1 . When I was 13 my only purpose was to become the star on our football team. That meant________Miller King, who was the best player at our school.

Football season started in September and all summer long I worked out. I carried my football everywhere for________.

Just before September, Miller was struck by a car and lost his right arm. I went to see him after he came back from hospital. He looked very pale, but he didn’t cry.

That season, I________all of Miller’s records while he watched the home games from the bench. We went 10-1 and I was named the most valuable player, but I often had crazy dreams in which I was to blame for Miller’s accident.

One afternoon, I was crossing the field to go home and saw Miller________going over a fence — which wasn’t hard to climb if you had both arms. I’m sure I was the last person in the world he wanted to accept________from. But even that challenge he accepted. I helped him move slowly over the fence. When we were finally________on the other side, he said to me, “You know, I didn’t tell you this during the season, but you did________. Thank you for filling in for me.”

His words freed me from my bad________. I thought to myself, how even without an arm he was more of a leader. Damaged but not defeated, he was still ahead of me. I was right to have________him. From that day on, I grew________and a little more real.

2 . A man who knows how to write a personal letter has a very powerful tool. A letter can be enjoyed, read and ________. It can set up a warm conversation between two people far apart; it can keep a friendship with very little effort.

I will give ________. A few years ago my older brother and I were not getting along. We had been close as _______ but had grown apart. Our meetings were not pleasant; our conversation was filled with arguments and quarrels; and every effort to clear the air seemed to only ________ our misunderstanding. Then he moved to a small island in the Caribbean and we ________ touch. One day he wrote me a letter. He described his island and its people, told me what he was doing, said how he felt, and encouraged me to write. Rereading the letter, I was ________ by its humor and clever expressions. These were all qualities for which I had once respected my older brother but ________ he no longer had them. I had never known he could write so well. And with that one letter we became friends ________.

It might never have occurred to my brother to write me if he had not been in a place where there were no ________. For him, writing was a necessity. It also turned out to be the best way for us to get back in touch. Because we live in an age of easy communication, people often ________ that they don’t always have to phone or email. They have a choice. And that is to write.

5 . It was a _________ night and I was in a foreign country. Though I knew everything here well, I might still need other people to help me with _________.

One day, I took a midnight _________from the capital to the city where I lived. I was trying not to sleep as I would be home towards 2 am, but funnily enough I fell asleep and closed my eyes only when the train passed the _________where I was due (预计) to get off. The controllers told me to leave at the next station and wait for the train to my city at 4 am. I stood at the station but it looked like it would be _________ to wait there alone.

One of the controllers _________there got off with me, saying he felt it was not safe to leave me there alone. He invited me to get into his car because it was freezing outside. I was a bit doubtful, but I decided to _________him. Entering the car, we started talking. I told him that I had often passed this station, but never visited the city. So he offered me a _________around the town. I was completely shocked, but did not feel anything _________. He drove me around and at about 4 am he sent me back to the station.

His help with the emergency (突发事件) made the night unforgettable and full of __________. What I could do was just passing on the kindness in my life.

7 . It is important to have positive feelings in our daily life.

“Compared ______ some unhappy people, those who are always pleased and relaxed are less likely to suffer from colds,” ______ a new study. The researchers from New York University said. “Being ______ helps the body prevent diseases.“

“It seems that positive feelings may reduce the ______ of illness,” said the chief researcher Sheldon Cohen.

In an earlier study Cohen found that people who were ______ caught colds less often. And they seldom told their doctors that they felt ______.

In this study, Cohen’s team interviewed 193 adults every day for two weeks. In this ______, the people told researchers about ______ happy or sad feelings that day. Two weeks later, all of them were made to catch colds by doctors, and they had to stay ______ in a room for six days.

The results ______ that each in the study was equal (平等的) to fall ill. ______   people who were lively and relaxed said they felt happy during the research. Their illnesses were less serious and lasted for a ______ time.

Cohen believes that ______ people have positive feelings, their body may produce a kind of chemical that helps to ______ illnesses. So if you ______ your health, please look on the bright side and make yourself happy all the time.

8 . At about 11 p.m., Janet got off the train, went into her car and started driving home. She was so familiar with the route that she almost_______automatically: turned left to the Station Road, then another left onto Montauk Highway, and then — bang! When Janet’s car had just crossed the railroad tracks, it hit another vehicle and was_______back onto the tracks. Injured but mostly shocked by the crash and by the airbags that popped up, she was_______in the vehicle.

As it happened, Andrew was just about to go to sleep when he heard a sharp noise and saw the accident not far outside his bedroom window. As a retired_______, Andrew, who was 69, fetched a flashlight and rushed out without_______.

Arriving at the spot, Andrew looked around and_______Janet’s car straddling the railway tracks. And then he heard the bell ring, which signaled a train’s arrival.

The train was running toward them at a speed of some 105 kilometers per hour. The driver’s _______cannot be opened due to the collision, so Andrew quickly ran to the other side and managed to open the door. He put the airbags_______, seized her arms, pulled her toward him across the passenger seat until finally got her out and walked her to_______as soon as possible. Several seconds later, the train crashed into the vehicle.

“Last night,” said Gregory, Chief of the Department in South Country Ambulance, “the__________arrived in pajamas (睡衣裤) , not in a fire truck.”

9 . The Turnaround

Anxiously, I looked through the roster (花名册) posted on the wall. My body ________ as I saw all my friends’ names but did not find mine. I could feel the tears building in my eyes. I felt ________ inside, like nothing mattered.

When I got back home, my father noticed my sullen walk and gloomy face, and asked me what was wrong.

“All my friends ________ the school team. Everyone! Except me…” I stammered.

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you just going to sit there?” he asked.

I didn’t know what to say, just shaking my head. I thought hard for thirty minutes about what my dad said, and it started making ________. Nobody was going to give me a ________ on that team. I would have to earn it.

________, there was a gym near my school, so as soon as school was over, I biked to the gym and trained hard. I ran, dribbled, and shot until I ________ on the floor every single day. There were moments when I didn’t think I could keep on going, but I ________ through it. After all, I thought, hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

After almost a year, I tried out for my seventh-grade team with great confidence. Regardless of the outcome, I knew that I had worked hard and learned something about mental ________. The next day, seeing my name printed in large bold letters, I realized I made it. The greater the effort, the ________ the reward, and I officially made a turnaround.