1 . These days, senior citizens sometimes have to work well beyond the average age of retirement just to make ends meet.

Devan Bonagura is a 19-year-old boy from New Jersey, who just started to work. He was working at the Hackettstown store when he_________Nola, a nearly 70-year-old employee sitting in the break room. She was_________, and he took a video and added the video to a social networking website_________by the heart-breaking words: “Life shouldn’t be this hard.”        

Nearly 20 million people viewed Devan’s video, and the 39,000_________demanded he do something to help the old lady. With their_________, Devan started a GoFundMe for Nola, and within 24 hours he already_________over $100 ,000!

Once the donations hit $ 110, 000, Devan spoke with Nola about the Internet’s good deed. “The viewers_________that you’re a very hard worker,” Devan told her. “They’re all proud of you, and they’d like to_________help you out.”

Nola was so_________because she badly needed to pay off the mortgage(按揭) on her house.__________that she needed another $ 60,000 to__________the mortgage, Devan decided to continue his__________. He posted Nola’s story on the website, and even more people__________their wallets to help Nola. Her GoFundMe shot up above the__________she needed.   

Now Nola can finally__________, and she’s incredibly thankful to Devan and all of the people who donated to help her out.

2 . Once upon a time, there lived an ant and a grasshopper(蟋蟀)in a grass field by a river. The ant would work hard all day long from dawn to dusk _________ the grain. On the other hand, the grasshopper would spend all his time singing and dancing. He would _________ call the ant to join him in singing, dancing and making merry at the present time. However, the ant would _________ him and continue with her work.

Soon summer _________ to autumn and autumn to winter. It became freezing cold outside due to snowfall and the sun was barely seen and the nights were _________ and dark. Out of cold, the grasshopper lost his _________ in singing and making merry. He was cold and hungry and had no _________ to take shelter from the snow outside. He wondered how to save himself from this _________ situation.        

Suddenly he remembered about the ant and decided to _________ her for some food and shelter. Off he went to her place and knocked at her door for __________. When she opened the door, the grasshopper offered to sing for her __________ for some food and shelter.

To this, the ant replied that she had worked hard in summer to save enough __________ for winter and the grasshopper had laughed at her then. She gently asked him to sing somewhere else and __________ his food and shelter. It is then, the grasshopper realised that he should have __________ enough for the winter instead of wasting his time being __________ during summer in singing and dancing around.

3 . When my mother and I finally opened a cookbook together, we weren’t planning a holiday meal. At 70 years old, my mom could _________ boil a potato. After an almost 40-year career at a museum in New York, she could _________ a Masaccio, or a Michelangelo on sight, but she _________ nothing about cooking.

Two months earlier, my _________ had been seriously ill in hospital. I’d come back, first to sit by his bedside and hold his hand giving _________, then to do the grocery shopping, and _________ him three meals a day.

My father had been the perennial (长期的) cook of the family. Once he was home and recovering, but still too _________ to do any heavy lifting, it was up to me. After ten weeks, _________, both parents agreed it was time for me to get back to my own _________ .A bit of arithmetic(算术)showed the fact: there would be only one of us ____________ to cook, and it was the one person who didn’t ____________ know how.

The book we ____________ was How to Cook Everything: The Basics. We ____________ it, looking for the simplest of ____________ recipes. We found it: pork chops with onions and apples. One small, ____________ step for man, one giant leap(骤变)for our ____________.

While in college, I ____________ the joy of preparing the right meal for someone you love. It was this ____________ I hoped to pass on to my mother as we ____________ at our kitchen table, reading this book of ____________ that at any other time in life, would have seemed laughably simple.

4 . In the back of my closet, there is a small cardboard chest that has followed me to every one of my new addresses. Until now, the only _________ contents in it are three wrapped _________ marked in my mother’s tidy handwriting: “Engagement”, “Wedding” and “First Baby”.

When I was three, my mother learned that she had advanced breast cancer. When I was seven, she had begun _________ a gift box for me. Inside, she packed presents and letters for the _________ of my life she was going to be missing — driver’s license, graduation, and every birthday until the age of 30.

My mother died ten days before our _________ birthday. That morning, when I turned 12 and she would have turned 49, I woke up early and opened the package _________ “12th Birthday”. A white card curling around the present _________: “I always _________ a birthstone ring when I was a little girl. Your Granny finally bought me one and I loved it more than I can say. I hope you like it, too.” I put on the ring and _________ her writing with my fingertip.

On the morning of my high school graduation, a __________ of pearls appeared as I opened the wrapped present. Her note read: “There seemed to be a __________ in my family that when girls graduated from high school, they received pearls.” I wore the pearls that afternoon as I took the stage to accept my diploma.

Year after year, my mother __________ forward in time to meet me. When I was a child, opening the next package felt like a treasure __________. As I grew older, her message met me like guideposts in a dark forest. If her words couldn’t point the way, at least they offered the __________ of knowing that someone had been there before and that I have been __________, wildly loved.

5 . While there isn’t anything unusual about an 8-year-old wanting a pet dog, the extremes to which Jenna Bates was willing to go make her special.

“My dad didn’t _________ a dog, so I had to do something super hard to get one,” she said. “I offered him a _________. I’d quit sugar for a year, and he would reward(奖赏) my strong will with the _________ of my dreams.”

“I accepted the deal, but I thought, ‘Oh, she’ll never _________ it,’” Jenna’s dad said.

Jenna started her first day of the deal with confidence. “And then I looked at my _________ meal, and then I looked at my normal (通常的) meal, and I thought, ‘Oh, what did I do?’” she said. “But then, I thought, ‘I can _________ it for my dog!’”

By the time she got home, she’d almost decided to give up the deal.

“The first night, I thought, ‘It’s _________ for me to do this. Tomorrow I’m probably going to _________ ,’” she said. “But then the next day, I decided, ‘I’ll just try it _________ today.’ And then that kept repeating over and over until I decided, ‘OK, I’m going to do it.’”

When the class had doughnut (甜甜圈) day, Jenna __________ her sugar-free biscuits. Her friends __________ she could eat some sugar at school and her parents would never __________. But Jenna said she didn’t even __________ it.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” she said. Instead, she __________ her new way of living so completely that she has no plans to give it up—even though she now __________ the dog she’s always wanted.

6 . The World Cup is an international football competition that takes place every four years. The first World Cup event _________ in 1930 and it has only been cancelled twice in the history of the competition - in 1942 and 1946, _________ the Second World War. The World Cup can take place anywhere in the world. In 2018 the host country was Russia, in 2014 it was Brazil, in 2010 it was South Africa, and this year, in 2022, the _________ country is the State of Qatar. It is _________ time that a country in the Middle East is hosting the World Cup and only the second time that a country in Asia is hosting the _________.

While the World Cup usually takes place in the months of June and July. It is incredibly _________ in Qatar during the summer months, and _________ the competition will take place in November and December this year. There are 32 national teams participating. These teams were _________ through qualifying matches. There will be a total of 64 _________ played over the 28-day World Cup. These will take place in eight stadiums across the State of Qatar. The opening match __________ at Al-Bayt Stadium on the 20th of November between Qatar and Ecuador after the opening ceremony.

7 . Just before New Year’s Day, I was in a cheese store, purchasing some cheese. I _______ a young man asking the salesgirl about “meringue(蛋白酥皮)sugar”. His mother had given him strict _______ to buy no other kind, but he didn’t know what the stuff was.

The salesgirl _______ to be without a clue, too. Actually, none of this was any _______ of mine. I could have—should have— _______ purchased my cheese. But instead I _______ myself saying: "What your mother probably wants is something like…But really, ordinary white sugar _______ just fine for meringues as long as you beat it in very slowly…” With these words escaping my lips, I was _______ with shock. How come I _______ all this unasked-for advice to a complete stranger so automatically?

My own mother was of the non-disturbance school unless it was a(n) ________ of life and death. Though she could always produce ________ advice when asked for it, she would let us learn by experience. Honestly, I really ________ these silences of my mother’s.

For centuries, the young have been ________ on the receiving end of instructions from their elders, whether they liked it or not. Maybe the elders ________ more useful knowledge, but the young have to make their own voyage. Sometimes all they need is not your ________ , but your blessing.

8 . A struggling actor, Stallone was poor at one point. He ended up becoming _________, sleeping in a bus station, and _________ to afford food. In the end, he managed to get $25 in his pocket by selling his _________.

Soon after, Stallone decided to take his _________ into his own hands and write a movie role for himself. After watching a boxing match, Stallone wrote the script (剧本) for Rocky very quickly, and soon studios wanted to buy the screenplay to make. Stallone was offered $125,000 for the Rocky script, but he wanted to _________ in the movie and turned down the money in order to _________ his dream.

After being _________ on that idea because he “looked and talked funny”, Stallone was then offered $350,000 for the screenplay. He refused it unless he could star in it. The _________ wanted this screenplay so badly, but was not willing to _________ the money on this unknown actor.

Stallone stayed __________, and finally the studio let him star but gave him a (an) __________ amount for the script. Luckily, his movie proved an instant hit.

With his __________ up, Stallone went to buy back his dog, but the guy he sold it to would not sell him back. Stallone __________ offered the man $15,000 for the dog.

And this is why Stallone has __________ his success – he was willing to do whatever it takes to get his __________.

9 . Recently, as I neared the top of a difficult 35 foot climb at the local climbing gym, I made a dynamic move to reach the last hold. My right hand ________ the small, awkwardly placed hold, but I couldn’t ________, and my body fell away from the wall. Falls like this happen all the time. The rope catches you, and you rest in the air ________ getting back to try the move again.

This time, ________, something went terribly wrong. I glanced down as I fell from the hold, and watched in _________ as the rope raced through the harness (保护带) and disappeared from view.

When I hit the ground, a ________ impact rushed through my body. ________, I landed on my right side. Had I been upright, or in just about any other _________, I would probably have broken my legs, and possibly my back. Still, I broke my right ________, but the emergency medical technicians told me with _________ that I wasn’t paralyzed (瘫痪的) . That was my biggest fear and I realized I’d ________ the fall.

Somehow, I’d tied a bad knot when I ________ the rope to my harness. I had surgery on my ankle, and I’m in a wheelchair for a couple months, but I’m just a ________ to the world of disability. Now I can feel the ankle getting ________ by the day. For all of that, I am deeply ________.

10 . Left out of society: Vanuatu’s deaf community push for national sign language

Tasale Edward Bule, a 45-year-old fisher from Vanuatu’s Efate island, remembers the day the world went silent. “I woke up one morning and remember not hearing the birds sing, or the rooster crow,” Bule says. “I asked everyone to call my name to see if I would hear them – it was then I realised I had _________the hearing in both my ears.” The illness that took his hearing has never been clearly explained to Bule by a doctor. But at 14, and with no _________sign language or disability support, he left school, despite dreaming of one day becoming a pilot or an engineer.

Bule’s story would be _________ much of the deaf community in the Pacific country of Vanuatu. With no national sign language, most people have to_______their own ways to communicate. Some use signs they’ve developed with their families and communities, but then _________to communicate outside this group. Others, like Bule, rely largely on lip-reading to _________.

Disability advocates say this leaves the deaf community unable to participate fully in society. The group are also more _________during natural disasters, frequent in Vanuatu. Thus people are seeking to create an official language in the hope of _________life for the hard of hearing community in the Pacific nation.

_________, the government hopes to fix this too. It is currently developing a national sign language, to be called Storian wetem han, or “using hands to communicate”.

The initiative, which is funded by the Global Partnership for Education and the World Bank, has seen __________travel the country collecting signs from deaf people, and filming deaf people signing different words, which will be __________to a sign language dictionary software program and turned into a national sign language.

Once developed, Vanuatu would join Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and Solomon Islands as Pacific nations with a national sign language, though at present Papua New Guinea is the only country where its sign language, Auslan-PNG Sign, is an officially __________national language.

The government hopes that Storian wetem han will be able to be __________fully across the country in 2024.

For now though, Arthur Simrai, a field officer for the Vanuatu Society for People Living with DisabilitySimrai, says that many of those living with hearing loss don’t __________sign language on the rare occasions that they see it. “Most of the people who can’t hear, they don’t know the sign language on the screen,” he said. “They have their own sign at home … with their family to signal or communicate what they want … but not everyone in the community know.”

If Vanuatu is able to make a __________of its national sign language, Simrai says, it would make an enormous difference to the lives of people who are deaf across the country.