1 . While I was in hospital for a heart surgery, something affected me and made me do something meaningful. Before my surgery, my doctor showed me a video, in which there were patients like me and they each had a heart pillow, so I decided I would get one.

Right after my _______, I asked about the heart pillow. Unluckily, I was told they didn’t offer it but it could be _______ at the hospital gift shop. So my daughter bought one for me. It was comfortable and became my “security blanket”. However I was _______ that many patients couldn’t get that comfort. So I took this whole mission upon myself. I called various hospitals to find out what they used for patients after heart surgeries. I also found a site _______ that the cloth pillows were considered dangerous because it might spread bacteria to patients. I _______ understood, but that didn’t stop my mission. I continued to call the manufacturers. Finally, a lady called back and told me about the heart pillow that they had produced, which could be _______ and disinfected (消毒).

I did all my _______ so that no one could think of a reason why this wouldn’t work. It took me over a month to be able to meet with the hospital authorities to _______ my finding. I’m glad that they agreed and are _____ getting these pillows for patients. I cannot be ________— I actually did something that will help many patients.

2 . Back in 2008, I was teaching Concepts of Fitness in a high school. At the end of one class, I chatted with David Gale, a senior high jumper, about how to improve his ________ and how motivation played an important role in one’s achievement. He, out of the blue, asked me what would happen if he broke the school record.

Not ________ of his passion and determination, I paused for a moment, but then promised that I would paint his name on the wall of our classroom. He was very excited and suggested that I go purchase the paint.

Nothing more was mentioned about the ________ until two weeks later, the young warrior ran into the classroom with a huge smile on his face. “I did it! I broke the record!” he shouted as I was still gathering information to ________ what I had promised him. I joined in with the high-fives and fist bumps ________ him.

The next day, it was done! G-A-L-E. Huge blue letters with white edges, the school colors. I could see his excitement even surpassed the success itself. Actually, his coach said the wall was part of the ________ to break the record.

What happened next was totally amazing. Many students, even from other classes, saw the name on the wall and ________ how they, too, could be considered for the wall. With the enormous ________, I had to add more names to the wall, and more than 100 names appeared there in the following 10 years.

Many folks admitted they would not have ________ what they did if the wall hadn’t been part of the reward. More importantly, all those who stepped far beyond their comfort zone helped set the ________ higher.

3 . With a two-year-old behind me and fliers in my hand, I knocked on another door in my neighborhood. I had volunteered to spread the _______ about some changes at the local primary school, so I was excited to see a _______ with a baby in her arm and a preschooler tightly wrapped around her leg.

Within seconds, I realized I needed to _______ my rusty Spanish to connect with this mom. That initial conversation explained the lonely, desperate look in her eyes. I wrote my phone number on the flier and told her to _______ if she ever wanted to walk to the park with the kids.

I hadn’t _______ much about Maria until a month later when she called. Many walks around the neighborhood later, I _______ more details about her life that offered me some viewpoints about my own.

One day I sat at Maria’s kitchen table and shared some of my own family’s _______. Her eyes got big, saying “I thought I was the only one with problems.” I thought my stress was _______, but from her viewpoint, my life seemed to be a pretty package from the outside. By _______ the details of my life, I was able to give her the same gift of viewpoints she had been giving me.

Friendship can be discovered in unexpected places, as long as we find common ground with those who ________ might seem different.

4 . On a sunny afternoon, Anthony Perry stepped off the train at Chicago’s 69th Street station. The 20-year-old, who worked nights in a grocery store, was on his way to see his ________.

On the platform, something unthinkable happened: a man fell over the edge and onto the electrified train tracks! As Perry and other horrified passengers watched, he shook uncontrollably as the ________ moved through his body.

“Help him!” someone cried. “Please, someone!”

Perry couldn’t just stand there and ________. He sat at the edge of the platform and eased himself down. ________ all rails between the man and him were electrified, he quickly leaped towards the victim, using a high-knee technique from his high school football days.

Perry soon reached down and grasped the victim’s wrist. ________, he felt a powerful electric shock shoot through his body. Perry jumped back. He reached down a second time, and was shocked again. But the third time he seized the man’s wrist and forearm, and managed to move the guy’s body away from the ________.

“Give him chest compressions!” yelled an old lady on the platform.

Perry was no expert, but for a few moments he worked on the man’s heart until the victim regained ________. Then, first-aiders arrived. Perry let the professionals ________. Heart still racing from the electric shocks, he climbed back up onto the platform, grabbed his things and continued on to his grandfather’s.

The evening news reported the incident, ________ an unnamed hero with saving the victim’s life. To many, Perry’s ________ deeds demonstrated the power of choosing compassion over personal safety.

5 . I was always timid (羞怯的). Being new to the school made me even ________ , so it was surprising I’d ________ to anyone around me. Now I was paying the price — to write a five-page essay on “Why I Should Not Talk in Class”. That would take all night!

After I got home, though. I took my time petting the cat-postponing the pain.

When I finally sat down to ________, I began with the reasons Ms. Black would want to hear.

Talking kept me and my neighbours from ________. One paragraph down; now what? I chewed on my pencil. Aha! What if talking were the first step towards life as a criminal? Without the education I was throwing away, I’d turn to theft and go to prison. When I got out, people would say, “She used to talk in class.” The pages began ________.

But when mum got home from work, I was still ________, “Five pages! That’s impossible!”

“Well, you’d better get back to work,” she said. “and I want to read it when you’re through.”

Soon after dinner, I handed the essay to mum. I half expected a________— at least an “I hope you’ve learned your lesson”. ________, mum laughed and laughed as she read.

The next day, when Ms. Black read the essay to the class, everyone laughed. I could ________ they weren’t making fun of me: they laughed because I had the power to tell a funny story. My________ still needed some nudging (激发), but I did learn I wasn’t shy in print.

6 . One of the best feelings is knowing that I have made a(n) _______ impact on another person’s life.

During my freshman year, I got my first real job at Dunkin’ Donuts. I quickly became aware that customers’ _______ was important, so I tried to provide the best service that I could. I still remember one customer vividly, an elderly gentleman named Frank. He came in every Sunday afternoon and ordered a medium coffee with two old-fashioned donuts. Immediately after I saw him pull into the parking lot, I _______ his order, having it ready by the time he walked in. If I had no other work to do, I sat and talked with him. We learned a lot about each other. I could not help feeling sorry for him because his wife had recently passed away.

After a year of working every weekend, I eventually decided to leave and turned in my two-week notice. The most difficult part of _______ was not telling my boss, but informing Frank. I felt like I was _______ him. When I finally brought it up, he _______ replied, “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sure that the staff will miss you.” I began to think that our visits held no real importance to him, and that he would be just as _______ enjoying his food alone. _______, on my last day, Frank came in with a card that simply read, “Your kindness during the time we have spent together is heartwarming. You had no _______ to speak a word to me, let alone show a real interest in our conversations. Few things have brought me more pleasure than our weekly visits. Thank you.”

A amount of __________ I received for such minor efforts is mind-blowing. Giving up my weekends for a year was a small price to pay to grasp the remarkable effects of kindness.

7 . I glanced to my left and right as I got ready at the starting line. The sight of other competitors who had confident and fierce-looking faces got me goose bumps and I was even more _______ than before.

“On your mark, get set... Go!” shouted the race official. I pushed myself forward with all my _______ and started running as though a pride of man-eating lions were coming after me. As I ran, I could see the other competitors catching up with me. All of a sudden, I fell down on my knees. A hundred pairs of eyes bored into me, watching me _______ to get up. But no matter how hard I tried, I just could not do it.

“No, it cannot end like this. I have to _______ this race.” I thought to myself. However, the pain from my injury was so unbearable that I felt totally _______. I really wanted to give up.

Out of despair, I gazed up at the finishing line. Just then, a kind competitor _______ her hand to me.

“Thank you...” I whispered _______ as I grabbed her hand and she pulled me up.

She lent me her shoulder for support, and I _______ forward. The crowd cheered at this brilliant display of _______. Together, both of us crossed the finishing line.

Even though I never got the chance to learn her name, I will always remember her as the one who stepped forward to help me when I was in __________.

8 . Bernard, the 82-year-old retired police officer, was heartbroken when he _________ his precious medal. His house was broken into last December. The thief took away some jewelry, some cash and his treasured medal given for his 32 years of _________ with Liverpool Police Station. He believed the medal was gone forever.

Three months later, David, a young volunteer pulled the medal from a river in a “one-in-a-million” catch. The young man was in a litter clean-up programme in Liverpool. He had been using a large magnet (磁铁) to _________ metal rubbish out of the river for 30 minutes when he found a small blue metal box.

“I would have never found the medal if we hadn’t _________ all the rubbish in the river first,” said David. “At first, we found old bits of shopping carts and other metal items but about half an hour later, I pulled out the _________ , and it’s got ‘Police Long Service Medal’ written on it, It really was like finding a needle in a haystack (干草堆).”

_________ , the medal was carved with Bernard’s name and the medal number, which David used to _________ the senior’s phone number online. The retired police officer was _________ when he received a call saying the medal had been found in a river, still in its metal box. And when he was told it would be _________ to him by the young man who found it, his face lit up. David then planned a visit to meet Bernard and returned the medal to him.

“This was truly the best __________ for cleaning up that rubbish... It’s amazing,” David said.

As a child growing up in the 1980s, Marlene Irvin took many trips to Joyland, an amusement park in her hometown of Wichita, Kansas. She got excited the moment her family drove into Joyland’s parking lot. “The carousel circling at the entrance to the park was always the_________for me,” Marlene said. “I could watch the horses for hours.”

Joyland certainly made a/an_________ impression on Marlene, as she got her “first real job” years later at Wichita’s Chance Manufacturing, the largest maker of amusement park rides in the world at the time. Marlene started in the fiberglass workshop, where the carousel horses’ frames, along with parts for Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and other rides, were pieced together. She_________found her way to Chance’s art and decoration department, becoming one of the lead horse artists. Then, after working at Chance for nearly fifteen years, Marlene decided to start her own business, focusing on carousel restoration.

Around the same time, Joyland started experiencing a_________ in attendance. At last, to the heartbreak of Wichitans young and old, Joyland_________ after more than fifty years of operation. Local preservation organizations purchased some of the park’s historical items, and Joyland’s thirty-six carousel horses were donated to Botanica, a Wichita-owned botanical garden. Botanica asked Marlene to_________ the old, broken horses, and she accepted the challenge.

As Marlene finished each horse, Botanica_________ them for the public to see. Although they looked_________compared to their glory (辉煌) days at Joyland, thanks to Marlene’s artistic efforts, the horses impressed observers even more than they had before. When native Wichitans saw them, their most_________question was: “Will we be able to ride them?” Even as______________, they remembered riding the horses at Joyland when they were kids.

Marlene always smiled and answered: “They’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

10 . I grasped a sandwich as I tried to finish my work during lunch. My company, like many companies, had_________ costs by not replacing people as they left. The survivors had to take up the work. For me and my co-workers, this meant no lunch hour. I wanted to quit, but given the economy, it was hard to find another job. I felt ________. Then a conversation with a six-year-old girl changed my ________.

The young girl was standing in line with her mom at the supermarket.

“Good day at school?” I asked.

A nod.

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Lunch.”

I smiled. That had been my_________ too. At lunch, I could talk with my friends, draw pictures or play games. There were no adults to tell me what to do. The time was mine.

But what happened to lunch time now?

I knew I was entitled to a lunch break at work. So I decided to ________ it. Our office was located in the downtown and I set out to_________ the area. A few blocks away was an art museum with free admission. At the end of another street, I was surprised to discover some horses eating grass in a field.

At the beginning of my tours during lunch, I received some ________ stares from my co-workers, but I chose to ignore them. In fact, I watched in amazement that some of them started to_________ their work during lunch. ________, we started inviting each other out for walks and discovered we had other topics of conversation beyond the common complaints about work.

I’m still looking for a new position, but with less anxiety than before. If we can’t change our ________, we can change our attitude.