2 . In the dining room of my grandfather’s house stood a large clock. When I was a child, the old clock interested me very much. I was surprised at how the clock would chime (敲响) three times, six times or more, with a wonderful _______sound. I often _______ it instead of the _______ when I had meals. And always the clock stood like an old family _______, watching the family. I found the clock comforting and _________. Year after year, the clock became a part of my _______.

It was even more wonderful to me when my grandfather carefully wound that clock with a special key each day. The key was magic to me. It kept the clock running. It kept the clock chiming. How did it do that? I watched as my grandfather took the key from his pocket and opened the door in the old clock and used the key to wind it. He never let that clock wind down and stop. When I got a little older, he _______me how to open the door, and let me wind the clock myself. I remember the first time I did, I felt so _______.

After my grandfather passed away, every time I saw the clock, I couldn’t help _______. Never could I see ________again. The hands on the clock were ________. It stopped. I took the key with my shaking hand and opened the door. All of a sudden, I was a child again, ________my grandfather. He was there,________me. I stood there, lost in the memories. Then ________ and carefully, I wound the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock… The dining room and the ________ seemed to be filled with life. In the image of the clock, my grandfather also lived again.

4 . Draper was the owner of a secondhand bookstore. One day, when he was sorting through a pile of old books, an envelope _______ from one. Inside was an undated letter and a faded photo of a woman holding a little girl on her lap. The letter said if Bethany was _______ it, it meant the author had died.

Tears were welling up in Draper’s eyes. These were a _______ woman’s last words to her child. He had to _______ Bethany. “Whoever it is will keep this.” he thought. “You wouldn’t throw away a letter like that.”

He supposed if the book ended up in his shop then Bethany was likely from around Bishop Auckland. And he thought he would _______ the little girl’s face. Even if she’d since left the area, there might be someone in the town who would recognize the picture.

He started with the local newspaper. The Northern Echo ran the story of the _______ letter.

Meanwhile, Bethany Gash, now 21 and a(n) _______ herself, was on Facebook about 10 miles away when a close friend messaged her to check out the _______. As she read her mother’s _______ which she thought had been lost forever, she said she thought she must be ________.

Bethany was only 4 when her mother ________. Five years later, her family moved to a new home and the letter, put away in the pages of a book for safe keeping, was unintentionally ________.

She remembered unpacking and looking for the letter, and then ________ searching through everything in the hope that it was there. “That’s when I realized it was gone and I’d never see it again,” she said.

Draper ________ the letter in person. He also brought her a children’s book for her son. Bethany was greatly moved to have the letter back, and also touched by the stranger’s ________.

5 . 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.”

8 . Grandma is ninety this Christmas. I remember once visiting her, crying when my big sister told me “There is no Santa Claus!”, because I knew she always told the ________.

“No Santa Claus?” she snorted (哼着说). “Ridiculous! Don’t ________ it. That rumor has been going around for years. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”

“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked.

“Where” ________ to be Kerby’s General Store. As we walked in, Grandma handed me twenty dollars. “Take the money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you outdoors.”

I was only eight years old, and had never ________ for anything alone. For a few moments I just stood there, ________, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

Suddenly I ________ Bobbie, a kid sitting behind me in the classroom. He didn’t have a coat; he never ________ during the winter. I held the bill excitedly. I would buy Bobbie a coat. I saw a red one with a hat to it. It looked really ________. He would like that.

That ________, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and write, “To Bobbie, From Santa Claus” on it. Then she drove me to Bobbie’s house. Grandma ________ down the street, and we hid in the bushes by his front walkway. Then Grandma pushed me ________. “All right, Santa Claus, get going!” she whispered.

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, ________ the present down, rang his doorbell and flew back. Together we waited ________ in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobbie.

Forty years haven’t ________ the excitement of those moments. That night, I realized those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said: they were ________. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

9 . 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!!”

10 . He man Bekele was not atypical high school student._________spending his free time playing videogames, this 14-year-old was conducting experiments. His goal was to create a_________that could treat skin cancer, and make it affordable for everyone who_________it.

Growing up in Ethiopia, Africa, He man_________saw people getting sunburned by the hot sun working outside. He didn’t_________much of it when he was really little, but a she_________he realized how serious skin cancer really was.

Skin cancer does have cures and it is_______in most cases. However, the average_______of skin cancer treatment is almost $40, 000. When hearing the shocking_________, He man planned to create a more__________and accessible solution. He started doing experiments and working on different things, which turned into his bar of soap as a project.

His__________won him the prize in this year’s 3M Young Scientist’s Challenge, a competition that__________kids to think of unique ways to solve everyday problems. He man was so surprised and__________when he first heard the news of his award. “It’s__________to see that my ideas can be __________and seen by the science community,” he said.