Describe a gift that you took a long time to choose.
You should say:
What it was;
Who it was for;
Why it took you so long to choose;
And explain how he or she reacted to your gift.

16.花费长时间选择的礼物（为了妈妈50岁的生日，想要选一个很不一般的礼物给她。找了很多 店都没有发现有新意的东西。最后在网上找到了可以自己画的油画送给了妈妈。注意该题与前一 题“花时间准备的礼物”有所不同，这里题目是“花时间选择”，对应素材内容有所调整。）

So far, the gift that I spent the most time choosing was a painting. I actually made it during a summer holiday two years ago. At the time, my mom’s birthday was coming up. I really wanted to find a perfect gift for her because it was her 50th birthday, which is pretty meaningful. So I started looking for the gift one month before her birthday.

At the beginning, I spent a lot of days looking around the gift shops and malls nearby, but it was a bummer that98 I didn’t find anything that I liked. Most gifts and crafts in those shops were just mediocre99. So I kept looking. A couple weeks later, when I was browsing on Taobao, I found the perfect gift. It was a DIY painting kit100.

Since my mom loves flowers, I ordered a landscape painting kit101 that has tons of tulips blooming in all kinds of colors, which looks quite breathtaking. Honestly I don’t have a knack for painting, so this kit was perfect for me because I only had to fill in the colors on the painting. The work cost me a week on and off102.

Fortunately, I finished this painting two days before her birthday and it looked pretty good. My mom was also over the moon receiving this gift at her birthday party. Even though I spent so much time finding this gift and preparing it, it’s totally worth it. It gave me a sense of achievement when I saw how happy my mom was to receive this gift.

98 it was a bummer that:郁闷的是，令沮丧的是
99 mediocre:很平凡的、很普通的
100 DIY painting kit:手工填充色彩的绘画工具
101 a landscape painting kit: —套风景画的工具
102 on and off:断断续续的