2 . Last week I went shopping in the supermarket.I got to the front of the ____ and put my groceries through the checkout.I was about to pay,when I ____ that I didn’t have my bankcard with me.I ____.Then I remembered I left it at home when I ____ something online.All I had was $30 in notes and some coins in my wallet.I was short ____ at least $25,and I needed to buy most of the items.

I started to ____ to the checkout lady.“I’m sorry.I stop the queue.Can I put these things back?And then think I’ll ____ the rest.Oh,no,I need that.”

An Irish lady was ____ behind me,next in the queue.“Excuse me,dear,” she said.“Oh,I’m so sorry,” I replied,“I’m ____ you up.” “Of course not.I know ____ you feel.This happens to all of us at some point.Now please use my ____ to pay the bill and you can be on your way.”

I was astonished by her kindness,____ even.No matter how I insisted otherwise,she was ____ to help me.Afterwards I asked for her telephone number to ____ and pay her back.“No,” she said,“rather pay it forward.You may do a good deed for the next person in need.”

By helping others,can we start a chain ____of positive feeling and charity that can benefit our whole society?

3 . “Just sign here, sir,” the deliveryman said as he handed Oscar Reyna a package.

The package consisted of a long, narrow box ____ wrapped in brown paper. ____ the box, Oscar saw an umbrella inside—a very old one with a beautifully carved wooden handle. ____ he had not seen it in more than 20 years, he recognised it immediately.

Oscar was 16 when he first saw the____ umbrella. He had gone to a concert with his grandparents. As they were leaving, he noticed an umbrella on an empty seat. Impressed by its beauty, Oscar felt a strong desire to find its ____.

Oscar ____ the manager to look in the record of advance ticket sales. Just as he thought, a name matched the seat ____ Oscar had found the umbrella. The name was Mrs. Katie O’Brien.

Oscar talked his grandparents into going by Mrs. O’Brien’s house on their way home. He rang the bell, the door opened, and an elderly woman appeared. “May I ____ you?” she asked.

“I’d like to return it if it’s yours,” Oscar said, ____ the umbrella as if presenting a gift that had long been wished for.

“Why, yes! It’s mine,” replied Mrs. O’Brien with a ____ smile and shining eyes. “It was given to me by my father years ago. Thank you so much for returning it. May I offer you a reward for your ____?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “My grandmother says that a good deed is its own reward.”

“Well, that’s ____ what my father used to say. What is your name, young man?”

Years later Oscar was staring at the finely carved handle of the umbrella as he remembered Mrs. O’Brien. It was in perfect condition, considering how ____ it was. Why had it arrived here today?

As if ____, a note fell from the paper. It read: Mrs. O’Brien wanted you to accept this umbrella as a present for a kind, ____ gesture long ago.

4 . I have been looking forward to visiting Paris since I was young. When my daily life in New Jersey seemed boring, I _______ about walking around the streets of Paris. With our financial situation _______, European travel became a _______. 

Travelling to France with my _______ was exciting, but it would not be _______ without facing problems and figuring them out. 

We had just started to get _______ with the Paris subway system. Thus using it was very difficult. We were walking at a slow pace _______ we realised the subway was about to leave. As soon as I _______ the subway, the doors shut with my mom on the other side. I did not have my cellphone, neither of us spoke a word of _______ and we had no idea how to ________ each other. My mom and I, who were both ________, began to pound on the doors. Suddenly, a man with a puzzled look on his face walked over to the doors and simply ________ them. My mom stepped on and we hugged as if we ________ for the first time in years. A huge sense of ________ washed over us, followed by embarrassment. 

________, my mom and I were able to celebrate the victories of finding destinations.

5 . I was visiting Costa Rica when I found myself in a bad situation: all my bank cards weren’t _______ abroad, and I only had $5 and a return ticket in two weeks. Back then, there were no cellphones or Internet. It was _______ who came to my rescue to get me home.

I thought the city dangerous and decided to find kind people in the _______. With my remaining coins, I _______ to the bus station and found a countryside that I could _______. Five hours later, I arrived at Santa Rosa. I went knocking door to door, _______ my situation with my very poor Spanish, but everyone pointed me to another _______.

Finally, I _______ a Chinese restaurant. The owner was extremely _______. She heard my story and felt ________ for me. She said her son had a similar ________. At that time, some other people were very kind to him, and she remembered how ________ that made her feel. She invited me in, gave me food, and called the Red Cross to ________ me. I spent my remaining days in Costa Rica with the head of Red Cross.

I realized that being able to receive kindness is a ________ for other people as well. And kindness ________ more kindness in small ripples(波纹).

6 . I stopped at a local store the other day to buy some food. After I got the food, I got _______ behind a lady who looked about twenty years old. She _______ her credit card to the shop assistant but was told it had been refused. The young lady _______ she had paid it off the day before. The shop assistant replied, “Maybe it hasn’t got through the system yet. Do you want to _______ someone?” The young lady _______ her cellphone and was looking through it. _______, they opened another counter (柜台) to let me _______ out.

I was walking out to my car when I thought, “Okay! You’re _______ wishing you could help someone. Now it is _______ for you to do it!” Immediately, I made a ________ to help her. I got out of my car and ________ with my bank card in my hand. The young lady was still there and looked a little ________. I returned to the counter and said, “I will pay her bill.” As the shop assistant gave the card to me, I didn’t think the lady had even ________ what had happened! I told her that I had paid her bill and then I left before she expressed her ________ to me.

The bill was about $52. However, the feeling inside me was ________! I realized that helping others did make me happy.

7 . An elderly woman is crediting her neighbor’s 4­-year­-old dog with saving her life during last week’s dangerously cold temperatures.

Tim Curfman was _______ his garbage with his dog Midnight when he felt its _______ was unusual. It had its ears held up looking at him. It didn’t _______ do that. Curfman got the feeling that something was _______. So he observed how his dog was acting and _______ it to a spot on the other side of his house. There, he saw his 87­-year­old neighbor, Noreen, _______ in the snow. She was trying to fill her bird feeder when she fell.

Curfman _______ she was out there at least half an hour. She could not get up because she didn’t have enough _______ to push herself up, and there was nothing around the corner to get a _______ of, either. The temperature was one degree below zero, but Curfman and Midnight were able to ________ her quickly.

Noreen, who didn’t have serious injuries, was lucky to ________ frostbite (冻伤) even though her clothes were wet. Curfman called his wife and they together helped his neighbor up from the snow and into her ________, where his wife helped the elderly woman get into ________ clothes.

Noreen was ________ to Midnight for saving her life. “I am________of my dog,” Curfman said in an interview.

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 . A young girl is smiling at me from a picture frame on my desk as I write this. She is a child I once sponsored from the Philippines. Even though I have never met her in person,she has found a(n)___ place in my heart. It doesn’t ___ me much to help her,about a dollar a day. Yet,millions of people in this world live on less. The ___ that helping her gives me,however,is beyond ___. It connects me to her,to life,and to love.

I can still ___ the first time that I decided to help a child overseas. It was many years ago. I was only a teenager myself and had a little extra ___ each month. I didn’t feel like ___ anything,though. We had ___ everything we had in a house fire a few years before. Going through that had taught me a lot. I had learned that I didn’t need a lot of“stuff”to be ___ . I had also read a lot about the ____ of children in poor countries around the world. It seemed like a far better thing then to give what I could to help them. With my mom’s love and ____,I soon found a few organizations like Children International that were ____ others around the world. It felt so good being able to reach out and help another in need. It felt so good being able to make even one life better. I could feel the compassion and ____ growing within me and beginning to change me.

Empathy(共鸣)does change us. It helps us to ____,to be kind,and to make this world a ____ place.

10 . Every Saturday morning Phoenix Young would take piano lessons with a family friend when he was a child. “At that time we would_______around and take all morning just to have a lesson,” Phoenix_______. “And I loved it.”

But when Phoenix was 12, his teacher proposed that he need better_______.So his mother took him to a music school in the Bronx, and signed him up for classes with a teacher named Bade Simon, experienced bit known for being _______. And she quickly lived up to that _______.Phoenix found the stressful life was_______like his lighthearted Saturday mornings with his former teacher, so it wasn’t long before he_______that he would quit.

One day, however, Bade_______him and said something surprising: “I have_______in you. Keep going. Then the reluctant (不情愿的) student did something surprising ________: he said, “Okay.”

“It was as if all I wanted was just a________from her that she cared about me,” Phoenix said.

That moment________their relationship. Within a few weeks, they were having________during lessons. And within a few months, she was teaching him things about music that he’d never known before. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.

“I went into________and became a piano teacher, a career I have been doing for 50 years,” Phoenix said. “And I ________it all to that precious moment with my unsung hero, Bade Simon.”