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【完形填空】Cloze: The School That Counted Trees
The bell rang at 6:40 a.m., and Zhou Lan was already at the gate (1) a paper handout.
"Line up by class," she said. "Nobody (2)."
Forty-three children, aged eleven to thirteen, shuffled into two rows.
Behind them (3) Jiangwan Road Primary, a 1962 building with a cracked bell tower and a playground the size of four parking spaces.
In twelve minutes a fleet of seventeen electric buses (4) arrive.
The school had been told to shut within two years; the land was (5) 410 million yuan.
Lan, a head teacher of twenty-four years, had memorised every name on that handout, and she would not let anyone (6) late.
Her favourite pupil that autumn was a boy called He Wei, twelve, who could not sit (7).
He would spin a pen compulsively, tap the desk, whisper during maths.
Standard tests classified him (8) a probable failure.
Lan suspected something simpler: he was bored.
There was no conservatory, no running track, only a treadmill in the corner of a damp gym.
So she gave him a mission — map every tree on the street, note its bark, its span, its moisture.
By mid-October he had recorded 208 trees, with a rough accuracy that impressed her.
"You have a gift," she told him. "Do not let a test (9) you."
He grinned. The tree count kept rising.
Meanwhile, enrolment fell; that year 96 pupils left for private schools, and the district's budget shrank at a rate of 11 per cent, a slump nobody could (10).
Then in March came the official notice. The campus was to be sold; the children would be sent to a school three miles away.
Parents wailed. A committee of eleven mothers collected 2,300 signatures, but the paperwork had a wrinkle: one missing stamp.
Lan was asked to counsel them. She chose her words carefully. "If we fight," she said, "we fight with data."
She spent six weeks compiling a report: 208 trees, 40 years of records, 1,200 former pupils, air quality readings 18 per cent better than the district average.
Investors wanted a shopping complex — an enormous, unbeatable plan, worth 410 million.
The old street had a cohesion she could not convey in a spreadsheet. Some evenings she walked the lanes alone, watching cats burrow under the wall.
On 9 June the council held a hearing. He Wei, now thirteen, spoke for four minutes. His voice shook. "The trees," he said, "are alive."
He had maps, names, dates. Then an official began to speak, and the room went quiet.
The sale was approved; compensation of 28 million yuan was set aside for a new school block, but the playground would shrink by 60 per cent.
"You can't fight a ratio," the official said. Lan understood. She did not scream, did not weep loudly. She signed the paper with a steady hand.
There was no triumph; there was only a strange, quiet dignity in finishing the job. The children would lose their garden. She could not compensate for that.
Work began on 3 September. The trees came down first — 208 to nothing in nineteen days, a violent, dull rhythm of saws.
He Wei watched from a bus. He vomited once, then sat silent. "I'm sorry," Lan said. "Don't be," he replied. "You taught us to count."
That was all. The new school opened in 2021, four floors, a small yard, 12 metres by 30.
Teachers were told to focus on productivity, on scores, on efficiency. Lan retired in 2022, after 31 years.
She now lives near the old site, where a commercial tower stands, and she keeps a folder of 208 pressed leaves.
On a Tuesday last month she met He Wei again, aged twenty, studying botany.
They stood on the pavement where the gate used to be. He pointed to a thin sapling, half a metre tall, growing from a crack in the concrete.
"A survivor," he said. Lan knelt down. The sapling was perhaps a descendant of an old tree; she could not confirm it.
She did not know whether it would live. She reached out, brushed the small leaf, and said nothing.
Choices
(1) A. by B. with C. in D. on
(2) A. has run B. runs C. is running D. ran
(3) A. was standing B. stood C. had stood D. stands
(4) A. should B. would C. will D. could
(5) A. worth B. worthy C. cost D. worthwhile
(6) A. to be B. been C. be D. being
(7) A. still B. yet C. already D. just
(8) A. for B. as C. with D. like
(9) A. disqualifying B. disqualify C. to disqualify D. qualify
(10) A. defect B. reflect C. deflect D. inflect