1 . When I was a young boy, our whole family lived in my grandma’s old house right beside a set of railroad tracks. I can remember the whole house would ________ when the trains rolled by. These trains hauling (运；拉) coal cars were few and far between, so I often spent my summer afternoons walking down the ________. I can remember the first time I tried to ________ myself and walk on a single rail. The steel rails were very narrow and quite slippery ________ I didn’t have much ________. First I tried ________ my arms and watching my feet as I walked. This only ________ to me shaking and falling off after a few steps. I decided to walk backwards once but quickly slipped off and skinned my ankle on the rail. It was only when I started looking ahead down the length of the tracks ________ I was able to walk the rail. Keeping my eyes forward, I put one foot in front of the other and was soon walking with ease.

Looking back on this time, I now ________ that it also gave me a ________ lesson about living. You can’t go through life watching and worrying about every step you take or ________ you make. This only leads to second guessing yourself and you soon go off the rails. Looking behind you is even worse. ________ your eyes on the past, you can’t see the way ahead. You can only stand still and stay ________ in your regrets. It is only when you look ahead that you can really move forward and see the life you want to lead. Then each step you take and the choice you make is ________ with love and enjoyment for life and you will walk on with a ________ heart.

We all need to keep our eyes forward. We all need to look ahead with love and enjoyment for life. We all need to see with our hearts the life we want to live.

4 . 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 ________________.”

5 . Manuela got up earlier and bought two bags of cat food. She began going to the _________ barbershop on the corner, making her weekly visit to see Hussein, the old barber. Hussein was both ___________ and delighted to see Manuela and the bags of food. The two hurried over to the tiny food dishes lined up in the alley. Several _________ appeared soon.

As the two _________ and made their way back inside the shop, Hussein’s smile _________ and he explained he was about to _________ the barbershop. He had been told to leave within 7 days. His _________ barbershop simply couldn’t pay enough rent and the landlord had invited another roomer, one who wouldn’t be _________ animals outside.

Manuela’s eyes began to _________ as Hussein expressed his __________ about the homeless cats he cared for. But as fate would have it, there was something better __________ for the barber and his cats. As Manuela’s blog supporters read her __________ about Hussein, they, one after another,  __________ subscribing to him and his cats. Every day for the next week, Manuela went to Hussein with the __________. And on the fourth day, something unbelievable happened when Hussein was able to __________ a storefront in an old building near his shop. No electricity,  __________ there was potential. Manuela and other people __________ to help paint and clear rubbish while electricians made all the necessary __________.

In less than two weeks, the barber was back in __________ again. Through the kindness of strangers,  __________, his and his cats’ whole world was brought back.

6 . My 14-year-old son, John, and I found out the coat which was hanging at a secondhand clothing store in Northampton Mass. All the other coats drooped (低垂)________this one looked as if it were holding itself up (支撑起来). The coat had beautiful tailoring, a Fifth Avenue label and a (an)________price of $28, which was popular just then with________, but could cost several hundred dollars new. This coat was even better with that________of classic design. John tried it on and fit was perfect.

John wore the coat to school the next day and came home________a broad smile. “Did the kids like your coat?” I asked. “They loved it,” he said,________folding it over the back of a chair and smoothing it flat. Over the next few weeks, a________came over John. Agreement replaced contrariness (作对) and polite discussion replaced rude________. He became more mannerly and________, eager to please. He would generously lend his younger brother his bike, which he________wouldn’t.

When I mentioned this incident to his teacher and________what caused the changes, she said laughing, “It________be his coat!” Another teacher told him she was giving him a good mark not only because he had earned________but because she liked his coat. At the library, we________a friend. “Could this be John?” he asked surprisingly,________John’s new height, assessing (评估) the cut of his coat and extending his hand, one gentleman to another.

John and I both know we should never________a person’s clothes for the real person within them.________there is something to be said for wearing a standard of excellence for the world to see and for________what is on the inside to what is on the outside.

For John it is a time when it is as easy to try on different approaches to life as it is to try on a________. The whole world, the whole future is right ahead, a vast landscape where all the doors are open. And he could________himself walking through those doors wearing his wonderful, magical coat.

7 . One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods from door to door found that he only had one cent left. He was hungry so he decided to ________ for a meal at the next house.

However, he lost his courage ________ a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked ________ so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it ________, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she ________. “Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a ________.” He said, “Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger_________, but it also increased his faith in human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.

Years later the young woman became ill seriously. The local doctors were baffled (为难). They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists can be called ________ to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly, now ________, was called in for the consultation (会诊). When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light ________ his eyes. Immediately, he ________ and went down through the hospital hall into her room.

________ in his doctor’s gown (长袍) he went in to see her. He ________ her at once. He went back to the consultation room and ________ to do his best to save her life. From that day on, he gave ________ attention to her case.

After a long ________, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly ________ the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval (批准). He looked at it and then wrote something on the side. The bill was sent to her room. She was afraid to open it because she was ________ that it would take the rest of her life to pay it off. Finally she looked, and the note on the side of the bill caught her ________. She read these words...

“Paid in full with a glass of milk.”

(Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly

Tears of joy ________ her eyes as she whispered, “love has spread through hearts and hands.”

9 . One of my fellow volunteers, a girl from Tanzania, seemed a bit sad, so I asked what the problem was. She told me she had a friend back home, who was, really________with her university studies. It was beginning to look like financial difficulties, which would make it________for her to complete her course.

So this friend of mine had done something________: she had sent all her pocket money for the month to Tanzania to________her friend! This meant that she didn’t have much food to eat, no money to go________outside the village, no money to buy any clothes, and so on.

I was so________that she did this for her friend and I felt I had to do something. So,________ my next trip to one of the nearby towns I walked into the fair trade shop to buy some food. I didn’t have much money________myself but I thought I’d buy her an extra box of the muesli we both liked and some rice. I started talking to the woman________in the shop, who was also a volunteer and________told her about my friend.

The woman looked at me,________ “Does she eat pasta? she asked. “Yes,” I replied. She immediately started________a bag with pasta, cookies, more muesli, sweets and other things until the bag was full. “Give her this for me. It’ s my________!” I couldn’t believe it but cried with________.

I left the shop to go home with my________bag of food, I asked the woman her name. “Just Gloria! God________both of you!” she said.

Imagine my friend’s face when I________the gifts on my kitchen table. I have never seen her so happy! A few weeks later, she found Gloria in the shop and thanked her________. These two________women really showed me what true kindness and compassion is, and the________will stay with me for the rest of my life!

10 . My son Joey was born with club feet (足内翻). The doctors _______ us that with treatment he would be able to walk _______ — but would never _______ very well. The first three years of his life were spent in surgery, casts and braces._______ the time he was eight, you wouldn’t know he had a problem when you saw him walk.

In seventh grade he decided to _______ for the cross-country team. Every day he _______ with the team. He worked harder and ran more than any of the others — perhaps he _______ that the abilities that seemed to come _______ to so many others did not come naturally to him. Although the _______ team runs, only the top seven runners have the ________ to score points for the school. We didn’t tell him he probably would never ________ the team, so he didn’t know.

He ________ to run four to five miles a day, every day — ________ the day he had a 103-degree fever. I was ________, so I went to look for him after school. I found him running all   ________. I asked him how he felt. “Okay,” he said. He had two more miles to go. The ________ ran down his face and his eyes were glassy from his ________. Yet he looked straight ahead and kept running.

Two weeks ________ , the names of the team runners were called. Joey was number six on the list. Joey had made the team. We never told him he shouldn’t ________ to make the team. We never told him he couldn’t do it...so he didn’t know. He just ________ it.