【推荐2】For a little girl growing up in Colombia, a science career with NASA may seem impossible. Trujillo, however, is an aerospace _________ who leads a team at the NASA laboratory _________ for the robotic arm of the latest Mars rover (火星探测器).

How did Trujillo go from simply dreaming about the universe to _________ exploring it? That's a tale of _________ written in the stars.

Born in 1983, even as a young girl Trujillo was _________ of her passion for science. But she doubted how far she'd be able to _________ in a male-dominated field. Then her dad offered to send her to Miami. Only 17 at the time, she _________ the offer.

Trujillo took a series of housekeeping _________ to put herself through Miami Dade College. Sometimes she was cleaning bathrooms to help pay her way through her _________. But she didn't ____________ "I saw everything coming my way as an opportunity."

Then came another life-changing moment. She became the first Hispanic (西班牙语国家的) woman to be ____________ to the NASA Academy. Later, she became an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

This February, when the Perseverance rover ____________ on the surface of Mars, it was ____________ by commentary (解说) from Trujillo in NASA's first-ever Spanish-language ____________ .

Trujillo's own story is ____________ that just beyond the barrier lies an entire universe of opportunities waiting for anyone willing to work hard enough to reach for the stars.

【推荐1】A Leap（跳跃）to Honor

Leaping on a narrow balance beam（平衡木）is not easy. But Lola Walter, a 13-year-old gymnast, is an expert at it.

To perfect her skills, Lola _________ for four hours a day, five days a week. At the state championships in March, she finished seventh out of 16 girls.

That’s especially impressive, _________   she is legally blind, born with a rare condition that causes her eyes to shift constantly. She often sees double and can’t _________ how far away things are.

When she was little, her mom   ________that even though she couldn’t see ________, she was fearless. So her mom signed her up for gymnastics when she was three. She loved the _______right away and gymnastics became her favorite.

Though learning gymnastics has been more _______   for her than for some of her tournaments, she has never quit. She doesn’t let her __________ stop her from doing anything that she wants to.

She likes the determination it takes to do the sport. Her biggest ___________ is the balance beam. Because she has double vision, she often sees two beams. She must use her sense of touch to help her during her routine. Sometimes she even closes her eyes. “You have to _________ your mind that it’ll take you where you want to go,” says Lola.

To be a top-level gymnast, one must be brave. The beam is probably the most   ______ for anyone because it’s four inches wide. At the state competition, Lola didn’t ______ the beam. In fact, she got an 8.1 out of 10---- her highest score yet.

Lola is ______of all her hard work and success. She says it has helped her overcome problems in her life outside gymnastics, too. Her ________ for others is “just believe yourself”.

【推荐2】I was 16 years old the day I skipped school for the first time.

And what did I do with myself on that glorious _________ day, with no adult in charge and no _________ on my activities? Did I get high? Hit the _________ for a shoplifting?

No! I built a warm fire in the wood stove, held a blanket, and began to _________ . I was thrilled and _________ by a book — it was Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises — and I just needed to be _________ with it for a little while. I had accidentally _________ the key to perfect happiness: I had become _________ absorbed by something I loved.

Please _________ that absorption is not the same as distraction or obsession (痴迷). To be absorbed by something is to become it and when we __________ it, we are richer for it. To be distracted, we become nothing at all. We don’t get __________. And to be obsessed by something, __________ , is to become absorbed and destroyed by it. Therefore, the __________ to happiness, then, is to find something that absorbs you and become that thing by __________ it with devoted attention.

__________ it now, I can see that some subtle (细微的) things were happening to my mind and to my life while I was in that __________ of absorption. Hemingway’s __________ was quietly entering my imagination. I was __________ information about how to create simple and elegant sentences, good and __________ plots. In other words, I was learning how to write. Writing now __________ me the way reading once did and happiness is their generous side effect.