1 . I am the “Laundry Goddess”. Well, that’s what my kids call me anyway because I have the talent for finding the right ______ for any stain. From spaghetti sauce and grass marks to ballpoint ink stains, whatever my family ______ me, I seem to be able to find a way to make it look brand new again. It’s a skill I got from my mother. My mom wouldn’t admit it, but I think she ______ doing the laundry.

The laundry room was Mom’s territory. It was ______ , with only the shushing (沙沙声) of the washing machine or the hum of the dryer to interrupt her. She would ______ down early in the morning, often still in her housecoat, to put in the first ______ of the day. We would find her there, leaning on the freezer, happily having a coffee and reading the newspaper or her library book.

I don’t remember Mom teaching me the ways of the laundry room. I learned to ______ towels and small items as a youngster. I spent many hours ironing clean cotton handkerchiefs and pillowcases. But the ______ wasn’t part of my training. So when I left home and moved ______ the country, stain ______ required an expensive long-distance phone call home.

My washer and dryer seem to have more ______ than a jet plane, certainly many more than the machines used by my mom. I have made the ______ from laundry powder to liquid, and I have my own favorite stain ______ . But every time I step into the laundry room and think about how to deal with a particularly difficult stain, I ______ the Laundry Goddesses who came before me for her wisdom and perseverance. And each clean item of clothing is a ______ force in a chaotic world.

2 . Some started to run. A woman sobbed beside me, her husband dragging her along by the arm. Families begged for a _______ in vehicles(车辆) with no space, and cried when they were _______ .

Finally _______ it to the slightly higher ground of the evacuation(撤离、疏散) zone, it took me a few minutes to find Lauren among the crowds. Holding me and crying, she told me of her own walk twenty minutes _______ . Somehow, she had _______ to get back inside the airport before it was locked down, throwing our bags onto a trolley(手推车) and pushing it all the way to where we stood.

She was extremely tired, physically and emotionally, _______ finally calmed down enough to ask a simple question: “what happens now?”

I had no idea. Rumors(谣言) were flying around the crowd; _______ being spread far and wide. A six-meter tsunami was _______ our way. We were safe? No, we weren’t. People would be trapped in their hotels for days.

In short, nobody had a clue. The authorities(官方) were doing their best, _______ water-and later, food —to everyone, but they couldn’t provide the one thing people were most ________ for: information.

Finally, an announcement was made that the ________ had passed, and if there were no further quakes, we would be free to go in two hours. The airport would not reopen that ________ and buses would turn up at some point to take us to Phuket Town.

Suddenly, another announcement was made. Four hours after it closed, the airport was going to reopen in half an hour and our flights would ________ at some point after that. Some of the airport staff got into minivans(小型货车) and headed away.

Happy to be alive, we almost ________ back through security and into the terminal(航站楼). We found a slightly comfortable piece of floor, and prepared to wait it out.

Afterword: After I started queuing at 4 am, we were ________ enough to get on the first flight to Chiang Mai the next morning.

3 . Taylor Hash desired to become a career pilot and she was under training. One day, she had just started building up hours of flight time when a__________struck. As she guided the Diamond Star plane off the runway at airport, on her third-ever independent__________, the front tyre of her plane fell off.

Taylor was__________at that point that she had just lost crucial landing equipment. “I didn’t feel anything on the take-off__________” she said.

__________pilot Chris Yates, though, saw something and immediately took action. He knew that Taylor would have to make a difficult emergency landing. He__________the control tower and said, “The Diamond Star that just took off lost its nose wheel tyre on the runway.” Yates asked people there to put him through to Taylor so he could help her. When Taylor learned what had happened, she was in__________.

_________,Yates   knew that   the   most   important   thing   would   be to   keep   Taylor   calm so   she could   follow   him__________. Yates started by reassuring Taylor and told her that she could__________above the field until she was ready to land. “When you touch down, I just want that stick all the way back. You’re gonna hold that stick back like you don’t want that nose to touch,” he__________her.

Despite feeling unsure, Taylor trusted Yates.   With palms sweaty and lips__________,Taylor successfully create a best landing chance. Ultimately, she strained every nerve to manage to land___________.

No sooner had Yates extended his arms than Taylor hugged him tightly with tears of__________rolling down cheeks. Yates smiled, patted on her shoulder and encouraged, “it was your excellent skill that help yourself__________the emergency successfully. I am so proud of you.”

4 . Karis Wales, Isha and Diya Goel were born prematurely. The twins and Karis, who has a twin brother, are now 13. They were born and cared for at the same Arizona hospital, just days apart. After reuniting in the sixth grade, Karis, Isha, and Diya formed a close ______ . A year later, they decided to create a club called Knots for NICU at school to help ______ families like theirs.

Premature births are not uncommon for ______.“Both of us, size and width, were about the ______ of a loaf of bread,” Diya said. It’s a(an)“______ roller coaster” for parents, she added, not knowing if their children will survive. Karis has also been told about her parents’ ______ when she and her brother were born. “It was especially ______ because I got out of the NICU prior to my twin brother,” Karis explained. For her mother, being ______ in two places at once — at home with Karis and at the hospital with her brother — was ______ challenging.

Learning how tiny they were at birth has helped the girls ______ clothes for preemies (早产儿). Knots for NICU meets weekly. They crochet (钩针), knit, and ______ everything from headbands to blankets for ______ in Banner Desert’s NICU.

Once the school year ended, the founders gathered to ______ 120 pieces of the clothing. The girls hope that their club’s work will ______ the struggles of families caring for premature babies. In the future, they hope to host knitting workshops and ______ their initiative in order to help even more families.

5 . Yang Haoran, born into a family of cotton farmers, spent his childhood playing in the cotton fields. He ______ how hard his parents had to work using conventional farming methods, as well as how automation has ______ productivity and saved labor.

Having finished university, Yang became a ______ farmer himself. However, unlike his parents, his experience has been very ______ ; he manages over 200,000 square meters of cotton fields and always ______ new ways to improve efficiency through technological ______ .

In 2018, he saw the great business ______ of using drones (无人机) in farming and established his own company, which ______ 13 drone operators, all of whom are post-90s workers like Yang himself. “We are like a big family, with members from different ethnic groups,” Yang said ______ .

In peak growing season, they move their ______ in a skillful way over the fields while in the off-season, they train local farmers to ______ drones. To date, Yang’s team has trained hundreds of local farmers. “This will enable them to ______ new technologies, allowing them to ______ the advances in modern agriculture,” he said.

Yang’s ______ does not end there. He has recently taken up a precision (精准) farming project, which uses drones to collect data for spectral analysis (光谱分析), and transmit real-time data on crop growth and soil moisture to the irrigation and fertilizer equipment for precision ______ .

6 . In 2015 my husband and I spent some days traveling in Sahara Desert. I was super ______ to ride a camel for the first time and spent a night in a tent in the desert.

______, the ride started with me hanging upside down from the saddle (鞍) with one ______ in the air. Bob, my camel, had decided to stand up ______ I could settle in. I held onto the saddle ______ as the guide pushed me up onto the camel’s back. Bob______a sound of disapproval and we rode off. I thought it would be bumpy (颠簸的); but it was a very ______ journey all the way ______ the fact that the camel in front was having a bad case of gas.

After dinner, we returned to the tent for sleep. Even in several thick blankets, I was _____ from head to toe while my husband fell asleep straight away. Thankfully, I drifted into dreamland gradually, only to be ______ by an unusual noise, followed by a(n)______ smell. I tried to go back to sleep, but another unpleasant smell and more _____, which went on for hours.

After what felt like a ______ night, it was time to rise to watch the sunrise. I dragged my sleepy body out. There, ______ just outside was Bob, who made direct eye contact with me and I promised I ______ a broad grin on his face.

With Father’s Day on the way, I’d like to take a minute or two to express my never-ending gratitude for all that you do.

I can’t _______ a time when you weren’t there for me — not only as a father, but as a best _______. As a child, you were my best playmate. I know now that your favorite movie was _______ really “Cinderella (灰姑娘)”, and that you would have preferred to watch football than _______ Barbies.

You did those things because you loved me, _______ me that when you love someone, you do what you can to make the one loved _______.

From teaching me how to walk or throw a ball, you showed me _______ to stand on my own two feet. When the time came for me to _______ school, you also became my personal tutor. Although you were always _______ to help, you showed me that I could solve problems by myself.

As much as I want to thank you, I also want to ________. Raising a teenage girl might be one of the biggest ________ a father goes through. I’m sorry for any grey hairs I may have ________ you in the past.

Even though we don’t always ________ each other, you’re one of the biggest influences in my life. A father is the one who ________ his daughter through life.

I hope one day I can show you how ________ you are to me. Even more, I hope this Father’s Day is everything you deserve.

8 . Alex Honnold is a poster child (榜样人物) for the sport of free soloing. For more than 20 years, the _______ adventurer has taken on risks that would be hard for many of us to imagine. The man has established fame in the _______ ever since his ascent (攀登) of Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Captain (酋长岩) in 2017.

But for Alex, there is nothing deep and meaningful about what he does by his own standards. It’s _______ one man on a rock doing what gives him the greatest joy in life. What continues to motivate him to _______ on a ledge (岩架) in the face of grave danger? We try to find this out in our interview with the brave _______.

Q: Regarding your early career, you defined yourself _______ being homeless at one point and were living out of your van. What was your motivation early on for climbing?

Alex: I had been climbing for years in the gym, _______ I was already heavily into rock climbing. Living in my van was the easiest way to travel and climb outdoors full time. I didn’t look at it as a hardship for me.

Q: Did you feel like you had become so _______ to climbing that you just wanted to explore it further at a certain point?

Alex: I think it’s just the activity that gives me the most joy in life. It’s just like how some people love to go running or swimming. There’s a certain _______ to the activity.

Q: People might ________ you for quick advice about how they should prepare for life. But sometimes there is no secret-you have to prepare, right? Alex: Yes, that’s actually pretty funny. People often ask me about fear and fear ________. And I say to them, if you were to spend 20 years preparing for something, ________ you’d become comfortable doing the things you used to believe would be ________ for you to do. There is no real secret.

Q: Since ________ is a big part of the way people interpret what you do, what scares you about life?

Alex: Intimacy, connection, relationships. Or whether I am wasting my time. I mean in some ways about living with regrets that you didn’t do the right thing or that you haven’t done something ________ with your life.

9 . A giant origami (折纸艺术) “snail” gets a Guinness World Record. Filled with ________ and craftsmanship, origamist Pei Haozheng and his team have created the world’s ________ origami “snail”, according to Guinness World Records.

This ________ “snail” is a single but complete structure made from a 9.21-meter-long square sheet of gold foil (箔) paper without any ________ or pasting (粘贴). It stands proud at 4.1 meters in ________ , 1.47 meters in width and 1.3 meters in height.

Making a giant paper “snail” isn’t ________ . Since the ________ used was so large, during the folding (折叠) process, it soon became a lopsided (向一侧倾斜的) 3D object. “This added much ________ in practice. Even the ________ part could easily become deformed (变形的),” Pei said to China Daily.

Another ________ was the deviation (偏差) the final version took from the prototype (原始模型), which can ________ many unexpected difficulties. For example, when the paper becomes ________ after folding, it may suddenly spring (弹开) open and create gaps. Pei added that the stylistic difficulty of this artwork lies in the need to ________ spinal (螺旅形的) shell layer (层) by layer. Pei did many ________ , finally overcoming these difficulties in the end.

“Gold foil paper symbolizes the beauty deep within people’s hearts. Therefore, I hope that everyone who sees this artwork can feel the ________ within their own hearts, pursue their passions, and cherish (珍惜) every moment in their lives,” Pei said.

10 . On the day of my thirteenth birthday, I was really excited since my parents took me to have the time of my life at the amusement park.

On reaching the park, we bought tickets and entered it. The only fitting _________ for it was “amazing”. I was really spellbound. Everywhere people _________ excitedly from one ride to another, funny music drifting to our ears along with the screams of laughter from every direction. People dressed up like clowns were _________ the kids.

The greatest _________ of all was the roller coaster, spinning around in a crazy manner. Many tourists _________ for it. We were seated on the ride and held on to the bars _________ in fear of dropping. The next ten minutes was the wind whizzing through our hair, a blur of _________, laughter and tightly closed eyes. We _________ with shaky knees and dizzy heads, but with faces full of broad grins and blood pulsing through our body.

Then came the most _________ part, the Freaky House. Rumors had it that once you entered it, you never came out the same. Being thirteen-year-old teenagers, and __________ not to be afraid of anything, we entered the house with heads held high, __________ we came out with our hearts thumping loudly against our chests. To top all this, we __________ from head to foot, with all those images in our heads which would haunt (萦绕) us throughout our lives. During all this we hadn’t noticed time __________ and it was getting dark.

The day ended with a birthday boy special meal for my __________. Returning home, I lay on my bed, with the images of all the __________ I had that day replaying in my mind constantly.