3 . I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts (文科) university that doesn’t even offer a major in electrical engineering. _________, this was not a practical option; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a _________ education that would provide me with flexibility (灵活性) and a value system to _________ me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my _________ by interacting with people who weren’t studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a sensible _________. They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years, and I _________ them.

I headed off to college sure I was going to have a(n) _________ over those students who went to big engineering “factories” _________ they didn’t care if you had values or were flexible. I was going to be a(n) _________ engineer: technical genius (天才) and sensitive humanist (人文学者) all in one.

But now I’m not so sure. __________ along the way my noble ideals crashed into reality, as all noble ideals eventually do. After three years of struggling to __________ math, physics and engineering courses with liberal-arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students __________ efforts to reconcile (协调) engineering with liberal-arts courses in college.

The reality that has __________ my path to become the typical successful student is that engineering and the liberal- arts __________ don’t mix as easily as I assumed in high school. Individually they __________ a person in very different ways. However, I’m still trying.

7 . Girls are better at reading and writing than boys as early as fourth grade, according to a study, and the gap continues to widen until senior year.

Scientists generally agree that boys and girls are psychologically more alike than they are different. But reading seems to be a(n)________, with growing evidence suggesting a similar ________in writing. The study, published in the journal American Psychologist, provided further ________ to support this view.

David Reilly, lead author of the study, said the study ________the commonly held view that boys and girls start grade school with the same cognitive abilities. “It appears that the gender gap for writing tasks has been greatly________, and despite our best efforts with changes in teaching methods, that does not appear to be ________ over time,” he said.

Factors explaining the results could include learning ________ being more prevalent among boys; the pressure to conform to masculine (男子汉的) ideals and the idea of reading and language being feminine (女性的); and slight________in how boys and girls use their brain hemispheres (半球), the authors believe.

To investigate how ________ levels differed between boys and girls in the U.S., the team studied data collected over three decades in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This database of test scores on over 3 million students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades________national and state performances in a range of subjects, and considered such variables such as disabilities or whether children were English learners. Reading and writing was ________according to children’s understanding of a range of different passages and genres.

________, girls were found to perform significantly better in reading and writing tests by fourth grade when compared with boys of the same age. As children progressed to eighth and twelfth grades, girls continued to ________ boys, but the difference was more noticeable in writing than reading. But what caused this difference in abilities? Evidence suggests ________ problems, such as being disruptive（扰乱性的） in class or being aggressive could be linked to neurological conditions. What is known as lateralization (偏侧化) could also play a role. Boys are believed to use one hemisphere when reading or writing, while girls appear to use both. The data did not, however, provide evidence to argue ________ the two genders having different learning styles.

8 . Bruno went into the kitchen and got the biggest surprise of his life. He could barely believe his eyes. “Shmuel!” he said. “What are you doing here in my kitchen?”

Shmuel looked up and his terrified face _________ a broad smile on seeing his friend. “Bruno!” he said. “They asked me to polish the glasses. They said they needed someone with tiny _________.”

He held his hand out and Bruno noticed that it was like the hand of the pretend skeleton. In reply, Bruno held his own hand out, which appeared _________ and full of life. The veins (血管) weren’t visible through the skin, the fingers weren’t little more than dying twigs (细枝). Shmuel’s hand, however, told a very _________ story.

“Shmuel! Here!” said Bruno, stepping forward and putting some slices of chicken in his friend’s hand. “Just eat them.” The boy stared at the food in his hand for a moment and then looked up at Bruno with wide and _________ but terrified eyes. He threw a _________ in the direction of the door and then thrust all the slices into his mouth in one go.

“Thank you, Bruno.” said Shmuel, giving a faint smile.

Bruno smiled back and was about to offer him more food, but just at that moment Lieutenant Kotler reappeared. Bruno stared at him, feeling the _________ grow heavy, sensing Shmuel’s shoulders sinking down.

_________ Bruno, Lieutenant Kotler marched over to Shmuel and glared at him. Shmuel looked up at Lieutenant Kotler, who frowned, leaning forward slightly as he examined the boy’s face. “You have been eating,” said Lieutenant Kotler. “Did you _________ something from that fridge?” Shmuel looked toward Bruno, his eyes pleading for __________.

“Answer me!” shouted Lieutenant Kotler.

“No, sir. He gave it to me,” said Shmuel, tears welling up in his eyes. “He’s my friend,” he added.

“Do you know this boy, Bruno?” he asked in a loud voice.

Bruno’s mouth __________ and he tried to say the word “yes”, but then he realized that he couldn’t because he was feeling just as __________ himself.

“Tell me, Bruno!” shouted Kotler, his face growing red. “I won’t ask you a third time.”

“I’ve __________ seen him before in my life,” said Bruno immediately, “I don’t know him.”

Hearing that, Shmuel wasn’t crying any more, merely staring at the floor and looking as if he was trying to __________ his soul not to live inside his tiny body any more, but to __________ away and sail to the door and rise up into the sky, gliding through the clouds until it was far away.

9 . Every Saturday morning Phoenix Young would take piano lessons with a family friend when he was a child. “At that time we would_______around and take all morning just to have a lesson,” Phoenix_______. “And I loved it.”

But when Phoenix was 12, his teacher proposed that he need better_______.So his mother took him to a music school in the Bronx, and signed him up for classes with a teacher named Bade Simon, experienced bit known for being _______. And she quickly lived up to that _______.Phoenix found the stressful life was_______like his lighthearted Saturday mornings with his former teacher, so it wasn’t long before he_______that he would quit.

One day, however, Bade_______him and said something surprising: “I have_______in you. Keep going. Then the reluctant (不情愿的) student did something surprising ________: he said, “Okay.”

“It was as if all I wanted was just a________from her that she cared about me,” Phoenix said.

That moment________their relationship. Within a few weeks, they were having________during lessons. And within a few months, she was teaching him things about music that he’d never known before. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.

“I went into________and became a piano teacher, a career I have been doing for 50 years,” Phoenix said. “And I ________it all to that precious moment with my unsung hero, Bade Simon.”

10 . Many cities around the world today are heavily polluted. Careless methods of production and ________ of consumer demands for environment friendly products have ________ the pollution problem. One ________ is that millions of tons of glass, paper, plastic, and metal containers are produced, and these are difficult to get rid of.

________, today, more and more consumers are choosing “green” and demanding that the products they buy should be safe for the environment. ________ they buy a product, they ask questions like these: “Will this shampoo damage the environment?” “Can this metal container be ________ or can it only be used once?”

A recent study showed that two ________ five adults now consider the environmental safety of a product before they buy it. This means that companies must now change the ________ they make and sell their products to make sure that they are “green,” that is, friendly to the environment.

Only a few years ago, it was impossible to find green products in supermarkets, but now there are hundreds. Some supermarket products ________ labels to show that the product is green. Some companies emphasize that their products are clean and safe in their advertising and have made it their main selling ________.

The ________ for a safer and cleaner environment is making companies rethink ________ they do business. No longer will the public accept the old ________ of “Buy it, use it, throw it away and forget it.” The public ________ is still here, and companies are ________ their act gradually.