1 . Early last summer, I bought some yam（山药）roots for food but days later, a tuber （块茎）left was sprouting（发芽）. Thinking it was a waste of money to throw it away, I _____ the tuber into a flower pot hoping that it might take root and ______ something that could be put on the dinner table.

In the following months, I ____ the tuber regularly. Thankfully, the _____ yam grew well. Soon it was autumn, and I decided to ______ .

I pulled out the leaves of the yam and began to dig with my fingers carefully for I knew the yam could ______easily. Suddenly my fingers __ the yam root. When almost no __ was left, I tried to pull the root but failed.

In ______   , I turned the pot over. Half of the yam root had grown through one of the three holes ______

The whole tuber, _____ two parts, one in and one out of the pot, was in the _____ of a handwritten L. Unlike ordinary yam roots, the part outside the pot was not round—it was _____ , looking like a hand of an old farmer who works hard to make a ______ . The very end of the part outside the pot was _____ . Obviously, the skin must have been rubbed off during its __ with the heavy pot. The very tip of the unusual part seemed to be bleeding.

The sight filled me with ______ . Then and there my opinion of the plant _____ . I came to understand that the tuber, though ______ wounded, had struggled hard. Such was a yam, an ordinary-looking plant with ________characteristics.

2 . Harry Smith has a dog, Sarah Jane. They are best friends and love to take walks together. One day when they _________ in a park, the two of them _________a beautiful lake. Although Harry used a wheelchair, this usually wasn't a problem for him. _________ when his wheels got stuck that day, he quickly found himself thrown into the _________

As the 81-year-old, not being able to _________, screamed(尖叫)for help, Sarah jumped into action-she barked(吠叫)as _________ as possible. Luckily, the dog’s bark caught two men’s attention and they made their way over. One of the men, Edward Suhling, _________ in the water. And they got _________ from a police officer who just happened to be nearby. Together, the three of them _________ Harry out of the water as quickly as possible.

“I am __________ to Sarah and the three passers-by that helped __________ my life!” Harry wrote on the Internet. “And the __________ remains true-a man's best __________ is his dog.” Needless to say, Harry made sure to __________ his best friend of seven years how grateful he was in a way that every __________ loves: with food.

3 . Back in 2017, Chile experienced some rather devastating wildfires that burned more than 1.4 million acres of forest. In the years since it has been a very _________ journey for those trying to bring life back to the _________ earth. But with a little canine(犬科的) help, Francisca and Constanza Torres have been struggling to help rebuild in face of the _________. And their three Border Collies(边境牧羊犬) could not be any cuter as they do their doggie _________ as well.

Two sisters have been using the help of their dogs, Das, Olivia, and Summer, to get seeds _________. They _________ their pups with special backpacks that release the seeds of _________ plants along the ground as the dogs _________ the burned forest. Francisca shared that not only is it benefiting the _________, but the dogs are more than happy for the playtime. __________, they are seeing many __________ flora and fauna(动植物群) making a __________ to the areas that had been burned.

Besides using the dogs to help __________ the forests, Torres also keeps busy __________ assistance dogs in an environmental community that is dog-focused. The Border Collies are actually better for the work than others because they not only have the endurance and __________ to run for miles across forest terrain, but they are focused dogs who don’t get __________ by wildlife. The three dogs are about to cross 18 miles per day—much more compared to the only few miles that humans can __________ a day. __________, dogs are a lot cheaper than drones or robots, and they have a much __________ carbon footprint. Overall it sounds like a(an) __________ for everyone involved!