2 . On Sept. 17, 2022, a father and son competed in the Ironman competition in Cambridge, Maryland. They must ________ 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running in under 17 hours. Jeff Agar, the father, would ________ as his son’s arms and legs, literally carrying the ________ of his son throughout the race.

Johnny developed a childhood disease, preventing him from ________ normally. To help him pursue his dream of being a/an ________, Jeff woke up at 4 a. m. and ran, pushing Johnny in a racing chair. They ran ________ longer distances daily, and were soon entering 5K races, then on to Ironman triathlons in 2016. Finishing the competition in under 17 hours was their another ________.

The competition ________ with a 2.4-mile swim in the Choptank River, which they completed in 90 minutes. After roughly 9 hours’ 112-mile bicycle ride, they started the ________ part—a 26.2-mile marathon. Jeff pushed Johnny in the racing chair. With minutes ________ and 200 feet to the finish line, Jeff helped Johnny out of his racing chair. Not long ago, Johnny could ________ walk 23 steps. But after years of painstaking work, he ________ his step count. So he was determined to finish his race on his own.

Johnny saw the clock ________ and worried they wouldn’t make the cutoff. But, with just 4 minutes and 25 seconds to ________, the father and son crossed the finish line together!

As the crowd cheered on an overwhelmed Johnny, Jeff kept a low ________. “He didn’t want his finish line moment,” says Johnny. “He wanted it to be mine.”

3 . In my work as a vocational school teacher in Germany, there are a few refugees (难民) in my class. Their ________ of German is often rather poor regardless of whether they are “________ off the boat” or have lived here for a few years. Some of these students who ________ to complete their three-year training may continue to go to school to attain ________ so they can attend university.

Over the last few weeks, I have taken them aside and given them ________ on how to enhance their language skills, such as finding ways to build their vocabulary beyond class and ________ language immersion courses. After class, I even took some of them to a ________ which displayed valuable information on a poster. They were ________ for this little gesture that benefited them a lot. Most important of all, I have given them tips on how to ________ themselves into the German culture better.

I do not get any ________ money for offering this sort of advice, though I have ________ my short breaks over the years. But I feel it is important to help the youngsters because after graduation from university, they have great chance of ________ jobs in Germany. Meanwhile, they will feel inspired to ________ here.

Good integration is so important as it builds bridges and expands ________. It makes me happy to share my knowledge as a language teacher and spread those ________ ripples (涟漪) in everyday life.

4 . I was born and live in Seattle, and for forty-five years, not a day has gone by that I haven’t drunk coffee. I’ve also come to understand how and why coffee ______ me. It is caffeine, of course.

Recently, noticing the ______ in my consumption over the years, my wife innocently _____ that I “take a little break” from coffee. The very suggestion made me mad.

“Here’s an idea,”   I ______, heart rate rocketing.

“Why don’t we just live apart for a year so it feels more like it did when we were first married?” A(n)_____? I think not.

Assuming that coffee does keep me ______ for an extra few days or decades, I know how I’ll spend them: drinking more coffee, or darker and darker roasts, whose _____ smell helps fight age-related loss of taste and smell.

My Spanish mother-in-law, whom I loved like my own mother, died last summer at the age of 93. She was sharp as ever and the ______ person I knew, up to the very end. She also _____ multiple cups of coffee every day until her last. Our ____ love of coffee drew us together before we even spoke the same language, and ____ our relationship for more than three decades.

In her last weeks, I was lecturing in Barcelona and spending my ____ time with her, downing many ______ and chatting about the ______ to happiness. Here was her formula: ——love, faith, and coffee. In my opinion, that sounds ______ indeed.

5 . Juleus Ghunta is a published author and award-winning poet. But when growing up, he could _________ read.

Ghunta lived in a rural part of Western Jamaica. He was kept at home while his older sisters _________ school. When Ghunta finally went to school, he couldn’t _________ his reading skills. The situation was made worse by a series of teachers who made him feel _________. “I struggled in school with a deep sense of loss and shame.” he recalled.

Fortunately, at age 12, a young teacher-in-training decided to start a special reading program for _________ students. Ghunta was the first student to _________. That teacher, whose _________he does not recall, would become Ghunta’s unsung hero—the person who _________ his life.

Under her _________, Ghunta’s reading skills finally started to improve. And his sense of self-doubt began to __________. He graduated from elementary school with a number of __________ awards. He went on to college, and later, graduate school. Today, he is the author of two children’s books. He’s now __________ his first full-length collection of poetry.

In 2010, Ghunta went back to his old school, to ask the principal and teachers if they knew his old teacher’s name. But no one did.

“I would love for her to see the __________ impact that she has made on my life, and the ways in which I have carried this __________ of her —the hope, the light, with me—and how it continues to be a source of __________.”

6 . One time, probably at my age of 16 or 17, my motorcycle broke down at a crossing. It suddenly died while I was _________. I pulled the bike to the side of the road and onto the _________. It was nighttime and it was dark. I was so _________.

Not knowing where to seek help, I tried to _________ the problem of my bike. Then, out of nowhere a man walked up the sidewalk. He _________ next to me, looked at me, and smiled. “Do you need some help? I have a flashlight.” I told him I had no idea what was _________and I just was going to call my dad. He handed me the flashlight and helped me _________ the bike to a car wash, which was brighter.

I called my dad but he went to the wrong _________. So I had to wait twice as long for him, during which the man _________ talking to me just about life and growing up. To be frank, I was in no __________ for what he was saying. But due to his company, my fear disappeared and I __________ calmed down. In the end, my dad __________. The man helped us load the bike onto my dad’s van (小型货车), and then he waved goodbye to us and walked away.

Years have passed, but that night still __________my mind occasionally and gives me a feeling of warmth. Never hesitate to offer your __________, for you will never know what a(n) __________ it can make.

7 . In Jan. 2020, Teresa Hernandez was 35 weeks pregnant. One morning, she _________ the baby wasn’t moving as much as usual. She decided to go to the hospital to _________ everything was OK.

When she got there, she learned that the baby’s heart rate was _________. The doctors told her that her baby needed to be delivered _________ by an operation. Hernandez was in complete _________. But the doctors said if it was inside, they wouldn’t be able to help if something went wrong.

Hernandez was _________ to the operating room. On the way, her anxiety became _________ . That’s when a nurse in the operating room _________to help.

“This nurse took my hand and started pressing. And then she _________ me while they were doing the operation. And then she __________ one hand on my cheek. And she started humming softly,” Hernandez __________. “I felt like my mom was there, holding me.”

__________ her husband, Hernandez had no family with her. But the nurse’s gesture of warmth brought her __________. It felt like her mom stayed by her side. “When your mom is there, you feel __________. You feel like everything is going to be right,” Hernandez said.

Looking back, Hernandez remembers a string of unsung heroes who helped her that day. But she says that nurse was the first one that left a lasting __________.

8 . When we are married and have promised to live together, we may not even think about what that might mean in the future. We start a ________ new part of a journey, enjoying the good times and ________ each other through the bad times.

Sometimes life ________ us a curve ball. For example, one of the partners is ________ with a life changing illness. This changes a relationship in ways we cannot know until we ________ it. Each partner adapts to the situation and faces the new ________ together.

It is not always easy. There will be days when they ________ each other the most. They walk together as well as walk their own path. They have ________ in that the other is there to support.

When my husband was first diagnosed with MS (a serious disease of the nervous system),we had no idea how it would all ________. Over twenty years later we are still meeting each day, knowing we have each other’s ________. Indeed, life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best. Sometimes we do have ________, and we even have arguments for a very long time, because we’re humans and we would never be ________. After my husband’s diagnosis, someone asked me if I was going to ________ and I answered “Yes. I would never abandon him”.

Life is ________, but together we meet its challenges to the best of our ability, some days being better than others. The true ________ of any relationship is being able to survive hard times.