2 . A baby giraffe born with a leg abnormality has been fitted with special leg braces (支架) to help her walk.

The giraffe is named Msituni. She _________ from a condition called carpal hypertension (腕骨高血压). It affected the young animal’s front legs, which was especially _________ to a giraffe. The abnormality was putting a lot of _________ on her joints and bones. Zoo workers _________ that she could die if they did not quickly correct the _________. This is because it could _________ the giraffe from getting food and from being able to walk around.

Zoo officials called in experts to treat the giraffe. The medical team had a lot of _________ fitting people with braces to correct leg problems. But they had _________ treated an animal before. Ara Mirzaian was a member of the medical team. He found the situation strange and _________ went online to start learning as much as possible about giraffes.

The team __________ models of the giraffe’s legs. It took the team about a week to produce the braces, which were made of a material called carbon graphite (碳石墨). After 10 days in the special brace, the problem was __________ . In total, Msituni was in braces for 39 days from the day she was born. She __________ in the animal hospital the whole time.

Mirzaian said he planned to __________ a picture in his office of the baby giraffe wearing her special brace so that the children he treats might be __________ to wear their own braces. “It was the coolest thing to see an animal like that walk in a brace,” he said. “It feels __________ to know we saved a giraffe’s life.”

3 . It was 1:20 a. m. I had just gone to bed, a bit _________ after celebrating my 31st birthday. Before dinner, I’d placed _________ outside my garden door and prepared the cell phone just _________. After all, it had been _________ that week, resulting in flood warnings.

I was awakened by the _________ of rushing water. When I swung my legs off the bed, I was shocked to feel cold water already up to my knees and _________ fast.

Shaking in darkness, I _________ my phone and turned on its flashlight. Then by the light I could _________ water was from the garden door. It must have breached (在……上) the sandbags. The river, usually such a quiet, slow moving river in my region, had _________ burst its banks. And now I had to __________!

I took __________ action. Any effects of the alcohol before sleep were gone;__________ sobers (使清醒) one up. After I went outside, I learned the river had flooded the neighbourhood. Therefore, if I had woken up just a few minutes later, I would have drowned.

In the end, I think the experience made me __________ and determined to live each day to its fullest. I came very close to drowning that day. But rather than dwell on (沉湎于)what happened, I prefer to __________ what my mother told me afterwards, “Don’t remember the day when you lost everything. Remember the day you __________. That day marked the beginning of a new chapter in your life.”

4 . I was driving on the freeway when I noticed heavy clouds roll in. A storm was coming. The rain began beating ______ against my car windows, making driving impossible. I ______ onto the shoulder of the road and stopped. The rain ______ me of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina struck when I was nine years old. I had worried it would strike us in Houston. It missed us, but other cities were not so lucky. I remembered watching the ______. A reporter stood inside the Houston stadium, ______ people. Many wore dirty and ______ clothes, and some had no shoes on their feet. I noticed a little boy behind the reporter ______ an old teddy bear. Watching him, I knew I had to do something.

The next day, my friends ______ me for our volunteer club and we came up with a plan. We wanted to ______ toys and give them to the kids at the stadium, which would bring some ______ into the lives of these families. We ______ the word to the school and other organizations. Three days later, the donation boxes were overflowing with new toys! When we ______ the stadium with our gifts, children ______ toward us from all directions, smiles lighting up their faces.

Suddenly, a phone call brought me back to the present. To my joy, the storm had ______. “Hector, we have more ______ of yesterday’s tornado.” “Well, I’ve brought clothes I’d like to donate to them. The storm stopped me, but I’ll be there soon!”

7 . Last night my husband and I were walking when we saw a man bent over on the ground, crushing (碾碎) something with a rock. He was so focused on his _________ that he didn’t look up at anyone passing by. We kept noticing him and _________ what he could be doing. I thought he was crushing stones to make sand, but why would he do that?

_________, we decided to go up and ask him. He was crushing pieces of left-over bread that he had _________ to prepare food for the birds that come there early morning. The large pieces of bread would be _________ for the birds to eat so he crushed them into powder. Every _________, after coming home from his job as a tailor, he goes around the villa (乡间别墅), collecting left-over bread from all his housemates. He then eats a quick meal and comes here, and spends the next 1 — 2 hours _________ crushing each piece and makes a neat pile for the birds. He has been doing this for the last 3 — 4 years. What _________ us more was that he was _________ that we were even taking an interest in this, since for him it wasn’t a big __________.

9 . Natalie and Callie, both 13 years old, started raising monarch butterflies for fun in 2020.

But after realizing the monarchs were an endangered species, their _________ soon turned into a serious mission.

They learned that the population of monarch butterflies had _________ since the early 1990s, due to habitat _________ and widespread use of chemicals, which made the milkweeds (马利筋草) that the monarchs _________ for their main diet dangerous to eat.

So the girls teamed up with a national nonprofit group to plant a native garden _________ for the monarchs. The garden grew organic milkweeds that _________ and kept the butterflies. To help _________ the locals to sustain the monarch population, they created an exhibition about the monarchs in the local library. They also wanted to put up an educational sign in town, but it _________ a lot. To cover the expense, they set up a stand at the Farmers Market to sell their healthy milkweeds for people to _________ . Although the fund-raising days were ____________, they finally succeeded in earning enough money with their hard work and people’s support.

The team has won the Silver Award for their ____________ of taking care of butterflies, but they are not ____________ with their work. “Our next step is to cut down on the use of ____________ to guarantee a safe environment for the monarchs,” said Natalie. In the award ceremony, their teacher Brian ____________, “I am so proud of them for their constant ____________.”