1 . Last month, my family moved to a house with a very big garden. I was very happy and always enjoyed ________ in the garden. Everything went on well ________ one afternoon we heard a noise from the windows. We went out and found a small bird dead. “It must have flown into the windows,” Dad said. We thought it was just ________ accident.

However, in the following days, five more birds ________ in the same way. I wondered ________ the birds hit the windows one after another. Finally I found out the ________. When the birds were flying, they couldn’t see into the rooms. They could only see trees that ________ by the windows, so they thought they were flying into a forest.

I decided to do something ________ the birds. At first, I tried to cover the windows with some old clothes, but it made the room dark. Then I cut some black paper into the shape of a cat. I made seven cats and stuck them ________ the windows. When the birds saw the paper cats, they would fly away.

After that, there were no ________ dead birds. How clever I was!

2 . Julie’s grandma Amanda liked traveling and she often told travel stories to Julie, “You can see and learn about it by ______. The world is wonderful. And it’s ______ to see something once than to hear about it a hundred times.”

Traveling is ______ big part of Amanda’s life. ______, it became difficult to leave her house because she couldn’t walk far ______ her eighties.

One day, Amanda said, “I am ______ to go for a long walk. I can just often look back on the old days. My life is meaningless.” After ______ this, Julie began to ______ the old people.

She visited many old people across the country personally and found that they were bored at home. Then she decided to use VR technology (科技) to make an improvement in their ______.

“My grandma is excited ______ she puts on the VR headset (虚拟实境体验耳机). She can enjoy the beauty of the world in a new way now.” Julie said.

Mary is a kind and beautiful girl. But she doesn’t have many friends because she is too shy. She is always afraid ________ with others. She never wants to be a star at school, but she wants to make more friends. ________ nice it will be to spend time with friends together!

This year, Mary’s family moves to ________ city. ________ she has to go to a new school. She is afraid that she won’t have any friends there. In her ________ class, her head teacher, Mr. Green, asks the students, “What do you want to learn from your classmates?” Mary’s classmates give many different ________. After ________ about the question for a minute, she says she is a new comer and wants to make some new friends first. “That’s very nice,” says Mr. Green, “Everyone ________ friendship.”

There’s the bell. After class, a tall girl ________ short hair comes to Mary. “Nice to meet you, Mary! My name is Becky Smith. I want to be your friend,” she says with a smile and holds out ________ hand. Mary holds Becky’s hand happily. What a wonderful beginning!

4 . One day, a baby snail found that he had to carry a big and heavy shell at any time. He asked his mother, “Why was I born _________ a hard and heavy shell?” His mother said, “Because we don’t have bones to hold us up. We can only move slowly, so we need a shell to protect _________.”

The baby snail asked again, “The caterpillar (毛毛虫) has _________ bones, and she can’t move quickly. Why can she live without a shell?” The mother snail answered, “That’s because a caterpillar will become a butterfly. She can fly _________ into the sky. The sky can protect her.”

The baby snail had one more _________, “The earthworm moves like us. He has no bones and he won’t turn into a butterfly. Why doesn’t he carry _________ shell?” His mother said, “He can dig a hole and _________ in the ground, and then the earth can protect him.”

The baby snail then cried, “We are so poor. We have no protection from the sky or from the ground!” His mother smiled at him, “That’s _________ we have a shell. My dear, imagine that _________ we don’t have the shells, what will happen to us? Hot sun will dry out our bodies and we won’t have to sleep. What’s more, we _________ in the heavy rain. It’s so terrible! We can’t depend on the sky or the ground for protection. We should depend on shells.”

6 . Once upon a time, there was ________ old and deep well (水井). People got water by ________ a bucket (桶) tied to a rope. On the other side of the rope was another bucket. A strong pull brought one bucket up to the top ________ the other down to the water. They always passed each other on the way up and down, but never had time ________. One day the two buckets were left standing together near the well. “What a ________ life we have!” said one bucket to the other. “I’m quite tired of it. No matter how full we come up, we are sent down empty.” But the other bucket laughed and said, “What a funny way of looking at things like this! Don’t you see that whenever we ________ down empty, we always come up full?”

People sometimes talk ________ these two buckets. You may hear one of ________ say, “Though we’re having a good game, we are made to stop and go to work again.” “Yes,” the other ________, “but as soon as work is over, we can still get to go out and have fun again.” There are two ways of looking at the same thing. If you want ________ happy, look at the bright side.

There was once a grandmother living in her ________ house. The man loved his grandmother very much. However, ________ had some strange habits. So the man thought she needed medical help. Maybe, he thought, it was time for her ________ the rest of her life in a special hospital.

“I’d like you to examine(检查) my grandmother carefully,” he told a doctor. “Then please let me know ________ you think she needs special care.”

The doctor said, “All right. Send her to me next Tuesday.” Tuesday came and the old woman came to see the doctor. She sat in front of him and he asked her lots of questions. She answered them all, and the doctor was ________.

“There’s nothing wrong ________ this old woman,” he thought. “I don’t understand why her grandson ________ her to me. Perhaps he is the one who ________ special care.”

He decided to ask her ________ last question. “Why do you think your grandson wants you to have special care?”

“I like hamburgers,” she said. The doctor laughed, “I like hamburgers, too!”

“You ________?” the old woman said. “I am so glad. Then you must come to my house and have a hamburger with me. I have got boxes and boxes of them in my bedroom.”

On Feb. 24, 18-year-old Su Yiming received ________ very special letter from President Xi Jinping. He couldn’t believe it at first. ________ excited he was!

In the letter, President Xi congratulated Su and other athletes (运动员) on the wonderful achievements ________ they’ve made at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Su won the gold medal (金牌) in Olympic snowboarding (单板滑雪).

Su still remembered Xi’s visit to the National Winter Sports Training Center in Beijing ________ 2019. President Xi hoped that athletes and coaches could aim high (志存高远) and show the new generation (一代人) of Chinese youth on the world stage. Xi also expected young Chinese people ________ the motherland in their hearts and to stay grounded (脚踏实地). Su Yiming ________ by Xi’s encouraging words. He decided to believe in ________. He knew that he must make every effort to realize his dream.

________ Su won the gold medal, he couldn’t help writing a letter to President Xi. He ________ to thank President Xi from the bottom of his heart. In his letter to Xi, Su said he would work even ________ and serve the nation better in the future.

9 . When I first came to America, my English was pretty bad. I only knew some easy words such as the names of some fruits, animals, ______ sports. The first day I went into my classroom, I was very ______ to find that there were no Asian faces in my class. And no one ______ speak any Chinese.

The first class I had was science. The teacher Mr Hass was talking about how a TV works. He used many ______ words that I had never heard about. I felt so bored that I almost ______ asleep. At the end of the class, I was asked a question, but I couldn’t answer it. Mr Hass found I couldn’t understand the class. During ______ 10-minute break, he walked to me ______ an iPad in his hand. Then he sat down and showed ______ the photos of different TVs. At the same time, he did his best ______ everything in easy words. When there was something I still couldn’t work out, he used the iPad to translate(翻译) ______ he said into Chinese. Finally, I was able to understand everything.

Technology really makes our life easier, doesn’t it?

10 . The First Astronauts

Since the earliest times, people have looked up at the stars, the moon and the planets. Today people use modern machines ________ at the sky. This is very different from the situation ________ years ago when people could only use their eyes.

When did humans first go into space? The story began not so very long ago, ________ the first astronauts were not people—they were animals.

Scientists wanted to make travelling to space as ________ as possible for humans. So they decided to experiment with animals and test ________ in spaceflights. Insects, mice, frogs ________, but they helped to make space travel safer for humans. For their great service, we shouldn’t forget these animals.

Albert Ⅱ was the first monkey to go into space in 1949. Sadly he died ________ his spaceship landed back on Earth.

Luckily the result was different for Ham the Monkey. His story ended happily when he returned to earth ________ very good health.

Scientists wanted to know the answer to the important question: ________ an animal like Ham do the same things in space as he could do on Earth? The answer came when scientists sent Ham into space in 1961. Yes, he did everything well and lived for ________ 16 years.