【推荐1】Bill and Mari are a happy couple (夫妻). Bill is musical, strong and fun-loving. Mari is creative and playful. Bill’s ________ are skiing, hiking, and gardening while Mari ________ time cooking and gardening. They ________ love music and playing the guitar. They live in a safe and ________ neighborhood (街区).

Bill and Mari ________ their son Sammy five years after they got married. He is a lovely boy now. This family love playing music ________, going to Granny’s house, camping, playing with friends, and visiting different kinds of fun places ________ the park, zoo, and beach. Mari loves being a stay-at-home Mom. She and Sammy are always ________ doing fun activities together. Bill loves playing with Sammy in their studio after a day’s work.

They especially look forward to holidays. They love holidays ________ they can get together with family members and friends to enjoy good food. Christmas is a good time for their family. They love decorating (装饰) their home and the tree and singing Christmas songs together after ________ a Christmas have dinner.

【推荐2】There will be a talent (才艺) show next Sunday. Everyone is ____ except (除了) Tom. He can’t play the piano, the drums or the guitar. And he is not good ___ singing or dancing.

“Hey, Tom. _____ do you want to do in the show?” asks Peter. “Well, I don’t have any talent,” Tom says. “Come on, Tom. We all ___ your stories. You can tell us Chinese stories,” says Peter. “Really? I think it is ____ to tell a story in the show,” says Tom. “No, your stories are always fun,” Peter says. “Thank you, Peter. I know what I can do,” Tom says.

【推荐3】Do your parents make you do lots of after-school activities? My parents did. I used to listen to them. But now, I decide to think for ________. My parents made me do a lot of after-school activities: taking guitar lessons, taking ________ classes, playing tennis and doing different kinds of other things I didn’t like many of them. I often asked my parents to stop ________ me. This year, I will stop some activities. I decide to ________ the guitar because I don’t like to play it at all. I think I can learn English by myself at home, ________ I won’t go to the English classes any more.

My mother doesn’t think that I get enough ________. But I don’t think so. I walk two miles to school every day. I think that is ________ for me. So I don’t want to play tennis. One day, my mother ________ me to go to a swimming club, but I refused. She was ________ and said, “The more you study, the more skills you will have, and then the more independent you will be.” ________ she’s right, but I really don’t want to go. Dear friends, am I right?

What will you do if you meet the situation?

【推荐1】Mr. and Mrs. Hill were invited to a Christmas party at a hotel one year. They _________ their car outside and went in. Mr. Hill had never got drunk before, so he was _________ not to drink too much, though his friends asked him to drink more all along.

During the party, Mrs. Hill found that she had forgotten to bring her bag, so she asked her husband to go out to the car and get it for her. He _________ so, but on his way back to the hotel gate, he heard a car horn（喇叭）blowing near his own car. He thought _________ might be in need and he went over to the car with the noise. He found a bear sitting in the driving-seat and blowing the horn.

When Mr. Hill _________ the party, he told people about the bear but of course they did not believe him and thought he was drunk. When he took them out of the hotel to show that his story was _________, he found that the car with the bear in it had gone. There were so many laughs about Mr. Hill’s bear during the next week that he at last put an advertisement in the newspaper, “If anyone saw a bear blowing the horn in a car outside the Century Hotel _________ the evening of Christmas Day, please tell...”

Two days later Mrs. Richards called him and said that she and her husband had left their pet bear in their car outside the Century Hotel for a few minutes that evening, and that _________ he had blown the horn.

Mrs. Richards did not _________ to think there was anything _________ about that. “Our bear likes blowing car horns,” she said, “and we don’t mind when we are not driving the car.”

Prana, our beautiful dog, isn’t with us now. She died several years ago. But while sharing our home, she brought so much joy and love into our lives that we still______her.

It was an autumn day in Minnesota, US. We were______by a big snowfall which no one was prepared for. We have two apple trees in our backyard. Prana loved apples. When she went outside, she’d catch an apple and put it into the______secretly. The apples had been on the______and were often muddy (沾满泥的). So I wasn’t always______that Prana had brought them into the house. Every time, she would turn her head so I wouldn’t______her hidden treasure (宝物). It was our little game.

One year, it snowed earlier than usual. Prana went outside. I noticed that she was madly digging holes and bringing the apples to the surface (表面)______they could be seen above the snow. She seemed busy digging up as many apples as possible during her yard time. I wondered______she was doing this.

When I called her back into the house, she had her usual one apple in her mouth. About five minutes later, I looked outside. The yard was full of birds. Prana______all those apples up for her birds and squirrel friends to eat. She knew that they didn’t have enough food to______through such an early winter!

As I saw this beautiful act, tears filled my eyes. Prana taught us how to live with love.

【推荐3】As somebody who’s spent a great deal of time being jobless or an aimless student, I’ve felt like I’m doing _______ with my life.

I’ve seen people like me who just _________ their situation. You can _________ your whole life saying “It’s too hard. I’m not going to do it,” or “I’ll start tomorrow.”

But the good news is, six months is _________ to turn your life around for the better.

A few years ago, I went to see one of my teachers in college, thinking I had a couple of courses left _______ I graduated. It turned out that I had nine courses left.

I just wanted to _________ on getting my degree (学位). But then a friend of mine said, “Well, you can either complain about your courses or you can get them done.”

I took more _________ than I ever had, and within six months I was finished.

After graduating, I didn’t have the experience to get an incredible (极好的) _________ right away.

Six months of volunteering got me the references (推荐信) I needed to change that. And a few months at a low-paying job got me into a second job that was much better.

Some people may have thought, “I don’t want to waste my time volunteering—it won’t _________ me out.” But the truth is, even just six months of volunteering can make a __________—not only in others’ lives, but in ours.

The bottom line is this: six months isn’t that long, but it’s long enough to make some incredible changes.

In just half a year, you can change your whole life.