3 . After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.

Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.

As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

4 . Parents often believe that they have a good relationship with their teenagers. But last summer, Joanna and Henry noticed a change in their older son. Suddenly he seemed to be talking far more to his friends than to his parents. “The door to his room is always shut,” Joanna noted.

Tina and Mark noticed similar changes in their 14-year-old daughter. “She used to cuddle up (依偎) against me on the sofa and talk,” said Mark. “Now we joke that she does this only when she wants something. Sometimes she wants to be treated like a little girl and sometimes like a young lady. The problem is understanding which time is which.”

Before age 11, children like to tell their parents what’s on their mind. “In fact, parents are first on the list,” said Michael Riera, author of Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers. “This completely changes during the teen years,” Riera explained. “They talk to their friends first, then maybe their teachers, and their parents last.”

Parents who know what’s going on in their teenagers’ lives are in the best position to help them. To break down the wall of silence, parents should create chances to understand what their children want to say, and try to find ways to talk and write to them. And they must give their children a mental (思想的) break, for children also need freedom, though young. Another thing parents should remember is that to be a friend, not a manager, with their children is a better way to know them.

6 . Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her senior high school life was unhappy and that she was tired of struggling with homework all the time.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, h placed potatoes, eggs and coffee beans in them. After 20 minutes, he took them out, putting the potatoes and eggs in a bowl and the coffee in a cup.

Turning to his daughter, he said, “Look closer, and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After puling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to taste the coffee. Its good smell brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked. He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans were in the same adversity (逆境)—the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently.

The strong and hard potato became soft and weak in boiling water. The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard. However, the coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new. “Which one do you want to be like,” he asked. “When adversity knocks on your door, how will you respond?”

In life, challenges happen to us all, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

7 . My son was one of the students who served as a volunteer in different services while in a high school. Nowadays it is _______ for high schools to have a volunteer service hour minimum as a part of their graduation _______. One day, I asked him why he worked long hours voluntarily every week. He gave me a reply _______ his years. He said, “Mom, you should not do community service just because it was assigned and you just need to _______ it in. You should do it because of the effects it has.” In many ways his opinion is _______ reasonable, and though the service hour requirement actually does get students to participate in volunteer work in their communities, does it _______ them to volunteer in the future?

In some cases, no. A study found that when 8th graders in some schools were asked to accumulate _______ volunteer hours, those same students were no longer doing any service by their senior year of high school. It _______ that mandatory (强制的) volunteer hours led to a “potential loss in long-term volunteering”. _______, other researchers discovered that young people were more likely to vote and attend civic (公民的) life in other ways as a result of their __________ to community service in high school.

If teens __________ the significance of doing volunteer work and do it with a bit of enthusiasm, serving others in their communities will bring in a lot of unexpected __________. My son’s exposure to a variety of non-profits during his high school years led him to __________ a service scholarship for college, where he is now required to complete seventy-five hours per semester. But to him, this is __________ a requirement; actually he has benefited a lot more than that. __________ is what he has always wanted to do.

8 . “You’re very talented, dear. I hope everything turns out great. I’ll tell my friends about the animal shelter (避难处),” a kind old lady told Conrad, who smiled _______ as she left $20 in his hat.

Conrad was proud of what he was doing and people in the _______ loved hearing him sing and play his _______ . The 11-year-old didn’t know _______ how much money the local animal shelter needed.

His mother, Sandy, worked at the shelter and had always been a(n) _______ animal lover. Therefore, he grew to be fond of animals as well. _______ , he recently heard his mother telling a friend that the shelter was not doing well. It _______ purely on donations, and not much donations were _______ . This made the boy very _______ . So he grabbed his guitar and ________ the local town square to sing and play.

He placed a ________ to tell people he was doing it to raise money for the animal shelter, which helped greatly. People ________ and gave him mostly $1 and change, and others, such as the kind old lady, were more ________ . He was grateful to everyone and continued playing songs and ________ money.

Raise your kids to love animals, and they’ll be better people. Caring for innocent animals makes people more selfless, ________ and caring. That’s why Conrad used his skills to raise funds, knowing how vital the shelter was.

9 . Who says that being roommates with someone from a completely different generation has to be strange? Lately, more and more Americans are becoming intergenerational (代际的)roommates, and they’re changing the way people think they should be living.

Explained as those that are separated by at least one generation living together, there has been a major increase in intergenerational roommate arrangements (安排)within the United States since 1971. In fact, statistics show that this number has actually quadrupled (增长四倍)since then. In a Pew Research Center article, it shared that by March 2021, there were at least 59. 7 million Americans that had many generations living under one roof.

There are a ton of reasons that come into play for these types of arrangements. For some, it’s because of the increase in the average life-expectancy age(平均预期寿命), a decreased birth rate, a rise in college tuition, the ever rising rentals in almost every coastal city, and more. But if anything, many say that one main reason behind the rise is that older people have space to rent out and that having younger people around just makes them happier.

According to a 25-year-old robotics student living in Massachusetts, Nadia Abdullah, who moved in with her 64-year-old roommate Judith in 2019, “It was perfect——Judith has become like my family.”

Their arrangement was $700 a month from Nadia, plus the promise of her doing some help around the house. This also allowed Nadia to live just 6 miles from Boston and 30 minutes from her robotics job located in Beverly Mass. Nadia was matched with Judith through website, a renting center specifically created to find intergenerational roommates.

Another young renting center reviewer, Kaplan, also gave some opinions on the service and why it’s so special, saying, “Through this, I lived with Sarah while attending Harvard. She provided the type of knowledge you just can’t Google——showing me how to garden, how to cook fish, and add French Romanticism to life.”