2 . Many years ago, I was living with my best friend and we had many happy moments together. But there was one night that ________ our lives forever.

On the night of November 25, 2011, I got into a fistfight with my best friend in our kitchen. It all started because I was trying to help him. He was drinking a lot, arguing with everyone and ________ himself from others by keeping silent most of the time. This had been going on for weeks and finally I decided it was time for a(an) ________ I told him that he needed to stop drinking so much and tried to ________ his alcohol and he got angry and started ________ with me. It was scary, but by the end of the night, we were able to calm down and talk to each other.

I thought alcohol ________ was his main problem. But he was just using alcohol to ________ himself through. He was lonely, heartbroken and struggling to connect with people. So during the Christmas season a few weeks later, I gave him a ________ that I didn’t even know I had.

That Christmas my friend didn’t have any place to go, so I invited him home to my parents’ house in Lancaster. They ________ cleaned up our guest room for him and even bought him some Christmas gifts. I’ll never forget the night we arrived at my home. My parents were already ________, but my mom had prepared dinner for us, baked some cookies and left us a note. My parents are known for their ________, so I wasn’t surprised by this warm welcome. But when my friend read my mom’s note and saw all that she had prepared, he broke down and cried. That’s when I ________ how much I took my loving family for granted.

That year my friend and I both received gifts that we would ________ forever. I gave him the gift of a warm, loving, safe place to spend Christmas. And he gave me the gift of a new ________ on life. If I hadn’t shared my home with him, I wouldn’t have understood how ________ I am.

4 . A new research led by University of Pittsburgh psychologists shows that older adults may be able to prevent declines (衰退) in a certain kind of memory by sticking to regular exercise.

From the study, exercising about three times a week for at least four months is how much people need to obtain the benefits in episodic memory. Episodic memory, which is supported by a part of the brain that’s known to benefit from exercise, is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It’s also one of the first to decline with age.

Exercise that gets the heart pumping has shown promise in increasing brain health, and experiments in mice show that it improves memory — but studies looking at the same link in humans have come out mixed.

During the research, the team read 1,279 studies carefully, eventually narrowing them down to just 36 that met specific criteria (标准). Then they used specialized software and no small number of Excel spreadsheets to transform the data into a form where the different studies could be directly compared. That work paid off when they found that pooling together those 36 studies was enough to show that for older adults, exercise can indeed benefit their memory.

Past analyses looking at connections between exercise and memory didn’t find one, but the team took several extra steps to give them the best chance of finding a link if one did exist. They limited their search to particular groups and age ranges as well as a specific kind of strict experimental setup. Another key was focusing specifically on episodic memory.

With that much larger pool of participants, the team was able to show a link between exercise and episodic memory. The team also found the greatest effects of exercise in those who hadn’t yet experienced any cognitive (认知的) decline.

5 . Alan Mathison Turing was born in England in 1912. Like many talents who go on to great things, Turing showed his incredible intelligence from a very young age. In fact, by the time he was halfway through primary school, Turing’s teachers had already realized he was a mathematical genius. He could do complex calculating in his head even though he had never been taught about it.

Fortunately, Turing was the opposite of Hawking, and he absolutely loved school. Proof of this is the extreme lengths he would go just to get to class. For example, on one occasion when there was a train strike, Turing even cycled 60 miles to attend. Now that’s devotion!

However, in spite of Turing’s scholarly attitude and his obvious genius, his teachers had their concerns about his future. This is because well-known schools in Britain like the ones Turing attended regarded the Classics, such as Latin and Greek as the most important, not subjects like maths and science. Turing’s proud teachers even wrote letters to his parents asking them to convince the young man to focus more on the Classics. Imagine how different the world might be if the young Turing had listened to his teachers! Thankfully, his love for all things scientific and mathematical meant there was no chance of that.

After finishing secondary school, Turing completed a degree in mathematics at King’s College Cambridge, and then obtained his PhD from Princeton University in the USA. It was during these university years that he invented the Turing Machine, which is considered by many people to be the earliest version of a computer processing unit. It sounds unbelievable that anybody could have invented something which was similar to a computer in 1936. But that just shows how far ahead of his time Alan Turing was, even when he was still a young man.

6 . “Don’t wait to do the things that you know need to be done! Go to someone you love and tell them you love them. Do it now!” The teacher in my adult class gave us the assignment.

You see, five years ago, my father and I had a fierce ________. After that we avoided seeing each other unless we ________ had to at Christmas or other family ________. But even then, we hardly spoke to each other. So last Tuesday I ________ myself I was going to tell my father I loved him.

The next morning I was up bright and early. I went to work and ________ more in two hours than I had the entire day before. At 10:00 I ________ my dad, asking him if I could go over after ________ because I had something to tell him. “Now what?” he responded ________. I assured him it wouldn’t take long and he finally ________.

At 5:30 pm, I was at my parents’ house ringing the doorbell, ________ that Dad would answer the door. I was afraid if Mom answered that I would ________ and tell her instead. But ________ favoring me, it was Dad.

I didn’t waste time. I took one ________ and said, “Dad, I just came over to tell you I ________ you.” A transformation came over my dad. His face ________, the wrinkles seemed gone and he ________. He reached out and hugged me, “I love you too, son, but I’ve ________ been able to say it.”

It was such a(n) ________ moment. Mom walked by with tears in her eyes. I just waved and blew her a kiss. Dad and I ________ for a moment longer and then I left. I hadn’t felt that ________ in a long time.

7 . Two years ago, I was sitting in my car waiting in a long line for a toll booth (收费站). When I ________ reached the booth, the toll operator told me that the person in front had paid for me and I was ________ to go. I was so ________. I didn’t ________ to save the 5 dollars. I would never know who it was. I was ________ by the traffic and the long line, and that gesture was surprising and unbelievable. It really ________ my heart. I ________ to pay the toll for the next car for life.

The first time I tried to pay forward the toll, I kept ________ my rear view mirror to see who I’d be paying for. In the mirror, I saw a tired looking Uber driver. I felt satisfied that my ________ would be going to a good place. But before we got to the ________, the Uber driver had ________ lanes (车道) and now there was someone else behind me. She looked ________ and was gesturing angrily in a ________ with her friend. I wasn’t thrilled to be paying for a woman like that and was ________ judging her by what I was seeing in the mirror. Anyway I paid the toll for both of us and left.

Thirty seconds later I was surprised to ________ a honk (汽笛声). It was the woman and her friend ________ at me from the next lane! She looked bright and ________ . She wasn’t what I thought she was like. This was a valuable ________ that I shouldn’t ________ people so quickly... I don’t know their ________.

8 . Zhong Nanshan was born in October 1936 in Nanjing, Jiangsu. He grew up in a family of doctors. _______ the family tradition, he was admitted to Beijing Medical University in 1955.

Many know Zhong as a famous _______, but few know that he was once a(an) _______ athlete. Zhong has displayed athletic _______ early on. During his time at university, he broke the school's _______ for the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles. In 1958, Zhong, then a junior year student, was _______ to join the Beijing sports training team to _______ for the first National Games of the People's Republic of China in 1959.

Although Zhong did not _______ to be a professional athlete, his love for sports never _______. In spite of his busy schedule as a doctor, Zhong _______ 3 or 4 times every week. Years of physical exercise gives him a healthy body, _______ him to continue marching forward in the medical field.

"You need to _______ in mind that the most important thing is not treating the disease, but treating the _______," said Zhong during a lecture at Guangzhou Medical University.

Zhong's life has always been closely _______ to his patients and to the development of the nation. When SARS _______, Zhong personally examined the mouth and throat of every _______ ill patient in his hospital, giving them comfort and _______ to fight the disease.

At the age of 84, Zhong is still _______ on the frontline of the novel coronavirus(新冠) outbreak. With his _______ medical skills and unwavering perseverance (不动摇的毅力), Zhong has become a _______ anchor (支柱) for Chinese people at this difficult time.

9 . Every person is faced with challenges and obstacles in their lifetime. My life _______ has been filled with roadblocks. When going through them I find it better to keep a smile and stay motivated (动力) to _______ my obstacles. During high school, I've taken honors classes and an AP class each year, which was a(n) _______ task, but I found ways to stay successful.

My hardest year in high school was my junior year, the time when _______ my grades and grade point averages (GPA) is important. I wanted to go into my senior year and ready to start the college journey. I had taken honors classes _______ high school, thinking I could handle it. _______,I found myself on the edge of _______ . Maybe I could do just enough to pass, but it could _______ my chances of going to college.

I had to sacrifice my free time to perfect what I was _______ with. I developed certain skills for myself. I ________ college studies and broke down my tasks into parts to better tackle this obstacle. I put all my ________ into motivating myself to achieve the ________ I set before.

I ________ noticed a change in my classes and grades, after putting the plan into ________ . At the end of my junior year, I was ranked top 13 and got prepared for college. All of my hard work paid off because I solved my challenge of passing ________ and college classes. Succeeding in ________ that obstacle was a best feeling in the world. The most important ________ is that I can go through any hardships, ________ I stay motivated and give my all.

There will always be a time when every person in the world is faced with difficult problems and ________ situations, but when going through them, everything seemed to be ________ .

10 . Travel allows us to experience the world. But as we travel, we are also leaving our footprint on every place we visit. This is why culturally immersive (沉浸) travel is so important. Because the wrong kind of travel negatively affects the world. One of the reasons we started this blog was to help others travel better and feel comfortable getting off the beaten path, interacting with locals, and take you “Beyond the traditional Bucketlist”, if you will.

People who only get 2-weeks off per year are often just looking for an easy destination with a beach to relax on. This isn’t travel. This is a vacation. But “Immersive Travel” or “Cultural Travel” is an entirely new type of trip. It is about experiencing and preserving the various traditions around the world. It’s about being open to new experiences and willing to step into another’s shoes. Cultural travel is jumping in with both feet and leaving your idea about what your trip should be behind you. It’s eating local dishes and sleeping in guesthouses. It’s building genuine connections with locals. It’s learning about the history of a country and leaving your trip with a greater understanding of the place you came to see and the people who live there.

Often times in today’s age, “travelers” will visit a country just to snap some photos of the famous sights to post on Instagram or to drink the night away, or even just to relax on a tropical beach. But that kind of vacation can be harmful to the very communities you’re traveling to.

Beyond supporting the local communities and the preservation of local customs and traditions, you’ll also experience some personal benefits through cultural travels. There’s simply no way to travel this way with a closed mind. You’ll get to know different cultures intimately and understand them a lot better. You’ll also become less judgmental of others the more you travel.