【推荐2】I had been skiing since childhood. I’d _________ fallen, I’d never crashed into anything, and I’d _________ mostly to the “blue” trails — the ones for intermediate (中级水平的) skiers. Therefore, for my first day on the mountain, I decided to _________ a blue run, one I had done many times before.

When I reached the top of the blue trails — only chairlift (缆椅), though, something in the atmosphere _________. Why was it so cold? Were the blue trails always this sharp? The rhythm of the chairlift started to sound less _________.

It _________ that simply having skied “many times before” didn’t mean I was getting better at it. There’s a large body of _________ showing that practice—or even just doing — doesn’t make us any better at the activity, so it is with skiing. The joy of getting better sometimes comes along with the _________ of getting worse.

One afternoon, I took a chairlift with a retired ski _________ named Bob. When I told him I was struggling, he __________ to watch me take an easy slope and assessed what I was doing wrong.

Bob __________ me that the learning process looks a lot like backsliding (倒退). When babies first learn to walk, they progress from __________ imitation. Sometimes it seems that we’re losing ground, but we’re actually __________ a new skill. An __________ attempt is often a sign that you’re learning.

“You’re skiing better already!” he shouted at me.

“Thank you!” I yelled back.

Then I skied a few more feet and __________.

【推荐2】Madhavan stood proudly next to a young mahogany (红木) tree. It’s one of 100 he planted on his _________ in Meenangadi. His two _________ of land in the village are used to plant _________ crops—coffee, black pepper and betel nut, but the worsening environment has _________ his production.

Now the mahogany _________ is one of his only reliable sources of income, _________ him up to 5,000 rupees (卢比) a year—and all he has to do is to keep the _________ standing.

The 84-year-old _________ is being paid to plant and _________ trees through a “tree banking” program, which __________ to create India’s first carbon-neutral (碳中和) village by 2025.

Madhavan got his saplings (树苗) __________ from the village council (村委会)，which will lend him 50 rupees per __________ for every year if he does not __________ it down until 2031. At that point, the loan is written off (一笔勾销) and he can do what he likes with the trees without __________ back, including cutting them to __________ and make money.

“Every morning, I spend some time __________ these trees. I am really happy to say that except for three which died __________, all are steadfastly growing,” Madhavan said, “Sooner or later, my farm will become a small __________ filled with greenery.”

The tree-banking project gives farmers an ongoing __________ to protect trees so as to make the climate better, said Jayakumar, director of the carbon-neutral program. “The message here is that climate __________ is being linked with climate justice (气候正义), he said.

It is perhaps the most ironic symbol of the life on our planet. The Amazon is the world’s largest and most bio-diverse tropical rainforest and a huge trap for carbon dioxide. The harms of _________ in this vital resource are old news. But now, the time on the clock is running out. It seems that the world’s biggest rainforest is about to turn into the world’s biggest environmental _________. “We are about to collapse,” says Luciana Gati at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. “We are in a(n) _________, we need action now.”

Gati has spent years _________ the Amazon from the air. She believes we are as little as five years from a point of no return, where rainforest begins to turn into dry land. It is also the point at which billions of tons of carbon would be _________ into the atmosphere. “It’s a nightmare,” she says.

That nightmare situation is the well-known Amazon _________ point, where the ecosystem can no longer cope with the damage of the forest cutting. Like a domino game, one brick falling will _________ the whole tower to collapse in a heap.

Warnings that this is approaching have now taken on extreme urgency. The rate of deforestation has increased sharply and is fast approaching the theoretical _________. In September, a group of more than 200 experts, including Gatti, released an assessment of the situation. The conclusion: we are on the _________ of disaster.

Scientists first began to seriously worry about a potential Amazon tipping point in about 2000, when some studies warned that a combination of climate change and deforestation could cause the rainforest to __________.

A few years later, a team of Brazilian scientists put numbers on it. They __________ that in central, southern and eastern parts of the Amazon, a loss of 40% of the forest cover from pre-industrial levels, or 3°C warming would reduce rainfall so much that the rest of the forest would die of __________ and turn into a dry land in less than a decade.

The scientists have since __________ that prediction, partly due to the global warming that has happened since 2000. The Amazon is already 1.2°C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times and is warming three times faster than the global __________. At that rate of warming, between 20 and 25% deforestation would be enough to dry up the land and destroy the Amazon completely.

“Either way, we would be wise not to exceed 20%”, says a scientist, “for the commonsense reason that there is no point in __________   the precise point of limit by tipping it.”

【推荐1】Growing up in California, I was always outside. Any weekend, you'd find me swimming, water skiing, or riding bikes-you_________ it. I did it.

Skiing was one sport I never learned, _________I loved the idea of it. So when I recently got _________ on a ski trip in Deer Valley, I_________ the chance, figured it wouldn't be that_________to learn. After all, I'm fairly _________. And I used to water ski— that has to count for something, right?

Turns out, not so much. I told our instructor I was “beginner level,” and I was _________with some women who'd skied only a_________ of times before. Then, we started “skating” toward a chairlift. Immediately, I was left in the_________. Obviously, skiing “a handful of times”before doesn't __________ “never”.

When we reached the top, I started down an easy green __________ with others in our group. OK, this isn't so__________! I'm doing ill I thought at the start of the run. Then we hit a steeper section. I only had one __________ running through my mind: I'm going to die. However, my pride didn't let me __________, so I took off-I mean, really took off. I started leaning out of control, picking up speed, and ended with a nose dive into the __________. In fact, my fellow skiers were initially __________ thinking that I had a natural__________for skiing. Then they realized the speed wasn't __________.

Even though I was still a little shook up by my crash, somehow, I gathered the __________ both physically and mentally-to do more runs, and I'm so__________I did. To be fair, I never reached Lindsey Vonn level, but I did gain a little more confidence and speed after each run.

【推荐2】Harry Smith, aged 81, and Sarah Jane, his dog, were on their morning walk around the lake. Suddenly, he lost _________ of his electric wheelchair and soon, he was nearly _________—but, “man’s best friend” jumped into action.

His electric wheelchair lost balance in the area covered with tree leaves, which caused him to _________ down the bank and flip off (翻滚) his wheelchair into water in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Mr. Smith needed _________ as he could not swim and _________ to stay afloat.

Knowing her owner was _________, Sarah Jane began barking like crazy—which _________ two bystanders across the street. Edward Suhling and his friend Jacob rushed over to the lake and _________ a local police officer. When Officer Doty arrived, he saw Smith sinking and water _________ up to his neck.

The two bystanders and Officer Doty __________ together to pull him out of the water and up the bank. __________, he was healthy enough to return home. His electric wheelchair was __________ from falling into the water, so the first __________ pushed him back to his house, with Sarah Jane wagging her tail all the way back.

“The saying remains __________... man’s best friend is his dog,” the Port St Lucie Police Department wrote on their Facebook page. “I gave her a __________,” Smith said, laughing. “I love her so much.”