1 . In October, I said to my students, “Why not do some _________ to make some money? Then we’ll buy food for someone in need.”

Then early in that week, they came with their hard-earned money at their homes, _________ to go shopping. We soon picked what we needed. As we headed toward the checkout, someone shouted, “Flowers!” The group rushed to the flowers. However, considering practicality, I said, “You can’t send flowers.” “But please, Mrs. Sherlock,” someone begged, “we want flowers.” Defeated (被打败了), I _________ them to buy some carnations (康乃馨).

An organization had given us the information of a _________ grandmother living alone for many years. After a long drive, we _________ arrived at a small, shabby (破旧的) house. An old lady came out to _________ us. Each box was _________ quickly. But when the woman noticed the carnations, she seemed _________. “She’s wishing it were a bag of rice,” I thought. “Do you like living here?” Michael asked. Hearing this, the woman _________,“ Of course. I’m quite fond of living here.” She told the children about the birds flying to the bread she __________. “Maybe that’s why I could get the food from you,” she said.

3 . The World’s Most Amazing Caves

Humans have been drawn to caves for thousands of years. Here are four of   the world’s biggest caves.

Son Doong Cave in the remote (偏远的) forests of Vietnam holds the title of the largest cave in the world. Son Doong is a spreading network of tunnels and caves, the largest of which could contain an entire New York City block with 40-story buildings. Parts of the cave’s top have fallen down, creating vast skylights that allow life to grow to a height of hundreds of feet beneath the forest floor.

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the longest cave system in the world, with 426 miles explored and scientists guess another 600 miles have yet to be discovered based on measurements of air movement within the caves. Mammoth Cave has drawn visitors since the 1800s and 10 miles of underground passages are accessible to tourists today.

The longest underwater cave system in the world, Sac Actun winds (蜿蜒) more than 215 miles under Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Adventurers can take a drop in the Sac Actun system through more than. 248 cenotes (天然井) — the natural swimming pools that form when sinkholes connect the surface to the underwater caves.

Veryovkina Cave is the deepest cave in the world, spreading 1.4 miles beneath the surface. It takes professionals a week to make a round journey to Veryovkina Cave. They have to brave waterfalls, tight presses and sharp drops. But the payoff is excellent — Veryovkina Cave’s end is a beautiful blue lake about 50 feet long and 25 feet wide surrounded by black rocks.

4 . Exercise can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, so there are a lot of great reasons to exercise.

Sometimes exercise can feel like a bit of a ________, something you have to do for health ________. But regular exercise can ________ your life, whether it helps you overcome stress, learn something about yourself, or help you ________ your body. Here are 2 stories from people who moved their bodies in new and sometimes ________ ways, and found out that it changed their life for the better.

I have had depression (沮丧, 抑郁) a couple of times and I also have general anxiety disorder. I found that longboarding around the city really ________ my mood the last time I was going through a ________ of depression. I don’t skate much anymore, but I have picked up ________ the past three years. All I can think about when I am climbing is climbing. It has been a ________ for my anxiety to be able to completely throw away the worries in my head and just think about getting to the top.

When I was 23, my grandpa sadly passed away. Hearing my mom’s message, I was ________. The tears couldn’t stop swimming in my eyes and I ________ control, I was just starting my track season and I decided that I should get a head start and start running. When I felt like crying or screaming or anything, I would get up and go for a ________. That year I ________ my personal best by over a minute and I ran my first half marathon. Since then I ran another half marathon, full marathon, and am ________ training for a second marathon. Running just ________ emotion for me.

5 . It may seem as if Mother’s Day was invented by a company named Hallmark, but people have been giving a shout-out to Mom for a long time. A more recent tradition was Mothering Sunday, which developed in the British Isles during the 16th century. On the fourth Sunday in April, young men and women who were living and working apart from their families were advised to return to their mothers’ houses.

Mother’s Day as it is observed in the United States started in the 1850s with Ann Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who held “Mothers’ Work Days” to promote health and hygiene at home and in the workplace. During the Civil War, Jarvis organized women to improve sanitary conditions for soldiers on both sides, and after the war she became a peacemaker, bringing together mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers and promoting a Mother’s Day holiday.

Jarvis’s work inspired another 19th-century woman, Julia Ward Howe. In 1870, Howe published her “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, which envisioned the day not as appreciation of mothers by their children but as an opportunity for women to exercise their collective power for peace. Howe started holding annual Mother’s Day celebrations in Boston, her hometown, but after about a decade the tradition faded away.

It was Jarvis’s daughter, Anna, who succeeded in getting Mother’s Day recognized as a national holiday. After her mother died in 1905, Anna started holding yearly ceremony on the anniversary. In 1912, West Virginia and a few other states adopted Mother’s Day. Two years later, Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution naming the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, making it an official US holiday.

It wasn’t long before whatever ideals the day was supposed to celebrate were buried under an amount of greeting cards and candy. By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis was campaigning against the holiday she had created. “I wanted it to be a day of emotionalism, not profit,” she said.

6 . Here are some wonderful festivals around the world that happen in spring. If you want to know more about them, please click Here or visit http://wws.buddhanet.netlfestival.Htm

SongKran — Thailand

Dates: 13th — 15th, April

In Thailand, people celebrate a festival called Songkran, when people bead out to the streets with water guns to spray (喷洒) everyone who walks past. It’s a very important traditional celebration in the country.

Naghol — Vanuatu

Dates: Every Saturday from April to May

Every year, villagers come together to celebrate the harvest of yams (甘薯), an important part in the people’s diet in Vanuatu. The festival is most famous for its “land diving ceremony”. During the ceremony men and boys dive to the ground from high wooden towers with only two thin vines (藤) tied to their feet.

Cherry Blossom Viewing — Japan

Dates: The cherry blossom season is different from year to year depending on the weather.

The festival is well-known. The Japanese celebrate the days when the flowers finally blossom. Only a few days later, the petals (花瓣) fall to the ground, like pink snowflakes. That means the traditional festival only lasts for several days. In Japan, almost everyone has picnics in the parks to view the flowers.

Sinhalese New Year — Sri Lanka

Dates: 13th or 14th, April

Just like in many other countries in South East Asia, this is the time when people celebrate the traditional New Year, an ancient celebration which marks the end of the harvest season and is one of two times of the year when the sun is straight above Sri Lanka. There are a lot of delicious foods during the celebration.

8 . Microsoft won’t renew the contracts (合同) for dozens of news production staff working at its MSN website and plans to use AI to replace them. The roughly 50 employees were informed that their services would no longer be needed beyond June 30.

The Microsoft spokesman said in a statement, “Like all companies, we analyze and make judgments on our activities and services on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, rearrangement in others. These decisions are not the result of the pandemic.”

MSN will use AI to replace the production work its journalists had been doing. That work includes using an automated system (自动化系统) to identify trending news stories from dozens of publishing partners and to help improve the content by rewriting headlines or adding better accompanying photographs or slide shows.

“I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI are going to take all our jobs — now it’s taken mine” one of the terminated contractors said. “But with fewer human beings to monitor the technology, AI may not be fully familiar with strict editorial guidelines and could end up letting through inappropriate stories.”

MSN has experienced a number of changes since its launch as Microsoft Network in 1995. Once it offered original content and links to news, weather and sports. In 2013, it rolled back original news content and began cutting employees. By 2014, it launched are designed version that partnered with other news sites, paying them to redistribute their content. Today, the news service relies entirely on those partnerships with no original news content of its own. Selecting and editing stories rather than actually generating them made it easier for MSN to increasingly rely on an automated editing system.

9 . It was a beautiful, sunny, Spring day. I had just finished driving my daughter to the airport to ________an early morning flight.

My sons and I then went to a fast food place for breakfast before heading back home. After eating we all got into the car and ________the parking lot.

The restaurant was at the very top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill was as top sign so we found ourselves at the end of a long line of traffic ________while the cars at the bottom turned on to the main road one at a time.

As I looked down to the bottom of the hill my eyes saw an ________man standing by the stop sign. His clothes were old and ________. He held a cardboard sign with the words: Need Help Please! written on it.

My heart went out to him and I ________myself in his situation. As car after car turned on to the road without stopping for him, I ________for my wallet to look for whatever cash was left in it. As I was pulling it out of my ________, though, I saw a young woman walk up to him along the side of the road. She was carrying a bag full of takeout food from the restaurant I was just at. I watched as the old man thanked the young girl and smiled as she reached into give him a ________

Suddenly a loud HONK from the car behind me made me realize that I hadn’t been moving forward, because this ________choice for kindness had so ________my attention and my heart. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill both the man and lady who had helped him were gone.________, as I drove home the sun seemed to shine even ________and Heaven felt a bit closer to Earth.

A choice is such a ________thing. It can touch a heart and change a life. It can bring us closer to God and make Heaven smile. Each day we are given a thousand ________. May you make all of yours for kindness. May you make your whole life a choice for love, joy, and God.

10 . Last night my husband and I were walking when we saw a man bent over on the ground, crushing (碾碎) something with a rock. He was so focused on his _________ that he didn’t look up at anyone passing by. We kept noticing him and _________ what he could be doing. I thought he was crushing stones to make sand, but why would he do that?

_________, we decided to go up and ask him. He was crushing pieces of left-over bread that he had _________ to prepare food for the birds that come there early morning. The large pieces of bread would be _________ for the birds to eat so he crushed them into powder. Every _________, after coming home from his job as a tailor, he goes around the villa (乡间别墅), collecting left-over bread from all his housemates. He then eats a quick meal and comes here, and spends the next 1 — 2 hours _________ crushing each piece and makes a neat pile for the birds. He has been doing this for the last 3 — 4 years. What _________ us more was that he was _________ that we were even taking an interest in this, since for him it wasn’t a big __________.