2 . When you measure the distance between towns on foot, and walk to places that you thought could only be reached by car, it will change your mind.

I live in the suburb north of San Francisco, and _________is considered the main transportation for most people here. I still remember how _________ I was when I first learned to drive. While driving with music gently _________my heart, I was filled with joy. However, as time went by, that excitement _________. I feared driving, and felt worried and upset. Everyone seems to be in my way especially when I am in a _________. One night, a deer ran out from the dark, knocked against my moving car, and_________ across the street. I didn’t dare to get out of my car to see her. Crying on the _________, I hated my car.

When I joined the 21-day mindful walking _________, I began to walk with a mind. During the walking days, I smiled at every stranger _________ by me. I walked to the streets that I __________, would not pass through and __________ a tiny free library on the sidewalk. I began to__________ if I had really lived in this town all these years. It’s a completely __________ town that I know so little about!

I felt deeply __________ for the walking challenge. Maybe I will set foot on far lands again, yet I know the __________ is right here and right now.

3 . Buttons are found on all sorts of clothing. They are usually small and round, and made of metal or plastic. They fasten or connect one piece of clothing to another. They make sure your clothes don’t fall off. When we are speaking or writing in English, buttons can be just as useful.

Men or women often wear button-down clothes to the office. Button-down as an adjective means to be conservative (保守的) or traditional. People who are described as button-down stay close to the normal way of dressing and behaving. They don’t wear crazy clothing or do unusual things. People and events can both be described as button-down.

If someone is buttoned-up, he or she seems very businesslike. In personal relationships, buttoned-up people physically and emotionally keep away from others. They are not warm or friendly and they do not share their inner thoughts and feelings with others.

In the expression “button up”, button is a verb. It means to stop talking. Now, let’s say you find yourself buttonholed in a conversation at a party. The person just keeps talking and talking! Finally, you can’t stand it any longer. You tell the person to button it! This is a direct, but unacceptable way of saying “stop talking”. Button your lips is another equally rude but effective way to stop a person who talks too much.

Another kind of difficult person is someone who pushes your buttons. To push someone’s buttons means to know exactly how to get that person angry or upset. People who like to push others’ buttons usually do it for selfish reasons. First they find a person’s weak point, and then they use it to upset him.

4 . When it comes to friends, I desire those who will share my happiness with me. When I was in the eighth grade, I had a friend. We were shy and “too serious” about our studies when it was becoming fashionable with our classmates to learn acceptable social behaviors. We said little at school, but she would come to my house and we would sit down with pencils and paper, and one of us would say: “Let’s start with a train whistle today.” We would sit quietly together and write separate poems or stories that grew out of a train whistle. Then we would read them aloud. At the end of that school year, we, too, were changed into social creatures and the stories and poems stopped.

When I lived for a time in London, I had a friend. He was in despair (失望) and I was in despair. But our friendship was based on the idea in each of us that we would be sorry later if we did not explore this great city because we had felt bad at the time. We met every Sunday for five weeks and found many excellent things. We walked until our despairs disappeared and then we parted. We gave London to each other.

For almost four years I have had a remarkable friend. We write long letters in which we often discover our strangest selves. Each of us appears, sometimes in a funny way, in the other’s dreams. She and I agree that, at certain times, we seem to be parts of the same mind. In my most interesting moments, I often think: “Yes, I must tell...” We have never met.

It is such comforting companions I wish to keep. One bright hour with their kind is worth more to me than the lifetime services of a psychologist (心理学家), who will only fill up the healing (愈合的) silence necessary to those darkest moments in which I would rather be my own best friend.

5 . In both Africa and Asia elephants are being threatened by changes in their natural habitats. People are moving into the elephants’ habitats and endangering their survival. In the country of Sri Lanka, there is one place where elephants are not only protected but also respected. It is called Elephant Transit Home (ETH).

Set up in 1995, the ETH aims to protect and care for baby elephants that are found injured or living without their mothers in the wild. Every year about 30 baby elephants in Sri Lanka need help. Many are brought to the ETH. There they are given food, shelter, and medical care. Most importantly, they are given the chance to be with other elephants and become part of a herd.

A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves and other native plants. There are no boundaries in the area for the baby elephants as they have the freedom to walk wherever they want. The cost of caring for the baby elephants is high. The ETH spends about $125,000 each year on powdered milk for the baby elephants.

At the ETH, workers try to reduce human connections with the elephants. They also try to increase bonds (联系) between the elephants. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be set free into its natural habitat. The elephants are sent back to the wild together with other orphans with whom they have bonded. This program helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.

The ETH is considered as one of the best animal protection sites in the world. Not only are the elephants cared for, but they are treated with respect. Most importantly, they go back to live in the wild, where they belong.

6 . The fire at Notre-Dame de Paris has been put out, but its spire and a large part of its wooden roof have been damaged. The terrible damage causes a sudden pain for people all over the world. What a pity that we cannot see the damaged parts of the wonder anymore.

But the good news is that we can see them through a video game called Assassin’s Creed Unity. In this game, the player can travel to one city after another and enter the buildings exactly like what they are in reality, and see Notre-Dame as it was before the fire. Further, with virtual (虚拟的) reality technology one can even look around the undamaged Notre-Dame as if it were still there. Maybe digital technology could help to better protect the architectural cultural heritage.

The idea of making digital models of ancient buildings to save their data dates back to the 1990s and the necessary technology has continued to advance since then. By scanning (扫描) the ancient buildings, building 3D models with a series of images, as well as measuring (测量) everything accurately, engineers can make a copy as accurate as the real one.

As computers and smartphones are hugely popular, the digital model has great useful value. First, it allows tourists to feel the cultural relics without touching them. The virtual tour of the Mogao Caves in Gansu Province is a good example of this as tourists can view the paintings without standing near them. Furthermore, it can make the digitized cultural relics more famous through the Internet. In 2000, a virtual tour of the Great Wall became very popular at the Hanover World Expo, which increased the number of foreign tourists visiting the site in the following years. Above all, it preserves all the information of the cultural relics.

Of course, however accurate a model is, it is not the original (原件). Maybe we will have better technologies in the future, but digital technology offers a useful way to preserve the architectural cultural heritage at the moment.

7 . Ever since I was 13 years old, I wanted to be a photographer. I had a dream of working for some magazines, which would allow me to travel around the world to ________ the right picture.

After leaving high school, I ________ in photography in the University of the Arts. However, I kept reflecting on my ________ though I learned a lot in my freshman year. There was nothing wrong with the school, but it was not ________ for me.

I ________ teachers and they helped me analyse the situation ________. Such a feeling made me know teaching students how to ________ their full potential in their artwork was what I wanted. And ________, I wanted to be engaged in a ________ that made me feel like I was actually making some difference in the community.

I decided to transfer to Buffalo State College, where I would graduate the next year with Bachelor’s degree in Art Education. Studying in Buffalo totally ________ my life. When I was in class, I always ________ myself in what I was learning. Then, during my first on-site teaching lesson at a middle school, it ________ me that this was what I would want to do for the rest of my life, and I ________ loved it.

Now, as I’m finishing my senior year, I’m happy I made such a decision in my life. I believe this is ________ the one for my entire life, ________ the one I had once been dreaming, but turned out not for me.

8 . In the three decades since Darah Lady’s grandmother first arrived in this distant area of northern Brazil, clearing the forest by hand to build a house for her 14 children, the family has pushed deeper and deeper into the Amazon. It has been driven by a saying that good fortune comes when nature gives in to human control.

Yet their growing community there could ruin not only their children’s future but also that of the entire planet. More global pandemics are on the way, scientists say, and the next one is likely to crop up from a community like Darah Lady’s, where people are taking up more and more space of the natural world and erasing the buffer zone between themselves and habitats that existed long. As people cut down forest, they not only speed up the global warming but also greatly increase their risk of exposure to disease.

Scientists also say disease hot zones are expanding from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already led to a rise in spreading disease. Zoologists have found that a third of all known disease outbreaks around the world were due to rapid land use change.

Darah Lady’s community of Maruaga is filled with risks for the spread of viruses. Their family has already battled zoonotic illnesses— the term used to describe diseases spread between animals and humans.

When 40% of a land area has been destroyed, according to Tom Gillespie, a university researcher, the region hits a sort of tipping point: Wild animals are pushed closer to humans for food, and viruses begin to spread.

Darah Lady seemed to notice the slight difference of deforestation. “I get kind of sad,” Darah Lady said, “Because the forest is something I’ve loved since I was little. And they are deforesting, right? It’s destroying nature.”

9 . My wife went out with a friend. I was busy in my study while my 3-year-old daughter________to be having a good time in the other room. No problem, I figured. But then it got too quiet and I shouted, “What are you doing?”

I heard her say, “Oh... nothing. ” Nothing? I ________ the living room, where I saw her run across the hall and her little behind made a quick________into the bathroom. I had her________but failed to make her turn around. I pulled out my big Daddy voice, “Young lady, ” I said, “turn around!”

________, she turned toward me with my wife’s new lipstick in her hand. And every square inch of her face was ________with bright red! As she looked up at me with fearful eyes, I heard ________ voice that had been shouted to me as a child. “How could you... You should know... How many times have you been________ . What a bad thing to... ” It was just a matter of my picking out which old________ I was going to use on her so that she would know what a bad girl she had been. But________ I could let loose, I looked down at the sweater on her. In big ________ it said, “I’M A PERFECT LITTLE ANGEL!” I looked back up into her tearful eyes and, ________ seeing a bad girl who didn’t listen, I saw a little angel full of ________ that I had come dangerously close to ________ . “Sweetheart, let’s take a picture so Mommy can see how________ you look.” I took the picture and thanked God that I didn’t miss the chance to prove what a perfect little angel he had given me.

10 . Cities are the planet’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions (排放), so they offer the greatest opportunity to tackle climate change. Hitting net zero emissions by 2050, a target set at the COP26 summit, could be achieved more quickly using city digital twins-working virtual replicas (复制品) that help track, manage and reduce environmental damage rapidly.

The United Nations says cities, the most suitable subjects, which occupy less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, are major contributors to climate change, consuming almost 80 percent of the world’s energy and producing more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Urban areas are forecast to grow by another 2.5 billion people by 2050.

Digital twins look and behave identically in their real-world physical environments. Similar technologies have been in use since NASA’s Apollo moon mission in 1969, where computers and machine replicas were used to test and monitor spacecraft. Virtual 3D city models link to networks of sensors that collect data from buildings, transport, air quality and energy use, to see where emissions can be cut and efficiency improved.

The UK is planning a kind of national digital twins that will connect digital replicas managing buildings, factories, and the other infrastructure nationwide. And that could lead to entire virtual world online, part of a virtual reality space proposed by tech companies.

Research shows that digital twins can save cities more than $280 billion globally by 2030 through more efficient urban planning. A provider of digital twins, City zenith, believes that net zero deadlines could be achieved 15 years early if the world’s 100 biggest cities use the technology to remove carbon. “They are the perfect tool for managing and accelerating the energy transition,” said CEO Michael Jansen. “We could get to net zero emissions globally by 2035.”

In the US, the Digital Twin Consortium is working to standardize how digital twins are built and share data. Big tech companies around the world have developed software for replicating cities, including a district of Berlin, the island nation of Singapore, and the entire city of Shanghai in China.