Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only”. I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

      My father is famous in our family for saying, “Take the extra minute to do it right.” I always try to live by the “extra minute” rule. When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only” moment, whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫) onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.

      I don’t only avoid those “if only” moments when it comes to safety. It’s equally important to avoid “if only” in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say “I love you” or “I forgive you.” When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday, I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn’t be here. But then I thought about the fact that he’s 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn’t give up an opportunity to see him. I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

A couple had a son eleven years after they married. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eye. When the boy was around four years old, one day the father was very tired after work so he asked his wife to pick up their son. The mother, who was very busy in the kitchen, totally forgot about it.

Later the boy lost his way on the street. When the son was found missing, the mother hurried to look for him, but she didn’t find him. The mother felt very sad and didn’t know how to face her husband.

When the father went to the police station after hearing that the son was missing, he looked at his wife and said just four words. What do you think the four words were? The husband just said "I love you, darling." The son was missing. If she had picked him up earlier, this would not have happened. There is no point in blaming (责备) anyone. His wife had also lost her only child. What his wife needed at that moment was comfort and understanding from her husband. That is what the husband gave his wife. Several weeks later, with the help of the police, the couple finally found their lost son. The family’s relationship became stronger over that time.

Sometimes we spend lots of time asking who is to blame. We miss many chances to give each other support and let each other feel the warmth of human relationships. Get rid of all your unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find the world is much more wonderful.

One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor ____(1)____ the question papers, with the text facing down as usual. ____(2)______ he gave them all out, he asked his students to  ____(3)____ the page and begin. To everyone's surprise, there were no  ____(4)_____, just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor, seeing the expression on everyone's face, told them the following.

    "I want you to write what you  ____(5)____ there."

    The students, ____(6)_____, got started on the task. At the end of the class, the professor  ____(7)________ all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them, with no ____(8)______ , described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After all had been  ____(9)______, the classroom was silent, the professor began to explain.

    "I'm not going to grade this. I  ____(10)___ wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the  ____(11)__ part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot, and the same happens in our  ____(12)______. We have a white paper to watch and  ____(13)____, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a  ____(14)______ given to us with love and care and we always have  ____(15)___ to celebrate: nature renewing itself every day, our friends around us, the job that  ____(16)______ our livelihood and the miracles we see every day.  ____(17)____, we insist on focusing only on the dark spots: the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the ____(18)____ relationship with people we work with, the  ____(19)____ with a friend, and etc. The dark spots are very ___(20)____ compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds."

Christopher Charles studied Health Science at a university in Canada. After graduation, he went to Cambodia and lived in a small village. There, he studied a serious health condition called anaemia(贫血症). People with anaemia do not have enough iron in their bodies. Charles did blood tests on many people and discovered something shocking. About 90% of women and children had anaemia. He knew he could not leave Cambodia.

Iron medicine is the usual treatment for anaemia, but it costs a lot. Cooking with iron pots could help because it would release iron into every meal. But iron pots are heavy and expensive. Also, food goes bad if it is left in an iron pot. So Charles added an iron bar to a cooking pot. It didn’t cost much money and it did release lots of iron. However, instead of cooking with it, people used it to hold down papers or support a table with a broken leg.

Finally Charles created the iron fish. People in Cambodia eat fish every day and they believe fish are lucky. So people are willing to put the iron fish in their cooking pots.

It turned out that the iron fish not only improved people’s health, but also helped the local economy. People who use the iron fish miss fewer days at work. And some people even get jobs from the iron fish. They make and supply the iron fish.

More and more people are using the lucky iron fish in Cambodia now. But anaemia is a worldwide problem, which affects one in three people in the world. In some places people do not eat fish. Charles says this is not a problem. “The iron could be shaped in a different form. What is important is that it is right for each culture. So people will use it and it will improve their lives,” he says.

阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

Lester liked to collect things. He was always hoping that something interesting would present itself at his feet. Lester had found many things this way. Whenever he found an object that interested him, he added it to the collection on his dresser.

One day, Lester was walking home from school. As usual, he had his eyes glued to the pavement, hoping for something to add to his collection. Just as he turned the corner to his street, he saw something on the ground. When he bent down to pick it up, he was amazed! It was small, but it was very shiny and sparkled in the sun. “It’s a diamond!” he thought. He could not be sure, though. He had never really seen any diamonds except for the one in his mother’s ring.

Lester picked the stone up and carefully put it into his pocket. When he reached his house, he ran to his bedrooms. He began to examine his find using a magnifying glass(放大镜). It looked like a diamond. He had heard that diamonds can cut glass, so he took the stone into the tiny cut on the mirror’s surface. It was a real diamond.

“It must have fallen out of someone’s ring,” Lester thought. “That means somebody lost it.” He thought about what his mom had said about finding something valuable. “You should always give it to the police, so they can try to find the owner,” she had told him.

When Lester’s mom came home from work, he showed her the stone and asked what he should do with it. “We can go down to the police station tomorrow,” she replied. “You did theright thing by showing me this. I know that if I had lost the diamond out of my ring, I would be very upset.”

注意：

1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；

2. 应使用5个以上短文中标有下划线的关键词语；

3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；

4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。

Paragraph 1:

The next day, Lester and his mom carried the tiny stone to the police station._____________                  

Paragraph 2:

Lester walked out of the police station with a big smile on his face.                                         

Phil White has just returned from an 18,000-mile, around-the-world bicycle trip. White had two reasons for making this epic journey. First of all, he wanted to use the trip to raise money for charity, which he did. He raised £70,000 for the British charity, Oxfam. White's second reason for making the trip was to break the world record and become the fastest person to cycle around the world. He is still waiting to find out if he has broken the record or not.

White set off from Trafalgar Square, in London, on 19th June 2004 and was back 299 days later. He spent more than 1,300 hours in the saddle(车座) and destroyed four sets of tyres and three bike chains. He had the adventure of his life crossing Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. Amazingly, he did all of this with absolutely no support team. No jeep carrying food, water and medicine. No doctor. Nothing! Just a bike and a very, very long road.

The journey was lonely and desperate at times. He also had to fight his way across deserts, through jungles and over mountains. He cycled through heavy rains and temperatures of up to 45 degrees, all to help people in need. There were other dangers along the road. In Iran, he was chased by armed robbers and was lucky to escape with his life and the little money he had. The worst thing that happened to him was having to cycle into a headwind on a road that crosses the south of Australia. For l,000 kilometres he battled against the wind that was constantly pushing him. This part of the trip was slow, hard work and depressing, but he made it in the end. Now Mr. White is back and intends to write a book about his adventures.

Born into a happy and wealthy family, I had high expectations of my own family life. I had been   (1)   a good relationship with my husband Mike where there were full of   (2)  , happiness and mutual respect.   (3)  , Mike didn’t come to the marriage with the same kind of dreams and he felt   (4)   by my needs. Worse still, we even couldn’t   (5)  . Although we had been married less than a year, we were heading for   (6)  .

During this rough time, I had the idea to get a dog and Mike   (7)  . I called the local pound (宠物收留所) and asked if they had a shepherd needing a(n)   (8)  . So they did. As I made my way to the dog’s cage, she jumped high and barked   (9)   －just the way a kid waves his arms when captains are choosing their team. I took her out and she ran around the room,   (10)   only to jump up on me and try to lick my face. I was deeply   (11)   by her exciting personality.

Mike liked her as much as I did, and we named her Lucy. She liked to be wherever I was, and I also appreciated my   (12)   at the centre of her universe. One evening, I was playing a   (13)   game with Lucy－I would stand in front of Lucy and stick her with my right hand, then from the left, then from the top, and then from the bottom. She seemed to love trying to   (14)   where my hand would come from next. We were playing this game   (15)   Mike came up behind me and started playing, too. I   (16)   back into Mike’s warm chest, and his arms closed around me   (17)  . We hadn’t done that for a long time.

Now we’ve been married for over ten years, and our marriage   (18)  . When people ask me the secret of our   (19)   partnership, I always tell them. “It’s simple. If you want dog-like   (20)   … get a dog.”

There Really Was a Santa Claus

         Ann worked for a big company. One of the duties of her    (1)   was to go to the post office every day and   (2)   the company mail. One day in December, she    (3)    a beggar making himself up as a Santa Claus   (4)    on the corner of the street. Each day she   (5)   her coins and dropped them in his bowl. He would smile and    (6)    her a Merry Christmas.

         At night the temperature dropped below 0℃, but the Santa Clause    (7)    stood in the cold wind.   (8)   she dropped her coins into his bowl, she handed him a pair of gloves.

         A week later, a(n)    (9)    Santa Claus was standing there. “What happened to the other Santa Claus?” she asked. He told her, “He’s very   (10)    today.” She prayed for his health.

         Later that day, a colleague came into her office   (11)   . “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” “What’s wrong?” she asked. “It’s my ex-husband,” her colleague    (12)   , “I don’t have any money to buy my boys anything for Christmas,    (13)    my ex-husband refuses to send money to them. It breaks my heart that they won’t have anything this year.” The lady   (14)   her colleague, “I’m sure everything will    (15)   . It’s Christmas. Believe in miracles(奇迹).”

         That evening, she told her husband about her colleague’s    (16)   , “I know we don’t have much money to    (17)  , but I’d like to give her fifty or a hundred dollars. We’ll just get ourselves less this year. Last year we couldn’t afford to buy anything for    (18)    but we still had a wonderful Christmas.” Her husband smiled, “Give her one hundred dollars. She needs it more than we do.”

         She reached up and held him. Warmth spread   (19)    her body. He held her and realized that there really was a Santa Claus – and he had    (20)   her!

I take the train to work every morning from a train station near my house. I can get to the station quite 41 because there is a short cut to the station. But in the summer, it can get quite smelly because of all the 42 . So I always try to 43 through it. Today I was trying to do so as usual  44 something made me stop for a moment. I saw the most beautiful 45 by an old woman walking in front of me with the help of a white 46 .

She was short and 47 and had white hair. She was walking 48 as each step took some effort. I hadn’t specially noticed her 49 , until she stopped near a rubbish bin.

She slowly placed her walking stick  50  the rubbish bin. Then she leaned on it with her right hand. She bent down and 51 the rubbish. She clearly found it  52  and it took her a while. She 53 some rubbish with her left hand and slowly straightened herself up again. All the while she used the rubbish bin to 54 herself. She threw the rubbish inside the bin and then  55  walking. It all took her great effort.

There’s so much rubbish and no one ever does  56  about it. I was moved to   57  this old woman make such a great effort to keep even a small part of it  58  ! I haven’t been able to   59 thinking about that all day.

I want to follow her example. I’ve decided to pick up rubbish off the  60  if I meet from now on. I hope people will do the same as I do.

My dad works for a food organization that travels to rural areas to offer food, medical assistance as well as entertainment.Recently I went with him to one of their working places.I was there simply to give people  (1)   , hand them a flyer (传单） send them on their way.It was hot and tiring ,and I wasn’t having much  (2)  .Honestly, I didn’t really  (3)  , and ended up doing it halfheartedly.

Then I saw two girls who had the same  (4)  I did, but were   (5)  and happy.They  (6)  to people who looked lost and asked them if they needed help,   (7)  waiting for people to find them.An elderly woman wobbled over（晃悠）to one while the other  (8)  a bad-smelling man with rags over his sickly body.I saw the first girl talking   (9)  to the old woman and then smile as she gave her a warming  (10)  .Meanwhile the second girl said, “Hello, sir.Is there something I can help you with today?” Sir? SIR!! She spoke to this man   (11)  he were important! It seemed  (12)  .Was I hearing her correctly? Why would she   (13)   a beggar from the street as though he was an officer in the army?

She showed sympathy. Because she   (14)  this man and wanted him to  (15)  loved and important, she showed respect.He  (16)  his chin（下巴） just a little when she called him “Sir.”  (17)  his shoulders back, he felt her reaching out to him in that simple phrase, and his tired, wrinkled face  (18)  brightly.

I stood in awe（敬畏）.Never in my life had I seen a moment that  (19)  such care and love.Yes, this is what compassion is all about.

Taking time to show compassion in my life has made a  (20)  in my character and who I am.Holding it , I open every room to let the sunshine flow in.