1 . One morning, the door to the classroom opened and a new teacher, Mrs Cosby, walked in. She looked too _________ to handle us. And we sure gave her a _________ time , but she never lost her temper. And then came the last day of the first month she had been our teacher. She _______ some papers the moment she entered the classroom. We _________ the worst—a test. But oh no, it was something that totally _________ us.

Mrs Cosby asked us to come to the front of the class, and gave each of us a piece of _______, on which she had written what the student with _________ had been good at during the last month. You see, no one ever _________ us. No one ever liked us. We were constantly told what good-for-nothing we were. And here, _________, was someone who had been ____________with us closely for a month. Mrs Cosby did this every ______________ from then on. Each month we got a piece of paper that said our ______________. She commented on my courage, and how well I did if I wanted to ______________ arguments. Her attitude influenced our class. We did not want to ______________ her feelings anymore. We actually started to ______________.

And then came the day of our ______________. Mrs Cosby hugged us and told us with tears in her eyes how ______________ she was of us. Then she ______________ each one of us a book. All the encouraging words through the years were there, in hard covers.

She said, “I want you each to keep this book and if ever during your life you feel unworthy,____________ this and read how good you are. You can be anything you want to be as long as you believe in yourself. ______________ me you will remember that!”

2 . I was born legally blind. Of all the stories of my early childhood, the one about a _______ is my mother’s favourite.

I was only two when the _______ occurred. We had just arrived home from a trip. Mom lifted me out of the car and _______ to speak to the driver. I took advantage of my brief _______ to dash across the lawn (草坪)—and hit a large maple tree! I was running so fast that I bounced off the trunk and _______ on my backside. Mom _______ me to start crying, but I just sat there for a minute. Then I _______ myself up and kept right on going. Mom always adds here that, as many times as I _______ across the lawn after that, I never again _______ into that tree.

Mom loves to use this story as an ________. It reminds her that children don’t enter life afraid to take risks or unwilling to ________ again when they fall down. She never wanted me to lose that ________ as I grew older. When I made my major life decisions, I was still that little girl tearing full­speed across the lawn. I studied abroad and later moved away from my parents’ home to look for a ________. Through years of ________, I have become a respected teacher in a school serving high­need students.

We are almost certain to get ________ at some point during the process of achieving our goal. When that happens, don’t sit in the grass and cry. Just get up and keep on going. It will all be worth it in the end.

3 . A couple has spent the last 25 years buying 300 acres of deserted farmlands and changed it into wildlife forest. They want to build the land to a real rainforest for elephants, birds and other endangered animals. Up to now, they’ve _______more than 300 kinds of birds as well as many_______animal species (种类).

_______, this was not the image in 1991 when they came to this part of the country. “When we came here, it was a_______. The owner wanted to sell it_______, because he could not _______coffee beans (咖啡豆) or anything else here, says Anil, who ran restaurant business in the US_______moving to India. “But for me and my wife, this was what we were_______of in our life.”

The couple had a special love for_______from their childhood. When they came to India, the pollution________them. “At that moment, we________to do something to explore the forests in India,” says Anil. “We were not looking for________. In the beginning, we________that shortage of fresh water will be a(n)________concern in India, so we must take care of its origin,” explains Anil.

They sold properties (财产) they owned in America, bought the first 55 acres and began to grow the first________. Soon, they got the land nearby as well. “Many of the local farmers considered it________to get money from the wasteland,” says Anil.

Stopping hunting was a big________and often the locals did not________what this couple was doing, so it required a lot of talking to build up the idea of ________. They worked with the forest department to set up camera traps and keep hunters away. “There are times we have to________with hunters. We were even in great danger once,” says Anil. “We hope what we are doing now will make a difference to animals.”

4 . Years ago, if a teenager had some problems in her life, she might go home and write in her diary. Now, a teenager with _______ problems might go onto the Internet and write about his problems in a blog. In many ways a diary and a blog are very _______. So, what makes blogging different from writing in _______ diary?

The biggest difference is that blogging is much more _______ than a diary. Usually, a teenager treats his diary like a book full of _______ that he does not want to _______. It’s interesting that someone who writes in a blog _______ a diary will probably write nearly the same information.

I have a little sister, and sometimes I go online to read her _______. She writes about things like waking up early for swimming practice and not studying enough for her chemistry test. _______ I was her age, I wrote about the same things, but ________ in my diary. Then, after I had finished writing, I would hide my diary in a secret place because I was ________ that my sister might read it!

The biggest ________ with blogging is that anyone can read what you write. If I was angry with a friend during high school and wrote something ________ about her in my diary, she would never know! ________, if my sister ever wrote something bad about a friend, that friend ________ read her blog and get a “cry”. There are also ________ to blogging, of course. If I felt sad one day and wrote in my diary, “Nobody cares about me,” ________ would know about it. However, if my sister wrote the same sentence in her blog, her best friends would ________ respond and tell her how much they ________ her. Blogs help people ________ in touch with their friends and know what the people around them are doing.

5 . Craig Foster is a diver and wildlife filmmaker. Once he was _________ in cold waters when he saw an octopus (章鱼),an unbelievably _________ creature with many behaviors unknown to science, hiding under shells and stones.

_________, he began following her without any disturbance. For weeks she _________ him, after 26 days of close watching, _________, the octopus realized Craig was not a danger, but a(n) _________. She _________ and allowed Craig into her life. Both Craig and the octopus enjoyed a mutual (相互的) learning and exploration.

Before coming across the octopus, Craig was once in a dark and stressful period. “I was _________. To help myself out, I felt like I needed to be in the ocean, my go-to (必去的) happy place as a child. Luckily, the octopus, my friend, brought a kind of _________ in my heart,” he recalled.

Now Craig regards this daily diving __________ as a way of dealing with the depression that once left him __________ and disconnected. He is able to __________ intimate (亲密) moments of this octopus’ short life by spending two hours __________ her every single day for a year. “Every time I interact (互动) with her, it’s __________ and healing, because she has __________ in me. If you gain her trust, she will allow you to step into her secret world,” he said.

Diving himself into this freezing underwater world has __________ calmed him down. Over the years, other animals have offered to make contact, but nothing has __________ to his “once-in-a-lifetime” __________ with the octopus. Craig says the greatest __________ she has taught him is that humans are not simple __________ , but part of the natural world.