【推荐2】Last week, firefighters in Lincolnshire received a call. It was about a (n) _______ house fire. On learning about the news, they _______ at once. When they arrived at the spot, they were _______ that the owners were away on a tour, which greatly _______ the firefighters’ worries. However, their lovely dog, Lottie, remained inside the house, which was really _______.

After several failed _______, the firefighters successfully entered the smoke-filled house through a back kitchen door and _______ to save Lottie.

While other firefighters worked tirelessly to put out the fire, Richard and Katie took care of Lottie. The normally furry white dog was now totally blackened by the smoke and even worse, she made no _______ when they touched her. Using a specially designed pet mask (面罩) , Lottie showed signs of _______ after 20 minutes. Her eyes gradually ________.

To aid Lottie further, she was then ________ placed in an oxygen tent overnight and was expected to regain her full health.

Reflecting on the operation, Kenny McLaughlin, the Crew Manager at Lincoln South fire station and incident commander, couldn’t hide his ________ for his team.

“Our firefighters’ immediate response is worth ________. Nobody hesitated when it comes to our duty of ________ people and animals from burning houses, but at the same time we ________ the danger it means to both us and those trapped in the fire. In this case, Lottie was lucky enough to keep alive.”

So far, the cause of the fire has still been unknown.

【推荐1】I was sitting at my desk when my phone buzzed. It was a _______ from Angus Menzies, my best friend since childhood. We had planned to go canoeing (独木舟). Whenever we'd hang out, we would hold some sort of adventure, maybe to prove that we hadn't yet become old men _______ of handling difficulties.

Then came the day when Angus and I _______ at a steady pace on the massive river which had reached a record high of around 200 feet. It started smoothly but all of a sudden, we heard a deep rumbling (轰鸣声). It was the sound of the rapids. I trembled with _______ , but we _______ . The river curved ahead. We _______ over a 3-foot wave and came down with a strike as a bigger one sped towards us. We hit it high and at an angle. As the canoe tipped over, I leaped clear, hitting the cold rushing water. I _______ surfaced, trying to get my direction. The canoe, upside down, _______ across the rushing current to my right. Angus couldn't reach it and ended up behind me. The current was impossible to _______ . Later, I heard Angus's voice, "Hold on to the canoe." I grabbed it, put my cheek to the canoe's ________ belly and the current moved us steadily along.

By pure ________ , a few minutes later, a small boat came into ________ . We whistled and the boat, ________ by a father and his two sons, came over and dragged us up. The boys stared at us as we sat on the deck, soaked and ________ . As we pulled up to a shore, we saw a line of firefighters. They wrapped an emergency ________ around Angus and me. We were rescued from our crisis.

【推荐2】Like many military wives, I had to stand the long separations until my husband retired. Though I supported his chosen career, I _________ every moment away from him.

To _________ our separations, I wrote letters every day. I made up dozens of small _________ for him which I secretly put into his bag, so that he could_________ them when he was out to sea. To this day those notes are still _________ to us.

_________ in 1996 my husband retired from the Navy. But the only job _________for my husband was six-and-a-half hours away in Norfolk, Virginia.

We spent eight months_________. That was our hardest separation, perhaps because we had _________ planned to be apart again. He__________ to apply for jobs in the area where we hoped to live. We expected we would soon be able to be __________ again.

One day Louie called me with the good __________. He found a job in southwest Virginia. We were excited ! There was only one small__________. Louie would have to live in a camper(露营车),__________ our daughters and I lived in a little house an-hour-and-a-half away. My daughters were __________enough to take care of themselves, so I left them and stayed with Louie.

Louie and I spent a __________ three-and-a-half weeks together. One morning after he left for work, I sat __________ in the camper trying to remember any possession that was as priceless as the __________we stayed together. I couldn’t __________a single thing. Then all of us moved into that camper and lived there for a year. It was pure joy! I’ve learned in that year that the greatest __________ I have is the time I ’ve spent with the ones I love.

【推荐3】Before the summer of 2019, Darby was just another four-legged puppy living a quiet life with White, his owner. One day, White went fishing in Northern California’s Bodega Bay. He _______ Darby, then a year old and 100 pounds, to stay in the car, windows down, while he cast his line a few yards away. The fish weren’t _______ until suddenly, they were. At first, White thought he had caught a stingray, a type of large flat fish with a long tail. However it _______ that it was a shark, about 6 feet long. Not uncommon, but still _______. Their teeth were sharp. He brought it close and carefully freed it, _______ it to swim away. It didn’t. All of a sudden the shark bit his ankle and there was blood everywhere.

He _______ for help, hoping the fishermen down the beach could hear. But they didn’t seem to know what was going on. _______, Darby did. He threw himself out of the _______ toward the water. He ran right up to the shark and sank his _______ into its head, which just made the shark bite down harder. Darby backed off and bit the shark’s tail again. The shark ________ released and White managed to push it into shallow water, where it swam off. The ________ thing took less than a minute, but it left plenty of ________ with one artery (动脉) of his nearly cut off.

With Darby’s story known to more netizens, ________ cash offers started to come in. “Someone offered me a million dollars for him, but I wouldn’t ________ it. My mother passed away in early 2022, Darby and I became ________. This kind of dog might have a bad reputation for being aggressive, but they’ll give their life to save yours,” White says.

【推荐2】When I was in my final year of college, a good friend of mine was planning to visit a toastmaster(宴会主持人) club and invited me to join her._________I loved the idea of public speaking and hoped that the_________would be also where I would see myself someday, I was a self-doubting person filled with pessimism, which never gave me the_________to take that baby step.

Later, my another friend encouraged me to_________one of the forums. _________, I still never joined in it until I_________ . It was when I started working in a company and moved to a different city, and I was lonely that I_________myself harder to give this forum a(o)_________. Little did I know that it was this little forum that was really a start to bigger_________Since then I have started to__________the road to my career as a toastmaster gradually.

That friend doesn't know what a(n)__________his little encouragement has made on my life. Today I am a__________individual; pessimism no longer has the upper hand and I can__________call myself a public speaker. I still remember when I__________my first paycheck for my public speaking, tears weren’t enough to__________my emotions. I have been speaking on __________occasions to various audiences since then. Whenever I walk up to the platform, holding the microphone, I believe that I am nothing but myself.

I don’t just give a__________to the crowd. Sometimes, I tell them a story—one that has a__________reflection of my past pessimism, one that is related to my sincere__________for that friend of mine and one that__________my hidden passion and talent, which might have been forgotten had it not been for her encouragement.

【推荐1】Service Area Sweets

This past holiday season, I drove with my parents to Boston to visit my distant cousin. On my way back home, we stopped at a service area for food. As we stopped there, there was this old lady who was busy _________ all the tables and chairs as people were leaving, making sure everything was _________ and clean. I just thought of gifting her with five dollars and a chocolate in my pocket. I wrote on a paper napkin(纸巾) “Thank you and Merry Xmas.”

I had wanted to leave it there for her but decided to walk up to her and give her.

She asked me, “Is it a gift? Only then will I take it.”

I nodded, “Yes,” and _________ at her.

“Thank you,” she replied, and I left to buy some _________ from the store inside. On my way back to the car, the woman stopped me.

“I made a lot of cookies and candies on Christmas for people,” she explained. “Would you like to have some?” A bit taken aback, I replied. “Yes.”

She asked me to _________, and came back carrying a four-inch plate filled with different cookies and chocolates! My first expression was a big smile.

“That’s a lot,” I said, a bit surprised.

She smiled and told me that she made eighty to ninety of these plates every year, to _________ to friends and others.

I had no words or thoughts in my brain. Finally, I asked if I could hug her. We hugged, wishing each other a happy and healthy holiday season. Then, as we _________ I felt as if I had met a new friend with whom I _________ the gift of a smile and some happiness.

There is a(n) depth to the joy of giving and receiving. From either _________ both the giver and receiver are always __________.

【推荐2】Imagine students in rural Kenya using computers and reading books! 4,000 students across 10schools are busy ______ their computer skills on ______ machines. They learn everything from basic typing to coding to robotics, and even take part in ______ classes with NASA scientists in the US. Before ______ these lessons, however, very few of the students even knew what a computer was. Not being ______ to computers, children lack basic technology skills, and do not have access to STEAM programs.

TechLit Africa, was ______ by Nelly Cheboi, a 29-year-old software engineer who grew up in ______ in a Kenyan village, her single mother struggling to support the family. In 2012, she received a full scholarship to attend college in Illinois, where she discovered a love for ______ science. Upon returning to Kenya after ______, she founded her own school, Zawadi, which became a launching pad for TechLit Africa. Her organization now ______ with American colleges and businesses to ______ the recycled computers.

For Cheboi, TechLit Africa is about more than just adding ______ to children’s life: she hopes the students will use the ______ skill to find professional opportunities.

“I see a ______ in Kenya and in the rest of the continent where kids are becoming really tech literate,” Cheboi says. “Once you come to the Internet, you become ______— and by being so, you can help the world.”