【推荐2】Fifty years ago on a hot July 4th afternoon, an agent showed us a house in the South Farmingdale—North Massapequa area. My husband and I liked the house. The price was _______ our reach. So we made our decision to buy it.

But there was one issue. It was a corner property (房产). We both agreed there had to be a _______. So after moving in, my husband put up a fence and I painted it _______.

There have been many_______ in our lives since that fence went up. Our four children have grown up and _______. Most of the old _______ have been replaced with new ones. _______ , the fence remains, and at the moment, so do I.

The fence has been _______ more often than I can remember. Most times a broken board or two was _______ repaired. During the past ten years, it has been repainted professionally.

But more ________, the white fence had turned green with mildew (霉菌). The boards were too old to paint. So this spring I had it rebuilt and repainted. Within a week, however, I was________ to discover that a part of it was destroyed.

A post (桩) was ________ and some boards were left lying on the ground. 1 don’t know who or what did this. The fence is ________ a thing, not a life, but for the first time in the years I had spent on my corner, I felt defeated (被打败). I felt as if possibly there was a(n)________: Time to move on, stop trying. Defeat is not usually part of my make-up. This time it was.

As I was taking a photo of the damage for a police report, a young man ________me from across the street. He ________ himself as a relatively new neighbor, and offered sympathy (同情) for the________. I appreciated meeting him, and also his ________.

The next evening as I ate my dinner, I heard a ________ outside. When I walked into the yard, I realized the sounds came from my property. As I walked closer, I saw the neighbor I had just________ repairing my fence.

There were still warm-hearted people who loved our community and reached out to a stranger in my time of need.

【推荐2】I used to hate being called upon in class mainly because I didn’t like attention drawn to myself. And ________otherwise assigned a seat by the teacher, I always ________to sit at the back of the classroom.

All this _________after I joined a sports team. It began when a teacher suggested I try out for the basketball team. At first I thought it was a crazy________ because I didn’t have a good sense of balance, nor did I have the_______ to keep pace with the others on the team and they would tease me. But for the teacher who kept insisting on my “________for it”, I wouldn’t have decided to give a try.

Getting up the ________to go to the tryouts was only the half of it! When I first started________the practice sessions, I didn’t even know the rules of the game, much _______what I was doing. Sometimes I’d get _________ and take a shot at the wrong direction—which made me feel really stupid.________ , I wasn’t the only one “new” at the game, so I decided to _________ on learning the game, do my best at each practice session, and not be too hard on myself for the things I didn’t ________“just yet”.

I practiced and practiced. Soon I knew the _______and the “moves”. Being part of a team was fun and motivating. Very soon the competitive _______in me was winning over my lack of confidence. With time, I learned how to play and made friends in the ________ — friends who respected my efforts to work hard and be a team player. I never had so much fun!

With my ________ self-confidence comes more praise from teachers and classmates. I have gone from _______in the back of the classroom and not wanting to call attention to myself, _______raising my hand— even when I sometimes wasn’t and not 100 percent _______I had the right answer. Now I have more self-confidence in myself.

【推荐3】When I was young, I was crazy about stories of magic. I _________ myself in the books where wizards (术士) battled with the powers of darkness in _________ worlds. I was glad when they _________ in bringing peace and happiness to their lands. Like most of the readers of these stories, I wished for magical powers for myself. I wanted to be able to _________ make my pain disappear, make my _________ go away and have power over this world.

As I got older, however, I _________ that there was no such thing as magic and the cruel reality of life came up. I _________ through a long period of poverty (贫穷). I had daily _________ from a back injury that I never really recovered from. I felt _________ when my father was diagnosed (诊断) with cancer, I still sometimes __________ of magic but with time going by, even that disappeared.

Then one day, I discovered a(n) __________ kind of magic. This magic grew stronger in my heart and mind day by day and year by year. This magic was called LOVE, It __________ me to those who __________ me and those I love in this world. Though it didn’t __________ my poverty and my back pain and cure my father’s disease, it helped me see the beautiful, loving, and joyful souls (灵魂) around me. It didn’t make me a wizard but it helped me to drive away the darkness with my own __________.