【推荐1】The summer before my high school graduation, I went to West Virginia with others as members of the Appalachia Service Project. Our duty was to ________ the homes of those we served warmer and safer. My group was ________ the task of rebuilding sections of a home that had been damaged by ________ . No sooner had we parked on the home’s dirt driveway ________ we saw an excited little girl. Shoeless and wearing ________ clothes and the biggest smile I’d ever seen, she yelled, “Ma, Ma, they really came!” Her name was Dakota.

I discovered that my job that week would be to help ________ a fire-damaged dining room into a bedroom for this little girl. ________ the following days, I noticed Dakota ________ at us every now and then as we worked. A few times, I tried talking with her, but she remained________.

Before I went to work on her home on the ________ morning, I noticed Dakota was hiding behind her grandmother. Cautiously, she came into________, and J could see that just like her clothes, her face was still dirty. But no amount of ________ could hide those bright blue eyes and big smile. I wanted so much to ________ her, but respecting her shyness, I kept my ________.

Slowly, she began walking toward me. I noticed a folded piece of ________ in her tiny hand. ________, she reached up and handed it to me. Once ________, I looked at a drawing on the back of an old book cover. It was of two girls, and ________ on the bottom of the paper were three little ________ that instantly broke my heart: Please don’t leave. Now almost in tears, I ______ to the impulse (冲动) that I’d resisted only moments before — I bent down and hugged her.

【推荐2】Pen pals Jill Stretton and Cathie Alexander live half a world apart. However, they’ve_________ a faithful correspondence (通信) for seven decades.   

The long-lived letter-writing relationship_________ in 1950 when 12-year-old Stretton from Australia was given Alexander’s _________ by a friend. Back then, it sometimes took six weeks for a long-distance letter to reach its _________, but the pair established an instant rapport (融洽) after their first _________that has grown _________ with time.   

Though the two women didn’t meet in person until 1982, they felt as if they had truly_________ with one another, sharing life’s moments through their letters. “She is just like one of the family,” Stretton said. “And we are still together as we ever were 70 years ago. That is quite _________ for people who’ve lost confidence in ever-lasting friendship.”

Stretton and Alexander have never stopped_________ to one another. Along with hopes, dreams, photos, and family updates, through the years, their letters have contained their sweet life__________ — weddings, birthdays, graduation and so on.

While they__________ write letters, with the development of technology, Stretton and Alexander have slightly bowed to the times. For longer messages, they’ve turned to the Internet, but they agree that nothing will __________ a handwritten note. “Now, we do __________ to send postcards rather than write long letters because we email each other now,” Stretton __________ honestly. But letter writing plays the most important part in their friendship.   

The two women’s story proves that the __________ is nothing when it comes to true friendship.

【推荐3】“This Friday we’ll have the yearly Egg Drop Challenge,” said our science teacher, Mr. Baker.

“You can work alone or with a partner.”

My friend. Cassie, and I smiled at each other. We always worked on projects _________.

The goal of the Challenge was simple -- to build a protective container to keep an egg from breaking when _________ the stadium wall.

I made my sandwich that afternoon while waiting for Cassie. _________ the butter-cream gave me an idea.

“I have a brilliant design for our egg container!” I said when Cassie arrived. “We can _________ the egg with some butter cream.

Why not put the egg in a basket with a parachute (降落伞) _________?” Cassie rolled her eyes. “The parachute is better than that stupid idea.”

I couldn’t believe it. Of course we’d had our little _________ in the past, but she’d never called any of my ideas “stupid” before.

“Then I’ll build mine and you build yours!”

Since words had been out, our friendship was _________.

When Friday finally arrived, I had to _________ Cassie’s Egg Force One looked pretty good.

Anyway, my Egg-cellent Egg Cream didn’t look quite scientific. We kids carried our containers up three stadium steps and dropped them over the side wall. Those whose eggs broke were out; those whose egg _________ walked up three more steps and dropped them again. This would go on till the last egg broke. After four __________, only Cassie and I were left. I let go of my box. I heard someone say “ew” after seconds. Had my egg broken? I raced down the __________. The sidewalk was __________ with egg shell (蛋壳) from those failed drops. Finally I found my little Egg-cellent Egg Cream.

“That looks like egg drop soup, Laura,” Cassie said. She was holding her Egg Force One. My heart __________. Had she won? I looked at her basket. __________.

“My egg bounced out,” she explained, pointing to a broken shell.

“A tie.” Mr Baker said.

Cassie looked at me, and her glare __________. I laughed. She smiled…

【推荐3】A stolen baby goat was returned home to its community garden in Baltimore late Tuesday night.

Ed was reported _______ from the Filbert Street Garden on Monday night. His caretakers _______ in a Facebook post that two teenagers tore through a fence, _______ a lock and got into a barn (谷仓) to steal the animal. The animal _______ just 20 pounds (9 kilograms) and depends on its mother’s _______ to survive.

“We’re not _______ whether they are going to sell him or just kill him,” the Filbert Street Garden post said. “The community begs whoever did this to please just _______ return Ed. He is not _______ enough to live away from his mother yet and could die.”

The garden has since _______ a large number of photos of Ed. Many people ________ attention to it and hoped that it would be back ________ and sound. Security video obtained by the police ________ to show someone walking down the street with the goat in a suitcase as the animal ________.

To everyone’s surprise, the poor little ________ was returned by someone unknown before 10 pm on Tuesday. What’s more, it was really unharmed. In an update Tuesday, the garden ________ Ed’s safe return and ________ police for their help. The people who are knowing the little goat are happy with its ________ and safety. One man in the community said, “It is so ________ to see the little goat together with its mom. Actually, it’s a(n) ________ scene to return it to its dear ________ and let it live in this new world with us.”

【推荐2】It was very late that Mr and Mrs Davies took time off to do their Christmas shopping. There were only a few _________ left before Christmas, and of course the _________ and streets were terribly _________, but they had to get _________ for their family and friends. They _________ early one morning for downtown, and spent several tiring hours buying the things they _________ in the big shops.

_________, Mr Davies was carrying parcels of all shapes and sizes. He could hardly _________ where he was going _________ he and his wife left the last shop on their way to the railway station __________ home. Outside the shops they had to cross a busy street made even __________ than usual by the thousands of people who had come to do their __________ Christmas shopping.

Mr and Mrs Davies had to wait for the traffic lights to turn green, __________ as Mr Davies could not see very well in front of him, he __________ moved forward into the street without realizing __________. Mrs Davies saw this and became __________. She told him to __________ off the street several times, but __________.

Finally she shouted in a voice louder than all the __________, “Henry! If you want to stand in that dangerous __________ a moment longer,   give me the parcels!”

【推荐3】When I first moved to a city in the south, I realized that I was stepping into a completely different world. It was ________ any other place I had ever been to. What surprised me more than anything else was its people’s constant ________.

“What can I get for you, honey?” a waitress asked me on my first day here.

I was ________. This woman didn’t know me, ________ she treated me like family. She smiled down at me as I pointed to an item on the ________.

“Is the pasta good?” I asked her.

“Baby, it’s not my favorite,” she ________ with a smile.

I ________ my “family” in shock. She had given me her honest _______, as if we were best friends.

After a few years here, I got ________ to the honeys and the babies. I also realized how comforting it is to be treated like I _______, wherever I go.

I recently went to the DMV(车管局) to update my driver’s license. As I was sitting in the ________ room with at least twenty other people, a woman walked in.

“Good morning!” she ________ to the room.

“Good morning,” the whole room said back without ________. Soon the room was quiet again and everyone was comfortable with each other.

The woman took her _______, and waited with everyone else for her number to be ________.

Even after eight years of living here, it still makes me _______to know that I am not alone here. Someone is always ________ to say hello or lend a hand when needed. It is the kind of ________ that I have never been able to find anywhere else.

So I believe in treating people you don’t know like family, making people feel ________. No one should feel lonely even when they walk into a room full of ________.