Tim hated family meetings. He couldn’t hear very well _______ his baby sister, Kathy, was shouting and making loud noise. His _______ were going to talk to him and his brother, Denny, about doing something they didn’t want to do.

“The whole family is _______,” his mom said. “Kathy is moving from our bedroom into Denny’s room. And Denny will move into Tim’s room.”

“No way!” Tim _______. “Denny’s got ten million plastic models all over the place. I can’t work _______ if my room is messy.”

“OK, here’s _______ we will do this,” Denny said. “We’ll put down a line. You get your side and I get mine. And I’ll hang my _______ from the ceiling (天花板). But I get to paint my side of the room and the whole ceiling blue!”

Tim _______ blue, “You can’t pick the color. And you got the whole ceiling? It’s _______. It’s my room, too!”

Their father held up his hands. “You both love the Flag Football Team. The __________ colors are blue and green. What if you both paint blue and green all over the walls?”

Tim wasn’t so sure he liked the __________. The next day they started painting. He had to say that he and his brother __________. They were really satisfied with their job.

Tim wanted his desk to stay in front of the window. Denny wanted his desk in front of the window, too. So mom moved __________ desks face to face. Now they both could look out of the window. What a __________ solution!

In the end, they all wanted to have a family __________ in the new room. They all lay down on the soft floor looking up at the beautiful ceiling. Now Tim loved family meetings.

Here are three of the best inventions of 2021 according to Times Magazine.

Robin the Robot
Robin the Robot is a good choice for the kids. It is designed to cheer up the children in hospital. When a sick girl didn’t eat for two days, the doctor brought the robot into her room. It did work—after 20 minutes of happy playtime, the girl started eating again.
The Learning Passport
Many schools have been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, online lessons become difficult for some students because of the slow internet service. The Learning Passport (LP) program offers classes that do not require a consistent (持续的) internet. Instead, students can download (下载) their lessons when there is internet connection. They can then complete the lessons later, offline.
Blue Jeans Go Green
Jeans are a fashion favorite. Every year more than 4.5 billion pairs are sold around the world. But the production of jeans is harmful to (对有害) the environment. To color them, factories use chemicals that will pollute the water during the dyeing (染色) process. The company Huue has found a solution. They turn the natural sugar into dyeing material—without any harm to the environment.

“What are you doing, Leticia?” Mom asked.

“I am counting my things. I need 100 of them,” Leticia said.

“Why do you need 100 things?” her mother kept asking.

“Tuesday is the 100th day of school,” Leticia said. “as a 100th day project, every student needs to bring 100 of something. And my teacher wants our projects to be creative.”

“I see. How about making 100 little books?” her mother said. “You love books so much!”

“Wow, great idea!” Kate said excitedly.

Then Kate began to make the little books with her mother’s help. She wrote little notes in each of the books.

On the 100th day Leticia showed her project to the class. She had written “100 Reasons I Love to Come to School” as the book title. It made her friends curious (好奇的). They began reading the messages in the little books.

“Look! Kate, this one is about you,” Mia said. “It says, ‘I like to see Kate smile’.” Soon there was a crowd around Leticia’s project. The teacher decided to read the little books to the whole class. After he read each book, the class cheered for the person the book was about.

There were books for every student in Leticia’s grade and every teacher at the school. There was a book for the school cleaner, bus driver, librarian, headmaster and cafeteria workers, too. Leticia had found a creative way to celebrate the 100th day of school. Her 100 reasons told 100 people why they were special.

If you have a dog, you probably feel a strong bond (纽带) with it. A recent study found that this bond might be important to dogs, too.

Researchers at Oregon State University looked at the relationship between kids and dogs. They asked 30 kids (aged from 8 to 17) who have dogs to join the research.

The kids brought their dogs to a big and empty room. Each kid was asked to walk around the room, sometimes pausing (停顿) or changing direction. “And the dog was left to do whatever it wanted. It could run around the room, or sniff, or lie down or sleep.” says Monique Udell, one of the researchers.

But then they found that most of the time, the dogs didn’t do any of these things. Instead, they stayed close to their young owners and do the same things that they were doing. When the kid walked, the dog usually walked, too. When the kid stopped, the dog stopped. When the kid turned and changed direction, so did the dog.

What does this mean? Udell says it’s a dog’s way of building a relationship with a human. The dogs did this with the kids, even though the kid’s parents are usually the ones who feed and care for them. “The kid may play a brother or sister role in the life of the dog,” Udell says. This shows ___▲___.

So far, Udell’s team has only worked on dogs. But they would like to do similar studies with cats and other kinds of pets. Udell thinks that the animal-human bond spread to them as well.

Weddings (婚礼) create a lot of leftover flowers. To Eleanor Love, that means more chances to collect after-wedding bouquets (花束) and give them to her lonely hospital patients, many of whom don’t often get visitors, let alone expensive flowers.

The flowers are still in good shape, and the patients are overjoyed to have them.

“I broke down and cried,” recalled patient Connie Melzer, who was recovering (康复) from a heart problem at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical Center in Richmond when Love walked into her room with a bouquet in early 2020.

“When you’re in hospital for six to eight weeks, it really means a lot,” said Melzer.

Love worked at the VCU Hospital as a medical student. She wanted to help ease the suffering of patients as well as learning to treat them as a student doctor.

“One of the challenges of being a medical student is that it can be very difficult to help.” said Love. “You are there as a leaner, but you don’t have the same knowledge as doctors. How can I at this stage help patients?”

So in 2019, she started The Simple Sunflower Project in Richmond, and so far has delivered (递送) more than 760 bouquets to patients. She brought her schoolmates into her project. People beyond (在……之外) the VCU community who heard about the project also joined. Now Love has more than 200 volunteers on the email list.

For each wedding, Love would organize a team of eight volunteers to help pick up the flowers when the party was over and then delivered them to patients. “It’s so satisfying to see the patients who receive our bouquets and it reminds me why we do what we do,” she said.

Orion Jean is a ten-year-old boy, but the     41     (数字) on his mind is 500,000. As a book lover, Jean knows how reading can change a person’s life and he always try to     42     (传播) kindness to children from poor families.

Jean started the “Race to 500,000 Books” program. He     43     (希望) people can give away their used books to kids in need.

This is not Jean’s     44     (第一) trying. It all started in August 2020. Jean won the U.S. National Kindness Speech Contest. The boy soon realized that it was not enough to     45     (仅仅) speak about kindness. He decided to put his speech into action.

Jean started off by creating the “Race to 500 Toys” program. He     46     (买) as many toys as he could while calling on people to join his program.     47     (最终) , the boy collected 619 toys in total. Then he gave them to a     48     (当地的) children’s hospital.

Encouraged by the     49     (成功) , Jean set a bigger goal — Race to 100,000 Meals. This time he helped feed many poor families on Thanksgiving Day.

Jean said, “Kindness is easy.     50     (每个人) can be a kind person. So think about how you can spread kindness and make someone’s day a whole lot better.”

Do you chat (聊天) with the cashier (收银员) at the supermarket? Most of us don’t do this. We usually check out (结账) quickly,     51     the people behind us won’t wait too long. This is one of the     52     (rule) we follow in supermarkets. But in the Netherlands (荷兰), people follow a different rule at the supermarkets. Chatting happily is     53     (important) than checking out quickly. This “chat checkout” program     54     (introduce) by Jumbo, a large supermarket chain (连锁超市). In some of     55     (it) stores, customers can chat with cashiers for as long as they want. There is also a chat corner     56     the supermarket. People can have a good time chatting with each other. “Our store is     57     great meeting place for many people,” said the program leader. We want     58     (help) people fight loneliness. The program is so popular that Jumbo is now planning to spread it. Next year, it     59     (provide) the “chat checkout” service in more than 200 supermarkets across the country. By then, people will be able to find a place     60     (easy) to both shop and chat no matter where they are.

61. 假设你是李明，你的英国笔友Eric听说你校开展了课后托管服务（after-school services），想了解具体情况。请你根据下表提示，用英语给他写一封E-mail进行介绍，并谈谈你的看法。

Dear Eric,        How is everything going? I’m glad to tell you something about the after-school services in our school.   ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your, Li Ming