Canadian Geese are large blue and white birds. When autumn comes, they have to fly south where the weather is warmer.

This is a story about some Canadian Geese and a man. The winters are so cold in Canada that the birds will die if they stay there.

Last spring, Bill Lishman found sixteen young Canadian Geese on his farm. They had lost their parents. Bill thought, “These young birds won’t know what to do in the autumn.” He had a small plane and he decided to teach the birds to follow him. All through the summer, he went on short trips in his plane and the young geese flew after him.

When the cold weather arrived in the autumn, Bill flew to Virginia in the United States, 600 miles south of his home in Canada. The geese followed him all the way. Bill left the geese in Virginia and he returned home.

This spring, Bill was waiting for the birds to come back. They didn’t arrive, so Bill flew to Virginia to get them. He looked for them for two weeks, but he couldn’t find them. When he arrived back home, he found the geese waiting for him. They had found their way home without him!

Actions have been taken to fight food waste, but one young man is making a big difference with technology. Liu Jichen, 23, a student from Tsinghua University, has developed a WeChat mini-program called “Clear Your Plate”. After a meal, users can open the mini-program and take a picture of their empty plates. Once the picture is accepted by the AI, users can collect points and use them to buy gifts or meals for the poor children.

It has been 6 years since Liu and his team, together with other organizations, started the “Clear Your Plate” project. It has already spread over 1,017 universities across the country. The idea came from Liu’s experience in a small restaurant. One day, he found that a restaurant would give diners who finished their food a card and offer small gifts after a certain number of cards had been collected. “Technology is a good way to reduce (减少) food waste,” Liu thought. He set up a team of 20 members to work on the project at the end of 2017. To solve the problem of identifying (辨别) photos of empty plates, the team spent half a year collecting over 100,000 samples (样本). In 2018, the mini-program was put into practice on Oct 16, World Food Day.

However, that was far from success. “For our team members, the biggest problem was whether we were confident (自信) enough to make it better,” Liu said. There still might be a long way to go. Liu, along with the other 16 members, stood out among more than 7,600 people around the world to get the award (奖项) of the 2020 Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals (可持续发展目标) by the UN office.

3 . Chongqing People Got Together to Fight the Fire

Chongqing, a city of more than 32 million people, faced a terrible test in the summer of 2022. In August, Chongqing kept _______ the fire caused by the hot and dry weather. People from all works of life volunteered to _______ the terrible fire together.

Some people cut down trees to make fire barriers (屏障). Others _______ motor bikes on newly formed (形成) roads to take firefighters and supplies (补给) up the mountain, while some volunteers carried food and drinks _______ their backs on foot. Women and children helped organize supplies, cleaned the ground and finished other _______ tasks.

On Thursday night, as the fire got close to a man-made barrier on Jinyun Mountain, more than 1, 000 firefighters and _______ stood along-side the barrier with fire extinguishers (灭火器). Seen from over-head, _______ lights formed a wall against the fire line.

The stories of these people have _______ many people. Du Hailang, head of the Beijing Emergency Rescue Association (应急救援协会), was one of them. He and 10 other people of the association joined the life-saving team in Chongqing. He said, “Chongqing people are really amazing. The man-made wall was unbelievable, _______ it was really surprising. It really showed Chinese people’s ________ will to protect their homeland.”

5 . “Hello, sister” is a simple sentence. But for Shang Ruoyan, it means a lot. When she heard it from a little autistic (患自闭症的) girl, she almost ________. “That was the first time she greeted me on her own. I was so touched,” she said.

For over two years, Shang has volunteered at a local school for autistic kids. In fact, she has been a ________ for many years before this.

Every Tuesday, Shang would accompany (陪伴) autistic kids after school. She ________ their studies, played the piano and made pudding (布丁) for them.

She still ________ the “embarrassing (尴尬的)” scene when she first met with them. “When I asked what color they liked, they didn’t ________ me at all,” she said. But as she spent more ________ with them. She learned how to communicate with them. “It’s better to use simple words and short sentences ________ they are not sensitive (敏感的) to language, ”she said.

After she entered Junior 3, she was ________ with schoolwork. But she still helped them in another way. She opened a store on WeChat called Weselllove with her friends. They sold hand-made soaps and ________ a lot of money. They donated (捐赠) all of it to the school.

In her free time, she did a lot of ________ and read many books to learn about autism. She even wrote a report. “I put everything I learned in it. It may help more people learn about autism,” she said.

6 . It was a Christmas night. I was an unlucky nurse who had to work on such a beautiful festival. When I was so tired that I didn’t want to work any longer, three people came to my desk—a tired woman and two children. “Are you all sick?” I asked.

“Yes,” the woman answered and lowered her head.

But when they started to tell their problems, things became unclear. One child had a fever, but his temperature was OK. The other child had an earache, but she could not tell me which ear hurt. It seemed that the mother was trying to cough.

Something was wrong. But I only explained that it might take a while before a doctor could meet them. “Take your time, please,” said the mother. I checked their information—no address. Suddenly I knew, they were homeless and the hospital was warm.

The family stayed together under the Christmas tree, smiling and talking with each other sweetly. Quietly, I went back to the nurses’ station and told them what happened in the waiting room. It was just like the God sending us a gift on Christmas Day. The nurses’ station suddenly came back to life. All the nurses went into action for “a Christmas emergency”.

We took out our meals for our Christmas “sick people”. We also put oranges and apples together as presents. We tried to give them a warm place on Christmas night. Later, the little girl kissed me and said, “Thanks for being our angels.”

Jane was a kind-hearted and helpful girl. She often helped others and would always ______ her pocket money to buy food for the needy elderly in her neighborhood. Jane joined the food bank so that she could have more ______ of giving a helping hand in the community.

One day in a meeting, Mrs. Hill announced that all members would be ______ to help hand out biscuits in the neighborhood. After the meeting, the members put bags of biscuits on a trolley (手推车) which would make it ______ for them to carry the biscuits around.

At a house, a poor-looking old man ate the biscuits as soon as he ______ them. The old man said thanks to Jane repeatedly ______ she was the one who passed him the bag of biscuits. Jane thought to ______ ,“He must have been feeling very hungry. ”

Jane ______ the old man and felt sorry for him. She asked Mrs. Hill if she could give the old man another bag of biscuits. Jane was ______ that Mrs. Hill agreed. After handing over the bag to the old man, Jane made a(n) ______ to return to help him again. She promised him that she would bring more food for him next time.

I went to visit my grandfather in a small town near London. On a cold morning, my friend Peter invited me to a famous coffee shop. When we enjoyed our coffee, a tall man with a pair of glasses came in and sat down near us. He called the waiter and ordered, “Two cups of coffee, and one of them there on the wall.” We saw that he drank one cup of coffee but he paid for two. After he left, the waiter quickly put a piece of paper on the wall saying “A cup of coffee”. While we were still there, two other women had two cups of coffee but paid for three. Again, the waiter did the same thing. It seemed that this was common at this place. However, it was something strange for us.

About 30 minutes later, an old man came in. The way this man dressed didn’t match the style of this coffee shop. He looked thin and poor. When he sat down, he looked at the wall and said, “One cup of coffee from that wall.” The waiter served coffee to this man, showing him the same respect (尊重) as the other customers. The man had his coffee and left without paying. The waiter took off a piece of paper from the wall and threw it into the dustbin.

After that, I knew anybody could take a cup of coffee from that wall if he wanted. He didn’t have to lose face to ask for a free cup of coffee. Without asking or knowing who was giving him this cup of coffee, he only looked at the wall, ordered, enjoyed coffee and left. It was a really beautiful thing—probably the most beautiful wall anywhere in the world.

Today is Sunday. Bob is free, so he goes to the ________. There he sees many animals like monkeys, tigers and ________. He likes monkeys and he thinks they are clever. On his way home in the afternoon, he ________ a little girl. She can’t find her ________. Bob wants to ________ her. The girl is about three years old. ________ name is Betty. She doesn’t know her mother’s ________ number. She only (仅仅) tells Bob her mother has long yellow ________. Bob sees a ________ with long yellow hair, but she isn’t the girl’s mother. At about 4 o’clock, Bob finds the girl’s mother. The mother says thanks to Bob. “It’s very ________ of you. Thank you very much.” Bob is happy to help Betty.

Anna Brown was an artist who believed that it was important to help others. When she heard of a summer camp for children with serious illnesses, she came up     1     an idea.

She wanted to take advantage of her love of art. So she started making and selling beautiful cards     2     raise money for these kids. Because these cards were all handmade, it would take her a long time to make a lot of them. Anna decided to invite friends to help her. At first her friends were hesitant (犹豫的). Many said that they were not artistic and didn’t know how to make cards. But once they saw the beautiful materials     3     she had in her workroom, they all agreed.

But the materials     4     expensive. Anna asked for and got donations (捐赠) of many things from nearby stores. She sold her cards in different art markets. Anna donated all     5     money she made from selling the cards to the kids.