【推荐2】John lived in a beautiful home with his parents. One day, his father found him _________ and asked if something was wrong. John said sadly, “I have so many _________ in life, which cause me unhappy.”

John’s father patiently listened to him. Then he brought a bowl and placed a potato, an egg and some coffee beans (豆) in it. He asked John to _________ the things in the bowl, and tell what he felt about them. John described _________ he felt about each of them after touching.

The father smiled and asked John to place them all in three different bowls and pour _________ in them. He then boiled them all. After a few minutes, he father _________ the stove and put all the bowls on the counter to _________ them down.

Ten minutes later, John’s father let John touch them _________ and feel the egg, potato, and coffee beans. John had a _________ answer this time. And he said, the potato’s skin was easier to peel (剥皮) as it had turned very __________ , the egg had hardened, and there was a fresh pleasant coffee smell coming from the __________.

Hearing these words, his father __________ and told him how the potato, egg, and coffee beans reacted to unfavorable (相反的) __________ . The potato had become soft, the egg had turned very __________, and the coffee beans had changed their form __________ during their testing time in the boiling water.

【推荐3】As a PhD student, I went through many difficulties in my research. When I graduated, I wasn’t willing to _________so many hours away from my young children with so _________ to show for it. Instead, I accepted my love of teaching by working as a _________.

A decade later and with my kids in school, my scientific _________ came out of hibernation (冬眠) and I _________ a position at a new arts college. In my undergraduate classes, I asked my students to complete controlled experiments that were _________ guaranteed to produce reasonable data. But after a few years, I grew _________ with the gap between those _________ experiments and my own research projects.

I decided to _________ a new course that would give our students experience performing __________ experiments, ones that had the __________ to fail. Then after a solid hour of __________ and some leading questions on my part, one student finally __________, “It doesn’t make __________.” Hallelujah! One of them had stepped back from seeing what they __________ to see and described what the data __________ showed. The breakthrough helped the classmates start to look at the results with more __________ eyes. Within minutes, they were overflowing with questions and __________ about what could have gone wrong. My students were thinking like scientists.

Research is __________ and full of failed attempts. Trying to protect students from that reality does harm to them. I hope my students will bring an __________ with them that success doesn’t always come easy.

【推荐3】In the first part of my freshman year, I was fine and earned good grades. Then I became too_______ with my work. I had so many activities that I hardly had time to relax myself. Then my_______ began dropping. My friends left me because I no longer enjoyed being with them.

When I went to my doctor, he seemed very _______, even though everything physical appeared all right. When he was done, he told me that we had to talk about my _______, and how my behavior had changed. When I told him I was all right, he said that I didn’t show my real feelings. By then my hair was falling out in large clumps, which made me more _______. I felt as if I could not even leave my house.

Finally, I met with a therapist (治疗专家). She diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder. I was relieved to know what was wrong, and that thing would _______. I wore hats to cover my bald head. I realized that it doesn’t matter what I look like on the outside; it is my character that counts.

Things began to look up. I _______ worrying as much. My hair slowly grew back, so did my _______. I began to leave the house and interact with others. That year, I again tried hard in school, but I made sure I didn’t overload myself. I became one of the top students in my class, a goal I had never _______ before. It’s funny how something bad had to happen to make me realize how ________ life really is.

【推荐2】When Lauren Schroeder, a teenager from Iowa, US, showed up to a community food drive last year, she didn’t see much food that actually provide people with nutrition — just a lot of canned goods. Determined to make a(n) _______, she took action. With the _______ of her parents, who provided her with half an acre (英亩) of land, she _________ 7,000 pounds of produce and gave it all away to local food banks and non-profits.

Although Lauren had no prior experience _________ a garden, she took up studies of agronomy (农学) and gardening, and really put her _________ into it. Her work soon drew the _______ of an organization called Future Farmers of America, which awarded her a small grant (补助金) for _______ and seeds.

Lauren _________ 2 to 3 hours daily to the tasks of watering and weeding (除杂草), and her efforts soon _______. She began __________ 15 types of vegetables to organizations like Wheatland Nursing Home. “It was really __________ for me to know that anyone who wanted fresh vegetables would be able to get them,” Lauren said.

Now, she has turned her half acre into a full acre and ________ the number of vegetables to 20 different species. “How could you not be ________,” said her mother, “she really chose to ________ learning about agronomy, and took it a step further by genuinely ________ those in need.”

【推荐3】Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods

On an overcast, drizzly afternoon at Durham Wildlife Trust’s low Barns nature _________ alder provided the brightest splash of color in the _________

A tree had been felled and sawn into _________. Chainsaw wounds on this species can look like a massacre, because soon after the timber is cut, it turns a lurid shade of red, almost like blood, in stark contrast to the battleship-grey bark, _________ those wounds, which briefly _________ raw meat, fade to orange and finally to chestnut brown.

When this reserve was established half a century ago, around old gravel pits (采沙场), some moisture-loving alders were planted to help _________ a bare, windswept site. Alder wood is one of the finest sources of charcoal, and the plantation trees are old enough now to be coppiced, to produce barbecue fuel.

There is also an important natural alder wood here, created by a cataclysm almost two and a half centuries ago, which led to the designation of the reserve as a site of special scientific interest.

The Great Flood of 1771 _________ Weardale, washing away bridges all the way to the coast. When the water subsided, the course of the River Wear had _________ half a mile south, and the old riverbed became what is now the reserve’s Long Alder Wood, the finest example of its kind in the region.

When it sometimes floods, this tangle of gnarled（苍劲嶙峋的） trees has a _________ of the Florida Everglades（佛罗里达大沼泽） about it, with mossy, fallen trunks sinking back into the ooze (淤泥). Year round, there are wonderful __________ to watch birds from an embankment level with the tree canopy. This afternoon an acrobatic flock of about 30 goldfinches（金翅雀）__________ and chattered through the twigs, feeding on tiny seeds that fall from the woody cones.

Sadly, since the mid-1990s, another__________ has befallen this locally __________ woodland: alder dieback disease has killed around half the mature trees. Coppicing is leading to some regeneration, though in this precious __________ dead timber is allowed to lay where it falls, reserved for the needs of a __________ community of fungi, invertebrates and woodpeckers, rather than back-garden burger-flippers on summer evenings.