1 . Last year I attended the annual autumn saffron (藏红花) harvest festival on a trip in Italy, known as the sagra. Giovannina Sarra and her family ________ me at their home. Early the next morning, we ________ among the fields and participated in the harvest.

Saffron , taken from the stigmas (柱头) of the saffron flower, is a(n) ________ crop. Also called red gold, it is a(n) ________ from Spain, first introduced into the region around the 13th century. Saffron is ________ in the hours just before ________, while the petals (花瓣) are closed. This helps protect their precious stigmas and makes the flowers easier to ________, especially preferred by the acquirers (收购商). Later, on the same day, the stigmas — three ________ strings per flower — are separated from the petals. It’s a delicate ________ that takes hours with a skilled and ________ hand. In the evening, over an open wood fire, the stringlike stigmas are ________ to make saffron powder to add to the richness of the color and the flavor, which brings considerable income.

Now sitting at a mouth-watering plate of Risotto alla Milanese, a dish cooked with saffron, I ________ the freezing morning with Sarra and her family. There’s no ________ that it is the families like the Sarras that stick to the many ________ that have survived from generation to generation. ________ more people will join them.

2 . My father was a restaurant owner. My name is Vincent Lim. I’m a chef and restaurant owner. Running a Chinese restaurant is one of the hardest and most_________things in my life.

When we first arrived in Australia, my dad_________a Chinese restaurant. I would go there on a_________basis to help him out. And slowly I developed my_________for cooking. The hard work that my dad put into Chinese food makes me feel so proud that I am lucky enough to learn from a_________

The first dish that I ever learned to cook was the fried rice, which is the easiest but also the _________one to get right. From years of experience, I can_________you the difference between a good fried rice just from the feel and from the smell, without even taking a bite.

To lots of Chinese immigrants like us, the restaurant isn’t just a business. It’s a sense of _________. The wok hei (锅气)_________every ingredient in the wok, producing an appealing smell. The fragrances of the food__________the air and lingered around so much longer. Those memories, they become nostalgic (乡愁). The sense of home is what makes a__________good dish taste.

In 2017, my dad passed away. I realized that my love of cooking dishes was from my childhood. I __________the restaurant that I own today. Cooking was a__________way to my dad. I wanted to __________everything that he taught me. Cooking__________all the hard work and memories that we had.

3 . Brady has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It has been _________ for his family and his students. He was _________ not only because he was a rising star, but also because he had recently _________ the highest honors for young researchers at the White House.

We truly _________ him — as someone put it, “He always has a smile and a kind word for everyone.” It is very _________ to find someone who is extremely intelligent should be so nice.

Last week, I bought a simple card, reading, “Healing thoughts and wishes are coming your way. We are all _________ for your recovery”. I met and made all his students, who have worked pretty closely with him, sign and add a _________ on it.

He is still undergoing intense treatment, trying his best to stay _________ and hopeful. He didn’t show any trace of self-pity or sadness when I met him. _________, he paid attention to every word of my presentation and asked me several questions __________ to my work, though being in great __________. I saw an expression of joy and hope on his face as he opened the card. He said he was __________ to see the messages from the students. Then he __________, “I am trying to focus on staying positive, hoping to be back this summer.”

Despite being too sick to teach classes, my professor has managed to continue being a great teacher, introducing his last __________ messages to us. It is so important to tell people how much they __________ to us before it is too late.

5 . A map is a drawing that give us information about a place at a particular time. Maps are a representation of the real world drawn _________ on a flat surface but many times _________ than the place itself. Maps are one of the oldest forms of nonverbal (非言语的) _________. Every culture in every part of the world makes and uses maps. The art and _________ of making maps is called cartography (制图学). A person making maps is called a cartographer. In fact, all the information about one place cannot be _________ in a single map. Different _________ of a place can be shown in different types of maps.

There are two main types of maps—physical maps and political maps. Physical maps show the _________ of the land-hills, lakes, forests, the coast and so on. _________ maps show how the land is used by people—counties, provinces, countries, town boundaries, etc. Both types of map have _________ over time because forests are cut down, roads are built, towns expand and borders change. Most maps include a compass rose which indicates the __________. In the meanwhile, they __________ include a scale (比例尺), which is useful for estimating __________.

People use or “read” maps because of different __________. For example, we often use them when we are traveling to the places that we are not __________ with. News reporters use maps to tell us __________ things are happening in the world, __________ use them to navigate (导航) the skies and fishermen to navigate the seas.

Maps have an exciting history of their own. Over time, they __________ from being rough sketches, often based on travelers’ tales and stories __________ through word of mouth that may or may not have been __________. Nowadays maps are accurate scientific instruments. Their __________ runs along with the progress of civilisation.

9 . A stand-up comedian is, supposed to be, a fluent communicator who is also good at using body language to _________ jokes.

However, for 27-year-old comedian Zhang Jiaxin, it takes a great effort to _________ pronounce the sounds of each character and sentence and be _________ on the stage. At birth, the oxygen _________ to his brain was curtailed (限制，削减), which _________ later problems with speaking and walking. The other long-term impairment is the loss of full use of his right hand.

It was two years ago when Zhang first performed stand-up comed yon the stage. At the time, he worked for the new media operation department of a company _________ in Xiamen, Fujian province, and had to prepare for a performance at the company’s year-end party.

He didn’t know much about stand-up performance. _________, as someone who likes to watch and be amused by entertainment shows from a very young age, he decided to give a humorous monologue at the party to amuse and _________ his colleagues.

It opened Zhang’s door to a colorful world of stand-up comedy.

He started to pay attention to the stand-up comedy live shows in Xiamen and got the _________ of a woman who worked at a local stand-up club.

“She sent me some videos of Drew Lynch (an American stand-up comic who developed a(an)__________ stutter (结巴) due to a sports injury earlier in his life) and told me that my defects are what make my appeal special,” he says. “That __________ me to have a go.”

After he read through a manual for writing and performing stand-up comedy, he started to __________his daily life to identify humorous __________ that could be used as jumping-off points to launch into stories.

Once he walked onto the stage, the audience __________ noticed his differences.

“__________, they were kind of walking on eggshells to spare my feelings. As I gradually opened myself to them, the atmosphere turned to be relaxing,” he says.

Wows and claps resounded. His jokes went down well as he worked the room with his humor.

10 . What’s your dream in life? Many children dream of becoming_________when they grow up, but very few start as early as Jose, a Peruvian boy who_________a children’s savings bank when he was only 7 years old.

Jose had the_________for a children’s savings bank six years ago. He_________that many children at his age spent their money on sweets and toys instead of something_________. Although he was young, he understood that saving_________was a good way that could help adults solve many of their problems,_________he decided to make it possible for kids as well. At that time, he started thinking of ways that children could_________money without the help of their parents, and recycling seemed like the best_________. But when Jose shared his thought with his teachers, he was__________that a 7-year-old couldn’t deal with such a project.__________, he tried to prove them all wrong.

“At the beginning, my teachers thought I was__________and that a child couldn’t do it successfully,” Jose said. “__________ I had the support of the schoolmaster.” Jose__________the Bartselana Student Bank in his home. The__________of this creative bank was very simple: Children could become client (客户) of the bank by__________at least 5 kilograms of recyclable waste and they were__________to bring at least one other kilogram of waste to the bank every month. They would set savings goals, and could only take some of the money out when they__________their savings goals.

The 7-year-old signed a__________with local recycling companies that offered his clients a higher price of recyclable waste. And all the money they got could be deposited (存) into the Bartselana Student Bank. Between 2012 and 2013, the bank__________one ton of recyclable material and made savings for around 200 children at Jose’s school.