【推荐2】When my dad finally finished the triathlon in Montauk, the crowd cheered. It showed me how his hard work paid off. I wondered whether a small boy of my size could ________ something like that. My father ________ me and said I could train with him.

After a few weeks of ________ , I signed up for my first triathlon. Before the competition, I nervously waited for the ________ . When someone fired the gun, I was ________ , swimming towards the distant buoy (浮标)that marked my turn. I ________ the half-mile swim and ran towards my bike. I was dripping wet, trying to ________ it. Once on my bike, I experienced an excitement specific to ________ . I went through the transition zone (转换区)again and ________ my running shoes. At the start of the run part of the triathlon, my ________ already felt like they were made of cement (水泥).

For me, the real competition began during the run, ________ now I could see each competitor as a target. No matter my ________ in the field, each racer was either following me or being followed. The run part of the race boiled down to ________ tolerance. “Shut up, legs”, one of my favorite quotes, kept me from ________ the burning feeling. Then I crossed the finish line. I took a breath and then began a (n) ________ with the other finishers. The sense of accomplishment was there for all of us.

【推荐3】On a cold afternoon in January 2015, Yesenia Diosdado, 11, got off a school bus. She noticed that a(n)________   woman was trying to communicate with an Emergency Medical Service worker using sign language, but he couldn’t understand her. “I heard him________an interpreter,” Yesenia says.

She ran over to the paramedic (护理人员) to________— her mother, a former sign language interpreter, had________her and her sisters how to________ (no one in the family is hearing-impaired).

“She said, ‘I sign. Can I help?’” says EMS captain Chris Winger. “I was________.”

Yesenia was able to________to the emergency worker that the woman’s neck was injured and tell them the name of the local hospital she preferred. “She looked really________,” says Yesenia. “I’m proud that I got to do________ to help.”

When her mother, Susan Milidore, 36, heard about Yesenia’s________actions, she wasn’t surprised. “It’s in her     ________to help,” says Susan. “I was impressed that she recognized the________of the situation and took charge. Most adults wouldn’t have________that.”

A few weeks later, paramedics________Yesenia with a gold coin and a certificate of appreciation at her elementary school.

“My mom always says that you________know when sign language might come in handy,” says Yesenia. “That day, it did.”

【推荐1】For a long time, I had always wanted a cat. Unluckily, my parents didn’t share the same________. Every Year, I would ask for a cat，but I always got the same answer “No”. So I ________year after year, hoping they would finally________. Right when I was about to ________, my seventeenth birthday came around in May. My parents were still against raising a cat, but my friends gave me a big________. On my birthday, they showed up with a wide-eyed, shaking kitten named Bandit. At that moment, I was filled with________. My lifelong wish finally came true! I knew my life was about to________．

To my surprise, Bandit was the shyest cat I had ever met. Whenever I wanted to play with him, he tried to________. I didn’t know how to deal with him．Upset and angry, I________shouted at him, but that didn’t work. So then I tried a rude ________：carrying him directly to the outside world as he meowed (喵喵叫)________. But as a matter of fact, I ________to tell you that it didn’t work，either．However, I gradually found that he seemed to be________to my mom. How could the one thing I loved most love my mom more? I thought of many________including maybe she can speak the language of cats, or she was drawing his ________with a secret treat. I went to________ with her about both, excited and ________.

“I didn’t have a secret treat, dear. What I do have is patience,” my mom________replied．Ever since then. Bandit has been encouraging me to become more and more patient. He has ________me to grow up and he has also brought my family closer. We eat dinner and talk together at the table more often now, usually with Bandit as a ________. Bandit is an important member of our family.

【推荐2】One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor________the question papers, with the text facing down as usual. After he handed them all out, he asked his students to________the page and begin. To everyone’s surprise, there were no________just a black dot (点) in the center of the page. The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s face, told them the following:

“I want you to write what you________there.”

The students,________, got started on the inexplicable (令人费解的) task.

At the end of the class, the professor collected all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them, with no________, described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After all had been________, the classroom was silent, the professor began to explain;

“I’m not going to grade this. I just wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the________part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot, and the same happens in our lives. We have a white paper to observe and________, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a________given to us with love and care and we always have________to celebrate: nature renewing itself every day, our friends around us, the job that________our livelihood (生计) and the miracles (奇迹) we see every day.

________, we insist on focusing only on the dark spots: the health issues that bother us, the lack (缺乏) of money, the________relationship with colleagues (同事), the________with a friend, and etc.

The dark spots are very small compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds.

【推荐3】He lost his arms in an accident that claimed his father’s life---who was the main____ of support for the family. He had to____the arms of his younger brother. For the sake of taking care of him, his younger brother became his____, never leaving him alone for years. Except for writing with his toes, he was completely unable to do____in his life.

One late night, his younger brother accompanied him into the toilet and then went back to the dorm to____. But being so____, his younger brother fell asleep, leaving him on the toilet for two hours. As the two brothers grew up together, they had their share of problems and they would often____. Then one day, his younger brother wanted to live____from him, living his own life, as many normal people do. So he was____and didn’t know what to do.

A____misfortune befell a girl, too. One night her mother, who suffered from mental illness____. So her father went out looking for her mother, leaving her alone at home. She tried to prepare a____for her parents, only to overturn the stove,____in a fire which took her hands away.

Though her elder sister who was studying in another city, showed her____to take care of her, she was determined to be completely____. At school, she always studied hard.

One day, the boy and the girl were both invited to appear on a television interview program. They both were asked to write something on a piece of paper with their toes. The boy wrote: My younger brother’s arms are my arms;____the girl wrote: Broken wings, flying heart.

Disasters can____at any time. How you handle misfortune when confronted with it is the true test of your character. If you choose only to complain and____from the ordeal(磨难), it will always follow you wherever you go. But if you decide to be____, the hardship will turn out to be a(n)____on which new hopes will arise.

【推荐1】One day I took an orange — and — white cat home, which I called Splash. However, I had one concern with __ her to my dog, Bee, which had a distinct __ for cats. My own cats were wise enough to ___themselves in the barn（谷仓）and fields. I was _____ that Splash didn't understand this and would be a victim.

I took Splash to the barn, but soon she __ the house and was curious about it. She made a straight line for the door. Bee enjoyed the ___ at the door, so when Splash showed up, Bee came up in ____ But Splash faced her threatener ___ and swiped at（(猛击）the approaching dog. Then something ___ happened： Bee pulled to a sudden stop. He __ and went back to the back door slowly.

Every day for the next few weeks, Splash would walk to the___ in the morning, and Bee would come and try to drive her away, only to find a____enemy. Over the next few months, I watched an aggressive dislike turn into a playful __ between the two. They began to share the back-door space and sometimes the __ especially for the faithful dog.

One day, seeing the two companions playing together, I ____ this dog and cat were almost the same as the nations of this world. Actually, some of us are like Bee, who started a fight with the intention of____ an unwanted invasion（入侵），and some of us are like Splash, just wanting someone to __ life with. Bee and Splash are two different animals with the natural tendency that should put them in _______. Yet they've come to a place where all the ______ are set aside, and they_______ each other fully. Why can't we?

【推荐2】We have all heard how time is more valuable than money, but is it _______ to have too much time?

I remember back in high school I spent most of my day at school since I also _______ a team sport. By the time I got home, I only had a few hours to do my homework, and I had to do it _______.

When I got into college, things_______. I suddenly found myself out of class before noon time. Because of all this _______ time, there was no _______to do my school work immediately. I was performing this action of waiting until it later became a _______. Once that happened, I just kept _______ my studying further and further back in my day. Then I got to the point where I was _______ really late at night to get my work done.

One day I met a former classmate of mine who was making a lot of money running a sideline (副业). Since his regular job was ________ , I asked him why he just didn’t do his sideline full-time. He said without the job, he would ________ have too much time and would just do what I did back in ________. He said that if he quit the job, he would lose his ________ to work and succeed.

So, try ________ your time with other work. This is why there is a ________ that if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.