3 . 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.

4 . You never know how far a kind act can go.When Gloria Porter and Jeff Reick began ____, they had no idea how much it would encourage others to ____ people with kindness.

89-year-old Gloria Porter was lying in hospital.She couldn’t leave her ward(病房).So to escape ____, she would often stare outside her window to watch construction workers ____ the new front entrance to the hospital.She wasn’t expecting one of the workers to wave at her.She couldn’t help but wave back at the kind ____.This was only the start of a special ____ between the two.

Jeff Reick knew Porter was____, so he decided to send a kind ____ to her by finding some chalk and writing “Get Well” on one of the beams(梁) facing her ____.“I just thought that was ____,” Porter said.“So I should do something to ____ that.”

She wrote “Stay Safe” on a piece of paper, which she then ____ on the window for the workers to see.“When I saw ‘Stay Safe’ on the window, I ____ and said to my coworkers,’Did you see that?’” Reick said.

The hospital staff took photos about that and____ them on social media.The simple acts of kindness ____ and many people were employed in similar acts.

5 . Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. One night I went to _________ a passenger at 2:30am. When I arrived to collect, I found the building was dark except for a single _________ in a ground floor window. I walked to the door and knocked. “Just a minute,” answered a _________, elderly voice.

After a _________ pause (停留), the door opened at last. A small woman in her eighties stood before me. By her side was a small suitcase. I took the suitcase to the car, and then _________ to help the woman. She took my arm and we walked _________ toward the car. She kept thanking me for my _________ .”It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.’’

“Oh, you’re such a good man,” she said. When we got into the taxi, she gave me a/an _________ , and then asked, “Could you drive through downtown? ”

“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.

“Oh, I’m in no hurry,” she said. I’m on my way to a hospice (临终医院). I don’t have any _________ left. The doctor says I don’t have a chance of living very long. I quietly reached over and shut off the meter (计价表). For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She __________ me the building where she had once worked, the neighborhood where she had lived, and the furniture shop where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she’d ask me to __________ in front of a special building and would sit looking straight into the __________ , saying nothing.

At dawn (黎明), she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”

We drove __________ to the address she had given me.

“How much do I pay for you?” she asked. “Nothing,” I said. “You have to make a living ,” she answered .

“Oh, there are other passengers,” I answered. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a __________.

She held onto me tightly. Our hug ended with her remark, “You gave an old woman a little moment of __________.”

6 . 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.

7 . It’s hard being an astronaut’s son, I _________, everybody expects you to be special or _________, but I’m just an average student.

I often wonder _________ my father ever had a son like me. I mean he’s so _________ and so good at everything. So I used to dream about doing something spectacular (令人印象深刻的) to _________ my father.

In one class, my teacher _________ a Father’s Day essay contest for us and the winners’ essays would be read in front of all the parents and students. After school I walked home, _________ about my father, who I would write about in my essay.

He sat with me in the _________ when I was a little kid and had a nightmare. He _________ me with a new puppy at my eighth birthday party. To me, he wasn’t a world-famous astronaut, but just my dad.

I wrote about all these __________ in my essay. One of our neighbours said, “I __________ you’ll win the contest, David. You’re the only one in town whose father is an astronaut.” I didn’t want to win __________ because my father was an astronaut.

I won the second prize. When I finished reading my essay, the __________ applauded. I saw my father blowing his nose.

Dad nodded to me, __________ his throat, and put his hand on my shoulder. “Son, this is the __________ moment of my life,” he said.

It was the proudest moment of my life, too. Maybe I’ll never be a great hero or win a Nobel Prize, but just then, it was enough just to be my father’s son.

8 . The Cambridge University Library in Britain received a “gift” in early March. 2022. Someone ______ a pink gift bag near the building with a note wishing the librarian a Happy Easter. Inside the bag was the “gift”: two small notebooks from the famous British naturalist Charles Darwin, who is ______ for his theory of evolution. One of the ______ has a famous drawing in it called the “Tree of Life”. Darwin made the drawing in 1837.

The university talked about the ______ on Tuesday. Cambridge believed the notebooks were ______ 20 years ago. They were first thought to be ______ inside the building after they were taken to be photographed. But, after searching through 10 million books, maps and documents, the university reported the notebooks ______ to police in 2020.

British investigators notified police around the world, and a ______ began. The notebooks are valued at millions of dollars. They were ______ , however, in good condition. Darwin’s notebooks contained writings about his famous trip around the world on the ship H. M. S. Beagle. The research ______ his book on evolution called On the Origin of species.

Cambridge University Librarian Jessica Gardner said she was ______ to see the notebooks. But she said her true feelings were profound and almost impossible to adequately express. Gardner said the notebooks would go back into the Darwin Archive. The library is also ______ to the works by scientists Stephen Hawking and Isaac Newton.

The notebooks will be on ______ later this year in a Darwin show at the library. Local police said they are continuing to ______ who may have taken the notebooks and asked for help from anyone who has ______ about the case.

9 . The day I met Hani, she was a shy, 17-year-old girl of the Indonesian international school, where I taught English. She asked if I could help her_________ her English. I could tell it took great_________ for the young girl to_________ me and ask for help. “I want to go to a US university,” she said with confidence. I was surprised.

I agreed to help her. For several months, Hani _________ each morning at five and studied on the bus. At 4 p.m.，she reached my classroom, _________ but ready to work. When meeting Hani at her shabby (简陋的) house, I realized it was impossible for her to_________ the expenses of a US university. Hani’s interest was increasing with her language ability but I was becoming more and more_________.

One day I received the announcement of a_________ opportunity for a major US university. After reading the_________, I knew Hani couldn’t meet the qualifications (资格).I told her the truth. But she remained__________. “Will you send in my name?” she asked. I couldn’t turn her down and completed the application.

In the following weeks, I arranged for her to take the Test of English Fluency, which would be a big __________ for whoever had never__________ a computer before. For two weeks, we studied how a computer works. Then, she received a letter from the scholarship association. She had been__________.

I leaped (跳跃) around the room, overjoyed and shocked. Hani stood by, smiling. I realized it is not talent alone that brings success, but also the__________to succeed, the commitment (投入) to work hard and the courage to__________ yourself.