2 . At around 10 p.m., Jane got off the train at Bell port, New York. She jumped into her Honda Odyssey and began the 20-minute _________ home. She was so familiar with the route that she almost drove _________ all the way. Jane had just crossed the railroad tracks when out of nowhere a truck hit her car, _________ her backward some 100 feet onto the tracks. She was _________ the car, injured but mostly shocked by the _________.

As it happened, Peter, a volunteer firefighter and retired teacher, was getting ready for _________. At the _________ noise of clanging metals and breaking glass coming from not far outside his bedroom window, he, still dressed in his pajamas (睡衣), ran out of the door.

He first came upon a(n) _________ truck lying 2,000 feet from his front yard. After _________ its driver was OK, Peter looked around and spotted Jane’s car lying __________ the tracks. And then he heard the bells __________ an oncoming train.

Peter rushed to Jane’s car and __________ the driver’s side window. Jane just looked up at him, her eyes __________. “I have no __________ of where I am,” she said.

“You are on the railroad tracks,” Peter yelled. “I have to get you off right now!” He __________ the handle, but the door was jammed. The train was __________. Without a moment of hesitation, Peter ran to the passenger side and __________ open the door. He __________ pulled her across the passenger seat and dragged her to safety behind a signal box a few feet away. Several seconds later, the train crashed into the __________.

Jane recalled the __________ moment. “I can never repay him for this,” she said, “last night the hero arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck.”

4 . I was walking along the main street of a small seaside town in the north of England looking for somewhere to make a phone call. My car had _______ outside the town and I wanted to contact the AA Company. Low grey clouds were gathering across the sky and there was a cold damp wind _______ the sea which nearly threw me off my _______ every time I crossed one of the side streets. It had rained in the night and water was dripping from the _______ trees that lined the street. I was glad that I was wearing a thick coat.

There was no sign of a call _______ nor was there anyone at that early hour whom I could ask.I had thought I might find a shop open _______ the Saturday papers or a milkman doing his _______, but the town was _______ dead. The only living thing I saw was a thin _______ cat outside a small restaurant.

Then ________ I found what I was looking for. There was a small post office, and almost ________ from sight in a dark narrow street. Next to it was the town’s only public call box, which badly needed a coat of ________. I ________ forward, but stopped in ________ when I saw through the dirty glass that there was a   ________ inside. He was fat, and was wearing a cheap blue plastic raincoat. I could not see his face and he didn’t even ________ his head at the sound of my ________.

Carefully, I remained standing a few feet away and ________ a cigarette to wait for my turn. It was when I ________ the dead match on the ground that I noticed something ________ red trickling (滴流) from under the door.

5 . The little boy turned to the old woman next to him, ‘‘Granny, are you sure I don’t have enough money?’’ She nodded. The little boy was still _______ the doll (洋娃娃) in his hand.

I walked toward him, _______who he wished to give this doll to. “Sister. She was sure that Santa Claus would bring a doll to her.” I told him that maybe Santa Claus would do so. But he replied to me _______, “No, Santa Claus (圣诞老人) can’t bring it to her _______ she is now. I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she _______ there. My sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, _______ I thought she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.’’

The little boy looked _______ at me, “I told Daddy to tell Mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall. I _______ she didn’t have to leave me, but Daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister.” Then he looked _______ at the doll with sad eyes.

I quickly __________ for my wallet. “Let’s check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll!” “OK. I hope I do have enough.” I added some of my money to __________ without him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and __________ some spare money. “Thank you God for giving me enough money!” He looked at me and __________, “I wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my Mommy, but I didn’t dare to ask God __________too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose. My mommy loves white roses.”

__________I remembered a local newspaper article two days ago, mentioning a drunk man in a truck hit a car __________by a young woman and a little girl. The little girl __________ right away and the mother was __________in a critical state.

Two days __________this encounter (偶然相遇) with the little boy, I read in the newspaper that the young__________had passed away.

Mr. Taylor checked again: water, food, bandage, medicines, a compass, and a map wrapped in plastic... Bingo! He put all that he prepared for the coming hiking into his backpack.

Mr. Taylor was fond of hiking, this time in particular, for it was the first time for him to hike with his two sons, Harry and Joel. Joel liked reading books about explorers and Harry joined the hiking club in his school this term. “It will be an unforgettable experience, definitely.” he whispered to himself, unconsciously a smile spreading over his face.

Harry and Joel, however, argued for the first three miles of their hiking trip. Harry accused Joel of wearing smelly old shoes. Joel blamed Harry for using all of the bug spray (喷雾防虫剂). Harry told Joel he smelled terrible. Joel called Harry a coward (懦夫).

“Will the two of you just quiet down and enjoy our hike together?” their father said. “You’re missing all of the beautiful scenery!”

It was true. Neither Joel nor Harry had taken notice of the bear their father had spied at the start of their trip. They hadn’t looked up at the eagle he pointed out overhead. Worst of all, they hadn’t paid any attention to the turns and twists along the way while they continued their argument.

“Joel threw a stick at me!” Harry screamed. “That’s not true!” Joel shouted back.

Mr. Taylor could no longer contain his anger. “And both of you need to stop arguing!” he erupted. As he turned to face them, his left foot caught on a root. He slipped backward and down muddy bank, falling into the river that ran alongside the path.

Harry and Joel raced to their father’s assistance. They helped him up out of the water, and then dragged his wet backpack up onto land.

Fortunately, their wet-through father found himself just slightly injured.

But his glasses came off when he fell in the water.

“Just calm down.” Mr. Taylor shouted, “Without my glasses, we need to work together to find our way.

Rescue in a Bottle

Curtis Whitson had rafted down the Arroyo Seco, a river in central California, several times before.

This year, Curtis Whitson knew the water-fall was coming. He figured he would get out of his raft into the shallow water, get down the rocks along ropes on either side of the falls, and continue on his way, as he had on a previous trip.

But this year was different. Heavy snow and spring rains had turned the usually manageable falls into something fierce. And this year, instead of his friends, Whitson’s companions were his girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez and his 13-year-old son, Hunter. As the three of them approached the falls late in, the afternoon of the third day of their camping trip, Whitson could tell from the increasing roar of water in the narrowing canyon (峡谷) that they were in serious trouble. There was no way they’d be able to get down the rocks as planned.

“The water was just roaring through there with tremendous force,” recalls Whitson.

They had no smart phone service, and they hadn’t seen a single person in the past three days. And Whitson knew that they’d be sharing the ground there with rattle snakes and mountain lions.

As he was thinking what to do, Whitson hit on a bit of luck — he heard voices coming from the other side of the falls. He yelled, but the sound of the rushing water drowned him out.

“We have to get these people a message,” Whitson thought.

He grabbed a stick and pulled out his pocketknife to carve “Help” in it. Then he tied a rope to it so the people would know it wasn’t just any stick. He tried throwing it over the falls, but it floated away in the wrong direction.

“We’ve got to do something!” Whitson yelled to his son. “Have we got anything else?”

Then he spotted his water bottle. Whitson grabbed it and carved “Help!” on it. Ramirez also reminded him that he had a pen and paper in his backpack.

Whitson knew it was a slim hope. But he wrote “6-15 19:00 We are stuck here@ the waterfall. Get help please” and pushed the note into the bottle. This time, his throw over the waterfall was perfect.

“All right, that’s all we can do,” Whitson told Hunter.

It took 30 minutes to get back upstream to the beach where they’d had lunch.

The next morning, the helicopter returned.

10 . Dec 21st 2018

On December 19th Gatwick airport, Britain’s second-biggest, was forced to close due to several sightings of drones（无人机）flying near its runways. The airport only reopened on the morning of December 21st. ① .

The potential for an incident of this scale has been recognized for some years now. The falling price of small drones in recent years has resulted in the number flying dangerously near aircraft to rise sharply. ② .

This is a threat that the authorities have to take seriously. Recent research suggests that small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be much more damaging than birds — a surprisingly common cause of aircraft crashes — at the same impact speed, even if they are a similar weight. The researchers found that the drones’ rigid and dense materials—such as metal, plastic and lithium batteries—can put aero planes at much greater risk than a bird carcass（动物尸体）. If a drone were to hit an aircraft’s fan blades when it is operating at its highest speed, the blades could break and power to the engine could be lost.

③ . But it also underlined the potential for destruction that drones afford. The British police do not think that terrorism was the motivation behind the latest incident at Gatwick. According to the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, environmental activists are suspected of being behind the attack, which has happened before.

As attention turns to what can be done to prevent a repeat, two solutions stand out. The first is regulation. Regulators in America and Britain already ban drones from flying too close to airports. America has introduced a compulsory registration scheme for drones and Britain plans to follow suit.

But as the chaos at Gatwick shows, even serious punishments will not stop those intending to cause harm deliberately. ④ . Technology is the second, and more important, answer to the threat. In the US the FAA has experimented with a system. Drones can have pre-programmed software that keeps them away from prohibited areas, an approach known as “geofencing”. British engineers have come up with a system that catches drones with a net and then softly lands them with a parachute. Dutch police have even attempted to train eagles to catch drones in the sky and return them to their trainers as if they were song birds. The closure at Gatwick will give ideas such as these a mighty push forward.