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A freezing rain washed the street in front of the small-town bar. I sat staring at the watery darkness, alone as usual. I had been in that old pub for a half hour, quietly holding a drink, when my thoughful stare finally focused on a medium-sized lump (一团) in a puddle (水洼) a hundred feet away.

I remembered the night before, a dog named Shep came into the bar begging for potato chips. He was starving and just the size of the lump. "Why would a dog lie in a cold puddle in the freezing rain?" I asked myself. The answer was simple: He was too weak to get up.

The shrapnel (弹片) wound in my right shoulder ached all the way down to my fingers. I didn't want to go out in that storm. Hey, it was't my dog. It was just a stray (流浪的动物) on a cold night in the rain, a lonely drifter (流浪者).

"So am I," I thought, as I laid down my drink and headed out the door.

He was lying in the water. When I touched him, he didn't move. I thought he was dead. I put my hands around his chest and lifted him to his feet. He stood unsteadily in the puddle, his head hung like a weight at the end of his neck. Half his body was covered with mange (兽疥癣). His floppy ear were just hairless pieces of flesh dotted with open sores (疮).

"Come on," I said. His tail wagged once and he followed weekly behind me. I led him to a safer comer next to the bar, where he lay on the cold ground and closed his eyes.

A block away I could see the lights of a late-night convenience store. It was still open. I bought three cans of Alpo and fed him. But his tongue hung out and only the tip of his tail moved. 1 wanted to pet him, but he smelled like death and looked even worse. The local vet (兽医) was still at his office, so I loaded the poor dog into a taxi and headed there.

注意：
1．所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2．按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

The vet checked the pitiful dog immediately. 

……

I sighed loudly and said, "He's got a home."

内容包括：
1. 建议礼物：旗袍和中国结；
2. 说明选择礼物的原因；
3. 表达祝福。

参考词汇：旗袍cheongsam；中国结Chinese knot

要求：
1. 词数：80左右；
2. 可合理增加细节，以使行文连贯。

The summer solstice (夏至) has been widely recognized  a festival throughout the world.

The word solstice originates from the Latin sol and sistere, (mean) "sun-standing". As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems (stand) still in the sky. It is one of the great turning (point) of the year, when the sun is at its (high) point in the sky during a year.

Today, the day is celebrated around the world. In England thousands gather to welcome the sunrise on the summer solstice. Throughout Europe groups light a fire and stay up all night to welcome the dawn. In Paris, the day (mark) with free concerts during the every year's Fete de la Musique. When it comes the U.S., the city of Santa Barbara in California holds the country's biggest celebration lasts a full three-day time. On the East Coast, New York City (traditional) welcomes the summer solstice with a music concert at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.

In the southern part of China, Eating lychees (荔枝) druing the summer solstice is a long tradition because eating lychees will cause less "heat" to the body. There is a saying in Shangdong Province that (go), "Eating dumplings on the winter solstice day and eating noodles on the summer solstice day."

Bill used to be a sailor and oil field engineer. His hands were rough and had ugly 1  left by pulling on ropes as a sailor off the coast of Maine. Bill enjoyed watching baseball games and he found more time for it after he retired.

In Bill's eyes, baseball was a game 2 details, mental sharpness, and patience, and instructing young men needed the same abilities. There were boys in the neighborhood who played on the high school baseball team and he was their 3 visitor. Whether on summer evenings under the lights or in the mid-afternoon sun. Bill was always the one to 4 on time. In the beginning, he simply sat and 5 them. After a good play, Bill would give a thumbs-up sign. A(n) 6 would earn a smile that meant, "You'll get another chance!" He communicated with the boys in such silent language.

Gradually, the boys got used to Bill's 7 and became acquainted (相识的) with him. They were curious about his scarred (有疤痕的) hands and began to 8 his past. He talked about his 9 of floating on the sea and in search of new oil fields. They were long and 10 stories, all about friendship, helping each other, and remaining hopeful despite hardship, and also about how a boy 11 a man. If need be. Bill would take time to demonstrate some basic skills to some slow learners. Over and over again, Bill took the trouble to 12 each detail until the players were skillful.

Time flew. What Bill taught was deeply rooted in the boys, hearts and they could play wonderfully in the races. Bill thought he was too old and had nothing to teach them. It was time for him to 13 . However, the boys saw it 14 . They told Bill that he and his fighting spirit had long been part of their team. Nearly everyone on the team learned to expect a little more from themselves 15  Bill was there.

Brainstorming is a method for thinking of ideas and creating plans through open discussion, usually in a group setting.  It encourages people to consider all possibilities and become more creative. The process lets team members develop the best solution to a problem. Well, how can we brainstorm effectively?

Visualize your goal. Keep to the point during your brainstorming session by having a visual representation of your goal. Think about your ideal outcome or purpose.  Every time you see it, it can remind you of the original point of the conversation, allowing you and others to adjust your focus and remain productive.

 During a brainstorming session, focus on listing as many thoughts and ideas as you can. Instead of thinking of a few in-depth ideas, try to produce many simple ideas that you can work on later. Having a large number of ideas from a brainstorming session can provide you with a useful outline for future projects and allow you to recognize which ideas have the most potential.

Document the discussion. Because brainstorming involves quickly producing multiple ideas, documentation can help you reference them later and analyze the full scope of the discussion. How can you effectively document your brainstorming session? Use an audio (录音的) recorder to record words. Write down detailed notes. 

Schedule multiple brainstorming sessions. This gives you time between meetings to do additional research and planning, giving you ideas for future sessions and making them more productive. It also helps prevent creative burnout, allowing you to return to your ideas with a fresh view. You can do the activity every Friday, for example.

A. Share inspiration.

B. Promote a variety of ideas.

C. Brainstorming can be important.

D. Express your thoughts and ideas bravely.

E. Then write it down in an eye-catching spot.

F. So, if necessary, brainstorm on a regular basis.

G. You can even photograph certain information to better understand it.

Canaries (small yellow songbirds) are more sensitive to carbon monoxide (CO) than people are. Thus they were routinely taken into mines as men went about their work of mining for coal. CO could quickly poison many miners before they even knew what was happening. If a Canary stopped singing, this was an indicator of rising CO levels. Now ecologists think they've found a "canary" that could predict possible disaster for tropical (热带的) ecosystems — the cricket (a small brown jumping insect).

Crickets are tiny, present in large numbers and, most importantly, noisy. The chirps (唧唧叫声) of individual species are identifiably different. Researchers had previously wondered if ecosystems might be monitored by listening to how the sounds of their crickets change over time.

Amandine Gasc and her colleagues studied cricket populations on Grande Terre Island in New Caledonia, where multiple ecosystems often exist very near to each other. They collected crickets at 12 sampling sites. Four were healthy forest sites, four were shrubland (灌木地) areas, of the sort that is often created when people cut down forests, and four were shrubland areas that were turning into forests again. They listened for insects in square zones and ran ten 30-minute collection sessions (five in the day and five at night) at each site.

Dr. Gasc described how each ecosystem had, in effect, a distinct "cricket fingerprint". Species richness varied considerably among the different environments. Of the 20 cricket species found in the healthy forest, 12 were unique to that habitat alone, 2 of the 15 species found in transitioning forests were unique to this habitat and 3 of the 7 shrubland species were unique to shrubland.

Just by looking at the crickets found in a given location, the team found that it was possible to determine whether they were looking at shrubland, forest or shrubland that was changing into the forest. There was no need to examine the other surrounding plants or animals.

What's more, Dr. Gasc's team found each habitat contained cricket species that generated their identifiable chirps. This suggests that setting up audio recorders in forests that pick up cricket calls will be an easy, cheap and accurate way to detect the early stages of change in tropical ecosystems.

Most people often listen to music near bedtime to relax. But can that actually cause your sleep to suffer? When sleep researcher Michael Scullin realized that he was waking in the middle of the night with a song stuck in his head, he saw an opportunity. He decided to study a rarely-explored mechanism (机制): how music — and particularly songs stuck in one's head — might affect sleep patterns.

Scullin said, "Everyone knows that music listening feels good. Young adults routinely listen to music near bedtime. Thus, they are easy to experience ‘earworms' — involuntary musical imagery. It's a condition where a song or tune will replay over and over in our mind, and our brains continue to process music even when none is playing, including apparently while we are asleep."

Scullin's recent study included a survey and a laboratory experiment. The survey involved 209 participants who completed a series of surveys on sleep quality, music listening habits and earworm frequency. In the 50-participant experimental study, the research team played three popular and catchy songs before bedtime. They randomly assigned participants to listen to the original versions of those songs or the instrumental versions of the songs. And then they used polysomnography (PSG) — a comprehensive test of sleep — to record the participants' brain waves, heart rates, breathing and more while they were sleeping.

The study showed that people who experience earworms regularly at night are six times as likely to have poor sleep quality as people who rarely experience earworms. "Almost everyone thought music improves sleep but we have found that those who listen to more music sleep worse," Scullin said. "What's really surprising is that instrumental music leads to worse sleep quality, including greater difficulty falling asleep, more nighttime awakenings, and more time in light stages of sleep. And instrumental music leads to about twice as many earworms."

To get rid of an earworm, engaging in cognitive (认知的) activity — fully focusing on a task, helps to distract your brain from earworms if you don't want to totally quit your music hobbies (listening to less music before bed is still encouraged). A previous study found that participants who spent five minutes writing down upcoming tasks before bed slept better.

Angela Guzman was born in Bogota, Colombia. At the age of 8, she moved to a tiny island in South Florida. The contrast was pretty vast. She didn't speak any English, so she met with lots of challenges. At school, she would get stuck because she couldn't understand or be understood. She thought, "Well, everyone understands a picture! Why don't I start drawing to communicate?" That was what she did. She tried hard to create pictures to show her meanings exactly, and then she became known as the artist in the classroom, from third grade through her whole years of secondary schooling. Later she chose to study design in college.

When Angela began her work in a big company, she was tasked with designing emojis — the company's very first. At first, she intended to refuse the task because she had no idea what the word meant and what emojis would be used for. Her mentor said that the emoji was an icon (图标), an image, or a type of illustration, sharing joy, surprise, anger, fear, sorrow, love and so on.

Angela then began to study microexpressions of humans and simplify or exaggerate (夸大) them in an illustrative manner. For example, the eyebrows make a V in anger and an upside down V in surprise. When she designed object emojis, she often turned to real-life items. She went to the party supply store, buying party poppers (派对烟花) to watch how the colorful paper pieces came out, and how light reflected off them. They were hard to capture, but Angela tried to make it.

Later, the tiny icons Angela and her mentor created were born and soon used by millions of people. When people praised Angela for her emoji design, she replied, "Actually, it's an experience that teaches me a lot. One major thing is empathy (共鸣) for communities worldwide. I pay close attention to the symbolism of color and the cultural symbolism overall. I think the cultural questions are important. For example, how do we make sure that every culture, every accent, or every person that speaks to these devices feels included? That was something I struggled with early on. This kind of thinking allowed my mind to be inclusive and mindful of everyone who would use the product."

Four best thrift stores (旧货店) in New York

El Barrio Thrift Store

Address: 2123 2nd Ave, NY

Opening Hours: 10:30am-5:30pm, Mon.-Fri.; 12:30pm-5:30pm, Sat.; Closed, Sun.

If you're looking for furniture or items to decorate your home, this is absolutely the place for you. It's a great thrift shop to stop in while you're hunting for vintage (复古) treasures. You will always be surprised at some of the amazing things it offers, so make sure you stop by to have a look!

L Train Vintage

Address: Multiple Locations

Opening Hours: 12:00pm-7:00pm: every day

This is a cool family-owned vintage brand popular with vintage shoppers since its opening in 1999. You can always find well-priced outerwear and sweaters, so it's a good choice to visit the store when winter is approaching. You can usually find all sizes there, which makes it the perfect place for anyone to check out!

Cure Thrift Shop

Address: 91 3rd Ave, NY

Opening Hours: 11:00am-9:00pm, every day

This is one of those great thrift stores in New York for a good cause — profits benefit diabetes (糖尿病) research. It's a surprising place to shop for secondhand clothing, household items, and even furniture. Prices can be a bit higher than those in some other thrift stores, but there are lots of deals if you know what you're looking for!

Beacon's Closet

Address: Multiple Locations

Opening Hours: 11:00am-8:00pm, every day

Beacon's Closet is an amazing establishment with locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is another one that supports charities and gives back. You can buy, sell, and even exchange cool vintage pieces. It has everything you can imagine, including some famous brand names, so you'll definitely find something that you fall in love with.

"I have to be home earlier than all my friends," my teenage son, Jordan, said. "I' m seventeen years old, and I still have a curfew(宵禁). Legally, I'm practically an adult."

"You're not an adult," I said. "You're still in high school." "None of my friends had a curfew. You don't trust me." "It's not about trust," I said. "It's about wanting what's best for you. I want to protect you." "Protect me from what? Having fun?"

I sighed. How could I make Jordan see that I only wanted the best for him? I decided to go for a walk. I opened the front door and nearly stepped on him: a small black cat with a white-tipped tail. "Hi, Meatball," I said, scooping him into my arms. "Are you ready to come back inside?"

Meatball usually seemed happy enough to come in the house, but after an hour or two, he sat by the door, meowing to go back outside. "Why won't he just stay in with us all the time?" Nathan asked. "Because he's used to living outside," I said.

Jordan's curfew had become an ongoing discussion that rarely ended well for either of us. I decided to ignore his comment. Thankfully, he didn't say anything else.

One night in January, temperatures were usually low. Meatball stood at the door, meowing to go outside. "It' s too cold out there, Bud," I said. "You'll freeze." He stared at me and meowed again. "Mom's not being mean to you," Nathan told the cat. "She's just trying to keep you from turning into a frozen Meatball." We both laughed at his joke.

The next morning, I couldn't find Meatball. Jordan said, "I let him out last night." It took me several minutes to find him curled in a tiny ball beneath my husband's car. I picked him up, unsure if he was alive or dead. While I called the vet, Jordan warmed towels in the dryer and wrapped them around Meatball.

"I'm sorry, Buddy," I heard him say over and over again. "Mom was right. Even though you didn't want to, I should have made you stay inside where it was safe."

注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

As I drove to the vet's office, Jordan sat in the back, holding Meatball inside his coat for warmth. 

On the drive home, Jordan surprisingly apologized to me. 

The custom of lighting up flower lamps during the Lantern Festival has a history of over 2,000 years in China. Various kinds of flower lamps with diverse styles are popular in different parts across the country. According to some Chinese folk customs,  the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, (witness) by a full moon hanging high above the sky, people will light up various lanterns at night to celebrate. It is the time for the whole family  (enjoy) the bright moon, fire firecrackers, guess lantern riddles, eat the rice glue balls and celebrate the holiday (joyful). As a form of art, the Chinese flower lamp combines  variety of skills, procedures, decoration methods and raw materials. Typical flower lamp includes the dragon lamp, the palace lamp and the dragon- phoenix lamp, etc.

Today,  (economy) development and social progress provide the (motivate) for upgrading designs and creative styles of lamps. Whether paper lamps, electric lamps  LED lamps, flower lamps have seen the changes of time.  has never changed, however, is craftsmanship. Flower lamp is more than a handicraft; It's also an inheritance. Watching flower lamps has become a culture, which  (pass) down from generation to generation.

I was waiting in a checkout line. A woman and two boys were ahead of me. At the cash desk, a white-haired man had begun to1 his goods. Then came the question. Sometimes it's a customer with multiple coupons (优惠券), or someone who forgot to2 a piece of fruit. Fair enough. One waited.

But today, it was something else. The man didn't have3 money. So he began the process of choosing which4 to keep and which to hand back. He paused over each one before keeping or5 it. We waited. Longer lines surged ahead.

6 , his7 came to an end. The man turned back to us as he left,8 and apologetic. We waved off his chagrin (懊恼). It could happen to anyone.

But I had no idea just how9 the family of three ahead of me were until their turn came. The woman asked the cashier to add all the10 goods to her bill as quickly as possible. Then the two boys11 through the exit with the small bag of groceries. When they returned, it was clear that their mission had been12 .

Then I13 all it took to witness this flash of14 was waiting a little longer in a checkout line. I could have caught the bus. But I felt so15 on my feet that I walked home instead.