【推荐2】Thanks to my child, I believe that Santa sends out gifts every year. And I once played Santa’s _______.

One year, our son Jay _______ a new sound system. “Please bring me a new stereo (立体声唱机), _______ I don’t have to listen to my dad’s old music,” he told the mall Santa. Robin and I took note.

On Christmas Eve, we _______ Santa’s cookies and milk by the fire, put a few carrots on the roof for the deer, and put Jay to sleep _______ at the back of the house, where the sound of Santa’s shoes wouldn’t _______ him. That’s when I went to the workshop and spent the whole night putting together that stereo.

Then we moved Jay from our bed to his—he was afraid that Santa might think he wasn’t home and would _______ to leave presents. At long last, I _______ the stereo and positioned it by the tree. Robin and I fell asleep early that Christmas morning, filled with satisfaction. At 7 a.m., Jay woke us up and led us to the _______ excitedly. He fell in love with the sound system.

A few days passed, and Jay asked me a ________ question. “Dad, how did I get from your bed to mine?” Ever the protected one, I said, “Santa may ________ you! Isn’t that fun?” He said nothing, walking into the hall and looking ________ at the floor. He came ________, “Dad, look at the wheel marks on the carpet (地毯). The stereo was rolled out of that bedroom and down the hallway.” I was ________. Jay was only six, and he showed me the evidence.

After that, the real fun began. Jay got to be Santa when we gave presents to a needy family—he just ________ it. We actually got the most joy from Santa when Jay kept the magic alive with us.

【推荐3】Many years ago, I was a little girl who lived in the magical land of California. I had everything I could want. I had a pair of ______ parents and two little sisters, who though could be______ at times, I still loved. I went to nice schools, and had very good friends. I was very ______.

However, my parents ______ one day and a dark cloud covered my ______. My life began to fall apart, from my grades dropping to having ______ with those who I had thought to be dear friends. Trying to escape from my ______ world, I slowly began to build a wall of _______around myself, pushing myself further and further into darkness and ______.

By the time I reached the eleventh grade, I was completely ______ by my misery(痛苦), only burying myself in the books that surrounded me. Then one day, a miracle(奇迹) happened.

Among my ______, I came across a book that I had ______ before but had usually skipped. But for some reason, this book now had a soft glow surrounding it. ______ to the book, I began to read its tales. As I read the book, I slowly moved out of the darkness and my misery was ______. When I finally finished, I was ______ to find that I was surrounded by the ______ that I had abandoned so long ago. ______ that my parents’ divorce was not my ______, I looked at the path in front of me, and with a new hope and determination, took my first step towards continuing my life. As I began my ______, I continued to carry the book in my hands, its ______ shining in the bright sunlight: Hope and Love.

【推荐1】Never had a lovely sunflower been absent to my house on my birthday, since I turned 13. No cards or notes in it. Calls to the flower shop were always ______ — it was a cash purchase.

I never stopped ______ who the mysterious giver might be. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about someone wonderful but too shy to disclose his or her ______.

My mother even ______ my imaginations. She’d ask me if there was someone who I had done a special favor and then might be showing ______. As a teenager, ______, I had more fun assuming that it might be a boy I had a crush on.

When I was 17, I failed ______ in a significant test. That night when the result came. I just ______ myself to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, my mother comforted, “Don’t be discouraged! It’s not a big deal!” Yet, I remember ______ out of the house at that time, yelling... “You just don’t understand!”

One month before my graduation from high school, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from pain to ______ so that I became completely uninterested in the upcoming ceremony. But my mother, in the midst of her own grief, would deny my ______ any of those things. Before my father died, we had shopped a party dress which made me feel like a (an) ______ Cinderella. But it was the wrong size. Later I totally forgot about the dress.

My mother didn’t. The day before the dance, I found that dress, in the right size, ______ in the box to me — gracefully, and lovingly. She just wanted her child to feel loved and showed that there still existed magic and beauty even ______ hardships.

Actually, my mother passed away one week after I got married, That year the adorable sunflower stopped ______.

【推荐2】I stood up from the bench. Then I ______ my army uniform, while studying the crowd of people _______their way through Grand Central Station. I was looking for the girl whose heart I knew but whose ______ I didn’t, the girl with the rose.

My interest in her had begun thirteen months ______ in a Florida library. Taking a book off the _____, I found myself intrigued（着迷的）, not with the words of the book, _____ with the notes penciled in the margin (页边空白). The soft ______ reflected a thoughtful soul and a insightful mind. In the front of the ______, I discovered the previous owner’s______, Miss May Nell.

With time and ______ I discovered her address. She lived in New York City. I ______ her a letter introducing myself and inviting her to correspond（通信）. The next day I was ______ overseas for ______ in World War II. During the next year and one month we two _______ to know each other ______ the mail. Each letter was a _______falling on a fertile（肥沃的）heart. Then, I______ a photograph, but she refused. She said that if I really ______, it wouldn’t ______ what she looked like.

When the day finally came for me to return from Europe, we arranged for our first meeting—7:00 pm at the Grand Central Station in New York. “ You will ______ me,” she wrote, “by the red rose I’ll be wearing in my lapel(翻领).” So at 7:00 I was in the station looking for the girl whose heart I loved, but whose looks I’d never seen.

【推荐1】On a bright Sunday morning, Damian Languell was sleeping soundly at home in Wade, Maine, the US. The sound that woke him at 8:15 was so _______ that he assumed it came from inside his house. As he got up to _______ , he heard another sound, this one coming most definitely from _______ . Looking out of his bedroom window, he _______ a tree engulfed in smoke about 500 yards away. A car was wrapped around the tree’s base, and its engine was   _______ .

Seeing that, he immediately _______ buckets of water and ran to the crash site. Up close, the _______ looked worse. The car was _______ nearly in two, and the tree was where the driver’s seat ought to have been, as if _______ there. He thought that no one should have survived this ________ , and yet there was 16-year-old Thompson, still ________ with his terrified face pressed against the driver’s side window in visible ________ . Languell tried stopping the fire with his buckets of water with no success. When the   ________ got into the front seats, he realized he had to get the boy out of there as soon as possible.

________ , Languell tried to open the back door, but he failed. He grabbed a stone beside the tree and ________ the back door. This time, it ________ and the back door was opened and Languell crawled in. Thompson was struggling to get free when Languell noticed how bad his legs were. Using a pocket knife, Languell sawed through Thompson's   ________. Now that Thompson was free of restraints (束缚), Languell pulled him out of a rear window, and then ________ him to safety before the car was entirely surrounded by flames.

Then Languell called a (n) ________ as Thompson suffered severely. Thompson thanked Languell for saving him, regardless of his own safety. Soon, the doctors arrived and Languell felt ________.

【推荐3】While getting into Harvard Law School is not easy for anyone, Rehan, a sanitation worker (环卫工人) from Bowie, Maryland, worked hard to achieve it. And he doesn’t take all the _______ either — he gives most of it to the people around him.

When he was 8, his mother left the family and his father had to_______ to support it. Rehan’s grades dropped._______, his high school grades were so poor that he was_______ by many colleges. So he took a job at Bates Trucking and Trash (垃圾). For many people, getting the job would feel like a low point. _______, for Rehan, it was a really _______ time when his life began to turn around.

“It was the first time in my life that people who weren’t my father or my brother really just _______me to feel confident, told me I was_______.” His coworkers urged him to go back to school, and the company owner, Brent Bates, helped him get_______in Bowie State University. Rehan earned a 4.0-grade point__________and was able to go to the University of Maryland for further__________.

During his junior year at Maryland, his father was ill. To __________their family, Rehan had to return to work at Bates. __________dropping out of school, he woke each day at 4 a.m. to finish his __________before class. He scored very well in his LSAT test, and __________Harvard Law School. That school charges a high price. Luckily, the young man found another __________. Carmie McCook, a communications coach, started a GoFundMe page to help him with the __________. The goal was $75,000, but it rose to over $185,000 in __________, which helped make his dream __________. While most people heading to Harvard Law School have the grades and the financial support, Rehan just had his own __________story to stand on — the same story that makes him an inspiration.