1 . My son Jacob was intelligent and good-looking, but he possessed the disturbing negative attitude. Despite my ______, I couldn't convince him to choose to count his blessings.

Something had to be done. I bought every ______, and read every article. If the Internet had been ______ then, I would have Googled for weeks to find the information I needed to ______ his negativity. With the help of great resources, I developed my ______.

The day came when I was ready to put my new ______ to work. Jacob came home from school and as usual began to tick off his list of the ______things that had happened at school. I listened ______, making my eye contact and ______ with empathy before I asked, “What good things happened today, Jake?”

His response was what I ______, “Nothing.”

“Something good had to happen. You were there for six hours, ”I ______. Then I waited.

At last, he ______, “I did get to dust the erasers. With Brandon.”

“You mean you did it with your best friend? You're one ______ child, if you ask me!”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” Jacob ______ with his head back and his shoulders squared.

This began a daily ______ for us. Jacob came to understand the power of a ______ perspective, but the path to get there seemed to ______ him at times. Then I would encourage him to see things ______, and he would get back on the track of choosing to see the positive and losing the negative attitude. It was a ______,but he was making headway. I was convinced my hard work was ______.

2 . I believe in miracles (奇迹) because I’ve seen so many of them. One day, a patient was referred to me who was one hundred and two years old. “There’s a ___________ in my upper jaw,” she said, “I told my own dentist it’s nothing, but he ___________ I come to see you.”

Her eighty-year-old son accompanied her. He would ___________ to add something, but she stopped him. She wanted to tell everything herself. I found a large cancer that spread over much of the ___________ of her mouth. A careful examination later ___________ that it was a particularly bad sort of cancer.

During her next appointment, I explained to her the ___________ of the problem. She clasped my hand in hers and said, “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m just ___________.”

I thought otherwise. After considerable ___________ on my part, and kindness on her part because she wanted to ___________ me, she agreed to have me refer her to a cancer surgeon. She saw him, but as I expected, ____________ treatment.

About six months later she returned to my office, still energetic and ____________.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m just fine, honey,” she responded ____________ high spirits. “When can I get started on fixing my dentures (假牙)?”

Surprised to see her at all, I answered ____________ “Let me take a look in your mouth and we’ll see about it.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The cancer that had ____________ nearly the entire roof of her mouth was gone—only one small area of redness ____________.

I had read of such things happening, but had ____________ seen them with my own eyes. That was my first miracle. Since then I’ve seen many others, because they keep getting ____________ to see. In fact, miracles are daily events for me now. And people are in miracle, ____________ through them we have a chance to know ourselves and to ____________ the miracles of one another.

Since my first miracle, I’ve come to understand that the time and place for a miracle is ____________ we choose to find it.

3 . Mr. Brown, the wife of a famous doctor, was good at cooking. Once the Browns invited some of their friends to lunch. Mrs. Brown thought it was a good chance for her to ________ how wonderfully she could cook, so she ________ a new way of cooking a fish dish. She was quite pleased with herself when the dish was ________. “I have never cooked such _______ dish before!” she thought.

As the dish was very ________ she put it near the open window to cool for a few minutes. But, several minutes ________, when she came back ________it, she was shocked(震惊) to find the neighbor’s cat, Chester, at the dish. She was in time to stop the cat ________ it was too late.

When all the guests sat, the dinner began. The fish dish __________ really wonderful and everyone _______ it very much. They talked and laughed _______ four o'clock.

At the end of the afternoon, when she was alone again, Mrs. Brown felt ________but also happy. She sat in a chair near a window to have a _______. She happened to look down ________ the window, and saw something ________ a little animal in the garden.

“Oh, it is Chester. Dear, she is dead! Why? The fish dish must be bad! What will ________ to my friends?” she was frightened.

Immediately she telephoned her husband for ________. The doctor told her to telephone ____ of the guests to meet him at the hospital as soon as they could.

Finally the danger was _______. Once again, Mrs. Brown was alone in her chair in the sitting room, still tired but no longer happy. Just then the telephone rang. It was her _______ who cried, “Oh, Mrs. Brown, Chester is dead. She was killed by a car and someone put it in your garden.”

Have you seen people who take pictures of food for more than 10 minutes before eating? How about those who beautify their selfie (自拍) so much that they can’t be____? There must be one or more who ____ in your social media. No matter _____they choose to share, they share the best but the most unreal.

Take my friend Chen for example. Every time we went to a restaurant, she would not take a _____ until all the dishes we ____were on the table. Then, she would spend five minutes on______the dishes in a seemingly random but in fact ____ order. Then the most important part: taking pictures. After that, she would choose one of the ____ and click in the filter(滤镜) app. The food eventually looked 10 times more delicious than it really was, but we had no ____ to really enjoy it — it all went cold. Actually Chen's real life is much less elegant. For example, she hates to wash the dishes, so she leaves them in the sink for____.

Many people care too much about others’ opinions and try too hard to ___ others. They find it hard to be ____ and to accept themselves, and thus they are afraid to show their ____ life on social media. What they are trying to prove is____what they lack in reality. But this will not bring any_____ to reality, as they still____ the same old pattern of life.

If they really want an elegant life, they should put more____ into achieving it_____fabricating(伪造) it. Being more confident, _____themselves and trying their best to be better is much more meaningful than_____ their life on social media.

5 . We bought a microwave last week. This may not seem like big _____ , but we’ ve never owned one before. In a New York City kitchen with small counter space, a cubic foot is far too _____ to deserve occupation by a single appliance. But the convenience of heating food _____ finally outweighed the convenience of space.

So this is a better _____ for us.

I have _____ that there are different types of choices we get in life. The first is the good vs. good variety. That is, both choices will _____ us. Which flavor of ice cream tastes better? Which car do you _____? Whichever option we select, the worst outcome is that our _____ isn’t optimized (使最优化). Not a problem.

Next up is good vs. bad. These choices are either _____ or incredibly hard.

Often we need to choose between short-term pleasure and long-term good. What feels the best today may be _____ five years from now, and what’s the hardest at the moment may be what’s optimal for the future. Good vs. bad choices _____ insight (洞察力) and sticking to our _____   .

Finally there’s the least-worst option situation, where every possibility is _____ , and we have to _____ which is least harmful. Do we choose the dangerous operation or likely _____   ? In which poor neighborhood do we raise our kids? Sometimes we have to face many _____ of this sort and we must make a choice.

My microwave purchase _____ falls in the good vs. good category _____ I had the privilege of weighing one convenience against another and making a choice. Though I now work around the monster presence in my mini-kitchen, I _____ the benefits it offers. Facing inconvenience is not a problem; how you behave _____   .

6 . How much do you know about athletes? Many people regard watching sports games as a form of _________. But for athletes, they are challenging the _________ of human beings and breaking boundaries. Intensive training is a task which they do every day as a matter of _________. On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister, who ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, _________ the whole world’s attention. People believed that it was _________ imagination for a person to run a mile within 4 minutes. Bannister made a（n）

_________ in what people believed was impossible. In the years since, more and more athletes have overcome the four—minute—mile _________. Today, the record—held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco since July 7, 1999—_________ at 3 minutes and 43. 13 seconds!

Records are _________ at a lower and lower rate in both running and other fields. When new records are set, they're changed by a small proportion of a（n） __________ . The decimal point（小数点）,set at one- tenth of a second for Bannister's record, now __________ one-hundredth of a second. __________, we'll have to go to a third decimal place, and then a fourth.

The closer athletes get to being __________, the harder it is to make improvements. Even though they are __________ the best performances of human beings, excellent athletes can still __________ proportions of seconds off existing records. They have a real __________ to break records. The gaps between new and old records decrease __________. Athletes are getting closer and closer to physiological __________ performances all the time. It will be tougher and tougher __________. However, excellent athletes never __________ trying.

7 . It was a sunny day, and as a routine for years, I was shopping at my local supermarket. On that particular day, I had done about 2 weeks’ worth of shopping and _________ towards the counter to pay for my groceries. After the cashier had scanned my items and I had bagged them up, she stated that the _________ was $150.

I_________ into my back right pocket to grab the money to pay and noticed that there was no money there. I started to get _________. I knew my purse was in the car and I was sure I had put the _________ in my back right pocket. I looked at the cashier with wet eyes and a _________ look not knowing what to do. There were people behind me on the line. She told me to speak with the courtesy (爱心柜台). I _________ bitterly and said, “Really? It’s _________. No one would hand that in!” But she _________ me to. “You never know...” she said.

I decided that there was no __________ in checking, so I walked up to a woman behind the counter and said, “ I have to ask, did anyone __________ cash by any chance?” She asked, “How much?” My face then ________. “$200 in the form of one hundred dollar bills.” I replied. She said, “__________, yes, some did!” I was so ____________! “ Who? I want to thank her.” She pointed to a young girl about 10 years old and said, “ She did.”

I walked over to the mom and hugged her. She said, “It wasn’t me, it was my __________.” I said, “I know, I wanted to thank you both, __________ she found it. It’s because of you that I got this back.” I was so happy. I was almost in tears.

The next day at work, a person in another department __________ me tickets to the circus. He handed me 5 tickets. Almost __________ that young girl’s face appeared in my head. After work I went back to the supermarket and stopped at the courtesy counter and asked if she had any idea who that woman was. She smiled and said, “Yes, she is a friend of mine.” Then I asked her to do me a favor and pass along these 5 tickets to her.

She told me that the family of the little girl who found my money was not rich, so they would really __________ this. She also said that they had 3 children, so five was the __________ number of tickets!

8 . Mrs. Hyde was my fifth and sixth grade teacher. She was a nice and gentle teacher who wanted her students to learn and to do well in school. She was also________to those of us who showed an interest in a particular subject. For me it was________.

One of our assignments for writing class was to________some James Thurber stories. I loved this writer. Students would take turns reading his________stories out loud in class and________it came to my turn to read, it was difficult. I couldn't________laughing at what I was reading.

Mrs. Hyde encouraged us to write our own short________. I tried my best to make up a story, imitating Thurber's style.

I got an A+ on my paper. Mrs. Hyde________told me how good and funny she thought it was. She told me, "You really have a(n)________for this."

From that day forward, I had aspirations(渴望)of________a writer. Along the way and for a long time, my friends and family________tried to talk me out of this. "Writers don't make any________." they would tell me "You'll starve to death."

I never forgot Mrs. Hyde's________to me. It took several years to turn my________into reality, but today, I'm a working writer. It's true I don't make a lot of money doing it, but I'm doing what I________. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Hyde's encouragement to me so many years ago, I don't know if I would have ever given writing a________.

Mrs. Hyde died in the late 1980s. She never saw any of my________published, but she always knew how much I________writing. I wouldn't have made it________her encouragement. How I wish I could see her and thank her for her words of encouragement. They________the world to me.

9 . I moved to Arizona about two weeks before the start of my junior year of high school. Not only was this a new school for me, but also a new state, _________I did not know anyone.

During lunch on the first day of school, I sat down at a(n)_________table in the canteen (餐厅). As I began to eat, I looked around and saw a girl who was also sitting alone. I decided to_________with her, thinking there was no reason for me to have a whole table to myself, and maybe I could_________a friend. I walked to her and said, “Excuse me, do you_________if I sit with you?” She was_______at first, but then smiled and said, “Sure!”

After that, we became close friends throughout the next two_________. In our senior year, she told me that she’d been_________to a college and would be moving away after graduation. I was sad, and I knew I would_______her. But at the same time, I was really________for her.

She then shared a(n)__________with me. “Do you remember the first day of school when you__________and sat down with me during lunch?” she asked.

“I want you to know how special you are and how much of a________you made. I was very__________that day and even made detailed plans on how I was going to__________myself. I was bullied (欺凌) for the whole first half of the day, and it had just________me down. But when you reached out, it__________me. If you hadn’t done that, I would have probably killed myself when I got home. It might be hard to__________, but you saved my life, and all it took was being a friend.”

It has been almost 15 years since this incident. I still chat with her occasionally on Facebook. I can’t help but__________every time. It showed me that a simple kind act has the incredible__________to change lives.

10 . September 4 was my first day at Phillips Academy, my new school.It was also my 18th birthday.

I received a warm_______from my host family－the Steins.Gena was my host mum, and her daughter Lily would also be a new_______at Phillips Academy.They took me to the school and_______me around the campus.

On our way to my dorm (学生宿舍), we saw a huge truck delivering (传送) a student’s_______to her room. Many students at the school were very rich, and they would fill their dorms with decorations (装饰物)．But I _______not to because I thought it was a_______ of time and money.

I had a single room, which was about the similar_______of a Chinese college dorm－the ones which normally hold six people.

_______she helped carry my bags, Lily asked me, “What's your favourite_______, Teresa?”

I thought for a moment before answering, “Orange.”

I didn't know why she had asked the question.

We________an introduction meeting after dinner. ________of the students were native (本地的) English speakers, so I felt a little________.

I returned to my room after the________, tired and wanting to go to bed after a(n)________day.

When I opened my door, I found a big________. The bed was perfectly made with blankets and an orange sunflower pillow.On the________was a sunflower­pattern mat (垫子) while a colourful lamp________beside the bed.

I opened my mouth, ________. How beautiful!

There was also a________card.I touched the little pillow on the bed as I read the card. A warm current (暖流) rushed through my________.