1 . One day when I was 12, my mother ordered me to walk to the public library and borrow at least one book for the summer. This was one more weapon for her to ________ my strange problem ________ to read.

In the library, I sat down on the floor and pulled a few books off the shelf ________. The beagle (比格猎犬) on the book’s cover ________ my eye. The first and only animal companion I ever had as a child was a beagle. ________, one morning, he was gone, given ________ to someone who had this space and money to care for him. I never ________ my beagle.

The beagle on the cover looked ________ to my dog. My eyes ran across the ________, “ Amor, the Bengle with a Plan.” ________, I I had read the title. Without opening the book, I ________ it from the library for the summer.

I started to read about Amos very slowly and with ________. It was about a dog who, like mine, had been ________ from his family and found his way back home. That dog was my dog, and I was the little boy in the book. At the end of the story, my mind continued the final scene of ________ until my own lost dog and I were, in my mind, running together.

My mother’s call returned me to the ________ world. I suddenly ________ something I had read a book and loved it. Everyone knew I couldn’t read, but I had read it. Books were ________, and I was going to read them.

I ________ told my mother about my miraculous (奇迹般的) experience that summer, but she saw a slow but remarkable ________ in my classroom performance during the next year. Years later, she was ________that her son had read thousands of books, was awarded a PhD in literature and authored his own books, articles, poetry and fiction.

2 . At thirteen, I was diagnosed with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write about it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.

She glanced down at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

I tried, but I didn’t finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn’t get much education. But Louis didn’t give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots, which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

Wasn’t I the “blind” one in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts flowed and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. Now that Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up? I didn’t expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day —with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep tying.”

3 . A Race against Death

It was a cold January in 1925 in North Alaska. The town was cut off from the rest of the world because of the heavy snow.

On the 20th of that month, Dr. Welch _________ a sick boy, Billy, and knew he had diphtheria, a deadly infectious (传染的) disease mainly affecting children. The children of Nome would be _________ if it struck the town. Dr. Welch needed medicine as soon as possible to stop other kids from getting sick. _________ , the closest supply was over 1,000 miles away, in Anchorage.

How could the medicine get to Nome? The town’s _________ was already full of ice, so it couldn’t come by ship. Cars and horses couldn’t travel on the _________ roads. Jet airplanes and big trucks didn’t exist yet.

_______ January 26, Billy and three other children had died. Twenty more were _________. Nome’s town officials came up with a(n) _________. They would have the medicine sent by _________ from Anchorage to Nenana. From there, dogsled (狗拉雪橇) drivers — known as “mushers”—would __________ it to Nome in a relay.

The race began on January 27. The first musher, Shannon, picked up the medicine from the train at Nenana and rode all night. __________ he handed the medicine to the next musher, Shannon’s face was black from the extreme cold.

On January 31, a musher named Seppala had to __________ a frozen body of water called Norton Sound. It was the most __________ part of the journey. Norton Sound was covered with ice, which could sometimes break up without warning. If that happened, Seppala might fall into the icy water below. He would __________, and so would the sick children of Nome. But Seppala made it across.

A huge snowstorm hit on February 1. A musher named Kaasen had to brave this storm. At one point, huge piles of snow blocked his __________. He had to leave the trail (雪橇痕迹) to get around them. Conditions were so bad that it was impossible for him to   __________ the trail again. The only hope was Balto, Kaasen’s lead dog. Balto put his nose to the ground, __________to find the smell of other dogs that had traveled on the trail. If Balto failed, it would mean disaster for Nome. The minutes passed by. Suddenly, Balto began to __________. He had found the trail.

At 5:30 am on February 2, Kaasen and his dog __________ in Nome. Within minutes, Dr. Welch had the medicine. He quickly gave it to the sick children. All of them recovered.

Nome had been __________.

4 . Many people have difficulty in getting up in the morning. This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle.

During the hours when you work, you may say that you’re “hot”. That’s true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak (顶峰). For some people the peak comes during the morning. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why this is so, but it leads to such familiar words as: “Get up, John! You’ll be late for work again!” The possible explanation for the trouble is that John is at his temperature-and-energy peak in the evening. Much family quarrelling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has.

You can’t change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you’re sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late anyway. If so, staying up later than you want to may counteract your cycle in some way. If our energy is low in the morning but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won’t change your cycle, but you’ll get up steam and work better at your low point.

Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a comfortable yawn and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed for a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before.

5 . Weather could power the next generation of smart windows.Researchers have created glass by harvesting energy from wind and precipitation(降水). The approach offers an alternative to other smart windows powered by batteries, solar panels, and even standard power outlets.“The creation represents a new kind of renewable energy source, ”says Liming Dai, a nanomaterial engineer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not involved in the research.

Smart glass, which changes its characteristics to block out light, has been around for decades. Common examples include glare­fighting rearview(后视) car mirrors and windows that change color for energy savings and privacy. But many are expensive, and people are still looking for eco­friendly ways to power the windows. Batteries and plug­in outlets aren't apparently “green”, and built­in solar panels can cloud or hide parts of the glass.

In experiments, the glass produced up to 130 milliwatts per square meter, enough to power a pacemaker or a smart phone while it's asleep, the team reported online last month in ACS Nano. This output might suit many applications, such as being a power source for home or office electronics, says co­developer and scientist Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Since their first project in 2012, a light­up sidewalk powered by footsteps, he and his colleagues have miniaturized（使小型化） their generators（发电机） to create everything from self­cleaning keyboards to sensors for security systems.

But Wang and his colleagues still have more work to do before this smart glass is ready for commercialization. Now, the glass has no way to store the energy it creates. To solve this problem, Dai says, transparent super capacitors(电容器) could be placed into the glass without decreasing visibility.

For now, the team wants to improve the energy efficiency of their nanogenerators. These tiny power plants can convert about 60% of the mechanical energy that they collect into electricity. “The output power is a constant goal, ”Wang says.“Free energy surrounds us, and anything can happen if you take control of it.”

6 . Now，jazz music is an important part of Indianapolis’ culture. Jazz clubs around the city still host concerts with local jazz musicians like Rob Dixon and Joel Tucker. One of these clubs, the Chatterbox Jazz Club, still has live jazz seven nights a week.

But the real history of jazz in Indy is much less simple. Along with the Avenue's culture, jazz music was gone from the streets for many years.

Indiana Avenue was the heart of a neighborhood along the White River. It was a center for black music and live street music. The wealthy avoided this area. So it became a place that poorer families, including many African-American and immigrant ( 移民) families, moved to.

Jazz prospered in the mix of American cultures around the Avenue in the 1930s and 1940s. But in the 1950s, things changed. After the war, there were projects to make the city beautiful and build a university nearby. Both of these seemed like good changes. However, the new university and buildings caused poorer families to have to leave the area. This destroyed the Indiana Avenue community and with it, its jazz culture.

After many years, Indianapolis remembered the value of its arts and music culture. It began to bring back lost cultures such as live music on the Avenue. To do so, it began to make new changes. The changes included repairing historic areas like the Avenue. Once again, the high living costs in these historic arts areas pushed low-income families out.

Today there are several old-style jazz clubs where friends can meet up to remember the past or just enjoy a summer evening. It might seem at first that jazz is alive again, but there is a sad reality behind these jazz clubs: Modern Indy jazz is only a shadow (影子) of the lively culture that was once on Indiana Avenue.

10 . Do you know what elements (要素) make people successful? Interviews and investigations indicate that there are several keys to success that successful people share.

First of all, successful people never blame someone or something outside of themselves for their failure. They realize that their future lies in their own hands. They understand that they cannot control some things in life, such as nature, the past and other people. But in the meantime, they are well aware that they can control their own thoughts and actions. They take responsibility for their life and regard this as one of the most empowering things they can do. Perhaps what most separate successful people from others is that they live their life “on purpose” — they are doing what they believe they are put here to do. In their opinion, having a purpose in their life is the most important element that enables them to become fully functioning people. They hold that when they live their life on purpose, their main concern is to do the job right. Because of their commitment (投身；献身), people are willing to do business with them, and it is always found in them.

To live their life on purpose, successful people find a cause they believe in and create a business around it. Besides, they never easily give up. Once they have set up goals in their life, they are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Instead of seeing it negatively or depressingly, they use the knowledge to spur (激励) themselves on and go after what they want energetically and passionately.