1 . On December 26, 2004, a 10-minute-long earthquake with a 9.3 magnitude took place in the Indian Ocean. This earthquake, which is the third _______ ever recorded in history, caused powerful tsunamis (海啸) that reached many countries’ _______. About 230,000 people were _______ by the disaster. Hundreds of thousands of others were injured _______ disappeared. One of them is a little _______ named Wati.

The tsunami _______ her hometown of Aceh when she was only 3 years old. Like so many others, the huge waves separated her from her family, and she was _______ to an unknown town. After days of _______, her family eventually gave up and thought she had _______.

However, Wati had been ________ by a stranger who found her on the street after the tsunami. The stranger had tried to find her family, but Wati could not ________ the names of her parents and only knew that she had a grandfather named Ibraham.

________ later, a taxi driver who heard Wati’s story happened to know an old man with that name in a nearby town and decided to take her to him. Although the old man did not ________ her at first, he took Wati to see his ________.

“When I saw my mother, I knew it was her,” said the 15-year-old Wati. “I just knew.”

The parents recognized their daughter ________ because of the birthmark on the body.

2 . 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.

3 . Lisa was a teacher of my two sons. In 2000, she ______ to teach my elder son, Bob, who had difficulty in writing and reading. It took Lisa much patience to ______ Bob. With her special education, Bob ______ in his class and was finally admitted to a Chinese university with excellent grades. I ______ believed it was Lisa’s special teaching style that made Bob finally ______ out. Years later, my complete ______ was confirmed again.

Luckily, my younger son, Mike, also studied in Lisa’s class. Lisa made a bigger ______ on him. “Every student is unique, so ______ teaching is the key,” she said. “Every man has his price.” Because she was aware of her students’ ______, she designed multiple schemes to guide the children.

Mike’s grades had fallen behind other students. It was a challenge for Lisa to teach him whose grades were at the   ______ of the class. Lisa learned Mike had a(n) ______ personality. He liked meeting friends, loved chatting with them and enjoyed their ______. It was because he often stayed with others that he didn’t have enough time to focus on his ______. Lisa not only taught Mike to ______ life and learning but also ______ time — most for study and some for fun. She even invited Mike’s best friend to learn together with him and ______ them after school. Eventually, they significantly raised their scores. However, Lisa reminded me that it wasn’t the scores but the ______ that mattered. She couldn’t be more proud of my son’s stepping ______.

In terms of child education, Lisa is a(n) ______ example to all. Although Mike has graduated, I can’t be more ______. I really want to say to her again, “Thanks.”

4 . At 7:01 A.M., my twin daughters, Natasha and Ariel, were scheduled to begin third grade at Chengdu Experimental Primary School.

For my wife, Leslie, and me, getting our daughters into Chengdu Experimental had been a long and mysterious _________. In the spring of 2018, we had travelled from our home in Colorado to Chengdu in order to visit schools. We’d come away with a good _________ of Chengdu Experimental, which is considered to be perhaps the best public primary school in the city. But officials were uncertain about _________ Ariel and Natasha. The school had no recent _________ of educating foreigners, and if the twins were to attend, they would be the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand.

At 4:30 P.M., I waited alone in front of the gate. When Class Six _________ out of the schoolyard, Teacher Zhang walked at the front of a neat line of children, and Ariel and Natasha were at the end. The twins held it together until they reached me.

‘‘I feel so stupid!” Ariel said. She burst into tears, pressing against my side. “We didn’t understand anything!” Her sister was also _________: “I don’t want to go back!” A few parents looked _________ in my direction, and Teacher Zhang hurried over. She was middle-aged, with large, alert eyes and a gentle _________. “I think that it was difficult for them,” she said. I thanked her for her _________, and I said that we would continue to work on Mandarin at home. I waited for Ariel and Natasha to __________ before we walked to the subway station.

In order to become proper Chinese third graders, Natasha and Ariel needed to memorize a total of sixteen hundred __________. They started with ten a day. Leslie organized our system of home study, and every afternoon, when the twins returned from school, she __________ them a new stack of flash cards. For each set of ten, we quizzed them twice: first on __________, then on writing. The flash cards outlined the correct stroke (笔画) order, and the twins wrote the characters over and over in dozens of cheap brown exercise books that lay scattered like autumn leaves around the apartment.

Luckily enough, it was amazing how quickly my twins were becoming members of the school’s system. At the end of the first week, a school rally __________ Chengdu International Poetry Week. I saw that Natasha and Ariel had been __________ in the front row, waving their arms and smiling.

5 . Because of his severe lung disease, Michael Surrell would be the last person to get into any emergency, let alone a (n) ________ building. But that was not the case with the ________ happening one day.

At first, he didn’t notice black smoke ________ out of his neighbor’s windows, until his daughter phoned to say “The house next door is on fire!” He ________ out and found the woman in a wheelchair crying ________ on the porch, “The baby girl’s on the second floor!”

At that, he immediately dived into the burning ________. Thick and stifling (令人窒息的) smoke just ________ his eyes. Yet thanks to the familiar layout, he managed to find the dark staircase and ________ his way to the second floor. Moments later, his throat and lungs ________ as if he’d breathed fire. Then he heard a baby’s ________ and broken cries. Unable to see, Surrell ________, and crawled toward the sound, feeling around for Tiara. He knew he couldn’t hold his ________ for too long before passing out.

All of a sudden, his fingers closed around a ________ wrist. Wild with excitement, he ________ it closer, scooped up the baby, struggled his way downstairs through the smoke and put Tiara, who was already ________, down gently on the porch. Then he started CPR. After several ________, she opened her eyes and met his. Surrell hugged her ________, saying, “Uncle’s got you.” Suddenly his knees went weak. Then he collapsed onto the floor, ________ .

The next thing he knew, he ________ himself lying in bed in a hospital. His ________ significantly worsened but he joked “That’s a small price to pay”.

6 . Almost as soon as I adopted Troy, a cute puppy, in the winter, I felt I’d made a terrible mistake. Troy was turning out to be very ________ from the little dog that had led me to expect. Not only was he ________ up to be far bigger than the promised 30—40 pounds, but he was extremely ________.

Troy would run around the apartment like lightning, ________ things over. I found myself running after Troy all day long. With time, I realized how ________ unprepared I was for dog parenting. Troy always tested my ________. I wished I could return to the free days before I had this huge ________ . Finally, I________ him wildly one day. That brought huge shame. I realized I had let my anger________ me.

I decided to reach out for help. The dog trainer ________ me skills to redirect Troy’s energy. With the snow ________ from the road, things started to get better. Troy went to the park and made puppy friends. He can better ________ my words. I changed, too. I was no longer quick to anger but instead learned to deal with situations with ________.

The first few months were hard, but I finally made my ________ with that little one. Troy taught me lessons I hold dear now. It’s easy to let our ________ get the best of us, but it takes strength and self-awareness to find healthier ways to deal with them.

7 . Born without legs, Zion Clark is now a wrestler. “You don’t need legs to leave your footprint on this planet” is a (n) _______ by which Zion Clark lives his life.

Since birth, the man has continuously _______ every challenge. He was born with a (n) _______ disease called Caudal Regression Syndrome, which left him without legs. During childhood, he was shy and _______. It was through sport, especially wrestling, that he started _______ overcoming difficulties in life.

Wrestling gave Clark a (n)   _______ which changed his life. It also inspired him to hit the gym, from which he could see a major _______. However, he wasn’t _______ with just wrestling success. Clark _______ his life to representing his country at both the Olympics in wrestling and the Paralympics in wheelchair racing. He still hopes to ________ to Paris 2024 and is following a strict training schedule in order to make that dream a ________.

Now in order to ________ others, Clark has become a speaker, who shares the lessons he has learned throughout his life. The public ________ are his way of giving back, motivating people in whatever they desire to do in their lives.

“Are you going to wait for an opportunity or are you going to ________ the opportunity? Either way, once you do that, that’s when you start ________ your imprint (印记). Anybody can do that anywhere,” Clark said.

8 . Art is my favorite subject because I enjoy drawing. In school, there are only four ______ classes per week, which I find not enough. During an art lesson, I notice that time ______ to fly by. When I’m drawing ______, eighty minutes feels like eight minutes. One moment I am taking out my art materials, the next the teacher is ______ us to hand in our work.

Art is my favorite subject because it can bring ______ responses. For example, if I was happy, I would draw a colorful picture of myself.

I especially enjoy drawing cartoons. This is one area where my ______ is regularly exercised. Sometimes I draw things that amaze my classmates. I also love to draw still life in color. ______ is really an art and I have developed considerable skills in it, much to the disbelief of my classmates. As I have had so much ______ in coloring, I have a huge advantage over the ______ of the class.

______, I must say that I always feel good when I am drawing something. Perhaps this is why I ______ art so much. It’s because I get a good feeling every time I start drawing. Drawing is a (n) ______ exit for self-expression for me, so the feeling is ______. There is nothing to remember or practice in art as there is in the other subjects. All one has to ______ with art is follow one’s feelings, and the outcome is always ______.

9 . Thanksgiving was just around the corner. The menu(菜谱)had been set. The shopping list was made _________ seemed perfect. I could taste turkey and mashed potatoes(火鸡和土豆泥). Pictures of different pies, fruit and vegetables came into my mind. I couldn’t _________!

The day before thanksgiving my dad called a family meeting. He said we needed to practice being _________. “we are going to _________ at a homeless shelter(收容所)on Thanksgiving day.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. So we wouldn’t cook our own thanksgiving dinner? The holiday wouldn’t be the same. I thought the day would be ruined(糟蹋).

The next morning, we got up _________. I followed my father to the shelter with my sleepy eyes. I had no great expectations(期待)and felt _________ all the way. As soon as we arrived, we got to work. There was no much to be done. But all I could think about was the dinner I couldn’t enjoy.

However, those thoughts soon _________. Over the next few hours, I watched hundreds of people come through the shelter. For some, this was the only hot meal they would eat that week. For others, it was the first time to eat a Thanksgiving meal. The shelter was filled with _________.

Through this experience , I learned that Thanksgiving is a time to think about your blessing(祝福)and look for ways to bless others. When I gave up what I had wanted, I discovered how much I have. It is much better to _________ than to receive. In the end, that Thanksgiving became an __________ experience.

10 . In 1997, Ben Lyons, a 5th grader of Oak Ridge School in Sandwich, Massachusetts, sent a message in a bottle out at sea. He did so as part of a _______ project about ocean currents. In his letter, Ben _______ some questions for whoever might _______ his bottle. Questions from Ben _______: Where did you find the bottle? What are the conditions of the bottle? “If you could, please _______ the questions and return to Ben,” the 5th grader _______ on a piece of paper. “Thank you. Ben Lyons from Oak Ridge School in Sandwich, Massachusetts.”

Over the course of decades, Ben’s _______traveled 3,300 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Now in his 30s, Ben _______ has a response to his message from a (n) _______ fisherman. Rather than replying with another ________, the fisherman chose the safer and faster ________ a letter in the mail. He ________ it to Ben according to the message, leaving the school secretaries puzzled as they searched for this ________ 5th grader. Finally, they had to open it to ________ why they weren’t going to find Ben at school anymore.

In the response, the retired fisherman ________ that he found the bottle on a beach in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France. He was walking around cleaning the ________ when he found the bottle and it was sealed so tight with wax (蜡) that he had a really ________ time opening it.

“It’s ________ that the kids can study the oceans and currents from this,” Ben said after being given the letter through the ________ of the school secretaries. “What a ________ way to connect with someone from the other side of the world!”！