My doorbell rings at 11 a.m. On the step, I find an elderly Chinese lady. She is small and slight. She holds a paper carrier bag in her hands.
I know this lady. It is by no means her first visit. Her daughter, Nicole, bought the house next door last October. Nicole, who is currently in Shanghai, has apparently told her mother that I am having heart surgery shortly, and the result is that her mother has decided I need to be supplied with meals.
I know what is inside the paper carrier bag — a stainless-steel container with a meal of rice, vegetables and either chicken, meat or shrimp. This has become an almost-daily occurrence.
Communication between my benefactor (恩人)and me is somewhat handicapped by the fact that she doesn’t speak English and all I can say in Mandarin is “hello”. Once, she brought an iPad and pointed to the screen, which displayed a message from Nicole telling me that her mother wanted to know if the food was all right.
“Your mother just can’t be bringing me meals like this all the time” I protested. “I can hardly reciprocate by cooking something from my native land, like roast beef or Yorkshire pudding for her” I said.
“Oh，no,” Nicole said. “Don’t worry about that. She has to cook for the family anyway, and she wants to do it for you. You can call her Wing, which is her surname.”
The tenant in my basement suite is a university student who speaks Mandarin quite well, so with her help, I have found out that Wing is 68—13 years younger than I am — and that she lived through the Cultural Revolution. For my part, I was raised in wartime Britain.
So here we are, two grandmothers a world away from where we were raised, neither of us able to speak the other’s language. But the doorbell keeps ringing and there is the familiar paper earner bag, handed smilingly to me by Wing.
Right now I am working on some more Mandarin words—it’s the least I can do after such a display of kindness.
“Thank you” is, of course，the first one, which somehow seems inadequate.
1.The author and Wing got to know each other .
A. as next door neighbors
B. when exchanging meals
C. by sharing similar experiences
D. after using an iPad to communicate
2.The underlined word “reciprocate” in Paragraph 5 probably means .
A. do as well B. offer generously
C. give in return D. accept with pleasure
3.The author’s effort to learn Mandarin shows her .
A. great satisfaction B. real kindness
C. heartfelt thanks D. sincere friendship
假如你是红星中学的李津，你的美国朋友Peter来信表示，希望了解你校学生课外活动情况，请你用英语写一封回信，介绍你校学生课外活动．
☆学校为了丰富学生的课外生活开设了一些俱乐部，如读书、写作、篮球、音乐等；
☆课外活动的时间安排：每天下午一个小时；
☆课外活动对学生的益处：如增强体质，丰富知识等；
☆你加入了一个俱乐部，说明你加入的理由．
注意：
（1）词数不少于100词；
（2）可适当增加细节，以使内容充实、行文连贯；
（3）开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数．
Dear Peter，
I'm glad to hear from you．________________________________________________________________
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Yours，
Li Jin．
Last night, I have an interesting dream. On the way back home. I came across child from another planet. His clothes seemed to be shining and looked beautifully. As I got close to him, he looked frightening and turned his back to me. Though I couldn’t speak his language, I used hand gestures to talk about him. A while later, he told me lots of amazing thing on his planet, that made me laugh. But suddenly, he began to cry, and then he explained he had lost his way but couldn’t find his home. Seeing that, I was offered to help him. I asked him to call his parents using my phone. After make the call , he disappeared.
Robert Burns is the most famous poet to write in Scots, the traditional language of Scotland.
Born in Ayrshire, Scotland to a poor farming family, his parents made sure that he was well educated as a child. In 1783 he started composing poetry 1. a traditional style using the Ayrshire dialect of Scots. These poems were well received 2. (local) and in 1786 they were published in the volume, Poems, Chiefly, 3. made him famous in Scotland overnight.
4. , his fame was not accompanied by money and he found 5. necessary to return to farming. 6. this also proved unprofitable, he entered government service in 1789.
He died at the age of 37 as a result of a weak heart, brought on by years of poor working conditions on the farm 7. (date) back to his childhood. Within a short time of his death, money started pouring in from all over Scotland 8. (support) his widow and children.
Today, his memory 9. (celebrate) by Burns clubs across the world and his birthday is 10. unofficial “National Day” for Scots and those with Scottish ancestry, celebrated with Burns suppers.
My father left for our native place on Thursday. In fact, he had never traveled by ______ before, so I just took this opportunity to let him ______ his first flight. ______ being asked to book a ticket by train, I got him a ticket on Jet Airways. The moment I handed over the ticket to him, he was surprised. The ______ was very apparent on his face as we waited for the time of the ______. Just like a schoolboy, he was ______ himself on that day, using the trolley (手推车) for his luggage and asking for a window seat. He was ______ enjoying himself and I, too, watching him experience all these things with ______. As he was about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and ______ me. He became very ______ for what I had done meant a great deal to him. I told him there was no need to thank me.
Later, I ______ my life. As a child, how many dreams had our parents made come true? Without ______ the financial situation, we asked for dresses, toys, outings, etc. They tried to ______ all our needs. Did we ever say thanks for all they had done for us? Today ______ it comes to our children, we always think we should give them the best. But we tend to ______ that our parents have sacrificed(牺牲) a lot to see us happy, so it is our ______ to make sure their dreams are realized.
Old age is like a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same ______ needs to be given to our parents. I want to say sorry for making my father ______ so long for this small dream to be realized.
Just the fact that they are old does not mean that they will have to ______ everything and keep sacrificing. They have ______, too.
Take care of your parents. They are precious.
1.A. bus B. train C. ship D. air
2.A. catch B. miss C. experience D. change
3.A. In spite of B. Because of C. In case of D. Instead of
4.A. pride B. excitement C. admiration D. ambition
5.A. appointment B. dream C. travel D. show
6.A. encouraging B. warning C. teaching D. preparing
7.A. thoroughly B. slowly C. immediately D. suddenly
8.A. anger B. joy C. shyness D. curiosity
9.A. helped B. patted C. thanked D. praised
10.A. honest B. childish C. nervous D. emotional
11.A. looked for B. looked down upon C. looked into D. looked back on
12.A. understanding B. describing C. solving D. improving
13.A. avoid B. meet C. record D. check
14.A. unless B. because C. when D. though
15.A. learn B. express C. promise D. forget
16.A. ability B. responsibility C. freedom D. fortune
17.A. song B. advice C. attention D. thing
18.A. struggle B. wait C. rest D. stand
19.A. hand in B. pick up C. pay off D. give up
20.A. wishes B. jobs C. plans D. suggestions
Are you simply moving through your day without fully living? I think many of us have done this. Everyone wants to fully live every day. 1. So I’ve decided to share with you some ways to help you enjoy every moment.
Sit in the morning. When you wake up, in the quiet of the morning, sit on the floor. I often use this opportunity to stretch (伸展).2.I also just sit, and focus on my breathing going in and out.
3. I like to take breaks from work, and go outside for a slow walk. Pay attention to your breathing, to everything around you, to the sounds and light of objects.
Read in silence. Find a quiet time, and a quiet place, and read a good novel. Have no television or computers on nearby. And just put yourself in the world of the novel. It might seem difficult to let your mind move from the present into the time of the novel, but it’s a great practice in focus. 4.
5. Each day, find someone you care about and be grateful for his existence. If you want, you can tell that person how thankful you are to him.
A. Walk slowly.
B. Work with focus.
C. Look at someone in a grateful way.
D. But this is easier said than done.
E. I feel every muscle in my body.
F. It’s a way of building something good into your life.
G. Also, I love a good novel more than almost anything else.
