3 . Snowy wanted to be a show jumping horse. Every day she would _______ her mum to allow her to jump. Finally, her mum decided she was _____ enough and they went into the jumping arena (竞技场).

Snowy was very excited, but when she saw how ______ the jumps were, she started shaking." I can't jump that high. It's a good idea that we ________." she said. Her mum said,“I wouldn't expect you to _________ that high. There's a log (原木) on the ground. Why not start jumping over that?" Snowy gathered (积聚) her ________, walked to the log and then managed to jump over it.

“I did it!" she shouted happily. _________, her mum said,“You can't just jump over logs if you want to be a show jumper. ________ the low jump over there."

Again, Snowy was ___________but she tried it and found she could do it. As time went on, Snowy progressed to taller jumps, until finally she ________ the arena and looked at the tallest jumps. Over the past few weeks, something had _______. These jumps seemed much less ______ to Snowy. She jumped over them easily. Her mum looked with ________ at her and said,“This is what happens when you start ________ and build your way up."

So never be afraid of ________   in life, but start small and keep trying. Then you'll be able to do anything.

4 . Life can give you so many choices and opportunities, but in the end it is up to us to take the first step. It’s _________ to turn your back on the rest of the world after experiencing a lot of pain.  

Before becoming involved with Hestia (a charity founded in 1970), I often felt that I just wanted to be left _________. I then volunteered to help distribute Hestia’s newsletter. I was _________ a small amount for my involvement and it was a great financial help at the time. During this time I met some wonderful people — staff and other service users within Hestia and it _________ that I actually had a good time. I felt respected and appreciated for my _________. If I had not decided to help out, I wouldn’t have realized the benefit that I gained both financially and _________.  

I was still unwilling to become more _________ though. However, when I realized that sitting within the four walls of my room wouldn’t help much, I knew I had to _________ myself. By helping other service users I started feeling _________ about myself and throughout it all I have ____________ my confidence and created good and lasting ____________ with other people. This has encouraged me and given me strength to take on other ____________ within Hestia.  

I later learned about other volunteering opportunities at Hestia and ____________ in the reception area gave me a sense of belonging. After a while I joined the finance department where I was part of a team and where I was shown ____________— something I was not ____________ to. For the first time I felt I could be “Me”.

5 . Last summer, we went to Hawaii for holiday. During my _______ trip with my husband, we spent most of our time _______ during the day in the sea, and then enjoying walks along the beach in the evenings.

We didn’t take any _______ because we had enough. We had visited the island many times _______. On our way to the _______ we joked that other than our sunburnt skin, we had no way to show that we had _______ there!

As we stood in line at the check-in, we noticed the _______ who had been on our plane the week before. _______, they all had tear-filled eyes this day. On the plane, we sat directly behind them: a mother and her four children without Dad’s _______. We learned that the father had been ____________ in a jet-skiing accident that week, and his wife and children had to ____________ make their way home without him.

We watched the children become ____________ while they were playing cards. But the mother stared at her knees, ____________ to believe her husband’s death. We could ____________ feel her pain as we realized that this could have happened to any of us. ____________ we were laughing and playing in the water, this poor family had been ____________ the sufferings. The vacation they had dreamed about had ____________ the terrible dream they would never forget.

I suddenly ____________ that we had no pictures for this vacation together. I closed my eyes, ____________ that my mind had recorded all the wonderful moments that I had ____________ with my husband that week. What a trip!

6 . We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin well enough,_________suddenly everything seems to get out of control. What always_________is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at_________same moment.

Things can go wrong on a big scale, as a number of people recently discovered. During the rush hour one evening two cars collided (猛撞) and both drivers began to_________. The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a_________. She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driver following her_________hard. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake. As she was thrown_________, the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road. Seeing a cake flying_________the air, a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car,_________all of a sudden. The lorry was__________with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road. This led to yet__________angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly an hour to__________the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of__________bottles. Only two stray dogs__________from all this confusion, for they greedily ate what was left of the__________. It was just one of those days!

7 . Sare Niccoli, the 17-year-old daughter of a rich textile owner was freed by her kidnappers(绑匪)after 118 days. She said she ______ most of the time in a tent in the woods ______ one foot tied to a tree. ______ was freed late on Friday ______ her family paid a ______ of $1.8 million, the largest ransom(赎金) ever paid in Italy.

“I was ______ well,” the girl told the ______ during the interview, “Biscuits, cakes, often hot food and ______ stewed beef.” She said her nearly four months in trouble was spent in a tent pitched(set up) in a ______ area.

“I never ______ their faces and when they ______, they changed their voices in nasal tones(speaking through nose passage) on ______,” she said. “They kept ______ that the only thing they wanted was the money and that they didn’t want to have anything to do with me or my family.”

The high ______ student, who was seized by three face-covered and armed men on July 2, 1983 from her family’s country villa(别墅) in Tuscany, said she still had no idea ______ on earth she had been held.

8 . You just can’t imagine what a brave mother is like. She was a mother of three, who just _______ an earthquake, couldn’t tell if her children were _______ for help. Or what if you knew you couldn’t yell at her for help because she couldn’t _______ you? That was what happened to Connie and her three children _______ the 6.1-magnitude earthquake rocked Napa, California. Connie is _______ and communicates with her children using sign language.

At midnight, Connie and her three children were _______ on the first floor of their two-story home. She and her 16-year-old son, Juan, were shaken awake. Instantly, they realized there were no disaster supplies downstairs. Connie, also _______ one-month-old Raul and 8-year-old Adriana, called Juan to come close to her in the darkness and _______ for him to go upstairs to get a _______.

Juan slowly __________ the stairs. He heard a loud creak (嘎吱声). Arriving on the top floor, he moved quickly but __________ to get what he needed. Using the flashlight to guide his steps back __________ the stairs, the family was able to take a few items from the first floor and __________. Their home was almost in ruins.

Being deaf was not deterrent (妨碍物) for this __________ mother. The family made it to the __________ safely, which comforted everyone.

9 . One rainy afternoon I was sitting at home feeling so bored. _________feeling sorry for myself, I wanted to meet people and have new _________. So I decided to start volunteering. I found a website where I could volunteer on a farm in France.

Volunteering offers so many opportunities to have fun and share _______ stories. It was the first time for me to work on a farm. It was almost a free holiday as food and accommodation were provided. It was not one _______holiday, however, as I had to _______fifteen horses and sheep! I soon discovered that I was a(n) _______   farmer but it did not matter because I made some great friends and also improved my French.

However, you do not _______ go abroad to volunteer. I have had plenty of adventures at home as volunteering can become a _______. For example, I love singing so I had a good laugh waving my arms in order to _______ my local choir (合唱团). At university, I organized a concert for charity with my friends. It was really ________ to find bands and raise money for a cause.

It is true that you feel good volunteering but there are also other________. I once volunteered as a steward (干事) at a charity sports event where the organizers generously gave me cupcakes from an expensive London bakery to thank me for my ________. I also volunteered in a charity shop so I found loads of nice cheap clothes to ________my wardrobe (衣柜).

While this is all fun, my favorite aspect of volunteering is ________and sharing stories. My terrible ________at farming has given me funny stories to tell!

10 . Years ago, my grandmother was in a nursing home. She was a retired university professor, which brought her an ocean of _______ she had taught before.

In sharp _______ with my grandmother, almost no one came to see the old man next door. He was _______ most of the time.

Once I_______ him, “How are you doing recently?” He gave me a look, saying nothing. Thinking he was _______ of hearing, I raised my voice and asked again. He just shook his head slightly. After a long while, finding I was _______ there, he just said, “Fine.” Then he looked away. I had to shut up, feeling rather _______.

Later, I learned that the old man had got quite a few companies from his family. Since he was not a good _______, he annoyed many people and even made his family and friends _______. And ________, his companies all failed.

So what is the most important ________ a person can have? Perhaps you think making money is the answer. No! But the ability to ________ your thoughts is. It’s extremely important for a person to learn to put what he thinks into ________. It makes a relationship ________ and a career flourish (繁荣). I’m afraid this is something many of us ________. Just think: How many of us have ever hurt those who love us just because we are not good at speaking? So, more often than not, it is not what we think but how we speak that determines how far we can go in life.