Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was   (1)   except for a single light in a ground floor window. I walked to the door and   (2)   .

A small woman in her 80’s opened the door. I took her suitcase to the cab then returned to   (3)   her into the cab. She thanked me for my kindness. When we got in the taxi, she gave me a(n)   (4)   , then asked, “Could you drive through   (5)   ?”

“It’s not the   (6)   way,” I answered.

“Oh, I don’t   (7)   ,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice (临终关怀医院).”

I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening (闪烁).

“The doctor says I don’t have very long.”

I quietly reached over and   (8)   the meter. “What   (9)   would you like me to take?” I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the   (10)   where she and her husband had lived. Sometimes she’d ask me to   (11)   in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the sun was   (12)   , she suddenly said: “I’m   (13)   . Let’s go now.”

We drove in   (14)   to the address she had given me. There were people waiting for her and they put her in a wheelchair.

“How much do I   (15)   you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.

“Nothing,” I said.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me   (16)   .

“You gave an old woman a little moment of   (17)   ,” she said.

I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut.

I didn’t   (18)   any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly,   (19)   in thought. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often   (20)   us unaware.

Dear Alcohol,

Youˈve been around forever. I can remember all the pain youˈve caused for me.

Do you remember the night you almost took my fatherˈs life? I do. He loves you. Sometimes I think he loves you more than he loves me. Heˈs addicted to you, to the way you promise to rid him of his problems only to cause more of them. You just sat back and laughed as his car went spinning through the street, crashing into two other cars. He wasnˈt the only one hurt by you that night.
Do you remember the night of my first high school party? You were there. My friends were intrigued by you. They treated you as if they were never going to see you again, drinking all of you that they could. I spent two hours that night helping my friends who had fallen completely. "Iˈm so embarrassed," they said as I held their hair back so that they could vomit (呕吐). "Iˈm sorry," they said when I called taxies for them, walking them out and paying the driver in advance. "This wonˈt happen again," they said as they were sent to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Two 15-year-old girls slept in hospital beds that night thanks to you.
Do you remember the night when you took advantage of my 17-year-old neighbor who had to drive to pick up his sister from her dance lessons? Do you know how we all felt when he hit another car and killed the two people in the other car? He died the next morning too. His sister walked home from her dance lesson, and passed police cars and a crowd of people gathering on the sidewalk just two blocks away from the dance studio. She didnˈt realize her brother was in the midst of it all. She never saw him again. And itˈs all your fault.
I wish youˈd walk out of my life forever. I donˈt want anything to do with you. Look at all the pain youˈve caused. Sure, youˈve made people happy too from time to time. But the damage youˈve caused in the lives of millions is inexcusable. Stop luring (引诱) in the people I love. Stop hurting me, please.
Sincerely,
Anonymous

  Hospital nurses thought that the 73-year-old James Wathen had reached the end of his road. He  stopped eating, he could hardly speak, and he was very weak. But those all changed one day when

he told a nurse that he missed his dog. James hadn’t seen his one-eyed Chihuahua named Bubba

after he was sent to the hospital weeks before.

So a wonderful team of nurses got together to find James’ companion, Bubba. They all held on the hope that this reunion(重聚) would make their patient come alive again.

They successfully found Bubba, but ever since Bubba was separated from James, he also became sick. The dog didn’t know where James was, and believe it or not, they both stopped eating at about the same time. The team of nurses worked hard and scheduled（安排）a very special visitor for James that weekend.

In their 30-minute visit, Bubba’s eyes got real bright and he was like a different dog. James also became very bright, and he was a different man, too. “He has done a complete turnaround（转变）. He is speaking,he is sitting up, and he is eating. He wasn’t like the same guy.” a nurse said. “And the dog is eating and doing better now, too.”

From James and Bubba’s story we can see that our friendships are more important than we can ever imagine. Your smiling face can bring life to a friend that’s feeling down. So never forget that you are an important part of someone’s life. Someone needs you today.

(Reuters) — A Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was reported to have been missing near the Vietnamese coast on Saturday,  having 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, and European officials said two people on board were using false identities.

There were no reports of bad weather and no sign of why the Boeing 777 — 200ER would have disappeared from radar screens about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

 "We are not ruling out(排除) any possibilities," Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told a news conference.

By the early hours of Sunday, there were no confirmed signs of the plane or any wreckage (残骸) over 24 hours after it went missing.  Operations will continue through the night, officials said.

There were no indications of sabotage (蓄意破坏) nor claims of an attack.  But the passenger list issued by the airline included the names of two Europeans Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi  who, according to their foreign ministries, were not in fact on the plane.

The foreign ministry spokesman in Vienna said: "Our embassy got the information that there was an Austrian on board. That was the passenger list from Malaysia Airlines. Our system came back with a note that this is a stolen passport. "

"Austrian police had found the man safe at home. The passport was stolen two years ago while he was travelling in Thailand," the spokesman said.

The foreign ministry in Rome said no Italian was on the plane either, despite the inclusion of Maraldi’s name on the list. His mother, Renata Lucchi, told Reuters his passport was lost, presumed(推测的) stolen, in Thailand in 2013.

The U.S. and European security officials said that there was no proof of any terrorist link and there could be other explanations for the use of stolen passports.

In the north of Scotland there is a lake called Loch Ness. It is the biggest   (1)    in Britain. It is over thirty kilometers long and nearly 300 meters   (2)   It is cold and dark and not many people went there until after 1930. Then a road was made   (3)   the lake.

Holiday makers began to use the road, and this was when the  (4)  began. Someone said that he had seen a monster(妖怪) in the lake. He said it was twelve meters long. It had a long   (5)  and a small head. Then someone else said he heard  (6)  . Others said the same thing and in 1933 a London doctor took a   (7)  . It   (8)   like a monster with a long neck and a thick body but the photo was not too  (9)  . The newspaper printed the picture and   (10)   it the Loch Ness monster, or “Nessie”. Then the argument began.   (11)   people, however, were certain there was something living in the lake. Others said there was   (12)   there. In 1961, a lot of people joined together to make a real   (13)   to see and photograph the monster to find   (14)   there was one! Several times people thought they saw something but after ten years there was   (15)   no real proof（证据）.

Later underwater television cameras were used, but   (16)   found any real proof. However, they  (17)  find something interesting: a huge underwater cave. It was big enough to be   (18)   of a monster, but of course, this was not a proof. In 1975,however, some American scientists  (19)   a search group. They used an underwater camera. It took pictures every seventy seconds. Some of the pictures seemed to show a redbrown creature. Its body was about four meters long,  (20)  had a very ugly head on the end of a four-meter neck. Many people then began to believe in the monster. But even today we can’t be certain.

America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.

Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.

Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.

For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!

(314 words)

I grew up in a house where the TV was seldom turned on and with one wall in my bedroom entirely lined with bookshelves, most of my childhood was spent on books I could get hold of. In fact, I grew up thinking of reading as natural as breathing and books unbelievably powerful in shaping perspectives (观点) by creating worlds we could step into, take part in and live in.

With this unshakable belief, I, at fourteen, decided to become a writer. Here too, reading became useful. Every writer starts off knowing that he has something to say, but being unable to find the right ways to say it. He has to find his own voice by reading widely and discovering which parts of the writers he agrees or disagrees with, or agrees with so strongly that it reshapes his own world. He cannot write without loving to read, because only through reading other people’s writing can one discover what works, what doesn’t and, in the end, together with lots of practice, what voice he has.

Now I am in college, and have come to realize ho w important it is to read fiction (文学作品)．As a law student, my reading is in fact limited to subject matter—the volume (量) of what I have to read for classes every week means there is little time to read anything else. Such reading made it all the clearer to me that I live in a very small part in this great place called life. Reading fiction reminds me that there is life beyond my own. It allows me to travel across the high seas and along the Silk Road, all from the comfort of my own armchair, to experience, though secondhand, exciting experiences that I wouldn't necessarily be able to have in my lifetime.

(383words)

One evening I went out and left my 17-year-old son in charge of his 8-year-old brother and 4-year-old sister. On this occasion, the work was made less troublesome by the presence of his girlfriend. I left with complete confidence that the older children would do a wonderful job of babysitting the younger children and the younger children would do a wonderful job of accompanying the older ones. Later, I discovered that complete confidence was the last thing I should have left home with.

I had decided to return home earlier than planned so that my son and his girlfriend could go out. I called home with this happy news. But instead of hearing his cheerful, grateful voice on the other end of the line, all I heard was the sound of a telephone ringing.

It was, I should point out, after 10 p.m., when the two younger children should have been in bed, and when the two older children should have been answering the phone. “I’ll give him a lesson,” I said. I decided they must be outside. Why they might be outside at 10:30 on a wintry night I had no idea, but it was the only explanation I could come up with.

Finally, in desperation, I called his girlfriend’s house. After what seemed like countless rings, his girlfriend answered. “Yes,” she said brightly, “He’s right here.”

He came on the phone. I was not my usual calm, rational(理智的) self. After all, one of the rules of survival for modern parents is that you can’t trust modern teenagers. “Where are the children?” I said. He said they were with him. They had done nothing wrong. My son had taken the younger children over to his girlfriend’s house just for ice cream and cake. This was too good to be believed. Well, it turns out that I shouldn’t have believed it. It was only part of the truth.

The following Saturday evening we were at my parents’ home, celebrating my birthday. My oldest son gave me the children’s gifts. Mounted and framed were a series of lovely color photographs of my children, dressed in their best clothes, and wearing their most wonderful expressions. They are pictures to treasure a lifetime, all taken by the father of my son’s girlfriend.

The living is easy in the summertime. School is out and the weather is great. For many Americans, this is the season to travel.  
Throughout their history, Americans have been people on the move. The early comers had to travel to get to the New World. Once they arrived, they settled along the East Coast. But they weren’t satisfied to stay there. Explorers and traders journeyed to the unknown western territories (边界). Later, settlers moved west to develop these new areas. As a result of this westward movement, Americans finally controlled the whole continent — from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Even today, Americans seem unable to stay put. Research says that the average American moves every five years.
Besides their habit of changing addresses, Americans are used to traveling. Their jobs may even require them to take frequent business trips. Most companies provide an annual (一年一次的) vacation for their employees, and people often use that time to travel. Camping out in the great outdoors is attractive to adventurous types. Some travel in comfortable vehicles to camp out in comfort, while others “rough it” by sleeping in tents.
Most Americans prefer to travel within their nation’s borders. Why? For one thing, it’s cheaper than traveling abroad, and there’s no language problem. But besides that, the vast American territory offers many tourist attractions. Nature lovers can enjoy beaches, mountains, canyons, lakes and a wealth of natural wonders. Major cities offer visitors plenty of urban delights. The convenience of modern freeways, railways and airplanes makes travel in America as easy as pie.
Many American vacations are as unique as the people who take them. History lovers seek out famous historical sites and museums. Environmentalists prefer “green vacations”. Others hit the water to go fishing, skiing or white-water rafting. Daring souls go for safaris (游猎) in faraway places from Africa to Asia.