1 . I was born legally blind. Of all the stories of my early childhood, the one about a______is my mother's favorite.

I was only two when the______occurred. We had just arrived home from a trip. Mom lifted me out of the car and _____to speak to the driver. I took advantage of my brief______to dash across the lawn (草坪) — and hit a large maple tree! I was running so fast that I bounced off the trunk and______on my backside. Mom______me to start crying, but I just sat there for a minute. Then I______myself up and kept right on going. Mom always______here that, as many times as I______across the lawn after that, I never again______into that tree.

Mom loves to use this story as an______. It reminds her that children don't enter life______to take risks or unwilling to______again when they fall down. She never wanted me to lose that______as I grew older. When I______my major life decisions，I was still that little girl tearing full-speed across the lawn. I studied abroad and later moved away from my parents' home to look for a______, Through years of______, I have become a respected teacher in a school serving high-need students.

We are almost certain to get______at some point during the process of achieving our goal. When that happens, don't sit in the grass and______. Just get up and keep on going. It will all be worth it______.

2 . Jake and Max Klein are twin brothers who have a passion for volunteering. Their family have always done community _______ .At a young age, they chose to _______ family's gifts at their birthday parties, but asked them to donate money to a charity. When they were seven, Jake and Max were interested in _______ with a family friend at the local homeless shelter to help cook. _________， he turned them down because they were too _______ and they had to be fourteen to cook. This led them on an endless _______ to come up with a way to help other kids who were also facing a _______ challenging: wanting to help but _______ because of their age.

So, Kids That Do Good was _______ to show ways to kids or adults, at any age, they could join the community and make a ________ .The small ________ has grown into a large website that brings thousands of ________ visitors each year. Jake and Max say that their website brings 35,000 unique viewers, of those viewers, Kids That Do Good has ________ kids to 16,000 organizations.

Jake and Max are ________ with school and after-class activities and other community service promises. Kids That Do Good also has blog posts that advise kids on ________ their own charitable event.

3 . A Welcome Gift

Dario and his mother loved their new apartment. The living room was large enough for their piano. That night, the two of them _______ side by side at the piano. They played jazz music to celebrate their new home. The loud _______ filled the room and made them feel very happy.

The next morning, _______, their happiness disappeared. Someone had left a _______ under their door during the night. One of their neighbors had written to complain about the sound of the piano. Dario’s mother asked the building superintendent(管理员) if he knew anything about it. But he said that they were all _______ people and he couldn’t imagine any of them had done that. Later that morning, Dario suggested that they write a letter to their _______ and apologize for their playing.

“Maybe we could go and _______ everyone in person.” his mother said.

“What if we invited them to come here for a _______ instead?” Dario asked.

They both loved the _______. Over the next few days, they sent out invitations and prepared desserts __________ their guests. They decorated the apartment with streamers(彩带) and party lights.

Finally, the day of the party __________. Some guests brought presents. Others brought flowers. Some even brought desserts to __________. One woman, Mrs. Gilbert, __________ Dario’s mother with a book of piano music by Chopin.

“I heard you playing the other night,” she said. “The sounds woke me out of bed. I __________ that you might play like this every night. So I wrote a short note. I hope you don’t think I disliked the playing.”

Dario’s mother smiled at Mrs. Gilbert. “I think maybe we __________ you an apology.” she said. “I didn’t __________ how late it was when we were playing. Maybe we should play some quieter music at night.”

“You play, you play!” Mrs. Gilbert said. “I like what you play! Just not so loud at night.” She pointed to the book she had given them. “These songs are not such __________ music.”

“These songs are beautiful music.” Dario’s mother said. “We will be __________ to play them in the evening.”

“And we won’t play so loud or late!” Dario said. He was already looking forward to __________ the new music. More than that, however, he was happy to see the big smile on his mother’s face. It gave him a feeling of __________ and made him feel that they were home at last.

4 . I was once in a workshop out of town with colleagues. One of them was much _______ and had recovered from an illness. He didn't want Asian food which we youths like, so he stayed in the _______while the rest of us ventured out(外出). This might have affected his sense of_______

One night I told him I wanted to take him out wherever he wanted to eat. As I had vegetarian food _______and he did not, he did not want to burden(使负担）me by going to places where I would have very _______options. I insisted it wasn't a (n)_______, and we went to a place he would prefer. My other colleagues went out _______, so I was able to hang out with this colleague and practice deep listening. We had a great _______ together.

As we ended our meal and conversation, I decided to _______ him right to the door of the hotel and not the parking lot, as it was quite ________ outside and I didn't want him catching a cold. This felt good, and over the next few ________ it felt more________ to tell my colleagues to wait inside the restaurant while I________ the car to create more comfort for them.

Simple acts like this gave me a lot of ________ .We all felt a ________sense of community, invested in each other's well-being.

5 . “What’s the story of your piano?” a friend asked over dinner. My piano just _________ in the corner of my living room. “It has a story?” I doubted.

“All pianos have stories,” she replied. Suddenly my piano’s story came _________ out of me as if I’d always had this tale to tell.

I’ve loved _________ since childhood. I started with the recorder and moved on to the violin and guitar. Playing the piano had always been my _________ which my family couldn’t afford. I grew up in a poor immigrant family in Toronto. My father _________ tables in a restaurant and my mother worked in a laundry. Though our childhood was _________, my brothers and I were always fed with     _________. I can’t remember which birthday it was when my mother _________ some money to buy me a doll. By then I’d outgrown wanting dolls but she worked too hard to know that and I never told her. I _________ accepted it.

So it was finally with my ____________. It was in my last year of high school. I took piano lessons for about a year before university forced me to ____________. I had to make a decision: to pursue（追求） a more ____________ goal of medical school or my love for music. The realist in me ____________ and I had to give up piano lessons ____________ as with my doll it was too late to learn to play the way I wanted. I ____________ the piano around with me over the next decade until my son was born. He showed an early ____________ in music so I put him in piano lessons. I played that piano through my son although guitar ____________ became his choice.

I gradually realized that I’d let all my pleasures ____________ for my job. I figured I’d get back to playing the piano when I retire. Maybe it’s time to get that piano tuned again before it’s too late to     ____________. Maybe that’s something we should do right now.

Sometimes a ____________ question can open a path of thinking and discovery. So what’s the story of your piano?

6 . In a small town in Oklahoma, many people have lost their jobs because of Covid-19. They do not have as much _______ as they used to. Therefore, in some restaurants, customers pay for their meals, and then they add another food item for someone who cannot _______ it.

On the _______ in a restaurant named The Daug House are receipts (收款单) for the _______ meals. Someone who is hungry can come in, choose one from the receipts and have something to eat. This is what the customers are doing now to _______ others. When they pay for their meals, they can_______ another food item.

Jennifer, owner of the restaurant, started the idea of the _______ wall. Her restaurant has eight tables, _______ only a few people can visit at one time. But in six months, customers have bought 600 _________ meals.

Customers who had no money would take down the receipts to eat and then later returned to ________ more meals, so someone else could eat. Jennifer remembered when a poor ________ came in with their children recently. “They sat there to just have a meal ________, not worrying about how much they were having to pay.”

“That says a lot about how ________ our community is,” Jennifer said. “The small town has been hurt by the ________ crisis(危机). But I believe it will soon return to normal activities. We ________ by helping others.”

7 . When Deborah hiked cycling to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York last November, she _________ a female mute swan near the water’s edge. Deborah, 30, who had worked at the Wild Bird Fund rehab (康复) center, knew that mute swans can be aggressive. But as she _________ this one, it didn’t move.

She was certain that the bird needed _________ attention. Deborah covered her jacket over the bird’s head, _________ picked it up, and cradled it in her arms. And then a thought _________ her: What should I do now?

Her best choice was the rehab center, _________ that was across the East River and clear on the other side of town. How was she going to _________ a 17-pound swan on her bike all that way? Luckily, some confused strangers driving by offered them a(n) _________ to a nearby subway station.

On the subway, no one seemed particularly disturbed by the _________ passenger. “One guy,” says Deborah, “was sitting right in front of me on his __________. I don’t know if he noticed the swan before him when talking with the person on the other end.”

Deborah called the rehab center on the way, and Tristan Higginbotham, an animal-care manager, __________ her up at the subway station and drove the bird, the bike, and the __________ to the center. There, staff members determined the swan might have lead (铅) poisoning, caused by __________ weights on fishing lines.

The staff got the swan back up on her webbed feet (蹼足). The swan even made a __________ at the center—another injured swan. __________, even with all that TLC (tender loving care), the swan had a bacterial infection. Two months __________ Deborah came to her rescue, she passed away early this January.

It’s a(n) __________ ending, but the real story is just __________ some people are willing to go to save a swan in the big city—literally. In all, Deborah traveled two hours by foot, __________, and subway (while hauling her bike). Higginbotham says, “That’s the perfect __________ of who she is.”

8 . I used to be a very self-centered person, but in the past two years I have really changed. I have started to think about other people _______ I think about myself. I am happy that I am becoming a _______person:

I think my _______started when I was at Palomar College. At first, I just wanted to get my _______, and be left alone. I thought I was smarter than everyone else, so I hardly ever _______to anyone in my classes. By the end of my first semester, I was really _______. It seemed as if everyone but me had made friends and was having fun. So I tried a(n) _______. I started asking people around me how they were doing, and if they were having trouble I _______to help. That was really a big _______for me. By the end of the year, I had several new friends, and two of ________are still my best friends today.

A bigger cause of my new ________, however, came when I took a part-time job at a Vista Nursing Home. One old lady there who had Alzheimer s disease became my ________. Every time I came into her room, she was so ________because she thought I was her daughter. Her real daughter never ________her, so I took her place. She let me ________. That making others feel good make me feel good, too. When she died, I was ________, but I was very grateful to her.

I think I am a much ________, person today than I used to be, and I hope I will not ________these experiences. They have ________e to care about other people more than about myself. ________who I am today, and I could not say that a few years ago.

10 . A recent article in The Wall Street journal says that Chinese students in American universities are not getting the most out of their educational opportunities. The article says that _______ Chinese students work hard, many are not acquiring the soft skills that come with fully participating in campus life.

Soft skills refer to things like socialization and learning to be _______. These are the skills students develop by _______ socially with American and other international students and by learning how to handle problems in a new _______ and make their own decisions. A large number of Chinese students, _______, tend to self-segregate, that is, they just _______ other Chinese students and _______ the campus culture and even the wider American culture that surrounds them.

Jocelyn Jia, a 22-year-old from Hainan studying at the university of north Carolina at Chapel Hill, says, “If you just come to study and hang out with Chinese people, all you bring back to China is the _______. It’s just a piece of paper. That’s it” Jocelyn studies hard, but she likes to _______, too. She’s taking every opportunity to make American friends and experience things she couldn’t have at a(n) ________ university.

Chinese companies want to hire “haigui” like Jocelyn. Ken Chen of a consulting firm in Shanghai says an American college education teaches you how to socialize, develop your ________ and know how to think and solve problems. Mr. Chen says these are the kinds of people he is looking for.

An American education isn’t ________, though. It can cost as much as U.S. $200,000 for a four-year program. But Charlotte Fan, a graduate of Duke University from Shanghai, says the ________ was worth it. She’s now working for an American company and, in the Wall Street Journal article, is quoted as saying. “I’ve learned a lot and changed a lot in college, not just to learn knowledge, but more importantly the way of thinking, creativity, communication—the soft skills you never learn from ________ but learn from day-to-day life and from interacting with all the smart kids around you in school. Those sorts of things are what a Chinese education doesn’t ________.”