【推荐1】Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. In the distance he could see a person     1    (go) back and forth between the surf’s edge     2     the beach. As the man approached, he could see there were hundreds of starfish(海星)    3     (lie) on the sand as     4     result of the natural action of the tide.

The person seemed to be     5     (absorb) in the apparently useless task. There were   too many starfish. Many of them were sure to die. When he came near, the person continued the task of     6    (pick) the starfish one by one and throwing them into the ocean.

As he came up to the person, he said, “You must be crazy. There are     7    thousand) of miles of beach     8    (cover) with starfish. You can’t     9    (possible) make a difference.” The person looked at the man. He then bent down and picked up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man,    10    (say), “It surely makes a difference to that one!”

There are no precise     1     (criterion) that can be used to judge what is beautiful. As the anthropologist (人类学家) Margaret Mead once put     2    , standards and ideas of beauty change across time. Nowadays, some costumes and actions once     3     (regard) as beauty in the 19^th century are not considered healthy or attractive, while something     4     (fashion) now had different functions in the past.

There is no consistent view on beauty, as beauty is influenced by culture and it is even     5     (whole) different in the eyes of beholders. In some countries, young women follow slimming diets to lose extra kilos     6     preparation for their wedding day. In other cultures, looking thin for a husband-to-be is not     7     a woman desires at all.

    8     different, one thing is certain-it is inner beauty that requires us to truly see.   Beauty, that is to say,     9     (accompany) by an attraction to something deeper within a person,                   10     can be found in a wide range of personal qualities.

Say thank you for simple things

    1     (express) gratitude is an important form of good manners. Everyone likes to be appreciated and     2     (praise). Gratitude is one of the greatest virtues,     3     lets others smile and makes the world more beautiful. You just need several minutes to write down a thank­you note, but it     4     (bring) much joy to the receiver.

Try to write a thank­you letter to your parents for working hard     5     (offer) you a happy life. Be grateful to your     6    (teacher) because of their help with your studies and character building. Say thanks to your friends who shared both your     7     (happy) and sadness. We are     8    (surely) it will bring them much joy to receive your gratitude.

We live     9     a society where we enjoy the different services of others. But none of them should be taken for granted. Up to now more and more people in China have found it's time to cultivate (培养)     10     thankful heart for the good others do.

After my mother died, my father married an American woman, my step-mother. I     1     (meet) her for the first time when I moved to America. That night, before I went to bed she came to my room, which   was the     2     (one) room I had ever had of my own. She told me she was glad to have me and that she would take good care     3     me. She asked me for a hug, but I did not know what     4     word “hug” meant.     5     (look) at her, I didn’t know what to do.     6     she didn’t give up. She called my father into the room and asked him     7     (explain) to me what she meant. When he did, I looked at my new step-mom and wondered     8     she wanted to hug me. She then told me it was because she loved me and you hug people when you love     9     (they). So she opened her     10     (arm) wide and timidly I opened mine and we hugged.

That was my first hug. It opened the door of love between my new step-mom and me.

On 20 December, a series of huge waves     1     (cause) by an earthquake resulted in many people’s deaths. Goldshore beach was the only local beach to survive the disaster. Sabrina,     2     was a girl of ten years old, helped about 100 people escape danger with her knowledge of tsunami.

That day, many people were walking, running or     3     (simple)sitting on the beach,     4     (enjoy) the warm sea air and the soft wind. Sabrina was one of the happy     5     (tourist) until she noticed something odd. It immediately occurred     6     her that these were signs of an approaching tsunami because she had just learnt about it in a Geography lesson.

At first, Sabrina was     7     (frighten), but she soon kept her head. She asked her parents     8     (inform) a safety officer. The officer realized the coming danger, and rapidly cleared the beach of people, just before     9     tsunami arrived. Thus, all the people on the beach     10     (save).