1 . I was blind, but I was ashamed of it if it was known. I refused to use a white stick and hated asking for help. After all, I was a teenage girl, and I could not bear people to look at me and think I was not like them. I must have been a terrible danger on the roads. Coming across me wandering through the traffic, motorists probably would have to stop rapidly on their brakes. Apart from that, there were all sorts of disasters that used to occur on the way to and from work.

One evening, I got off the bus about halfway home where I had to change buses, and as usual I ran into something. “I’m awfully sorry,” I said and stepped forward only to run into it again. When it happened a third time, I realized I had been apologizing to a lamppost (街灯柱). This was just one of the stupid things that constantly happened to me. So I carried on and found the bus stop, which was a request stop, where the bus wouldn’t stop unless passengers wanted to get on or off. No one else was there and I had to guess if the bus had arrived.

Generally in this situation, because I hated showing I was blind by asking for help, I tried to guess at the sound. Sometimes I would stop a big lorry and stand there feeling stupid as it drew away. In the end, I usually managed to swallow (吞下) my pride and ask someone at the stop for help.

But at this particular evening no one joined me at the stop; it seemed that everyone had suddenly decided not to travel by bus. Of course I heard plenty of buses pass, or I thought I did. But because I had given up stopping them for fear of making a fool of myself, I let them all go by. I stood there alone for half an hour without stopping one. Then I gave up. I decided to walk on to the next stop.

Asad was a 13-year-old boy who was very honest and hardworking. Recently, he had entered a new school, so he had no friends yet. On Monday morning, he was nearly late for school. The night before, his family attended his cousin’s wedding and reached home late, which was why he couldn’t get up on time as usual.

At school, Asad could not pay attention to anything and wanted the bell to ring so that he could buy something to eat. After a few hours, when the bell rang, Asad quickly opened his schoolbag to find his money, but just then he remembered that he had left for school in a hurry in the morning and forgotten to take money. He looked under his books, hoping to find some money but there was nothing.

Not knowing what to do, he walked out of the classroom and sat on a bench in front of the canteen. He saw a few of his classmates there, among them was Fahad. He was one of the richest kids in his class, but he was a very arrogant(傲慢的)boy who thought everyone else was a loser. But as Asad was new, he didn’t know much about Fahad.

When he went towards Fahad and asked if he could borrow some money for his lunch, Fahad laughed a lot and said, “I knew you were a loser, maybe a beggar?” Fahad laughed out so loud that other kids also heard and made fun of the situation. He didn’t answer Fahad, and slowly walked back towards an empty bench.

When he reached the bench, he noticed something lying near it. It was a wallet. He picked it up and recognized it as Fahad’s, as he remembered Fahad showing it to his friends and telling that his uncle bought it for him from the UK. There was quite a lot of money inside for a kid.

At first, Asad wanted to keep it a secret and punished Fahad.

Then Fahad said, “Why are you giving back?”

4 . Last night, my sister sent me a message: “The 1196 weather service will come to an end. So if you want to listen, today is the last _________.”

For 20 years, a caller could dial 1196, _________ an area and then hear the weather forecast read by a computer-spliced (电脑合成的) version of my father’s _________. This was the 20^th-century service that _________into the 21^st century. Soon, it would be _________ by the newly-developed weather app.

Dad’s love for the job was _________ my imagination. He stuck to making most of the recordings after he had cancer. I remembered _________ him to the recording room in my spare time. He would sit there for a whole day,_________ thousands of words with headphones on. He pronounced each word carefully. The _________ headphones and the precise pronunciation all took him back to his previous job as a radio journalist. And he was __________   of his voice. It sounded strong and held its fine timbre (音色) __________ he was in poor health.

The whole recording was really a large __________ with many sessions. In the end, Dad was too __________ to go to the recording room. __________, the sound engineer came to my parents’ house to __________ the last parts.

Finally, I plucked up(鼓起)the courage to dial the number to say another goodbye to my father.