【推荐1】Tired of the busy and chaotic life in Las Vegas, Nevada for nearly ten years, my family and I decided to slow down to lead an eco-friendly life. None of us felt that this could be ______ where we were living and we all agreed that a move to the country would be great for everyone.

Before long we ______ looking for a home in Yucca, Arizona, a very small town of less than 1,000 people. When I called to ______ about the property, I was informed that there was no electricity available in the area. What? No electricity? I almost ______ the idea immediately. But what better way is there to go green? After giving it a second ______, we decided to put in a(n) ______ and moved in on Thanksgiving Day.

When we first moved to the property, we did some ______ and stayed in our motor home. We were faced with real challenges at the time. But the ______ just made us work harder. We slowly got things fixed and moved into the house after 38 days.

While living here for the past four months has been a big ______, there are many benefits to living off the grid (电网). I think one of the most ______ lessons is teaching my kids the importance of ______. We started taking quicker showers, doing only full loads of laundry, turning off the water while brushing our teeth. ______, we are also trying to make other changes which include reducing the amount of trash we generate by ______, growing our own organic vegetables and re-purposing things that we would ______ throw.

Overall, going off the grid has been ______ to our family. I hope that once my kids moveout of the house, they will keep the habits that they have learned by living off the grid.

【推荐2】Life will be peaceful if you always do kind things. I teach my daughters to develop a habit of ______ others. The little acts of ______ give you chances to provide service for others. They can make you feel how ______ it is to be kind and helpful.

We ______ in a rural (乡村的) area. Most of what we ______ is beautiful nature. One of the exceptions to the ______ is the rubbish that some people throw out of their car windows as they drive along the rural roads. One of the few ______ of living here is short of ______ public services, such as rubbish collection, which is common in the ______.

A helping behavior that I practice regularly with my daughters is driving around to pick up rubbish in our neighborhood. My daughters often have a ______ to see who can collect the most rubbish. They will often say to me in a(n) ______ voice, “There’s some rubbish, Daddy－ ______ the car!” And if we have time, we will often get out of our car and pick it up. ______ it may seem strange, we do it. In fact, we ______ it. We pick up rubbish in parks, on sidewalks, almost anywhere. One day, seeing a stranger picking up rubbish or the road, I stopped. He ______ his head and smiled, “I saw you doing this with your family. It’s a good ______ to protect our environment.”

There are many other ways to ______ kindness for others. You may share a dinner with a beggar, visit ______ old people in the nursing home, or help the blind ______ the street. You can think of something that can be finished ______ but helpful. It is fun, self-satisfying, and what’s more, it can set a good example. Helping others is helping yourself.

【推荐2】Once there was a little boy who enjoyed reading books, especially comic-strips (连环漫画). His uncle called him “Sparky”, after a comic-strip horse named Spark Plug. But it was _________ for Sparky to feel happy at school because he failed every subject in the eighth grade. Though he did manage to enter the school’s golf team and tried very hard, he still _________ the only important match of the season.

Throughout his youth, Sparky was shy and felt _________ with strangers. It wasn’t that the other students disliked him. It’s just that no one really _________ all that much. In fact, Sparky was _________ if a classmate said hello to him after class. Sparky was a loser. His classmates knew it, so he learned to _________ it.

But Sparky was fond of drawing. He was proud of his artwork. No one else appreciated it. But that didn’t seem to _________ to him. In his high school, he sent some cartoons to the yearbook. The editors _________ his ideas. Despite that. Sparky was _________ of his ability. He even decided to become an artist.

So, after completing high school, Sparky wrote to Walt Disney Studios. Despite __________ preparation, it wasn’t accepted, which __________ that he was a loser again.

But Sparky still didn’t give up,he decided to tell his own life in cartoons. The main character was a little boy who always lost and failed. Because Sparky’s cartoon character went on to become a kind of cultural phenomenon, people __________ identified with (认同) this “lovable loser”. He reminded people of the painful and __________ moments to walk from their own past of their pain and their shared humanity. The character soon became famous worldwide. And Sparky, the boy whose many __________ never kept him from trying, whose work was not accepted again and again, is the highly successful cartoonist Charles Schultz. His cartoon strip Peanuts continues to __________ us, even the losers, to find a way in our life.

【推荐3】I always knew that I depended too much on my phone. ________ I didn’t know how much, so I decided to do this ________ to find out.

Every morning since I got a smart phone, I’ve used The Weather Forecast App to find out what to ________. On the first morning I had to dress without guidance, but ________ I was able to guess that the day would be cold and foggy by looking out of my window.

I couldn’t know what time it was. I haven’t worn a watch for more than a year, because my phone told the time. So I was late for ________ friends who had been on the bus for two hours from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes. I was also ________ for my part-time job. And ________ , I couldn’t call people to tell them that I was running late.

Getting places was harder, too. I got lost because I couldn’t use the GPS on my phone. My driving, though, got a lot ________ because I no longer had my phone in one hand checking directions while driving my car.

But the number one trouble was not having my contact list. I forgot to write down my friends’ and family members’ phone numbers before I ________ the challenge. It was sad to realize that I couldn’t remember my brother’s and my mum’s cell phone numbers. Oh, how I ________ to turn on the phone for just a second to look up phone numbers!

Even with all the problems, however, I found ________ not worrying about missing a text message or an e-mail.

This challenge was a(n)________ learning experience. It surprised me how I’d taken no notice of even the ________ things like remembering phone numbers. We all should ________ some time to think about how we can depend ________ on our cell phones.

【推荐1】Ciudad Perdida, Colombia’s “Lost City” is older than Machu Picchu. There are no trains or buses allowing of _________ travels to reach its ruins. The remote place is only _________ on foot: a tiring multi-day hike.

Despite this, I couldn’t _________ the opportunity to visit Ciudad Perdida. 12 other hikers and I went there in _________ with a licensed guide. The dirt path, which _________ through towering palms and dangling vines (藤蔓), proved _________ right from the start. Along the way we also met the _________. They have been left _________ for centuries and there’s a deep bond between them and the land.

The next morning, we were off early to _________ the heat, but high temperatures and muscle pain had already set in by the time we reached the final stage—1,200 stone steps to __________. After finally lifting my painful body up the long flight of stairs, my eyes __________ the scene that had __________ the backbreaking journey: Ciudad Perdida.

I looked down and wondered at the beautiful site below. While the return trip included __________ the mental hurdle (障碍) of having already accomplished our goal, the experience is the one I would do __________. It is the difficulty that makes the journey a more __________ one. Earned views are always better.

【推荐3】Not long ago, I was the guide on a wildlife-photography trip to Svalbard near the North Pole. After two days of _________, we arrived there and _________ several seals resting on the ice. I _________ my camera and a motion sensor near the edge of a hole to get a(n) _________ of a seal.

The next morning, I was woken up because a polar bear was _________ closer. At first the bear walked toward our boat. Then it made a(n) _________turn and headed directly for my camera. The motion sensor reacted to the bear’s _________, making the camera start taking pictures. The bear circled the _________, gently sniffing it. Unexpectedly the camera _________ into the hole and disappeared beneath the deep ice.

That was the __________ moment in my photography career. I was so __________ with myself. A year later I obtained __________ to bring a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to find the camera. There was a lot more ice than the __________ trip. As I knew well, polar bears could be nearby. We decided to __________ it. The ice was so thin, and soon we __________ technical difficulties and had to pull the ROV out of the water twice. __________ on the third try the ROV found the camera. We shouted and __________ around on the ice.

I was overjoyed to see all my __________. I saw the polar bear breathing and sniffing the camera. __________ that camera is the most satisfying __________ of my career with the lovely animal and its habitat presented.