I sat in the breakfast corner with my four-year-old son, Matthew, trying to ignore the ache in my stomach. I was still recovering from a surgery. I hoped for strength and happiness. But the future seemed so hopeless.
Matthew jumped up from his spot on the kitchen floor. “Bird!” he shouted, rushing to the sliding door. Sure enough, there was a white dove seated on a rubber tree. It sat there a few moments, and then flew away. I’d never seen one in our neighborhood before.
When I dragged myself to the kitchen the next morning, the dove was back. This time it was with a mate carrying twigs (嫩枝), “Look, Matthew,” I said, pointing to the tree. “They’re going to make a nest.” The doves flew in and out of the courtyard all week, building on the top of the rubber tree. Matthew could hardly contain his excitement. Every morning, he’d run into the kitchen and take his spot by the sliding glass door, talking to the birds while they worked. As much as I was grieving (感到悲伤), I couldn’t help but look forward to the doves’ visits too. We watched their progress as if it were a real-life soap opera unfolding before us. Gradually, my pain disappeared, replaced by joy.
Then it all went wrong. The courtyard was a safe enough spot for a nest, but the rubber tree’s broad, thin leaves were far from stable. One night, a strong wind blew through, throwing the doves’ nest to the ground. I heard the twigs break apart. Nothing good ever lasts. I wouldn’t blame the doves if they never came back. But they returned. And they paid no attention to the pi le of sticks that had once been their nest. They started again from scratch, though the wind destroyed all their hard work. The next day, and the next, they renewed their efforts, as if nothing had happened.
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: I knew I had to do something for the poor creatures.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:“The birds were back!” Matthew announced.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________For years, putting up Christmas lights had been a family tradition for the Patrick’s household. It was an occasion when they would busily prepare for the celebration of Christmas.
Their Christmas light display was always a highlight of the neighborhood and brought much delight to the whole community. Typically, Anthony would invite the neighbors over as they decorated the Christmas tree in the front yard. Emily, who lived next door and had known Sara’s family for long, often came to admire their wonderland of Christmas lights.
In early December, Anthony would string colorful lights all around their roof until it looked dazzling. On the front lawn, he would blow up a large white Frosty the Snowman and a Rudolph with a glowing red nose. Sara always joined in, along with their warm-hearted neighbors, hanging gifts on the tree and playing “White Christmas” over and over to keep everyone in the spirit.
Yet the bad news came in the midst of the festive mood, before they could finish the Christmas decoration. Anthony fell desperately ill. The symptoms suggested acute heart failure and he was soon admitted to hospital. Sara spent days and nights in the ward, attending to Anthony and praying for his recovery, though the hope was slim. On Christmas Eve, Anthony passed away.
It came as a huge blow to Sara. In the following days, she had to manage the funeral while struggling to figure out a way to cover housing and household expenses, and tackling a seemingly endless list of difficult to-dos. Perhaps hardest of all, she had to persuade herself into accepting the loss of her father. It was too much to take.
When she pulled up to the house after a long day on the go, the only thing that could comfort her were the twinkling Christmas lights, which brought her a spark of hope-it felt as if the brightness of the lights could cancel out some of the darkness of the past days’ misfortune.
Wanting to help, Emily shared their story on a community website.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Touched by their kindness, Sara decided to fulfill the lighting decorations, though Christmas was gone.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . 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。
“You’re fired!” Andrew Chilton wasn’t joking. At that moment, the high school junior wanted his personal care attendant, Christy Chachere, out of his life forever. Gone. He didn’t want her telling him, he didn’t need help using the computer, and he could write his own term papers. Enough already.
“You’re fired!” He said it again for extra emphasis. Christy didn’t flinch(畏缩). She needed this job. Huricane Katrina had destroyed her savings along with her house. But the retired PE teacher wasn’t frightened. “I’m a tough nut,” she says today. “You know, I’ve taught middle schoolers.” And Andrew’s outburst? It was music to her ears. Progress. She’d gotten through to him.
When Andrew was diagnosed with autism(自闭症), at age eight, people told his mom, Cindy, to “get him on the list” for an attendant to provide after-school care. Someone to drive him to places and see that he was safe. In New Orleans, Louisiana, the wait can be years; the need is much more than the supply. Cindy chose a program through Volunteers of America, a national faith-based organization.
Even so, it was eight years before they were matched with Christy. In the meantime, Andrew’s family did their best to shelter him from life’s hardships. “I worried about him,” Cindy says, “I tended to hover a lot.”
There was a lot to worry about. Doctors and school officials predicted that Andrew might not even graduate from high school. Other questions were approaching. Would he ever have a job? Live independently? Cindy would do anything for her son.
Christy saw the problem right away. “Andrew wouldn’t take a step without his mother’s permission,” she remembers. “You have to let him fail,” she told the family, “It’s the only way he’s going to learn. To be able to do things on his own.”
No longer would Cindy write Andrew’s papers for him. His younger brother wouldn’t help him navigate the computer. Christy wouldn’t be helping him with homework either. It was a little scary to step back. Andrew complained. Loudly at times.
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 then things began to change.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
With the company of Christy for six years, Andrew has been developing well.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It has been 26 years since my army friend Dan and I packed picnic food and T-shirts inside his blue car, and drove past the military police at McClellan’s main gate.
Armed with weekend passes and new dollars from our first week’s pay at our Army Reserve summer camp, we were on our way to Florida. We had thought a weekend at the beach would be just what we needed to recover from days of hard tasks.
The May weather was delightful. And with the music being played, we drove into Birmingham and decided to stop to phone our mothers and wish them happy Mother’s Day before continuing our journey south to Florida.
Picking up my phone and reaching my mother at home, I learned she had just returned from grocery shopping. I could tell by the tone in her voice that she was disappointed I wouldn’t be spending her special day with the family. “Have a nice trip and be careful. We’ll miss you,” she said.
When I hung up, I could tell by Dan’s face that he was suffering from the same guilt that was troubling me. To deal with our guilt, we discussed and then decided to buy our moms flowers and ask delivery men to send the flowers to them.
Pulling into the parking lot at a flower shop, we each scribbled (匆匆书写) a note to go with the flowers that would remove our guilt of spending our only free weekend on the beach rather than with dear old Mom.
We waited while the clerk assisted a little boy who was selecting flowers, obviously for his mother. We were anxious to pay for our flowers and be on our way. Finally, this little boy picked up many beautiful carnations (康乃馨) for his mother. At that time, we didn’t know his dear mom had already passed away.
The little boy smiled with pride as he turned to me and held up his selection while the clerk rang up his order.
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。
“I’m sure my mama would love these flowers,” he said.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Then, we paid for our flowers and dropped our notes in the dustbin.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I was eight years old and wasn’t aware of all the arrangements being made for our journey as a family to London in 1950. My mother was in great pain and wished to visit specialists in London. My father reluctantly had to sell our property in Queensland. The day before we boarded the ship, Father unwillingly said goodbye to his five-year-old cattle dog, Spider, who was loved by us all. Father’s friend Sandy was to be his guardian while we were overseas, as he had been getting to know Spider for many weeks.
Six weeks later, an airletter arrived from Sandy, giving my father the news that Spider had run away just two weeks after we had sailed. Sandy had advertised constantly on ABC and other regional newspapers. Despite many “sightings”, the dog was never found. It seems Spider just kept running and searching for us. As he was cattle dog, my father thought he would shoe or dingo-trapped, because of his appearance. But our family thought that Father held a secrets hope that Spider was still alive.
We sailed back to Australia two years later and re-established our home. My father immediately began his own search for Spider. One cold winter’s Saturday morning eight months after our return, my father had a call from an elderly lady living on her own on the outskirts of the town. As she told my father on the telephone, it was “just glimpses of a dingo-type dog in the shadows” of her disused tennis court. That was enough for my father to interrupt my homework.
We set off in his blue and black Jensen car which he had brought back from England. It was hardly the right vehicle for the rough roads we travelled that day. Five and a half hours later, we found the run-down old property. Sadly, she told my father that the “dingo dog” hadn’t been around for a few days. My father had a strange look in his eye. He put two fingers to his lips and did his special whistle for Spider.
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。
Suddenly there was a sound in the bush.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once home we had the task of getting all the prickles (刺) off him.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What does it mean to be a hero? I think a hero is someone who goes out of his way to make others happy. My hero is Mr. Wright, my chorus(合唱队) teacher.
When I was 12 years old, my grandparents passed away. I was really close to them, and losing them was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or think; I felt like I couldn’t even breathe. It was as if my whole world had fallen down from under me, and I fell into this huge hole of depression(抑郁).
Although I was battling depression, I was determined to make my high school years the best of my life. It was difficult to be happy, but I had to try. I joined Women’s Choir. Mr. Wright was the choral director and he was so funny that the first day, I just knew I had made the best decision of my life.
As the year progressed, I loved chorus more and more. I began to smile again and really enjoy life.
Then one day that all changed. My friends —or those that I thought were my friends —started talking about me behind my back. I was hurt, and I sat by myself. Mr. Wright came over and asked what was wrong. The look in his eyes told me that I could trust him. Trying hard to fight back tears, I told him the whole story. When I finished, he nodded and told me, “If you never learn anything from me, learn this: No one is worth stealing your joy.”
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式作答。
Paragraph 1:
What Mr. Wright said really struck a chord (心弦) in my heart.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
Mr. Wright is a hero to everyone he meets.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Triiiiiingggggggggggg, the bell rang. Suddenly my heart was raising and fear rose within me. I was nervous as I started to feel sick, really sick. I ran to the bathroom and washed my face with water. I felt my heart pound against my chest, hard and loud as I looked into the mirror and whispered “Come on, you can do this.”
Some were looking forward to this moment for ages; but not me. I felt frightened every time I imagine how uncomfortable it would be on a stage, and being the center of attention. If it was a speech, I could manage, but repeating a scene from a movie that has already been done by professional actors is simply hard because we get compared to them. But there was no choice.
As I made it to the assembly hall, I went over the script in my head. Suddenly I tensed as I couldn’t remember all the lines. Once I was there in the assembly hall, my brain literally stopped working because of all the noise and the tension in the air.
As soon as the teachers who were supposed to judge our performance entered, the crowd quieted down and the performances began. I was really nervous until the first performer was called, because I was really tired of being the first in everything as my name is the first in the register. But the more I waited, the more tired I got of waiting. There came a point where I, who once was feeling sick and scared of performing, wanted to go on stage and get my performance done. That’s when I found out that I was arranged to perform the next day. I was quite happy because maybe that would give me some more time to practice and improve the weaknesses that I saw in others.
The bubble burst when the teacher asked us to perform that day. My heart beat raced and as I walked on to the stage, I was shaking. When I got up along with my friend, I had a good look around. There were 50-60 people, which weren’t much. Then I felt really stupid for being scared of having an audience.
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 introduced myself and stared to perform what I had been dying for long before.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After I was done, I looked at the audience, thinking how much I loved doing this.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When Serena was very young, her parents died in a car accident and became an orphan. So she lived with the children in the welfare home from childhood. At the age of six, an old couple came to the welfare home. When the old couple saw her, they decided to adopt her as their granddaughter. The old couple regarded Serena as a treasure and planted her favorite sunflowers at home. Serena became an excellent engineer under the careful care of the old couple.
In order to provide a better life for her grandparents, Serena resolutely went to work in big cities. Due to the huge pressure of urban life, Serena will forget to go home to see her grandparents when she lives in big cities, but when the sunflower fruit is ripe, her grandparents will send a large number of melon seeds to Serena. Finally, one day, Serena’s grandfather fell ill. Because of her grandfather’s illness, she had to temporarily give up the opportunity to live in a big city, and chose to return to her grandparents to take care of her sick grandfather. In order not to let her worry about his illness, he lied about his illness, and made great efforts to pretend that he was healthy in front of her. Only he knew his physical condition best. After comforting her grandparents, Serena set off again for the big city to fight.
In order not to let Serena worry about his health, her grandpa would write to Serena in the big city every month to tell her that everything was okay, and even he hid his illness from his grandmother. In a twinkling of an eye, the sunflower fruit ripened again. Her grandpa sent Serena a large packet of sunflower fruit as usual. The handwriting on the letter Serena received this time is different from that of her grandpa. Serena suddenly felt a pain in her heart. Without thinking about it, she asked for leave from the company and hurriedly boarded the first flights to her hometown. Serena ran quickly to her home and called her grandpa’s name, just as she called her grandpa when she was young. However, it was the news that grandpa had passed away for a month.
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。
Serena found three things that grandpa liked most when she was collecting grandpa’s belongings.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When it was time for sunflowers to open again, Serena took her lovely children to Grandpa’s sunflower yard.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Three fish lived in the sea when they were young. Their parents died. They had to look after each other. Finally, they grew up and decided to swim deeper and further. One morning the three fish were taken to shallow water by a big wave.
Never had the three fish been to such a place. Everything was so different. They had great fun swimming around. Then, with another big wave, a small boat was taken there too. Now it was hard for the fish to go back to the sea, because the boat was right in front of them.
The largest fish realized that they were in danger and said, “We have to find a way to leave here as fast as possible, or it will be dangerous.” The second largest fish agreed with his elder brother and decided to go with him. However, the youngest one decided not to leave at all, saying “It’s not dangerous at all. Look! There is much water for our activities.” No matter how hard his brothers tried to persuade him to leave, the youngest fish wouldn’t listen.
At last, the largest fish managed to find a way to return to the sea. He found the lowest part of the boat and jumped over it. Challenging as it was, he made it. The second largest fish also succeeded in joining his elder brother in the other side of the water, but the youngest one didn’t follow them, still swimming around joyfully.
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。
As the sun rose higher, the water in the small shallow corner continued to disappear.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Upon their return, the two fish made a plan to rescue their younger brother.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 . 阅读下面的材料，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。
“Mom, I’m ready to go,” called Jason.
Every Saturday, Jason looked forward to going to Chinatown to shop for food because his mom let him pick his favorite snacks: roast pork buns and bubble tea.
The streets in Chinatown were crowded with cars and pedestrians. His mother could not find the same exotic vegetables in the local supermarkets, so they always came here to shop. What fascinated Jason was tasty roast pork, even the whole pigs hanging on big hooks in the windows, their skins roasted to a glistening brown. Jason’s mouth would water just looking at them.
As they passed the newsstand carrying Chinese newspapers and magazines, Jason spotted an old man sitting on the sidewalk. His hair was long, white, and messy. The face beneath was lined, dirty, and unshaven. Frayed and torn clothing wrapped around his thin frame, and in this kind of cold weather, he even wore sandals, his feet blue with cold. He banged an empty can against the sidewalk. As Jason walked by, he could smell a musty odor and pinched his nostrils together. The old man reached out and touched Jason’s left leg. Instinctively, Jason gathered all his strength to jerk(猛拉) his leg away and kick the old man’s hand heavily. Frightened, he hurried to catch up with his mother without looking back.
“Mom, the old man touched me,” he cried, “He touched me with his dirty hands. It’s disgusting! And he smelled too.”
Jason’s mother glanced back at the man with a look of understanding and said gently, “Jason, he can’t help it. He’s homeless. He didn’t mean any harm.”
Mom’s words made Jason look back at the old man with regret, who now was looking up at other passersby, still banging his can.
On their way home, Jason asked, his voice filled with concern. “Why is that old man homeless? Where does he sleep?”
“I don’t know. It’s tough to be homeless, especially in this cold weather. He did look quite weak,” his mother replied.
Mom’s words made Jason’s regret deepened. He confessed his heavy kick to his mother, who reminded him that it was crucial to acknowledge his mistake and try to make up for 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。
The next day, with his mother’s help, Jason decided to do something.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hearing this, the old man looked at them with watery eyes.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
