality, also touching my soul.
Meeting with the shelter manager, I was informed a family had already selected him. There was, however, still a slight chance since the family had not made their final decision. After an anxiety-filled hour, I saw a member of the family, the mother, walk straight toward me, carrying Domi. My heart pounded as she approached. For a moment, she didn’t say a word. Then, with a broad smile, she said, “Here’s your dog.”
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I was speechless as grateful tears were welling up in my eyes.
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When Domi was three. I had a brain disorder and fainted from time to time.
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2 . When our family drove to our hotel on the night of 29 September, 1994, I prayed I would never be in such a bleak place. The streets were deserted, and we were leaving the hospital where our seven-year-old son lay in a deep unconsciousness. We wanted only to go home, to take Nicholas with us and to hold his hand again. It had been the worst night of our lives. In lives that only a few hours before had been full of warmth and laughter, there was now a total emptiness.
Within days, our personal experience turned into a worldwide story. Newspapers and television told of the shooting attack by car robbers, Nicholas’s death and our decision to donate his organs. Since then, many streets, schools and hospitals in Italy have been named after him.
All this is for a decision—we’ve forgotten which of us suggested it. I remember the silent room and the doctors, hesitant to ask questions about organ donation. “Now that he’s gone, shouldn’t we donate the organs?” one of us asked. “Yes,” the other replied.
Nicholas was dead. The future of a bright little creature had been taken away. It was important to us that someone else should have that future. It turned out to be seven people’s future, most of them young, most very sick.
We are pleased this incident has caused organ donation rates to increase dramatically in Italy—a result called the “Nicholas effect”. It seems unfair, however, to the thousands of parents who have made exactly the same decision. Their loss is no different from ours, but their willingness to share has remained largely unrecognized.
For them, like us, the emptiness is always close by. I don’t believe we will ever be really happy again. But our joy in seeing the life that would otherwise have been lost is so uplifting that it has given us some comfort for what would have been just an act of violence.
1. What does the underlined word “bleak” mean in Paragraph 1?| A．Encouraging. | B．Hopeless. |
| C．Attractive. | D．Annoying |
| A．A gun attack. | B．A street fight. |
| C．A car accident. | D．A serious illness. |
| A．They chose to take the doctors’ advice. |
| B．They wished to increase donation rates. |
| C．They attempted to attract the public’s attention. |
| D．They wanted to give others a second chance at life. |
| A．Italy witnesses a sharp decrease in violence. |
| B．The parents have completely got rid of their sadness. |
| C．Their decision has encouraged public organ donation in Italy. |
| D．Other contributors think it is unfair not to be recognized. |
Zaki was small for his twelve years, and he hated being treated as a child. Farid, his older brother, had been looked upon as a man long before he was Zaki’s age. Now, every day as the sun warmed the gulf, Farid and the other young men went out in their wooden boats, to dive for oysters. With luck, there would be pearls in many of them. Each pearl earned a bonus for the man who found it.
Many times Zaki begged to go along, but Farid always refused.
“You?” Farid would laugh. “First, small one, you have to become larger than the oyster!” Still laughing, Farid would go his manly way, leaving Zaki bitter and angry.
So every day Zaki would go to the shallow water to practice. His grandfather, a former diver, would watch him and advise him. All morning, Zaki would practice diving beneath the waves. Every afternoon, he would again go underwater and hold his breath. With daily practice, his diving improved gradually. Soon Zaki felt as much at home in the water as he did out of it.
Zaki decided to challenge Farid the next day. He rose early the next morning. Even so, he had to hurry to catch up with Farid, who was already on the beach.
“Farid, wait!” called Zaki. “I must speak to you.”
In the stillness of the morning his voice carried clearly. The group of men around Farid grew quiet as Zaki spoke.
“Farid, I say that I can hold my breath under the water as long as you can. If I win, I ask only that you treat me as a man and let me dive by your side.” The men of the village burst out laughing.
Farid looked amused. “And what happens, young brother, when you lose?”
Looked down upon, Zaki shouted, “I will not lose! Let us go into the gulf to compete. The men of the village are here to judge.”
Farid looked surprised, but with all of his friends looking on, he had little choice but to agree.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Zaki and Farid went out into the sea until it was deep enough for them to dive.
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Looking into Farid’s eyes, Zaki suddenly understood what losing might mean to his brother.
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4 . The J in “juice” was the first letter-sound, according to my mother, which I repeated in staccato(不连贯地). This was when I was three, before my stutter(口吃)was considered as shameful. In those earliest years my relationship to language was uncomplicated: I assumed my voice was more like a bird’s or a squirrel’s than my playmates’. I imagined, unlike fluent children, I might be able to converse with wild creatures, learn their secrets, tell them mine and establish friendships with them.
School put an end to this fantasy. Throughout elementary school I stuttered every time a teacher called on me and whenever I was asked to read out loud. Flash forward 25 years. After a lot of speech therapy, my stutter was less noticeable. One night I found myself at a party in Brooklyn surrounded by people freely and proudly stuttering. I realized as I listened to one after another tell their stories that they were not impressed with my fluency. No. They felt sorry for me.
This experience blew my mind. It had never occurred to me to tell myself the way I spoke was OK; it’s the fluent world that needed to practice acceptance. When I watched “The King’s Speech,” a film about King George VI’s stutter, I didn’t buy the happy ending, when, with the help of his speech therapist Lionel Logue, the king delivers with fluency his announcement that Britain will enter World War II. The actual meaning and glory in the film, I realized, occurs between the king and Logue inside their sessions. The king exposes his vulnerability(脆弱)and Logue reacts not with judgment or disgust but sympathy. For the first time the king is seen.
The central irony of my life remains that my stutter, which at times caused so much suffering, is also responsible for my obsession with language. Without it I would not have been driven to write, to create rhythmic sentences easier to speak and to read. As a little girl, I hoped my stutter would let me into the secret world of animals. As an adult, given a kind listener, I am privileged to find a direct pathway to the human heart.
1. How did the writer regard her stutter when she was three?| A．Cautiously. | B．Positively. | C．Skeptically. | D．Critically. |
| A．Stuttering is anything but shameful. |
| B．Stuttering makes a humorous speaker. |
| C．Socializing helps one overcome stuttering. |
| D．Fluent people should feel sorry for themselves. |
| A．Doubt. | B．Judge. | C．Experience. | D．Accept. |
| A．Her stutter made her a writer. |
| B．How she finally stopped stuttering. |
| C．A party shaped her into who she is today. |
| D．What she learned from “The King’s Speech” |
“Go back, Mom! Go back!” shouted my six-year-old daughter, June. I quickly turned around to cast my doubtful eyes on the back seat, worried I had forgotten her younger sister. I was relieved to see the girls safe and sit in their car seats, but June’s expression was one of pure anxiety. “Mom, we have to go back,” she insisted. “Someone needs our help!”
As I looked back from the driver’s seat, I spotted a young man in rags playing his guitar. His skinny, poor-looking dog rested next to his feet near an old, worn cardboard sign that read, “Homeless, please help.”
We’d come across homeless people before and had talked about their needs and struggles. I should seize the chance to set a good example for my daughters to give a helping hand. So I searched for some cash, only to find I had nothing but credit cards. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t have any cash,” I said. “I have some, Mom!” June replied. She opened her little pink purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Oh, good. I’ll pay you back when we get home,” I responded with a sigh of relief. “No. Mom.” she insisted, “I want to help him. I don’t want you to pay me back. I want to give him my money.”
As we drove down the crowded rows of the parking lot, I reassured her that we would get to him.
When we got there. I called out, “Excuse me, sir!” He cautiously walked toward our car and answered, “Yes, ma’am?” “Here you go, sir.” June stretched out her entire body to hand him her five-dollar bill through the window and explained, “I want you to have this.” He smiled and hesitatingly asked, “This was your money?” “Yes! I want you to have it,” she proudly answered. “Thank you,” he said, touched by her thoughtfulness.
We exchanged a smile, and as we drove away, my younger daughter Scarlett began to cry. I hadn’t noticed that she had emptied her purse and was holding two quarters in her tiny hands.
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。
Paragraph 1:
“Mom, I wanted to help, too,” she sobbed.
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Now with tears in his eyes, he said in disbelief, “You want to help me?”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . The other day, while taking a drop-in art class, I had an experience that I don’t always have when I’m engaged in something creative. I was fully in the zone. My instructor even commented: “You’re on fire today.” Painting after painting was flying out of me. I felt free—a very unfamiliar feeling for me.
Class started off with quick thirty-second figure drawing, then we worked our way up to one-minute, and then finally four-minute sketches (素描). Ever since the instructor told me not to go over the same line twice, I’ve really struggled with finding my freedom in figure drawing. But that day I was completely free, and as a consequence, my line quality was much better. I felt completely unconcerned with what the teacher thought of my work. It was one of the most enjoyable creative experiences I’ve had.
Afterwards, I was reflecting on why this was such a pleasurable experience. This is how I always want to feel while creating.
I think this was so enjoyable because it was a drop-in class. Not a full course. Not to get a master’s degree. Therefore, I felt no responsibility for getting it right. I was able to take it less seriously and just have fun with it. And I wasn’t monitoring myself to make sure that I was improving.
If you practice at your chosen craft, you will improve over time. Worrying about whether you’re getting better doesn’t help you improve. It actually slows down your growth. Your intellect might think it’s helping out, but it’s actually slowing you down and making your creative process less fun. Eventually, there’s truth to the simple saying—practice makes perfect. Since there’s no perfection in the world of creativity, practice makes better.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Create even though it won’t be perfect. Create because it won’t be perfect. Create even though it won’t be perfect. Create because it won’t be perfect. Create because your spirit needs to express itself. That is where the freedom is. That is where the joy is.
1. What does the underlined part in the first paragraph mean?| A．The author was very clever. | B．The author got a little bored. |
| C．The author made a wise choice. | D．The author devoted herself to her work. |
| A．She did what she liked. | B．She learnt the basic skills of sketching. |
| C．She had no inspiration to create works. | D．She couldn’t keep up with other students. |
| A．She focuses on gaining better drawing skills. |
| B．She has no sense of responsibility in her daily life. |
| C．She thinks joy mainly results in a person’s perfection. |
| D．She has found the reason for the pleasurable experience. |
| A．Practice makes perfect |
| B．Begin enjoying drop-in art classes |
| C．Try to find the key to successful work |
| D．Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good |
I was a 20-year-old nursing student in 1968, assigned as Chris’s post-operative nurse.
Chris was an eight-year-old boy filled with energy, who excelled in every sport he played. Disobeying his parents’ words, he explored a neighbor’s construction site, climbed a ladder, and fell, which got him a broken arm that later had to be cut off.
The first few days passed quickly. I provided Chris’s physical care with forced cheerfulness. As his need for medication decreased, his level of awareness increased, as did his moodiness. When I offered him the towel for a sponge bath and suggested he take over, he washed his face and neck with great difficulty, then quit. And I finished.
The next day, I insisted on his doing whole bath by himself. He was more than halfway through when he sat down and said, “I can’t make it!”
“You won’t be in the hospital much longer,” I said gently. “You need to learn to take care of yourself.”
“Well, I can’t,” he frowned. “How can I do anything with just one hand?”
Putting on my brightest face, I searched for a silver lining in my mind. Finally I said, “Sure you can do it, Chris. At least you have your right hand.”
He turned his face away and muttered, “I’m left-handed. At least I used to be.” Suddenly, I felt ashamed. How could I have taken right-handedness for granted? It seemed he and I both had a lot to learn.
The next morning, I greeted Chris with a big smile and a rubber band. He looked at me suspiciously. I put my right hand behind my back and kept it there by winding the rubber band around my uniform buttons. “You’re left-handed and I’m right-handed,” I said, “Every time I ask you to do something with your right hand, I will do it first, with my left hand. And I promise not to practice before I see you.”
注意：
1.续写词数应为150词左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I started from brushing teeth.
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Ten minutes later; I ultimately succeeded.
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A policeman on the beat walked along the street as he always did. It was
That night twenty years ago, he dined with Jimmy Wells, his best friend. They were just like two brothers. The next morning he
About twenty minutes later, a tall man in a long overcoat, with collar
The two men walked up the street, arm in arm. When they passed a drug store, with brilliant electric lights, each of them turned to stare at the other's face.The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm. “As I suspected, you're not Jimmy Wells,” he said, impatiently with anger. “Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man's nose .” In fact, the tall man was a policeman and Bob, the criminal,was under arrest. The police man gave him a note from Patrolman Wells. The man from the West
"Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you
1. What did the woman give Howard?
| A．A big meal. | B．A glass of water. | C．A cup of milk. |
| A．A salesman. | B．A doctor. | C．A teacher. |
| A．Helpless. | B．Regretful. | C．Grateful. |
10 . My new Japanese friends stared at me from the other side of the small, square table. There
I took the fork and spoon and put a
| A．fixed | B．found | C．lay | D．stood |
| A．mentioned | B．illustrated | C．noticed | D．announced |
| A．desire | B．worry | C．hatred | D．shame |
| A．Therefore | B．However | C．Furthermore | D．Otherwise |
| A．well-cooked | B．mouth-watering | C．eye-catching | D．healthy-sized |
| A．dislike | B．satisfaction | C．nervousness | D．pleasure |
| A．under | B．inside | C．across | D．behind |
| A．attractive | B．black | C．mysterious | D．deep |
| A．process | B．progress | C．prospect | D．practice |
| A．pride | B．experience | C．delight | D．comfort |
| A．Fortunes | B．Friendships | C．Adventures | D．Fates |
| A．seeking | B．preserving | C．appreciating | D．avoiding |
| A．passed over | B．got through | C．spelt out | D．referred to |
| A．missed out on | B．broken away from | C．fallen victim to | D．made use of |
| A．cheerful | B．regretful | C．thankful | D．painful |
