【推荐2】I carry a Rubik's Cube（魔方） in my backpack． Solving it quickly is a terrific conversation starter．

I usually ask people to _____ it first． They turn the cube over in their hands， half﹣heartedly they make a few _____ and then awkwardly hand it back． They don't even know where to _____． That's exactly what it was like for me to learn how to _____． Letters and words were mixed up and out of sequence． Nothing _____ because I am dyslexic（诵读困难者）．

Solving the Rubik's Cube has made me believe that sometimes you have to take a few steps _____ to move forward． This was mirror of my own life when I had to_____ public school after the fourth grade． It's _____ to admit， but I still couldn't _____ spell my full name correctly．

As a fifth﹣grader at new school that _____ in what's called language﹣processing disorder， I had to start over． Memorizing symbols for letters， I learned the pieces of the puzzle of language， the phonemes（音素） that _____ up words． I spent the next four years learning how to learn and finding strategies that _____ me to return to my district's high school with the _____ to communicate my ideas and express my intelligence．

It took me four weeks to teach myself to solve the cube﹣﹣﹣ the same amount of time it took the inventor， Erno Rubik． I discovered that just before it's solved， a _____ can look like a mess， and then suddenly you can find the solution． I believe that progress comes in _____ leaps．

The Rubik's Cube taught me that to accomplish something big， it helps to _____ it down into small pieces． I learned that it's important to spend a lot of time thinking， to try to find _____ and patterns． I believe that there are surprises around the corner． And， that the Rubik's Cube and I， we are _____ the sum of our parts．

Like a difficult text or sometimes like life itself， the Rubik's Cube can be a（n） _____ puzzle． So I carry one in my backpack as a _____ that I can attain my goals， no matter what obstacles I face．

【推荐3】Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t ________ but this was one of those celebrations that I didn’t mind. They are a bunch of young, single guys and I would have felt out of place.

What ________ me was the way they behaved. One of the young men came over ________ in the day to “warn” us of the upcoming event and said it would be over at about 11 p.m. That was the first step. Even more ________ was what they did next. “Here’s my ________,” offered our neighbor ________. “Text me if it’s too noisy.” That was a level of ________ I had never experienced in all my years of being a neighbor!

And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the ________ end time, even when the music reached high decibels (分贝), and even when we couldn’t ________ to the phone number, we felt no anger. We knew they would stop and ________ to it eventually.

It takes such little effort to make people feel that they ________ and get people on your side. Everyone needs to ________ every now and then, especially in these uniquely tough times. But people who do it without disturbing others are few and far between. I hadn’t fully ________ my neighbors until this week. But now I see them in a new light and with greater ________. They didn’t just bring the noise to the neighborhood; they showed us a good manner of ________ in life.