【推荐1】“I knew when I saw you, I wanted to take you home,” my dad said to me when I visited him one Saturday. There is a deep-seated _______ of a father seeing his daughter when she was born.

My father has Alzheimer’s (老年痴呆症). He does not _______ express in words, so the sudden accuracy of his words _______ me.

Another Saturday, he _______ a photo of me and said, “She’s smart.” Did he know the _______ person, 30 years older, was sitting beside him? It does not _______. At that moment I can feel his _______.

Now I bring a spoonful of yogurt to his lips. With a _______ hand, he touches me and says, “You’re very good. Thank you.” He _______ forgets it was he that guided me in ________ a spoon to my mouth.

These words are all he can give now. But they make me understand more deeply my ________ father.

His door was always open. Drop-in ________ were welcomed with a drink. He would not hesitate to give money to a family member ________. In the community, he ________ his time to preserve the historical buildings.

Time, advice, money. There were many ways he gave.

And he gives, ________. The disease has taken much from my father. What’s left are his words. It’s difficult for him to find the right word and say it out loud. Yet he keeps going.

【推荐2】When I heard my name pronounced by the teacher, I knew what lay ahead. She called me to the whiteboard to _______ a long division (除法) problem. Math was my _______ subject. When doing a long division problem, I always repeatedly put the numbers in the wrong places，or forgot to add in the zeros.

As I _______ the whiteboard, I looked at the blonde haired girl next to me, trying to copy what she was writing. _______ I tried my best, she went faster than I could understand. Impossible to understand. Why me? Why couldn’t I wrap my mind around this strange concept that all the other kids understood? Why, even when I _______ my hardest to deal with the division problems?

Why? Why?

I _______ back salty tears and wrote some numbers randomly (随便地) on the board. The teacher read over our answers silently.

“Now, class, Susie did this problem absolutely correctly.”

“As for Tara, ” the teacher said, _______ her eyes, “Gosh, I don’t _______ know what she did.”

The class burst into laughter, and I felt my face turned _______ as I tried to sink as low as possible into my seat, hoping to ________ them from seeing me at all. However, after class my teacher wrote me a note, ________, “No one will care how you feel, unless you ________ yourself to succeed.”

This memory from middle school is the most impressive and the only one I can remember. The experience made me feel stronger, and gave me ________. When I get a ________ grade in school, or am put down by somebody, I think of that moment and every single one of those whys that I asked myself, which gives me the willingness to ________ all of those whys and continue until perfection, or as close as I can get.

【推荐3】Every girl dreams and Catherine was no exception. She dreamed of becoming a great ballerina（芭蕾舞者）. She took ballet lessons and all her teachers ______ she was a good student.

One day she saw an ______ that a famous ballerina troupe would be ______ in her hometown. Her thoughts ran wild, "I must meet up with the leader of the troupe and show him my ______." She dressed herself in a ballet dress and managed to ______ into the dressing room without being noticed. To her ______, the leader entered and she ______ approached him and handed him a bunch of red roses. In her excitement the thorns（刺）pricked her hand but she simply ignored the pain. The leader ______ her action as she told him her dream. "Alright, you dance and I will give you my judgment." ______ half way through the dance he ______ her and said, "I'm sorry you're not good enough!" On hearing this, Catherine ran as fast as her legs could carry her and was ______. She gave up her dream.

Many years later, she heard that the same ballet troupe was performing in her town again. ______ memories of the leader's harsh words came ______ her. This time she was ______ to find out why the leader had told her she was not good enough when all her teachers thought ______.

This was his ______. "I tell this to every student." She   ______shot back, "You've ruined my life!" Then she got a further ______, "I remember your gift of roses and how the thorns had pricked you fingers but you ______ bravery. If you only had treated ballet like that and did not give up so easily; ______, you sill deserve my judgment!"

【推荐3】I was getting ready to go to bed when the phone rang. This could not be good. My mind _______ through the list of family members who might need help, but the _______was hardly familiar.

“Lindy, this is Lesley.” I didn’t know Lesley well. We did _______ speak with each other, but to say we were friends was not appropriate. I asked what she needed. Perhaps something really awful caused her to _______ someone she barely knew. _______, she asked me, “Do you have room for a turkey? In your freezer?” We had lots of room in our freezer, and in fact, too much. “Sure,” I responded, “did your freezer_______ ?” “Not exactly,” Lesley replied, “but I will explain when I arrive.”

Minutes later came a huge freezer truck. Lesley stepped down and _______ the lease (租约) of the grocer store her husband serviced had _______ and that they had to empty all the freezers that very night. Thinking it was a shame to throw away all this good food, they decided to _______ off food to anyone she could think of. ________ our freezer was pretty empty, Lesley asked to fill it up. Our home was their ________ stop and anything left would have to be put in our freezer. An hour later, everything finished, I asked her, “When will you come back for all this?” Lesley ________ , “We don’t want it back. It is yours! Thanks for helping us out!” Then they waved goodbye and drove away.

“For helping them out?” We opened our freezer door. Inside were all expensive foods we never bought but often ________ to try. We were struggling to buy groceries, ________ it was not something we shared with anyone. However, our ________ were met in an unexpected way, by that “Do you have room for a turkey?”