1 . Turning 13 can be painful. Sure, pimples (粉刺) are a problem. _______ it’s the feelings of insecurity that really _______. “I would gaze into the bathroom _______ and ask myself, ‘Is this the sum of my 13 years?’” author Gary Soto says of his _______ self. “We all doubt ourselves — _______ we look, how we play on the field, how we dress, how we do in school.”

These _______ form the basis of Soto’s latest book, Mercy on These Teenage Chimps, which is _______ in bookstores.

Soto tells the story of two 13-year-old friends, Ronnie and Joey, who are self-conscious about their _______ appearance. In the mirror, they see the _______ coming out of their chins doesn’t improve the look.

It gets ________ when the coach at school embarrasses Joey in front of a girl. ________, Joey returned to his childhood hideaway in a tree. Soto understands the need of a place to ________ it all. “I remember my childhood street from tree level. It was an escape from the ________.”

The trouble is that Joey has no intention of ________ his sanctuary (避难所). It’s up to Ronnie to convince his friend to face the world ________. In his search, Ronnie stands bullies and nosy neighbors, and ________ from more than one roof.

“This book is a call for mercy for young people ________ self-doubt,” Soto told TFK. “It’s a comic novel about ________. Ronnie concerns his friend and knows he must do ________ in his power to return him to his optimistic, fun-loving spirit. That’s ________ a friend does.”

The moral of the story: You don’t need to be the best-looking chimp in the jungle. All you need is a loyal friend who will stick by you, even when the going gets a little, well, hairy.

2 . Chad and I spent about 15 years celebrating our anniversary the old-fashioned way. He’d give me _________, I’d give him a card and we’d go out for dinner. _________ we both enjoyed our child-free time together, I finally _________ that I didn’t even like red roses, and his card ended up in the garbage can.

So we_________ a new tradition called the Every Other Year Anniversary. We alternate years planning a _________for each other. A celebration of a marriage should be _________, and we intended to make it so.

I was perfectly _________ to go first, planning a weekend getaway to Hiawassee. I chose all the activities—it was _________ for Chad to think of anything. As for Chad, the _________ added to his excitement. And, he didn’t have to call the flower shop at the last minute to __________ flowers.

The next year was my turn to be surprised. Chad, though traditionally not a romantic person, __________ successfully, planning a weekend in Nashville. We went on a comedy bus tour that made us__________a lot; we visited the Grand Ole Opry and downtown Nashville. Chad __________ endured (忍受) some shopping just because he knew I would like it. We ate at a very excellent restaurant and __________ each other’s company more than ever. For once, I didn’t have to make any decisions. I could __________ Chad had put a lot of thought into where we went and what we did.

We agreed at this point that the new __________ would be topping (超越) each other the following year. __________, we manage to do it every time. Of course, some years have been better prepared than others, __________on finances or the children’s schedules.

We have now been __________ for more than 20 years. The Every Other Year Anniversary has made our marriage loving, complete and, __________, fun! I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year.

3 . When she first looked for her wedding dress, Gwendolyn Stuglis had a budget or $1,000. After trying on several dresses, she was _______ a champagne-colored dress with long sleeves by the salesclerk. “I got _______ in my eyes because it was the dress I really wanted,” she admitted. The only _______: it was triple her budget. After some encouragement from her mother-in-law, Stulgis _______ it. She explained, “Although I hadn’t enough money, that dress was _______ made for me.” She wore the gown with _______ when she became a Stulgis.

As most brides do, she hung her wedding dress in her closet when the _______ was over. Realizing the dress would be _______ if it continued to sit there, she decided to give it away. Stulgis turned to Facebook to search a _______ bride. In the post, there were two ______________: the bride must have their ceremony within three months and the dress must be ______________ others. More than 70 messages ______________ into Stulgis’ mailbox immediately. Margaret Hyde had planned on making her own dress before she saw Stulgis’ Facebook ______________. She told her sister-in-law, Alycia Ashley, that she wanted to enter but was ______________. So, Ashley secretly emailed Stulgis, ______________ Hyde as the most selfless person she knew.

Stulgis was moved by Ashley’s ______________. On June 4, Hyde was told she was chosen. “It was unbelievable,” she said ______________. Hyde promised to follow the traveling dress requests. After her post, Stulgis ______________ a Facebook group called Shared Dream Dresses. Since June, 200 dresses have been given away. Stulgis’ community of bridal donations started with such a ______________ emotion. She shared, “I want people to feel like they are worth something. I want them to ______________ their dress dreams without worrying about buying one. A dressing shouldn’t be kept in the closet.”

4 . Some people touch our lives, perhaps making us think or smile, often without even realizing it. A few years ago, I worked at a church and since my_________was home schooling, he went with me to the church every day. Most mornings, we’d stop at a local convenience store, getting a chocolate drink for him and a_________for me.

There were other stores we could have frequented, _________we passed many stores along the way. But the clerk at the store we chose to visit refreshed our lives each day, and so we returned again and again. Perhaps the store clerk had_________worked in a fast food restaurant, where she learned to ask, “Would you like fries with that?” Perhaps she’d been_________in another store, where she learned, well, about multiple selling.

I think that she had found her own_________ way of enjoying life and her job. I’m not even sure that she was aware that her_________for life and her job put a smile upon the face of each customer. Customers did, indeed, return again and again for a bit of good cheer as only that special clerk could give.

With my_________in hand, every time I went to the counter, the clerk never asked me if I wanted a cake with my coffee.   _________， she asked, “Would you like some batteries with that coffee?” Of my son with his chocolate drink, she enquired, “Would you like a__________with that drink?”

Yes, life is what you make of it. This clerk’s method of dealing with what some__________is a boring job made the hours in her day more enjoyable. And in doing that, she also__________the lives of others and made them laugh.

Sometimes, if my day at the church had been particularly__________, or if my son’s__________rather difficult, we’d stop at that store before heading home. We’d__________as we left the store, the clerk’s words resounding behind us. “Would you like some shampoo with that soda?”

5 . My childhood is closely associated with the Yellow River. My father ______ to take me with him on his trips to Longyangxia Reservoir. At Longyangxia, I was ______ by the beauty of nature and as a child, I wanted to stay there and ______ up with the Yellow River. Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, praised the ______ water of the Yellow River. He saw it as coming down from heaven and ______ the people living on the banks of the river. However, in 1997, for about 330 days, not a single ______ of water from the Yellow River went into the sea. ______ are not the only punishments given by nature. A friend of my father, a university professor, is doing ______ on the Yellow River. According to him, since there is no longer enough water to ______ the mud, the river may soon change its course ______ we allow this situation to continue. This is the ______ of unbalanced growth. If we’d taken care of the vegetation in the upper and middle ______ of the river, we would still be able to ______ it as Li Bai described it.

In fact, people have begun to ______ the problem. I have seen farmers _______ trees on mountain slopes in Shanxi province. I have seen them ______ up the hillsides carrying heavy buckets of water collected several kilometers away down in the valley to ______ around the trees. These farmers are ______ helping our Yellow River, just as the river has helped them. These unsung heroes gave me the confidence that with hard work of us all, we and nature will grow together, and ______ in the future, we will be able to drink the ______ water from the Yellow River-our mother river.

6 . An African farmer had heard tales about other farmers who had made millions of dollars by discovering diamond (钻石) mines. The farmer was so ________ that he could hardly wait to ________ his farm and go to search for diamonds himself.

So he sold the farm and spent the rest of his life ________ the African continent, searching ________ for diamonds. Finally, broke, worn out, and ________ with life, he threw himself into a well and drowned.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the man who had ________ the first farmer’s farm happened to be crossing a small stream (溪) on the farm one day when he saw something ________ at the bottom of the stream. He ________ it up. It was a shining ________. He took it home and later put it on his desk.

Several weeks later, a visitor who had heard of the stone came to admire the stone. He looked ________ at it and weighed it in his hand. Then he asked the farmer if he knew what he’d ________. When the farmer said no, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever ________.

The ________ was astonished (惊讶的). He told the man that his ________ was full of these brilliant “stones”.

Needless to say, the farm the first farmer had sold, turned out to be the most ________     diamond mine on the entire African continent.

If the first farmer had not sold the farm, his dreams would have come true.

7 . The first astronauts

Since the earliest times, people have looked up at the stars, the moon and the planets. Today people use modern machines ________at the sky. This is very different from the situation________years ago when people could only use their eyes. Perhaps they dreamed of________the universe.

When did humans first go into space? The story began not so very long ago,________the first astronauts were not people﹣they were animals.

Scientists wanted to make travelling to space as ________ as possible for humans. So they decided to experiment with animals and test________ in spaceflights. Insects, mice, frogs, dogs and monkeys were some of the animals________first went into space. Many of them ________, but they helped to make space travel safer for humans. For their great service, we________forget these animals.

Albert Ⅱ was the first monkey to go into space in 1949. Sadly he died ________ his spaceship landed back on Earth.

________ the result was different for Ham the Monkey. His story ended happily when he return to earth________very good health.

Scientists wanted to know the answer to the important question: could ________ animal like Ham do the same things in space as he could do on Earth? The answer came when Ham________ into space in 1961. Yes, he did everything well and lived for ________ 16 years.

8 . Imagine your favourite song. Now________the way it makes you feel. Chances are, if you asked a friend how that same song made them feel, they would have the same ________.

Alan Cowen wanted to know whether people who lived in ________ countries would respond that way, too. He thought it was ________that music Americans consider angry would be considered scary by people who lived somewhere else.

Cowen is a researcher. He ________ a study of more than 2500 people in the United States and China. He and his fellow researchers________them many kinds of music.

They found that everyone had pretty much the same________response to the music. For example, “The Star-Spangled Banner” made people feel pride, ________Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” made them feel joyful. But even though people in China and the United States felt angry while listening to a________song, says Cowen. “They differed in whether they thought that________was good or bad.”

Past research by other scientists has shown that people across cultures________as many as six basic emotions: fear, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness and happiness. But Cowen’s study identified motional responses or ________ “felt through the language of music”. Perhaps coolest of all, the researchers ________an interactive map of those musical emotions.

Teachers around the world are using this map in their________. It is helping students find newwords to describe their emotions. This ability could help them control their own emotions or better ________ other people’s feelings.

9 . In the early 1990s, Eric Domb, a highly successful lawyer, came up with the idea of building a bird park. His father-in-law ________ the idea in the beginning, but when the ________ started to make shape he backed out. Domb thus had to ________ money from former clients, his two brothers and father as well as a bank to build a zoological park known as Pairi Daiza.

After the park opened in 1994, his inexperience led to many ________, but he pushed on with his venture (冒险). By 2000, the park was turning a profit, and Domb’s ambitions were ________. The park needed more than birds, he believed, and other creatures and cultural gardens would help turn it into something ________.

Since his childhood he has been fascinated by Chinese ________. In 2006, he built the first Chinese garden, Dream of Han Wu Di in his zoo. It was said to be the largest Chinese garden in Europe. Domb kept ________ new elements. It finally took more than six years to complete the project.

Domb felt ________ by the joint panda breeding program. Domb and his people spent the following months ________ building giant panda houses with no guarantee that Pairi Daiza would be fortunate enough to ________ giant pandas. The huge enclosure built includes a pool, cave and ________ plantation.

Now, Domb is eager to tell how he ________ a pair of giant pandas, Xing Hui and Hao Hao in February 2014. The sense of ________ is all the more profound in that Pairi Daiza is one of the few private zoos outside China to ________ giant pandas.

10 . When Nihal was eight years old, he went to visit his grandparents who lived near the Krisha river. He saw people _________ rubbish and plastic waste into the water. This was the point at which the ecologist in him _________, and he wanted to do something.

Nihal has always been _________ by environmental issues, but he’s never given them much _________ except reading the relevant novels. _________, one day, after hearing about a large fire _________ by a lithium battery(锂离子电池) at a waste disposal(处置) site in California, he became _________ and determined to do something. He thought, although the problem could be settled, many people who were observing would simply _________ it. That’s when the concept for “ Recycle My Battery ” _________.

Then, Nihal did more research into battery __________ and discovered that many worldwide companies have __________ about batteries. “ Surely there has to be a __________ to keep them out of landfills(废物填埋地),” he remarked. Then he began to __________ batteries at his school and in the neighbourhood. His father would drive him __________ throughout every corner of towns to collect __________ batteries. With so many batteries piled up, he decided to __________ his own non-profit Recycle My Battery.

So far, more than 1.5 million people have __________ Recycle My Battery. Nihal and his strong team of young people have already recycled over 150,000 deserted batteries and taught over 1.5 million people about the __________ of battery recycling.

Nihal, now only 12 years old, has been struggling for three years to __________ the battery pollution, calling on others to raise battery recycling __________ and working towards the aim of zero pollution.