修改时间：2021-05-20 浏览次数：463 类型：高考模拟
“I just think a year ago, at 54 years of age, I couldn't swim. I was terrified at the thought of going into the water. Now, I have just1my 200 meters. It feels like a2 and it is all thanks to Everyday Swim.”
It's never too late to learn swimming. Angela King, 55, is a perfect3of it .For years, she had to4sting on the side of a pool watching her family splash(拍水)around. Then in August 2016, the family went to an attraction they hadn't5for 15 years. Angela thought, “All this time, I still can't6When I get back home tomorrow, I'm going to find out more about swimming7”
In the cold light of day, she felt a little8but her husband David searched the Inter-net for swimming classes. He found Everyday Swim at the local Hadleigh pool and9Angela to sign up. When she turned up for her first training, she says, “I felt a bit sick and10but this soon passed. The instructor11put me at ease, as did the other people in the class. They were all shapes and sizes12they were all feeling like me.”
As the lessons13she learned to become more14in the water. At first, it was a simple15of learning she wasn't going to sink. Then during the third lesson, the Olympic gold medal winner Duncan Goodhew turned up to offer16“I couldn't believe it. He held my hand and we all held hands in a circle and splashed under the water. What he did made me believe that I could17it.
When the 10 lessons for £100 offer finished at the pool, she18to sign up for lessons. In fact, from initially(开始) being19of the water, Angela was now becoming a regular swimmer and20some certificates along the way.
Welcome to Inspire 21!
Our aim is to provide ”Inspiring words for the 21st century”. So, here we offer a unique collection of inspiring short stories, motivational short stories, and humorous short stories for you to read and share.
If you do care to share, click the “SHARE”button in the bottom left corner of each page. And thanks for telling others about Inspire 21.
The inspiring stories that are labeled(标记)“TRUE”are done so to the best of our knowledge, but we do not have full proof in some cases. However, all of these stories and messages are provided because of their uplifting content, whether true or not. Many books we've read and movies we've watched were totally untrue, but we enjoyed the inspiration they gave us—especially if they had a happy ending.
So, please read and share these stories at your own discretion(判断力). Thank you for your understanding!
Also, many of the inspiring stories used here are used with permission from the author. However, we cannot grant(授予) permission to reuse any of these inspirational stories, as the majority of them are not ours.
Lastly, many inspiring stories(emailed to us or we came across online )are listed as “Author Unknown” If you happen to know the author's name, to whom credit should be given, please contact us with that information so we can keep our inspiring story collection accurate. Thank you again!
Eighteen years ago, Terry Grahl, was pregnant with her fourth child. “Money was very tight,” Terry recalls. So when her mom called to ask if she'd like to go shopping at the local fabric(布料) store for the coming Christmas, she couldn't say no because she knew she badly needed some fabrics to make new clothes for her children. “I remember walking around, gazing at all this beautiful fabric, wondering whether there is anything cheap that I could afford. And I could still get some money left to buy Christmas gifts for my family.
Well, Terry's mom must have known what Terry was thinking. Smiling kindly, she whispered to Terry, “You pick any fabrics you like. It's your Christmas gift from me.” Terry's eyes were filed with tears as the cart began to overflow with many fabrics, but not because Terry was planning on making herself a pretty dress or a pair of curtains for the kitchen. Rather, Terry's mom's kindness had inspired some holiday gift ideas in Terry, and it didn't take long for Terry to figure out what she was going to do with all that fabric.
“I was going to make my first quilt,” she explains. “Every night I would work on this queen-size quilt. With every stitch(一针), I thought about all that my mom had done for me over the course of my childhood, during which we were always battling homelessness, but Mom somehow managed to fill our lives with love and make everything okay.”
On Christmas Day, five days after her baby girl was born, Terry handed her mom a gift box. Inside was the quilt she had sewn, from the fabric her mother had given her as a gift.
Have you ever noticed how Americans fill up their entire glass with ice and then pour their beverage(饮品) in, but Europeans take their drinks at room temperature? In the U. S., we've created fridges that give you cold ice at the press of a button, but in Britain they typically serve their tap water warm.
This tradition—if that's what you want to call it-dates back to the 19th century. During that time, it was already commonplace for most American homes to have an ice box. Ice would be harvested in northern America or Canada and shipped across the Atlantic and sold at a high price in British department stores. Can you imagine heading to Macy's to treat yourself to a block of ice?
Putting ice in your drink started to become somewhat of a fashion(时尚) trend for the wealthy in Britain. Some would put a few cubes in their champagne and sip on their chilled drinks at high-class parties. But, like with any fashion trend, it eventually faded, mainly because the ice was just too expensive. And even once ice boxes began appearing in homes in Britain as well, Brits never took a liking to ice in their drinks.
So, next time you travel overseas, don't feel offended(冒犯) when your server gives you an eye roll when you ask for ice water.
When it comes to mental illness, many people often find it tough to get the help they need. This is especially true for young students making the transition(过渡) to college life.
“Sometimes, students don't realize how hard it is to adjust to college,” said Laura Smith, associate dean of students at the University of Texas at Dallas. “You're not the big fish in your classes anymore; you have all kinds of personal stress; you're away from home. Dealing with these things is not easy.”
Students who are going through these problems sometimes want to reach out. But if students don't feel comfortable seeking help, many feel that it's the responsibility of their university to help them.
“I really wish that there was more importance placed on how counseling(咨询) centers help students,” said Comnie Trinh. “Counseling services are just as important as academics and sports.”
Trinh, 27, graduated from Texas Woman's University in 2015. During college, she hosted various workshops on how to handle mental health conditions. Trinh used her own story to connect with students who might be facing similar problems. High academic pressures, cultural differences as an Asian American and stressful social situations stood out as some of the most common causes of Trinh's anxiety.
It was only after years of personal problems that she could admit that reaching out isn't a sign of weakness.
”If you feel you can't connect with other people around you, you should address the issue without shame,” Trinh said. “You'll find that there are a lot of people out there who sincerely want to help you.”
A new study suggests that the timing of a wound affects the speed at which it heals(愈合). Wounds suffered during the day heal around 60 percent faster than those at night.
The study showed how the body's circadian rhythm(昼夜节律) controlled the healing of wounds It tells our bodies when to wake up, eat and sleep in a cycle—a series of activities that repeat themselves day after day
In the study, researchers found that skin cells moved faster to repair wounds suffered during the day. Their findings were published in the journal Science Transnational Medicine.
The researchers examined cells, mice, and burn injury databasesNight-time burns—burns suffered between 8 o'clock at night and 8 o' clock the next morning—were 95percent healed after an average of 28 days.
But after an average of 17 days, daytime burns-burns suffered between 8 o'clock in the morning and 8 o'clock at night—were 95 percent healed
Wounds are very costly to treatIn Britain's National Health Services, for example, such services cost around $6.56 billion per year. Experts say the high costs result, in part, from a lack of drugs that speed up the closure of wounds.
A. Each cycle lasts about 24 hours.
B. The circadian rhythm is like a clock or timer.
C. Specifically their investigation found the following information:
D. The new study's findings could help scientists develop better drugs.
E. In other words, nigh-time injuries took an average of 11days longer to heal
F. Worldwide, billions of dollars are spent every year on wound-treatment services.
G. That's what a group of researchers from a university in Canada recently published.
增加： 在缺词处加一个漏字符号(/\),并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除： 把多余的词用斜线(\) 划掉。
修改： 在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意： 1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词:
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起) 不计分。:
My first stay at home alone was very memorable. One day when I was twelve, both my mother and father were away on the business and I had to be all with my self for two days. My parents left early the first day, I got up soon after they left. The first evening I was a little scare, so I turned on all the light. I actually keep the light on in my bedroom the whole night, that finally put me at ease. For fear of get up late the next morning, I put three alarm clocks near my bed and set the alarm respectively at 6: 00, 6:10, and 6: 15. In order to prove that I could take good care of me, I washed my own clothes the next day, though I could wait for Mum to do it. I really felt proudly of myself and thought I had grown up.
Unlike some other European languages, English is a little tricky when it comes to writing. How a word (pronounce) and how it is actually spelt can be very different things. Take two simple(verb) like"have"and "save" shouldn't they be pronounced the same? Why do "sir", "her" and "fur" all rhyme, but "fork"and "work" don't?
Imagine, then, a situationtwo words are spelt and pronounced exactly the same way, but have(complete) different meanings. Welcome to the world of homonyms(同形同音异义词) ( take), for example, the word "fair"- it can be a kind of festival or an adjective to describe the colour of your hair.
So how do you know which(mean) someone is referring to?— You don't, except by the context. Obviously, if someone asks you to "give them a hand", they don't want you to removeis at the end of your arm.
Sometimes even the context doesn't help much- the result can be (amuse). These sentences play with the double meaning of a noun :I used to be a banker, I lost interest.
A small boy swallowed some coins and had to go to hospital when his grandmother phoned (ask) how he was, the nurse said, "No change yet."
"Waiter, will the bread be long?" "No, sir. It's round."
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