【推荐1】A primary school in Canada has made some of its students very _______ by banning（禁止）homework.

Teachers will still be able to ask students to _______ and read at home, but they cannot give them homework like pages of math problems. The school will _______ the way students spend time in class to make sure they don’t fall behind in their work.

Some _______ think it’s a bad idea. They say homework is a way for them to know how their children are doing in school, and to help them if they are having problems.

The school says it will send home an exercise book _______ parents can see how their children are doing.

Several schools in Canada and the United States have been discussing _______ homework is a good idea or not.

In 2009, a study _______ that students with more homework may get higher marks. But this was only true for students in the seventh grade and higher, not in primary school.

Many people believe that homework is important because it _______ children to manage their time better. They say it also reinforces（巩固）what the students are learning in school.

But other people think homework causes stress for students and makes them less interested _______ learning . They say children’s lives are too ________, and they need to be able to spend more free time with their families, or just playing.

【推荐2】Every year, the Touching China Award recognizes people who have made significant contributions (贡献) to society through their work and actions. This year, a group of retired (退休的) professionals in China won the award for their ________ in sharing knowledge through short videos.

There are former teachers, scientists and engineers in the group. They ________ videos on a range of topics, such as literature and science.

Wu Yuren, for example, is a retired physics teacher. She became known ________ “Grandma Wu” on social media for her ________ and easy-to-understand physics experiments. “I made these videos to arouse (引发) young people’s curiosity about daily life and use everyday tools to ________ the wonder of science, ” Wu told People’s Daily. Wu is in her 70s but ________ writes her scripts (脚本) and looks for help from other teachers.

________ award winner is Wang Pinxian. He is an 87-year-old marine geologist (海洋地质学家) and teacher at Tongji University’s School of Ocean and Earth Science. Over the past two years, Wang has used his videos to share his ________ of the ocean with viewers. He looks at things like the ________ of the Bermuda Triangle (百慕大三角) and ________ sea monsters really exist.

The ________ of these videos has been well-tested. Thousands of viewers have watched and ________ the group’s content. Many followers ________ their thanks for the opportunity to learn new things and stay in ________ with the world around them.

According to CCTV, their videos are like “classrooms without walls and universities without barriers (障碍)”. In the words of the Touching China Award jury, “The popularity created by gray-haired people has created real ________.”

【推荐3】A Bottle of Milk

I recently heard a story about a very famous research scientist who was interviewed by a newspaper reporter. He was asked why he was able to be so much more _________ than the other person. He said that it all came from an _________ with his mother when he was young.

He tried to remove a bottle of milk from the bridge when he lost his hold on the bottle, spilling the milk all over the kitchen floor! Instead of _________   at him, his mother said, “Robert, what a great and beautiful mess you have made! I have never seen such a huge pool of milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to _________   with the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?”

Indeed, Robert played it. After a few minutes, his mother said, “Robert, Whenever you make a mess like this, you have to clean it up. So we would use a sponge (海绵), a towel or a mop. Which do you prefer?” He _________ the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk. His mother then said, “You know, what we have here is a difficult experiment in how effectively to carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands. Now, let’s _________ a way to carry it without dropping it.” The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top neat the lip with both hands, he could carry it _________. The scientist then said that it was at that moment that he knew he didn’t need to be afraid to make _________ and he’d like to try a lot of things in different ways.

Wouldn’t it be great if all parents would follow the example of Robert’s mother?