1 . Christmastime is generally thought of as joyful. But 40 years ago, it was a ______ time for my wife, Geri, and me. Both of us were about to lose our ______. I was an educator and Geri was a psychologist. To make matters ______, we had loans (贷款) on two houses-at a time when interest rates hovered (徘徊) at 16%. We wanted to ______ one of our houses, but the sale ______ at the last minute.

A place to call ______ looked extremely hopeless for us. Yet we ______ to celebrate Christmas in our new house before we faced the terrible ______ of becoming homeless. So we did something crazy: We ______ a Christmas tree.

It was an artificial tree—the ______ we could find at the local store. I ______ we spent just $11 or $12 on it. It looked ______ with nothing on it, which is only what you would expect from such an inexpensive ______. But it didn’t look half bad when it was fully ______.

Perhaps it gave us good ______. Our job situation turned around, making it ______ for us to keep our new house after all. We ______ put up the tree every year. Friends have advised us to ______ it. But our daughters, who know its ______, insist that we keep it.

Today, the tree is a reminder of our ______ beginnings in our present home-the same one where it first stood up 40 years ago.

2 . The Great Wall of China is one of the greatest wonders of the world. With a ________of more than 2, 000 years, some parts of the Great Wall have disappeared. ________, it is still a very popular place of interest.

It is the ________wall ever built. It is about 8 meters high. The top is 8 meters wide and it ________even wider at the bottom. It is made ________stone and brick. People built it by ________and it took a long time to finish.

No one knows ________when the building of the Great Wall was started. It is believed that the wall was built to ________parts of the country in the old days. It also made people live a (n) ________life.

Today, many of the visitors go to see the Great Wall. ________they stand on top of a tower and look down on this wall, they can’t help saying, “Wow, that’s fantastic!”

3 . A year after high school, I didn't know what to do. I was still one of those_______teenagers with no real timetable for the day. Then I _______to find Brief History of Time from a street vendor (小贩；摊贩). When I finished _______, for the first time I had a _______to spend my life on.

Years later, I was doing_______ in the Institute of Theoretical Physics where Stephen Hawking _______as the Research Director. One day at lunchtime, Prof. Hawking_______ and joined in on my table. I had imagined_______ him! Now he was sitting _______before me! I couldn’t help but________— reading his book, getting laughed at by friends, convincing my family that I wanted to “study black holes”... I gathered some________and told him that I joined physics because of his ________ and he was such an inspiration. At first, I wasn’t sure if he understood my thick accent. So I quietly continued my ________. But minutes later________a voice from his computer: “Thank You! I am very glad to see you here.”

It was only then that I________that during the pause he was writing, one letter at a time, while being spoon-fed. It’s how he had been doing unimaginable research almost his entire________. His ability to use his brain in such an incredible way despite a ________body has always inspired me not to be________by difficulties and to concentrate energy on things other than pains of life.

My work keeps me going: it’s my passion, it’s my life and it’s a great pleasure and motivation, which________me to contribute to society. My lifespan (寿命) might be________, but my achievements could be endless. I owe all this to him.

4 . Once there was a farmer with a wife and two sons. He became quite________through hardworking. He wanted his children to have a(n)________life, so he and his wife did all the work and________made them do anything.

After some time, his wife died and________he didn’t want his children to________, so he did the field labor and all the housework. But as time went on, he became old and________, and started to worry about his________when he died.

So he thought about this for a long time and he________his sons and said, “Look, my inheritance (遗产) to you is a lot of gold. I’ve________all my gold in the fields, so it’s up to you to plough (耕作) them and________the gold.”

And he called his neighbors and said, “I’m going to________and my children don’t know how to________themselves. So please cook for them until they can take care of themselves.”

So the neighbors provided them with________for some time.

Certainly the brothers didn’t want to be robbed of the________so they did the digging themselves. They________one field after another and after they had dug all the fields, they found no gold.

So the brothers sat down and one________the other, “Do you think our father________us?”

But the other brother said, “No, I think our father was saying that the________is a golden profession. And if we dig up all the________we can become rich.”

So like all the other________, they sowed wheat in the fields they had dug and became very rich in the end.

5 . I’m one of the tallest members of my class, always bending at the back of the line to avoid sticking out. I especially ________ to hear people say, “Ruthie! Look how tall you’re getting!” ________ my grandfather would always tell me, “Stand straight and tall,” Later I understood his advice was about more than just ________ .

My grandfather grew up in war-torn Europe. When German soldiers ________ his hometown, the beautiful city of Tarnow, Poland, he fought for his country’s ________. “Stand straight, stand tall,” meant something else back then.

After the ________ , he boarded a boat for America, arriving in Manhattan. All alone in a new country, he was frightened about his ________. Still, he marched head-on into the ________ streets of New York. Soon he met other European immigrants, each of them ________ to find his or her own way. If they could do it, ________couldn’t he? “Stand straight, stand tall,” he would ________ himself.

Thanks to the help of a loyal and trusting friend, my grandfather acquired a ________ store on Canal Street. He once told me how ________ he was on that first day of work. He was not only trying to learn this tough________business, but also a new language.

To his ________, the men in the community offered their help and advice. Within months, my grandfather was ________diamonds and pearls as if he’d been doing it his whole life.

I ________my grandfather more than anyone else in my childhood. And ________I was afraid of something, he would tell me stories of his life. Listening to my grandfather’s remarkable experiences have______the way I view my own life. His advice tells me to be________of who I am.

“Stand straight, stand tall,” my grandfather told me. And I do.

6 . We live in a fast-paced and anxiety-filled world that often times seems to shift beneath our feet. Thus, we are sometimes affected by_______or anxiety impacting our life. For as long as I could remember I had_______with anxiety.

After graduating from university, I made friends with the Moroccan woman at work. One day, she invited me to visit her and her family back home. I wanted to; _______ , for a girl who had never been out of the UK alone in the past 23 years, it meant that I would have to travel in a very _______area by myself for the first time in my life. Could I really make it?

Then one day it _______ to me that I had a life to live. Indeed, I could choose to give in to these awful concerns. There was always a sense of fear overwhelming from the bottom of my heart and still to that moment _______I made up my mind to go to Morocco and feel something totally _______.

I remember how good it felt the minute I set foot in Morocco.

_______ arrival, my friend’s family arranged a(n) _______ welcome party and everyone was so loving toward me. Such a moment of love felt in a distant rural village ________ me that I was “good enough” or I deserved to be treated like a star, which ________ helped to relieve my anxiety.

It was after I woke up the next day, in the morning light, that I was ________by how underdeveloped the area was—and the realization that these people had very few ________. Electronic items like smart phones, computer games are nearly ________to be found.

In the days afterwards, under the guidance of my friend, I traveled around Morocco, ________ the rivers, mountains and the amazing food(most of them were new to me). It seemed that I had never felt so ________ to nature as well as the people around me before.

At the end of my stay, something ________ me changed. From dawn to dusk, I was immersed in a sense of delight ________ depression for nearly two weeks.

That trip helped me to find out what really ________ in life. And with that, all my worries disappeared. When I returned home I was much more active in challenging my anxiety. More importantly, helping others ________ their anxiety is how I can share the love I found in Morocco.

7 . What was the best moment I’ve ever had in a class? I’ve had many great moments, but perhaps the best moment took place in my English class about a month ago.

I had a 15-minute presentations, and I felt pretty _________. Thirty minutes before my presentation, I _________ to use an actor for my presentation. I felt even more confident, assured that I would _________ the audience. When my presentation started, I gave a _________ to my actor that led me to _________ my eight notecards all over the floor. I quickly _________ all the notecards off the floor. I became _________, listening to the _________ of the audience as I tried to rearrange the cards. My anxiety levels _________, and the disorganized cards just added __________. I placed the cards down and felt a great sense of __________. My words, my explanations and my connections all __________ out of my mouth, and I felt more natural and free as I presented my topic.

I felt like a __________ different person. By the end of the presentation, I was __________ with sweat, not because I was __________, but because I left it all on the floor. I realized that the __________ to presenting to people was not just getting their attention by visual aids. You need to let your heart __________ so that you can __________ their hearts and minds. You can’t just be the center of attention; you need to give the audience attention, and you need to talk to them. First and foremost, you can’t present without __________.

Anything you present should be built off of __________. As long as you can be passionate and find a connection between yourself and the topic, you will keep the audience entertained.