1 . 28-year-old Jermaine Scott set up in business as a barber in Madison. He gradually noted the kids were _______ to tablets and cell phones when they came to the barbershop. It was _______ to cut their hair when they were focused on those. That led to the _______ of Scott’s “Barbershop Books Day” when kids could come and get a _______ haircut. What was required? They had to _______ a book while they got it.

He created “Barbershop Books Day” to help not only the kids, but also the parents. Madison has many low-income families and many are focused on just keeping their _______ on. For people in this community, $15 for a haircut per kid is not easy to _______ so in some way a reduction in the price can _______.

Scott began his initiative (倡议) by _______ five library books and putting them near his chair. Book ________ began pouring in when a local news station ________ what he was doing. Scott plans on taking his initiative a step further by __________ his “Barbershop Books Day” to an “Ice Breaker Book Tour” where he ________ to get kids excited to learn while also giving them ________ role models through motivational (激发性的) speakers. Scott said, “If I step outside my comfort zone and tell them school is cool, ________ it will guide them in the right direction.”

2 . Forest & Bird, a conservation organization in New Zealand, held a contest for Bird of the Century and invited people in the country and abroad to _________ their favorite threatened species. Comedian and talk show host John Oliver _________ Forest & Bird if he could campaign for the puteketeke, a native water bird with eye-catching black-brown feather (羽毛) around its _________. The organization _________.

To get _________ for the species, Oliver started a worldwide campaign, which focused on its _________ feather surrounding its neck, romantic mating ceremony and heart-warming parenting style.

“The puteketeke are fantastic couples and _________ parents who always carry their babieson their backs!” read one of the ads.

His effort _________. The puteketeke began at the bottom of the _________. But it __________ the contest with 290, 374 votes after Oliver started the campaign on its behalf. By comparison, the much more __________ bird kiwi just got 12, 904 votes.

According to Forest & Bird, there are fewer than 3,000 of the bird across New Zealand a few decades ago. But the __________ has been increasing thanks in part to conservation efforts.

Usually called Bird of the Year, the annual __________ is held to raise awareness about the plight (困境) of the nation’s native __________, 80% of which are on the threatened species list. This year, the contest was named Bird of the Century to celebrate the group’s __________ birthday.

4 . Waiting for the airplane to take off, I was happy to get a seat by myself. Just then, an air hostess approached me and asked, “Would you mind _______ your seat? A couple would like to sit together.” The only _________ seat was next to a girl with her arms in casts (石膏绷带), a black-and-blue face, and a sad expression. “No way am I going to sit there,” I thought immediately. But a soft voice spoke, “She needs help.” Finally, I _______ to move to that seat.

The girl was named Kathy. She had been in a car accident and now was on her way for _________. When the snack and juice arrived, it did not take me long to _________that Kathy would not be able to ___________herself. I considered _________to feed her but hesitated, as it seemed too _________to offer a service to a _________. But then I realized that Kathy’s need was more __________than my discomfort. I offered to help her eat, and although she was uncomfortable to accept, she __________as I expected. We became closer and closer in a short period of time. By the end of the five-hour trip, my heart had__________, and the __________ was really better spent than if I had just sat by myself.

I was very glad I had reached beyond my comfort zone to sit next to Kathy and feed her. Love sometimes flows beyond human borders and removes the fears that keep us __________. When we __________to serve another, we grow to live in a larger and more rewarding world.

9 . I’ll always remember a lesson that I learned as a boy growing up in New York City. One day, when I was perhaps six years old, I was walking with my father on a ________ street. All of a sudden, the flow of pedestrian traffic came to a stop as people tried to ________ a large object on the sidewalk. To my astonishment, the object ________ to be a human being, a man lying unconscious against a building. As we walked by, my father—the model of a loving, ________ gentleman—pointed to a bottle in a paper bag and told me that the poor soul on the sidewalk just needed to sleep it off. Then the drunken man began to murmur senselessly. My father ________ me not to go near, saying “you never know how he’ll react.”

Yet many years later I had a very different experience while visiting a market in Rangoon. I had spent the previous 12 months traveling in ________ Asian cities, but even by those standards this was a scene of misery (穷困). ________ desperate poverty and strong winds blowing dust ________, the locals had to live in the extremely hot climate with ridiculously huge crowds. ________ a man carrying a huge bag of peanuts called out in pain and ________ to the ground. I then witnessed an astonishing scene. Half a dozen ________ ran from their stands to help, leaving unattended what might have been the totality of their possessions. One put a blanket under the man’s head; another opened his shirt; the third one ________ him carefully about the pain; the fourth one ________ water; the fifth one kept onlookers from crowding around too closely; the sixth one ran for help. Within minutes a doctor arrived and two other locals joined in to assist. The ________ could have passed for a final exam at a nursing school.

I couldn’t help wondering, why people act ________ at the similar situation here?

10 . We moved there on my third birthday. My first ________ is our neighbor Arlene handing me strawberries from her garden through a hole in the chain-link fence. She and her husband, Bill, lived next door.

One day, my parents asked Bill and Arlene whether they’d watch me ________ they were out on a date. This ________ well for everyone, so it became a somewhat monthly occurrence. Arlene and Bill didn’t have kids. They had a ________ room in their house, which became “my” room. I had a cabinet and boxes of toys and books in that room, Arlene and I would do crafts together. Bill taught me how to ________ the lawn tractor and eventually a car (stick and automatic).

When I was about five, I had an idea. My parents were watching TV when I spit it out: “What if I adopt Bill and Arlene as my ________?” My parents said I could go over and ask them. I ________ on Bill and Arlene’s door, sat down in their living room, and said, “Will you guys be my grandparents?” They started crying and ________ accepted. Soon after, they printed out an adoption ________, and it hung on their living room wall from then on.

I remember being surprised that they took my ________ so seriously —not because I wasn’t serious but because I was just a kid. They could have ________ it off. Thinking of that moment still brings tears to my eyes. There is something truly magnificent about a child offering up her love and ________ being so excited to accept it. Every child in this world ________ enthusiastically responded love.

Arlene passed away in 2013, two days before our adoption anniversary. Bill gave her eulogy (悼词). At the end, he said, “Arlene ________ her husband, Bill. And the greatest joy of her life, her granddaughter, Katie.”

After the funeral, Bill gave me the ring he’d gifted to Arlene on their 25th wedding anniversary. It’s a simple gold band that I wear on my ring finger as a ________ of the kind of love I wish to put into this world.