2 . My husband, Russ, and I drove through our neighborhood, the place we’d called home for 28 years. The foothills (山麓) once thick with pines, were _________. The ground was covered with a heavy layer of ash. The trees that _________ were burnt stumps (树桩).

Two weeks earlier, we’d gotten an early-morning call telling us to _________ immediately. The wildfire burning through Northern California had spread and was headed our way. We’d jumped in the car with our cats and a few belongings. For days, we’d moved from hotel to hotel, _________ for news. What finally came wasn’t _________. Our house had been right in the fire’s path.

Now we’d been allowed to return. Russ and I brought _________, work boots, N95 masks and gloves. We would _________ anything we could. We drove slowly through the ruins, where chimneys marked where homes once stood. I wasn’t prepared for what _________ us. Our house was _________ but broken stones, I wiped away tears as we dug through the ash.

“How will we survive this?” I wondered. “How will we go on?” It felt as if our lives had been destroyed. Later that afternoon Russ __________ what we’d found in the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

I turned to get in the car. That’s when I __________ something stuck to my boot: a bit of paper, dirtied with ash. I picked it up. The words were surprisingly __________, “If life seems difficult, I stop and reflect on the blessing sometimes hidden within every situation. With renewed belief and __________, I begin again.”

Words that must have come from one of my books, a passage I couldn’t recall but now said everything I needed to __________, words that rose from the ashes. I framed (给……做框) that scrap of paper. It now sits in a place of honor in our new home, a reminder that we can __________ again.

3 . My parents always told me that I couldn’t dance, because it was a girl’s sport. But I never gave up my dream of becoming a dancer, I practised secretly, learning from books, movies, and shows. However, without my parents’ support, that_________seemed all but impossible to reach.

One summer, my little sister Maggie was going to dance lessons. I immediately asked my parents for permission(允许) to take her to the lessons. What a_________chance to learn dancing!

One afternoon, I was_________a new dance in my room, when Maggie walked in.

“What’s the matter, Maggie?” I stopped_________.

“Denis, you are a great dancer! Can you help me?”

“What is it?” I wondered.

“There’ll be a dancing performance in my school,_________the boys think I’m slow, and none of them wants to be my partner. Could you dance with me for it?” She looked at me_________.

“You can be a good dancer!” I_________her, “Let’s show those people that they have been_________all along.”

In the following months, we practised every evening,_________from my parents. I was having a fantastic time and soon Maggie improved a lot.

Finally came the big day. I became__________when I heard my parents would come to watch the performance. As the__________began, I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. We moved perfectly, shining with pride. From the cheering of the crowd, I was sure we had__________.

My heart was beating wildly when I saw my father coming towards me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Well done, son. Though it is hard for me to__________it, you really looked like you__________this stage. Go for it and make us proud.”

I’d been waiting for this moment for so long. I knew that the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, but I wouldn’t__________. I wanted nothing more in life than to dance.

4 . Last year I ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience: the iPad. Instead of looking at nature, I _________ my e-mail. Instead of paddling an old boat, I followed my Twitter feed. Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading four _________ each morning.

And that was the problem: I was acting _________ I were still in the office. My body was on vacation but my head wasn’t.

So this year I made up my mind to try something _________—getting away from the Internet. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, since I’m not good at _________. But I was determined. I started by handing the iPad to my wife. Then, a stroke of luck: The cell phone signal at our cabin was worse than in the past, meaning that I couldn’t cheat. I was trapped, forced to carry out my plan. Largely _________ from e-mail, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites. I had little way to connect to the world _________ radio —and how much radio can one listen to, really? I had no _________ but to do what I had planned to do all along: read books.

This experience has had a _________ ending — for now, at least. With determination and the strong support of my wife, I succeeded in my vacation struggle against the Internet. I __________ realized that it was me, of course, not the iPad, that was the problem.

I knew I had __________ when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the WiFi. “Don’t need it,” I said. __________, as we return to post-vacation situation, a test begins: Can I __________ when I’m back at work? And I don’t plan to give up my convenience completely. But I hope to __________ the temptation to check my e-mail every five minutes, which often leads to following my Twitter feed.

I think a vacation is supposed to help you rest your __________ to become more productive. Here I hope this one worked.

6 . My previous home had a stand of woods behind it and many animals in the backyard. That first year, I ______ feeding peanuts to the blue jays, then the squirrels. The squirrels had no _______coming up right to me for them. As the months went by, the rabbits saw that I was no ______ and didn’t escape. When I threw carrot slices (薄片), they even came for a nibble (啃). Slowly they came to ______ me, and by the end of the year they were eating out of my hand.

That second year, the rabbits ______ me, and one would even sit up for slices! While I was feeding them. I ______ that a groundhog who used to run away was now taking an ______ interest in this food situation. I carefully extended a long ______, with a keen eye on those teeth, and ______, there were times I would have the groundhog sitting next to a rabbit, both munching (津津有味地咀嚼) on carrots. A few months later, while ______, she would even turn her back to me._______ when she was facing away, I reached out and ______ scratched (搔) her back with my finger. She didn’t move.

By year three, the rabbits and the groundhog were back. The groundhog ______ didn’t have a problem with me scratching her back, and I got an idea. I’d always ______, while slicing up carrots, that the end looked like a cap. ______ one day, just to see what she would do, I gently ______ one on top of the groundhog’s head. Again, not a ______. The next time, I had my camera ready to record what you see here, one of several dozen such pictures. ______ she had a slice to eat, she never ______ the one on her head. It was a fair______— I got a pleasure, and she had yet another tasty treat.

7 . When I re-entered the full-time workforce a few years ago after a decade of lonely self-employment, there was one thing I was looking forward to the most: the opportunity to have work friends once again. It wasn't until I entered the corporate world that I realized, for me at least, being friends with colleagues didn't emerge as a（n） ________ at all. This is surprising when you consider the prevailing emphasis by scholars and trainers and managers on the importance of cultivating close ________ relationships at work. So much research has explored the way in which collegial（同事的）ties can help overcome a range of workplace issues ________ productivity and the quality of work output such as team-based conflict, jealousy, undermining, anger, and more.

Perhaps my expectations of lunches, water-cooler gossip and caring, deep-and-meaningful conversations were a ________ of the last time I was in that kind of office environment. Whereas now, as I near the end of my fourth decade, I realize work can be fully functional and entirely fulfilling without ________ to be best mates with the people sitting next to you.

In an academic analysis just published in the profoundly-respected Journal of Management, researchers have looked at the concept of “indifferent relationships", a simple term that summarizes the fact that relationships at work can ________ be non-interpersonal, inconsequential, unimportant and even, dare I say it, disposable or substitutable.

Indifferent relationships are neither positive nor negative. The limited research conducted thus far indicates they're especially ________ among those who value independence over cooperation, and harmony over confrontation. Indifference is also the ________ option among those who are socially lazy. Maintaining relationships over the long term takes effort, which, for some of us, is much too________.

As noted above, indifferent relationships may not always be the most ________ approach in resolving some of the issues that pop up at work. But there are nevertheless several apparently proven benefits. One of those is ________ . Less time chatting and socializing means more time working and churning（产出）.

The other is ________ . As human beings, we're programmed to compare ourselves to each other in what is an anxiety-causing phenomenon. Apparently, we look down on acquaintances（泛泛之交）more so than friends. Since the former is most common among those ________ to indifferent relationships, their predominance can promote individuals' sense of self-worth.

Ego aside, a third advantage is that the emotional ________of indifferent relationships has been found to enhance critical evaluation, to strengthen one's focus on task resolution, and to gain greater access to valuable information. None of that might be as ________ as after-work socializing but, hey, I'll take it anyway.

9 . Several years ago, Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of BBC television programme discovered one of his guests was half German and half Irish. Immediately, he said, “That’s quite a strange ______ . It’s like, this must be done absolutely perfectly...tomorrow”.

This joke played on ______ of the Germans as efficient and the Irish as lazy. Many people could ______ be offended by these kinds of assertions. We do not know every Irish person, so how can we conclude that every Irish person is lazy?

I recently read on a website that Irish business people were ______ as being “generally rather casual” and more outwardly friendly than many European counties’. German business people, on the other hand, are considered very ______ and they do not need a personal relationship in order to do business. Once you hear advice like this, it becomes easier to understand where jokes like the one in the first paragraph come from.

So why do some people ______ of the kind of stereotypes as seen in Clarkson’s joke, but not batting an ______ when it comes to generalizations. What is the difference between the two?

By definition, a stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. A cultural characteristic, on the other hand, is a pattern of behaviour that is ______ of a certain group.

So what does this really mean? Stereotype are simply overstated assumptions about groups of people. Imagine if a tourist visited a small town in Switzerland and saw a number of locals playing the alphorn instrument, and then ______ that Swiss people can play the alphorn. This would be a stereotype! This is an ______ image of the Swiss which is based on one tourist’s experience.

If however, this tourist were to say that the Swiss are very punctual, this could be seen as a cultural ______ . This is because it is a pattern of behaviour which is very typical in Switzerland: from their transport system to their business meetings in this way, some people argue that generalizing another culture is not just useful, but important. Politicians always have to be ______ of the cultural characteristics of different countries. By becoming aware of different cultural characteristics, they can avoid causing offence in those cultures.

______ , others argue that generalizing cultures will always lead to offensive stereotypes. They argue that the best thing we can do is to stop generalizing cultures and start treating people as ______ .

All this raises important questions: Can making generalizations about groups of people be a ______ thing? Or should we always avoid making broad assumptions about different groups?

10 . Long ago, poems were recited loud instead of being written down. Back when the Greeks first started the Olympics, they held poetry _________ as well as athletic competitions.

Now, poetry competitions have been revived. This year 120,000 high school students competed in the first Poetry Out Loud national recitation competition,_________ poems from memory for $100,000 in prize money.

The first competitions were held in classrooms. The winners went on to school wide contests, and then they competed in city and state competitions. _________, the 50 state champions, along with the _________ of the District of Columbia came to Washington D.C. last week for the last showdown. After the 51 champions competed _________ another, 12 went on to the _________. Then the field was narrowed to five. The final five had one last chance to “perform” a poem. The overall champ, Jackson Hille, a high school senior from Ohio,_________ a $20,000 scholarship. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation _________ Poetry Out Loud, because they realized that hearing a poem performed is a different experience from _________ it on a page.

It’s not just a matter of saying the words in the right order. It’s the tone of __________, the pauses, the gestures and the attitude of the person performing that bring the__________ to life. “Each time we hear somebody recite a poem, we understand again what we found __________ and interesting about it,” said National Public Radio Broadcaster Scott Simon, master of ceremonies for the finals. Hearing it in a new voice offers something new to the listeners.

Not only do the people hearing poems have a(n) __________ experience, but__________ and presenting poems helps the participants understand those poems in a new way. Another __________ of a competition such as Poetry Out Loud is that the participants learn public speaking skills that can help them for life.