1 . My brother rang. “Can you do something with Mum?” he asked. Since Dad died, she’s been unwilling to _________ the house. She and my dad came over from Iran. My brother, Faraz, and I were born and _________ in America. _________, even now we always speak in Farsi (波斯语) when together as a family.

Mum was a writer and wrote poems in her own _________. But she didn’t write any more and stayed indoors after Dad died. One day, I saw a poster _________ that our town hall would be hosting people who’d been to Iran. I asked Mum to share her _________ there. _________, she agreed. After we arrived, she _________ cottage pie with chips. Seeing me dip my chips in gravy (肉汁), she was _________ at first. But then she accepted and laughed, because she knew I was a child of two __________ eager to enjoy what they both served up.

That day was a good __________. After that, Mum began to take a(n) __________ in the world again: She started a new collection of poems. “I’m thinking of taking a degree in English __________ if my English keeps improving. You and Faraz will help, I hope?” She asked on the phone. “Of course, Mum - as long as we don’t lose our mother tongue.” I replied. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about the phrase “mother tongue”. It means so many things: The __________ given by mothers to their babies and said back to them and the acknowledgement that all languages are rich in poetry. I’m a child of two cultures and I love them both, just as I love the people who helped __________ them around me.

2 . I had really got a mobile phone! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the box at my 15th birthday party. As soon as I got to my _________________ the next morning, I showed off my phone and asked everyone for their _________________. I couldn’t pay much attention to the teachers because I was too busy on my _________________. A week later, we took a test and I failed. To make matters _________________, my mom had to _________________ the paper. It was hard to show my mom the _________________. She was used to seeing A’s and B’s on my papers. Well, finally, I showed her and she couldn’t _________________ it. She was angry and disappointed.

Weeks passed and my parents started to _________________ the fact that the phone had a negative impact on my life and studies. They said, “We have noticed that you never pay attention to us. It’s like you have your own little _________________ now.” I acted like they were wrong, but then I started to wonder if it was true that I was spending too much __________________ on the phone. A week later, I tried __________________ a whole day without a phone and it didn’t go that badly. I had so much __________________ because I was actually spending time with my family. From that day, I had a(n) __________________ point of view towards mobile phones. Phones really take you away from the rest of the world. I’m not saying that phones are __________________ and not to use them, but you do have to spare (抽出) some time to spend with your family and not get __________________ with your phone all day. My phone took away my time from my family. It also influenced my grades. I will keep using my phone, but I will have it under better control.

3 . When my children were younger, we used to walk a graveled trail (用碎石铺成的小路) around the lake near our home. One spring day my daughter and I ______ just how much rubbish was ______ along the trail. The next day then we brought a big rubbish bag with us and started to slowly, step by step, ______ the rubbish along our way. There were plastic water bottles, wrappers for candy bars, empty chip bags, and even an old discarded shoe. We stopped and picked up each one. By the time we had circled the ______, the bag was nearly ______.

Tired but ______, we put the bag in an empty rubbish can. We stopped before we ______ home and took one last look at the lake as the sun set. It looked more ______ than ever.

I know that at times this world’s problems can seem ______ to deal with and you wonder what you can do to make a difference. But the ______ is everything you do makes a difference! Every time you bent ______ to pick up a single piece of rubbish you make a difference. Every ______ you share makes a difference. Every kind word you say makes a difference. Every hug you share, every flower you plant, every animal you ______, everything you do, no matter how ______, makes a difference in this world.

Therefore, make your difference ______ from picking up a piece of rubbish.

4 . Troy Kotsur is the second deaf actor to be nominated (提名) for an Academy Award. In his Oscar-nominated performance in Child Of Deaf Adults, Kotsur ________ just one word using sign language.

The movie star, Emilia Jones, acts as the only hearing ________ of a deaf family. To encourage Emilia acting as his daughter to go after her ________ of singing and attending college, Kotsur says, “Go!” “I hope that young people who ________ to be deaf or hard of hearing can get an increased ________,” Kotsur said. “I want those kids to trust themselves more.” The movie has made Kotsur ________ and made history for the deaf community. Kotsur is also the first deaf ________ ever nominated individually for a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Kotsur’s road to the Oscars ________ in school. As a child, Kotsur loved cartoons like Tom and Jerry. He would_ ________ the stories for his deaf ________ on the school bus. He later ________ acting at Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf in Washington, D.C. After graduating, he performed with the National Theatre of the Deaf. With few roles in film ________ for deaf actors, Kotsur had to find ________ in stage acting. Beginning with Of Mice and Men in 1994, Kotsur has acted in twenty productions in Los Angeles.

Kotsur wants ________ to change their wrong ideas about what deaf people are like after seeing the film, “We’ve been waiting for so long to recognize deaf actors and it is our hope that deaf actors will not have to ________ so long to be recognized on this level,” he said.

5 . I started skiing when I was three years old. My mom worked as a ski instructor as she also loved the snow. While the other ______ in my group were whining(哭闹) and complaining, I was busy learning skiing. And at the age of four, I was ______ through the snow with my mom. I remember falling once and realizing that the ______ was taller than I was.

When I was seven, I decided I wanted to take my skiing to the next level and join a ______. There were two options: racing, a popular event for girls, and free skiing, an event mainly for ______. Siding the chairlift(登山吊椅) with my mother, I would see free skiers flying and spinning through the air. I ______ knew which team I wanted to join: free skiing.

As soon as I joined the team, I was placed in a low level. ______, I soon climbed the rankings until I came to the ______ group. At that point, I was the only girl on my team. Although being a girl in a male-dominated sport can be difficult, I’m actually thankful that I’ve had the ______ that I never had.

Life is not going to be a smooth road for all of us, and building ______ early on is important. My experiences have made me tougher and have ______ me to meet my setbacks with open arms. In fact, after this encounter, I’ve become a better skier. However, there is no way that I could have done it without my supportive ______ always behind me and my ______ coach always, always behind me as well.

I encourage you all to ______ your comfort zone to show the boys that girls are just as ______ as they are.

6 . A Clever Dog

A butcher was really surprised when he saw a dog coming inside the shop. He _____ it away. But later, the dog turned its steps back again. So, he went over to the dog and _____ it had a note in its mouth. He took the note and it read “Can I have 12 sausages and a leg of lamb, please? The dog has _____ in his mouth.”

The butcher took a look inside and there was a ten-dollar note there. _____ he took the money and put the sausages and lamb in a bag, placing it in the dog’s mouth. The butcher was so impressed, so he decided to _____ the shop and follow the dog.

The dog was _____ down the street slowly when he came to a crossing. The dog jumped up and pressed the button. Then he waited _____, bag in mouth, for the green light to be _____. Then he walked across the road.

The dog came to a bus stop, and started looking at the _____, and then sat on one of the seats provided. Along came a bus. The dog looked at the number, noticed it was the ______ bus, and climbed on. The butcher, by now, ______, followed him.

Finally the dog got off, his goods ______ in his mouth. The dog was walking until it turned into a house. The dog got to the window, beat his head against it several times, and then ______ at the door.

A big guy opened the door, and gave the dog a ______. The butcher stopped the guy, “What are you doing? The dog is a ______.” The guy responded, “You call this clever? This is the second time this week that this stupid dog has forgotten his key.”

7 . As I was leaving Best Buy one evening, I noticed a man going through the trash can (垃圾桶) outside of the store. He ________ in the can and pulled out some bays and inspected all that was in them.

He never ________ anyone or tried to beg for money as people entered and left the store. After he went through the ________ trash can, he cleaned up the area carefully and wrapped up the food he found. My heart ________ for him. I don’t guess I’ve ever seen someone ________ go through a trash can to find food to eat.

I knew I had to ________ him. I got out of my car and asked him if I could buy him something to eat. He told me he would ________ anything I could get him. He followed me into a fast food store nearby and I bought him the ________meal they had on the menu. The only request he gave me for his order was if I could get him a big glass of sweet tea to ________ his meal!

When I brought him his food, he was so thankful. He told me his name was Steve and he’d been ________ ever since his sister died last September. He was trying to get off the streets, but it was so ________.

I then drove to McDonald’s and bought him some ________ and gave him a gift card. He broke down in ________. He told me that he had prayed for me today! I wasn’t sure what he ________. He said, “I prayed that God would send someone to buy me a hot ________ today… and he sent you!”

8 . Coffee is increasingly earning scientists’ approval. Studies continue to suggest that the beverage (饮料) may have some __________ effects on health.

In the latest analysis, published in the BMJ, researchers scanned nearly 220 studies on coffee and found that__________, coffee drinkers may enjoy more health benefits than people who don’t drink the brew.

Scientists learned that people who drank coffee were 17% less likely to die early during the study period from any__________, 19% less likely to die of heart disease and 18% less likely to develop cancer, compared to people who did not drink coffee. Research group found that the strongest benefit __________ among people who drank around three cups of coffee a day.

Other studies have tried to figure out which ingredients in coffee __________ to its health benefits. Those might include its antioxidants (抗氧化剂), which can combat cancer, and anti-inflammatory (抗炎的) compounds, which can reduce the __________ of chronic (慢性的) diseases such as heart conditions and even nerve disorders like Alzheimer’s, __________ that of liver diseases.

__________ research results support moderate coffee drinking as a relatively healthy habit, some experts say the findings don’t go far enough to __________ the changes of their coffee-drinking habits in the hopes of improving their health. The study did not confirm, for example, that people who do not __________ drink coffee should start adding a cup or two a day in order to lower health risk. The __________ also do not support the idea that current coffee drinkers should drink even more coffee to enhance whatever benefits they might be receiving. Too much coffee, the survey suggested, starts to bend the benefit curve back down.

The only negative health effects the review found were __________ women, who were at slightly higher risk of developing cracks in the bones if they drank more coffee. Pregnant women who drank more coffee __________ have higher rates of miscarriage, more premature births and more babies born with low birthweight than women who drank less coffee, the study found.

The findings should be reassuring for coffee drinkers, as long as they drink__________. Further studies will hopefully look deeper into the type and __________ of coffee that brings the most health benefit.

9 . People from different cultures sometimes do things that make each other uncomfortable, without meaning to or sometimes without even realizing it. Most Americans ________ never been out of the country and have very little ________ that with foreigners. But they are usually spontaneously to get children to help, friendly and open, and ________ meeting new people, having guests and ________ people together formally (正式地) or informally.

They tend to use first names in most ________ and speak freely about themselves. ________ if your American hosts do something that makes you ________ , try to let them know how you feel. Most people will ________ your honesty and try not to make you uncomfortable again. And you’ll learn something about another culture!

Many travelers find it ________ to meet people in the U.S. than in other countries. They may just ________ and introduce themselves or even invite you over before they really know you. Sometimes Americans are said to be ________ friendly. Perhaps it seems so, but they are probably just ________ a good time. Just like anywhere else, it takes ________ to become real friends with people in the U.S. If and when you stay with American friends, they will probably enjoy ________ you to their friends and family, and if they seem eager to know you, it is probably ________ they are. Relax and enjoy it!

10 . Group-Centered Societies Have Just as Much Creativity

What does culture have to do with creativity? The answer could be “a lot”. For decades, psychologists trying to understand the roots of creative imaginations have looked at the ways in which two different types of cultures can come to have an effect over its artistic and _________ output. Individualistic cultures encourage people to be unique and to _________ their own interests even if doing so comes at a cost to the group overall. Collectivistic cultures are based on relationships and duties to other people. These types of cultures often _________ the individual’s wants for the needs of those who are close to them or for those in their community.

Individualism has long been thought to have a creative _________. Individualists _________ social convention, the logic goes, and that pushback supports innovation. For instance, around the world, individualistic cultures have more patents than collectivistic cultures do. _________, a new study suggests that these ideas about culture and creativity could be off base. People in collectivistic cultures actually do better with a particular type of creative thinking than those in individualistic cultures. And the findings overall reveal the shortcomings of thinking about innovation too _________.

The new work comes from comparing communities in different parts of China. Though it scores high, as a nation, on measures of cultural _________, China’s 1.4 billion people are more than just a single culture. People from areas north of the Yangtze River tend to be more _________, open to strangers and self-confident, whereas people along the river and farther south are often more inter-dependent, partial to friends over strangers and likely to try harder to __________.

In the new creativity study, researchers investigated innovation with these two groups in mind. The team used a drawing test that had been created by psychologists. They gave kids a sheet of paper with just a few basic elements printed on it: some dots here, squiggles (弯曲的线条) there, and a rectangle that suggested a drawing frame. The children got 15 minutes to use the elements already on the page to draw whatever they wanted. They could get “adaptive creativity” points for doodling in ways that connected the squiggles and lines into an original and __________ image. In addition, a judge checked whether the children chose to incorporate a small shape that could be found just outside the rectangular. This element was easy to __________, so those who included this outside-the-box detail could get points for “boundary-breaking creativity.”

The researchers gave the test to 683 middle school students from north and south of the Yangtze River. When the scientists got the scores back, they discovered that there were no differences in the children’s overall creativity. When they broke down the results into components, they found that students from collectivistic regions scored __________ in adaptive creativity while those from individualistic areas did better in boundary-breaking creativity.

The findings are also a warning against cultural chauvinism (极端民族主义). Western countries have tended to lead the way in innovation — at least as defined by the metrics (指标) we Westerners have created. Perhaps we have been __________ China’s adaptive creativity. For example, while the country may not have invented the assembly line, it is largely thanks to the __________ its people have made to this system that the country has such a thriving manufacturing sector today.