Chris Dempsey first learned about Heather Krueger when he was on his break at work. He overheard his coworker Jack Dwyer mention that his cousin Heather had just developed stage IV liver（肝）disease. She was only 25, Dwyer said, but she wouldn't survive much longer unless she could have a liver transplant（移植）.
Dempsey wanted to help. "If someone in my family were in Heather's situation, I would want somebody to step up and help me," said Dempsey, who phoned the hospital and immediately started the testing. He wasn't sure what would happen to Krueger if he wasn't a match. But a few weeks later, the tests came back. They were positive, and Dempsey was happy to give up to 55%of his liver to save Krueger's life.
Dempsey wanted to call Krueger to tell her the good news. Though they'd texted, they'd never spoken before. After Krueger hung up the phone, she ran down the hall to her mother and cried. When Dempsey hung up, he felt"like a totally new person. "
A few days later, Dempsey and Krueger met to discuss the operation, but they ended up talking about much more things. Krueger explained that she had to quit her job as a nursing assistant when her illness became too serious. Still, as Dempsey remembered it," She didn't look like a person who was sick. She was beautiful, and she had this smile on her face the entire time. It was amazing how high her spirits were. "Moreover, the two planned for a public fundraising to help pay Krueger's medical bills.
On the day of the transplant, Dempsey and Krueger sat side by side in hospital beds, surrounded by their families. The operation went well and they were both released from the hospital within a month.
Puffin Books, the publisher of UK writer Roald Dahl's classic children's books like Matilda and The Witches, came under fire in February due to their ehoice to cut out hundreds of impolite words such as"fat"and"ugly"in Roald Dahl's stories to make them more acceptable to modern readers.
Although the publisher argued that they were meant to allow Dahl's hooks to continue to be enjoyed by all today, many people were still angered by the practice. Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie was among those who reacted angrily to the rewriting of Dahl's words. He said that "it's important that works of literature are preserved", noted Sky News.
According to The Conversation," children's literature implicitly（潜移默化地）shapes the minds of child readers by presenting particular social and culture values. Children can be intiuenced easily to works which can shape the way they grow up and understand the world. "
Personally, I believe in the intelligence of children to explore the world around them. It is the job of teachers, parents and that other adult guardians to help children understand that books are products of their times and that authors-even the best among them-are human beings with their own flaws（缺点）.
After all, just as Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, a nonprofit organization that protects writers and freedom of expression, wrote on her Twitter," If we start to change and adapt the great works instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk destroying the beauty that literature offers. "
With this kind of understanding in mind, we can provide children with the tools to judge and sort out what they read. This is a skill needed now more than ever in a time of"fake news" and the rapid spread of disinformation（虚假消息）.
The Brain of a woodpecker（啄木鸟）experiences a seemingly catastrophic impact every time its beak（喙）hits wood. "When you see these birds hitting their heads against a tree, we as humans get puzzled why they don't get headaches or brain damage," says Sam Van Wassenbergh, a researcher at the University of Antwerp.
In the past, scientists have suggested the bird's brain is protected from the impacts, perhaps by a beak that absorbs some of the force, or something in its head that acts as a cushion（缓冲物）. But Van Wassenbergh didn't think so. So he led a team to study using high-speed video of woodpeckers in action. The videos showed some striking details. For example "they close their eyes at the moment they hit the wood. " Van Wassenbergh says, to protect their eye from flying bits of wood.
The videos also showed that woodpeckers' beaks often get stuck in the wood. But they get free almost immediately, thanks to a clever beak design that provides independent movement of the upper and lower beak.
What the videos did not show is any sign that the woodpeckers' brain is somehow cushioned. "The way we see the head behaving is very rigid（死板的）, like a tool hitting wood," Van Wassenbergh says. That means the head repeatedly experiences slowdowns that would cause an injury in a human brain.
Yet the woodpecker brain appeared unharmed, even after thousands of impacts in a single day. This is possible because of its small size and weight. Van Wassenbergh says. "An animal that has a smaller size can stand higher slowdowns," he says.
That idea was suggested in 2006 by Lorna Gibson, a professor at MIT. Now, it has been confirmed by the high-speed video. A woodpecker's brain is about 700 times smaller than a human brain. "That is why even the hardest hits we observed are not expected to cause any injury," Van Wassenbergh says.
Easy Solutions to Stress
Does stress often wear you down? It's almost impossible to totally avoid stress, but the following tips will help you to get it under control so that it doesn't take over your life.
Rely on other people
Studies of both animals and humans show that social contact can help you better respond to stress. Avoid people who always need something without giving back or who are always short with you
Leave the house 15 minutes early for appointments, set up a system for paying your bills, refill your daily supplies a week ahead of time and buy birthday cards whenever you see ones you like. A little advance planning can spare you a lot of headaches!
Keep a journal
Reflect on your day, your emotions and your personal goals. While writing them down, include everything that stresses you, so you can start to recognize what your problems are and take appropriate action.
Cut your to-do list in half
Most of us set the bar too high. After you've written your to-do list, decide what's most important to you in the long run, then cut the list in half. . For example, hire a neighbourhood teenager to water your garden or skip cooking and order takeaway.
Laugh a little
Laughter also helps keep your heart, lungs and muscles healthy and build up your resistance（抵抗力）. Plus, it's nearly impossible to stay tense while you're laughing. Therefore, find cartoons, videos or TV shows that make you laugh.
A. Avoid last-minute rushes.
B Make detailed plans for daily activities.
C. Writing is also a great way to relax and put things in order.
D. If you can't cut out certain tasks, try to have someone else do them.
E. As we all know, laughter is the best medicine for both your body and mind.
E. So establish a network of people you can turn to and ask for some helpful advice.
G. When you laugh, you send chemicals called endorphins（内啡肽）to your brain that ease pain and promote your feeling of wellbeing.
As I have perfect pitch（绝对音感）and started playing piano at 3 years old, it's much natural for me to join the school's choir when I got to college in the US.
At first, everything went pretty 1 : I passed the audition（试音）, and was even invited to join the more selective Chamber Singers. However, I soon became 2 after several rehearsals（排练）: From jokes to music theory, I simply couldn't understand what they were talking about! And when I 3 others' pitch mistakes, they seemed unwilling to accept. I remained silent even when I knew the pitches were 4 .
It was our New Year Concert last year that 5 me out of deep waters When we were singing the words of a song: "To live is to give", I thought "how could I be 6 just being a silent Asian? "Soon after the 7 , I started my plan. In my second term, I 8 to join all the conversations and started to help fellow singers with my abilities 9 identifying pitch. I was overwhelmed by the content of helping people, and was thrilled 10 more choir members came to me for casual talks.
From March to May, I was 11 soloist（独唱者）for four different songs, an unusual 12 for a first-year student. Among them, my favorite piece was a Spanish folk song that we 13 during the choir's spring tour to Madrid. A Chinese student singing a Spanish song in an American choir-how proud I was to 14 as an ambassador of cross-cultural communication! When the audience applauded us, I came to see a better world with understanding, 15 and love.
China is celebrating its eight Space day, which falls on April 24. The country （make）remarkable achievements in space （explore）over the past decade.
The Tiangong space station complete at the end of 2022. It has three main sections: core module（核心舱）and two science lab modules and is usually made up of three （astronaut）. The three crew members of the Shenzhou XV mission are in it now.
In moon exploration, China has sent five robotic probes（探测器）to the （near neighbor of Earth since 2007. The Chang'e 4 landed on the far side of the moon in January 2019 and became the first craft to make measurements and observations about this area closely. Its rover, the Yutu 2, has been working there for nearly 1,600 days, has become the world's longest-operating moon rover. The most recent mission, Chang'e 5, landed in December 2020 and returned 1,731 grams of moon rocks and soil.
In addition, the Tianwen 1 mission was launched in July 2020, which travelled more than470 million kilometers before （enter）the orbit of Mars in February 2021. Its onboard rover, Zhurong, landed in May 2021, making China the second country （send）a rover on Mars successfully.
Richie and her husband, Pooh, decided on visiting Cape Cod, a beautiful sea town, which is about three hours drive from the city of Boston. Their daughter who then lived in Salem close to Boston insisted that she would pick them up. But they were confident of their sense of direction and not wanting to trouble her, so they refused her offer. They decided to take their journey in their own car and started early in the morning.
After a three-hour drive, they arrived in Cape Cod and started their new discovery with a road map of the town and its suburbs. Since there were many places to see, it took them the whole day to finish their sightseeing.
Now, they were visiting a suburb with shops selling handmade items. Richie was most interested in shopping, while Pooh warned her to finish before it started getting dark. They were so absorbed in their shopping that they forgot about the time until the shops began to close.
They took the same route back. Pooh had a very good memory and a keen sense of direction and so Richie just blindly followed him, without knowing where they were heading to. Soon they found themselves just going round in a maze, realizing they got lost on the way.
They had to stop the car, referred to their map, and started again. After some time, they realized it was no use trying and finding their way back. Their mobile phones had been dead for hours, and it was impossible to contact their daughter. Having no other option, they decided to ask someone for help, but being a Sunday, the roads were empty, with no people walking around or cars passing by. They were getting worried and terrified with each passing minute. The darkness and panic filled Richie's head with horrible thoughts "Would they be robbed or attacked?"After hours of waiting silently in the darkness, they decided to try again.
注意：
●续写词数应为150左右；
●请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Pooh turned the key and tried to start the car, but it wouldn't move.
On the edge of despair, they heard the whistle of a car.
