【推荐2】A year ago I paid no attention to English idioms, ______ my teacher said again and again that it was important.

One day, I happened to meet an Englishman on the road, and soon we began to ______ . As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner shook his head, saying, “You don’t say! You don’t say!” I was surprised, I thought, perhaps this is not a ______ topic. Well, I’d better change the topic. So I said to him, “Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? ______ the way, have you ever ______ there?”

“Certainly, everyone back home will ______ me if I leave China without seeing it. It was great.” I said, “The Great Wall is one of the wonders in the world. It is a place of ______ ,” Soon I was interrupted (打断) again by his words, “ ______ !” I couldn’t ______ asking, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?” “Well, I didn’t ask you to do so”, he answered, gently surprised.

I said, “Didn’t you say ‘You don’t say’?”

Hearing this, the Englishman ______ to tears (眼泪) . He began to ______ , “ ‘You don’t say’ actually means ‘‘really!’. It is an ______ of surprise. Perhaps you don’t pay attention ______ English idioms.”

Then I knew I had made a fool of ______ . Since then I have been more ______ with idioms.

【推荐3】I fell in love with reading when I was a child. Through reading, I developed a good ____ with my parents.

___ as a second-generation South Korean in America, I was raised in an environment in which my parents ____ to settle in American culture. My parents were awkward, strange and different. Their limitations as immigrants(移民) ____ me; as a child, I was alone and quiet. I grew up in a family where I     was ____ to speak English. I wanted to ____ the depth of the books I read but the words ____ me, like my parents. I wasn't able to change the situation ____ I was placed in, but I worked very hard. Every ____, I went to the library to check out new books. I would have ____ reading all the books by Friday afternoons. I became a better ____. Pretty soon, I was the ____ reader in the class. People would look at me in ____ as they saw me read 500-page books in only a few days. But I believe the greatest ____ was reading every night to my parents. Every evening, we ____ together in our living room, and I read to them. Slowly but surely, our ____ grew. My parents can communicate with others ____; for me, grammar quizzes became a piece of cake.

Today I'm ____ to have Asian-American parents who were ____ enough to learn English from a young boy and wise enough to ____ their son to read at a young age.

【推荐1】A single tremble shook beneath my feet. The trees above me began to sway (摇 摆) hard. Then came the deadly _________ that could only mean one thing, destruction. Every house and object was now _________. My vision blurred (模糊) even more when I saw the remains of my house. The house that used to_________ all the happiness in the world was now_________ a pile of ruined pieces. I _________ all the times I played with my little brother and sister. Images of them were _________ in my mind, so I let the darkness sweep over me completely so I could see them vividly one last time. I regained a bit of my _________ after lying on the ground for some time. My eyes viewed different things, but I walked on mindlessly, with no_________ to anything around me at all.

Years have passed since the disaster that _________ me years ago. I never thought I would be okay again after this__________ event.

Today I am going on a trip to California to help __________ of a recent earthquake. Then, I see her. A young girl is weeping into her arm. I walk toward her. Losing family was__________, but because of my life changing experience, I am strong, and I can __________ the lives of those who are suffering as I was. When I reach the girl, she stares at me with sad eyes, and I gently stick out my hand for her to hold to. One day, she may __________ others the way I did for her. She holds my hand tightly, and together, we look for a brighter future where we can help those around us and__________ the world starting with one disaster at a time.

【推荐2】As sixth graders, kids were separating into groups, but I wasn't sure where I belonged.

Our teacher gave us a task called "secret friends" for the coming week. We were supposed to do nice things ______ our fiends without letting them know who was doing it. We could leave ______ notes or cards cither on their desks or in their backpacks. Before doing the task, with our eyes closed, from a basket, we ______ a name of a classmate who we were to secretly befriend over the next five days.

Soon, the task was turned into a competition of giving ______ instead of notes. Everyone was getting cool presents except me. My friend followed the teacher's directions without a fault. I received nothing but handmade cards with nice words about me.

On the last morning, I finally got a package. When I ______ it, the girls around all ______ . It was perfumed powder, an "old lady" git. My face went red.

I tried to forget about the ______ gift, but when the same girls ______ it again during the break in the bathroom, I joined in, "How stupid! My grandmother wouldn't ______ want it." The girts laughed at my remarks and filed out of the bathroom. Washing my hands, I let the water run through my fingers ______ I thought about my words. It wasn't normally like me to say things like that.

"I'm your secret friend." It was Rochelle. "I'm sorry about the gif," she whispered to me, tears ______ down her face.

From a poor family, she was a target at school for those with rich parents. Yet she just took all the ______ and the horrible treatment silently.

I was sick to my stomach as my ______ words ran through my mind. She had heard everything. How could I have been so cruel?

Later I learned she had felt bad all week about not being able to leave me any cool present and her mum had given up her only luxury.

And I had ______ everything for her.

I told her that I had only said those things to try to fit in.

"We aren`t that different from each other, are we?" She smiled ______ . Her simple words, spoken from her heart, found their way straight into mine.

【推荐3】“Four eleven-year-old boys, Wow!”

Standing sleepily in the store’s entrance, I_______this strange sight. My dad had just dropped me off to shop for Christmas _______ but my brother and his friends had a more noble_______ for shopping.

“Do you think Caitlin will like this?”one of the boys asked. And my brother, looking rather _______, was standing in front of a shelf of socks. “Okay. The pink one would be a good idea,” I _______.He picked up one and presented it to me for_______.

They used up all their _______some of which they had saved up over the course of the year for Christmas gifts. But, they had all _______to spend it on Caitlin.

Just nine days before Christmas, Caitlin's house had been _______to the ground. By____________Caitlin and her parents had all escaped.____________, everything in the house was engulfed(吞噬)in flames, including the Christmas presents____________to be wrapped(包装).

The school was ____________their books and uniforms, And all the ____________in Caitlin’s class were taking her shopping for clothes while the boys were shopping for things like scarves and socks.

When we got home, my brother brought everything he had ____________for Caitlin to my room to make sure I thought she'd like everything one last time.

“I think she’ll love everything, ”I said, and____________ him, even though he tried to push me away. I was so____________of him at that moment. He____________all his savings for a new skateboard ____________for a friend who needed a Christmas present more than he did. He had, through this act of a pure heart, captured the true____________of Christmas.

【推荐3】Yesterday was Mother’s Day. Unfortunately, my mother was not among the many happy mothers, as I couldn’t visit her this year. I made a ______on the phone that I would go to see her as soon as possible.

My mother always says that kids don’t need to ______a national day to say they love their mums. However, I remember one year I ______calling her on that very day, and the next morning she rang up to complain about it.

If you ______Thailand, you could hear the sentimental (伤感的) songs about mothers’ greatest love playing in ______places a week before the holiday. Schools, especially, are places that take this day very ______. Back in my teenage years, I ______there was once a Mother’s Day singing ______and my friend represented the school. She was so emotional while singing the famous song on Mother’s Day ______Kah Nam Nom that she almost didn’t finish the song.

______, her deep connection to the song helped her to ______third prize. After the contest, I asked her why she was so emotional about the song. She told me that while she was singing, suddenly she had the ______that one day her mother would no longer be with her and every word in the song became ______. Every time I hear this song, it’s not my mother who ______to my mind but a ______of my friend crying with a microphone in her hand. The image ______vivid (清晰的)today.

Last week, a colleague ______an experience with me — every year on Mother’s Day, she has to attend a ______ceremony at her daughter’s school. Every year the teachers invite ______to the school for a big gathering in which students pay ______with flower garlands (花环). She said that the event was filled with the sobbing sounds mixed with Mother’s Day anthems (赞美歌).