【推荐1】A few years ago, I was with a close friend in a grocery store in California. As we walked along the aisle (过道), we became _______ of a mother with a small boy going in the opposite direction. The woman don’t noticed us because she was so _______ with her child, who _____ to eagerly pull items off the lower shelves. As the mother became more and more annoyed, she started to _______ at her son and progressed to shaking him by the arm.

At this point my friend spoke up. A wonderful mother of three, she had probably ______ in her life ____any child so harshly (严厉地). I _______ my friend would give this woman a serious _______ about the effect of this kind of behavior on the boy. However to my _______, my friend said, “What a(n) ______ little boy. How old is he?” The woman answered, “He’s three.” My friend went on to say how _______ he seemed and how her own three children _______ in the grocery store, pulling things off shelves. “He seems so bright,” my friend said. A(n)________ smile came to the woman’s face. She said, “Yes, he’s very smart, _______ sometimes he wears me out.” My friend responded, “They can do that; they’re so _______.”

As we _______ away, I heard the mother speaking more ______ to the boy about getting home and cooking his dinner. “We’ll have your favorite foods,” she told him.

How _______ my friend achieved harmony in the situation! Really, although sometimes it’s necessary to _____someone physically from hurting another person, more often it is helpful that we show love and _____to those lost in anger, allowing them to remember their own tenderness (温柔).

【推荐2】My dad was a farmer. He never regarded anyone as a ______. He could really talk to any person, and his favorite thing to do was to ______ their income. Once we were at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and my dad was sitting with me as I was waiting for my ______. A Russian woman who could not speak a word of English sat next to my dad, but that did not ______ him. At last, he found out her business, how many children she had and of course how much she made.

I was a shy person and used to be somewhat ______ by this. My mom was a very ______ person as well, so she was ______ by this too. But my mom told me a story about how she was in the doctor’s office with dad and ______ he was his usual self-talking to others all the time in the waiting room. My dad even started talking to a young man in a wheel chair who could neither ______ nor move his arms or head. He ______ could do nothing. But my dad still kept asking him questions and finally got the young man to smile in ______. And he carried on like that with the ______ man until he was called back to the doctor’s office. Then the father of the young man came over, ______ my dad’s hand and said, “Thank you for ______ to my son, most people just turn away when they see him.” Hearing that, I realized that my father’s ______ of talking could make a difference.

【推荐3】On a cold winter afternoon, I was walking home from a ______. I felt a little tired as I was carrying my shopping bags. They were so heavy that I decided to stop to ______. I noticed an old man ______ poor clothes walking out of a restaurant. He was holding a paper bag. He walked to a nearby dustbin and looked into it.

I suddenly felt ______. I knew the old man would take all that he could get, so I went up to him and ______ him some fruit. The old man, with wrinkles (皱纹) on his face, looked up in surprise and took what I gave him.

A big smile appeared on his face. Then he said, “Wow! Today is my ______ day. First, someone gave me this sandwich and this drink, and now you give me some ______. Thank you, boy.” Then he went away ______.

Just then, I ______ what the saying “Giving is getting” really meant. Everyone in the world needs help and everyone can offer help.

Sometimes giving doesn’t cost much, ______ it means a lot to the people who receive your help. The man’s happiness at that moment comes into my mind every time I have the chance to help others.

【推荐1】Christmas Eve, 1870. Richard Wagner and his wife, Cosima, had agreed not to give each other Christmas presents. They were simply too ____ But Wagner was planning a surprise ____.

For more than two months he had been crafting a piece of music to be performed outside Cosima’s ____ on Christmas morning. He had ____ it on themes later to be used in his opera Siegfried, plus a little nursery song he had written for their ____ two years earlier. He ____ the Siegfried Idyll three weeks before Christmas and ____ for conductor Hans Richter to recruit the members of the small orchestra. Richter conducted ____ rehearsals (排练), first in Zurich then at a hotel in Lucerne.

Wagner ____ philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to the final rehearsal on Christmas Eve at the Hotel du Lac and they arrived together at the Wagners’ ____ in the village of Trihschen. There they found Cosima decorating the Christmas tree and ____ presents for the children.

At seven o'clock on Christmas morning the musicians arrived and ____ arranged themselves on the stairs outside Cosima’s room. They began to ____.

“As I awoke to the light of dawn,” Cosima said later, “my mind passed from one ____ into another. Familiar ____ from Siegfried came, to my ears. It was as if the house—or more accurately—our entire being, was rising up in ____ and going up to heaven. Birdsong and sunrise, together with music from Siegfried, soothed (慰藉) my heart and I came to ____ that I was not dreaming, and yet was ____ the most sublime (庄严) of all dreams. Now ____ I understood all of Richard’s writing in secret.”

And yet Wagner had ____ his pledge (誓言) not to buy his wife a Christmas present. December 25th was Cosima’s birthday.

【推荐2】A few years ago, an elderly woman entered my video store, along with her daughter. The daughter was displaying a serious case of ______  ,  ____  her watch every few seconds. If she had possessed a leash(绳子), her mother would have been  ____  to it as a means of pulling her along to _____  the rush of other shoppers.

I  ____  and asked if I could help her find something. The woman smiled up at me and showed me a _____  on a piece of paper.  _____  rushing off to find the DVD for the woman, I asked her to  walk with me  ____  I could show her where she could find it and I want to enjoy her  ____ for a moment. As we walked along the back of the store, I ___  its floor plan: old television shows, action movies, cartoons, science fiction. The woman seemed glad of the unrushed  “trip” and _____  conversation.

I said to her daughter, “ ____  some advice?” “Of course not,” said the daughter. “_____   her ,” I said. “When she's gone, it's the little _____  that will come back to you. Times like this. I know.” It was  ____ . I still missed my mom and remembered the times when I'd used my impatience to make her  ____ .

Together they made their way toward the store's resting area. They sat there for a moment, side by side,  _____  the holiday crowds. Then the daughter _____   and immediately regarded her mother lovingly. And slowly she placed her arm with  ____  unaccustomed affection around her mother's shoulders and  _____  guided her back into the crowd.

【推荐3】Once upon a time, my father and I got lost in a forest in France. I must have been about twelve or thirteen. Anyway, it was before the time when most people ________ a mobile phone. It was in the Loire Valley. About half an hour later, my dad ________ the truth. “Oh, it seems that we’re lost.” We walked around and around in circles, trying to find the path, ________ with no luck. I could tell my dad was starting to ________, even as he was trying to hide it from me. We had been in the forest for hours then and both knew my mom would be in a state of great ________. At school, I had just been told the story of the hikers who had died in the wild and I found it easy to ________ that would be our fate (命运) too. “If we keep going in a ________ line we’ll get out of here,” my dad said.

And he was right. ________ we heard the sound of cars and ________ a main road. We were eleven miles from the village where we had ________, but at least we had signposts (路标). And I often think of that strategy, when I am totally ________ — literally (字面上的) or metaphorically. I thought of it when I was faced with an unexpected ________, when my heart beat rapidly with ________ and didn’t know how I could make a living. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same ________, will always get you further than running around in circles. It’s about the ________ to keep walking forward.

【推荐3】

Ariel Cordova-Rojas rode her bike to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, New York, planning to go hiking and bird-watching. A mile into her walk, she ________ a female mute swan near the water’s edge. Cordova-Rojas, who had been ________ at the Wild Bird Fund rehabilitation (康复) center in Manhattan, knew that mute swans can be ________. But as she________ this one, it didn’t move.

She was certain that the bird needed ________ attention. Cordova-Rojas covered her jacket over the bird’s head to keep it calm, ________ picked it up, and held it in her arms. And then a thought ________ her: What do I do now?

Her best ________ was the rehab center. ________, that was across the East River on the other side of town. How was she going to ________ a 17-pound swan on her bike all that way? Luckily, some bewildered strangers driving by ________ her, her bike, and the swan a lift to a nearby subway station.

On the subway, no one seemed particularly ________ by the feathered passenger. They were busy with their own things. Cordova-Rojas called the rehab center on the way, and Tristan Higginbotham, an animal-care manager, picked her up at the subway station and drove bird, bike, and ________ to the facility. There, staff members ________ that the swan might have lead poisoning (铅中毒), caused by ________ weights used on fishing lines.

The staff got the swan back up on her webbed feet. She even made a boyfriend at the center—another injured swan. Sadly, even with all that care, the swan ________ a bacterial infection. Two months after Cordova-Rojas came to her rescue, she ________.

It’s a ________ ending, but the real story is just ________ some people are willing to go to save a swan in the big city—literally. “In all, Cordova-Rojas traveled two hours by foot, car, and subway,” says Higginbotham, “That’s the perfect ________ of who she is.”