1 . To the firefighters who deal with danger each day, every life is worthy to be saved.

Wildfires are just one of the many situations firefighters _________ toward when everyone else is going in the opposite direction. Every year, it seems wildfires _________ parts of California, Washington and Oregon. In September, 2023, Daniel Trevizo, a Los Angeles Fire Department head, and his team worked hard around-the-clock to _________ the fires in the south of California.

One day, they were watering down embers (余火) near Lake Oroville when he _________ a surprising thing. When the fires were put out, his team quickly did everything they could to _________ the fire scene. _________, Daniel heard an animal crying nearby. So he started looking around for the _________ of the sounds. Then they found a small cat under the burnt bushes. The frightened and lonely cat came right up to Daniel.

Daniel _________ the soot (煤烟)-covered cat, later named Ember, and kept it _________ in his jacket pocket until it got much-needed __________ in an animal hospital. The veterinarian (兽医) said Ember had only some minor __________. With medication and Daniel’s care, Ember __________ a few days later. Ultimately, Daniel managed to find Ember’s owners, who got __________ from it while they escaped from the fires.

There’s no doubt Ember’s life was saved by __________ Daniel and his team! They risked their lives to save those around them, and we couldn’t be more __________!

2 . I would say I totally did it.

I could sound a(n) _________ to cause people to pay attention to the children with neurological (神经系统的) diseases. I could put my _________ as a dancer to perform on stage across the country in order to raise money for these children.

I have tried a lot, and also _________ a lot.

On the other day I went to _________ money we collected to those extremely sick children. They all _________ me happily and looked at me as if I had been their long-lost family member, and one of them _________ held my hand, expressing his wish that I would come more often.

Therefore, I have made it my life _________ to help fight neurological diseases, and to inspire more young donors to participate in for _________ lives through arts.

I spend many weekends speaking at medical conferences to provide visibility (可见性) for the _________ ill children, so do my colleagues.

__________ things can happen if the arts and medicine join forces. A life can be saved somewhere in the world with funding research, __________ the medical equipment, and providing home-care services.

In these ways, the young __________ of our generation, along with our times, can come together and __________ a domino effect (多米诺骨牌效应) that we’ve been dreaming about.

I have learned that the __________ work is not something reserved for adults. I am 16 years old and I am responsible for my fellows. What happens to each of us __________ us all. I’ve only just begun to learn how to care about others.

4 . One day, we had a family dinner. While the adults were busy with their serious talk outside, I was left alone in the ________ to help my grandmother wash dishes. ________ my grandmother would tell me stories about her childhood.

Born just before WWII, my grandmother ________ an entirely different childhood lifestyle from mine. She did not have a chance to go to ________. Like in typical families, where boys were ________ much more than girls, my grandma had to stay at home to do ________. The only opportunity (机会) she could seize to ________ was when her brother was having Chinese ________ with the family tutor. She would sit quietly at the far end of the long dinner table, listening ________. This training taught her to read and write her Chinese upside down — a skill that has turned out to be quite ________, especially whenever we share the newspaper. On most weekends, my grandmother, a young girl then, and her brother would go to the ________. There, they would walk through deep water, sit down cross-legged underwater and hold their ________ while they watched all action going on around them. This is something I ________ — her ability to open her ________ underwater and still sit comfortably on the seabed.

My childhood is quite ________ compared with hers. I am ________ that I did not need to ________ the hardships like she did. I've never faced the problem of ________. I guess our different childhood background is what makes my grandmother such an amazing person to ________ to: her stories always make my history textbooks ________.

5 . When I decided to buy a house in Europe ten years ago, I didn't think too long. I liked traveling in France, but when it came to picking my favorite spot to _______, Italy was the clear winner.

During my first visit to Italy, I _______ to ask for directions or order in a restaurant. But every time I tried to _______ a sentence of   Italian together, the locals smiled at me and _______ my language skills. That encouragement helped me to get through the language _______. After I made Italy my permanent home, I discovered how _______ Italians are. Neighbors will bring me freshly made cheese and will come to my door to _______ me to close the window in my car when rain is coming. It's these small _______ of kindness that make a new country feel like home.

As a foodie, the way to my heart is through my stomach, and nowhere fuels my _______ quite like Italy. Each town has its own traditional ________, and every family keeps a recipe passed from one generation to another. Families ________ for big meals on Sundays, birthdays, and whatever other excuses they can ________. These meals are always ________ by laughter and joy. Whatever ________ life in Italy might have, the problems are ________ once you sit down to a big meal with friends and family.

6 . I worked part-time at a school teaching some children English in my college years. After _______, I decided to find a full-time teaching position.

This past Friday I had my first official job interview. I was very _______ before going to it. What if I did not know how to answer a question or couldn’t answer it _______? The thought of being interviewed soon was scary.

To do well in the job interview, I _______ the frequently asked questions and the ways to best answer them online. _______, I was still afraid that I couldn’t do well. As a result, I went to visit my teacher to seek _________ about interviewing.

My teacher provided me with useful guidance that made me _______. He said, “Connect with the interviewer and just be yourself. You know what you know; don’t _______ that you know something you don’t.” I loved his suggestion because it was _______and realistic. So often, people __________ to pretend that they have had experience or known everything.

During the interview, I simply reflected on my previous __________, the lessons I was good at, the relationships I had with my students, colleagues, and parents, etc. This allowed me to not only __________my personal examples quickly and effectively, but also   __________   how my opinions and passions as an educator were translated into action.

The whole __________ went very well, with satisfying ____________ of course.

7 . AI can transform education for the better

As students return to classrooms for the new year, it is striking to reflect on how little education has changed in recent decades. The sector remains a digital laggard (落后者). American schools and universities spend 2% and 5% of their budgets, _________, on technology, compared with 8% for the average American company.

When the pandemic forced schools and universities to shut down, the moment for a digital _________ seemed close when the market value of online tutoring providers like Chegg and Byju’s both increased. However, once covid was brought under control, classes continued much as before.

If the pandemic couldn’t overcome the education sector’s _________ to digital interruption, can artificial intelligence? ChatGPT-like generative AI, which can converse cleverly on varieties of subjects, certainly _________. So much so that educationalists began to _________ that students would use it to cheat on essays and homework. Increasingly, however, it is generating excitement as a means to provide _________ tutoring to various students and speed up boring tasks such as marking.

Learners, for their part, are _________ the technology. Two-fifths of undergraduates reported using an AI chatbot to help them with their studies. Indeed, the technology’s popularity has raised awkward questions for companies like Chegg, which was losing customers _________ ChatGPT. Yet there are good reasons to believe that education specialists like Chegg who employ AI will eventually _________ generalists such as OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

For one, AI chatbots often talk nonsense, an unhelpful trait in an educational context. “Students want content from __________ providers,” argues Kate Edwards, chief pedagogist at Pearson, a textbook publisher. The company has not allowed ChatGPT and other AIs to __________ its material, but has instead used the content to train its own models, which it is embedding into its set of learning apps.

__________, as Chegg’s Mr Rosensweig argues, teaching is not merely about giving students an answer, but about presenting it in a way that helps them learn. Understanding pedagogy (教学法) thus gives education specialists an __________. Pearson has designed its AI tools to __________ students by breaking complex topics down, testing their understanding and providing quick feedback, says Ms Edwards. Byju’s is incorporating “forgetting curves” for students into the design of its AI tutoring tools, refreshing their memories at personalized __________.

Bringing AI to education will not be easy, but once answers on how to make use of this technology become clearer, such a development will certainly deserve top marks.

8 . Alexander Graham Bell hated spending summertime in Washington, DC. He usually ________ to his farm in Nova Scotia, but one year he had to stay in the capital.

“Why humans have ________ how to warm a house but not how to cool one — until now,” he wondered, and in 1872, he ________ a cold-air-producing device and brought the temperature in his room down to 21℃.

When 69-year-old Bell told that ________ in a speech to the 1917 graduating class of McKinley Manual Training School, the students went ________. The clapping lasted so long that he was ________ to say something more surprising.

“Could postage stamps be used in ________ of persons?” asked Bell, who had thought of ________ a low price for public transport, but the cost of building additional roads was too high. “Perhaps, the flying machine will be the ________.”

In the speech, Bell also ________ on a century of progress and looked ahead with remarkable foresight. In the reflection, he was amazed by the ________ made in the past century: Gas lighting had evolved into electric bulbs and automobiles ________ horse-drawn vehicles. He then went on to ________ the commercial airplane, solar panels, and the ________ for renewable resources.

Gilbert Grosvenor, the editor of National Geographic magazine, asked for the ________ and published a revised version in the February issue. Now, more than one hundred years later, Bell’s predictions still remain prescient (预见性的).

9 . Bill Sumiel had been suffering from kidney disease for years and had been on dialysis (透析) for all those years. He was on the transplant (移植) list, but no matches had yet _________. So he continued with his treatments.

It was a Friday in Oct. 2020, and Sumiel had booked an Uber ride home from the treatment center. Timothy Letts was driving to visit a friend when he received the _________ for Sumiel’s ride home. The trip was out of Letts’s way. Still, he _________ the order, figuring if the _________ was coming from a medical facility, he probably needed a ride.

After Sumiel got into the car, the pair got to chatting. Sumiel revealed that he was _________ a kidney donor. Letts joked that he’d be a _________ donor candidate, given that he didn’t drink or smoke. Sumiel agreed, _________ he didn’t think much of it. As the car neared Sumiel’s house, Letts said, “I’d like to see if I could be a match to give you a kidney.”

“I was shocked,” Sumiel recalls. He was shaking so hard and could _________ write his name when they exchanged contact information. After the initial excitement, Sumiel started feeling a bit less _________ — he wondered if it had just been a(n) __________ moment. Would he hear from him? And what was the __________ they’d be a match?

But Letts was __________ to his word. Letts had contacted the kidney transplant program quickly. After a long screening process, the results showed: Letts was a(n) __________ donor. In Dec. 2021, 14 months after they ended up in the same __________ by chance, Sumiel and Letts had their surgeries. It was a(n) __________. Today Sumiel is doing well, and he and Letts still keep in touch.

10 . Cecily Eklund has always adored her baby dolls, especially when she faced brain cancer surgery and MRI scans at the age of six. However, the metal components in her dolls prevented her from ________ them into the MRI machine.

To _________ this, Cecily and her mom set out on a creative journey. Using MRI-safe materials, they made a special doll, which became Cecily’s _________ during the long imaging appointments and provided her with _________ and support.

________, Cecily and her mom made more dolls, called “Blessing Babies”, for other sick kids. The dolls were _________ in that they had no facial features, so they can have any emotion. This _________ struck a chord (引起共鸣) with many and the dolls became an instant hit. Cecily decided to _________ more, donating some to children’s hospitals and selling others to fundraise.

In response to the high demand, they _________ other doll makers to work alongside them. Soon, doll makers worldwide also began _________, sending boxes of their handmade dolls to _________ the cause (事业).

Cecily’s initiatives _________. She began selling handmade puppies, ________ organizing toy collections and fundraising events for multiple charities. So far, she has raised more than $200,000.

Today Cecily calls herself a brain-cancer survivor and childhood cancer awareness fighter, but she is still ________ closely by her medical team. When asked for advice on successful fundraising, she emphasizes the importance of _________. “You don’t get poor by giving,” Cecily says. “Because you always get something back.”