【推荐1】Juan Manuel Ballestero was on the island of Porto Santo in Portugal. There were no infected (感染的) people on the island, ______ his home country of Argentina had serious pandemics (疫情) and ______ all international passenger flights.

Worried about his ______, he reasoned that the best way to ______ his 90-year-old father was by sailing. So he took his sailboat and started an 85-day ______ alone across the Atlantic Ocean. ______ by sailboat came as second nature to Ballestero, who is a skilled sailor and fisherman with ______ on the water since he was 3.

Despite his experience, the voyage presented him with great ______. Terrible storms threatened (威胁) along the journey and he almost ______ his life off the coast of Brazil when he met heavy winds and waves that shook the small ______ from side to side. ______, he never considered stopping or heading back to Portugal. “There was no ______ ” he said, adding that he couldn't ______ the thought of being away from his family.

Alone and at the mercy of the sea, Blstereo wished for ______ at times. Luckily, a group of dolphins ______ him company on and off for 3,000 kilometers .A skua bird paid a visit, too. They seemed to serve as a ______ that he should “keep going”.

By the time Ballestero ______ on Argentine soil, news spread about the ______ visitor. He received a hero's ______. Photographers, reporters and local supporters showed up. The ______ story has made headlines around the world.

【推荐2】Miss Bessie was only five feet tall, but she was the only woman strict enough to make me read Beowulf. I shall never forget the day she ____ me and persuaded me to read it.

“But Miss Bessie,” I complained, “I ain’t much ____ it.”

“Boy,” she said, “how dare you say ‘ain’t’ to me! I’ve taught you better than that.”

“Miss Bessie,” I responded, “I’m trying to be the ____ of the football team, and if I go around saying ‘it isn’t’ and ‘they aren’t’, my friends are going to laugh at me.”

“Boy,” she said, “you want to be the leader ____ you have courage. But do you know what ____ takes courage? It’s ____ to lower your standards to those of the crowd.”

Then, I ____ saying “it isn’t” and “they aren’t, ‘‘ and I ____ became the leader, without losing my friends’ ___.

Born in 1895 in poverty, Miss Bessie grew up in Athens, Alabama. She never attended university because she could not ____ it. In the local high school, she ____ a lot about Shakespeare and the great importance of ____. “What you put in your head,” she once said, “can never be ____ by anybody.”

During her ____ 44-year career （职业生涯）, Miss Bessie taught hundreds of youngsters. I remember her now with ____ and affection. Miss Bessie noticed things that had nothing to do with schoolwork, but were important to a youngster’s ____. Once a few classmates ____ my worn-out overcoat, and as I was leaving school, Miss Bessie   ___ me,” Carl, never worry about what you don’t have. Just make the most of what you do have —a brain.

When Miss Bessie died in 1980, hundreds of her former ____ mourned. Many of them, ____ by Miss Bessie’s example, became excellent teachers.

【推荐2】One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor ________ the question papers, with the text facing down as usual. ________ he handed them all out, he asked his students to ________ the page and begin. To everyone’s surprise, there were no ________, just a black dot (点) in the center of the page. The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s face, told them the following:

“I want you to write what you________ there.”

The students, ________, got started on the inexplicable (令人费解的) task.

At the end of the class, the professor ________ all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them, with no ________, described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After all had been ________ , the classroom was silent, the professor began to explain:

“I’m not going to grade this. I ________ wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the ________ part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot, and the same happens in our ________ . We have a white paper to observe and ________, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a ________ given to us with love and care and we always have________to celebrate: nature renewing itself every day, our friends around us, the job that ________ our livelihood and the miracles we see every day.

________, we insist on focusing only on the dark spots: the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the________ relationship with colleagues, the ________ with a friend, and etc.

The dark spots are very ________ compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds.”