【推荐2】The clock had just struck eleven when I first heard a noise coming from the lift. I opened the door of our room and listened: someone was _________ against the door of the lift and calling out at the same time.

“What’s wrong?” I shouted. “The door has been stuck (受阻) and I can’t _________.” The _________ came back. The voice came from several flights below.

My wife had now _________ me and she went off directly in search of the night porter (守门人). After calling to the girl that help was on its _________, I went back into our room to get some _________ to rescue her. Then I hurried _________ the stairs until I reached _________ the lift was stuck.

I tried my hand at forcing to _________ the lift door, talking all the while to the girl trapped inside, __________ my tools were of no use for this purpose. Very __________, however, my wife returned. __________ to find the porter, she had called the police, who agreed to send an engineer. __________, she had got in touch with the fire service.

In a short time, the engineer appeared. Almost immediately the fireman arrived too. With his __________ equipment it took the engineer only a short while to get the door open. In spite of her horrible experience, the girl was in good spirits. “I’m hungry.” was her only __________ as she stepped out of the lift.

【推荐3】In 1971 a young man who grew up very poor was travelling across the country, trying to make a new start for himself. Along the way he had completely run out of ________ and was forced to spend the night in his car. This ________ until one morning, after a week of sleeping in his car, he walked ________ into a restaurant and ordered a big breakfast.

After eating his first good meal in ________, he found himself ________ to the waiter, telling him he had lost his ________. The waiter, who was also the owner, walked ________ the chair where the young man had been sitting. He bent down,________a $20 bill that looked ________ it had fallen on the floor and said, “Son, you must have ________ this,” the owner said. The young man couldn’t believe his ________! He quickly paid for the breakfast, left a ________, bought gas with the change, and headed West.

On the way out of town, he began to understand ________the fellow did. Maybe nobody dropped the money ________. “Maybe that fellow just knew I was ________ and he helped me in a way that didn’t ________ me. So I just made a ________ to help others if I can.”

Later, he worked very hard and became a(an)________ man. Now, he lives near Kansas City. Each year he ________ thousands of dollars. He is known as the “Secret Santa” because at ________ time each year, he personally hands money out to those on the streets and at restaurants. Last year, he gave more than $50, 000 away in Kansas City.

【推荐1】Sports are important in our family. Both of our sons were high-school _______. So I shouldn’t have been _______ when Lauren announced she was going out for the girls’ basketball team. But I was because she has Down syndrome (唐氏综合症).

My wife and I never told Lauren that she was _______ . We treated her like our other children. We didn’t want her to feel disabled.

I discussed Lauren’s _______ with my wife that evening. She thought Lauren would make the team and she was right. Lauren did _______ it because not all the girls wanted to play.

The season’s first basketball game _______. It kicked off to a good start, but soon Verden, Lauren’s team, was behind. Lauren _______ followed the movement on the court and reacted to every _______. Even though Lauren wasn’t playing, she looked as if she were having the time of her life. I felt _______ for my daughter.

Just less than two minutes were left, and Verden was down by seventeen points when Lauren was called in for the game. Lauren ________ the others fairly well. Then they passed Lauren the ball. She ________ it. She shot. She scored! A few minutes later, Lauren ________us in the stands. ”Did you see? I scored! I made a ________!”

For sixteen years, I’d tried hard to ________ Lauren from feeling like she was different. But watching Lauren in the game, I saw that she really was different-not physically or emotionally, but ________.

【推荐2】I often watched her from my kitchen window, she seemed so _________ as she played basketball with a group of tall boys on the playground. The school was across the street from our home and I would often _________ the kids as they played after school.

I remember the first day I saw her playing basketball. And I began to notice her at other times, basketball _________, playing alone. One day I asked her why she practiced so much. She looked directly in my eyes and without a moment of hesitation she said, “I want to go to _________. The only way I can go is if I get a scholarship (奖学金). I like basketball. I am going to play college basketball. I want to be the best. My Daddy told me if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.”Then she _________ and ran towards the playground happily to practice over and over again.

Well, I had to give it to her—she was _________. I watched her through those junior high years and into high school. Every week, she led her basketball team to success.

One day in her senior year, I saw her sitting in the grass _________. I walked towards her. Quietly I asked what was wrong. “Oh, nothing,” came a soft _________. “I am just too short.” The coach told her that at 5´5" she would _________ never get to play for a top team—not to speak of offering a scholarship—so she should __________ dreaming about college. She told me that her father said those coaches were __________. They just did not understand the power of a dream. He told her that nothing could stop her except one thing—her own __________. He told her again, “If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.”

The next year, as she and her team went to the Northern California Championship game, she was __________ by a college recruiter (招生人员). She was indeed offered a scholarship, a full ride, to a Division 1, NCAA women’s basketball team. She was going to get the college education that she had __________and worked toward for all those years.

It’s __________: If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.

【推荐3】In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed ____but one with quite a____ story to tell.

My grandma, an amazing woman,____from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that ____. But one year after I started college, she _____cancer. I made the choice to stop learning at college to ____her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to____.

Then I got married with another dream: building my _____with adopted and biological (亲生的)ones. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was_____— and very exciting. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then _____son No. 3. In 2003, I ____birth to another boy.

You can imagine how _____occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8! Our home was a complete zoo — a joyous zoo. Not surprisingly, I _____did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream, either. I ____ only one choice: to find a way. That ___taking as few as one class each semester.

The hardest part was feeling____ about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to____, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.

In 2007, I finished my study in the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to ____my college degree!

I am not____, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you're inside, it just seems normal. Everything you want won't arrive in your life in a day. It's a____ . Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.