1 . Sammie Vance, 14, knows there’s nothing worse than feeling left out. For years, she’s been helping kids who feel lonely _______ friends. What she was doing was running the Buddy Bench program. The _______ was that anyone at school who was feeling lonely could sit on the “buddy bench”. That let other kids know someone needed a friend. “It’s really helpful to have other people be able to _______ you,” Sammie says.

Sammie got the idea for the Buddy Bench program at summer camp in 2017. She thought it would be _______ to have a buddy bench in her school, so when she got back, she _______ the idea to her principal (校长). Getting approval for the project was just the first _______.“There have been a lot of small challenges, like money,” Sammie says.

To reduce _______ and be eco-friendly, Sammie decided to make the bench out of recycled material. So she asked her community to gather bottle caps. Word of the project _______, and soon Sammie was getting caps from people all around the country. She even got them from people in other countries. In the end, she _______ more than 1,200 pounds of bottle caps. A company called GreenTreePlastics was able to make these into three benches.

Before long, Sammie was helping other schools acquire benches. Her work continues to ________ kindness far and wide.

Who is the greatest teacher in Chinese history? Many people would say: Confucius.

Confucius lived in the kingdom of Lu, part of today’s Shandong Province, during the Spring and Autumn Period. His father died when he was only 3 and he had to work     1     (help) his mother. But young Confucius didn’t give up     2     (study). He visited many famous teachers and learned music, history, poetry and sports.

Later, he became a teacher and started the first public school in Chinese history. At that time only children     3     rich families could go to school, but Confucius believed everyone should go to school if they wanted to learn.

Today, people still follow Confucius’ lessons. He told us that everyone has something     4     is worth learning and teaching. “When I am with three people, one of them is     5     (probable) better than me in some areas. I select their good qualities and follow them. I take their bad qualities and change them in myself.” He also taught     6     (we), “All study but no thinking makes people     7     (puzzle). All thinking but no study     8     (make) people lazy.”

Confucius is not only a great teacher,     9     also a famous thinker with wise thoughts about the world and society. His most important teachings are about     10     (kind) and good manners (礼仪).

Are you thinking about traveling alone? You must have a million questions: What should be the first destination? Will there be someone to talk to? How can it be safe? In fact, travelling alone is not as scary as it seems. Here are some good tips.

    1    

It is true that traveling alone for the first time is more about the experience than the destination. So choose a place that you feel comfortable with. It could be somewhere close to home or somewhere you have been with your friends.

    2    

This can make you less nervous when you’re travelling alone for the first time. Besides, when you book your hotel, ask if they will send a driver to pick you up.

Talk to people

If you’re going to a tourist place like Thailand, there are lots of other people who are traveling alone. Most likely, they’ll be easy to talk to and they’ll want to communicate. They might also ask you to join them for dinner or a beer. That happens a lot.

    3    

Your family and friends love you and probably worry about you every day, so text them and let them know what you’re up to throughout your trip. That will make you and them feel safer. And in case something did happen, they’ll know where you are.

4 . The next day would be Christmas. Jim was shopping for a gift for his wife Della. With an income of twenty dollars per week, life was really _________ for the couple, but Jim wanted to buy a perfect gift for Della. He thought of the beautiful set of _________ Della had wanted for so long in one of the shop windows on Broadway. Tomorrow, Jim decided, he was going to make Della’s dream come true.

Jim and Della _________ two things they were both proud of. One was Jim’s gold watch, and the other was Della’s beautiful _________. Jim looked at the gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. _________, Jim knew what he had to do: he would sell his watch.

That afternoon, Jim _________ the watch, went to the shop for the combs (发插) and returned home with a package in his pocket. He was sure that they would be the most wonderful gift for Della. He was _________ about what Della was going to think when she saw the gift the next day.

The door opened and Della walked in. Jim looked at her with a puzzled _________. “Jim,” Della cried, “don’t look at me that way. I sold my hair to buy you a watch chain. Give me your watch. Let me see how it looks on it.”

Jim smiled. “Della,” he said, “I sold my watch to buy you a gift.” Jim _________ the package from his pocket and __________ it on the table. Della opened it. There lay the set of combs that she had always wanted. Now they were hers, but her hair was gone.

Exercise has a range of health benefits. However, some people believe that     1     if some exercise is good, more is always better, so they tend to exercise for a long time without stopping. For example, some people go jogging for several hours at a time because of the step-counting smartphone apps.     2     还有些人周末连续锻炼数个小时 to make up for their lack of exercise during the weekdays. Habits like these put stress on the body, and if maintained over the long term,     3     they can be a serious health risk.

Generally speaking, aerobic routines that last over 100 minutes have a certain health risk. On the other hand,     4     they should not be shorter than 10 minutes. If you do exercise for only a few minutes, you may not be working out long enough to see any benefits from it. When you exercise, aim for the daily average of 30 to 60 minutes.     5     这将会防止你受伤. Moreover, it will ensure that the exercise you do has a positive effect on your physical health.

Robots on the farm

What can drones (无人机) do? Their many uses include taking pictures from the sky, observing wild animals and delivering packages. Now these small flying robots are leading a new farming revolution (革命).

When equipped with cameras and other data-gathering devices, drones provide us with an eye in the sky. Here are a few of the farming-related jobs drones can do.

    1    

Drones can scan crops using different kinds of light. Then they produce multispectral images (多谱图像) that can help us find sickly yellow plants within fields of green. Drones can also detect bacteria (检测细菌) that are harmful to crops in the air from a few kilometers away. Farmers can check the drones’ air samples and try to find ways to protect their crops before the bacteria get to them.

    2    

When flying over cattle, drones can track the livestock (牲畜) and find out where fences need fixing. People can also equip drones with thermal imagers (热像仪) and night-vision cameras. This can help farmers know if they have their cattle lost and what animals are a threat to their cattle.

    3    

Most fields aren’t perfectly flat. After watering, some places may dry out faster than others. Other spots might not get water at all. Drones can scan the field and make a 3-D map. Using the map, farmers can figure out which parts of a field are dry or need improvement.

7 . Alice was at her home on Christmas Day when she heard someone shouting on her street. When she looked outside, she saw a man _______ for help in the cold. She brought the man, 64-year-old Joe White, into her home to _______ but she feared it was too late. His hands had frostbite (冻伤) and his body was looking worse and worse the longer he stayed in her home.

In search of _______, Alice took to Facebook Live. “We gotta get some help,” she said on the livestream. “He’s going to lose his fingers. I don’t know what else to do. I have fed him. I have _______ him.” “I’m going crazy because I’m scared. His body has changed rapidly every _______.”

Alice said she made a(n) _______ call but due to the snowstorm, emergency workers were unable to respond to calls for hours over the weekend. Ambulances (救护车) were getting _______ in the thick snow.

_______, her request was answered. A group of men arrived and took Joe to the hospital on Christmas night.

Joe is now _______ in the ICU with fourth-degree frostbite, his sister June said. June has expressed her thanks to Alice. “We were all trying to help each other and it was ________,” June said. “He was in a mess. And Alice clearly saved his life.”

8 . London’s best local theatres

The Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush began life in 1972 above a pub that held only 80 people, but in 2010 it moved to an old public library building. Under the artistic directorship of Madani Younis, the theatre became one of the city’s most influential artistic spaces. Now that Lynette Linton has taken control of it, the theatre continues to host groundbreaking works

7 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd’s Bush, bushtheatre.co.uk

Set up by artistic director Mehmet Ergen in 2000, the Arcola in Dalston has two theatre spaces and plays host to a number of works. As well as hosting new writing, they hold Grime born, an opera (歌剧) festival that runs for several weeks every summer.

24 Ashwin St, Dalston, arcolatheatre.com

Southwark Playhouse began life in 1993, with a disused workshop being turned into a theatre space. With two performance spaces, they put on a widespread of works, from musicals to new plays. The Playhouse is moving into two new venues (剧场), a flagship site at Elephant and Castle and another in the arches of London Bridge Station.

77—85 Newington Causeway, southwark playhouse.co.uk

It’s worth making the journey to the Rose Theatre. It opened in 2008 and its layout (布局) was based on that of the original Elizabethan Rose Theatre on London’s Bankside. It hosts works from theatre companies as well as producing its own, and can attract the best. The world’s first public performance of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend took place here in 2017.

24—26 High St, Kingston upon Thames, rosetheatre.org

10 . Zion is among the most visited parks in the USA and is particularly crowded because many of its most popular sites sit in a narrow six-mile canyon (峡谷). Last year, about 4.3 million people visited it, up to 60 percent from a decade ago. So this year, park managers announced they were considering a first for any national park: requiring reservations (预定) for entry.

The National Park Service was created in 1916 to protect the country’s growing system of parks and monuments. Its aim is to conserve scenery and wildlife while also protecting visitor enjoyment for generations to come. For years, the lack of a reservation system for park entry associated with the spirit of adventure: Anyone could come, pretty much anytime.

But recently, both visitors and nature are suffering. Mr. Burns, who is on a team that is considering a reservation system, said some people showed up for a vacation they had planned for months, spent a day in the traffic jam and turned around. Mr. Burns said he favored a reservation policy. He recalled the days when he would jump in a car and pull up to parks across the West with no plans.

When he first came to the park in the 1980s, he wrote a letter home. “I’m living in a no-man’s-land,” he told his parents. He could hike for hours, even days, without seeing anyone, and he remembered the constantly changing light on the canyons, the brilliant green of the trees, the blue water of the Virgin River. Today, he said, when he wants to find solitude (清静), it is usually joined by the distant rumble of the shuttle bus.

“There is only one Zion National Park,” he said to those struggling to see a need for limiting access. “And it’s sacred (神圣的). Its beauty is sacred.”