1 . Spanish class scared me in the freshman year. I knew little Spanish before starting the class, and I thought it would be ________ for me. However, Mary, our honored Spanish teacher, who was full of creativity, made her class fun from the beginning. I knew what to expect with a schedule for each week, but there was always some slight ________.

Before the exam, Mary often asked us to ________ our lessons by ourselves. But I could remember one day she said, “This time, let’s play a game before going over what you’ve learned.” The game was so interesting that we all ________ ourselves. After the exam, Mary gave us opportunities to make up for our ________. After each error correction, she would check again. She took things so ________ that she wouldn’t overlook any detail. No wonder she was ________ by us.

Mary was ________ and willing to help, within reason, on everything. We could ask her questions at any time. She encouraged everyone to speak Spanish in class. Because of that, I was ________ enough, and then I could communicate with Spanish speakers outside of class. When she knew our problems, she would give advice. When someone was struggling, she would ________.

Mary’s ________ teaching eventually transformed my ________ into fascination. She infused (灌输) foreign culture into lessons, using music and dance to ________ our language skills. Her personalized attention to each student’s needs fostered a(n) ________ environment. At the end of the term, my Spanish improved, and my confidence soared. Mary left a lasting impact on my ________ for new challenges.

2 . Seven years ago, my wife bought me a terrific birthday present. For $70, she   _________ me two garden plots of land 20 feet by 20 feet from the Skokie Park District, which come with free _________ to fresh water from faucets, no _________. The football field of garden is a true place of beauty, costing the Park District very little to _________, with the water pipes being the only _________ capital investment.

My _________ is that gardening is good exercise accessible to people far into late middle age and beyond, deeply beneficial and _________ by couples and groups of friends. My garden neighbors and I, once _________, share ideas and encouragement. My daughter loves to help me _________ the wild weed, and the whole family loves the good fresh food, some of which I give to friends and neighbors.

I __________ about $300 to $400 a year but harvest literally 10 times the __________ of fresh produce—and I’m far from the best gardener!

We need to __________ one another while respecting each other as individuals, as carriers of subcultures, as positive people. Human difference is easier to accept with __________ when we know each other and are building something together.

And who doesn’t need to have __________ and get some exercise and eat great food? Community gardening is a wholly __________ activity.

3 . This week I saw a video of a mountain climber lying on the back of the Sherpa guide who helped rescue him.

Gelje says he was_______a client toward the summit ofEverest last month when he noticed another climber_______a rope, alone, in what's called Everest's“death_______”.These are the highest_______, where temperatures can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius, where human cells begin to________without oxygen.

Gelje stopped the climb of his own client. Then he rescued the________stranger, left hanging for his life,and________him for about six hours, to an area called theSouth Col, where another guide joined in the_______.

“We________the climber in a sleeping mat,”Gelje said,“dragged him on the snow, or carried him in______ on our backs to Camp Three, which is still more than 7,000 meters high.”

A helicopter met them to lift the________climber down to the base camp. He was taken to a hospital, and has since returned home to Malaysia.

We don't know how the Malaysian climber_______himself in danger. But the two guides who grow up in and know those________saw a stranger in danger, and risked their own lives to________him. As Gelje said,“Saving one life is more________than praying at the church.”

4 . Biar Kon, a 17-year-old student, whose parents were working in neighboring Sudan, moved to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to attend school. Once he _______, he needed to get some documents from the Sudanese embassy(大使馆). But when he went to look for the embassy, he couldn’t find it. He asked a few people for _______, and no one knew where it was. Then an older woman tapped him on the back.

The woman told Kon that she had seen him asking questions of multiple people as they _______, and she wondered if he needed money for food, or a place to stay. Then Kon realized that the woman thought he was _______.

They cleared up the _______, and the woman was able to offer her help. The woman’s _______ left a deep impression on Kon. And it inspired him to _______ five years later, when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. One day, outside a coffee shop, he _______ a man who was begging for change. Kon _______ that moment five years earlier, when the woman in Nairobi had ________ him for a homeless person. So he went up to the man to see what he could do. “He told me why he was on the street—because he made a（n） ________ mistake when he was in high school, and he couldn’t get a ________ now,” Kon recalled. Kon bought the man some breakfast, and gave him a little bit of money.

Today, it’s an encounter he ________. For him, it is a ________ that you never know what people are going through unless you talk to them ________ — the way the woman in Nairobi made an effort to talk to him.

5 . This is a story about a heart-warming rescue. A lucky cat was ______ by a team of brave firefighters in Cornwall, thanks to a clever and friendly dog.

Mowgli, a lovely cat, had been ______ for six long days, leaving his owner, Michele Rose, filled with ______ and nearly admitting the fact that she would never see her pet again. However, ______ appeared again when she noticed her dog, Daisy, “going ______ ” , running crazily in and out of the nearby woods around her home in Harrow.

Daisy guided her master along a footpath ______ the old mine. She came to a sudden stop next to a ______ well at a depth of 100 feet.

“Daisy is a hero; she’s an amazing dog,” Rose said. “Without Daisy’s behaviors, Mowgli might still be ______ down there. She was exactly leading me to that ______ ; it was truly amazing.”

Following the exciting ______ , the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals(RSPCA)and Cornwall Fire and Rescue ______ a call for help. The team found Mowgli about 100 feet down and he was pulled to safety. The cat was ______ not injured.

Rose said Daisy shares a ______ tie with both of her cats, Mowgli and Baloo. “Daisy was already a year old when the little cats ______ , and they have been together ever since,” she said. “She is like their ______ , looking out for them, and they also love her.”

6 . The morning commute (通勤) is never fun. But if you pass through Stevenage on your way to work, your morning might be a little ________ thanks to the cat Nala.

Dragging yourself out of bed in the morning and off to work is hard, ________ on dark winter mornings. However, you might ________ to come out of the house with a spring in your step if your commute started at Stevenage station, where you’d be ________ by a cat called Nala.

Usually found sitting on a ticket gate, four-year-old Nala lives close to the station with her owner Natasha Ambler, and often ________ the station at rush hour to enjoy attention from commuters. Ambler ________ a Facebook page called The Adventures of Nala where hundreds of people have voluntarily ________ photos of the adventurous cat.

Recent photos posted by commuters include Nala ________ in line for her canned food at a supermarket, napping on newspaper stands and ________ with commuters at the station barriers to get their attention.

Nala wears a GPS tracking device so that her ________ can be kept track of, and is usually found at the railway station or the ________ leisure park. As well as the usual collar with her name and owners’________ information, Nala wears a tag to let people know that she’s not ________.

According to the BBC, Ambler reported that she’s not ________ about Nala in the slightest: “She’s obviously ________ and she’s very happy doing what she does — I just hope one day she doesn’t actually try to get on a train.”

7 . For the past 17 years, Raquel Radford Baker has been a school bus driver for the Dallas Independent School District. Last month, Baker saved the life of a 7-year-old boy who had a _________ moment on his way to school when he accidentally swallowed (吞咽) a coin and began to choke.

The _________, which was caught on tape, took place on September 29. Preston, a first grader, was sitting in his seat on the bus, when he suddenly sat up, _________ that the coin he had been holding above his open mouth had _________ his throat. He got up and walked to Baker at the front of the bus and tapped her for _________.

Initially, Baker thought Preston was sick, but _________, she heard him say something about a coin and she sprang into _________. She grabbed him from behind and carried him off the bus. When she got to a bench in front of the school, she told a nearby parent to call 911 as she started _________ first aid, which she’d _________ during the company’s training sessions. ____________ that moment, Baker, getting teary, said the only ____________ running through her mind was, “I have to save this boy. I have to save him.”

Thanks to her ____________, the coin was removed from Preston’s throat. Before that, however, Preston had gone ____________ and his face was turning blue. Baker continued first aid. That was when Preston said, “Miss Raquel, I’m okay. I can ____________ ” Baker said that moment brought great ____________. She immediately hugged him tight. Preston promised to never put coins in his mouth again.

8 . I remember vividly the moment the doctor told me my daughter Annabelle was severely disabled. A thousand ________ raced through my mind. Will she walk? Will she talk? Will she be able to read?

“I couldn’t possibly ________,” said the doctor “But you should prepare yourself for the fact that she might never walk or talk.”

As well as ________ health, I wondered if she would have friends.

Now I know some of the answers. Although she has problems with the spine (脊柱), she can walk huge distances. She can’t hold a ________, but she can make her wants and needs known. And she has no friends.

Annabelle doesn’t get invited to birthday parties. To me, it’s this lack of inclusion (被接纳) that really ________me. Therefore, I was ________ when I saw a post on social media from a little girl with Down’s syndrome (唐氏综合症) at her friend’s birthday party. She was ________ having the greatest time of her life. There were photos of her wearing a wide smile, ________ for the camera, her friend’s arms around her.

“This is amazing!” I wrote, “I am so glad she gets________ in everything. My little girl was born with a spine problem. She hasn’t been invited to a single party in the last four years. ________ my heart.”

Later that day, a woman called Caroline, who I’d never met, sent me a message. Her son Luca was having a fifth birthday party and he wanted to ________ Annabelle.

As Annabelle set off for the party, she felt ________ and became hesitant. But once inside, she was relaxed and felt included in every element by two ________ — a five-year-old boy and his mum. It was highly ________.

My daughter now has memories that will last her a lifetime ________ that, she has her first ever friend.

9 . It was a hot, sticky Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of us set together, side by side, in rows of wooden folding chairs on the main _________ lawn. We wore blue nylon robes (礼袍). We listened _________ to long speeches and some students almost stood up. When the _________ was over, we threw our caps in the air, and we were _________ graduated from college. For many of us, the curtain had just come down on _________.

Afterward, I found Morrie Schwartz, my _________ professor, and introduced him to my parents. He was a small man who took small steps, _________ a strong wind could, at any time, blow him up into the clouds. In his graduation day robe, he looked like a Christmas elf (精灵).

He told my parents how I took every class he taught, “You have a special boy here.” _________, I looked at my feet. Before we left, I _________ my professor a present, a brown __________ with his initials (首字母) on the front. I bought this the day before at the shopping mall. I didn’t want to forget him. Maybe I didn’t want him to forget __________.

“Mlitch, you are one of the good ones,” he said, __________ the briefcase. Then he __________ me. I felt his thin arms around my back. I was taller, and when he held me, I felt awkward, older, as if he were the __________.

He asked if I would __________, and without hesitation I replied “Of course.”

10 . Christian Bowers, now 24, has Down Syndrome (唐氏综合征) and it’s been hard for him to find good friends. His mom, Donna Herter, said his lack of friends was making him feel ________.

Herter didn’t know who to turn to. So, she posted it on Facebook. “I just basically said that I was looking for a young ________,” she said. “I told them that I’d pay them $80 for two hours to just ________ and play video games with him. All he ________ wants is just a guy friend to do guy stuff with.”

Herter said Christian attends events for people with special ________, but he “desires a friendship with somebody who is ________”.

Herter sent the post at I am and when she woke up, it had about 5,000 comments. She saw parents ________ suggestions, others volunteering to help. “My hands were ________. I was sweating,” she said.

After ________ a few local guys in Wentzville, Minnesota, Donna ________ it down to seven who now visit Christian once a week.

James Hasting was one of the men she ________. Hasting said he works with people with disabilities and it’s something he has a(n) ________ for. He said he had visited Christian three times so far and they had a wonderful time together.

“Though on the ________ we may look different, deep down we have ________ and getting along should be easy,” Hasting said. He hopes to ________ others to form friendships-because you never know how much it means to someone.