1 . In February 2020, Max’s friend Rick was diagnosed with cancer. Max _______ Rick during the last month of his life, thus becoming _______ of the care provided to his friend by North Devon Hospice. “The hospital took such good care of him that I wanted to do something to show my _______,” says Max.

Max _______ a fundraising mission in March 2020. When Max first put up a tent in the yard of his house, he was 10 years old and had just _______ his friend Rick. “Before my friend died of cancer, he gave me a tent and told me to ‘have an adventure’,” says Max.

Through a years-long campaign, he became known as “The Boy in the Tent” and _______ more than £700,000 in 2023. Such a _______ allowed the hospital to _______ around 500 patients in their own homes, helping them face the _______ of an illness like cancer.

When he recalls his ________ experiences, Max says that he doesn’t ________ a single thing about the past three years. It’s easy to imagine, however, the past years weren’t free of ________ for Max: from collapsed tents to keeping warm throughout storms and snowy nights. Max faced everything with his positive attitude and goal-driven mind. “ One time my tent collapsed in the wind and rain at about 10:00 pm and I ________ to put it up again,” he says. “Despite all, I didn’t gave up. I ________ love my one-of-a-kind adventure and I believe Rick would enjoy it as well if he were ________. ”

4 . I was travelling on an overnight bus from Kolhapur to Aurangabad. The ordinary bus was more than _________; all 55 seats were taken and there were some 20 people standing. The hot day added to the discomfort of the rough, 10-hour journey. I didn't get a seat, so I had to stand quite _________.

After around two very long hours, I was tired and bored. I kept trying to _________ myself,changing my body weight from one leg to the other. I suddenly sensed a soft hand _________ my elbow(肘), asking for attention. Turning around, I_________ a middle-aged man with a smile looking up at me. He stood up and said I could take his _________ for a while. I pleasantly accepted it with a sigh of _________ , and the man seemed happy too. After about 20 minutes, I_________ him to take back his space. A man who was sitting by the window had observed our _________.

Just then, something magical happened. Our observer stood up and _________ his seat to another standing man. Unexpectedly, we had caused a series of reactions: This game of seat-sharing _________ through the bus like wildfi re and, before long, almost all the standees got a

chance to be seated. People even started _________ each other while exchanging positions, and soon began sharing jokes and singing. I could say, the rest of the journey was quite _________.

The bus reached its destination the next morning. The groups quickly said goodbye and went their _________. But this extraordinary _________ has stayed with me even after all these years. It showed me an important fact that we can all share what we have and help our co-passengers on this journey called life.

6 . Making predictions hinders (妨碍) the brain’s ability to remember the present moment, new research suggests. The hippocampus, a brain structure usually _________ with remembering events, also uses experiences to make forecasts (neuroscientists call this “statistical learning”). _________ scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA have now demonstrated that the latter function can disrupt (扰乱) the former.

Researchers showed participants a series of photographs on a screen without telling them that some image categories always _________ others: mountains always came immediately after beaches, for example. The subjects were intended to _________ learn these associations and begin to expect these pairings. Later, the participants were shown the same photos again, mixed in with new examples, and were asked if they had _________ any of them before. They accurately recalled seeing _________ images at a much better rate than the “predictive” ones (like the beach pictures).

The scientists repeated this process while scanning participants’ brains with functional MRI. Each image category prompted a distinct neural activity pattern, and the _________ for “predictable” categories were seen in the hippocampus when the corresponding predictive category was displayed. _________, this effect’s strength in fMRI corresponded inversely (相反地) with participants’ memory task scores. “The more evidence for prediction we saw, the _________ their memory was for those predictive items,” such as a particular beach scene, says study lead author and Yale University cognitive neuroscientist Brynn Sherman. This suggests that predictive images triggered the hippocampus to shift gears toward __________ and away from encoding a new memory.

The study is among the first to demonstrate how making predictions __________ human memory. Scientists previously suspected that the hippocampus had a role in statistical learning but had not known how it __________ with memory formation. “This paper is a really nice demonstration of the __________ where the hippocampus is doing both these things,” says University of Virginia cognitive neuroscientist Nicole Long, who was not involved in the research.

The team says this trade-off occurs because remembering and predicting both use some of the same __________ pathways. In the paper, the authors compare it with “using one’s right foot to operate both the brake and gas pedals in a car but not both at the same time.” This setup could prevent memory redundancies and thus __________ brainpower, Sherman says: a successful prediction would contain the same information as an actual outcome.

The brain circuitry (电路) that makes all this possible still requires further research, Long says. For instance, she wonders how much repetition is needed before the hippocampus shifts from recording to predicting and whether it is possible to train the structure to improve both modes in tandem.

7 . I lost my hair at two due to a condition. At school I was _______ for it. _______ became my escape, and I was fortunate to have born athletic ability. I would _______ home every day and shoot basketball for hours. I put all my time and _______ into basketball to become the best player I could be.

I had a great high-school career, breaking countless school records, and received a scholarship to play in _______ . It was a dream come true. However, I still rarely talked about my condition. I continued to _______ behind my wig (假发) all the time.

In my senior year of college, I _______ to run a marathon. Crossing the finish line of that tiring 26.2-mile race filled me with a sense of _______ like never before. From that moment on, I became _______ to the excitement of running. The more I ran, the stronger and more ________ I felt. I slowly started to talk about my ________ to close friends.

Then one day, on a hot training run, I ________ my wig. For the first time, I felt ________, beautiful, and brave.

Two weeks later, I ran my first marathon wigless and was ________ and loved during that entire race weekend. I was surrounded by such ________ and support that I didn’t even think of my wigless head. Tears welled in my eyes as I crossed that finish line.

9 . I’m pretty good at sticking with things even when they get hard. Bad relationships, unpleasant workplaces, ________ sports — I’ve hung on in there for months and even years longer than I should have, convinced the situation would ________ if I refused to give up.

After all, isn’t every success story covering ________? Didn’t Ernest Hemingway shrink from writing during the First World War, and didn’t Oprah get fired from her first TV job? Quitting is a sign that you lack ________ and strong will, or at least I was raised to believe.

________, if I look back on all the things I eventually quit, my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. I’ve wasted too much time and energy, anticipating that I could ________ everyone if I just kept going.

People are more likely to ________ something if they’ve invested a lot of money or effort into it, even when it’s clear that they should ________ their losses and jump ship. This practice is normal and understandable but it’s also ________.

If you don’t get energy out of doing something, it can be a(n) ________ that this is not for you or that there’s something better you could be doing. Or it could be a sign that you should ________ your goals. In fact, dogged perseverance in the face of energy-consuming disappointment can ________ depression, and then make you suffer from diseases in the long run.

But the good news is that people can learn to pay better attention to these moments when they’re happening and make ________. The art of quitting isn’t about just letting go whenever there’s a ________. It’s about being able to ________ when there’s no access to success anymore.