I learned to cook in our school’s labor classes. ________ Mother’s Day, I decided to cook for my family to show my love for my mother. I chose the steaks because they are ________ for our health. I looked up the best cooking way on the website in order to cook it ________.   

Before cooking, I prepared all the things well. They were fresh steaks, butter, and a pan. Before cooking, I cut an onion into ________, and put them aside (一旁).

First, I heated the pan, and put some butter in it. The butter could provide the steak a sense of fragrance (香气). ________, I put the steak in and fried one side lightly. After some minutes I turned the steak over to ________ the other side. Then I ________ some onion pieces. When the steak was cooked well, I put it onto the plate. With a bunch of flowers beside, I thought my mother could feel my love ________ she wouldn’t mind whether the dish was delicious or not.

When my mother sat at the table, I gave her a set of knives and ________ to thank her for taking good care of me. She was so moved and ________ all the dish.

My mother said she would remember this Mother’s Day all her life. That was the most delicious food.

2 . Teenagers spend more time at school than with their parents. So communication between them can be ________. Parents spend all day working. They don’t come back home ________ late in the evening. They can’t almost ________ their children. And the problem will become worse ________ the parents work in another city. The parents and their children ________ have the weekends or holidays to spend all together. Sometimes they don’t ________ have a chance to communicate together all the year around. This is quite ________ because we know how important communication is to people, especially to children. As they grow up, they need to learn ________ to communicate with others. So, school becomes a (n) ________ place to help children.

School is where teenagers learn to read and write, ________ they can learn good manners from teachers. School is also the place where teenagers can learn lots of communication ________.

As teenagers, we’ve all ________ what school means to us. Our teachers usually ________ us how important it is to get information from others. The things we learn at school will help us ________ some important decisions in life later.

It’s sure that school will ________ help for our future. So, in school, we should work as hard as we can.

3 . When I was young, I liked climbing the mountains with my father. When we walked together, my father and I ________ a lot. He always told me, “You should have goals like climbing the mountains. But first, you should keep yourself ________.”

________ the mountain climbing, we didn’t have enough time to be together because my father was very ________. I really got a lot from the mountain climbing.

Once we climbed a very high mountain. During the first few hours, I ________ the flowers, trees and the birds’ singing. But as time went by, I was very tired and felt a little sad. I wanted to ________ climbing. In fact, I hated it at that time. ________ my father said, “You can always see a beautiful ________ at the top of the mountain. When you are at the top, you can see all of the nicest things, just like in life.’’

At that time, I was too young to ________ his words. But I got new hope. Finally, I found ________ standing at the top of the mountain. I could see the whole sky, and it was as clear as crystal.

4 . Once upon a time, a good-looking hawk (鹰) lived in a tree alone. He felt ________ because he had few friends.

One day, he saw a beautiful she-hawk and wanted to ________ her. But the she-hawk refused, ________ he had no friends. “Will you be with me if I make three friends?” he asked. She answered yes.

The hawk flew to ________ friends. Along the way, he met some animals, ________ a huge bear, a fox and a tiger. He asked them if they could make friends with ________. They said, “Of course. Call us when you are ________ need and we shall come to your side.”

The hawk was very ________. He flew back and became the she-hawk’s ________. Some months later, after their marriage, they got two baby hawks and had a happy life.

One day, two hungry hunters (猎人) came and sat under that tree. They had ________ to eat. Suddenly, they heard the baby hawks ________. And then they decided to catch them and eat them.

The parent hawks became worried. So they had to turn to their friends and told them ________. With their help, the two hunters ran away, and the ________ became safe.

As an old saying goes, “A friend ________ is a friend indeed.” The hawk thanked his three friends. He found that the she-hawk was very ________ in advising him to make friends before marriage.

5 . A long time ago, there lived a wise man named Zun-Nun in Egypt. A young man came to visit him and asked, “Teacher, ___ do you dress so casually (随意地)? Nowadays, it is necessary to dress neatly (整洁地), isn’t it? Or how will people know you are really a ___ and wise man?”             

Zun-Nun smiled, took the ___ from his finger and said, “Young friend. I will answer your question, but first do one thing ___ me. Take this ring to the market. Can you ___ this for one chip (片) of gold?” ___ he looked at Zun-Nun’s dirty ring, the young man thought to himself. “How will I sell it at that ___?”

He offered the ring to the vegetable, meat and fish traders (商人) and others in the market. But ___ was ready to pay a chip of gold.

He told this to Zun-Nun and Zun-Nun said, “Now go to the gold ___ and show the ring to the owner. Don’t give a price. Just ____ how much he will pay.”

One hour later the young man was back with the ring, “Teacher, people at the market ____ didn’t know the value (价值) of this ring. The gold trader ____ me 1,000 chips of gold.”

Zun-Nun smiled. “That is the ____ to your question, my friend. Someone cannot be valued only from his ____. That ring was a gift from the king on my 60th birthday. There is only one ring like this in the world.” he said. “It’s very valuable. So never judge (评判) a book by its cover, young man. ____ yourself to make yourself valuable.”

6 . Kathy could still remember the night when she had to leave her home in Hungary (匈牙利) for America because of the World War Ⅱ. Her family had to leave their country as _______ as possible. She quickly filled a bag with clothing and a beautiful _______. It was a symbol (象征) of the friendship between her best friend, Monica and her.

Kathy _______ the special scarf for many years. One day she decided to give it to her granddaughter, Eliza, to wear to her first job interview for good _______. Kathy was afraid Eliza would lose the scarf, but the granddaughter promised (承诺), “Don’t worry, Grandma. _______ will happen to your scarf. I’m sure it _______ bring both of us good luck today.”

That afternoon, after Eliza finished the _______, she felt sure that she could get the job. So she decided to _______ by going to a restaurant. As she was sitting at a table, she felt someone looking at her. Sitting next to her was an old woman, who could not take her _______ away from her.

“Excuse me, do I know you” Eliza asked. “I’m sorry, dear, but you make me ________ my best friend,” the old woman replied. “ She looked like you and used to wear a scarf just like the one you’re wearing around your neck.” Eliza listened ________, with her eyes and mouth wide open. She heard about some stories of her grandmother’s best friend and knew how ________ the scarf was. Could she be Monica, her grandmother’s childhood friend?

Then she heard the woman ________ herself. “My name is Monica,” she said. “My best friend Kathy and I have the same scarf as you are wearing. We had asked our parents to buy them for us on the night when we were leaving our country. I used to live in Hungary as a child, ________ my family had to leave when I was 14. I’ve lived in America ever since.”

What a(n) ________! Eliza could not believe her ears.

7 . Every day after school, little Joey came to Mr. Dow’s store to look around. He loved to look at the pipes (烟斗). One pipe especially caught his ________. He imagined some day he would be a ________ man and could smoke a pipe, just like this one. He looked around. ________ was looking. He put the pipe in his hand. He just wanted to get the feel of it.

Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. He ________ quickly. It was Mr. Dow, the store owner. “Hello, Joey,” Mr. Dow said. Joey struggled (挣扎) to answer but only smiled ________ as Mr. Dow walked away. Did Mr. Dow see the pipe in his hand? Was he suspicious (猜疑的)? Joey’s thoughts became ________. Suddenly the store seemed very ________. He watched his feet begin to move and take him out of the store.

Walking around in the street, he felt the cool air outside and it was good, yet he felt an emptiness inside himself, like one walking in his sleep. He pulled the pipe out of his pocket. Joey wondered if Mr. Dow had ________ the police. Perhaps the police were waiting for him at home. He could say he did not ________ the pipe. No one had seen him do it. Still he himself would know that he did.

Then, it was time to go home. His mother would look at him and she would know. She always knew. A hot tear ran down his check. He ________ the way she said, “You are a little man now, Joey.” Thinking of it made him ________. “She trusted me,” he kept saying to himself. The pipe and his ________ of growing up meant nothing.

He knew what he had to do. And he was in a hurry to get it done. When he ________ the store, Mr. Dow was just inside the door. The big man smiled. Joey’s feet felt heavy. Suddenly, he held out the pipe.

“Mr. Dow,” he said, “I didn’t ________ to take it.”

“Thanks, Joey.” Mr. Dow said ________.

“How about staying around and helping me close up shop?”

Joey felt Mr. Dow’s big hand on his shoulder. And Joey felt his shoulders had become a little broader and stronger.

8 . It’s an exciting picture. The sun, the moon and seven other planets of our solar system (太阳系) stand side by side as a loving ________.

The picture was taken by Wang Zhipu, at the age of 15. And it helped him ________ the top prize in the Young Competition category at the Astronomy Photographer (天文摄影师) of the Year competition in 2021.

Wang loved looking up at the sky ________ he was a little kid. In Grade 8, he got his first telescope (望远镜). “Astrophotography (天文摄影) needs lots of ________ and effort (精力). You may need to take hundreds or even thousands of photos, then make ________ one picture,” said Wang.

In 2019, Wang started to take pictures of Saturn and Jupiter. He always got up ________ in the morning to get the best places. In 2020, he got pictures of all the planets in the solar system.

“I tried ________ times to take the photos of Mercury. The first two tries were not good because they were not ________ enough,” said Wang. The last time he took more than 10,000 pictures of Mercury and ________ thousands of them to make.

“I didn’t believe that I could win the top prize,” Wang said. “It encourages me to take ________ pictures in the future!”

9 . Cars make our lives much easier. But they can also be a problem, _______ fossil fuel (化石燃料) cars. They have become a main ________ of air pollution.

To improve the environment, many countries are _______ electric vehicles (EVs, 电动车). Among them is China. China has became the world’s largest EV market, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2021 _______ in China, more than twice as many as the number sold in the United States, Chinese drivers are already big _______ of EVs. Chinese auto companies, including BYD and BAIC, have been among the top in the world in EV sales.

“Charging (充电) an electric car is _______ than filling up a fossil fuel car with gas,” said Wu Hao, who bought an electric car from BAIC this year. _______, there are still some problems. It can be hard to find charging _______. The cars can’t go far _______ needing to be charged again.

Some of these problems are being solved. Now China has the world’s largest EV charging network. There are more than 2.6 million charging stations in total.

Developing EVs is one of the actions China has taken to protect the ________. “As China goes, so Will the world’s auto industry (产业),” the Wall Street Journal said.

10 . Matthew is a middle school student. He is interested in literature (文学) and hopes to be a writer. He spends much of his time ________. But he has a problem. He has few friends.

One day, when Matthew walked out of the library, he saw two ________ sitting under a tree outside. One boy said to Mathew, “Take your coat.” The other boy asked.“Do you want to go to Nate’s Restaurant with us?”

“Sure!” Matthew said. He ________ to be friends with them.

Mathew and the two boys walked to the ________. They had pizza. The food was delicious. They ate, talked and laughed. Mathew had a ________ time.

One of the boys said, “Let’s leave without paying.” Matthew didn’t want to. ________ he thought his new friends wouldn’t like him if he didn’t.

As they were leaving the restaurant, the waiter shouted, “Stop!” The two boys ran, leaving Matthew there ________.

Soon, the police arrived. “Leaving without ________ your meal is the same as stealing (偷).” said the policeman.

Matthew said, “I am ________ for what I’ve done. Now I know that real friends won’t ask you to do anything wrong.”

The policeman made Matthew pick up rubbish as a punishment (惩罚). Much to Matthew’s surprise, ________ he met some new friends.