2 . Snow had just melted off the ground that April day at our house in Regina Beach. My husband, Carl, had just cleaned up the pool in preparation for selling our _______. The year before, Carl had lost his job, and our economic situation was _______, so we had finally put our home on the _______. The thought of losing our beautiful home was almost more than I could bear.

Deep in despair(绝望), I sat _______ a job application letter for Carl. Out of the corner of my eye I could see our thirteen-month-old son, Forrest, playing near our two beloved dogs, Nana and Sasa. I hadn’t typed more than two sentences when Nana, began _______ violently at the pool and running back and forth.

I _______ to see what was happening. Suddenly, I realized Forrest was nowhere to be seen. Then to my _______, my eyes _______ Forrest’s yellow sleeper in the pool. Sasa was _______ doing her best to keep him afloat by holding on to his sleeper with her mouth. I realized that Forrest had somehow fallen into the ________.

In a split second, I dove in, lifted my precious baby out and carried him inside. But when I realized Forrest wasn’t breathing, I began to go into shock. ________, Carl, who was trained in CPR, arrived and then took over. I stood by with my heart in my ________, and after about three minutes, Forrest began to ________ again.

Things in our lives are much better now. Most importantly, almost losing Forrest —and then ________ — erased any despair I might have had about losing our home.

A house can always be replaced, but knowing we have each other is the greatest ________ of all.

3 . When it came to weather, I was always complaining about wind or rain. Although it was _________ unusual for the arrival of wind or rain, it caused _________ for me to go out, and sometimes it even created an awful atmosphere, so I _________ it strongly.

On a rainy day, I met a meteorologist（气象学家）, who was very _________ at my great anger caused by rain that made a little inconvenience for me. He asked, “Have you ever seen typhoon? Do you know what would happen to the world if there were no typhoon?” I _________ my head.

“Well, let me tell you,” the meteorologist said. “Without it the _________ of freshwater will be more serious, for it is a great source of water supply on the earth. Without it, there would be a greater _________ in the distribution（分布）of warmth. The equatorial （赤道的）area that receives the most sunshine on the earth _________ on typhoon to disperse（驱散）heat. Without typhoon, the tropics would be even hotter, while the frigid zones much _________. As a result, the temperate（温带的）zones would __________ from the world.”

Ignorance made me __________. I disliked wind only because it ruffled（吹乱）my hair. I hated rain only because I had to carry an umbrella. But I had no idea at that typhoon—something a thousand times more violent and disturbing than wind or rain—was a __________ to the existence of mankind.

It __________ to my mind that hard as it is for people to guard against typhoon, it is advisable for a man to stop to think for a moment before he complains. “What if typhoon disappeared altogether? What would the world become then?” The __________ will keep him calm and lead him closer to the truth—he will be better __________ of the world he lives in.

4 . At around 3 p. m. on Monday, Erin Wilson stopped at a picnic area along Highway 299. She began walking her two-year-old sheepdog, Eva, along a path when a mountain lion _______ and attacked Wilson, who screamed, catching the _______ of her 2-year-old Eva. Eva, who had been wandering ahead, immediately returned to _______ her owner. The mountain lion then _______ the 55- pound dog and bit onto the bodyguard’s head. Wilson _______ without success to fight off the lion with stones, so she ran up to the road, frantically trying to flag someone down.

Sharon Houston, who was driving by, saw Wilson and _______. After learning about the mountain lion attack, without _______ Houston jumped out of her car with her pepper spray（喷雾剂）and also grabbed a stick. The two women _______ to the scene in the forest, where the struggle was going on, with the mountain lion still _______ to let go of the dog. They both started hitting it and yelling ________ it finally set loose the bleeding dog.

Eva eventually ________. Houston pepper sprayed the mountain lion in the face, and it immediately turned away and ________. Eva was gravely injured, and Wilson ________ drove Eva to a vet(兽医). After spending several days there, the dog was ________. Now Eva, lying on her own bed with her favorite toys, is on the road to ________. “My dog is my hero and I owe her my life.” Wilson said.

9 . City air is in a sorry state. It is dirty and hot. Outdoor pollution kills 4.2m people a year, according to the World Health Organization. Concrete and tarmac, meanwhile, absorb the sun’s rays rather than reflecting them back into space, and also _____ plants which would otherwise cool things down by evaporative transpiration (蒸腾作用). The never-ceasing _____ of buildings and roads thus turns urban areas into heat islands, discomforting residents and worsening dangerous heatwaves.

A possible answer to the twin problems of pollution and heat is trees. Their leaves may destroy at least some chemical pollutants and they certainly _____ tiny particles floating in the air, which are then washed to the ground by rain. Besides transpiration, they provide _____.

To cool an area effectively, trees must be planted in quantity. Two years ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that American cities need 40% tree _____ to cut urban heat back meaningfully. Unfortunately, not all cities — and especially not those now springing up in the world’s poor and middle-income countries — are _____ with parks, private gardens or a sufficient number of street trees. And the problem is likely to get worse. At the moment, 55% of people live in cities. By 2050 that share is expected to reach 68%.

One group of botanists believe they have at least a partial _____ to this lack of urban vegetation. It is to plant miniature simulacra (模拟物) of natural forests, ecologically engineered for rapid growth. Over the course of a career that began in the 1950s, their leader, Miyawaki Akira, a plant ecologist at Yokohama National University in Japan, has developed a way to do this starting with even the most _____ deserted areas. And the Miyawaki method is finding increasing _____ around the world.

Dr Miyawaki’s insight was to deconstruct and rebuild the process of ecological succession, by which _____ land develops naturally into mature forest. Usually, the first arrival is grass, followed by small trees and, finally, larger ones. The Miyawaki method _____ some of the early phases and jumps directly to planting the kinds of species found in a mature wood.

Dr Miyawaki has _____ the planting of more than 1,500 of these miniature forests, first in Japan, then in other parts of the world. Wherever they are planting, though, gardeners are not restricted to _____ nature’s recipe book to the letter. Miyawaki forests can be customized to local requirements. A popular choice, _____, is to include more fruit trees than a natural forest might support, thus creating an orchard that requires no maintenance.

If your goal is to better your _____ surroundings, rather than to save the planet from global warming, then Dr Miyawaki might well be your man.

10 . Libby the cat lives at the Ashville Free Library in Ashville, NY. She is 19 years old and has brought _________ to library readers for many years.

_________, the older she gets, the more it costs to keep her healthy. “This year alone, we’ve spent nearly $900 on vet(兽医) bills for her _________ for an ear infection and a cold. For a small library with a very stressful economic condition, this is _________,” a spokesperson for the library said. “Libby is getting older, slower, and a little weaker, but we _________ to give her the best care we can. However, that care comes _________,” the library wrote on fundraiser (募捐会).

As of Friday morning, more than $2,900 had been raised—_________ reaching the $1,500 goal.

“The explosion(爆发) of _________ for our dear Libby has been so heartwarming,” Director Kristina Benson said. “We’ve had people coming in who’ve never visited our library, _________ stories of cats that were important to them, and how Libby’s story in the paper __________ their hearts.”

Libby has recently been __________ from a cold. “Libby is __________ so much better and she appreciates everyone’s visits and well wishes!” Benson wrote on GoFundMe. “Thanks to the community, we have __________ money to make sure her good care going forward, as well as paying her old bills. We love our kitty and we love our library—and your __________ support has been a great __________ that you all feel the same. THANK YOU!!”