1 . As an engineering student, I had a degree and three good job offers. I couldn’t help trembling when I heard about studies which showed that women are at a(n) _______ when it comes to math. However, I discovered: just because a subject is _______ to learn, it does not show you are not good at it. You just have to grit your teeth and work harder to get good at it. _______ you do, there’s a(n) _______ chance you will enjoy it more than anything else.

In eighth grade I took algebra (代数). On one test I got only 1 percent of the _______ answers. I failed the next one, too. I started to _______ maybe I’m just not good at this. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who didn’t take my bad grades as a judgment of my _______, but _______ as an indication that I should study more. He _______ me aside and told me he knew I could do better. Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties. I ________ the following tests, and pulled my grade up to an A.

I studied a lot in college, too. I had moments of fear while sitting below the fluorescent lights in the ________ library on Saturday afternoons, when I ________ that the estrogen (雌性激素) in my body was ________ me from understanding thermodynamics (热动力学). But the ________ in my class had to work just as hard, and I knew that I couldn’t ________ to lose confidence in myself. I didn’t want to choose between my femininity (女人气) and a good career. ________ I reminded myself that those ________, the ones that say math comes more naturally to men, are faulty.

Here’s a secret: math and science don’t go ________ to most people. No one was ________ born knowing calculus (微积分). But as a famous saying goes: Nothing is difficult if you put your heart into it. A woman can learn anything a man can, but first she needs to know that she can do it, and then takes a leap of ________.

2 . Perhaps the only test score that I remember is the 55 I got when I was in high school.

The test was the final for a course. I remember waiting _________ as my teacher Mr. Right passed out our papers one by one. It was a rather _________ test. I heard my classmates groaning(叹息), and I could tell by the groans that the scores weren’t looking _________.

Mr. Right put my paper on my desk. There in big red numbers, circled to draw _________, was my score, 55!

I lowered my head, and _________ the score up quickly. A 55 is not something that you wanted your classmates to see.

“The scores were not very good, none of you _________,” Mr. Right said. “The highest score in the class was a 55.”

A 55. That’s me!

_________ my sad look didn’t look so bad. I had the highest score. I felt a lot better.

I walked home alone that day with the low but high score. My father knew that I had a big _________ that day and asked me as soon as I got home, “_________ did you do in your test?”

“I got 55,” I said.

A __________ now stood on my father’s face. I knew I had to __________ immediately. “But Dad, I had the highest score in the class,” I __________ stated(陈述). I thought that explanation would make a difference.

“You __________!” my father replied.

“But it’s the highest!” I __________.

“I don’t __________ what scores others had, you failed. What __________ is what you do!” my father firmly(坚定地) said.

For years, my father was __________ that way. It didn’t matter what others did, it only mattered what I did and that I did it __________.

We often don’t understand the __________ of good parents until we ourselves stand in the parents’ shoes. My father’s __________ have carried me throughout life.

3 . On the morning of May 26^th, 2006, Dan Mazur’s team was on a planned climb up to the summit of Mount Everest. There was no winds or clouds. Conditions seemed ________for climbing to the summit.

There were two hours below the summit when they ________met a fallen climber, Lincoln Hall. He was sitting on the ________ with his jacket around his waist, wearing no hat or gloves. He was ________ and weak. He was ________ symptoms of edema (水肿), frostbite, and dehydration(脱水). He was without any of the proper equipment for ________in such conditions. Apparently, Mr Hall had ________ the previous day on his way down from the summit.

Mazur’s group quickly decided to give up their own summit ________to save Mr. Hall. They ________ him to the mountain, replaced the hat, jacket and gloves he had ________, and gave him ________ own oxygen, food and water. They ________ Hall’s team, who had given him up for dead. Mazur convinced them that Hall was ________ alive and must and could be saved.

The rescuers ________ Sherpas from Hall’s team to ascend and help with the ________. Mazur’s ________stayed four hours to care for Mr. Hall. By using their own survival ________ to support Hall, Mazur and his team risked worsening weather conditions that could have made them lose their own opportunity to ________. Clearly, these men ________ a lifetime dream and risked their own lives to ________ another climber.

4 . Black cats may have the reputation for being bad luck. However, Piran helped save his owner's _______.

Piran _______ with an 83-year-old Bodmin woman in a rural area of Cornwall for many years. When the old woman went missing, her neighbors set about _______ the nearby countryside, but she was nowhere to be found until the searchers _______ Piran, meowing (喵喵叫) loudly by a cornfield gate.

"The cat is very _______ to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the _______," searcher Tamar Longmuir said.

With the crop standing seven feet tall, the walking was _______. Carefully, Longmuir searched the field, calling out her neighbor's name. She had just reached the bottom of the field when she _______ heard a faint response. Then she _______ the elderly woman was lying in a stream below the field and couldn't ________.

Longmuir made her way down to ________ the situation, and thankfully, learned her neighbor had no major ________.

After a two-hour effort by almost 25 emergency workers, the woman was sent to a nearby hospital for ________.

Indeed, had Piran not sounded the alarm, the ________ might have been vastly different. ________ for Piran in aid of his owner, the neighbors are coming in to take care of him.

5 . There was a man who was going through hard times. His wife divorced him. He went bankrupt(破产) after only a year in business. Despite all of his hard work, ________ was all that he had seen. Struggling with this, he ________ everything behind and went into the forest. There, he ________ an old man who had lived there for a long time. He ________ his story with the old man. “Can you give me one good reason not to ________?” he asked the old man.

“Look,” the old man said, pointing to two plants. “Do you ________ that fern(蕨类植物) and bamboo there?” “Yes,” the man answered. “When I ________ the fern and bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. Within a short period of time, the fern ________ grew from the earth,” the old man went on. “However, although I watered and took care of the bamboo seed for years, it did not sprout(发芽). There was no sign of ________. But I did not give up on the bamboo seed and ________ looking after it. In the fifth year, a small ________ came out of the earth. And within six months, the tree grew a hundred feet tall.” The little bamboo tree had been growing under ground for the past four years, ________ a root system strong enough for its ground growth in the fifth year and beyond. If it hadn’t done this, it would not be as ________ as it is now. So you know, all the time you were ________, you were actually growing strong _______” the old man said.

6 . When Brian and Lauren got married last November, one very important person was missing: Brian's 91­year­old grandmother, Peg. After breaking her ankle, she was unable to _______ it to the couple's special day.

Peg was living for this wedding. _______ being at the hospital, she dressed up in an amazing outfit that day. About 2 hours before the ceremony, the couple decided to visit Peg. I, as their photographer, asked them if they wanted me to _______ them. At first, I really felt that it was their personal _______ and I didn't want to _______ in any way. But they wanted me to come and _______ the moment.

When they walked into that room, Peg was so _______ to see the couple. She kept saying “I can't believe you're here! ” I was closely following Lauren and Brian into the room，_______ I didn't miss Peg's every _______. Upon seeing them, her face just ________. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

This is what ________ are all about — family and love. On their big day, the couple spared time to visit Peg and made her the ________ grandma in the world. This was ________ an amazing moment and I'm thankful to photograph them.

Just a month later, Peg ________. On that day, I realized what I had done was really special for this family. Being able to give the family something that they can look back on, I am ________ with the occupation I have chosen.

7 . Yesterday, my daughter had to go to work earlier than usual. Since the gym where I work out is not far from her ___________, I decided to take her to work and then go to the gym.

At quite an earlier hour, the gym was ___________ full of men and women of all ages, working out. I ___________ go to the gym at this early hour, and was ___________ to see so many people. It seems that many go to the gym before going to ___________. Some want to lose weight, others want to ___________ their body, and a great number of people like to build their muscles (肌肉). I know how difficult it is for most people to start exercising. Most people know it is good for their body, ___________ they are too lazy to go to the gym, ___________ in the morning. They ___________ to spend an extra hour in bed before starting their ____________. In the afternoon, they are too ____________ after work, and want to stay at home or go out to meet friends.

If you’re one of them, you need to overcome (克服) your ____________. If you ____________ going to the gym and exercising, you will start to ____________ it. This usually ____________ when you see you’re losing weight, that your body is getting into a better shape, and that you feel stronger.

It is the same in every other area of life. Everything becomes easier if you have great motivation.

8 . A US bus driver is being praised for the way she helped a passenger get some needed assistance (帮助). In October, bus driver Natalie Barnes started talking with a passenger named Richard. He told her he had been _________ for a week, since there was a big fire in the place where he had been living and his house was _________.

When he asked if he could _________ along for the night to stay out of the_________ , she agreed. “At some point in our lives, everybody needs help,” Barnes said, “I want to do what I could to help Richard in some way.” At one point during her shift, she took a _________, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and offered to get her passenger something to eat. Richard was _________. “Now I don’t know what to say but to say thank you,” he said to Barnes and promised to _________ her back somehow.

She refused, saying,“I want to help you.” But one act of kindness wasn’t_________for Barnes. During another break, she turned to a friend for help, who helped get Richard into temporary (临时的)_________.

Barnes and Richard became ____________ during that six-hour bus ride. Now he has her cellphone number, and they keep in____________.

Helping others comes second nature for Barnes, who has received lots of praise for ____________service since she worked in the MCTS two years ago. She ____________takes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the bus to share with people in____________.

In fact, Barnes did what we all need to do to ____________ homelessness: to look out for each other, to care for each other and to work together.

9 . It was on March 11. The family’s dog, Jobe, _______ Teresa Wiederin’s wrist in his mouth, and led her to the living room. Her son, Dominic, 19, lay in a_______under an allergy attack and gasping for_______. His father quickly drove him to the _______ from the chair.

The first time Dominic saw Jobe, he had_______idea how important the dog would become to him. Driving home from his summer job two years ago, he noticed a weak-looking_______dog along the road. Without thinking too much, he_______ his car and let he dog in.

Dominic asked his parents to_______the dog. But they didn’t agree, especially_______a vet said the dog’s was in bad condition. However, after the vet reassured that the dog’s problems were________, they accepted the black dog. Their son named it after Job in the Bible and________ him back to health.

Jobe would soon have the chance to return the ________. Dominic had his first allergy attack four months later,________he was with friends at a barbecue restaurant. It was later determined that the reaction was________ by spices in the barbecue sauce. He was________to the emergency room. The teen soon learned that some food can make________difficult to breathe.

Now Jobe watches ________ his owner. The dog is gentle, sensitive, and ________, staying close to Dominic day and night. “I can be at peace,” his mother says, “knowing that Jobe is on________watching Dom.”

Her son puts it more ________. “I saved him,” he says. “Now Jobe saves me.”

10 . Yesterday I drove to the grocery store with my son. In front of us in line was a little girl with her mother. The little girl was asking her mother for a box of Smarties. The polite way she was asking almost broke the mother’s _________, “I’m sorry, Honey, but we just can’t afford it.”

My son was watching that _________. By the way, he had been raking (用耙子耙) leaves in our garden to raise himself some money to buy a bike. As he watched the mother and the daughter leave the store, he ran to the candy counter (柜台) and _________ a box of Smarties.

My son _________ placed the Smarties on the conveyer belt (传送带), _________ his money and bought the Smarties. He turned to me and I just _________. So he ran out after the little girl and her mother and gave them the Smarties.

I was so excited that I _________a pack of Smarties for my son. I told him that I was _________of him, and that for his act of generosity he _________ his own Smarties. I continued to tell him, “__________ you do something nice for someone, you shouldn’t expect to get anything __________, but when you do get something you should be very __________.”

On my way home we passed the mother and her daughter walking home. I stopped and offered them a __________.   In the car we talked happily. I found out that __________ many other families in our town, they had lost their income when the local mill shut down. We made friends and I have learned that I was __________ my son to be a thoughtful and caring individual.