【推荐1】On the first day of our science class, Mr. Whitson gave us a lecture about an animal called “Cattywampus”, an ill-adapted nocturnal (夜行的) animal that was _________ out during the Ice Age, and he passed a skull (头骨) around as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned our papers, we were shocked—a big red “×” _________ each of our answers. We’d written down exactly what he’d said. There must be some mistakes!

“Very simple,” Mr. Whitson explained, “I had _________ up the story about the Cattywampus. There had never been such an animal. The information in your notes was, _________, incorrect. Did you expect _________ for incorrect answers?”

Needless to say, we were annoyed.

“You should have _________ it out,” Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the very moment he was _________ the skull(in fact, a cat’s)around, hadn’t he been telling us that no trace of the animal _________? He had described its amazing night vision and the _________ of its fur he couldn’t have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, but we still hadn’t been __________.

Every class was a(n)__________ with Mr. Whitson. One day he told us that his car was a living organism (有机体). It took us two full days to __________ for our clarification (阐明). He didn’t let us off the __________ until we had proved not only the reasonable statement of an organism but also that we had the courage to stand up for the truth.

We put our __________ skepticism (怀疑) into all our classes. Teachers and textbooks are not always right. In fact, no one is. Don’t let your minds go to __________. Instead, speak up if you thought the teacher or the textbook was wrong.

【推荐2】The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.--Thomas Macaulay.

Some thirty years ago, I was studying in a public school in New York. One day, Mrs. Nanette O’Neillgave an arithmetic___to our class. When the papers were___,she discovered that twelve boys had made the __ mistakes throughout the test.

There is really nothing new about__in the exams. Perhaps that was __ Mrs. O’Neill didn’t evensay a word about it. She only asked the twelve boys to__after class. I was one of the twelve.Mrs. O’Neill asked no questions, and she didn’t__us either.She wrote on the blackboard the__words by Thomas Macaulay. She then ordered us to__these words into our exercisebooksone hundred times.

I don’t__about the other eleven boys. Speaking for myself I can say: it was the most importantsingle__of my life. Thirty years after being introduced to Macaulay’s words, they__seem to methe best yardstick(准绳), because they give me a__to measure myself rather than others. ___of usare asked to make great decisions about__ going to war or armies going to battle. But all of us arecalled upon daily to make a great many ___ decisions. Should the wallet, found in the street, be putinto a pocket or turned over to the ____? Should the__change received at the store be forgottenor___? Nobody will know except___. But you have to live with yourself, and it is always better tolive with someone you respect.

【推荐3】Students in high schools can be cruel (残酷的) and we certainly refer to a young man named Matt who was in my class. We laughed at him about his _________. He was at least fifty pounds overweight.

One day he sat near me in a _________. Someone pushed him and he _________on me and hurt my foot quite badly. With the whole class _________, I had to choose either _________ it off or have a fight with him. I chose to fight in order to keep my _________.

I shouted, “Come on, Matt, let’s fight.” He said he didn’t want to. But peer pressure (同伴的压力)_________ him into the fight whether he liked it or not. He came toward me with his fists (拳头) in the air. With one _________ I bloodied (弄出血) his nose and the classroom became _________. No one dared to say a word. Just then the teacher walked into the classroom. He saw that we were __________ and sent us out to the playground.

He followed us with a __________on his face and said, “I want you two boys to go out there and run that mile holding each other’s hands.” The room broke into laughter. The two of us began to feel a bit__________, but we went out to the track and ran our mile —__________.

During the course of our run, I looked at him, with blood still flowing from his nose and his __________slowing him down. It hurt me that here was a person, not all that different from myself. I no longer saw Matt as fat. It was amazing what I learned I was forced to go hand-in-hand with someone for only one mile.

For the rest of my life I have never __________ a hand against another person. I know it is wrong to do so.