1 . One of the most important events in the modern Olympic Games is the Marathon(马拉松)race. The race _______ one of the great events in Greek history.

In 490 B C. about 10,000 Greeks _______ against the Persian army at a place called Marathon. It is _______ that the Persians were ten times as_______ as the Greeks. However, where there is a will, there is a way._______ the brave attack of the Greeks, the Persians were badly beaten and_______away from the plain of Marathon. When the Persians had run away, a soldier, who was the most famous_______in Athens, was _______ to carry the good news to the city and he was also asked to march at full speed.

Although he had fought through the battle and _______many wounds, the soldier at once started off toward the ________ city ________ was twenty-six and a quarter miles from the plain of Marathon to the Marketplace of Athens, ________ there the elders of Athens had gathered ________   for news. He ran and ran over ________ and across plains. As he went on, his lips became ________ and his breathing hard, but when he thought of the ________ of the people of Athens on hearing the news, he ________ harder than ever.

At last the elders of Athens heard a great shout and saw a soldier staggering(蹒跚) toward them.” Rejoice! Rejoice! We won!” said the soldier, and fell down ________..

In________of this noble soldier and athlete, we have in the modern Olympic Games the Marathon race, ________ the athletes run this same distance.

2 . Because I Was Told I Can

About six months ago, I joined a gym. Every morning, there is one personal trainer there who works out at the same time that my little group does our _______He does his "routine" with such a quiet determination that he makes it all look very easy, although I know all too well how hard he is working. Whenever I tend to complain and_______ , I watch him push himself to his own limits, and I find myself _______ to work as hard and without complaint.

A couple of weeks ago , I was watching him do chin-ups. He made them look _______ I broke away from my group and asked him if I could try a chin-up. I had never tried before, but he just made it look so easy. He eagerly stepped aside and _______ me to step up to the bar. I _______ myself up without thinking ... once ... then twice. That was all I had In me. I had no _______ left. I told him that was all I had, so he stepped up behind me and pushed me _______for a third and fourth "pull." It felt so good.

The next day when I was done with my workout, I asked him to spot me again. Again, I did_______. Again on Day 3 and so on. I thought it was________that I could only do two, but when I came to the gym at the end of the week, he was standing there just shaking his head. When I asked him what was up , he said he was________with my chin-ups. He told me that when they are________firefighters , the men are required to do five chin-ups, and women are required to do one or two. He__________that most people can't do them at all, and that he was amazed that I________ . He further told me that if I ________every day, I would be doing five or six in no time. At this point I should probably__________that I am 50 years old... and female.

Had he told me at the very beginning how__________it was, I more than likely would not have tried at all.________I might have tried, but given it ________half an effort, because failure would have been the expectation. I applaud him for letting me believe that for me, it was not only a possibility, but that success was a__________expectation.

3 . The day that I will always remember is when I ran my first 10km.While putting my toe on the starting____, I felt my heart drop to my stomach. However, I would____my heart, because in running, when you run out of your____, you just run with your heart.

That day the____was cool and fresh, and my courage had____. The race was about to start. Bang! The____of the starting gun ran into the air. I took off running,____like the wind. I knew it would be a really great____for me. In the first four miles, I felt like a cheetah (猎豹). I felt____and forceful in my pace.

I saw the finishing line and I felt like an Olympic____who was about to win the race. I had____been happier, and felt proud too when I had my____put around my neck. As the saying goes, “Running is the greatest metaphor (比喻) for life,____you get out of it what you put into it.”

4 . I was having a period of bad health. I had one operation after another. I was falling _______ faster than the doctors could put me back together. But I just couldn’t bear the operation, the hospital stay, the long recovery and the physical therapy（康复治疗）. I told my doctor I was going to try _______ else.

I’d discovered that walking gave me a little _______. So I started walking. The first day, my wife _______ off our steep Silver Lake hill to a flat street. She got me out of the car, and I walked about two blocks _______ asking to be taken home. The next day, I walked about four _______.

Slowly, feeling a little _______ every day, I began to walk a mile or more. I even _______ some hills to my route. I became interested in the network of public stairways around Silver Lake I made a _______ of it and walked every public staircase in Silver Lake. That went pretty well, so I ________ onto Echo Park. I was feeling better, so I kept going. The search finally ________ “Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles’ ”a book ________ in the spring of 2010. By then, I had ________. I’d been walking at least an hour a day for three years. My life ________ returned to normal.

In three years of walks, I’ve met dozens of people who’d had ________ experiences of rebirth or recovery. One man told me he’d lost 80 pounds walking the secret stairs and was dating for the first time in a decade. One woman told me she’d ________ knee operation. Another told me she’d been ________ to start ballroom dancing again.

All I’d ________ from the walks was relief from pain. What I got was ________, community and a whole new experience of my city. Out of the car, on my feet and moving at walking pace, I ________ Los Angeles for the first time.

5 . I am very lucky because I enjoy my work very much. I’m a fitness instructor at a gym near where I live. I _______ six aerobics (有氧运动) classes a week and also tell my students about _______ and nutrition. As they say, “You are what you _______.”

To be honest, I worry about the _______ that many people have today. So many people are overweight. And why? Because they eat the _______ foods and they don’t do any exercise. When you work in an office all day, I know it is difficult to find _______ to keep fit, but you _______ need to do 20 minutes a day!

It’s also very important to have a _______ diet, starting with breakfast in the morning. It’s not a good idea to _______ breakfast although many of us just have a cup of tea or coffee. Eat as much ________ food as possible — lots of fruit and vegetables — and ________ not to eat too much fried food. When you don’t have much time, it’s ________ to get a takeaway (外卖), but it certainly isn’t very good for you!

One ________ that a lot of people feel less than 100% fit is that they don’t drink ________ water. You need to drink two liters a day — and water ________ water, not tea, coffee or sugary drinks.

Keeping fit is fun. However, a lot of people think it’s ________ to go jogging or cycling. They just want to ________ their food. Well, of course, it’s fine to have cakes and ice cream,________ not every day! I would say we like what our bodies ________ and if you eat more healthy food, over time, you might find yourself wanting to eat them more than anything else. Try it, I think you’ll be ________!

6 . It started with my shirts.They were too _____．I think I was fatter and I needed a lifestyle _____．But I didn't know where to start.At the time，I thought _____ was the answer.I had to do something that would not _____ too much time out of my day.I decided to start taking the stairs.Climbing the stairs was a good way to exercise _____ going to a gym.

I kept climbing the stairs and soon I was up to twenty flights of stairs per day.Although my endurance increased and I started to feel more energetic，I didn't lose much _____．

After _____ it with my wife，I decided to take part in a weight－loss program.I studied different programs，and decided on one that was _____ the most successful.

The instructor helped me to _____ where weight comes from；it comes from ______ without thinking.If I didn't keep track of what I ate，I ate a lot more.So I started writing down everything that went into my ______．I also learned how to make ______ choices and read nutrition labels.I weighed myself every week ______ that helped me to stay on track.I began to see that eating ______ was like sticking to a budget.I only had so many calories to ______ each day.I decided that junk food wasn't ______ the price.

I began to see ______ almost immediately.I lost 10 pounds in the first three weeks.I ______ to a rate of losing about two pounds a week.After nine months I had lost 85 pounds and 14 inches off my waist line.People were ______ at the change.Some said I looked younger.

If we learn the principles of weight loss，and live those ______，we will lose the excess pounds.It takes work and discipline，but losing weight can be done.

7 . I’m told that during an international game of chess, many beautiful moves could be made on a chessboard. In a decisive ______ in which Marshall was matched with a Russian master player, he found his queen under serious attack. There were several ways of ______, and since the queen is the most ______ piece, the audience thought Marshall would ______ move his queen to safety.

Deep in thought, Marshall used all his time to ______ the condition. And then, he ______ his queen, paused, and placed it down on the most ______ square of all — a square from which the queen could be ______ by any one of three enemy pieces.

Marshall had sacrificed (牺牲) his queen — an unthinkable move. Everyone else was ______.

Then, the Russian and the players realized that Marshall had actually made a ______ move. It was clear that no matter how the game was taken, the Russian would soon be in a losing ______. Seeing this, the Russian ______ his defeat.

When the audience ______ from the shock of Marshall’s daring, they showered the chessboard with money. Marshall had achieved ______ in a very unusual and daring way — he had ______ by sacrificing the queen.

To me, it is not important that Marshall won,______ what counts is that he had ______ standard thinking to make such a ______. He had looked further the usual patterns of play and had been ______ to consider an imaginative risk on the basis of his judgment alone. No matter how the game ______, Marshall was the winner.

8 . Eric Moussambani, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, won brief international fame at Sydney’s 2000 Olympic Games for an extremely unlikely victory.

Twelve months before the Olympics, Moussambani had never gone outside of his home country, an extremely poor tiny African nation. Having_________his admission into the Olympic Games, Moussambani set about teaching himself to _________. The only pool that was_________belonged to a local hotel, and they _________ him to use it between 5 and 6 am, three times a week. Before Sydney he had never set eyes on an Olympic _________, let alone practiced in one. Moussambani had no_________, no lanes（泳道）, and no way of tracking his efforts. Worse still, he didn’t know he had been entered in to the 100m race, not the 50m he had_________.

When the day came, events got _________. Of the three competitors in the first round, Moussambani was the_________competitor who was not removed from the game for starting early. He now had to do it alone, against the ________, fighting for a chance to be in the final. __________it seemed that he’s not going to finish it in the second half of the race, he ________completed it with a time of 1＇5". It was the slowest time in Olympic history, __________a personal best.

International media __________him ‘Eric the eel’ and a real model of the Olympic __________that it’s not the winning, but the taking part that __________. When he was__________after the race, Moussambani said, “At first I got worried that I couldn’t ____________. Thinking of the dear people__________me, I kept on and it happened.”

Moussambani never gives up. He is now the head coach of the national team and thanks to his__________, the country has built two 40m pools.

9 . Ms. Evans passed out the quizzes. “Everyone ready?” she asked, _______ the clock. “Begin!”

Raj zipped through addition, subtraction(减法), and multiplication(乘法) problems. When he came to _______, he slowed down a bit. Then his pencil tip _______.

“Time’s up!” Ms. Evans called. “Exchange papers, please.” After checking, Ms. Evans made a/an _______. “We have a new speed-math champion this week.” She smiled at the new girl, who had been in class for only three days. “Congratulations, Caroline. As for the rest of you, keep _______.”

Raj shook his head. He didn’t need to do that. Next Friday, he’d sharpen two pencils. Then the _______ would be his again.

_______ for the second week in a row, Raj wasn’t the winner.

“Good job, Caroline,” Ms. Evans said, “Looks as if the others are going to have to work harder to _______ you.”

This time Raj decided to practice his math like crazy. He started on Monday: addition problems during breakfast; subtraction while he brushed his teeth; multiplication on the bus; and division during his after-school snack. As the week went _______, he did better and better.

Even so, when he saw his score in class on Friday, he didn’t feel as ________ of winning as he had before. Maybe Caroline had gotten an even higher score.

While Ms. Evans paged through the ________ papers, Raj watched her face. Had his work paid off?

“Our champion has changed this week,” she said at last, “Congratulations, Raj. You’ve really ________.”

Caroline was standing right in front of Raj’s desk. “Good job on the quiz,” she said.

“Thanks,” Raj replied, “You, too—I mean, winning the past two weeks.”

Caroline shrugged. “At my old school, I was the ________ at math, so I always won. It’s fun to have some competition here. It makes math more exciting.”

Fun? Exciting? Raj stared at her. What was fun about ________?

“Are you going to try to win the title back next Friday?” he asked.

“Of course.” She smiled, “I will try my best! See you Monday. And good luck, champ.”

Raj grinned at the teasing. Maybe math was more ________ this way.

10 . All over the world people swim for fun. Swimming is enjoyed by people of _______ages, from the very young to the very old. There are many places for people to swim in swimming pools. Many schools, hotels and clubs have swimming pools. Some people have pools of_______in their yards.

Swimming is one of_______forms of exercise. It can_______ hearts and bodies strong. It can also help blood circulate(循环). Handicapped people can keep their bodies in better condition by swimming_______they can't enjoy sports.

_______ is a good idea for parents to see to it(务必做到) that their children learn to swim_______an early age. So their children will_______it for the rest of their lives.

There are many rules for water safety. These rules can help save not only your life_______the life of a friend. First of all, know________. Many schools________ swimming lessons to children. Adults(成人) can learn to swim at public pools. ________ rule to remember is never to swim ________. Always swim with a friend and know ________   in the water at all times. It is best to swim ________ in safe places if you are beginners. If every one learned to swim and obeyed the rules for water safety, most drawing(溺水) could be avoided.