1 . My son was one of the students who served as a volunteer in different services while in a high school. Nowadays it is _______ for high schools to have a volunteer service hour minimum as a part of their graduation _______. One day, I asked him why he worked long hours voluntarily every week. He gave me a reply _______ his years. He said, “Mom, you should not do community service just because it was assigned and you just need to _______ it in. You should do it because of the effects it has.” In many ways his opinion is _______ reasonable, and though the service hour requirement actually does get students to participate in volunteer work in their communities, does it _______ them to volunteer in the future?

In some cases, no. A study found that when 8th graders in some schools were asked to accumulate _______ volunteer hours, those same students were no longer doing any service by their senior year of high school. It _______ that mandatory (强制的) volunteer hours led to a “potential loss in long-term volunteering”. _______, other researchers discovered that young people were more likely to vote and attend civic (公民的) life in other ways as a result of their __________ to community service in high school.

If teens __________ the significance of doing volunteer work and do it with a bit of enthusiasm, serving others in their communities will bring in a lot of unexpected __________. My son’s exposure to a variety of non-profits during his high school years led him to __________ a service scholarship for college, where he is now required to complete seventy-five hours per semester. But to him, this is __________ a requirement; actually he has benefited a lot more than that. __________ is what he has always wanted to do.

3 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

7 . I _______ to open my eyes in the morning. Why didn’t the alarm on my cellphone go off?

Soon, I realize today is the day for my _______: “A day without technology.”

I didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into until I was driving to school in my car in _______, no radio broadcasting my favorite songs.

As soon as I got to school, I went to print out my English project. “Uh­oh,” I thought, “this isn’t allowed.”

The school day went on and I finally grew _______ the rule. This wasn’t so _______ ! I could do this every day.

I drove home after school, and my _______ eventually went into afterschool mode, _______ on what I would eat for supper. The _______ thing I knew was chatting with my friends on Facebook and checking email, all at the same time!

“What happened to no _______?” my mom asked me. I forced myself to go back to reality. I had ________.

This experiment was actually ________ to me. Even though my attempt at going about my day without technology was a failure, I realized that I would be completely ________ without my addiction to technology.

These devices certainly make my life ________, and I definitely wouldn’t ________ getting rid of them altogether, but I do believe the lives of today’s teenagers would be obviously ________ without our technology dependence.

8 . Growing up in the 1960s, I was taught from an early age to send a handwritten thank­you note expressing _______ for kindness. My mother used to buy me a box of paper and _______ me in the art and value of saying “thank you”. She _______ to be right.

A study showed that it took less than 5 minutes to write the thank­you notes. Just 5 minutes to make _______ person feel overjoyed! _______, in our “instant” world, the idea of getting an actual pen and writing an actual note seems to never come to mind. We tend to do what is _______ for us—a quick text or an email.

It’s easy to use the _______ of being busy, but even very busy and _______ businessmen find time to _______ thank­you notes. For example, when Douglas Conant became CEO of Campbell’s, the company had __________ half of its market value and morale(士气) was at an all­time low. He __________ fixing that by doing some simple things that are probably not __________ in any MBA class. For one thing, Conant wrote to every __________. He gained their confidence and __________, turned the company __________.

9 . Playing toss and catch with small children can be a fun experience, as they enjoy it very much. “again, Mommy, again!” Sarah exclaims as I toss her up in the air and catch her safely. She spreads her arms and legs as if she were flying, her eyes gleaming with _________. Her complete trust in me is heartwarming, yet it also carries a great deal of _________.

I hope that Sarah will always have complete _________ in me, but I realize that as she grows older, earning and maintaining her trust will require more effort and good judgment _________. Trust is such an essential part of a parent-child bond that it’s something that can’t _________ to lose or be taken for granted. Every time I _________ Sarah to something new, she’ll do it only because she trusts me and feels _________ in the knowledge that she won’t get hurt. For example, teaching Sarah to swim means she has to _________ that when she’s swimming in the big pool, I’ll come to her rescue if her doggy paddle lets her down.

_________ in the workplace, trust is crucial for strong __________. It is something that every manager should work hard to __________ among their team. Without trust, your team is unlikely to __________ your directions and willingly work together to achieve common goals. A __________ of trust can make people work against you rather than for you. At the very least, it means that people are not going to be __________ you their best. Good __________, like good parenting, is a long-term commitment, which requires effort, understanding, and patience.

10 . For me, two of the loveliest words in English are “Life persists”.

I _________ them years ago as a college student, sitting in the library, _________, working on a paper. Out of nowhere, those words came _________ off the page in a quote: “In the midst of death life persists; in the midst of _________ truth persists; in the midst of darkness light persists.” 

Suddenly I wasn’t unhappy and impatient any more. Then I called my granddad. I loved to talk with him. And I was _________ to hear what he’d think of it. He had poor hearing, so I had to repeat it a few times, but once he _________ it, he laughed. “All I can say to that is totally _________,” he said on the phone. I told him how glad I was, after a long winter, to finally see spring and _________ to find that quote. “Why is that?” he asked. “Well, spring is a sure _________ that life persists. And it just makes me __________.” 

He laughed again, and then in his lovely voice, he recited to me his __________ “spring time” words: “The desert shall rejoice (欣喜), and __________ as the rose.” 

Many years later, __________ my husband and I drove across a desert with many wildflowers and blooming cactuses (仙人掌), I could almost hear my granddad laughing: “The desert shall rejoice.” 

Life persists, and so do we, in the silence of __________ and the blooming of cactuses; and in the dead of winter and the green of spring. Spring __________ us that we’re alive forever.