1 . After their business trip, John and Mary returned, eager to see their lovely children. As they drove into their hometown feeling glad to be back, they noticed ________, and they went off their usual route to see what it was. They found a ________ in flames. Mary said, “Oh, well, it isn’t our fire, let’s go home.”

But John ________ closer and screamed, “That home belongs to Fred Jones who works at the plant. He wouldn’t be ________ work yet, maybe there is something we could do.” “It has nothing to do with us,” Mary ________.

But John drove up and stopped and they were both horror-stricken to see the whole house in ________. A woman on the lawn was screaming, “The children! Get the children!” John ________ her by the shoulder saying, “Get a hold of yourself and tell us where the children are!” “In the ________,” cried the woman. “Down the hall and to the left.”

In spite of Mary’s disagreement, John ________ for the basement which was full of smoke and ________ hot. He found the door and two children. ________ he left he could hear some more sobbing. He ________ the two badly frightened children into ________ arms and started back asking how many more children were down there. They told him ________ more and Mary grasped his arm and screamed, “John! Don’t go back! It’s ________! That house will fall down any second.”

________ he ran into the smoke-filled hallway and at last he found both children. As he climbed up the ________ stairs, the thought went through his mind that there was something strangely ________ about the little bodies next to him, and at last when they came out into the ________ and fresh air, he found that he had just ________ his own children.

The baby-sitter had left them at this home while she did some shopping.

3 . Thomas James Hanson will remember for a long time the snowstorm that hit the state of New York on November 22nd. The 47-year-old man from Niagara Falls was stuck in his car on the highway for almost eight days after his vehicle was accidentally pushed to the side of the road and covered with snow by workers employed to remove the snow from the streets.

Driving on the Interstate Highway190 during the worst of the snowstorm, Mr. Hanson decided to pull over his old 1993 Volkswagen Passat to the side of the road and wait for the weather conditions to improve. He remained motionless for approximately five hours before a snow plow arrived to clear the way. Unfortunately for the poor man, the driver of the gigantic snow removal vehicle did not see the small car, pushing it into the ditch and covering it with more than 2 meters of snow.

Fortunately for the father of two children, the snow that was stacked over his vehicle was not very dense and allowed for enough fresh air to get through to enable him to survive. He was able to drink water that he obtained by melting snow with his lighter in an aluminum coffee cup, and he ate the few items of groceries he had bought before going home.

“If I had known I would be stuck for eight days, I would have bought more than a jar of dill pickles(咸菜), a bottle of ketchup and two sticks of beef jerky(牛肉干),” said the survivor with a smile.

Thomas Hanson had almost lost all hope of being rescued when his car was hit once again this morning by another snow plow, which revealed the poor man’s location.

4 . There was ice on the road, and the doctor’s car hit a tree and turned over three times. To his surprise, he was not hurt. He got out of the car and walked to the nearest house. He wanted to telephone the garage (汽车修理站) for help. The door was opened by one of his patients.

“Oh, Doctor.” she said, “I have only just telephoned you. You must have a very fast car. You have got here very quickly indeed. There has been a very bad accident (事故) in the road outside. I saw it through the window. I am sure the driver will need your help.”