After     1     as an athlete in 1986, she became a successful volleyball coach in the United States and Italy. However, Lang Ping’s     2     to Chinese volleyball brought her back home. In 1995, she     3     to become the coach of the women’s national team when the team was struggling. Under her     4    , the team came back to the top, winning the 2015 World Cup.

5 . In 2007, Whitmore was considered one of the most successful athletes in America. However, everything changed during a triathlon (三项全能) that seemed like so many others she had _______ . “Once I got off the bike and began the running portion, it was hard to pick up my legs. I knew something wasn`t right.” Whitmore tells Reader`s Digest, “I didn`t have any symptoms (症状) as long as I wasn`t running. But every time I tried again the muscles were super tight.” Assuming she`d simply _______ herself too hard in the last race, Whitmore shrugged off the pain.

It wasn`t until a _______ night at a sports camp in Arizona that Whitmore says she knew something was _______ wrong. Then she went to hospital. After examination, she was quickly _______ . What doctors found during surgery shocked them all: Whitmore had spindle cell sarcoma (梭形细胞肉瘤). When she heard the diagnosis for the first time, Whitmore says time stood _______ . “I couldn`t breathe. They were talking about treatment and I just started crying and saying ‘I don’t want to die!’” Waking up after the surgery, she was even more shocked to find out she, a/an _______ athlete, wouldn`t have the use of her leg anymore from the knee down.

Whitmore now had drop foot and had to learn to walk again with the help of a physical therapist (治疗学家). In the following days, Whitmore endured a punishing two-month _______ , after which her scans were coming back clear of cancer. To her joy, she was pregnant with twins. Now, she is a mother of two sons and competing again, and has won a gold medal in the Paralympics. Whitmore has some words of advice for others with _______ : “Never let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do. You have to ________ yourself.”

In the 1400s and 1500s, Peru was the centre of the powerful ancient Inca Empire. The Inca emperor lived in the     1     Machu Picchu. Spain took control of Peru in the 16th century and ruled until 1821. It is for this reason that Spanish is the main     2     of Peru.

Michael Jordan, known as “Air Jordan”, changed basketball with his graceful moves and jumps. His skills were impressive, but the     3     that he showed made him unique.

Tangshan started to revive itself and     4    . With strong support from the government and the     5     of the city’s people, a new Tangshan was built upon the earthquake ruins.

9 . When the author opens his memoir with a scene of his mother pushing him from a moving vehicle, you know you’re in for a fascinating read. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, who is now a daily show host, is an autobiography about Trevor’s life in Africa.

Trevor, the son of a Xhosa (科萨人) mother and a Swiss-German father, was born a crime as it was illegal for different races to marry and have children in Africa. Growing up biracial in the post-apartheid era (后种族隔离时代), his mother is an influential partner at every step along his journey. She worked diligently to stay out of poverty and keep Noah in good schools. Trevor’s mom stressed independence and free thought as well as all the values of Judaism (犹太教). Even before they knew apartheid would end, she wanted him to live freely. She took him to places that black South Africans considered “white things,” like ice rinks and the suburbs, because even if he never left the ghetto (贫民区), he would know that the ghetto was not the world. It was her mother’s aim to keep him from internalizing his oppression, and to convince him that he was greater than social labels. His mom would take him to the library and museums, and local college campuses. For his mother, being a black woman didn’t mean he couldn’t achieve greatness. She gave him permission to dream beyond his circumstances.

In Trevor’s whole early life, being mixed-race, he often wasn’t allowed to go outside during apartheid because the police could have taken him away; he couldn’t be seen with his parents and his mother had to pretend to be his maid when they were in public. So, Trevor had to have his mother’s friends pose as his mother. Trevor struggled to fit in at school as he didn’t know which group to play with. Later in high school, Trevor had to start a lunch delivery business to move up and be accepted by his fellow classmates. After high school, he started getting into comedy in 2002 and has been on TV ever since. Trevor had a rough, but loving relationship with his mother as he was always getting in trouble. Trevor didn’t see his dad much and could only meet in secret. In the end, Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother. Noah writes: “I understood even from an early age that we weren’t just mother and son. We were a team.”

Born a Crime tells a really personal and yet universal story in many respects. It is undoubtedly a life-changing story which is powerful, honest, funny and dark at the same time, still it never turns to despair, self-pity or hopelessness. It’s a story of survival against the odds and the human ability to transcend the limits of their origin. At the end of the book, he explains this miracle that happened to his mother, where she survives a bullet to the head. These stories uncover new feelings towards loved-ones, and may influence you to sincerely reconsider connections to your family and their priorities.

10 . Wang Yaping’s dream of becoming an astronaut was inspired by Yang Liwei’s 2003 space flight, which was China’s first manned space mission.

Born in a small village in Yantai, Shandong Province in 1980, Wang had been an enthusiastic long-distance runner since primary school, and competed in local sports meetings.

In 1997, Wang, a high school student, was encouraged to register for the pilot recruitment program by her classmates because she was good at sports and didn’t wear glasses. The 17-year-old had been considering applying to a teaching college, as her parents suggested.

Given her strong build and ability to stay calm under pressure, Wang passed all tests as well as physical examinations and became a female pilot in China. After four years of systemic education and tough training, Wang eventually learned to fly four different types of aircraft before graduation.

During her service as a military pilot, she accumulated 1,567 hours of flight time and was involved in major tasks such as the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake relief effort and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

In May 2010, Wang became a member of China’s first batch of female astronauts. The joy of being selected did not last long as the hard training quickly sank in.

In the first year, Wang could not get the top level in the high-G training, during which she had to endure eight times the force of gravity in a spinning centrifuge. The training imitates the environment when the spacecraft takes off, enters orbit and returns. Wang improved her performance by doing extra core-strength exercises every day to strengthen her back and abdominal muscles. She got the top level at the end of 2011. Wang realized her space dream in 2013 as part of the Shenzhou-10 mission.

Over the past two years, Wang has logged in over 6,000 hours of strict training. The most tiring exercise was the seven-hour underwater training session during which she had to wear a special suit that weighed over 100 kilograms to simulate extravehicular activities in a weightless environment.

Wang has become the first female taikonaut to work in China’s Tiangong space station as well as the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk.