【推荐1】For my daughter’s 19th birthday in December we bought her tickets to Linkin Park as they were playing in our city. We could ________   afford it but we knew how much this band _________   to her and she’d seen it years earlier with her Dad.

On the night of the___ it was good to see her so happy as she and her boyfriend_____ . When they returned their _________   expression told us that the   __________   had been well spent. It would be a memory that she would forever___ , and so would we.

Still full of excitement from the night before the next day they____ to go to the shopping centre on the other side of the city. When they returned they ________   my husband and me with a   gift each with the words “you are the best mum/dad in the world”___ on them.

In surprise, we asked her why she had bought us gifts. Her _________   was that she just wanted   to show us she appreciated us. _________   lacking the money we had made it _________   for her to see   her favourite group.

This   wasn’t something new from our daughter she had _____   given us gifts when she       wanted to_______ her feelings. To   us, each gift was a welcome _________. It could have been       anything; it wouldn’t have mattered; it was the___ itself and the feeling behind it.

Call me smug (自鸣得意的)_____ I know I did something great when I______ my daughter, a daughter who wanted to show you how much you were valued and loved. It is true that they say: it is better to ______   than to receive! My daughter taught me that from the minute she     was born, and still does to this day.

【推荐2】I'm impressed with the article I read recently. It says children of ___________ mothers are less likely to stick to traditional roles of male ___________ and female homemakers. Kids whose mothers have jobs ___________ have a better chance of success later in life.

When I was five, illness ___________ me of my father. To support my family, my mum _________a full-time job, which included long days. She ___________ my two sisters and me on her own. My mum always tells me, “Being ___________ is important. Why? Because if you can organize your own life and make your own decisions, you can ___________ almost anything.” At 15, I got my first part-time job; later I ___________ three more. As I got older, l realized the ____________ of depending on myself and the amazing feeling I had when I ____________ to get things I wanted by myself and I didn’t have to ____________ other people.

Watching my mother ____________ in order to bring home the bacon, I gradually developed a ____________ attitude to work, which was why I was able to ____________ myself through four years of college on my own. Luckily I received a full-time job offer ____________ before I got my degree certificate. I am____________to my mum. She has given me so much love and____________over the years. She has been making great efforts to____________us a happy life. She is the greatest____________for me to look up to.

【推荐3】When I was young, my understanding of life was simple. This made it _______ for me to deal with the world around me. As I grew up, things seemed more _______, which made life more challenging. Now, middle-aged, I find my_______ of the world is returning to the simple.

When I try to teach my daughter important _______ about life, I will break complicated things _______ into small pieces. One of those basics is ______, for yourself, and for others. I teach my daughter to _______. To fail feels bad, _______, but not to have tried feels worse, because you can’t respect yourself for it. And as the saying _______, if you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.

When I was seven or eight, I played at my cousin’s house with his toys. His family was better off than mine, and he had many more toys. There was one ________ that I’d always wanted, and I ________ it into my pocket. But a moment later, I ________, even at that age, that I would never enjoy playing with the toy. I would always know I had ________, and my opinion of myself would ________. When his mother dropped me off later that day, I shamefacedly ________ out the toy and gave it back. She knew, I’m sure, what had happened, ________ she thanked me and never spoke of it again.

I hope to help my daughter avoid similar ________. She first has to gain self-respect ________ she can start respecting others. I believe in respect, because ________ it we’re all enemies. I'm not ________ in this regard, far from it. But I try my best, and I respect others for trying their best in this changing world.

【推荐1】I, a postman, married Kathy twenty-eight years ago. Our marriage life was filled with quarrels, swearing, throwing pots…—it was too much like ______. So I had an idea that our time as husband and ______ was about up but I didn’t expect it would ______ with a fight.

We were ______ at home one evening after tea, one at each end of the table. I was ______a book, and Kathy just sat there. ______ she said, “I do love you, Harry.” I was still in the book and said ______.

Then, “Harry, look at me.” My ______ came up, smiled and went down again to my reading. Maybe I was in the wrong, and should have said something, ______ the book was too good.

“I’m sure all that reading’s bad ______ your eyes,” she commented. I went on reading, not looking up. She added, “My dad used to say that only fools read books.”

The words ______ me and I couldn’t resist replying, “He only said that because he didn’t know how to read. He was ______.”

Kathy never read books. She hated ______ like poison. She sneered(冷笑), “No need to be jealous of you. We’ve got more sense, and too much to do.”

Then I was upset, but in a ______ way, “Let me read, anyway, won’t you? It’s an interesting book, and I’m tired.”

She ______ out loud, “Tired? You ought to do some real work for a change instead of ______the streets with that stupid post-bag.” She snatched the book out of my ______ and screamed, “Nothing but books, books, books,” throwing the book into the fire.

This really ______ me, so I slapped(掌掴) her across the face, not very hard but I did.

One day, a month after ______ the book, I came back from work and found a note waiting for me, “I am going away and not coming back.”

We ______ six years after we married.

【推荐2】For one year, the Dannemiller family gave up buying any unnecessary purchases.

Is an effort to get back in touch with what they call their family mission, which includes “growing in faith together and serving others to create a world without ________”, parents Scott and Gaby Dannemiller decided to ________ spending money on things like toys, books, clothing, or anything that wasn’t a necessity or an experience.

Overall, the family successfully ________ the plan. Though the experiment took place in 2013, the family ________ tries to live by the lessons they learned while cutting out unnecessary spending. “By focusing on experiences ________ purchases, we grew together in faith as a family, we were able to ________ others and we were able to give more of our time and treasure to people who really need it,” Scott says.

“My daughter’s birthday is next month, and she asked if we could go to visit her uncle’s farm and ride a horse,________ just asking for a horse stuffed animal,” he says. “Now we look at ________ and say ‘will that really add value to our life, or is it something we will just need to find space for and take care of?’”

If you’re tying to teach your children to focus ________ on physical stuff, Scott says it’s helpful to tweak (稍微改进) your ________ when kids ask for things. “We used to say ‘that’s too ________’, but that made our kids think OK, we need more money, and when we get more money we can have it,” he says. “We ________ to ‘we don’t need that’, and that helped them understand.”

When ________ spending, Scott says the most important thing is to focus not on what your family is giving up, but what it is gaining. “It’s not about what you’re ________,” he says. “The question should be, What are we going to replace that with?’ Then, make sure you are adding something to your life that the people in your family ________. For us, that was time together.”

【推荐3】Mother Tongue

My mother and I are making spring rolls in the kitchen. This is my _______ treat from her native Vietnam, and we’ve been making them together since I was a child. As she works, she sings a song in Vietnamese. _______, I don’t understand a word.

The song _______ me of another one she used to sing when I was a child. I _______ her to sing it over and over, but I never asked her what the words meant.

As a young bride, my mother was _______ to become an American. She listened to the Bee Gees and Blondie. She made fried chicken and pie alongside spring rolls. Besides, she _______ that we should speak only English at home. At that time, I didn’t realize that, in her _______ of being a good American, she was depriving（剥夺）me of a(n) _______ to learn Vietnamese.

As a child, I didn’t _______ to know my mother better. She took care of me, and that was all. As an adult, I can’t ________ her well enough. Relying on her still _______ accented English, my mother often seems to summarize her thoughts, ________ those things that are too difficult to say. When I ask her why she didn’t speak Vietnamese to me when I was young, she says, “Why ________? You’re American!”

Yes, but I am also half-Vietnamese. Without the language, I am ________ aware that I am only half.

Lately, I’ve been asking my mother to ________ phrases into Vietnamese so I can try to keep some of them in my ________. I can now order three or four ________ when we eat at Vietnamese restaurants. I can say “thank you” to the waiter. But that’s it. I still don’t know how to express “I love you” in Vietnamese, or that other thing we all want to say to our parents but is too ________ to say, which is “Don’t ever leave me”.

Back in the kitchen, our first spring rolls are done. “Count them,” my mother ________, “so I know how many more to make.”

I shake my head. “Can you do it?” I ask. “In Vietnamese?”

She smiles and adds that. With that, we are ________ where we began.