I am a proud mother of three children, my last little one being delivered in the middle of this pandemic (疫情). She was born in August and her name is Aida.
Shortly after having Aida, my mother-in-law Ann showed me something she learned from her friend’s mother in an art class she attended weekly, She had showed me how to knit (编织) a scarf.
I spent a lot of time breastfeeding my sweet little girl, so I had some extra time to do something with my hands throughout the day. I enjoyed making the scarf so I purchased tons of yarn (线) since it was winter. I wanted to make scarves for my three children as Christmas gifts.
There was a new family that moved in down the street. The only daughter of the family was Jane, a shy girl, aged 14, the same age of my oldest son David. It seemed that she came from a financially disadvantaged family, for she always wore old clothes. Worse still, in such cold days, she had no more clothes to wear and trembled with cold.
Due to the pandemic, society was thrown into crisis mode. Schools were closed, food supplies and deliveries were suspended and children were stuck at home. In such discouraging time, however, they became good companions, talking and playing at home or around the houses.
It was dreadfully cold this winter. Every time David came back from outside, with red face, he always cried, “Mum, it is freezing outside!” Then, he came over to see whether I finished the scarf. I could tell how impatient he was to wear my scarf sooner! I had to speed the project to satisfy his expectation. But David comforted me by saying he could wait a few days. What a kind and considerate boy he was! Then my great art project finally was accomplished on the morning ahead of Christmas.
注意：1.续写词数应为150词左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语己为你写好。
Paragraph 1: I wrapped the scarf around David’s neck.
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Paragraph 2: Later that day David came back saying Jane also deserved a scarf.
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A Chocolate Cake
Sam is autistic (患孤独症的). Thus, dining out can be tricky. Though he loves to eat, he dislikes the loud noise over restaurant dining. Ever resourceful, he has a solution overpower all noise with a much louder noise of his own.
This begins with what I like to think of as dueling (斗) tables: neighboring parties raised their volume followed by Sam increasing his until some sort of extreme point is reached, making us quite unpopular with family, most friends and other diners.
Faced with a possibility of forever dining alone, I decided to work on dining skills at a trendy new spot early one Tuesday night.
To my delight, we arrived at an empty restaurant, So far, so good. Everything went well until two older women entered, Well-groomed (干净整洁的) and elegantly dressed in an understated way, they were seated two tables away from us. I felt a bit worried about what might happen.
The women began to chat, paying little notice to us. Sam happily took this as his cue (暗示) to start talking and drown them out. I leaned into Sam and asked for a quiet voice, but unfortunately, Sam had left that voice at home, I glanced at the neighboring table, knowing we wouldn’t go unnoticed much longer. I quickly resorted to Plan B: eat quickly and leave. Sam, who normally ate his favorite chocolate cake quickly, suddenly embraced the concept of leisurely dining and refused to rush—all while chattering away endlessly.
“SHUSH! (嘘)” I said, a little angry. Sam responded by giggling loudly. “Be quiet!”
I could sense that the two women were now watching us. Finally, the older of the two women leaned over. Here it comes, I thought.
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。
“Honey, stop shushing that boy,” she said, completely surprising me.
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Sam smiled because someone wanted him to do what he did best; make noise and eat chocolate cake.
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My little sister, Meg, said that she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore and she’d be OK staying with Aunt Lily in the country. “As long as you’re there, Mike,” she had said. Still, Mum was worried. Meg had never slept away from home, away from the city. So I told Mum I could handle everything.
Even though we were only staying overnight, Meg had brought six books-all about fairies (仙女). After we unpacked, Aunt Lily invited us to pick some flowers. As we followed her through the forest, Meg held my hand tightly. But once we reached the sunlit grassland, she let go. “Butterflies!” whispered Meg. She screamed with delight when one flew near her.
Maybe I had nothing to worry about, I thought. I still remembered when I was here last summer, I found some amazing insects, like fireflies (萤火虫) and walking sticks which I’d never seen in the city.
“Fairies are magical. See these beautiful flowers they grow!” she kept telling absolutely everything she knew about fairies. I was glad that if she kept it up until bedtime, then maybe she’d fall right to sleep.
Meg did keep chatting, right through supper. Then the sun began to set. “Does it get really dark out here at night?” she asked. Her eyes were fixed on the window.
“Sure, but we’ve got plenty of lights inside,” said Aunt Lily. She leaned over and gave Meg a warm smile. But I could tell she was still worried. “I could read to you.”
I hadn’t even finished a page when her bottom lip started shaking slightly. “Mike,” she said, her eyes starting to fill. “I want to go home.” I quickly searched through her book for something to keep her from crying.
The book fell open to a page that was dog-eared from use, a page that was obviously one of Meg’s favorites. The text read: “Among the trees deep in the forest, the lights of fairies gleam (闪烁).” Aha! How could I forget those “tiny fairies” out there?
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。
“Meg, there’s something outside I want to show you,” I whispered.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Tiny fairies, Mike!” she said, pressing her forehead against the window, “Everywhere!”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________One morning, Ann’s neighbor Tracy found a lost dog wandering around the local elementary school. She asked Ann if she could keep an eye on the dog and she planned to find its owner. Ann agreed, but she said that she could watch it only for the day because she needed to take care of her son. At the time, her son Thomas was 10 years old, who was recovering from a heart operation.
Later, Tracy took photos of the dog, printed off 400 FOUND fliers, put them in mailboxes and began to find the dog’s owner. Meanwhile, Ann bought some pet supplies, warning her son not to fall in love with the dog. However, her son was filled with excitement as he knew that his mother got a dog back home. He planned to provide the dog with some food everyday.
Four days later, Ann and her son were still looking after the dog, whom they had started to call Riley. During the four days, they took care of the dog carefully, provided some food, took a shower and played with it, and they had already become the best friends.
The evening of the fifth day, when Ann arrived home from work, the dog threw itself against the door and barked madly at her. As soon as she opened the door, Riley dashed into the boys’ room where Ann found Thomas suffering from a heart attack. Riley ran over to Thomas, but as soon as Ann bent over to help him, the dog went silent.
The doctor said if it hadn’t come to get his mother in time, Thomas would have died. Luckily, with the doctor’s help, Thomas could go home tomorrow morning.
“Mum, can we keep it if we can’t find its owner? Even we can ask for permission if we find the owner,” Thomas asked his mother when they came back home.
“Well, since no one has called to claim it, we decide to keep it,” his mother replied. Hearing that, Thomas was excited.
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。
However, the next day, Ann was told a man named Peter recognized his lost dog.
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Peter’s car came and Thomas stood silently beside his car.
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My first marathon. It’s pouring rain, my legs were cold, and I was wishing I hadn’t been too nervous to eat a bigger breakfast. “There were tables of chocolate bars every mile at my last marathon,” Dad says.
Suddenly everyone around us starts moving. Way up ahead I see smoke from the cannon. I can’t believe we hadn’t heard it. It took ages to reach the starting line. Our marathon started.
Soon Dad started to slow down. After only a mile, I overtook everyone in sight. And Dad was way behind with his left leg cramped(抽筋).
I soon reached mile 5, and I was feeling good. I still hadn’t seen a chocolate bar anywhere. Maybe they didn’t have them! Instead, the streets were lined with fast-food places. But there were lines of runners at every shop.
By mile 10, my legs felt good but I was starving. How I wish I hadn’t just had one piece of toast for breakfast! It’s raining so hard that it hurt. My hands stung from the cold. I took a power gel out of pocket and tried to open it, but my hands were so cold they felt as if they were frozen into fists. On the balconies people yelled and waved to me. That cheered me up a bit.
Then I ran past mile 13, the halfway checkpoint. Up ahead I could see my mum and my little brother cheering for me. Hearing my name from their cheers, I felt refreshed and kept on running.
Mile 15. I saw food at last! There were tables full of bananas. I grabbed a banana and scoffed it down. Then I ripped the power gel open. My hands had come unfroze. I squeezed the packet and filled my mouth with the gel. Chocolate would taste better.
When I reached mile 20, and I didn’t want to run another inch. Every step jarred my leg.
I started walking the next mile before Dad caught up running in an awkward way.
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Mile 25, we could hear the crowd at the finish line.
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We had four children, never intending to adopt a child, but a call came through that morning. A home was needed for a girl immediately. The whole family prepared to greet her. The kids helped with the cleaning. That afternoon, Trudy arrived with a social worker, Mrs Kline. I’d never forget the frightened look in her eyes. I stepped forward, saying, “Welcome to our home, Trudy.” Her eyes looked back and forth like a creature looking for a way out. This had been her fifth foster home. No wonder she was afraid. For the first two weeks, Trudy was still shy. Mrs Kline had told us her history, but I never mentioned the terrible things that had happened to her. She also got along well with all my four children.
One day, when Trudy had been with us for about a month, I took my eldest daughter, Joanne shopping for a new winter coat, and Trudy went too. Joanne was trying on a green jacket. It was expensive, but she begged, promising to do extra chores for the jacket.
Trudy picked out a jacket she liked and was looking into the mirror for long. As I watched her, I realized it wasn’t the same girl that had entered our home about a month ago. She held her head higher. Putting the jacket back on the rack, she rejoined Joanne.
“The jacket looks so nice on you,” Trudy said. “Can I borrow it sometime?” she said. I hadn’t seen her face so bright before. While they were busy, I asked the salesperson to wrap up the jacket Trudy had tried on. “Please don’t let her see it — it’s a surprise,” I explained. For the next few minutes, I kept Trudy busy while the salesperson was wrapping it. We bought the coat Joanne loved and I managed to bring the parcels to the car without being noticed.
On arriving home, Joanne proudly modelled her new coat for Trudy again. I asked Trudy to go out to the car and bring in the other parcel.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
I asked Trudy to open the parcel for me.
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I took Trudy’s face in my hands, and asked, “Isn’t this the jacket you were trying on?”
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Standing outside the cave entrance, Grandfather admired the green-carpeted hills, but Lin hated the cave. He had come here today only because of Grandfather.
Grandfather preferred to use guano, the waste matter of bats, to fertilize (施肥) his crops. But he was too weak to do the whole job. He could gather the guano and bring it out of the cave in the basket, but he needed Lin to carry it home in the wooden cart.
Grandfather took a shovel (铲子) and flashlight from the cart. “Change your mind and come inside with me?” he asked Lin. “It won’t happen again, Lin,” Grandfather promised. “Last time it was my mistake. We shouldn’t have waited until nearly dusk (黄昏) to go inside. I know that the bats fly out of the cave at dusk.” That was exactly what had happened on the Terrible Day of the Bats. As Lin had stood at the cave entrance, a crowd of black bats had erupted from it. Lin had been terrified.
“Bats hurt no one,” Grandfather had said. “Besides, you scared them as much as they did you.”
But nothing could make Lin forget the horror he had felt in that black cloud of bats. “I can’t go in there,” he told Grandfather now.
“OK,” Grandfather said. As he started into the cave, he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be out in no time.” Lin parked the cart and glanced at the shovel and flashlight inside it. His shovel and flashlight. He had used them before. Now they only reminded him of his fear.
Lin turned his back on the cart and walked down to the river. Grandfather would call when he was finished. Until then, Lin would put as much distance as possible between himself and the cave.
Lin watched two little birds splashing about at the edge of the river. He enjoyed the peaceful view over the vast river surface. Then Lin realized that Grandfather’s “no time” had turned into a long time.
Lin hurried up the hill toward the cave. The cart was still there. Grandfather was still inside. Something had gone wrong.
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。
Lin looked around but found no one he could turn to for help.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In the dark cave, Lin gathered his courage and yelled again, “Grandfather!”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My 10-year-old daughter and I were driving from Los Angeles to Dallas. We were running low on gas somewhere in New Mexico and figured we’d see a gas station soon enough to fill up.
But that didn’t happen and we realized we were not going to make it to the next town. So my daughter made up a sign that read “Low on gas. Can you help?” and held it outside her window in the hope that a driver in the next lane would notice it and stop to help us.
It was a desolate (荒凉的) stretch of road and about 3:30 pm on a weekday. There were only a few vehicles passing us from time to time. A Suburban was driving along happily in the neighboring lane ahead of us. We caught up with it in the hope that the driver would notice the sign.
An elderly gentleman was driving it and after a brief expression of confusion on his face, he seemed to have noticed the sign and slowed down to pull over. We pulled over right behind him.
He was friendly and was eager to help us. At first he thought we didn’t have enough money to buy gas, so he offered to buy us gas at the next town Roswell that was about 10 miles away! Awfully sweet of a stranger to offer that.
When we explained our difficulty of not having enough gas to get to Roswell, he said he was a ranch (牧场) hand that was returning home from work. His ranch was about 20 minutes away and they had a gas pump on there, so if we could give him 40 minutes, he would head back there, get a can of gasoline and fill up our tank for us. We had no alternative and accepted his offer of help thankfully.
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 was a long wait.
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Filled with gratitude, we decided to do something.
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The Magic Bus
I was travelling on an overnight bus from Kolhapur to Aurangabad in Maharashtra. This was way back in May 1972, when I was still in college. The bus — an ordinary, non-air-conditioned one — was more than packed; all 55 seats were occupied and there were some 20 people standing in the aisle (过道). The hot day added to the discomfort of the rough, 10-hour journey. Because I was travelling on a student bus pass, I could not claim a reserved seat. I had no option but to stand — quite uncomfortably.
The bus started its journey a little later than scheduled. The passengers seated comfortably by the windows wore happy expressions as they looked at the outside world, the breeze kissing their faces. The people seated by the aisle complained about the standing ones, who had no option but to occasionally lean on the seat corners. The air inside was hot and filled with strange, unpleasant smells. Some enthusiastic travellers had carried small transistor radios with the slim hope that they would be able to listen to some music on the way.
After around two very long hours, I was beyond exhausted and bored. I kept trying to balance myself, shifting my body weight from one leg to the other to manage the discomfort. After another long hour, I was wet with sweat in the noise and shaky rhythm of the bus. I suddenly sensed a soft hand tapping my elbow (手肘), asking for attention. Turning around, I found a middle-aged man with a kind smile looking up at me. He suddenly stood up and said I could take his seat for some time. I was pleasantly surprised and immediately accepted his offer, my entire body heaving a sigh of relief. The man, whose seat I was in, stood next to me, looking around in amusement. After about 20 minutes, I signalled him to take back his space. A man, who was sitting by the window on the other side of the bus, had observed our exchange.
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。
Just then, something magical happened.
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The bus reached its destination in the early hours of the morning.
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On Christmas Eve, I called my mom from the bakery where I worked part-time, telling her that I was working with a couple of co-workers. The store was about to close. The person from a local charity who was scheduled to pick up the leftover (剩下的) bread had not shown up.
I was worried about what to do with the food, so I called my mom and she suggested I call the manager to ask for advice. The manager told me to throw the leftovers into the garbage. They were approximately 1,500 dollars’ worth of fresh baked goods.
It seemed completely wrong for all this good food to go to waste, so I called Mom again and talked about where we could take it. She told me that a new homeless shelter had just opened in our city, so Mom called and asked if the homeless shelter needed the free baked goods. An excited staff member said, “Yes, please!”
Mom drove to the bakery. We loaded up the van (小型货车) with my co-workers and Mom drove to the homeless shelter. As we walked toward the entrance, a woman opened the door for us. She thanked us for what we were doing and said she was really grateful for her new temporary home. She introduced herself and told us her friends called her Star. We chatted for a while on the sidewalk with light snow falling around us. Star said that moving off the streets into the shelter had saved her life.
Star told us that she had decided her job in life was to help and protect people. She spent her days looking out for those who needed help. She tried to do kind things for others whenever she could. Then she asked me for a favor. She showed me a book that a friend had given her when she’d been living on the streets. She wanted to tell him she was okay, but she couldn’t afford the long-distance call.
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 told Star I would be happy to pass her message on to her friend.
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A few months later, when I was walking to the bakery, I saw a woman standing in the middle of the crosswalk.
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