1 . I woke up by my dog barking in the early morning. I went outside to find a koala (考拉) at the yard gate wanting to enter. It was the first time that I had ______ a koala in my neighborhood. What a welcome ______ !

I was wondering why he was here, as koala ______ came down from the trees and didn’t like walking, either. ______ , there was no eucalyptus (桉树) around. Was he hungry or lost? Or maybe the bushfire across Kangaroo Island ______ him here?

He just sat there, clearly ______ , and sort of looked at me with a look, like helping me out of my suffering. At a(n) ______ look, I discovered a long cut at his back with bloods, ______ of attacks or cuts of something sharp in some other way.

I rushed into my room and came out with some iodophor (碘伏药水). It was not a ______ problem as I was a nurse. This poor koala seemed to quite ______ my kindness when I ______   the cut with the liquid. It ______ out that he came to ask me for ______ !

After the treatment, I watched the koala finally ______ in the wild, hoping he was able to ______ the hard time and live his life as he should.

2 . A professor entered the classroom and told the students about a surprise test. All students were_________ and waited for the test to begin. The professor gave the test papers to all students with text facing down at the desk. Once he was done with _________ the test to all students, he asked them to_________ the test paper and begin.

Students were ___________ to see that there was just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor told them, “I want you to ___________ about what you see there.” The students were___________ confused but got started with the test. At the end of the class, the professor collected all answer sheets and started reading each answer from each sheet in front of all students. All of them___________ about the black dot and tried to explain its position.

Now, professor began to explain, “Here everyone_________ the black dot and wrote about it_________ no one wrote about the white paper. The same is with our lives. The white paper stands for our whole life and the black dot __________problems in our life.

Our life is a __________ given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate—our friends around us, the job that provides us with everything we need. However, we just focus on day to day ____________ like health issues, lack of money, poor relationships, but we seldom see that these problems are very small __________to everything we have in our lives.”

We should try to take eyes __________ our problems and enjoy each moment that life gives us. Be happy and live your life ____________.

3 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

4 . My daughter and I were swimming in our pool one summer day. This day was like any of the other days, so I had no way of knowing that this one would go down in our family history as a________we cherish(珍惜)and still________from time to time.  

The sun was setting and the night was________approaching. My daughter________it first—a spider was spinning(纺织) her web at the bottom of the freshly painted blue fence(篱笆)that________our pool. It surprised me that she saw this, and it surprised me even more that she wasn’t________of the spider.  

Instead, she________watched as the spider busied herself in the cycle of life. As we both watched this wonder of nature, a very simple thought________me. I had lost the track of________. I honestly didn’t know how long we had been just staying there and________that spider making her web. But, regardless of whatever amount of time had passed, the truth was that we were________having fun.  

What we had done was to spend time together and________the simple things in life. We talked about how precious our________amount of time is on this planet and how we should________to enjoy the simple things in life like the flight of a bird. The simple things are the ________things in life, even when they include spiders and webs.

5 . After over a decade of faithful service, my old desktop computer finally died. With no computer repair places open, my daughter talked me into _________ a new laptop to replace it. What followed was two days of pure frustration. It was like going from driving an old car to _________ the space shuttle.

I looked for the old e-mail _________ I used to use only to find that it wasn’t on this model. When I tried to download the _________ version again it wouldn’t work. Then there were the difficulties of transferring all of my old stories that I had _________ on a USB drive. The laptop computer’s _________ new programs were an icon(图标) minefield that I had to find the way. Each time I accidentally _________ one of them, it changed everything on my screen and I had to work hard to figure out how to change them back. Finally after two days, I think we have _________ the new computer to do the few simple things I need it to do so I can _________ the thou-sand other functions that I have no use for.

What I did learn from all of this is that when it comes to computers and __________, I want to keep things simple. I don’t want to wake up in the morning and __________ to my devices. __________, I want to pet my dogs, take them outside, and watch the sun __________ rise over the mountains here. Life is simple. It is we who make things __________. I want to spend my time and my talents making this world better not __________.

6 . I have invented robots that crawl(爬)through pipes to check them for damage. Two of my_______allow cars to be used as power plants on wheels. My love of building things_______when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I leaned about Thomas Edison, though, that I really became excited about inventing. 

When I was in fourth grade, our teacher gave us a_______. We had to write to a company and learn about the_______it made. Each student would then give a report in front of the class. I_______the Thomas A.Edison Company.  

Soon after I wrote to the company, our mailman_______a package to me. It contained a book about the life of Thomas Edison. How I_______reading and rereading about his inventions! The ones that impressed me most were movies, recorded sound and the electric light. Edison became my hero. 

My dad noticed my interest in inventing and_______me. He showed me how to turn my ideas into plans and, finally into new things.  

Together, my dad and I repaired radios and televisions. Once, I surprised my dad with a_______I made to adjust the brakes(刹车)of our car. Later, we found a similar tool in a store. That’s when I learned that________inventors often invent similar things. It is not________for this to happen. I learned, too, that not all great ideas work.________is a common part of the inventing process.  

As my father and I worked together, I began to________that my dad was quite an inventor himself. His guiding hands, combined with my________in inventing, led me to become an engineer and inventor. But I am________to Thomas Edison, too, for first lighting that bulb(电灯泡)inside me.

7 . Rarely do teachers know whether they make permanent impressions on students. I know because it _______ to my mother, a retired teacher, when she turned on the _______ one morning in 2003.

The story began in the mid-1960s. My mom was teaching _______ at Burlingame Junior High. I knew little about her job at the time except for the _______ redhead, Tamara, who was _______ writing stories as a seventh-grader in my mom’s class.

I was visiting her in 2003 when my mom came out of her room with a _______ look on her face. She’s been listening to the radio, and she had _______ an interview with a best-selling French author. Tamara Pierce—the same name as that of the redhead my mom had taught nearly four _______ before. My mother _______ : Could it be the same person?

I _______ the Internet and quickly found the website for the author. My heart began to beat rapidly when I _______ it at the bottom—here was _______ that my mother had taught a now famous writer!

“I should _______ my writing career to my English teacher. (Bless you, Mrs. Jacobsen!)”

This story makes me consider how nice it would be if we all let our favorite _______ teachers know their work _______.

8 . Mr. Harris used to work in Dover but then he changed his job, so he and his wife _______ to another town. They did not have many friends there, but they soon met a lot of interesting people, and after a few weeks they often went to dinner or to parties in other people’s houses.

Then Mrs. Harries said to her husband, “We _______ a lot of other people’s houses, and now we must invite them to our house, mustn’t we?”

“Yes, certainly,” answered her husband. “Then we can start to invite people to dinner, in small numbers next month.”

So Mrs. Harris said, “Yes, I will invite all our friends here to a big party on December 5.”

“How many will that be?” Mr. Harris asked, “Don’t invite too many.”

Mrs. Harris was beginning to write the _______ when her husband saw that she was writing, “Party: 6:30 _______ 8:30 p.m.”

“That isn’t very _______, is it?” he said. “You are telling them they must _______ at 8:30.” So Mrs. Harris _______ wrote, “Party: 6:30 p.m.”

A lot of guests came, and they all had a good time, so they did not go home at 8:30. In fact, they were still there _______ when the doorbell rang and a _______ arrived. He said, “You must stop making ________, because ________ has reported it.

Mr. Harris said he did not want to quarrel with the policeman, so everyone went home. They were ________ to have to go.

When Mr. and Mrs. Harris were ________ again, she said to him, “That was a ________, wasn’t it? Who reported about the noise?”

“________ did,” Mr. Harris answered in a tired voice.

9 . Back in the summer of 2016, China’s Gobi Super Marathon, a 155-­mile race across the Gobi Desert, officially ________．

Dion Leonard, a seasoned British athlete, had been invited for that ________, who had finished some of the toughest races on the planet. On the first evening, a dog kept following him wagging its tail. Dion didn’t want to be ________ because he was devoted to this race. Just after ________ it for a while, he took it aside and turned back to the camp. But the touch changed the ________ of his life.

On departure the next day, the puppy ________ again at the starting line. He thought it was a coincidence (巧合)．But when Dion started to run, the puppy followed. It was too easy to be lonely and ________ in a game like this but the puppy brought great ________ and encouragement to Dion. The puppy did not become a burden to him, ________, it’s the best companion on the boring track. Since they met in the Gobi Desert, Dion gave it the name Gobi.

On this long journey, one man and one dog silently ________ each other. They ran together, they shared water and food, they camped together under the stars. Dion also gradually forgot the ________ of the road, and suddenly let go of his obsession (痴迷) with rank.

After being with Dion for 125 kilometers, Gobi finally ran out of ________ and Dion had to put it in a first­aid car. Three days later, when Dion reappeared in the view of Gobi, it broke free and ran ________ to Dion. They rushed to the finishing line together.

________, Dion came in second. Gobi also won a medal from the organizers. Dion has no ________ about missing out on the championship because Gobi was the best prize on his trip.

10 . On the sports field, athletes compete not only with others but against themselves. And in each race they try hard to _________ a new personal best.

For one teen Brandon Schutt, in his final cross-country outing, his personal best turned out not to be about marking the fastest time, but displaying the biggest _________ . A mile into the 3. 1-mile race, Schutt realized he couldn’t keep up the necessary speed, so he just _________ to a comfortable pace to simply enjoy the moment.

Another runner Blake Cerveny aimed to beat his own personal record. After a fast start, he continued to push himself _________ . However, with less than 400 meters to go, Cerveny’s legs cramped up (抽筋)and _________ him. His will didn’t though.

_________ to finish, Cerveny rose from the ground and continued on his way, only to fall again after another 150 meters. Feeling _________ , his coach asked Cerveny if he wanted to _________ . He didn’t. The young runner pulled himself up and with _________ steps, he moved forward for one final push. It wasn’t enough. At 100 meters from the finish line, he __________ curled (蜷缩的)on the ground. His legs had simply given out. Then it was Schutt who went to Cerveny’s side to offer a __________ hand.

His first __________ to get Cerveny up failed, but Schutt refused to quit. With a second try, Cerveny was on his feet. The two __________ the final 75 meters.

In today’s competitive world, the __________ of athletics is usually put on breaking records. It was inspiring to see that for athletes like Schutt, the value of true __________ still mattered.