1 . Dr. Smith of New York works at a center for children who can’t learn well. One day a father brought his son to him for________ at his office.

The father told Dr. Smith about his son. “My son has ________ in learning and can’t even play baseball. He isn’t doing well because he doesn’t try. I have done everything for him. I have even shouted at him. But nothing ________. ”

After Dr. Smith tested the boy, he ________ his father. He asked the father to sit in front of a ________ and then gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. There was a ________ on the paper. He asked the father to look only in the mirror and ________ the lines of the star with the pencil. The father made the same ________ anyone makes. Every time he ________ the pencil, it went the wrong way. The father’s face became red.

At this ________ the doctor shouted at him, “Hurry up! Why are you ________ so long? You can’t do such an ________ thing! You don’t know left from right!” These ________ made the father very angry.

“Now you can ________, can’t you?” The doctor said to him. “Your son has felt just like that all the time. You scolded (训斥) him too often, so he didn't try any more. He was afraid of making mistakes. ”

________ the father understood everything. He put his face down. Now he felt so sorry.

2 . Auri Katarina used to be a service manager at a cleaning company in Finland. In 2021, _________ to her family and friends, she quit her job. She decided to follow her unique passion.

Auri has always _________ cleaning things, and she began posting cleaning videos online two years ago. Then one day, a single mother asked her for help because she was _________ so much with three children always making a mess at home. Auri, who is “in heaven” whenever she is doing cleaning, was _________ to help. So she went on a weekend and _________ her home for two days. Auri didn’t ask for any _________ for her service; it was the _________ in the house and the family, which her work resulted in, that made her really happy.

Since then, Auri has gone as far as the USA and UK to help people in desperate need of cleaning. She gets _________ online but chooses only the _________ homes belonging to people most in need. For the first six months she __________ all travel and product expenses herself, about 300 euros per visit. __________ her popular videos of cleaning tips, a corporate sponsor has reached out to her. She still never __________ a penny.

Now, Auri goes to clean homes of __________ once a week, for two days, and creates __________ for her social media channels, including lists of some of her top tips. Her dream is to clean for free all over the world, helping people while doing something she absolutely __________.

3 . In the back of my closet, there is a small cardboard chest that has followed me to every one of my new addresses. Until now, the only _________ contents in it are three wrapped _________ marked in my mother’s tidy handwriting: “Engagement”, “Wedding” and “First Baby”.

When I was three, my mother learned that she had advanced breast cancer. When I was seven, she had begun _________ a gift box for me. Inside, she packed presents and letters for the _________ of my life she was going to be missing — driver’s license, graduation, and every birthday until the age of 30.

My mother died ten days before our _________ birthday. That morning, when I turned 12 and she would have turned 49, I woke up early and opened the package _________ “12th Birthday”. A white card curling around the present _________: “I always _________ a birthstone ring when I was a little girl. Your Granny finally bought me one and I loved it more than I can say. I hope you like it, too.” I put on the ring and _________ her writing with my fingertip.

On the morning of my high school graduation, a __________ of pearls appeared as I opened the wrapped present. Her note read: “There seemed to be a __________ in my family that when girls graduated from high school, they received pearls.” I wore the pearls that afternoon as I took the stage to accept my diploma.

Year after year, my mother __________ forward in time to meet me. When I was a child, opening the next package felt like a treasure __________. As I grew older, her message met me like guideposts in a dark forest. If her words couldn’t point the way, at least they offered the __________ of knowing that someone had been there before and that I have been __________, wildly loved.

4 . Jenny was a little girl who was not very confident. She always lowered her ________ because she didn’t think she was beautiful enough all the time. One day she went to a shop to ________ a green bow (蝴蝶结). The shopkeeper constantly praised she looked very beautiful with it. Though she didn’t ________ that, Jenny was so ________ that she couldn’t help raising her head.

Jenny happened to meet her teacher when she went into the classroom. “Jenny, it’s ________ beautiful when you ________ your head,” said the teacher.

That day Jenny got the ________ from many people. She ________ it must be because of the bow. When she looked in the mirror (镜子), there wasn’t any ________ on her head. She must have ________ it when she went out of the shop and bumped against(撞到)someone else.

Self-confidence is originally (本来) a kind of ________, but many people ________ so much about their appearance (外表) that they lose a lot of ________. Poor or ________, pretty or plain, as long as you, raise your head, it can make you ________.

5 . Pooja Rani entered the boxing area at age 18 all thanks to her coach Sanjay Kumar. However, even with much _________ , Pooja felt shy to wear the boxing gloves. She also knew that her father would not _________ her taking up this “violent” sport. But Pooja went after her interest _________ anyway until one day when _________ came to her father—he discovered the truth and stopped her playing the sport.

“My father wasn’t _________ of boxing because he thought it violent. He didn’t _________ me playing other sports but boxing was a _________ no-go zone,” Pooja said. It then took six months of continuous _________ from Pooja and her coach Sanjay to _________ her father to change his attitude.

She won the National Youth Boxing Championship (锦标赛) in 2009, which ____________ her career on an upward path. She bagged back-to-back medals and was qualified for the Rio Olympics later. Unstoppable as she was, her wins came to a____________ for some reason. It took her a whole year to get back on ____________. Pooja returned in an impressive way, winning gold medals at the Asian Boxing Championship in 2019 and 2021. This ____________ her to be the first woman boxer to ____________ the title. Given the road she took to get here, for us, Pooja is ____________ the “queen of boxing”.

6 . In my first year as a junior doctor, I worked in a stroke department. There were rooms of the department which were _________ for special patients. Their strokes had been so _________ that there was no _________ of recovery. Outside of the rooms, I sometimes heard the doctors cruelly called these patients “the cabbage patch”, because they were considered little more than vegetables.

One such patient was Mr. Roberts. He was in his fifties and had been _________ to the hospital after a terrible stroke which had left him entirely paralyzed. He could not communicate at all. And the doctors thought he was _________ dead. They discussed the very poor disease with his wife over his motionless body, _________ he wasn’t there.

Later that day I returned to take some blood from his _________ arm. His head was on one side. As I knelt down, I met his gaze. There seemed to be some sort of _________. It was as if he was _________ me to do something. I instinctively held his hand and smiled as __________ as I could, though he made no response. I couldn’t forget what happened there even after I left the room. The idea that he was __________ there, a living hell on earth, troubled me until he died two weeks later.

This event __________ great changes in my life. When I take care of those __________ patients, I always introduce myself and explain what I am doing to them, just in case there is part of them that is still aware.

And years later, when my grandmother was lying dying, I still spoke to her and __________ her. In matters __________ this, you just never know.

7 . When I started learning German some time ago, I realized the power of stories and storytelling in my own life.

I was ________ memorizing my first few German words. And I quickly ________ that this time, my native Italian and the other languages I’d learned would not be of much ________ .

While it was quite ________ to memorize words similar to English, like gut, muss, Ende, and Freund, there were many words for which I had no reference to ________ . Among them were Schatz (treasure) and Insel (Island). And yet I learned these two words easily. How? The ________ is simple. Without even ________ it, I had already memorized these words through a story.

One day, when I was a kid, I was with my father at a flea market (跳蚤市场) and we ________ a beautifully illustrated (有插图的) children’ s book. The cover and pictures were so great that I almost ________ to notice that the ________ was not in Italian. “Luca, we can buy it, ________ the book is in German,” said my father. I read the title out loud, with some ________ : “Die Scha... tz... ins ... el.”

Once home, my father explained that it was a German translation of the famous book “Treasure Island” . He________me the Italian edition (版本) and suggested that I ________ it while turning over the pages of the illustrated one. Thanks to the story I read, I passively (被动地)________ two words in German (Schatz and Insel) which are usually quite difficult words to learn, at least for Italian speakers.

8 . I took my six-year-old son Robert to a restaurant to celebrate his birthday. We just left the shopping center and Robert _________ his new shoes with joy. We walked towards the counter (柜台), where Peter, the waiter, _________ us with noticeable warmth.

“Welcome,” he said. “Wow, you look happy, little boy.” “I got new shoes,” Robert said with _________. He then lifted (抬起) his right foot in the air. “Smell it,” Robert asked. “Robert,” I said, trying to stop his _________ request, while Peter brought his nose to the shoe. “It smells amazing,” Peter said gladly. “Thank you for sharing your _________ with me. Now what does the birthday boy want to drink? It’s _________ me.” Robert jumped in _________ since sweet drinks were not usually allowed in our home. He considered the many _________ and decided on soda at last. Then Peter followed us as my son spent a great amount of time _________ a perfect table. He __________ held our drink until we were seated. I was __________ that the man gave my son special care.

After that, I often visited the restaurant. I found that although Peter had a(n) __________ job, he served everyone he met with love. In life, we often __________ people by their jobs. However, personal __________ actually comes from how they __________ others.

9 . Sunlight shining from the windows, I_________my arms out with a big yawn. “Good morning, darling,” my husband Gary, 53, smiled. Although it was a dream come true to wake up next to my love each morning, I knew the day ahead would be a_________. Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (强迫症), _________ thoughts drove me into repetitive_________. Day and night, I had a_________checklist with dozens of meaningless rituals. _________ my teeth up and down, then side to side, I’d do it in sets of four, over and over. That wasn’t right, I’ll do it again, I’d think, _________.

I_________that if I didn’t do everything exactly right, Gary or my lovely parents, John and Adrienne, would suffer illness or be_________. Certain outfits give off bad energy, so I’d have to change clothes. I knew it was absurd thinking, but the obsessive urges — and the terrible__________ I constantly imagined if I didn’t play them out — were so strong. I was only five years old when I began to__________ with obsessive thoughts. The doctor immediately diagnosed me with OCD, and prescribed me medicines to__________ my mental health.

At my six-month check-up in August, I reported my__________ . “I feel like a big load has been taken off my__________!” I told the doctors. I didn’t know life could be so good. Although my OCD is still here, it’s much easier to manage, and now I only feel the need to check the bathroom tap before I go to bed or leave the house. I’ve been given a second__________to enjoy life.

10 . Does life seem to be full of impossible problems? How many times do you find yourself saying things like “I really don’t understand this maths problem”? Maybe it’s time to introduce yourself to the _________ of yet. By adding this simple word, you can change everything, “I really don’t understand this maths problem yet.” Suddenly, the _________ becomes possible.

I read about a school that has _________ the way it _________ its students’ exams. The school recognized that the old pass/fail system wasn’t helping students’ _________. If you passed, then great, but those students who didn’t pass often felt like _________. So now students who don’t get the score they need to pass, don’t see a big red “F” for “fail” on their exam papers; _________ they see a “Not yet”. That way the students feel that they are on a journey. They haven’t reached the _________ , but they know that they are going the right way.

This kind of _________ is part of what experts call “having a growth mindset”. People with a growth mindset don’t __________ failure. They aren’t worried by not getting things right the first time and are __________ to keep trying until they do. They enjoy the __________ and believe they can change. __________ , people who just focus on failure have what the experts call “a fixed mindset”. These people are always worried about failure and are happy to __________ when things don’t go right. __________, it is better to have a growth mindset than a fixed mindset.