1 . While I was in hospital for a heart surgery, something affected me and made me do something meaningful. Before my surgery, my doctor showed me a video, in which there were patients like me and they each had a heart pillow, so I decided I would get one.

Right after my _______, I asked about the heart pillow. Unluckily, I was told they didn’t offer it but it could be _______ at the hospital gift shop. So my daughter bought one for me. It was comfortable and became my “security blanket”. However I was _______ that many patients couldn’t get that comfort. So I took this whole mission upon myself. I called various hospitals to find out what they used for patients after heart surgeries. I also found a site _______ that the cloth pillows were considered dangerous because it might spread bacteria to patients. I _______ understood, but that didn’t stop my mission. I continued to call the manufacturers. Finally, a lady called back and told me about the heart pillow that they had produced, which could be _______ and disinfected (消毒).

I did all my _______ so that no one could think of a reason why this wouldn’t work. It took me over a month to be able to meet with the hospital authorities to _______ my finding. I’m glad that they agreed and are _____ getting these pillows for patients. I cannot be ________— I actually did something that will help many patients.

2 . The lead role

Travaris always loved singing and he landed the lead role in the school musical. He could barely wait to tell his parents the _______. But when he made his announcement over dinner, they looked at each other and frowned (皱眉头). “You said the performance is in the week of November 13?” his dad asked. Travaris’s heart _______. Of course, his older sister was getting married in Hawaii that week. “I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to tell them that you can’t do it,” his mom said.

The next day at school, Travaris _______ to tell Ms. Phelps, the theater director, that she should give his part to someone else because he wouldn’t be in town during the _______. But all day he was flooded with _______ from his classmates for getting the lead role. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that it was all for _______ in the play.

Travaris was still staying after school to practice his part, reading his lines, singing the songs, and even learning the dance numbers. But as the weeks went by, Travaris started to feel _______. He knew that the longer he _______ dropping out of the play, the more he would hurt the rest of the cast and crew.

Finally, Travaris told Ms. Phelps how he couldn’t be in the musical. Ms. Phelps thanked him for taking the whole _______ into account. “But don’t forget to audition(试镜) again next year, and the chance is bound up with ________. ”she added with a smile.

3 . As a biologist and photographer, I always take my camera everywhere to take pictures of wild animals. One day, I was standing on a boat when a very large female leopard seal(海豹) swam by. I put on my diving equipment and grabbed my _________. I was frightened because she was so big. My mouth was dry, and I couldn’t even _________. But I knew it was time to _________ this mysterious creature.

I jumped into the freezing water. Immediately, the seal swam towards me. Then she put my entire camera and much of my head into her mouth. Thinking this must be a sign of _________, I decided to stay very calm. Although the seal was showing me her teeth, I tried not to _________ any fear. She did it a few more times, and then swam away. To my _________, she came back with a live penguin. And she even showed me how to eat it. Then she pushed the penguin into my camera—she thought the camera was my mouth!

Being a biologist, I understood that she was trying to _________ me. But I thought that she was really trying to communicate with me. At this point, she didn’t seem very _________. She stayed by me and took care of me for four days.

I got many amazing pictures during those four days. And, more importantly, I’ve learned that animals do not always behave the way we _________. I believe the __________ experience I had with this powerful and intelligent animal will stay with me forever.

4 . Michael Jordan is widely considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time. In fact, for more than a decade, he was the ________ of the NBA.

And then he made the decision: a career ________. How could a man, at the peak of his success, walk away from success? Not only did he walk away from his previous success, but he did the unthinkable. He risked his ________ talent by trying to play baseball, a sport he hadn’t played for many years.

Was it ego? Was it boredom? No. It was psychological. It was the mindset he buried in his soul after being cutting from his basketball team when in high school.

To understand why he ________ everything, let’s take a look into the mindset of Michael Jordan.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve ________ again and again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

As Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, would say, genetics may determine the starting line, but hard work determines the ________ line.

Jordan may have become bored with basketball. He may have desired another challenge. However, he wouldn’t have risked everything if he honestly didn’t believe hard work ________ all.

Coach John Wooden felt the same way. He ________ discussed wins and losses in his pregame speech. Instead, he focused on ________ his players were willing to give 100 percent and leave everything on the court. He knew by focusing on the process, things would change for the ________. Ten national championships later proved his theory of hard work.

5 . What It Takes to Put Your Phone Away

According to the iPhone’s Screen Time, my typical daily phone activity includes 90 minutes of texting, one hour of e-mail, and yet another hour of social media. And there are also about seventy “pickups”, meaning that I _______ my phone about four times per hour. I carry my phone around with me as if it were a(n) _______.

I have tried all sorts of things to look at screens _______: I don’t get push notifications (推送通知). I use an app called Freedom to block social media for much of the workday. But they don’t seem to work.

The Georgetown computer-science professor Cal Newport argues that we must establish a “philosophy of technology use.” He recommends a month-long digital detox (脱瘾), in which a person takes a(n) _______ from all optional technologies. When it’s over, the digital minimalist (极简主义者) slowly reintroduces these technologies.

Newport defines a digital minimalist as someone who drops “low-quality activities like mindless phone swiping and halfhearted binge-watching (刷剧).” They are _______ high-value leisure activities such as board games, book clubs, and learning to “fix or build something every week.”

At the beginning of March, I decided to try to follow Newport’s advice. I adjusted the home-computer settings to cut my social media _______ to 15 minutes. And I changed my Freedom settings to _______ Twitter and Instagram altogether. I left my phone in the apartment whenever I walked my dog.

During the first few days of my internet decluttering (清理), I found myself compulsively (强迫性地) checking my unchanged in-box and already-read text messages—attempting, as if bewitched (着迷的), to see _______ information there. Soon I got used to the dull, pleasant blankness. One afternoon, I lay on my couch and felt an influx of mental _______ that was both disturbing and pleasurable. I didn’t want to learn how to fix or build anything, or start a book club. I wanted to experience myself as soft and loose and purposeless.

On the first day of April, I took stock of my digital experiment. I had not become a different, better person. But I had become more __________ of why I use technology, and how it meets my needs. I loosened my home-computer settings on social media, back to 45 daily minutes. I considered my Freedom parameters, which I had already learned to break, and let them be.

6 . Tina was a seventeen-year-old girl who always wore a bright smile. She suffered from a disease and had to use a walker most of the time. People didn’t speak to her very often. Maybe it was because she looked _______ and people didn’t know how to _______ her. Tina usually broke the ice with people she met with a big “_______”.

In one class, I gave the students an assignment (作业) to _______ a poem. I only made the assignment worth a very small part of their total grade since I knew most of my _______ wouldn’t do it anyway. In the class, one by one each student   _______ to correctly recite the poem. Finally, annoyed and half kidding, I said that the next student who   _______ recite the poem had to do three push-ups(俯卧撑). To my _______, Tina was next. She used her walker to move to the front of the class. _______ she recited, she made a mistake. Before I could say a word, she __________ her walker and started doing push-ups. I wanted to say, “Tina, I was just __________!” But she stood up, continued the poem and she finished the rest perfectly.

When she finished, a student asked, “Tina, why did you do that? It’s not an important assignment!”

“Because I want to be like you guys! To be __________.” Tina said.

Silence fell on the whole room when another student cried out, “Tina, we’re not normal! We are teenagers! We get in __________ all the time.”

“I know.” Tina said as a big smile spread across her face. The rest of the students laughed, too. Tina got only a few __________ that day, but she got the love and respect of her classmates. To __________, that was worth a lot more than a grade.

7 . The Underdog

Paul was my friend. We both loved basketball and were ______ our school basketball team. He was only 1.6 meters tall and he used Bogues, who was ever the shortest player in the NBA, as his inspiration. Our coach was not so sure about his performance in the game. He had to try out many times for ______ the team. ______ Paul worked really hard, practised more and had a strong desire to play for the team, he was still usually on the bench, being just a replacement.

During this week’s basketball match against the Bears, I got hurt and couldn’t play any more, so Paul got the chance to play on the ______. He made shot after shot, and the Bears couldn’t keep up with his energy and speed. In the end, our team won by two point. From Paul all of us knew that every effort in doing anything would ______ one day.

8 . Brothers Cole and Blake Meyer are aged 10 and 8. They were on their bikes headed to go fishing in June when they saw something _______ down the road from their northern Iowa home.

There were a bunch of dead baby turtles, _______ by cars on the main road between two wetlands, Ventura Marsh(沼泽) and Clear Lake. The two boys felt sad for them, so they climbed off their bikes and began helping other small turtles that were _______ crossing to the other side of the road. Pretty soon, the brothers were joined by three friends and the boys _______ they would spend as much time as they could this summer giving turtles a _______ across the road.

The boys are still at it, spending at least an hour or two a day picking up Western Painted Turtles that _______ between the marsh and the lake. They safely watch for turtles from a nearby bike path and cross the road themselves _______ there’s no traffic. But occasionally, they’ll hold up their arms to stop a car if there are turtles on the move. The boys estimate they’ve _______ more than 200, and they don’t seem to mind that it’s cut into their fishing time.

“What these kids are doing is _______, and I hope their love of __________ stays with them throughout their lives,” fisheries biologist Grummer said.

9 . Look Out High School

It seemed that all the students at Hillside School were really eager to leave and move on to high school — everyone except Neil.

Neil was confused (困惑的). He had no real_______of high school, except that there seemed to be millions of kids-big kids. Neil also didn’t find_______easy and had to read and re-read things many times before he_______what was written on the page. He tried again and again but that didn’t help much. The _______still kept moving about the page.

And at lunchtimes, when the other kids_______the exciting things and the great time at high school, Neil felt left out. He only thought of the hard work and the_______. He’d heard about the long passages to write and the thick books to read, and he knew he’d_______again.

Neil closed himself off from the conversations,_______someone talked about hammers (锤子)and nails (钉子). “Something that didn’t involve (涉及) reading!” he said to himself. “Maybe high school won’t be all that bad after all.”

He started listening more _______to the excited conversation among the kids in his class. Every one of them seemed to be looking forward to moving on. To Neil, it was still the great________, and hard to understand. But, something deep down told him that high school wouldn’t be so bad, so trying his best would certainly be a good start.

10 . Every high school student dreams of going to college and experiencing a new period of life, but leaving high school and entering a college is a big adjustment for many students. If you are ________ of some of these differences, you will be better ________ for the changes in attitudes and behaviors necessary for success. Some of the ________ between high school and university are as follows:

First of all, the biggest one is the daily life. In high school, students are treated as children ________ they do not have to think what to do next every day, because parents and teachers ________ everything well for them. However, for college students, everything is left up to them to ________, requiring self-discipline, organization and time management. Another difference is about their ________. For high school students, they seem to be ________ and have to do whatever their teachers told them. They are ________ a machine which is operated by the exams roughly. On the contrary, college students are ________ for making their own class schedules and following them loosely. ________ will monitor their behaviors and study completely counts on themselves. The third distinction is about their dreams. Most of the high school students have the same dream-to ________ a famous university, but for college students, they have to take many factors into account and their dreams are ________.

From the above, we can see there are differences between high school and college, so in the ________ from high school to college, the teens should try their best to ________ themselves. Keep up!