【推荐1】One day when I was about nine years old, I ran into my mother’s bedroom and opened the dresser（化妆台）. Then in the top drawer was a small________jewelry box. I was fascinated by its treasures. Then I saw there was something________under a piece of cloth.________the cloth, I found a little white chip of china(瓷器). Why did my mother keep such a________thing? Shining slightly in the light, it________no answers.

Some months later, I was setting the dinner table when my neighbor Marge knocked at the door. Coming in and________the table, Marge said, “Oh, you are expecting company. I'll________another time."

“No, come on in,” Mum replied. “We are not________anyone."

“But isn’t that your good china?” Marge asked. “I’d________trust kids to handle my good dishes!”

Mum laughed. “Tonight’s my family’s favorite meal. If you set your best table for a(n)________meal with guests, why not for your own________? A few broken plates are a small________to pay for the joy we get. ” Then she added, “________，every chip and crack has a story to tell.”

Mum went to the cupboard and took down a plate. She said, “Seeing this________on the edge(边缘) here? It happened when I was 17.”

Her voice________. “One day my brother invited a young man to dinner and sat him next to me. I was so________that when I took the plate, it________and knocked against the fork. As the young man was leaving, he________a piece of broken china in my hand without saying a word.”

I couldn’t forget about that plate with the________chip. I went up to take out the little wooden jewelry box again. I examined the chip________. The chip which my mother had saved with care belonged to the plate she broke on the day she met my father.

【推荐2】My grandfather was a serious man. A quick look from him was enough to keep my sisters and me in line. _______ every summer I looked forward to seeing Grandpa in his farm. We enjoyed every moment of feeding and washing the animals.   

Grandpa was a man who didn’t show his _______ easily. There were times he caught us touching some of his personal things or exploring places that we weren’t _______ to. His quiet scolding (责备) left us _______ for the rest of our stay.   

One morning I heard “clickety-clack, clickety-clack, ping”. I stopped and found where the sound came _______: Grandpa in his study, typing a letter. I leaned _________ to see better when I fell through the door. For a while I _______ on the floor of the study. I stood up and went _______in the face, hoping the scolding would be short.

Grandpa’s eyes shone. He called me_________. I went to him __________, with my eyes looking at the floor. He asked what I was doing, and I told him that I was drawn by the __________ of the typewriter. I only wanted to get a better __________. I wasn’t going to touch anything, I __________.

The rest of the summer I stood near his elbow watching him type. How I wished to __________ the beautiful yellow keys with my fingers.

After going home, I spent the year writing poems, letters, and stories in my notebooks and__________ myself using Grandpa’s typewriter to write novels. __________, I planned to be a writer, and writers used typewriters.   

The next ____________, I’d hear the sounds of typewriter keys and walk toward them, admiring the __________ of the words forming on the page. I wished he would offer me a(n) ____________ to try it. But he never did.

____________ returning home that year, I got a parcel. I found the typewriter in the box! My serious grandfather！

【推荐3】My mother looks just like many grandmothers — short and white-haired. She comes from an old, traditional family in Canada, where she now still lives. She was a civil servant. In short, she didn’t do_________things.

That all changed a few years ago. She began to_________me with what she described as “independence”. At that time, I didn’t fully understand what she was doing.

In early 2015, the year she turned 75, she informed me she’d_________a seven-night trip to Turkey, and that she was going alone. There was no way I could_________that. A little old lady not speaking a word of Turkish, with no_________of the laws and customs of the land — it was impossible!

My mother paid no attention to me. Off she went. When she returned, she told us it had been a wonderful success. As it_________, she had barely spent any time alone, after_________a taxi driver to show her around. He introduced her to a rug vendor (地毯商) — Mustafa, “a lovely fellow”, and she bought some rugs. The vendor had taken her address details and promised to_________them to Canada.

I couldn’t believe her naivety (幼稚) and explained that she had been_________. The vendor had her money. She neither had nor would be receiving any rugs.

Well, I was__________.

To my great shock, her rugs did arrive some weeks later, along with a lovely note from Mustafa. To my even greater surprise, the following year Mustafa himself arrived in Canada.

“I invited him for a cup of tea and he came,” my mother told me. I was__________because she hardly knew this man! But again, she paid little attention to me, telling me to stop being silly.

I wondered: “Is she not thinking straight?”__________I worried about her, Mum was thinking straighter than most of us.

Her__________seemed to be based on a realization that life needs to be lived, when there’s relatively little of it left. It__________me of the line “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

I don’t think Mum knows what her next big “thing” is going to be. But I am sure, she is open to any__________, which is something we all probably need right now. Live life to the fullest.

【推荐1】There once was an ordinary street in the suburbs where no one cared much for their gardens. The lawns were overgrown, the weeds were taking over and the hedges(树篱)_________ needed to be cut back. It looked very terrible. _________ when the neighbors saw their gardens, they just looked at each other and laughed.

It seemed too hard to clear all the gardens and no one could be _________ to make them better because everyone’s garden was equally _________. No one felt it was urgent to change anything. Then a gardener named Bill _________ in the small town. Bill was a _________, hard-working and patient man who started working in the garden as soon as he moved in the street. He took his lawn mower(割草机) out to cut back the grass and pulled out all of the _________. Finally, he took up his gardening and started _________ his hedges, making them look like flowers, plants, stones, balls, etc. It was a huge project but his hard work _________ and his garden looked inviting.

__________ by the beautiful scenery, the neighbors walked by and admired the __________ manicured(修整的) garden. Before long, something __________ happened. One by one, the neighbors started to put in more effort in their own gardens and the sounds of lawn mowers could be heard again. After a few months, the street was transformed from a dirty, __________ collection of houses to a beautiful street that wouldn’t be out of place in a stylish magazine.

One person’s action showed everyone what could be achieved with a little hard work. It’s easy for us to __________ the environment around us because no one else cares about it. Remember what you positively do not only benefits yourself, but also __________ a change to the whole world.

【推荐2】“Everything happens for the best,” my mother said whenever I faced disappointment. “If you don’t ________, something good will happen some day.”

Mother was ________, as I discovered after graduating from college, I had ________ myself to be a sports announcer(播音员). So I went to Chicago to knock on the door of every station and was ________ every time. In one station, a ________ lady told me that large stations wouldn’t employ（雇佣） a person without ______ since I just graduated. “Go out of the town and find a small station that might give you ______,” she said.

I returned to Dixon, where I had finished my high school education and had ______ high school football. My father said that our town had built a store and wanted a man to ______ its sports department. The job sounded just ______ for me but I wasn’t hired.

My disappointment had ______ as if by design. “Everything happens for the best,” Mom ______ me. Dad lent me his car to look for a job. I tried WOC Radio Davenport. The program director told me they had already ______ an announcer. After I left his office, I asked aloud “______ can a fellow get to be a sports ______ if he can’t get a job in a radio station?” ______, I heard the director calling. “Do you know anything about ______?” Then he asked me to ______ an imaginary game. It was easy, and I did it without difficulty. The director was ______ and told me I would be broadcasting a game on the ______ Saturday.

【推荐3】I was driving my newly-acquired motorcycle across the vastness of North Dakota. Suddenly, it broke____on the highway. Later I found it was because something had got stuck into the front tyre.

Anyway, I sat on the __ of the highway for a long time. I tried keeping calm, but it didn’t ___. Finally, a young man____and offered me a ___. However, he already had two motorcycles in the black of his truck, he could____take me along.

He____me to the next town, where I asked to be dropped off, but he waited____while I asked around if anyone could help me to go and pick up my motorcycle. One elderly____was working and said that I could use his pickup！Could you____that? A stranger gave the key to his pickup.

It was quite an____, I must say. So, as I drove back 20 miles to get my____, the young man who first ___to help me followed me. We both put the bike in the back of the truck, and then I followed him another 50 miles or so and____we arrived at his place. We both____the bike there to repair. Then, he followed me back to the small____so I could return the man's truck. I wanted to give the man some cash for using his truck, but he ___.

Two strangers helped____me from spending the night on the side of the road. I don't recall their names, but I value this experience as if it were yesterday. I felt so____. Thank you, strangers. It's you that____my day.

【推荐1】It has been difficult to sit on the bench most of the time, watching my team from the sideline. I always _______ why I am not good enough to be on the floor. After endless hours of work and devotion, pushing myself through drill after drill, the last thing I want is to be a cheerleader. The feeling of being _______ is sometimes too much and drives me to _______ on the spot. I often feel as though my _______ are wasted and my time is eaten away, _______ nothing. It is heartbreaking to be a spectator (旁观者) for the game I love, knowing that no one has enough faith to give me the chance to _______ on the floor. Tears well up (涌出), but I _______ them back. I shouldn’t be so _______ something so silly.

Away from the game, it’s easier to put my thoughts together, rather than letting my _______ drive my reasoning. I consider why I am where I am. I have played basketball my whole life. I have a strong ________ for the sport and always have. There is nothing like the ________ of playing: the swish (飕飕声) of the net, the sweat rolling off my cheeks, even the bruises (青肿) are battle wounds worn ________ after every game.

Even if I don’t play much, I participate in every ________. I am part of a team of girls who stick together like a family. I am there for them, as they are for me.

Should I move on？Or should I stay with my team and continue playing basketball with great passion just a little longer？The ________ isn’t difficult when I consider the joy that being a part of a team ________ me — and not just any team, but my team. I love basketball and my teammates. When I think about that, my view from the bench really isn’t so bad after all.

【推荐2】In Chicago, the USA, there was a girl called Jenny. She was very polite and ready to help everybody. One day she found a brown paper bag on the way to school. She opened it and saw there was a lot of _________ in it. She thought she should hand it in to the teacher, so she _________ it in her schoolbag first.

When she went to the office, her teacher wasn't in. As it was time for class, she hurried to the classroom. After class, she told her friend, Linda, about the money that she _________ . Then, her greedy (贪婪的) friend _________ away the bag. After school, Jenny wanted to go to the _________ office again, but she found the money was missing.

The next day when the children were playing a game, Linda fell down and was hurt very badly. The other children stood around her and didn't know _________ to do. Jenny kept calm and did _________ to stop bleeding. She told the others to go to teachers for _________ . Soon a teacher took Linda to the _________ and the doctor examined her carefully. Within a week she was all right again. Jenny became very __________ in the school.

Three days later, Linda came to Jenny's house. Her __________ turned red. She was crying. She gave Jenny the brown paper bag with the money in it and said, “Jenny, I have taken the money away. That day when you helped me, I felt very ashamed and now I decide to tell you the __________ . You are such a nice friend! So please don't tell the teachers about this!” Then Jenny said, “You are now __________ , but you have done a bad thing. Though I will not tell anyone, I want you not to be greedy and never to do anything wrong. The girl thanked Jenny and __________ .

At the end of the term Jenny was given a __________ for being a very helpful girl in the school. Linda became an honest girl and was never greedy.

Once wrong, never be wrong forever.

【推荐3】I was driving my newly-acquired motorcycle across the vastness of North Dakota. Suddenly, it broke____on the highway. Later I found it was because something had got stuck into the front tyre.

Anyway, I sat on the __ of the highway for a long time. I tried keeping calm, but it didn’t ___. Finally, a young man____and offered me a ___. However, he already had two motorcycles in the black of his truck, he could____take me along.

He____me to the next town, where I asked to be dropped off, but he waited____while I asked around if anyone could help me to go and pick up my motorcycle. One elderly____was working and said that I could use his pickup！Could you____that? A stranger gave the key to his pickup.

It was quite an____, I must say. So, as I drove back 20 miles to get my____, the young man who first ___to help me followed me. We both put the bike in the back of the truck, and then I followed him another 50 miles or so and____we arrived at his place. We both____the bike there to repair. Then, he followed me back to the small____so I could return the man's truck. I wanted to give the man some cash for using his truck, but he ___.

Two strangers helped____me from spending the night on the side of the road. I don't recall their names, but I value this experience as if it were yesterday. I felt so____. Thank you, strangers. It's you that____my day.