1 . I grew up both a little frightened and excited by storms and tornadoes. Nearly 9 years ago, when the news reported that there would be _______ coming that night, I was well aware of the _______ of it.

While I was preparing for the storm, I heard the rumble（隆隆声）, saw power flashes and knew it was coming. After _______ the power for safety, I jumped into a bath that was right inside the door and closed the door and laid down and _______ my head and prayed for_______ and for my family.

My _______ was racing with a million thoughts, regrets, prayers, etc, but I still heard the storm_______ my house, then the sheetrock（石膏板）overhead _______ and it sounded like my roof lifted and came back down. I heard the _______ of nails being pulled out of wall, glass breaking, and then the most ________ sound I had ever heard.

I suddenly felt something ________ my head and everything went ________. When I opened my eyes again, I ________ blood on my wet head coming from a small________. I went out to check my car. I got blinded by a light as I exited the carport （车棚）. It was my neighborhood, coming to check on me. I stood there and tears poured down my face. Fortunately, we were________ that day.

2 . My mom loved to pass her wisdom to me: ”Nothing beats a good bite that bites back.” She was referring to her bitter-taste foods like dill pickles and rhubarb (大黄叶). But I was not a big fan.

Three years ago, I finally decided to ask if I could ________ out her rhubarb while weeding the garden. “________ not!” Mom gasped, throwing me a(n) ________ look. Clearly, I had underestimated her________ for it. However, as I continued ________, I thought about how rhubarb is one of the first to appear in spring. It ________ the snowy ground before the arrival of other plants. How can anyone fail to ________ it? When those first sprouts (嫩芽) appeared, Mom would count them like a ________ counting a newborn’s fingers and toes.

When I was a kid and my mom gave me that pie, it made me ________ to try. In my teens, it made me complain about the bitterness. Even ice cream or candies did not ________ the deal for my young taste buds (味蕾). Rhubarb was something to be ________ at all costs.

Then, last summer, I came across the ________ for her rhubarb pie in an old drawer. So I decided to give it a ________. A few attempts later, I served rhubarb pie to family and guests. All agreed, including me, that it tasted incredible.

Since then I’ve come to a ________ about rhubarb. Rhubarb’s taste may be lost on children, but adults can________ it. Like my wise mother, I now understand that “Nothing beats a good bite that bites back.”

3 . Now we are small, but when we grow up then we can teach our little brothers and sisters, the younger generation, to understand what is good and what is bad.

Shamima is from Bangladesh. She is seventeen years old. She ________ people living in her community about safe water.

Many people living near Shamima do not have ________ or latrines in their homes. They do not have a clean supply of drinking ________ And there is a lot of rubbish in the river where people ________ their water. Many people are sick in Shamima’s community because of the ________ water situation. But, Shamima plans to ________ that.

Shamima ________ many homes. She carries with her a simple set of directions and a ________ that she made herself. The picture has two sides. Shamima calls one side good and the other side bad. She shows people her picture and ______ what a healthy community looks like.

She makes sure each family is drinking ________ water from the well. She also teaches them ______ to make drinking water safe. She asks if they are using toilets or latrines. She tells them where to throw their ________ . And she teaches them the importance of washing their ________ before eating or preparing food. Shamima is ________ the bad water situation in her community.

“I am the one who has hands and feet and mind. And AIDS is only something that is inside my ________ . So it will try to rule the inside. But outside I will be the boss. I will be in control,” said Shamima.

4 . David was the type of guy who always decided everything that he was supposed to do. One day, something ______ happened to David.

After his 30th birthday, David went to see his ______ for a physical check-up.

A few days later, David ______ the phone call from his doctor. The doctor said. “We have found a cancerous tumor (肿瘤) in the back of your ______. Fortunately, it’s not too big, if we get it out as soon as possible, we don’t think there will be any further complications. However, it is a very dangerous procedure.” With ______ and fear in his voice, David says, “What kind of risks?” “Well, the tumor is very close to your brain stem, so if we make a wrong move, you could experience long-term brain ______, which would impair (损害) many different things, like the way you speak, the way you think, your ______. You may even forget the people who you love in your life.” ______ began falling down David’s face. “Do you want me to book it?” the doctor said. “I guess so,” David said.

It was now time for the surgery. David ______ there on the white medical bed in the operating room, waiting to be put to sleep… Fortunately, the surgery was a ______. He is now physically healthy.

This is how most people live their whole lives. They pick a career that they don’t really like. They ______ a partner that their friends or their family will tell them is a good one. They will choose a value ______ that social media or society tells them is a virtuous (道德高尚的) one.

Most people will be infected with the False Self ______ until the day they die. The only cure for this disease is that you have to ______ listening to other people who tell you how you should live your life. And then, once you do that, you have to become self-aware in order to ______ what type of life you want to live.

5 . Yuan Xin is a one-armed doctoral student from Wuhan University of Science and Technology. He touched many people with his _________ life story.

Yuan, who experienced a _________ in his childhood, is now a third-year doctoral student who has coded using only one hand for seven years, _________ more than 30 awards, including three patents.

He went from a freshman who had never touched a computer before attending university to a senior student in the lab, _________ his junior teammates on the path of scientific research as a team leader.

Yuan’s achievements did not come as a _________ to those who knew him. Yuan was well known as being the _________ one to enter a lab to do experiments, sometimes as early as five in the morning. During holidays, he would still be seen _________ at work.

He said _________, “Although I am slower than others, and there are always things that need completing, I often do overtime to manage them.”

“It’s hard to have such a high level of _________, even for students without __________ limitations,” said Yuan’s teacher.

At the age of 3, Yuan was hit by a truck while crossing the road. After five months of treatment, Yuan was __________ at the cost of his right arm.

By the time Yuan reached school age, his mother, who always believes “__________ can change the future”, __________ him to master writing with his left hand.

During an interview, Yuan said, “If I complain about my __________, then I can do nothing in life. There will always be people who __________ in life. Who says it can’t be me?”

6 . Driving is a dangerous activity. Every single day people, for a variety of reasons, are hurt or killed in accidents. One woman, an emergency nurse in the Phoenix, ________ to let a man in an accident become just another motor vehicle death ________.

On the morning of July 26, Leigh Ann just ________ her fourth straight night shift. After a stress-filled day at work, Leigh Ann was ________. She was heading home along the way when she noticed a horrible ________ in the distance. As she got closer, she ________ it was a cement truck turn on its side.

Obviously, it was a(n) ________ accident, and emergency first responders had not yet ________. Leigh Ann knew that she had to act. She hurried over to the truck, ________ crossing the usually busy highway, which was empty at the time.

She then quickly ________ the situation. She discovered the driver was trapped, still ________, but injured and losing blood at an alarming rate. The nurse ________ the man, and then used the man’s belt to stop any further blood loss. Leigh Ann ________ him until the rescue team took him away.

As for what put her in that ________ to help that man, Leigh Ann said. “My professional spirit does direct my ________. I’m far from perfect, but at that particular moment, my previous work encouraged me to give a helping hand.”

7 . For years, Sammie Vance, 14, has been helping kids who feel lonely make friends. She has been _______ the Buddy Bench program since the third grade. The program was that anyone at school feeling _______ could sit on the “buddy bench”, telling other kids he or she needed a friend.

Sammie got the _______ for the program at a summer camp in 2017. She thought it would be cool to have a buddy bench in her _______, so when she returned, she _______ the idea to the headteacher.

Getting _______ for the project was just the first step. “There have been a lot of other _______, like money,” Sammie says. To cut down costs and be eco-friendly, Sammie decided to make the bench out of _______ material. So she got her community to gather bottle caps.

_______ of the project got out, and soon Sammie was getting caps from people in all 50 states, and even from people in Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries. ________, she collected more than 1,200 pounds of bottle caps. A company called Green Tree Plastics was ________ of upcycling (升级改造) these into three benches.

Not long after that, ________ her own school, more than 200 schools and parks nationwide, in Mexico and Australia ________ benches through the program as well. Her work continues to spread ________ far and wide. “We recently got a bench in Ghana, Africa,” she says.

Sammie thinks her small gesture can make other people’s day and that even small acts of kindness can ________.

8 . My beloved grandma, had never left Australia and now never would due to cancer.

Planted _______ in the armchair, she had no alternative but to “travel” via the travel program on TV. I _______ the sadness and thought hard. It finally _______ me that I could ask strangers on the internet for help. I _______ the post:

My Nanny has cancer and she will never see the world. Please send her postcards so she can see the world from her armchair. I can offer nothing but gratitude.

I _______ not to breathe a word of this; should nothing come, I couldn’t bear to carry her _______ along with my own. Days _______ weeks and Nanny’s health declined rapidly, my suffering growing unbearable.

Finally, about six weeks after my post, a dog-eared, _______ postcard from UK wandered into our humble little letterbox. It was to me a ray of light and from that day, our letterbox became the _______ for postcards from all over the world and a hotel, ________ travel-weary cards. My dream of armchair travels became a reality.

In the months that followed, thanks to those cards, my Nanny had a private “flight” to board, travelling far and wide, satisfied and ________ . Cancer could not stop us. Our very last flight ________ on a warm morning. My dearest travel ________ bought a different ticket for this trip and began to explore another world.

I have ________ from great loss, knowing that her journey ahead would be a brilliant one with so many ________ from the strangers.

9 . We asked Professor John Williams, a futurologist, for his expert predictions on life in the next few decades.

“Unfortunately, it looks quite likely that the climate may ________significantly (显著地), with hotter summers, colder winters and more flooding. At the same time, fuel for heating or air conditioning will probably become much more expensive. For these reasons, our houses will certainly have to become much better ________. People are already building so-called ‘passive houses’, which have little or no central heating at all, ________ the body heat of the people who live there.

“Homes probably won’t be as big, and so we will need more adaptable (可改变的) furniture, such as sofa beds, and when we are not ________ our furniture we will be able to fold it away into wall cabinets (壁橱). Houses could have moveable walls so that the same space can be ________ in different ways.”

“New technology will make us more self-sufficient (自给自足的). Kitchens may have fish tanks which, as well as providing fish to eat, also ________ fresh vegetables. The plants will ________ oxygen for the fish. These tanks will be powered by household waste and create ________, which can then be used to run the family car—________ we might not all have cars!”

“Water will be more expensive and the home of the future will probably be designed to use much ________ water. Washing machines and dishwashers might use sound waves to shake ________ off. We may even take showers using sound waves. What water we do use will be recycled and used again round the house and private swimming pools will become a thing of the ________.”

“We will also ______ ) have more robots in our houses, though they won’t look like the ones in films. There will probably be small robots ________ to clean the fridge or open the curtains. ________ fridges will tell us when food is about to go out of date and even suggest recipes, and we will be able to communicate with our homes by mobile phone wherever we are.”

10 . An orphaned (孤儿的) deer named Afra and a rabbit named Alice have formed a friendship that’s straight out of a Disney movie. Workers at Chase Sanctuary (保护区) and Wildlife Conservancy in Webster, Florida, have seen many interspecies friendships_______ over the years, but this one is, by far, the cutest!

Alice and Afra were_______drawn together when landing in the sanctuary since they were both alone. Afra lost her _______ at an early age and couldn’t _______ herself in the wild. Around the same time, Alice’s former owner made the_______ and sent her to the shelter, where he felt she would be_______ “Her owner came here for a tour, and saw we have this big, open habitat. He _______   her to run all around in the grass,” said sanctuary founder, Nina Vassallo.

These days, they’re always_______   Afra follows Alice and eats the green grass in the day, and they sleep curled up together at night. “They_______ each other,” Nina explained with _______   “They watch out for each other, just like human friends. It’s so amazing!”

Visitors_______ seeing the two friends together, and the sanctuary says they don’t plan to_______   them. Watching their friendship grow up makes the_______   business of rescuing animals very_______. As is known, rescuing them often faces challenges.

“It always brings us joy to_______ to make an animal’s life better,” said Nina.