It was a dream born in fire. Andrea Peterson was 5 when she was trapped on the ledge (窗台) of a burning building.
“Throw the kid down!” said one of the firemen below, whose eyes are firm and courageous, along with professional rescue techniques. Seeing this, little Andrea jumped into lifesaving arms and a life-long ambition: She wanted to fight fires as her rescuers did.
She told that to the men who had saved her, and they laughed naturally the way grown-ups do when a kid says he wants to be an astronaut or a sports star. But this was back in a time when little girls weren’t even allowed to fantasize (幻想) about such grand goals.
“You’ll be a good mommy,” the firemen told her. “You’ll be a good teacher, maybe you’ll be a nurse, but you can never be a fireman.”
Indeed, life sidelined her ambitious dream. She was studying for a degree in aviation technology (航空科技) and that’s where she met her husband, Dennis. Unfortunately, Dennis was diagnosed with cancer. Peterson spent 31 years caring for the man she loved, and in 2007, when Dennis was about to leave, he was at peace but worried for her. “But what are you going to do?” “I’ll be fine,” she told him.
At 61, she attended a course for emergencies. She went on an ambulance ride-along from time to time. It turned out to be a life-and-death situation, which reminded her of the childhood experience back in the fire. But every time she saw people who were in need were successfully rescued, Peterson felt that long-ago childhood calling. She earned her emergency medical technician license and responded to fire calls with the ambulance. She found that her years of tending to Dennis had prepared her for dealing with the variety of hurts and ills. The inside calling echoed increasingly stronger.
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。
After a year, she signed up for a training unit for firefighters.
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Finally came the written and physical fitness test day.
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The annual Halloween arrived, during which kids dressed in traditional clothes went to neighbors’ houses to ask for candy.
Allison lived in a small town. That day after dinner, Allison put on her dress her father had just bought for her. The dress was cheap and second-hand because her family was poor. But Allison still thanked her dad and said, “Everyone will love my dress!” Then, she left for neighbors’ houses to ask for candy.
On the way, she came across Anna and her friends and wanted to join them. “No! Look at your dress! It’s ugly!” Anna said. Her friends also laughed. “Look at our dresses, especially mine! It’s new and beautiful,” Anna added. Her friends nodded, and in some way they were right. Anna’s dress was shiny and looked expensive. She always had the best clothes because her parents were rich.
Allison was shocked and sad. The kids not only disliked her dress but made fun of it. “You can’t come with us!” Anna stressed. “We would never hang out with you!” The other kids agreed and laughed. They all left to start collecting candy for the night while Allison was left alone, embarrassed in the middle of the street.
Anyway, she knew all the neighbors. She often helped around carrying their groceries and helping them with their gardens. People around there knew her. She didn’t need to hangout with Anna or her friends. “I’ll go just alone,” the little girl said to herself and started walking.
She as well as Anna and her friends walked in the same direction: towards their first neighbor Mrs Vaughan’s house. But Allison walked behind and kept her distance from them. And she stopped when Anna and her friends were near Mrs Vaughan’s house.
Just then, Mrs Vaughan looked out of her window. She noticed that Allison was being excluded by Anna and her friends. She knew it was probably because of Allison’s poor dress. She immediately felt pity for Allison, who often helped her and other neighbors. She decided to give Allison much more candy as a reward and teach Anna and her friends a lesson.
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 Anna and her friends knocked on her door, Mrs Vaughan opened it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Anna looked up and said, “Our clothes are more beautiful! But you gave Allison more candy! Why?”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In 1989, fresh out of high school, I had the difficult task of choosing a career path before college started in three months. In those days in Pakistan, there were limited choices: becoming a doctor or an engineer, or entering the financial world after getting a business degree. I wasn’t interested in engineering, so that I was left with medicine or business. I couldn’t decide.
My uncle suggested that I do a work placement(实习) to experience it for a month in an international company followed by a month in a hospital. After that, I could make a decision. It seemed like a good idea.
I was accepted for a month’s placement at a foreign bank in Karachi. I got a feel of how the world of finance functioned, made new friends, and generally enjoyed the mostly easygoing work surroundings.
The month passed rapidly, and soon I began working at a leading hospital in Karachi. The experience couldn’t have been more different. The hospital had a stressful environment. The days started early (at 7 am, compared to 9 am at the bank), and were filled with endless duties. And the night calls! This was crazy, working all day, through the night, and again the next day.
I began thinking about my two experiences. The bank had offered a more relaxing atmosphere, better working hours and less stress. The hospital was full of excitement, but studying and training were difficult. It seemed that the business choice was going to win out.
Near the end of my month at the hospital, I was driving home after an especially busy night call. In front of me was a public bus, with college students sitting on the top. As the driver weaved through (穿梭) traffic, I could see the boys shaking from side to side.
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：
Suddenly, a boy fell off the back of the bus.
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Paragraph 2：
The next day, when I went to the hospital to see the boy, all his family got up, with grateful smiles on their faces.
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4 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。续写的词数应为150左右。
Miguel opened the door to his grandpa’s shoe shop. Grandpa was drawing a customer’s foot onto a piece of paper. He didn’t look up. Miguel sat down. He looked at the cut leather, hammer (锤子) and pliers (钳子).
The tools reminded Miguel of something else he loved. Grandpa always gave him a piece of candy whenever Miguel helped clean up. Miguel knew he wasn’t supposed to take candy without asking. But he was hungry then. It looked like Grandpa would be busy for a while. “Maybe I don’t need to wait,” Miguel thought.
Miguel reached secretly for the candy box. He hurried and put it in his mouth. Pretty soon the customer left. Grandpa was busy picking up a piece of leather and putting it in some water. Miguel ate the rest of the candy as fast as he could. Then he walked over to Grandpa.
Grandpa looked up from his work. “Hello!” he said with a smile. Miguel hugged Grandpa. He hoped Grandpa couldn’t tell he’d eaten a piece of candy. “It looks like you’re busy today,” Miguel said. “Do you need any help?” “Sure! Could you pass me that thread (线)?” Miguel nodded. He pulled it between his hands. “Wow, that’s strong.” Miguel said. Grandpa laughed, “It has to be, to last through the wear and tear of life.” Grandpa pulled the thread through the leather.
“You know, we need to be more like this shoe,” Grandpa said. Miguel looked at the leather, “Um. We do?” “Yes, indeed. We need to stay strong. That way temptations (诱惑) won’t make us fall apart,” Grandpa said with a nod.
Miguel suddenly thought of the candy. He knew he should tell Grandpa about it. Grandpa took an old shoe off the shelf, “See this big hole?” Miguel nodded. “This was once a small hole that could have been fixed easily. But the owner waited, and now it’s going to be much harder to fix. Bad habits and bad choices are like that hole. It is best to fix them early.”
Paragraph 1:
They kept talking as Grandpa worked.
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Paragraph 2:
Miguel told him all about taking the candy. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When I was little, I left Germany with my family and moved to the Netherlands. For months, my main company had been my mother or other adults. I could only speak German and hardly spoke a word of Dutch. I only met one girl who also spoke German in the neighborhood grocery store.
I was shy, so when I set off for my first day of a new school, I was really terrified. I cried leaving our apartment. I entered a classroom where there were about 20 children who looked extremely busy. Suddenly, I saw a girl with dark hair. I couldn’t see her face, as her back was turned towards me. In that moment, she turned around and looked at me. In a flash, we recognized each other. It was the girl from the corner grocery store! We instantly rushed into each other’s arms like long-separated sisters, sentences in German flowing between us. I smiled and my anxiety disappeared immediately.
“My name is Annelies. You can call me Anne,” she said smilingly. As two little girls who didn’t know Dutch, we were excited to find each other.
I was attracted by Anne immediately. Apart from being outgoing and kind, Anne was confident enough to get close to others though they spoke Dutch. Soon I also began to play with other children.
When we went home after school, Anne and I were glad to discover we were also next-door neighbors. Anne’s apartment was a floor above mine. After that, every day she came to knock at my door and then we walked to school together.
Soon we became inseparable friends and I knew more about her. She liked seeing films and her father even rented a film projector (放映机) on her birthday every year, which made her very happy. But she still felt she had difficulty integrating (融入) fully into the lives of local people.
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。
With the desire to fit in, Anne and I began to learn new Dutch words and phrases.
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Here came Anne’s birthday again and in our hands were many invitations.
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Billy was 15 years old then. He grew up in a very poor neighborhood. No one in his family had gone to college before. Actually, few people around him had received higher education. They all struggled to live a good life. Therefore, Billy knew nothing about colleges or scholarships and he never thought he would go to college one day. Although he was a smart boy, he didn’t study hard at school and often got into trouble with other teenagers in his neighborhood.
One day, while Billy was walking on the playground, a boy of his age started making fun of him. Then that boy pushed him hard and Billy fell onto the ground. Billy became so angry that he stood up and beat that boy. So a fight began.
It happened that Billy’s English teacher Mr. Smith was walking nearby. He immediately ran to the boys to stop the fight. Billy was a bit worried because he knew his teacher was very strict with students. He was afraid his teacher would punish him. However, to his astonishment, his teacher didn’t do that.
“Billy, let’s have a talk,” said his teacher.
Billy, not knowing what his teacher wanted to do, was very worried. But he nodded. So they went to a bench nearby and sat down. After they sat down, Mr. Smith began, “Billy, I know you’re a smart boy, but you’re wasting your life now. Why don’t you study hard to go to college so that you can change your life and have a bright future?”
Hearing that, Billy didn’t know what to say. He had never thought about it. Billy was in silence. Mr. Smith continued, “I know you may have never thought about going to college. But everything is possible. When I was at your age, I was a troublemaker just like you and never thought I’d be able to go to college, either. It was all because of the support and encouragement of Mr. Howard, my math teacher in high school.”
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:
Then, Mr. Smith began to tell Billy his story.
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Billy was greatly touched by Mr. Smith’s story.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When Ryan first turned up for Ms. Rose’s class, he was kind of nervous because he’d heard Ms. Rose could be a real monster sometimes. But as Ms. Rose started with an overview of what they’d be doing during the year in a pleasant voice, she looked nice enough. Then with a more serious tone, she warned the students that she’d be giving them homework assignments, which were not to be handed in late, and they were to be completed fully. “No excuses! No extensions! ”
That day she assigned the class its first homework. They had to do a sheet of math problems and read a short story. It wasn’t due until Thursday, but she suggested they do it immediately that night. “Homework has a way of piling up,” she said, with her eyes narrowing slightly. But today was only Monday! There was plenty of time, Ryan thought.
So when school was over, Ryan and his friends ran off to play baseball. Exhausted after the game, he entertained himself with his favorite TV show, leaving his homework aside on his desk. Days passed quickly. Ryan was free of worries most of the time, while Ms. Rose just occasionally reminded them of the deadline, and that she wouldn’t tolerate anyone not having done it.
On Wednesday, after dinner, he suddenly realized that his homework was due the next day. He raced to his desk and was greeted with the most curious thing. The pile of homework really had grown taller. Oh no! What was he going to do? It looked as if the papers had towered over him, almost soaring up to the ceiling.
He really needed to get started. He did a little bit here and there, but he kept getting distracted by other work waiting for him. Finally, he couldn’t even locate the homework he’d started with. Frustrated, he gave up and went to bed. Ryan tossed and turned all night and had bad dreams of paper mountains burying him alive.
The next morning, when Ryan entered the classroom, he found Ms. Rose waiting, with her face dark with rage. Obviously, Ryan wasn’t the only one who suffered from the mysteriously growing assignments.
Paragraph 1:
Failing to meet the deadline, the students had to watch Ms. Rose transform into a real monster.
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Paragraph 2:
With a satisfied smile, Ms. Rose finally released everyone, but assigned the class some extra homework.
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You know how when big things in your life aren’t going well and the little things bother you more? That happened to me last year. Like many people during the pandemic, my husband, Paul, was laid off. I was still working, but my job was only part-time and would likely be ending soon too. I was worried about money, pandemic and our future.
That’s when our mailboxes really started getting to me. I’d never liked our mailboxes much. They stood at the end of our long driveway, far enough away from our house. Fortunately, I didn’t see them often. The mailboxes had already been in rough shape when we moved in and the paint was faded.
At some point, someone had driven into the pole. It was now bent slightly, making the mailboxes bend, pointing in different directions. Still, because the boxes could hold the mail and the mail carrier wasn’t complaining, there really was no need to replace them.
“I wish we could have better mailboxes,” I found myself thinking as I pulled out of the driveway one day on my way to work. It was just a passing thought. I probably would have forgotten all about it if not for the news we got the next morning.
The next day, my neighbor Ailsa told me a girl drove her car right into the mailboxes and completely knocked them down. Ailsa saw the accident and gave her our number and information. “That certainly wasn’t in our budget,” I thought. Though I wanted new mailboxes, getting them would be expensive. With our income decreasing since Paul’s layoff, this was an expense we didn’t need. I sighed.
However, the next day where our old, rusted mailboxes had once stood were two new shiny mailboxes-one black, one white. Each one had large, neat numbers on the sides, the white mailbox with black numbers and the black one with white numbers. They were beautiful. I sat there, feeling surprised.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式作答。
Paragraph 1:
I opened one of the mailboxes and found a note.
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Paragraph 2:
When we called, the girl’s mother answered.
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A Gift of Gold
It was the winter of 1937, just after Christmas. The Depression (大萧条时期) was still going on, but I was in good spirits. I was going to graduate from elementary school, but my mother still dressed me in shorts. Most of my classmates had given up wearing shorts. For the graduation ceremony, all the boys were expected to dress white shirts and dark-blue wool pants.
I waited until a week before I told my mother. On a cold Monday afternoon I went home from school.
“Mom,” I said, about graduation…”
“Yes?” she answered.
“They are going to give me the first-prize medal,” I said.
Still working over the stove, she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled broadly. “That’s wonderful, Babe. Dad and I will both be there, and we’ll be the proudest in the place.”
She must have seen by the look on my face that something was wrong. She turned her back and said, “So?”
“So, I have to get long pants,” I said.
“Babe, we don’t have the money for new pants right now,” she said.
“Okay,” I burst out. “Then I won’t go to graduation. Plus, I’m running away from home!”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t pack my bags. We’ll solve the pants problem somehow,” she said.
The following Saturday, when my mother said, “Let’s go shopping,” I knew that she had solved the problem. Then we left home. We took the trolley (有轨电车) and got off at Southern Boulevard, the best shopping street. Our clothing store was just a couple of blocks away.
But first we walked a short way down the Boulevard and stopped at a place I had never noticed before.
“Wait here,” she said. Then she opened the door with the hand with a gold wedding ring on her ring finger and entered a storefront (店面) that looked like a bank.
She went out about ten minutes later with a purse in her left hand, and then we went to the pants store. I chose a pair of pants. After a patient bargain with the seller, my mother bought it at the price of three dollars and fifty cents and handed it to me.
注意:1, 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式作答。
I was holding the pants tightly under my arm when my mother went to pay the money.
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We took the trolley back home.
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Dave had loved basketball for as long as he could remember and he had never had a day without playing it. At primary school and junior high school he joined basketball clubs, attended training programs and watched basketball games, from which he learned the moves of the star players, wishing to play in a professional team like them and shine on the court.
Now as a senior high school student, however, his dream of becoming a professional player was dimming (变暗) because he was only of average height. He had to give up the hope of joining the school team. The guys on the school team were all tall boys who played matches and won honors for the school. They were like heroes. Dave watched them play and cheered them but he knew he would never be one of them.
Dave felt it a pity not to be tall enough, but this didn’t stop him from pouring his passion into basketball. He just played for the love of the sport. He played in the school gym with other boys or by himself every day, even during holidays and weekends, when it was open for two hours in the morning. He enjoyed every minute on the court making every effort to play better.
It was one Saturday morning. Dave was playing in the gym by himself, as all the other boys were busy with other weekend affairs. Then he noticed a tall boy approaching. It was Lankas. Everybody knows him as captain of the school basketball team. “Hi, Lankas,” Dave greeted him. “My name is Dave.” “Hi, Dave,” Lankas replied as he got closer. “Nice to see you here. Do you need an opponent to play against?” Dave was shocked, frozen right there, unable to believe his ears but somehow, he answered, “Why not?”
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。
So, a game of two players began.
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The next Saturday, when Dave was playing in the gym, Lankas appeared shouting, “Dave, I have good news for you.”
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