2 . There was a woman in Detroit, who had two sons. She was worried about them, especially the younger one, Ben, ________ he was not doing well in school. Boys in his class made jokes about him because he seemed so ________.

The mother ________ that she would, herself, have to get her sons to do better in school. She told them to go to the Detroit Public Library to read a ________ a week and do a report about it for her.

One day, in Ben's ________, the teacher held up a rock and asked if anyone knew it. Ben put up his hand and the teacher let him ________. “Why did Ben raise his hand?” they wondered. “He ________ said anything. What could he possibly want to say?”

Well, Ben not only ________ the rock: he said a lot about it. He named other rocks in its group and even knew ________ the teacher had found it. The teacher and the students were ________. Ben had learned all this from doing one of his book ________.

Ben later went on to the ________ of his class. When he finished high school, he went to Yale University and at last became one of the best doctors in the United States.

After Ben had grown up, he ________ something about his mother that he did not knows as a ________.

She, herself, had never learned how to ________.

3 . Our neighbor's son was getting married in 1971 at an out-of-town church, and my husband and I were invited. We immediately rushed out to a ________, and I bought a nice pink dress with a jacket. The dress was a little ________, but I had a month before the June 30 ________, and I would lose a few pounds.

June 29 came and, of course, I hadn't lost a single pound; in fact, I had ________ two. But I ________ a nice new girdle (紧身衣) would cure everything. So on our way out of the city, we ________ once again at the store, I ran in and told the clerk 1 needed a ________ large party girdle.

The clerk found the box with the ________ girdle, marked “LG”, and asked if I would like to try it on. “Oh, no, a large will fit just right. I ________ try it on.”

The next morning was one of those ninety-degree days, so I ________ to get dressed until about 45 minutes before time to go. I popped open the box only to ________ a new, $ 49.95 girdle in a small size. Since it was too late to find another one and the dress wouldn't ________ right without a girdle, a fight ________ in the hotel room between me and the girdle. Have you ever tried to ________ 20 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag? Finally, my husband, ________ like crazy, got hold of each side and shook me down -into it. At once I put on the dress, which didn't ________ very well with my purple face, and I was ready to go.

Finally we got to the ________. I heard one of the people say that they were having a High Mass (大弥撒). I turned to my husband and asked, “What is a High Mass?” He shrugged his ________.

________, I learned that this particular mass would last one hour, twenty-two minutes and eight-and one-half seconds-the priest(神父) blessed ________ except my girdle.

4 . Sitting in my school cafeteria, I looked around, slowly taking in everything. Student after student passed my _________ carrying that day’s lunch, but if you looked deeper, there was more to _________. There was more than just the uniform they were wearing, or the way they had styled their hair. There was a lot more hidden under the _________.

Catching the eye of a girl in my grade sitting at a nearby table, I waved _________. She smiled weakly and then continued to pick at the spaghetti in front of her. If I hadn’t _________ recently that her mother was dying of leukemia, I would have never _________ anything was wrong and I may not have been as _________ and sympathetic, either. It suddenly _________ me that we judge others too quickly without knowing the whole story.

I have an incurable lung disease. No one at our school knows—I don’t show any noticeable _________ except for a few coughs. I go about my day like any other kid, __________ with the realization that I have a __________ and terrifying future.

Before that day when I decided to __________ the world with a new perspective, I __________ myself almost every day. I thought only about myself and my heavy __________. But I’ve now realized no one is __________—we just need to accept the way we are.

5 . Camogli looks like any other small Italian coastal town. The little _________ houses face the sea. The sunlight warms their beauty. But, look carefully and you’ll see many things that seem_________...but they’re not.

This fishing village is full of trompe l’oeil — an art form in which nothing is what it appears to be. While some flowers die, others live for years. Why? Because they’re _______ on the building!

Trompe l’oeil has been around for centuries. _______, Camogli’s fishermen painted their houses in bright colors and unusual designs, so that they could see their homes _______ from the water. Then,in the 1700s, it became a way to make small, simple buildings look _______ and high-valued.

And today? There are still many trompe l’oeil houses in villages like Camogli, but only a few artists are _______ to paint them. Carlo is one of this ever-decreasing band of artists who's managed to make a business out of it.

His _______ are often people who want to improve their home’s _______. But for Carlo trompe l’oeil’s purpose is to bring something ________ to a new place, such as bringing the city to the sea or even the deserts to the cities.

Carlos painting style ________ the past. He only uses old-style paints and mixes them by hand. He does so for one reason: to protect the trompe l’oeil ________. He also believes this art should be ________ everywhere.

Fortunately, in Camogli, local art and culture are still ________. But remember, don’t always ________ your eyes!

6 . “Mum, what does it mean when someone tells you that they have a skeleton (骨骼) in the closet(衣橱)?” Jessica asked. “A skeleton in the closet?” her mother paused thoughtfully. “Well, it’s something that you would rather not have ___________ know about. For example, if in the past, someone in Dad’s family had been ___________ for stealing a horse, it would be ‘a skeleton in his family’s closet’. He really wouldn’t want any neighbor to know about it.”

“Why ___________ my family?” Jessica’s father said with anger. “Your family ___________ isn’t so good, you know. Wasn’t your great-great-grandfather a prisoner who was transported to Australia for his ___________?” “Yes. but people these days say that you are not a real Australian unless your ___________ arrived as prisoners.” “Gosh, sorry I asked. I think I understand now,” Jessica ___________before things grew worse.

After dinner, the house was very quiet. Jessica’s parents were still quite ___________ with each other. Her mother was ironing clothes and ___________ she glared at her husband, who ____________behind his newspaper pretending to read. When she finished, she gathered the freshly ____________clothes in her arms and walked to Jessica’s closet. Just as she opened the door and reached in to hang a skirt, a bony arm stuck out from the dark depths and a bundle of white bones fell to the floor. Jessica’s mother ____________ in a faint (晕倒), waking only when Jessica put a cold, wet cloth on her forehead. She looked up to see the ____________ faces of her husband and daughter.

“What happened? Where am I?” she asked. “You just destroyed the school’s skeleton. Mum,” explained Jessica. “I brought it home to help me with my health ____________. I meant to tell you. but it seemed that as soon as I mentioned skeletons and closets, it caused a problem between you and Dad.” Jessica looked ____________ as her parents began to laugh madly. “They’re both crazy.”she thought.

7 . Kim Stemple was a special-education teacher. In 2012, she found herself in a Boston hospital being______for one of several diseases she had been diagnosed (诊断) with. The normally energetic Stemple was naturally getting very______. And then a friend gave her a medal.

Before she got too______to exercise, Stemple had been a marathon runner. The medal came from a______partner who had just______a half marathon in Las Vegas and hoped the medal would act as a kind of____. It worked like magic.After Stemple hung the medal on the wall, other____said they wanted medals too. That got Stemple______.“A medal is a simple way to give a_______message,” she told others. And so was born her charity, We Finish Together, which______medals from strangers — runners, dancers, swimmers, singers, and even spelling bee winners — and gives them to all sorts of people______.

People who have received the medals have______hospital patients, people from homeless shelters, etc. Part of the process involves the______owner writing a personalized note on the ribbon (绶带).“This helps them______with someone,”says Stemple.“If they receive a medal, they know someone______.”

Can a simple medal______make a difference? Yes, says Joan Musarra, who suffers from a serious lung disease.“When I______my package containing my new______and the notes of positive, warm thoughts, I was very______,”she wrote to Stemple. “At that moment, I was sitting on my sofa breathing through an oxygen cannula (氧气管) because my lungs were so weak. It______so much to me to feel that I am not alone.”

8 . I met my wife at a party when I just finished my master's degree.A friend introduced me to her and we had a(n)_______talk at the party.I was quite_______that she had written a novel.I said,“I always admire those who are good at_______novels but I'm just_______.”To my surprise,she replied,“How can you know it if you don't have a_______?”

We kept in touch after the party and she_______me to try my hand,_______all I had ever written were scientific papers and articles on butterflies.I was_______Alexander the Great,but there were already some wonderful novels about the man.I did not feel I could_______with those,so I took a side step.I invented a junior officer in his army,had him wounded in Scythia and left behind as the________headed east,out of which came my book Lion of Scythia!My wife corrected my first________.There was more________on the page than black.________,I didn't give up and sent the book to the same publisher that my wife used to send her books to.Many days passed by and I didn't________anything back.So I completely forgot it and got back to my________on butterflies.However,the life-changing day came,18 months after I had started writing,I got an email saying that my book had been________and was to be published.

That was twenty years ago.I'm________writing and I'm about to start my 37th novel(29 published so far).It is now a part of my life.I can't let one single day go________writing and I set myself a goal of at least 1,000 words a day.I push the________forward,even if I write rubbish.I can always go________and rewrite or edit,but I have never suffered from writer's block.

9 . Many people say that their childhood was the happiest time of their lives. But, that was not_______for me, at least between the ages of 10 to 12. I was practically________by my parents, who seemed only interested in their never-ending money making. I was________, a loner at school too, disliked by my classmates for getting good grades.

Longing for________, I fell into depression and started thinking about death. While on the school field trip, I lost my footing and slipped into a marsh(沼泽)and got my________muddy. As luck would have it, out of nowhere, an angel, in the________of a native woman，lent me a helping hand. She________me to her small cottage and helped me change my________trousers. She made me eat from what little food she had, and told me funny stories,________to cheer me up.

That lady saved me. She saved my belief in the________of people. I came to see that no matter what happens, there are good things in the world, which you can________for existence. Another thing I noticed was that the lady, though she lived in________surroundings, seemed happy. I realized that life is beautiful if we love it. Only those who are________their life can really understand what happiness really is.

I dropped the idea of ending my________.

I must thank that kind lady for what I had never experienced till then.________someone's life with kindness is worth all the treasure in the world.

10 . I have always been a stickler(非常看重……的人) for equality. Therefore, I was______of the sort of friendship where you give with nothing in______, and the other person feels much bigger than you are. I don't know______exactly it started, but for as long as I remember, I have felt self-conscious about the______within my

friendships. I constantly worry that I______my friends more than they do. When the scale(秤) tips to one side in my relationships, I feel myself start to fall over too, like a branch hanging off the edge of a cliff.

When I entered high school, I made friends who gave______and willingly: advice, knowledge, and______. Even if they gave more than they received, they did so with a ______. I slowly began to realize that some people were worth the inequality, and that some things could be______in other ways or at a later time. Kindness is a(n)______that you receive back from the ones you give it to. My friend Alicia always______to help others with their work and assignments, which made me and all the other______of her kindness______to help her if she ever need anything in the future. It wasn't an exactly equal way of repaying her, but it was our own small way of saying thank you.

Today，I still______maintaining(维持) equality in my life. However, I have learned that it's okay to give more than you receive, if you are giving to the______person and that it's okay to let some debts go unpaid.