1 . Having struggling for years, I was admitted to a university. Proud of myself, I felt as if I had a rise in social status, just like Napoleon, who _______ in vanity (自负) after he climbed up the Alps, “I’m even higher than the Alps”.

As a result, the whole family regarded me as a bright _______ outshining the brightest star in the night sky. I was allowed to have my own _______ in everything. And soon I got used to wasting money at university. I drank, smoke and went to dances. I could enjoy milk and bread at _______.

The family was reunited in my vacation. Hardly had I sat down _______ took out a package of cigarettes. Of course I asked Dad to _______ one out first. He was a chain smoker. _______ he had announced hundreds of times that he would quit smoking, he never _______ his promise. When I was admitted to the university, he said with smiling “I’LL STOP SMOKING.” Well, I knew he _______ to save for my tuition, but it was just another “rubber check (空头支票)”, I ________.

________ I was mistaken this time. With a smile. Dad said. “It has been months ________ I stopped smoking.” I was frozen and ________ at him with astonishment. His face had become thinner. There were more wrinkles (皱纹) on his forehead than I had ________. Tears were about to rush out of my eyes, but I had to keep them ________ because Dad might be angered. Hard as our life was, Dad never shed tears. It was then that I was determined to give up smoking.

2 . I was with my father at a clinic near his home for a routine blood test. An elderly woman came in and sat on a ________ room chair. She settled into the seat opposite my dad and smiled at him and he smiled back ________. He was 77 years old and had been living with Alzheimer disease for several years. It’s a disease that ________ your loved ones, slowly, day by day and the memory loss is painful and ________.

After a while, she started singing the tune My Heart Will Go On. Since Alzheimer disease also has a(n) ________ to damage a person’s patience, I couldn’t help thinking that this little woman was playing with fire. Her singing began gently. I glanced at Dad to see his ________. His smile was gone, and he was ________ right at her. I couldn’t read his expression initially, but it seemed to be something like ________. I wondered if he was lost somewhere in his memory, or maybe he was trying to figure out whether this was someone he should ________. Slowly, the woman’s singing got louder and her eyes closed with ________. Now Dad looked a little shocked. Still, I watched nervously, noticing the ________ of an angry outburst and was considering my options on how best to ________ in. Instead, his face changed, and the tension ________ in his eyes. He no longer looked confused.

When her song ended and the waiting room became ________, the woman opened her eyes. My dad was still looking directly at her. “That was beautiful,” he said. ________, she smiled and said, “Thank you.”

3 . Every year, my high school’s Chinese club sponsors an event to celebrate Chinese New Year called “China Night.” During the evening, we show _________ Chinese culture with various booths (摊位) featuring activities like Chinese yoyo, calligraphy, and chess. There is also a finale with _________ that include dragon/ lion dances, songs, and classical Chinese instruments.

For this year’s event, I played cello (大提琴) in a string quartet (弦乐四重奏). We _________ famous scores (插曲) from Chinese cinema such as Raise the Red Lantern and To Live. Quartets remind me of Chinese dragon dances. Each player is _________ in the quartet just as each dancer contributes to the dance performance. The whole could not _________ without individual effort. Performing gave me a great sense of _________: not only was I playing music from my culture, but I was _________ it with others.

During one particular break, I told my friends to meet me at one of the _________ booths. My friends are quite _________, with ethnicities (种族渊源) from Germany, Russia and India. I was excited to see my friends __________ some traditional Chinese foods, although I __________ how they might react. As they tasted the mooncake, their facial expressions changed from caution to __________. They really enjoyed tasting Chinese foods. Perhaps more than any other __________ during the evening, this gave me a deep sense of pride in my culture.

Through attending China Night, I was surprised to see how enthusiastically my community __________ Chinese culture and how everyone was so __________ to trying new things.

4 . Many people wonder what makes a good speech and how to deliver a speech. Experts say that all great speeches have one thing in common: The speaker is able to ________ into the listeners’ minds an idea, which is an extraordinary gift. When a speaker ________ with an audience, the brains of the people in the audience begin to sync (同步) with the speaker’s brain and with each other. They literally begin to exhibit the same brain-wave patterns. Then what makes ________ success in our speech?

First of all, limit your talk to one major idea. Ideas are ________. You need to reduce content so that you can focus on the single most important idea and explain it properly. Give context, share examples and make it ________ . Your one idea should be the ________ of your entire talk and everything you say should link back to it in some way.

Second, give your audience a reason to care. Make them ________. Use questions to identify ________ something doesn’t make sense and needs explaining. If you can reveal a disconnect in someone’s worldview, they’ll feel the need to ________ that gap. And once you’ve sparked that ________, it will be easier to start building your idea.

Third, build your idea based on concepts that your audience ________ understands. However, speakers often forget that many of the terms and concepts they live with are completely unfamiliar to their audiences. We forget what it was like when we knew ________ about our subject. So use language that the audience understands and start where they are, which can certainly help bridge the knowledge gap ________ they link the new idea to an idea that the listener have understood.

Last but not least, make your idea worth ________. It has to benefit the audience. If the idea only serves you or your organization, it’s probably not worth of others’ attention. If your talk can benefit the audience in some way, it has the ________ to be a great one.

5 . When it comes to BMI—the most common measure of obesity—the price is right.

BMI, or body mass index, is ________ by dividing weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. A result between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy. A BMI of 25 or ________ would then be classified as either overweight or obese.

Medical experts rely on BMI to assess the extent of obesity. The index, however, does not distinguish ________ from muscle or other tissue, and that causes some people to be placed in the wrong category. Very muscular people can be ________ for obese, while those who are tall with a high percentage of body fat can be wrongly ________ as healthy. So why not just replace it with other measures of body fat?

Dual­energy X­ray absorptiometry (DXA) is generally recognized as one of the most ________. The X­ray ________ by differentiating tissue density, so it is able to detect the difference between your body’s muscle, bone and fat ________, the number of which can then be used to calculate your fat percentage. Another ________ that is more familiar to many of you will be the use of body fat scales. They function by passing a subtle ________ current through your body. As muscle contains more water, it ________ electricity better than fat does. The greater the electrical ________, the more body fat you have.

DXA is certainly accurate, but very ________, requiring specialized equipment, which makes it unsuitable for use in large­scale studies. BMI is cheap, simple and generally accurate, and is still a suitable method for ________ the weight and health of entire populations. However, it is not a diagnostic tool for disease risks. If you find that your BMI is high, go to a medical professional and see what that may mean for you and your ________ health risks.

6 . When I was 20, I started my own company. My dad was very_______, and he bought me a _______. Little did I know the gift he handed me would give me a strong _______to achieve my goal.

At first, I didn’t make any money and I had to suffer from _______ —eating a can (罐) of baked beans once a day —and had a hard time paying rent. Bad days like this lasted almost a month, and then one day I saw the book _______. What encouraged me was the _______ stories of people with huge success, _______ that of Jim Carrey, who is one of my favorite actors.

Jim grew up in a(n) _______family, with a father who kept a low-paid job.When he was 15, he _______ out of school and worked as a doorkeeper. Later, he started his ________career, which was not very smooth. He was booed offstage (噓下台) at his first appearance at a comedy club in Toronto, ________ he didn’t give up. He explained in an interview that he’d written himself a ________for $10, 000, 000 as payment for acting services. He carried it with him for 7years until he could finally cash it for his performance in Dumb and Dumber.

No one is born a success. People make themselves into successes by their own________. Instead of seeing my company as a failure, I started to see it ________. I pushed, ________ myself, and worked harder. Now I am the CEO of a multi-35national corporation.

7 . “I don’t want to make texts. Show me how to do a selfie(自拍).” That’s how my grandma started our first iPhone training session.

We started with the basics. She handled the phone _________like one would a live bomb, _________to touch the wrong thing. When I showed her the photo gallery, her eyes_________. She couldn’t believe that she could look at all her_________anytime she wanted, and show them to her friends instantly. She learned how to_________the camera, so we took selfie after selfie before_________a good one to send to her friend — the only other person in her group who has a_________.

During the next lesson I introduced a few apps. We used Uber to hire a car and went to a_________. Instead of being buried in her phone during the ride, she_________ the driver’s stories, offering advice and encouragement. Next to her, I put away my phone and joined in the__________. The three of us arrived at the restaurant as friends. In my grandma’s opinion, we should__________holding the phone all the time. It is not a tether (拴链).

I’ve tried multiple times to show her how to__________, but she always refuses. As she repeatedly tells me, she doesn’t__________to make texts. She needs to hear our voices to know we’re all__________. So when my phone rings, I know who it is. She’s the only person who calls me__________texting.

8 . A few years back, I planned to build a networked digital library where theses (论文) from African universities could be stored. I wanted to find a way to make these great _______ visible to the whole world. It took me months and even years to _______ build it to my taste. But finally, it went nowhere.

The other day, I was at a rest area. I observed that when one ant found food, others immediately _______ to help pull the food to their storage. I tried to _______ the pattern, which unfortunately resulted in _______ one. Quickly, they came together to rescue it. Then they reorganized and _______ in the line they had created. I saw no _______ of supervision (监督), yet they were moving pieces of food that were about 30 times their individual sizes, which is a _______ task.

As I watched them, the library plan _______ in my mind. Wouldn’t it be ________ to trust others to help you? Right there, I made the following ________. The ants cooperated with each other: I will form a(n)________, bringing professionals together. The ants trusted one another: I must ________ the notion (观念) that only by working alone can I ensure quality. The ants were ________: I will share my ideas with like-minded people.

It is about a month later now and the project is progressing well. It’s true that by ________ everyone in the organization and trusting people, we will achieve success.

9 . Since the first day of preschool, I was always the type to invest more time in my physical war than social activities, the type that _________ the girls who could get up in front of the class and _________ give a presentation. Anything in the area of being vocally confident was never my _________. But now I’m different. Such a change _________ my summer job.

My entire existence has been defined by the summers I’ve spent in Avalon, New Jersey. Then, in my 14th summer, I got a job, which made a _________ to me.

At first it frightened me:The idea of having to _________ my freedom. Not only was the loss of freedom saddening me, but the _________ in me came out to play when I realized that I was going to launch myself into a completely _________ environment.

The place was Brian’s Waffle House. At the beginning I was very nervous, _________ I gradually pushed myself much more and boosted my confidence. I’ve made so many great friends that I’ll __________ contact with even when the Waffle House is long gone. The time in the Brian’s Waffle House is not dull. And every customer is a valuable part of the __________.

My summer job has helped guide me in my own personal growth. Now I __________ to sing in front of a large group of people. And I never miss a __________ to allow my fashionable style to shine. If I hadn’t walked into the shop, I wouldn’t have __________ the social skills I have now. I will be __________ for the lessons and values I have learned forever.

10 . Among one of the strange experiences of modern life is one that happens to me, though not just to me: I’ll meet a friend for a drink and he will ________some book or product he thinks I’ll like. Then within days—without searching for it online-I'll start seeing ________ web ads for it.

________ there's a rumor that Facebook uses the microphone in your phone to eavesdrop (窃听) on your conversations.

However, that's almost certainly ________. The truth is that apps and websites have already collected so much of your data that they have no ________ for eavesdropping.

But there's another reason Big Tech ________ us so much better than we think, which is that each of us is far more normal than we realize. Take myself as an example: both Facebook and my friend will make almost the same recommendation because my interests are far less special, and thus more ________than I'd like to believe.

"You're not so special" is a message sometimes delivered as an offence. It is at other times interpreted as tough ________, as in the speech by the American high-school teacher David McCullough. His aim was to urge students not to make themselves painful by struggling to prove they're the ________ of the universe.

Given almost any general definition of the term and all things being ________, it probably ________ your intelligence is normal. Without any value judgment, that's all the word "normal" and your taste in culture: chances are they're much less ________ or extreme than you think. Or to put it another way:________ you're special is just one more way in which you're normal, which explains why most people think they're above average at many things.

Don't feel ________ by the thought of being normal, though. "Never forget that every mind ________ by the most ordinary experience, "wrote French poet Paul Valery.