【推荐2】I remember believing in Santa when I was a very young girl. However, as I grew older, I learned many _______ that “proved” his nonexistence. Always_______by nature, I was determined to use _______to decide whether Santa Claus was _______.

The first test_______when I was 5, I decided that if I _______all night on Christmas Eve, I could see if Santa really came down the chimney. _______, that was a useless_______. I fell asleep that year, and when I woke up, I saw a _______ wrapped present under the________.

At the age of 7, I came up with another test to see if Santa was real. That year, I didn’t send out my Christmas letter to Santa because I wanted ________for Christmas. But this turned into a plot. By then, I ________knew Santa wasn’t real, but I wanted enough________to support this. That year was ________. Because on Christmas Eve, my mother dragged me to our local Wal-Mart led me around the toy section. I ________ to say a word, but did let my eyes ________on a ballet set. I________that “Santa” wouldn’t know what I wanted because he shouldn’t be able to read my ________. However, my mother would know everything that caught my eyes in the store. If I got the ballet set the next morning, I would have my evidence. On Christmas morning, there was the ballet set, sitting under the tree again.________I didn’t use it much, my mother ended up returning it a few days later. She ________ Santa was generous enough to leave a receipt. That was the end to my task to discover the existence of Santa.

【推荐3】This past summer, I applied for my very first job at a small bakery in my neighborhood. I knew that if I were _______ there, I would learn how to use a cash register, prepare sandwiches, and _______ cake orders. I imagined that my biggest struggle would be _______ demanding New Yorkers, but I never thought that the act of tying a box would become both my biggest _______ and greatest teacher.

On my first day of work in late August, one of the employees quickly explained the _______. It seemed simple: wrap the string (绳子) around your hand, then wrap it three times around the box both ways, and fasten it. I _______ the message in my head, “three times, turn it, three times, tie it” until it became my prayer. After observing several employees, it was _______ that anyone tying the box could complete it in a matter of seconds. For weeks, I failed endlessly, only to watch the strong and small pieces of my pride unravel (散开) each time I tried.

As I _______ to push half-tied cake boxes into plastic bags with embarrassment, I could not help but _______ what was wrong with me. ________ the weeks progressed, my skills slowly began to improve. Of course, there were days when I just wanted to throw all of the string in the trash and use tape (胶带) instead; this sense of defeat was never ________, but remarks like “Oh, you must be ________” from impatient customers made me angry and determined to try even harder.

Gradually I began to realize that I should not be ________ if it takes me longer to learn. I kept on, and I continued to tie boxes every weekend at work. Even though I occasionally fell back into desperation, I always rewrapped the string around my hand and ________ over because I learned that the most satisfying victories come from not ________.

【推荐1】There was a very wealthy man who was bothered by severe (严重的) eye pain. He _______ many doctors and was being treated by several. He did not stop consulting a number of _______ experts; he took heavy loads of _______ and experienced hundreds of injections (注射), _______ the ache was much severer than before. At last, a monk who was supposed to be a(n) _______ in treating such patients was called for by the suffering man. The monk _______ his problem and said that for some time he should _______ only on green colors and not to let his eyes fall on any other _______. It was a _______ prescription (处方), but he was desperate (绝望的) and decided to try it.

The millionaire got together a group of painters and bought barrels (桶) of ________ paint and directed that every object his eyes were likely to ________ on should be painted green just as the monk had directed. When the ________ came to visit him after several days, the millionaire’s servants ran with buckets of green paint and ________ it on him since he was in red dress, for fear that their master see any other color and his eye ________ would come back.

Hearing this, the monk ________ and said, “If only you had purchased a pair of green glasses, worth just a few dollars, you could have ________ these walls and trees and pots and all other articles and ________ could have saved a large share of his fortune. ________, you cannot paint the world green.”

Let us ________ our vision and the world will appear accordingly. It is foolish to shape the world; let us ________ ourselves first.

【推荐2】Inconvenient Truths

If doctors lie, it is surely inexcusable. One of the basic_________ the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors   _________ to lying to their patients? If I am honest, I have told lies to my patients.

Mrs Walton was in her eighties and _________ to see her husband. She would try to get up to find him, despite being at risk of falling. “He’s on his way, don’t worry,” the nurses would say this to calm her down. I said the same thing to her. But it was a lie. He died two years ago. The truth, if I can use that word, is that it is a _________ to lie sometimes.

Mrs Walton is one of the dementia (痴呆) sufferers, who lose their short-term memory and the memory of_________ events, but hold memories from the distant past. Sufferers are trapped forever in a confusing past that many realize bears little   _________ to the present, but are at a loss to explain. Those with dementia often feel upset, scared and confused that they are in a strange place, _________ by strange people, even when they are in their own homes with their family, because they have gone back to decades ago.

They look at their adult children   _________ and wonder who they could be because they think their children are still little kids. I have had countless families break down in tears, not knowing how to react as their loved one moves further away from them back into their distant past and they are   _________ in the present. And how, as the doctor or nurse caring for these patients, does one manage the anger and outbursts of distress that comes with having no   __________ of your life for the past ten or 20 years? The lies that doctors, nurses and families tell these patients are not big, elaborate lies — they are   __________ comforts intended to calm and allow the subject to be swiftly changed.

__________ with them about this false reality is not heartless or unprofessional — it is actually kind. That’s not to say that lying to patients with dementia__________ is right or defensible. But what kind-hearted person would put another human being through the unimaginable pain of learning, ________ again and again, that they have lost their beloved ones. It would be an unthinkable cruelness.

Sometimes honesty is __________ not the best policy.

【推荐3】Most teens I meet these days lack basic social courtesy (礼仪) when dealing with people.

My own son, who basically grew up with his grandmother, the original _______ guru (专家), has perfect table manners. This is partly because he was _______to manners at a very young age. However, when we eat at home, he would not   _______manners. So I asked him why. He said, “I behave the way I am supposed to _______ when I’m out, but when I am at home I want to be   _______.”

That’s when I realized that most parents, myself included, do_______ their children the proper way to behave outside the home, but they are also _______to believe that at home, anything goes.

My _________to him was “good behavior has nothing to do with where you are or whom you are with”.

Then he answered, “But I behave _______when I’m with others so that they think better of me.” And that is when I realized that I was doing things all   ________. I explained to him that it had nothing to do with what people think. This ________him even more.

So I went on to explain that behavior, whether in your everyday   ________with people or at the dining table at home, is an   ________of who you are. Well, at the age of 13, he got it.

So basically, what I am saying is that teaching your children   ________comes with the underlying lesson that it is not about   ________to do or not to do, but rather, who they are. This way it is not   ________; it comes from within.

Teach your teens or children the ________courtesy of greeting their friends’ parents and ________themselves when they go to someone’s home. Teach teenage boys to open the door of a car, or any door   ________ anyone who matters, for any girl, whether they are their girlfriends or not. This includes holding elevator doors or letting women step out of the elevator first.

Just   ________that teenage boys who practice good manners’ and courtesy grow up to become men who respect people in general.