1 . Yesterday was Mother’s Day. Unfortunately, my mother was not among the many happy mothers, as I couldn’t visit her this year. I made a________on the phone that I would go to see her as soon as possible. 

My mother always says that kids don’t need to________a national day to say they love their mums. However, I remember one year I________calling her on that very day, and the next morning she rang up to complain about it. 

If you________Thailand, you could hear the sentimental (伤感的) songs about mothers’ greatest love playing in public places a week before the holiday. Schools, especially, take this day very________. Back in my teenage years, I ________ there was once a Mother’s Day singing competition and my friend represented the school. She was so emotional while singing the famous song on Mother’s Day________ “Kah Nam Nom” that she almost didn’t finish the song. 

However, her deep connection to the song helped her to________third prize. After the contest, I asked her why she was so emotional________the song. She told me that while she was singing, suddenly she had the________that one day her mother would no longer be with her and every word in the song became heartbreaking. Every time I hear this song, it’s not my mother who________to my mind but a picture of my friend crying with a microphone in her hand. The image________vivid today. 

Last week, a colleague________an experience with me—every year on Mother’s Day, she has to attend a________ceremony at her daughter’s school. Every year the teachers invite mothers to the school for a big gathering in which students pay________with flower garlands (花环).

4 . A professor entered the classroom and told the students about a surprise test. All students were_________ and waited for the test to begin. The professor gave the test papers to all students with text facing down at the desk. Once he was done with _________ the test to all students, he asked them to_________ the test paper and begin.

Students were ___________ to see that there was just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor told them, “I want you to ___________ about what you see there.” The students were___________ confused but got started with the test. At the end of the class, the professor collected all answer sheets and started reading each answer from each sheet in front of all students. All of them___________ about the black dot and tried to explain its position.

Now, professor began to explain, “Here everyone_________ the black dot and wrote about it_________ no one wrote about the white paper. The same is with our lives. The white paper stands for our whole life and the black dot __________problems in our life.

Our life is a __________ given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate—our friends around us, the job that provides us with everything we need. However, we just focus on day to day ____________ like health issues, lack of money, poor relationships, but we seldom see that these problems are very small __________to everything we have in our lives.”

We should try to take eyes __________ our problems and enjoy each moment that life gives us. Be happy and live your life ____________.

7 . A five-­year-­old dog named Kelsey has been praised as a hero for helping to save the life of her owner who slipped in the snow and broke his neck.

The man, Bob, was alone when he left his farmhouse on New Year’s Eve to collect firewood.Expecting a journey of only several meters, Bob was wearing just long johns (衬裤), a shirt and slippers when he went outside, although the temperature was around －4℃.

After the accident, he was unable to move in the snow. Fortunately, Kelsey came to his assistance.

“I was shouting for help, but my nearest neighbor is about 400 meters away, and it was 10:30 p. m.,” Bob explained. “By the next morning, my voice was gone and I couldn’t yell for help, but Kelsey didn’t stop barking.”

Kelsey’s companion kept him warm by lying on top of him. She licked his face and hands to keep him awake. “Kelsey kept barking but never left my side,” Bob recalled. “I knew I couldn’t give up and that it was my choice to stay alive.”

Bob spent 20 hours in the freezing cold. When he finally lost consciousness, his dog kept barking. Finally, hearing the barking, Bob’s neighbor discovered him at 6:30 p. m. on New Year’s Day and called the emergency services at once. When Bob arrived in hospital, his body temperature was below 21℃. However, doctors were surprised to find that he didn’t have any frostbite (冻疮). They believed it was because of Kelsey’s determination to keep him warm. Dr. Chaim Colen, the doctor who treated Bob, said, “His dog really saved him.He was very fortunate.”

Bob said he was very grateful to both Dr. Colen and his Kelsey. “They saved my life. They are truly heroes!”

8 . For people suffering from depression, there’s an all-natural treatment they should use — getting more exercise. It could help fight depression, even if people have a genetic risk, new research shows.

For the study, researchers collected information from nearly 8,000 people and found those with related genes were more likely to have depression over the next two years after examining them. But that was less likely for people who were more active at the study’s start, even if they had a family history of depression. Higher levels of physical activity helped protect even those with the highest genetic risk of depression.

Both high-intensity (高强度) exercise and low-intensity activities were associated with a reduced risk of depression. Adding four hours of exercise a week could lower the risk of a new episode (一段经历) of depression by 17%, according to the study. “Our findings strongly suggest that, when it comes to depression, being physically active has the potential to remove the added risk of future episodes in individuals who are genetically risky,” said lead author Karmel Choi. “On average, about 35 additional minutes of physical activity each day may help people to reduce their risk and protect against future depression episodes.”

Depression is a common mental illness globally, with more than 264 million people affected. “Depression is so ubiquitous, and that underlines the need for effective approaches that can impact as many people as possible,” Choi said. And mental health and primary care providers can use the findings to advise patients that there’s something meaningful they can do to lower their risk of depression.

9 . Afroz Shah, a lawyer in Mumbai, hasn’t had a weekend off in four years. But he hasn’t spent this time preparing for _________.

His mission? Saving the world’s oceans from _________ pollution.

It’s a calling he found in 2015 after moving to a community in Mumbai called Versova Beach. He had played there as a child and was_________to see how much it had _________. The sand was no longer _________ because it was covered by a layer of garbage more than five feet thick — most of it plastic waste.

“The whole beach was like a_________of plastic,” he said. “It hurt me. The _________ mess.” What Shah had seen is part of a global environmental crisis. More than 8 million tons of plastic _________in the world’s oceans each year. It’s predicted that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. “Plastic in the ocean is a _________. And the sea species have no choice at all, ” Shah said. “We are ______________ their habitats.”

In October 2015, Shah began ________________ up plastic waste from the beach every Sunday morning. At first, it was just him and a neighbor, and then he began calling on others to join in. Word ________________ and with the help from social media, more volunteers got ________________.

For Shah, the work has always been a ________________ journey, but it has earned global attention. After he was ________________ as a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations in 2016, Shah now devotes nearly all of his free time to this ________________.

He’s now spent 209 weekends on this mission, ________________ more than 200,000 volunteers, some of whom are young students, to join him in what’s been called the world’s biggest beach cleanup. By October 2018, Versova Beach was ________________ clean and Shah’s cleanups expanded to another beach as well as a stretch of the Mithi River and other regions of India.

“This world talks too much. I think we must talk ________________ and do action more, ” he said when interviewed by CNN in October 2019.“We are a smart species. Well adapt. We’ll learn. And with these youngsters rising up, I see ________________.”

10 . The Chinese paddlefish (白鲟)-one of the world’s largest freshwater fish-has been announced extinct. Scientists say the paddlefish, also called the Chinese swordfish, is believed to have a lineage dating back at least 34 million years. With its long nose and mouth, the paddlefish could grow as long as seven meters.

But a research paper recently published in Science of the Total. Environment reported the paddlefish was now extinct. The researchers include scientists from the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Britain’s University of Kent and the University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic.

The paper says the paddlefish was announced extinct for two reasons. It said that the fish was not able to survive because of widespread overfishing and damage to its native environment in the Yangtze River.

Researchers discovered 332 different species of fish in the Yangtze River in 2017 and 2018. But they did not find a single Chinese paddlefish They guessed the fish disappeared between 2005 and 2010. The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish was “a huge loss” to nature.

Pan Wenjing is a forest and ocean expert with Greenpeace East Asia. “The ecology of the Yangtze River is almost in ruins due to human activity in past decades” Pan said. She stressed that China had taken measures to improve the Yangtze’s environment, including a 10-year ban (禁令) on fishing.

After the extinction was reported in the news, some Chinese media and Internet users took a look back at the large creatures. Many people appeared to have not heard of the Chinese paddlefish before it was announced extinct.

“Every time I see the news of another species going extinct, heart starts to ache,” wrote one Weibo user. “Humans should not live alone on this planet,” the user added.