1 . My 5-year-old daughter Kai walked around a bus stop, picking up candy wrappers and plastic bottles and throwing them in the waste bin. We were a visiting family here, but she was cleaning the sidewalk, which didn’t shock me, nor was I _________ when strangers looked at us.

Our cleanup project began when we drove past an empty field one day and Kai _________ the field was covered by _________ balloons. We had read about how animals could _________ balloons for food. “Stop,” Kai said, and I _________. Surprisingly, we found the field was full of much trash _________ the balloons. “Can we come back and clean it?” Kai asked. Then each Friday, we returned to have a(n) _________ cleaning.

However, it seems we can never _________ the trash completely. I feel something close to _________! Why are we making kids clean up our __________? It has everything to do with the planet we adults are leaving for kids. Plastic pollution is globally distributed and microplastics have even been discovered in human blood. It is not a __________ story that we have created trash but our next generation cleans up them.

Now Kai hopes to become a marine biologist to protect sharks one day. She still has many years to __________, if adults get serious about solving plastic pollution. We shouldn’t leave our next generation a __________ planet and expect them to save it.

The last time our family was at the beach, we still picked up plastic bottles. Most __________, though, we saw an octopus (章鱼) playing around our feet, a __________ of a harmonious habitat worth protecting.

3 . Alwan, owner of a Bronx corner store named Lucky Candy, aims to help kids in the neighborhood from needy families—and keep their math skills sharp too. The ________ is simple; answer a math question-say, what’s 8 x 8 + 50?——and get five seconds to ________ as much as you can from the shelves of Lucky Candy, all ________ . Lucky Candy is located on a.busy street in the Bronx, which is what’s known as a food ________ ,where affordable,healthy food is often in short supply.

For Alwan, ________ is as essential as breakfast. So he thought up this clever way to brighten his young neighbors’ days.

“I think about questions I used to get ________ at school when I was in elementary school,” Alwan says of how he ________ questions for the kids.

When a young math genius gets an answer ________ , one of two things usually happens. Some kids rush for the candies, and who could ________ them? Others grab things like rice and   ________,clearly thinking of family at home.

Alwan ________ the sprees(玩乐)with his paycheck. But his boss， also his father，Aobad, doesn’t mind ________ too. A Yemeni immigrant, Aobad knows that in one of the ________ , most competitive places in the U. S., a bit of help goes a long way.

At present, Alwan’s story is ________ quickly on social media not only because of the emotional reactions of the participants but also Alwan’s connection to his ________.

6 . I went for a walk up to a local park and Chester was running about. Suddenly, two dogs appeared, attacking him. He got _________ and ran off in an unfamiliar direction. I can only _________ myself-it’s like losing a family member. My daughter didn’t sleep for three days. She just thought her pet was _________.

My family had almost lost _________ until Erica decided to offer her services. She uses a drone(无人机)to help find lost dogs. Equipped with a hi-tech thermal imaging(热成像)camera, the drone can detect heat _________ from 250 feet in the air. _________, when asked to help out in a search for a _________, Erica simply turns up to the dog’s last known _________ and sets up the drone. Having found more than 160 dogs, it’s proved pretty _________.

And it’s easy to see why. Can you __________ Chester running around these woods? To the naked eye(肉眼), it’s virtually impossible, but pop the thermal image up and he jumps out, __________ his owner to bring him safely back home.

Having saved hundreds of dogs, the method is clearly __________. Erica doesn’t __________ for her services and instead does it for the pleasure of seeing the owners __________.

Erica’s drone has helped create countless happy __________ and is sure to make many more in the future.

8 . I've always loved mountaineering (登山) and the mental and physical challenges that go with it. This time the peak (山峰) of Mt. Whitney is my ______. There are quite a few ways up to the big mountain, but we ______ the traditional one at last, almost 12 miles to the top.

I decided to make this trip less about ______ and more about the climb and my personal journey with a friend. Thinking about it this way, I decided to carry only one camera to ______ the course, but it still added 3.2 pounds to my backpack, which ______ 2.8 pounds without the camera equipment. Fortunately, climbing with a friend ______ sharing the weight, keeping our packs a little lighter. Therefore, we ______ reached the top just two days later. This particular trip was prepared for a personal trip on purpose to get to the peak and enjoy the breathtaking ______.

Climbing such tall peaks ______ every aspect of you, as a nature photographer. It can test both your physical strength and photographic ______. Can you imagine being 14,000 feet up, ______ the thin air of the high-altitude (海拔) environment while also trying to be ______ with your compositions (作品)? That’s what we were doing! And that’s the joy that comes with climbing Mt. Whitney as well.

Like any other ______ in nature, there are risks in mountaineering, though, Extreme altitude and the unpredictable (无法预测的) weather will test even the most ______ climber. Despite the fact, mountaineering for me is all about the experiences, which makes me live to the ______.

9 . A couple of years ago, I stepped off the subway in Upper Manhattan, worn out after a long and stressful day at work,________ about the warmth of my bed. I stopped in a grocery store on the way to my apartment to buy a bag of popcorn.

A man about three times my size ________ in front of me at the cash register and turned toward me, telling me I looked________. I smiled uncomfortably and became noticeably more ________, as a young woman does when a ________ man starts talking to her at night. He turned toward the cashier and said that he was going to get my snack too. I politely declined his ________ and was already pulling out my wallet, but this man wouldn’t ________ me to say no. He ________ the cashier a couple of extra dollars to cover my popcorn and told me that he hoped my ________ got better. He walked out of the ________ and I never saw him again.

The world could use a little more ________ . Most of the time, it’s so ________ to get caught up in your own routine and everyday personal worries that we just don’t remember to ________ those around us. The man who ________ for my popcorn has ________ with me and inspired me to pay it forward to others who look like they could use a hand.

10 . In Grade 7, my PE teacher watched me, as I tried to jump up and touch a marker on the wall. And he said: “You're doing pretty well in my ________, for someone like you with no ability at all.”

In high school, I wasn't ________ for a single team. I was bookish and slow, and that self-image-of being better suited to quiet reading and leisurely ________ remained with me for my entire life.

I discovered running in my 20s, and I ________ the feeling of quiet accomplishment-without the fear of ________teammates, but I always prioritized mental pursuits over physical ones.

It was my mental wellness that finally forced me to rethink my fitness. This winter, I found myself extremely tired. I knew ________ had to change. I needed a way to ________ the tension of months of video conferences, on-and-off (不断地) single parenting and virtual school.

I settled on an exercise bike. Since early March, I've hardly ________ a day on my bike. I'm not the ________. But I'm finally learning that movement isn't necessarily about athleticism (运动才能). More importantly, it’s about ________ your mind. It’s the feeling of accomplishment when you ________ something hard outside of your comfort zone.

A handful of people will find glory in athleticism. For the rest of us, the ________ is more personal: better sleep, improved spirits and ________ confidence. I’m not destined (注定) for the Olympics. But this was ________about ability. That's what I wish my gym teacher had told me.

If only he'd said, “You're doing really well in my class. Look at your ________.”