2 . For the longest time, I had always wanted a cat. _______, my parents did not share the same_______. Every year, I would ask for a cat, but I always got the same answer “No”.

So I _______ year after year, hoping they would _______agree. Right when I was about to give up, my seventeenth birthday rolled around. My parents were _______against the cat, but my friends were a different story. On my birthday, they _______ with a wide- eyed ,_______cat named Bandit. At that moment, I was _______ with joy. My lifelong wish had finally come true! I knew my life was about to_______

To my surprise, Bandit is the most timid(胆小的）cat I’ve ever met. I didn’t know how to deal with his actions. Upset and angry, I________him loudly. But that didn’t ________ So then I tried, I regret to say this, forceful ________. Carrying him to the outside world as he meowed(喵喵叫）________ didn’t work, either. During all of this, he was closer to my mom. I felt angry. How could the one thing I loved most love my mom more? I thought over many ________ including: maybe she would speak the language of cats, or she was luring (引诱）him with a secret ________. I went to talk with her about it, excited and ________.

“I didn’t have a secret treat, dear. What I do have is ________,” my mom replied. Ever since then, Bandit has been ________ me to be more and more patient.

He has taught me to grow up. He has also brought my family________by leading me to talk with my parents. We eat dinner together at the table more often now, usually with a Bandit as the________.

3 . One day, while I was walking to work, I decided to bring some flowers that I had picked from my garden that morning. On the way, I ________ a stranger and presented the flowers to him with a smile card. ________ by the sense of joy I felt from giving flowers to another person, and may be ________ his day, I wanted to do it again.

When I got to my office, I had the ________ of anonymously( 匿名) leaving flowers around the workplace. The impersonal ________ of the building where I work makes me ________. It just feels a little boring sometimes, ________ it's a nice building with great light. I ________ lots of people might feel the same way, so why not put a little ________ there, and throw in an inspirational quote(引言) while I'm at it? ________, who doesn't like flowers？

So, for the past month, I've been ________ flowers in a little cup on the sink in the bathroom. Each week, I ________ the flowers and the quote. It always feels ________ for me to read quotes like Henry David Thoreau's "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, he will meet with a ________ unexpected in common hours. " and Gandhi's "The fragrance always ________ on the hand that gives the rose.” If anything, I figured, it at least makes me ________ each time I visit the bathroom.

Then today, when I walked in, I noticed ________ flowers in the cup, and a quote that someone else had written! It ________, "Be the change you wish to see in the world. " ----- Gandhi. This little act________ me that, at the end of the day, we're all just people with hearts ________ the various roles and different hats we may wear in the workplace.

I did a little dance and am smiling wide for the rest of the day!

4 . In January, 2016, Harry Styles made a brave decision. He_________the popular boy band One Direction and went solo(单飞). Now he is making his own_________heard. The 23-year-old British singer released his first solo single called Sign of the Times. His self-titled(个人同名)album is_________on May 12.

Going solo is a_________for him to find his identity. Though at the time, he was_________about his future, he kept the word "honesty" in his_________. "I didn't want to write '_________'," he told Rolling Stone. "I wanted to write my stories, things that_________to me. The number-one thing was that I wanted to be_________. I hadn't done that before."

He has been__________full of stories since beginning his solo career. Last fall, he spent two months recording on a remote island in Jamaica. Along with some__________, he filled a two-floor house with instruments. They hung out at the bar that__________a tree house. Many mornings began with a swim in the river down the hill.

They watched many__________comedies such as Roman Holiday. Styles always held a black__________and looked like a college student who was studying, Rolling Stone reported.

His coming__________is about rock music.__________, he grew up with it. His father Desmond was a__________music fan. When Styles was very young, he danced to The Dark Side of the Moon, a classic song by British rock band Pink Floyd. "I couldn't really get it. But I just__________this is really cool."

Harry said, "At the very beginning, all I__________was to be the grandfather with the best stories."__________, now he is on the right track.

5 . We are changed, sometimes in unexpected ways, by the problems of life.

One day, William Osler, a beloved doctor, was _______ in one of Britain’s military hospitals during the World WarⅠ. He was called out of the wards during his daily _________to be given an important message. His own son had been killed on the_________of France.

Shocked by the news, he still came back to _______ his rounds. For a long time afterward he was _______ different. And those who knew him best said that he _______ as a doctor that day. The _______ note was gone from his voice and never again did friends hear the tune which he so often _______ as he went from ward to ward.

Though these things never _______, something eventually came to take their ________. Everyone noticed a new sympathy in his care of the soldiers who each day ________ in from the battlefield. Before, he had the professional ________of the doctor, so important to the practice of medicine. Now there was an added obvious note of a ________ sympathy, like that of a father for his son.

Like most people who have ________such losses, Osler must have spent a lot of time in great ________. But as he healed and mixed the loss into his life, it left him a ________ person.

Pain will do that. It changes us, often in unexpected ways. It can leave us angry and ________, or, as in the case of Osler, it can bring forth ________ such as sympathy or tenderness. The world is full of suffering. We can’t avoid it no matter how hard we try. But the ________ of life is one of our greatest blessings. It teaches us that the world is also full of the ________ of suffering.

17.

A．ruined

B．amazed

C．broken

D．relaxed

6 . One afternoon I was sitting at my favorite table in a restaurant, waiting for the food I had ordered to arrive. Suddenly I _______ that a man sitting at a table near the window kept glancing in my direction, _______ he knew me. The man had a newspaper_______ in front of him, which he was _______ to read, but I could _______ that he was keeping an eye on me. When the waiter brought my _______ the man was clearly puzzled by the _______ way in which the waiter and I _______ each other. He seemed even more puzzled as_______ went on and it became ________ that all the waiters in the restaurant knew me. Finally he got up and went into the ________ . When he came out, he paid his bill and ________ without another glance in my direction.

I called the owner of the restaurant and asked what the man had ________ . “Well,” he said，“that man was a detective（侦探）. He ________ you here because he thought you were the man he ________ .” “What?” I said, showing my ________. The owner continued, “He came into the kitchen and showed me a photo of the wanted man. I ________ say he looked very much like you! Of course, since we know you, we told him that he had made a ________ .” “Well, it’s really ________ I came to a restaurant where I’m known, ” I said.“ ________ , I might have been in trouble.”

7 . When I was 25 years old, I had a big dream in my mind and lots of things in my backpack. I wanted to travel around Africa with my _______. So I left my hometown with great confidence and _______ in Cape Town on a one-way ticket, not really sure what to do next._______, before my trip actually started, I met a kind, old Nigerian man. He gave me the best travel_______ I ever received: “Be like a student on your way around the world.”

It sounds _______, but it really changed my mind about travelling. He helped me _______ that travel is about learning and observing different _______. “It’s far too easy to go into a new country for you and believe your ways are better. But if you study, ask questions, and _______ to learn from the locals, you’ll have far richer _______, ” he promised me.

On other trips since I was on my tour way to Cancun, I didn’t know the man so I was just a________. I only stayed there for a week to see the sights and places of interest and then left. The culture didn’t ________ me. I left the cities and towns without really ________ anyone or anything. Those people and things ________ in those very places to which I had paid a visit.

This time, I promised myself that I would be a ________ student traveller. After seven months of ________ travelling from Cape Town to Cairo, I returned home. Having a student-like attitude helped me learn a lot. This trip satisfied me more than any other trip ever did to me.

8 . A true apology is more than just acknowledgement(承认)of a mistake. It is recognition that something you have said or _______has damaged a relationship—and that you _______enough about that relationship to want it _______.

It's never _______ to acknowledge you are in the wrong. Being human, we all need the art of apology. Look back and think how _______you've judged roughly， said_______ things, pushed yourself _______at the expense of a friend. Some deep thought in us know that when _______a small mistake has been made, your _______will stay out of balance until the mistake is acknowledged and your regret is ________.

I remember a doctor friend, ________ me about a man who came to him with ________ illnesses: headache, insomnia(失眠)， stomachaches and so on. No physical________ could be found. Finally the doctor said to the man, “________you tell me what’s on your conscience，I can't help you.”

After a short silence, the man told the doctor that he________ all the money that his father gave to his brother, who was ________ . His father had died, so only he himself knew the matter. The old doctor made the man write to his brother making an ________and enclosing(附寄)a ________ . In the post office, the man dropped the letter into the mail box. As the letter disappeared, the man ________ into tears. ''Thank you, doctor, '' he said, ''I think I'm all right now. '' And he ________ .

9 . My grandfather was a serious man. A quick look from him was enough to keep my sisters and me in line. _______ every summer I looked forward to seeing Grandpa in his farm. We enjoyed every moment of feeding and washing the animals.   

Grandpa was a man who didn’t show his _______ easily. There were times he caught us touching some of his personal things or exploring places that we weren’t _______ to. His quiet scolding (责备) left us _______ for the rest of our stay.   

One morning I heard “clickety-clack, clickety-clack, ping”. I stopped and found where the sound came _______: Grandpa in his study, typing a letter. I leaned _________ to see better when I fell through the door. For a while I _______ on the floor of the study. I stood up and went _______in the face, hoping the scolding would be short.

Grandpa’s eyes shone. He called me_________. I went to him __________, with my eyes looking at the floor. He asked what I was doing, and I told him that I was drawn by the __________ of the typewriter. I only wanted to get a better __________. I wasn’t going to touch anything, I __________.

The rest of the summer I stood near his elbow watching him type. How I wished to __________ the beautiful yellow keys with my fingers.

After going home, I spent the year writing poems, letters, and stories in my notebooks and__________ myself using Grandpa’s typewriter to write novels. __________, I planned to be a writer, and writers used typewriters.   

The next ____________, I’d hear the sounds of typewriter keys and walk toward them, admiring the __________ of the words forming on the page. I wished he would offer me a(n) ____________ to try it. But he never did.

____________ returning home that year, I got a parcel. I found the typewriter in the box! My serious grandfather！

10 . “Cheese” — a metaphor (隐喻) for what we want to have in life，whether it is a job, a relationship, or money.

Each of us has our own ____ of what cheese is, and we want to ___ it because we believe it makes us ____.

Once there lived four little characters. Two were ____ named Sniff and Scurry and two were little people named Hem and Haw.

Every morning, the mice and the little people _____their running wear and went to Cheese Station C ____ they found their cheese. It was such a large store of cheese that Hem and Haw   ___ moved their homes to be closer to it.

One morning, Sniff and Scurry arrived at Cheese Station C and discovered there was ____ cheese. They weren’t surprised. ____ they had noticed the supply ____ cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the result. They set out quickly to ___ new cheese.

Later that same day, Hem and Haw arrived. “What? No cheese! Who moved my cheese?” Hem yelled. They went home that night_____ and discouraged.

The next day Hem and Haw____ to Cheese Station C. But the situation hadn’t changed. Haw asked, “Do Sniff and Scurry know something we don’t know?” Hem____him and said, “What would they know? They are simple ____and we are human beings. They cannot be ___ than we are.”

Haw suggested, “Maybe we should ____ talking about the situation and just to look for some new cheese.”

Haw decided to ____ Cheese Station C while Hem was more comfortable staying in the cheeseless Station C.

Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry went farther ____ they found Cheese Station N. They found what they had been looking for. It was the biggest _____of cheese the mice had ever seen.