4 . 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.

5 . Wang Shun became China’s first Olympic champion in the men’s individual medley event in Tokyo 2020. In a live chat, Wang reveals how years of struggles and setbacks _________ him into a world-beater.

Recalling his childhood, Wang has pleasant _________ of the moment that raised his initial curiosity about _________. After that, Wang set a great goal that he wanted to be an Olympic _________. He always trained seriously and often _________ to stay in the pool for long hours.

During his training, Wang _________ many setbacks and difficulties, and realized it would not be _________ to reach the top of swimming. In 2019, _________, his performances were not ideal and he was really upset at the time about this. Then in June, he injured his ankle, which forced him to _________ two-week training and the recovery process was pretty __________ and he even thought about quitting.

__________, Wang has a considerate coach Zhu Zhigen, who __________ with Wang and kept helping him improve mentally and physically. Zhu acts like parents toward his __________ —a level of care he displays for Wang to this day. Before the final at the Tokyo Olympics, the coach __________ guarded the door for Wang to ensure he slept well, because 10 athletes shared a room. With the help of his coach, Wang overcame all the __________ and got the first prize in Tokyo 2020.

6 . When people talk about the future, we like to think that we will be able to drive out of our garages and take to the ________ in our own personal flying car. The advantages are obvious. Some people ________ this technology will allow complete three-dimensional freedom of movement. We could fly at 489 kilometres per hour, ________ traffic lights, busy roads and speeding tickets. However, some people point to the disadvantages of flying cars. They claim that there are certain to be problems with traffic ________. Another big problem is mechanical ________. What will happen if they break down? ________, if they become popular, there is likely to be another big problem: air traffic congestion. So it looks like flying cars face more than a few problems if they are to get off the ground!

Most of us have printed out an electronic document on paper, but think about the ________ of printing out a three-dimensional object in plastic. 3D printers build an object using layers line-by-line like a(n) ________ printer until the object is complete. Vehicle companies like BMW and Volkswagen already use 3D printers to make life-size models of car parts. At the moment the process is slow and quality is ________, but before long it might be possible to see a product on a website and then ________ it to your printer at home. In the future we could make our own furniture, jewellery, cups, plates, shoes and toys from designs on our computers, and reduce the amount of ________ we have to do.

Imagine having your own Ironman suit. There are several companies trying to build a practical robot ‘exoskeleton’. This is a suit of robot arms and legs which follows your ________. It will allow the wearer to lift heavy objects, walk long distances and even punch through walls! There are ________ military advantages for this technology and might help people to walk again after disease or injury. However, besides cost and battery life, another problem is that a badly ________ robot suit could injure the wearer because you wouldn’t want your robot leg or arm bending the ________ way.

7 . One girl is being praised for a letter of apology she wrote to the rangers (园林管理员) at the National Parks Service (NPS). She reportedly _________ a rock home. In expressing her _________, the girl also returned the rock to the park. Later the NPS shared the letter on their Facebook page.

“Dear Park Ranger, I _________ like Tom Branch Falls,” the girl, named Karina, began her letter. “I love it so much that I _________ to take a souvenir home.”

“So I took a rock. I’m _________, and I want to return it,” she said. The heartfelt letter _________ with a postscript (附言) of “also look at the back”—where the girl _________ a picture of Tom Branch Falls. _________ for Karina, the park rangers were _________ by her sincere apology and even __________ back.

“Dear Karina, thank you for returning the rock! It has made its way back to Tom Branch Falls. If every __________ took a rock home, that would __________ 11 million rocks would be gone from the park every year,” the park officials wrote in their Facebook post.

“Now that you know to leave __________ the way you find it, we hope you will help share this __________ with others,” the officials wrote. “It is always a __________ thing to give others the chance to discover something meaningful!”

8 . The other day a big, ugly, black bat found its way to my bathroom. I am what is known as “the man of the house”, so it was my_________, in fact my manly duty, to rid the house of the_________creature.

Being a man does not_________the fact that I am extremely_________of bats. All men, I think, sometimes have had that feeling of being_________in some male role. Sometimes it is something as simple as having to_________that you know something about car engines when the car won’t start. But sometimes the trap is a (n)_________one. Many men prefer to be something different from what society_________men should be. What these men want is the_________to be what they want to be.

As I came towards the frightening bat, I__________what would happen if I had simply told my wife that I wouldn’t do it. But I couldn’t do that! I__________opened the window, carefully lifted a broom and swept the bat out of the__________.

My wife was__________and my son thought I was a__________. They asked me how I had got rid of the bat, I started to tell them—but then__________. A man doesn’t talk of such things.