1 . I was about to explain the meaning of the word “gossamer (小蜘蛛网)” to my five­-year­-old students. We were learning a poem. I _______ because one of them was waving his hand at me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Once I got caught in a spider web _______ I didn’t see it,” the boy said.

“That’s gossamer!” I shouted, nearly jumping up. “Gossamer things are hard to see.” Gossamer is also how I might describe the voices of _______ young children. I can only hear them when I am close enough. They are not the children speaking with ease. They are the children whose faces turn _______ if I call on them, or who whisper (低语) “I don’t know” even when they do _______. I don’t want them to _______. I want them to be comfortable being _______.

Shy children usually have less practice in speaking, especially when there are other more children _______ to talk. It’s a loud world. Though shy children may appear _______ to be in the background, they are losing opportunities to participate. Without practice, fear of speaking ________.

It takes about three weeks, a small bit of ________ each day, for each of my 17 students to learn a poem. So far, they have memorized more than five. And now, an obvious ________ has happened. The “shyest” children are as eager to read aloud as the ________ ones.

Practice is an excellent way to increase ________ of shy children while learning a poem. And it is practice that makes them enjoy the ________ of the language.

2 . High school senior, Jonathan Walker is unquestionably celebrating an amazing milestone in his life. The Florida teen has been _________ into 27 universities and received up to $4 million in scholarships.

“It was just a surprise to see that they wanted me to _________ their institution, and that they were offering me _________ …it was just a ton of excitement,” Walker said during an interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis.

The 18-year-old Florida student _________ to colleges and universities that included Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT. _________, the teen was very surprised when he was admitted to all of the universities. He told CBS Miami in an interview that, “That’s such a _________ thing to occur, but it did happen.” However, _________ he has been accepted to all of his choices, the teen is working on _________ the list down. “I’ll be able to make a pretty confident _________.”

As a matter of fact, Walker is also __________ in science club, the international Baccalaureate program, and the school football team. The amazingly __________ 18-year-old has also been working with a partner on a wrist device that __________ people who are blind and deaf to communicate better with people.

It is no __________ that Walker is thinking engineering as a __________ major alongside becoming an entrepreneur(企业家). “I’m mostly interested in engineering as well entrepreneurship, but I’m also __________ the possibility of creating my own major since I have a ton of different __________,” Walker said.

He continued, “My parents __________ me a chemistry set a couple of years ago…And then from there I really __________ that I could use engineering to help people. And so I just became super interested in creating __________ that could help disadvantaged communities and people __________ a challenging period.”