1 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

2 . I will never forget the year I was about twelve years old. My mother told us that we would not be _________ Christmas gifts because there was not enough money. I felt sad and thought, “What would I say when the other kids asked what I’d _________?” Just when I started to _________ that there would not be a Christmas gift that year, three women _________ at our house with gifts for all of us. For me they brought a doll. I felt such a sense of _________ that I would no longer have to be embarrassed when I returned to school. I wasn’t _________. Somebody had thought _________ of me to bring me a gift.  

Years later, when I stood in the kitchen of my new house, thinking how I wanted to make my _________ Christmas there special and memorable, I _________ remembered the women’s visit. I decided that I wanted to create that same feeling of __________ for as many children as I could possibly reach.  

So I __________ a plan and gathered forty people from my company to help. We gathered about 125 orphans(孤儿)at the Christmas party. For every child, we wrapped colourful packages filled with toys, clothes, and school supplies, __________ with a child’s name. We wanted all of them to know they were __________. Before I called out their names and handed them their gifts, I __________ them that they couldn’t open their presents __________ every child had come forward. Finally the __________ they had been waiting for came as I called out, “One, two, three. Open your presents!” As the children opened their packages, their faces beamed and their bright smiles __________ up the room. The __________ in the room was obvious, and __________ wasn’t just about toys. It was a feeling — the feeling I knew __________ that Christmas so long ago when the women came to visit. I wasn’t forgotten. Somebody thought of me. I matter.

3 . During the winter of 1986 I was working at a construction site near Oakland, California. It is not ________ for construction workers’ hands to become very painful. My hands were no ________ that year. They were bleeding at the joints of the fingers and thumbs.

________ work because of hurting hands is simply not a good choice in the construction industry. You grit your teeth(咬紧牙关), keep working, and finish the job. One morning I left for work at 5 a.m. and arrived at a ________. As I got out of my truck, I saw a newspaper delivery car and the driver struggling with newspapers. I took a second look, ________ that the man had no forearms. I was ________ to see him doing a job that would require a(n) physically gifted person. Still, he was somewhat having ________ with the larger bundles(捆)because his arms weren’t long enough.

On my way to pay for the gas, I stopped and asked him if I could ________ him. He politely ________ my offer. A few minutes later while I was refueling, he said, “Hey buddy, would you mind tying(系)my ________ for me?” As I was tying his shoes, he went on to explain that tying his shoes was the only thing he couldn’t do for ________.

I stopped and looked back at him as he was getting into his car. I looked down at my ________. Suddenly it hit me: I had been complaining about my hurting hands for weeks. That experience made a difference to my hurting hands. Every ________ when my hands start cracking and bleeding, I think back to that ________ in 1986. And just like magic, my hands don’t ________.

5 . It was a bitter winter morning in Kennewick, Washington. John Lunceford saw a crying child along his bus ________ to school. Tears rolled down the young boy’s cheeks as his bare hands and ears were ________ red because of the bitter cold. Lunceford took his ________ off, which he gave to the child, and said, “It’ll be OK.” “I’m a grandfather. No one wants a kid to ________ like that,” Lunceford said. His heart ________ because of the poor child, knowing the ________ winter was still lying ahead.

After ________ the kids off at school, the three-year bus driver and former U.S. Army soldier went to the ________ to buy ten sets of gloves and hats. He returned to the ________ and determined to find the boy. A school worker ________ Lunceford to the library, where the boy was studying with his class. There Lunceford ________ the boy with a new pair of gloves and a hat.

But the little boy was just the ________. Many other students would receive the ________ of their familiar bus driver. He announced to the students in the library that any child found without a hat or gloves along his bus route would be given a set.

One little girl ________ said she didn’t have a hat. As Lunceford ________ her a comfortable hat, he smiled and said, “I’ll take care of you, sweetie.”

7 . Do you think you have what it takes to be a successful scientist? A successful scientist is generally a good observer. He makes full _____of the facts he observes. He doesn't accept ideas which are not___on obvious facts, and therefore__ to accept authority as the only truth. He always checks ideas__ and makes experiments to prove them.

The rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to__ as far back as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probably the first in the Middle Ages to __that we should learn science___observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself __many important truths.

Galileo (1564－1642),___，who lived more than 300 years later, was the greatest of several great men in Italy, France, Germany, and England, who began to show how many important ___could be discovered by observation by degrees. Before Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies ___more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, __ Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the ___of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two __ stones and proved Aristotle was wrong. It is Galileo's __ of going direct to nature, and proving our __ and theories by experiment, that has____all the discoveries of modern science.

What __ those people good scientists? From the example of Galileo, we know clearly that ___scientists are those whose observations have___ better results.

8 . When Pat Jones finished college，she decided to travel around the world and see as many foreign places as she could ________ she was young. Pat wanted to visit Latin America ________，so she got a job ________ an English teacher in a school in Bolivia. Pat spoke a little Spanish，________ she was able to communicate with her students even when they didn’t ________ much English.

A sentence she had read somewhere stuck in her mind: if you dream ________ a foreign language，you have really mastered(掌握)it. Pat repeated this sentence to her students and ________ that some day she would dream in Spanish and they would dream in ________.

One day，one of her ________ students came up and explained in Spanish that he had not done his homework. He had ________ early and had slept ________.

“What does this have to do with your ________？” Pat asked.

“I dreamed all night，Miss Jones. And my dream was in English.”

“In English？” Pat was very ________，since he was such a bad student. She was ________ secretly jealous(嫉妒的).Her ________ was still not in Spanish. But she encouraged(鼓励)her young student. “Well，________me about your dream.”

“All the people in the dream ________ English.” the student said. “And all the signs were in English. All the newspapers and magazines and all the TV programs were in English.”

“But that’s ________，”said Pat. “What did all the people say to you？”

“I’m sorry，Miss Jones. That’s ________ I slept so badly. I didn’t ________ a word they said. It was a nightmare(噩梦)！”

9 . I had a quick thirty-minute stopover (中途停留) in Detroit before heading home to Toronto. After______up the passage in a hurry, I realized that my gate was on the opposite end of the airport. Luckily, I got there with five minutes to______and stood waiting to be called.

I was tired and had a______scheduled right after I was home. But then came the______, “It seems we have overbooked the flight. Would anyone volunteer to stay for the______flight?” There were 100-plus people and not a______person said a word.

The next flight was in four hours. I______and saw businessmen needing to get home for work, mothers to see their kids, kids to see their friends, and more______, I saw people that needed to be helped. Even though I______to be home just as much as anyone, something inside me said that I should volunteer and offer some______to this group of strangers. The gate attendant (服务员) had said that the flight couldn’t board until someone volunteered.

I picked up my bag, ______to the gate attendant and said, “I volunteer!” A big______spread over her face.

As she was______my ticket, I got my meeting rescheduled. The attendant______me my new boarding pass. All the______boarding their flight, I was happy that I had been able to______.

When boarding the plane, I was surprised to______that I was arranged (安排) to be seated in first class. How______I was for everything that had happened. With no thought of______, I gave with the intention to serve others, and that kindness was______to me with an upgrade to first class!

10 . A few years ago, I went to Hamburg to see my colleague.

When I arrived, my colleague arranged a welcome party for me in a _________. We noticed a few customers including several old ladies, were having their meal. When a dish is _________, the waiter would distribute the food for them, and they would _________every bit of the food on their plates.  

As I was hungry, my local colleague _________much food for me. Since there were other things to do, we did not _________much time dining. When we planned to leave, there was still about one third of the _________food left. When we were leaving the restaurant, we _________someone calling us. When the old ladies spoke to us in English, we understood that they were _________about us wasting so much food.  

“We _________for our food;it is none of your _________no matter how much food we left behind, ”my colleague told the old ladies. They got angry, and one of them immediately made a call to someone. After a while, an officer in _________arrived. Upon finding what had happened, he issued us a 50-euro fine. The officer told us in a stern(严厉的) voice, “Order what you can consume. Money is yours, _________the resources belong to the society. You have no _________for wasting them. ”Our face turned red.  

We all agreed with him in our _________. My colleague took out a 50-euro note and repeatedly _________to the officer.  

My colleague copied the fine ticket and gave a copy to each of us as a souvenir. We all keep it to remind us that we should never be wasteful.