【推荐2】It’s said that Mother’s Day was first suggested in the United States by Julia Ward Howe in 1872 as a day dedicated to peace after the Franco Prussian War. The holiday gained its ________ majorly due to the efforts of Anna M. Jarvis.

Anna began a letter-writing ________ to gain support for a national Mother’s Day holiday when her mother passed away in 1905. ________ influential leaders, including William Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Wannamaker, Anna poured out a stream of requests for support of the idea. She believed, mothers ________ their own special day and that it would help strengthen family bonds.

She ________ her mother’s church in West Virginia to celebrate Mother’s Day on the second anniversary of her mother’s ________, the 2nd Sunday of May. By 1911 Mother’s Day was celebrated in almost every state, and flowers quickly became a lasting ________ to express love on the occasion. In 1914, Congress ________ a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, “a public ________ of love and respect for the mothers of our country”. President Woodrow Wilson issued the statement, making it a(n) ________ US holiday.

But Anna’s accomplishment soon turned ________ for her. Annoyed by the ________ of the holiday, she filed a lawsuit (诉讼) to stop a 1923 Mother’s Day festival and was even arrested for ________ the peace at a war mothers’ conference where women sold white carnations (康乃馨) — Anna’s symbol for mothers — to raise money, “This is not what I ________,” Jarvis said. “I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not ________!”

Today Mother’s Day has become a very popular holiday in the USA.

【推荐1】Mark is leaving, and I’m feeling kind of sad.

You probably don’t know Mark, but you might be _______ enough to know someone just like him. He’s been the heart and soul of the office, combining professional skills with a sweet nature. He’s never been all that interested in getting praise for the _______ work he does.

And now he’s moving on to an exciting new opportunity which sounds like the chance of a lifetime, and we’re _______ pleased for him. But that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to a dear friend and _______ colleague.

Life has a way of throwing these curve balls (曲线球) at us. Just when we start to get comfortable with a person, a place or a situation, something comes along to _______ it.

But how do we deal with change? There’s Chris, who once told me that the answer can be expressed in four words, “Go _______ the flow.”

“It is like surfing,” Chris explained. “You can’t organize the ocean. _______ just happen. You ride them _______ they take you, and then you go back out there and catch the next one. Sure, you’re always hoping for the perfect wave. But _______ you just take them the way they come.”

That doesn’t ________ that you don’t keep trying to make all your dreams come true. It just means that when things that aren’t exactly in your plan ________, you work around them and then you move on. Of course, some barriers (阻碍) along the ________ of life are easier to take than others. A rained-out picnic, for example, is ________ to deal with than the sudden death of a loved one. But the principle is the same.

We’re going to ________ Mark. But rather than on the sadness of our ________, we’ll focus on our hopes for a brighter future.

【推荐2】It’s two o’ clock in the afternoon. Sophie Hanson is running a marathon. She’s wearing T-shirt that ____“Go the Extra Mile”, but she feels ____. She can hear her schoolmates ____and she knows she has to finish. She grabs a bottle of water,takes a long drink and ____. By the time she ____, she will have raised £200.

Halfway around the world, in Sierra Leone, Africa, Mohammed Koroma is ___, so he picks up a cup of water and takes a long drink. The water is from a new ____ in his village, so it isn’t ____. It’s cool and clear and Mohammed has not been ill for weeks.

Sophie and Mohammed are two teenagers with very ____ lives, but magically they are ____ by charity. Sophie is ____ a huge national event that raises money for people in the UK and abroad — a sponsored ____ for Sport Relief. Mohammed’s village has a new well that was ____ with money from the same event. Every year, Sport Relief and its sister charity, Comic Relief, raise money for good ____. By the end of this year, people will have completed more than 350 events and will have ____ over £50 million. That’s enough money to ____ the lives of thousands of people.

Teenagers play a big role in this culture of ____ . Although they may not have much money to give, they often ____ in other ways. They ____ their free time and volunteer, making a ____ to the world.