1 . On a Friday evening in December, I lost my job. That was _________. I was excited about the weekend, when my daughter Kristil and I _________ to get our Christmas tree. Then I listened to my voicemail: “We are sorry, but we decided to _________ you.” I was a single mother and my income was survival. The next day, I struggled to be _________ as I eyed the Christmas tree prices.

Over the next week, I applied for _________ like crazy as my bank account grew smaller. On a weekend afternoon, I dropped Kristil in a _________ community for a birthday party surrounded by all the nice things that we couldn’t _________. I drove home feeling sad.

Back at home, I looked out the window at the heavy snow and _________ a woman opening her car door against the strong wind. As she _________, I realized it was my old teacher, Sister Esther. I rushed out and asked, “What are you doing out in this ____________?” She said, “I looked for you at your ____________ and it was said that you had left, so I thought I would ____________.” I made her tea and we talked. Before leaving, she handed me a Christmas card.

Later on when I opened her card, I was ____________. There was a lot of money inside. Tears of gratitude filled my eyes as I ____________. Sister Esther had given me $1,000. In 2020, at age of 91, Sister Esther died, but the ____________ she gave during her life lives on in my heart.

2 . Do you think you are too old to do something? Just go online and ________ the video of John Harrison doing the 50m backstroke in 2014.

He ________ the 100-104 years world record by 15 seconds! Yes, you read that ________. The 100-104 years group! A time of 1:29.78. The first ever British man to set records in that age group. The applause (掌声) is long-lasting and heartfelt from all the crowd. A(n) ________ moment.

John loved swimming. He still tried to keep ________ by swimming in his last years before he passed away at the age of 105 in January 2020. Many of John’s friends speak ________ of him saying he was a “wonderful man”.

John was born in Farnborough on 25 July, 1914. And his ________ in swimming was unusual. “When I was five years old, on the way home from school, I came across a small pond,” he said ________, “so I went swimming. It taught me two things. One, to swim; and two, not to drink the water.”

“My parents ________ two years later that I was still doing it. They were ______ at first. But their anger soon ________” when I said, “I didn’t get asthma (哮喘病) last winter. They then bought me a costume and ________ me swimming skills.”

However, John didn’t start swimming ________ until his wife told him to stop teaching swimming and life-saving classes and ________ the sport for himself at the age of 79. From then on, he didn’t look back and was full of praise for everyone who ________ him during his successes.

3 . My family always had some sort of animal around, but none of them were truly mine. My parents didn’t permit me to _________ my own until I was seven years old. Finally, I was _________ to have my own _________, a fish called George. I said it was my responsibility to _________ it.

Every Friday I would clean out his bowl. I found myself _________ invitations to go somewhere immediately after school, because I would have to feed my fish first. Every day he would remind me that I was _________ and that I had someone depending on me.

One day, I came home from school and headed to my room to _________George. I found a _________ thing had happened. I _________ my bag and ran over to the bowl. I saw my best friend George floating around lifeless.

My mom walked into my room. I turned around as tears started to well in my eyes. “Mommy, George d…d…died.” With that __________ word I started crying uncontrollably. My mom came to my side as I hid my face in my pillows.

Suddenly, I realized that George hadn’t just __________ me. He had taught me what __________ meant. I learned it through feeding him and cleaning his bowl. This made me feel __________ . To my seven-year-old self, this was a great __________ . Slowly, a smile crossed my face. George was gone.__________ , the lessons he taught me would forever be carved into my memory.

4 . I received a phone call from a credit card company. With the craziness of the holidays, I had missed a _________. The agent I spoke with was _________ and we actually chatted about life and _________ and the craziness it can cause in one’s life. All in all, the _________ phone call was probably only about forty-five _________, including making a payment.

A few days later, as I’m walking to _________ the mail, I notice a box from an online _________ delivery company. My first thought is, “Oh, no, someone _________ a package.” I pick it up to see if the _________ is close so I can drop it off. To my surprise, it not only has my address but my __________!

I take it inside. And I’m not going to __________ here; I’m already teary-eyed. When I open the box, there are roses in a beautiful vase. I find the __________ and the surprises just keep coming. Not only have I got flowers, but they are from a complete __________ in a different state!

The agent has sent me flowers with a note of __________ from one mom to another. I cry like a baby. I’m so __________ that not only a stranger but someone I only talked to for less than an hour took the time to __________ me some encouragement and flowers!

To that __________, wherever you are, I hope you know you __________ my day. It is things like this that __________ me that while there is trouble and hate in the world, there is also generosity and __________ for our fellow man.

5 . There is growing interest in East Japan Railway Co. ltd, one of the six companies, created out of the privatized national railway system. In an industry lacking exciting growth ________, its plan to use real-estate assets in and around train stations ________ is drawing interest.

In a plan called “Station Renaissance” that it ________ in November, JR East said that it would ________ using its commercial spaces for shops and restaurants, extending them to ________ more suitable for the information age. It wants train stations as pick-up ________ for such goods as books, flowers and groceries ________ over the Inter. In a country where city ________ depend heavily on trains ________ commuting, about 16 million people a day go to its train stations anyway, the company ________. So, picking up commodities at train stations ________ consumers extra travel and missed home deliveries. JR East already has been using its station ________ stores for this purpose, but it plans to create ________ spaces for the delivery of Inter goods.

The company also plans to introduce ________ cards—known in Japan as IC cards because they use integrated circuit for ________ information ________ train tickets and muter passes ________ the magic ones used today, integrating them into a/an ________ pass. This will save the company money, because ________ for IC cards are much less expensive than magic systems. Increased use of IC cards should also ________ the space needed for ticket vending.

6 . I am the “Laundry Goddess”. Well, that’s what my kids call me anyway because I have the talent for finding the right ______ for any stain. From spaghetti sauce and grass marks to ballpoint ink stains, whatever my family ______ me, I seem to be able to find a way to make it look brand new again. It’s a skill I got from my mother. My mom wouldn’t admit it, but I think she ______ doing the laundry.

The laundry room was Mom’s territory. It was ______ , with only the shushing (沙沙声) of the washing machine or the hum of the dryer to interrupt her. She would ______ down early in the morning, often still in her housecoat, to put in the first ______ of the day. We would find her there, leaning on the freezer, happily having a coffee and reading the newspaper or her library book.

I don’t remember Mom teaching me the ways of the laundry room. I learned to ______ towels and small items as a youngster. I spent many hours ironing clean cotton handkerchiefs and pillowcases. But the ______ wasn’t part of my training. So when I left home and moved ______ the country, stain ______ required an expensive long-distance phone call home.

My washer and dryer seem to have more ______ than a jet plane, certainly many more than the machines used by my mom. I have made the ______ from laundry powder to liquid, and I have my own favorite stain ______ . But every time I step into the laundry room and think about how to deal with a particularly difficult stain, I ______ the Laundry Goddesses who came before me for her wisdom and perseverance. And each clean item of clothing is a ______ force in a chaotic world.

7 . I knocked lightly on Mrs. B’s door. “I’m Barbara, a hospice (临终安养院) volunteer.” I said nervously. It was my first week on the job, and my biggest ________ was figuring out how to begin with a patient.

“Please, sit down,” Mrs. B said, indicating the chair beside her bed. We chatted ________ about the ________ on her windowsill — her two daughters, many grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. Then she grew ________.

“What were you thinking about when I walked in?” I asked, sensing she might be waiting to see if I would ________ her to the truest place where this conversation could go.

“I know I’m not going to be around much ________. I’m at peace with that. But my grandson called yesterday. He’s ________ that he can’t make it to see me before I pass.”

“Have you thought about writing him a(n)________?”

Mrs. B seemed to ________ a little. “I can dictate (口述) if you’d write for me,” she said.

I walked down the hall and ________ pens and paper materials. Mrs. B ________ her grandson’s letter and decided to dictate others — for her daughters, the other grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Then she ________ her church community and her bridge club too.

She asked me to put away the letters before I left. “I asked God to send me a(n)________ this morning,” she said. “Now I know it was you.”

At the very moment I came to realize that we all ________ a loving spark. Kissing Mrs. B on her forehead, I knew simply showing up might be a precious ________.

8 . Taylor Hash desired to become a career pilot and she was under training. One day, she had just started building up hours of flight time when a__________struck. As she guided the Diamond Star plane off the runway at airport, on her third-ever independent__________, the front tyre of her plane fell off.

Taylor was__________at that point that she had just lost crucial landing equipment. “I didn’t feel anything on the take-off__________” she said.

__________pilot Chris Yates, though, saw something and immediately took action. He knew that Taylor would have to make a difficult emergency landing. He__________the control tower and said, “The Diamond Star that just took off lost its nose wheel tyre on the runway.” Yates asked people there to put him through to Taylor so he could help her. When Taylor learned what had happened, she was in__________.

_________,Yates   knew that   the   most   important   thing   would   be to   keep   Taylor   calm so   she could   follow   him__________. Yates started by reassuring Taylor and told her that she could__________above the field until she was ready to land. “When you touch down, I just want that stick all the way back. You’re gonna hold that stick back like you don’t want that nose to touch,” he__________her.

Despite feeling unsure, Taylor trusted Yates.   With palms sweaty and lips__________,Taylor successfully create a best landing chance. Ultimately, she strained every nerve to manage to land___________.

No sooner had Yates extended his arms than Taylor hugged him tightly with tears of__________rolling down cheeks. Yates smiled, patted on her shoulder and encouraged, “it was your excellent skill that help yourself__________the emergency successfully. I am so proud of you.”

9 . It was the first time Moham went to a restaurant in his new neighborhood. He looked up at the menu board, and ________ how he could understand what all of these strange names meant. Moham decided that he would ________ ask the waitress for ice cream in a cup. She smiled brightly, wrote down his ________ and disappeared behind the big glass display case (陈列柜). A moment later, she came back with a tall paper cup. ________ it was a long straw (吸管) and some kind of drink. Moham, quite ________, took the cup and thanked her, thinking about the possibility that he had used wrong words.

“It’s the soda you ordered,” ________ said, “an ice cream drink in a cup”.

He smiled at the waitress, pointed at one of the ________ in the display case, and said, “That one, please," which seemed to ________ better.

Moham took the cake and his unexpected soda to a table and sat down to eat. Why was it that English had been so ________ for him in his classes in Tunisia, but when it came to ________speaking, he couldn’t even get what he wanted to eat?

Just then, a girl, who sat at the next table and had watched the whole ________, smiled at him and said, “Hey, welcome to our beautiful city! Don’t feel ________ about your English-you’ll get better at it ________ you’ve lived here for a while. I’m from Spain, and the first time I tried to order a salad here, I ________ with a plate of pig’s feet. At least you got a soda!”

Hearing this, Moham felt much better. He wasn’t the only one ________ to communicate, and his new city began to feel just a little more like he could call it home.

10 . When our first son Brendan was born in Sydney in 1966, we planted a golden elm tree in our front yard.It and Brendan _________ together and when we _________ the house, eight years later, the tree branched (长出枝条) out over our heads. We were _________ we had to leave it behind when we moved to New South Wales.

A young couple bought our home and were _________ it.Over the next 37 years, when travelling to Sydney, my family _________ couldn’t help stopping to see the tree. With time, the golden elm grew more beautiful.The owners still loved the home and seemed not to _________ at all that we didn't completely leave them alone.

Recently on the way to Sydney, my husband _________ to see how the house and the owners were getting on. It had been about ten years since we had last _________ and the tree had been removed some years earlier._________, the owner, Gillian, suggested she would contact (联系) us some time in the future, so my husband gave her our ____________.

When I heard about her ____________ message, I wondered what she meant. One day in December, we had a phone call from Gillian. She wanted to drop something in to us for our ____________. I told Brendan that there was a mysterious gift being ____________ for him that day, so it was indeed ____________ when Gillian handed him a package containing two carved wooden bowls. Gillian had asked a local woodworking company to make the ____________ from a piece of the trunk of the golden elm, which she had ____________ several years earlier. My husband’s ____________ had driven her to follow through with her idea.

What a pleasure it was to ____________ that package. We were ____________ by her thoughtfulness (体贴), and amazed that her long­term plan actually did ____________.