2 . My mother worked as a housekeeper, and she often brought many leftover things home, including used ______ as well as many other things.

One December day, an old-model toy car ______ among a load of other things. It was as long as my forearm and took both hands to lift. I immediately began ______ it and polishing (抛光) it to a bright candy-apple red. It was a thing of ______, and I glowed (容光焕发) as much as it did from the pride of          ____.

Our relatives from France came to visit that Christmas, and my young French cousin ______ that wonderful, shiny red automobile. He’d been ______ so far in life, suffering severe illnesses as a child and ______ himself badly earlier in the year when his bicycle hit a plate-glass window.

By now, everyone ______ how I felt about the car, so nobody dared suggest that I give it to him. But, deep down, I knew it was the ______ thing to do. So, when they ______, my red car went with him. Though I was sad to see it go, my heart ______ when I saw the pleasant smile on his face as he tightly held it.

I still ______ that car and miss it to this day. But with that beloved ______ Christmas gift, I bonded (建立亲密关系) with my cousin for life.

Giving that gift away showed me that it is better to give than to receive. It was the first gift that I gave that keeps me ______.

4 . Kristin Schell turned a delivery mistake into a way to connect with neighbors. Ten years ago, her family ________ to a new home in Texas. One day, Kristin ________ a few picnic tables online for a party in her backyard. The deliveryman set one table down in her front yard ________ , and Kristin couldn’t get the ________ out of her head. “After the party, I painted the table turquoise (青绿色) — my favorite color — and put it in the front yard, just a few feet from the sidewalk,” she said.

That turquoise table became the place where Kristin and her kids ________ . They used to do activities at the kitchen table, but they now did them out front at the picnic table. “We got ________ about where we spent our time,” Kristin said.

Neighbors began to stop by to introduce themselves and sit down for a chat. Kristin asked people to ________ her at the table for coffee. “It was a simple ________ to slow down and connect with others,” she said. The turquoise table was ________ and had a shared feeling.

People often ________ to invite others into their homes. They think their house is not spacious, or they don’t have enough time. Kristin’s picnic table takes away the pressure and the excuse. ________ by the act, neighbors put a picnic table in their front yard too. A movement was ________ .

A decade after their Texas beginnings, thousands of Turquoise Tables ________ in the country. Not all of them are actually turquoise. Texas Christian University in Fort Worth has several purple tables to ________ their team color. “No matter what ________ it is, it’s a friendship table,” Kristin said.

5 . Have you seen bees at work and stopped to wonder how smart they are? Results of a recent experiment prove that bees are clever enough to _______ time and energy when they fly around to different flowers.

Behavior

Nigel Raine, PhD, from Royal Holloway, University of London, has always been interested in finding out why animals behave as they do. He is also interested in bees. Therefore, it turned out to be not a _______ when he and some other scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that bees can quickly solve a problem that _______ computers many days.

A(n) _______ path

Flowers make pollen (花粉), and when bees visit them, they _______ the pollen to other flowers. The plants need the pollen to make seeds that will grow. Raine notes that we get a lot of our food from plants, so it is important to know how the bees move around and take pollen between flowers. The scientists wanted to _______ the journey that the bees take and how they save energy when they do this.

They completed the experiment on the roof of Queen Mary, using _______ flowers and a large amount of nectar (花蜜). They taught one bee to visit all these unreal flowers in one place at the same time. When the bee got to know the location of the flowers well, they saw how it flew around and returned home with the _______ . After this, they changed the locations of the flowers. The scientists thought the bee would follow the route it knew already, which would mean that it followed a longer route than it needed to, and so it would use more energy. They watched the bee carefully as it travelled between the flowers in their _______ location, and they made notes. To their ________ , the bee changed its route and flew a shorter distance.

Travelling salesman

The problem that the bee solved is similar to a math puzzle called the “travelling salesman problem”. A salesman who goes to ________ places to sell things wants to travel the shortest distance to do this. If he is going to visit many different places, it is not easy to ________ which is the shortest route. You have to calculate the length of many possible routes to find out which one is the shortest. A computer can calculate this but the experiment shows bees can do the same ________ quickly with a tiny brain.

Scientists are very interested in how they do this. It would help us to understand how pollen is moved around. ________ , if they find this out, it could help us to improve communication networks. This might help humans to ________ traffic jams when there is an accident, for example.

7 . UPS deliveryman Ryan Arens was making his rounds near a pond, when he heard a strange sound. It was December, and about 15 feet from the frozen bank was the _________ of that sound — a brown-and-white wire-haired hound（猎犬）had fallen through the thin layer of ice. An elderly man was already on the _________, determined to save her. He was trying to _________ the pond and was striking the ice with a rock to create a(n) _________ to the dog, but seemed to be struggling.

Arens, 44, thought he _________ a better chance. “Animals are my weakness,” he said, explaining _________ he chose to take off his overcoat, even though the temperature was minus 15 and _________ the rescue task.

After breaking the ice using the man’s rock, Arens jumped into the icy water. He surfaced in time to see the dog going under. Arens swam about five feet toward the dog, grabbed hold of her collar, and _________ her out of the water and onto the ice. He then put the dog into the boat and slid it back to the bank, where _________ bystanders carried the dog to the home of the rowboat’s owner, a retired vet. __________ in the house himself, Arens jumped into a warm shower with the dog. A few more minutes in the pond, the vet told Arens, and the dog would have likely __________.

The next day, Arens was again making his __________ in the neighborhood when the dog’s owner came __________ to thank him for saving Sadie. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked. Then he opened the door of his pickup, and Sadie jumped out. She went __________ toward Arens, leaping around him and kissing him. Arens said that special delivery was the __________ of his UPS career.

8 . Exercise and I had never had a good relationship due to my fear of sports. From a young age, my dad _______ me into a dozen sports. I didn’t like any of them, _______.

When I entered the University of Regina, my dad _______ telling me “You have to find a way to stay _______.” or “You don’t want to get the Freshman 15, do you?” So I _______ to give swimming a shot, but I _______ managed to go to the pool twice during the fall semester (学期). Worse still, I was _______ to convince myself that’s OK.

The spring semester came. A friend of mine _______ me if I wanted to try Zumba (尊巴) with her. All I knew about Zumba was that it was basically a kind of exercise: dancing to Latin pop songs. It didn’t sound too bad, but I couldn’t be _______.

I went, and that was it. Zumba became my ________ of tea. The instructor would always say, “Don’t worry about the steps. Have fun. Do your own thing.” That removed my ________ of sports. I didn’t have to be ________. I didn’t even have to be good. I just needed to ________ the music and move. Zumba did ________ me from the Freshman 15, and it also did so much more. It let me make ________ with my unpleasant past about physical exercise, and enjoy staying healthy.

9 . The Glover kids in Newburgh, New York, want to make a little extra money themselves before the school opens. So, earlier this week, they set up a lemonade stand on the side of the road. _______ was good during the rush hour, at which point some police officers stopped and _______ Whitney Glover, the mother of the young businessmen, that some _______ person had called to complain(投诉)about kids’selling lemonade.

Now, in most stories, that’s when the police _______the stand, telling kids to take a food handling course,and get a _______ from the related department...Then the children go home completely _______ for their business is broken. But not in this _______. The police officers said the kids weren’t doing anything wrong _______causing traffic jams, and that their motivation(积极性)should be _________.The kids also promised to make ________ to their schedule to avoid traffic problems. After ________ for a photo with the kids, they left.

Whitney posted the picture on social media with explanatory words. The __________ story has gained a great deal of local ________ and the lemonade business is now booming.

Dozens of customers have ________ for lemonade. “Every single time you buy a glass, children look amazed by the __________ from time and efforts to coins in their hands,”Whitney said.