1 . Two pool (台球) players who were once competitors have become lifelong friends after a kidney transplant (肾移植).

James Harris Jr. and Russ Redhead were _______ before they first met a decade ago in Maryland for an American Poolplayers Association tournament.

At the time, the two were _______ the top prize, an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas. After _______ , Redhead was upset, criticizing Harris in a post online. However, people _______ Harris in the comment section, making Redhead eventually take the post down and _______ . " I`ve learned over time that Harris is actually a good guy,” Redhead, 42, said. “We were _______ to attend other tournaments together. " Over the years, their _______ grew, and they often shared their passion for pool competitions.

Harris suddenly suffered from complete renal failure (肾衰竭), and needed a transplant. _______ , none of his family members had perfectly matched him. Harris' wife Denise shared his story and his _______ in a pool tournament group online, hoping to find a ________ living donor.

Learning about Harris' ________ , Readhead made a decision. He telephoned Denise, ________ , "Don't worry. I'll do that." ________ , Denise burst into tears and said, "You don't know what that ________ to us!" Testing showed Readhead was a perfect match for his ________ competitor. Redhead and Harris underwent a successful kidney transplant on Feb. 8, 2024.

2 . I first picked up a racquet（球拍) and ball when I was four. Jim Joyce, my first tennis coach, was teaching me to play and think _______.

One day, I started making _______ when I hit. He asked me if I was sick, and I said no. “I heard it would give me more power,” I _______ shyly. “Asho, that’s absolutely _______,” he replied. “You’re not doing any better with it. You’ re concentrating on grunting (发出哼声) instead of _______. If you grunt again, I’m walking off this court.”

Jim also found ways to get me into trouble. I played my first competition when I was six. I’d been _______ for almost two years, and I was certain I was going to win. But Jim made me _______. There aren’t many lessons to be learned from an easy win. He intentionally found an _______ girl to play me clean off the court.

This philosophy extended to everything I did. I remember climbing out of my age group _______ when I was 11 against a 14- year- old girl. Jim went to her and told her how to beat me. “Play to her low forehand,” “Hit a short slice.” He ________ I would pay more attention to my ________ if they led to losses. I won anyway. From then on, I began winning quickly.

But there was one girl, Lyann Hoang. I was forever ________ her, endlessly losing to her. Jim loved seeing me ________ this way — until I cried. “Keep going,” he said. “One day you’ll catch her.” Finally, I did. And I ________ him with a surprised and yet satisfied look. Jim was as cool as ever. “Yeah, Asho, but it’s just one match. Let’s practise again tomorrow.” These valuable ________ continuously influence me whether I win or lose.

3 . GRIEVOUS LADY

Perhaps she should have worried, because her heart was suddenly in pain.

The cruelest fate is to have hope and see it crushed before your eyes. And so the girl sat on her knees in a malformed circle of death, looking at a world coming to its end. This was the first time she had felt the emotion of sadness, and it was quickly turning into despair. The world of Arcaea was a pointless world. It was the manifestation of worlds gone. It had no substance, only the reflections of such. Even the glowing (热情洋溢的；灼热的) and joyful memories she had sometimes _________ on her way were still only memories of the past. Like night comes after day, they had to have led into the end she now saw spinning slowly in the air before her. Her eyes welled with tears.

…

Like an ocean _________ with oil, the memories of a cursed labyrinth and the memories she had brought with her all fell and muddled into the soothing glass around her. Most of them churned into a gray mass, some would suddenly jut (伸出) up from the ground like _________. She went still, and slowly looked over every shard, just…_________ them. Even when memories came shooting up sharply near her eyes, she continued to count.

Eventually she lifted a finger, beckoning some of the _________ towards her. And, with a simple thought, the fragments came together in the shape of a fragile butterfly. She _________ it into the sky, to reflect the world of white, and when it came down again to tell her what it had seen, with a simple thought she slowly _________ each of its wings, and let it fall into nothing. Then, she walked forward from the corrupted sea, willing each pillar of lost time that entered her path to explore and shatter.

…

Time passed. She _________.

She no longer sought to collect _________. She walked through the world mostly absently. She discovered things about it and about herself, but she had no __________.

Now she walked beside an old and crumbing building, __________ a parasol (遮阳伞) she had found in the ruins some day. __________, a creature formed of glass reflecting bitter days glided down toward her from the sky. It resembled a glistening and jagged crow, and it was something she considered no more than a tool. __________ that day at the now-fallen tower, she’d become more in tune with the chaotic Arcaea and was able to call upon things like this. In its own way, it whispered to her of places beyond her reach in the blinding white world. Glaring at it, she had it burst and fall apart, and she moved on.

The __________ of hers sickened her with news. The world was empty, that’s all it said. That she knew. She’d never find anyone else here.

She wanted to. She need to. But it was not because she hoped to have someone to share her __________ with.

She needed to let this frustration out on something alive. She needed someone to hurt.

4 . I love my husband. I also love dancing. Over the years we had learned from experience that we two were never in _______ when we danced together. We seemed to have an abundance of left feet.

So when our son announced that he was getting _______ , I knew something had to be done. I signed us up for dancing classes. My husband was _______ at first. However, with the wedding approaching in months, he _______ agreed to go.

Our instructor taught us the basic steps but warned that if we didn’t practice, we’d _______ them by the next class. We knew she was _______ because by the time we got home that first night we were already _______ to remember everything she showed us.

However, we found our dancing improved as we practiced. We _______ something else as well. Things seemed to be changing between us in a good way. We were _______ each other. As we accepted our different approaches to dance, we began to be less critical in other areas. When we held hands as we got ready to dance, the ________ of our dating days returned. We laughed a lot more when we danced, no longer upset by our ________ . We started with our instructor’s steps and then began ________ our own. We were having fun!

We danced at our son’s wedding and to our ________ , we keep on dancing. Dancing has drawn us closer. The wedding was the excuse to ________ , but the result was more than a physical exercise. As we continue dancing, wrapped in each other’s arms and looking into each other’s happy faces, we rekindle (重新点燃) our ________ .

5 . “I can’t miss my exam!” Tom murmured to himself as he looked nervously at his watch. He knew that if he did, his parents would ________ him for not doing well in English this year. ________, Tom had overslept because he was doing some ________ revision the night before. That morning, having been waiting for his bus for over ten minutes, he ________ to run to school. With only twenty minutes left before the English exam, time was _________. He rushed as fast as he could.

Reaching the side gate, Tom found it ________. Fearing the Discipline Master, he chose to ________ over. Heart pounding, he ________his bag and started to climb. Tom grasped the metal bars and climbed to the top. Before he could jump off. he _________his shirt was caught on a metal spike (长钉). Feeling ________, he pulled forcefully and fell, twisting his ankle with a ________ crash.

As tears streamed down his face, the Discipline Master ________ him and escorted (护送) him to the school’s clinic. While the nurse was ________ Tom’s ankle, the Discipline Master informed Tom’s parents of the ________. Embarrassed, Tom apologised for his delay and was granted (准予) ________ to sit for his exam that afternoon.

This experience taught Tom a valuable lesson. From then on, he became more responsible and punctual (准时), ensuring he would never again be late for an important commitment.

6 . “When my mom asked me how I would want to make a difference in the world, I said I wanted to help stop racism (种族歧视) ,” said Emi Kim, a 10-year-old from Provo, Utah.

To make that a _______ , Emi and her family came up with the idea of _______ more diverse books that feature people of color into school libraries, something Emi said she _______ will help people understand one another. Statistics show that there are _______ books with main characters that are white than there are books with main characters that are Black, or a person of color.

Emi _______ set out to buy 15 books for just her school, with main _______ from Asian, Native American, Latino, and Black cultures, and _______ a lemonade stand to raise the funds. Her mom, Dorie Kim, said that they actually raised $762, which allowed them to _______ their plan to buy five sets of 15 books for five local schools.

The desire to bring about change also comes from the _______ Kim tries to teach her children. “One of the things that I want to ________ our kids is to be proud of who they are,” Kim said. “And to be ________ of other people and who they are.”

“If kids see kids of color in ________ and learn that they're good too, that they have ________ and can get sad if they're made fun of, they might not make fun of them,” Emi said. “Being treated based on the way you ________ is not right. We're all people and that's all that really ________.”

7 . In a sea of male competitors, Cole Brauer is the only woman in an around- the- world solo sailing competition that’s quickly coming to a close. Later this week, the 29- year- old from Long Island is _________ to cross the finish line in waters off the coast of Spain.

Friends, peers and sailing _________ have been cheering Brauer on since last October, when she _________ her more than four-month-long journey. Her boat, First Light, is supposed to return to the race’s _________ point of A Corunna, Spain, on Thursday, March 7, according to organizers of the Global Solo Challenge.

Brauer _______   arriving in Spain late on the night of March 6 or early on March 7. The latest official race _________ said Braue r was off the west coast of the Azores on March 2.

Over the past several months, Brauer has been keeping her more than 400,000 Instagram followers refreshed and _________ with videos from First Light. The trip has been extremely challenging and _________ tiring, Brauer said in one video from December.

In the post, she describes how _________ she felt when she had to fix and replace different parts of the boat. “I don’t want you guys to think I’m like Superwoman or something,” Braue r said. “Right now I’ve been feeling just __________,” she added, describing how she had to fix the boat’s autopilot system after injuring her body against the side of the boat surrounded by __________ waves.

On her profile page on the Global Sol o Challenge website, Brauer says she wants to send a (n) __________ to the sailing community that it’s time to change its culture __________ by men. In the profile, Brauer __________ a lack of equal pay and what she describes as __________ in the sailing industry.

8 . I had a terrible experience last year. One night my younger brother, Chase, was driving us home from our weekly cleaning of the church. We were both getting ________, so we picked up a couple of energy drinks at a gas station. Then we jumped onto the freeway and ________ home.

The ride was fine. My brother was focused, so I ________ my eyes. I woke up when we were close to our exit. But the car ________ turned to the right. I did not care at first because Chase often played jokes. Then I ________ it was not a joke at all.

I shouted my brother’s name at the top of my ________. He woke up from his sleep in time to slam on the brakes, though the brakes did little to ________ us down. We crashed into a streetlight, ________ us hit the dirt hill of the off-ramp (出口匝道).

Then I ________ something white and bright shoot toward my chest. It hit me and left me breathless but ________ me from the dashboard (仪表盘). The streetlight swung around, hitting two other ________ and then crashed back onto the hood of our car. One inch ________ to us, Chase and I wouldn’t be here today. A kind man ________ us out of our car, and the policeman came to ________ us. They said there were no broken ribs (肋骨) and no internal bleeding.

Our dad ________ on the scene in his car and drove us home. From that day on, we never drove while we were sleepy or tired again.

9 . Julia Keller decided to quit journalism in order to write fiction. Her subversive (颠覆性的) message is that if at first you don’t succeed — or even if you do then may be just _______. There is, she argues, too much of a premium (价值) placed on the ability to grit your teeth and _______ through misery.

Last year’s TikTok trend for “Quit Toks” saw users live-streaming _______ emails or posting videos of themselves turning off the lights as they left the office. And now the desire to quit seems to be _______ in far earlier, with three-quarters of 18-to 29-year-olds feeling less motivated professionally post-pandemic. A generation raised to be constantly hustling (急速前进) may finally be pushing back.

Yet for many of us, quitting remains shrouded (隐瞒) in guilt and shame, associated with failure rather than with pursuing a different kind of _______. The idea that success in both public and private life involves pushing yourself to the _______ remains deeply ingrained (根深蒂固的), especially for those young enough to have grown up when the cult (热潮) of grit (勇气) and growth _______ was at its height.

Keller fears the belief that success is a matter of never giving up may cover up the role of structural economic _______ and encourage people to blame the poor for their own poverty, on the grounds that they didn’t try hard enough. Similarly, the idea that women should stick it out through a _______ marriage can be equally damaging. Keller says: “Women in ________ relationships were told, ‘Oh you can’t leave, how can you give up now you’ve ________ in 10 years?’ It becomes insidious (暗中有害的).”

She insists she’s not ________ giving up everything at the drop of the hat. For those who aren’t sure or can’t afford to leave a miserable situation, she suggests “quasi-quitting”, or quietly taking ________ steps that bring you closer to where you’d rather be without burning any ________. Keller explains, “Because it may backfire in spectacular ways, eating away careers and blowing up relationships. It can ruin your life. And it can ________ it, too.”

10 . Juleus Ghunta is an award-winning children’s author, but growing up, he could barely __. Raised by a single mother, who often had to make __ choices about how to use their limited resources－including a decision to send his oldest sister to school, he had been kept home and had no __ to books as a child.

When Ghunta finally got the opportunity to attend school, he couldn’t __ words, spell, or read with understanding. The situation was made worse by a series of teachers who made him feel __. “They were not very patient, not very kind,” he said, “I suffered from a deep sense of loss and shame.”

Fortunately, a young teacher decided to start a reading program for __ students. Ghunta was the first to sign up. “The teacher was __ kind to me.” he said, “She had left me with the gift of literacy, and a deeper appreciation of my value as a human being.” Under her patient __, Ghunta’s reading skills gradually improved, and his sense of inadequacy (不足) began to __.

After interacting with the young teacher, Ghunta’s life took a new __. He graduated from high school with a number of academic awards, and went on to college successfully. Nowadays, he is the author of two children’s books about __ difficult experiences in childhood.

In 2010, Ghunta went back to his old school to __ his old teacher’s name, but in vain. However, he still hopes to __ her one day, so that he can thank her for seeing his __. “I would love for her to see the significant impact she has made on my life, and the ways in which I have carried this __ of her－the hope, the light, with me－and how it continues to be a source of joy.”