Last summer I went through a training program and became a volunteer. When I found out what other people’s lives were like because they could not read, I realized the     1     (important) of reading.

Marie is a 44-year-old mother of three children and she is my first student. In the     2     (one) lesson, she told me that she     3     (walk) miles to the supermarket twice a week because she didn’t know how     4     (take) a bus. She said she also had trouble in the supermarket. She bought things just by their pictures     5     she didn’t know words. If the thing that she wanted to buy had a     6     (difference) picture, she would not recognize (认出) it.

As we worked together, learning     7     to read built Marie’s confidence (信心). She started to make great progress. She even took the bus to the supermarket once. After this     8     (succeed) trip, she felt very excited.

    9     (help) Marie made me feel so happy. As a volunteer, I learned a lot about teaching and helping others. In fact, I learned     10     (much) from the experience than Marie did.

One cold evening in November, I was walking in the street with my 7-year-old daughter Nora.     1     Nora stopped and said to me, “Look, Daddy! The poor man is sitting inside a cardboard (纸板) box over there. I think he must be cold and hungry. Can we take him home?”

I don’t remember how to reply to her at that time—    2     something like, “That wouldn’t really help him.” I might make my daughter feel better by     3     him an apple. At that time, I found my daughter was no longer a little kid and that she had grown up. A few days later, a newspaper     4     that some volunteers tried their best to help others in different ways every Sunday. I decided to join them with my daughter Nora. She was excited about it.

When Sunday came, we got to an old people’s home. We first cleaned the floor and then took out the     5    . After that, we talked with the old people there. Nora learned a lot during the visit.

My name is Vivian, a teenager in Guangzhou. Three years ago, I decided to join the Red Cross to help others because the people there helped me a lot. When I was twelve, I hurt my leg while playing football in a match. I s    1     from pain. I couldn’t move and had to stay in hospital for six months. I felt l    2     and cried a lot. However, things started to change when Steve from Red Cross came to visit me. He told funny stories and played games to c    3     me up. His friendship raised my s    4    . With his help, l    5    , I was able to sit up and walk again. Steve visited me twice a week until I could go back to school. Now, like Steve, I often offer to do voluntary work during school holidays.

4 . A farmer was working when he heard a loud sound. He left his work at once and ran towards it. When the farmer reached there, he found a little boy in a bog (沼泽) crying out of fear. The farmer tried hard and successfully got the child out.

The next day, a well-dressed man came to the farmer’s house. He told the farmer that he was the father of the boy saved by him yesterday. He wanted to give him a large amount of money in return, but the farmer refused to accept money for saving the child. At that moment, a little boy came to the door. The rich man asked, “Is this child your son?” The farmer proudly replied, “Yes, he is my son.” Then, the rich man offered to help his child in his studies, saying, “I will provide him with the same education as I give my own son. If he is anything like his father, he will grow to be a noble man.” The farmer agreed, and his son was educated in the best schools until he finished his studies at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School.

Do you know who the son of the poor farmer is? He is the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin (青霉素).

Years passed, and the rich man fell seriously ill. A doctor saved his life. This doctor was Alexander Fleming. This rich man is Lord Randolph Churchill and his son saved by the farmer is Sir Winston Churchill (丘吉尔), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

7 . “Welcome to English drama class! Today, we are going to play Cinderella!” said Lin Xiao, one of the volunteer _______ from Shenzhen University. In front of her, there were 45 country school fifth graders listening excitedly.

In response to the government’s call for the revitalization (复兴) of countryside education, the Volunteer Teaching Program was set up in 2021. For three years, volunteers like Lin have spent their _______ teaching in Shangbao Village, Ganzhou City, where these educational improvements are expected to _______.

As the captain, Lin arrived in Ganzhou with her team on July 10, 2023. Although the living conditions were _______, she believed the experience was valuable in making the lives of local students better.

During the teaching, Lin found that students in village schools are often short of interest in English because of few materials and _______ to use the language. To increase their confidence and interest, Lin and her team designed special English drama courses to encourage children to express themselves _______. “It is better for village students to learn English through _______, because they will have more fun,” Lin explained. During rehearsals (排练), Lin _______ the children in understanding the storyline, practising words over and over again, and building cooperation among them. She discovered a big change in the students’ attitudes (态度), with many becoming highly _______ in English.

One summer may not bring decisive changes to the children, but Lin hopes one summer’s hard ____________ can at least make a difference to China’s countryside education.