【推荐1】2020 is drawing to a close. I haven’t seen my ______ in a year.

“Take care of yourself, my dear granddaughter,” she spoke into the phone. “I’m ______ already and have lived long enough. Don’t you worry.”

I didn’t want this to be her last ______. While I stay locked in the Klang Valley, she lives far away and is indifferent (不感兴趣的) to modern technology－which makes ______ difficult.

I knew she really ______ to see my face and began to try to find a solution (解决方法).

“Baby steps are the key. Start with what she already ______”, came the Internet advice. ______, she knows WhatsApp and that has a video call function.

“OK, Nani, you know WhatsApp, right?” I ______ her on our next call. “Did you know we can actually ______ each other by using the ______?” I   continued and heard an “oh” on the line. I knew I had her.

While the task is simple enough to us, the cloudy eyes of old age make it a(n) ______ task－coupled with the fact that the Internet connection isn’t always ______.

The first attempt (尝试) had some good results, ______ the angle (角度) was off. I could only see the very top of her head. In the second attempt, we made a little progress, but the poor Internet service ______ to allow us to see each other.

After two ______ attempts, I could tell she was getting upset (沮丧的) “It’s going to be worth it!” I ______ her during our next call.

Finally, on one good day of Internet connection, her ______ was on my screen.

No matter how many phone calls we exchange, nothing ______ seeing her face filled with happiness and love. Our experience shows that even if we can’t see each other ______, the Internet still makes it possible for loved ones to be continually ______.

【推荐1】I have always been an optimist. I suppose it's rooted in my belief that the power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a ______ place.

I have loved learning new things and ______ problems. Therefore, when I sat down at a ______ for the first time in the seventh grade, I was hooked and it ______ my life. After 30 years, I'm still inspired by computers. I believe the computer is one of the most ______ tools we can use to feed our curiosity and solve problems that even the ______ people couldn't solve on their own.

Computers have ______ how we learn, giving us a window into all of the world's knowledge. They are helping us stay close to the people who are ______ to us, wherever they are.

I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I ______ doing. I'm especially pleased when we show people something ______ , like a computer that can recognize your handwriting or your speech.

However, there are many other ways in which we can put our ______ to work with a PC to improve our world. Every year, millions of people ______ from diseases that are easy to prevent or treat in the developed world. I believe it a responsibility to ______ the world. My wife, Melinda, and I have committed to improving health and education in a way that can ______ as many people as possible.

I'm still an ______ , believing that progress on even the world's toughest problems is possible—and it's ______ every day. We are seeing new drugs for deadly diseases, new diagnostic（诊断的）tools, and new attention paid to the ______ problems in the developing world.

I'm excited by the ______ I see for medicine, education and technology. I believe that through our intelligence and willingness to ______ tough problems, we are going to make some amazing achievements in all these ______ in my lifetime.

【推荐2】I teach digital technology. Although this class is high-tech; we try to make it high-touch. In other words, we keep screen-time to a ______

One day, I helped my Grade 8 students build robotic arms. They’re ______ their robots to perform tasks from the ______ —dipping a tea bag into a mug—to the complex, like cleaning up radioactive (放射性的) waste. Like most days, things often don’t ______ as expected. Sometimes it’s the wiring that’s not working. Sometimes, it’s a ______ problem, like the glue holding the parts together ______ because of continuous movement. I do my best to encourage students to continue through ______, though, truly, their peers are the best cheerleaders. When things aren’t working, they make ______: “That happened to me, and here’s how I fixed it.” They ______ each other up: “Try again! You can do it!” They also do a lot of playful ______. But when things finally work, they celebrate together. ______, this is a classroom of teammates, not ______.

Educators and parents have done a lot of thinking lately about the future of ______. We don’t learn best on the ______. More and more, I’ve come to believe that the future of school lies in classrooms like the one we’ve built, where students ______ technology with human creativity and connection.

【推荐3】Where do cars get their energy from? For most cars, the answer is petrol, _______some cars use electricity. These cars have _______ motors that get their power from large batteries. In _______, there are even cars that have _______ an electric motor and a petrol motor. These types of cars are _______hybrid (混合) cars.

Most people tend to think of electric cars as a new _______, but they have been around for a long time. In the _______19th and early 20th centuries electric cars were common because the technology for petrol engines was not very advanced. But _______ the petrol engine became easier to make and more powerful, this type of engines became the most _______. Interest in electric cars was high in the 1970s and 1980s because ________became very expensive. Recently, electric cars have again become well-liked because people want cars that pollute ________.

Electric cars are better than petrol cars ________several ways. The biggest benefit is reduced pollution. In areas ________there is a high percentage of electric cars, pollution is not that serious. The second benefit of electric cars is a ________in the dependence on foreign oil. Several countries don’t want to ________on oil from other countries. Since electric cars can run on electricity from coal or nuclear power stations, there is less need to import oil.

【推荐1】Lei Feng has been a cultural symbol of generosity and altruistic (利他的) deed. And across China, many foreign volunteers have _________ the hearts of Chinese people with their selfless devotion to social welfare and are called “yang Lei Feng,” or foreign Lei Feng, by _________.

Peter Stanleigh, a Canadian, has _________ served various roles while leading a foreign volunteer team. Having _________ in Wuxi since 2001, Stanleigh is much better _________ by his Chinese name — Tang Lei. As the first foreign volunteer _________ in Wuxi, he poured the majority of his spare time and _________ into social welfare. “Lei Feng is a hero of volunteerism. So I have a strong desire and hope to _________ on to other people the spirit of volunteering. I have been _________ with the name ‘yang Lei Feng,’ something I __________ nobly,” said Stanleigh. In addition to volunteering in the English corner every __________, he and his wife also make appearances at nursing and welfare __________ just like Lei Feng, who said that he was similar to a __________ yet absolutely necessary “screw” inside a machine and promised to “never rust” while wholeheartedly __________ the people.

Stanleigh’s accumulated __________ service time registered in Wuxi has now been greater than 5, 000 hours.

“I think that a person is judged not by what he does but by what he does for __________. My life is belter because someone else’s life is __________,” he said.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the __________ to learn from Lei Feng by Mao Zedong. The Lei Feng spirit is __________ shown in the deeds of countless foreign volunteers like Stanleigh __________ China.

【推荐2】If you are at all typical, listening takes up more of your waking hours than any other activity. A study of persons of varied occupational backgrounds showed that 70% of their waking moments were spent in communication. And of that time, writing took 9%, reading absorbed 16%, talking occupied 30%, and________accounted for 45%. Other surveys underscore the large amounts of time that people in different walks of life spend in listening. It is important to listen effectively because of the sheer amount of it that you do each day.

________, many of the most important aspects of your life are greatly influenced by your skills or________of skill in listening. The quality of your friendships, the ________of your family relationships, your effectiveness at work these depend, in large measure, on your ability to listen.

Unfortunately, few people are good listeners. Even at the purely informational level, researchers claim that 75% of oral communication is________, misunderstood, or quickly forgotten. Rarer still is the ability to listen for the deepest meaning in what people say. How________, but how common, to talk with someone about subjects of intense interest to oneself ________to experience the choking realization that the other person was not really listening and that his responses were simply________and mechanical.

A major reason for the poor listening in our society is that most of us receive a very rigorous early training in non-listening. The therapist Franklin Ernst says that "from the earliest years of life, a person's________ activity is the most heavily trained of all activities... The person's listening ... is more attended to than his bowel training, his bladder activity, or his genital activity." Ernst points out that the typical child, in his most impressionable years, receives a steady________of anti-listening regulations. ________say things like:

“Pretend you don't notice."

“Don't take it so seriously.”

“He didn't mean what he said.”

“We don't listen to those things in our family.

The typical parent not only________these anti-listening comments, he demonstrates them daily in his own life. By word and________we are taught to be non-listeners in our childhood.

Most of us have been trained to be poor listeners. Yet ________we spend more time listening than doing anything else, and the quality of our listening greatly affects both the personal and the________dimensions of our lives.