1 . Standing in the store, I looked at the supplies seriously. With gift cards in my hand, I saw easels (画架), brushes of all kinds and paper of all sizes.

My friends and family had asked what I wanted for my birthday. Instead of replying ______ with “I’m happy with whatever you choose”, I said ______, “Gift cards for the painting store.”

“Are you sure?” my husband asked tentatively. “______,” I replied. I was beaming (笑容满面) with ______. “I’ve never painted before, and I think it’s time I improved myself. ”

If ______ be told, it has been a decade since I took any time to ______ my own interests. I used to love to read; now my books ______ dust. I used to love to hike; now my boots sat ______ in my cupboard. I missed doing all those things. I wanted excitement and creative expression, but mostly I wanted ______.

I ______ the most interesting supplies: a full-sized easel, brushes, and the most marvelous colors. “I’m so excited,” I told my husband. “I have a (n) ______ that you’ll put these in the same ______ and never touch them again,” he replied.

For a ______ second, I doubted my commitment. Then, I ______ myself to the checkout. For the first month, he was right. I ______ the supplies every day, but I couldn’t seem to find the ______ to start.

“Mommy, when are you going to paint?” my son asked curiously one day. I’d been ______ my easel far longer than I realized. “No better day than today,” I ______.

Within a year, I sold my first four works. Within eight years, I had the courage to ______ my art to a gallery. My life was full of color. Most importantly, I had a new ______.

2 . I visited my sister’s family yesterday. When I arrived there, my 14-year-old nephew looked quite ________. When asked about the reason, he said he was going to take an exam. I was not________ after listening to his explanation.

I know it is commonplace to________ anxious thoughts before an examination or during the examination. Moderate levels of stress________us to work hard, overcome our limitations and give our best________. However, when we are overly distressed, we may feel like a complete failure and see no________in making an effort.

As a society which now believes firmly in ________, achieving, and winning, we might________ turn examinations into larger-than-life events. We seem to ________ the fact that an examination is just something used to tell us how well we have grasped a particular curriculum and where we need to improve in that specific curriculum. Whatever the________of an examination we have got, they cannot change who we are and what we will do in our lives. Therefore, ________we fail to perform well, we must________ ourselves that it is just one exam in our long life and it is not going to be the end of the world.

Comparing ourselves with others brings a lot of fear in our mind and prevents our________. Rather than thinking about either defeating others or getting defeated by them, we should________this unhealthy thought and make self-perfection our long-term goal. Let’s always strive to________ourselves and realize our internal potential.

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 . One of my fellow volunteers, a girl from Tanzania, seemed a bit desperate, so I asked what the problem was. She told me she had a friend back home, who was, really _________ with her university studies. It was beginning to look like financial difficulties, which would make it _________ for her to complete her course.

So this friend of mine had done something_________: she had sent all her pocket money for the month to Tanzania to _________her friend! This meant that she didn’t have much food to eat, no money to go _________outside the village, no money to buy any clothes, and so on.

I was so_________ that she did this for her friend and I felt I had to do something. So, _________my next trip to one of the nearby towns I walked into the fair trade shop to buy some food. I didn’t have much money _________ myself but I thought I’d buy her an extra box of the muesli we both liked and some rice. I started talking to the woman _________in the shop, who was also a volunteer and __________told her about my friend.

The woman looked at me, __________“Does she eat pasta? she asked. “Yes,” I replied. She immediately started __________a bag with pasta, cookies, more muesli, sweets and other things until the bag was full. “Give her this for me. It’ s my __________!” I couldn’t believe it but cried with __________.

I left the shop to go home with my__________ bag of food, I asked the woman her name. “Just Gloria! God __________ both of you!” she said.

Imagine my friend’s face when I __________ the gifts on my kitchen table. I have never seen her so happy! A few weeks later, she found Gloria in the shop and thanked her__________.

These two __________women really showed me what true kindness and compassion is, and the __________ will stay with me for the rest of my life!

5 . Mary and Alice are two good friends. They both _________ an ordinary life, having ordinary houses and ordinary jobs. There is really nothing _________ about their lives. And _________ they are both satisfied, Mary is happier than Alice. Whenever Alice comes to_________ Mary, Mary is always happy. It looks like nothing can _________ her. And whenever there is a party, she is always the focus of it, wearing a big _________ on her face and _________ others’ attention.

Alice can_________ stop thinking about this-how can Mary _________ to do that when they both have similar life experiences? They go to the __________ grocery store and cinema, and __________ the same movies. How is it that Mary can be so happy and carefree when faced with so much__________ about work, thinking about what her boss wants and __________ when she will be promoted? There seems no way one can be so happy and pressure-free. After all, there are always many things to __________ But whenever Alice asks Mary about the secret of happiness, Mary always says, “I just take life as it comes. ”

What is the__________ between these two friends? How is it that Mary can have a__________ attitude to life most of the time? Maybe the problem with Alice is that she thinks too much and__________ to do everything at once. However, in the daily life, Mary takes everything one step__________. That is to say, she reminds herself to do only one thing each time. She is where she is, and stays in the __________ moment.

So when you live in the moment and__________ life to the fullest, you will be happy every day.

6 . A single tremble shook beneath my feet. The trees above me began to sway(摇摆) hard. Then came the deadly_________that could only mean one thing, destruction. Every house and object was now_________. My vision blurred (模糊) even more when I saw the remains of my house. The house that used to_________all the happiness in the world was now_________a pile of ruined pieces. I_________all the times I played with my little brother and sister. Images of them were_________in my mind, so I let the darkness sweep over me completely so I could see them vividly one last time. I regained a bit of my_________after lying on the ground for some time. My eyes viewed different things, but I walked on mindlessly, with no_________to anything around me at all.

Years have passed since the disaster that_________me years ago. I never thought I would be okay again after this__________event.

Today I am going on a trip to California to help__________of a recent earthquake. Then, I see her. A young girl is weeping into her arm. I walk toward her. Losing family was__________, but because of my life changing experience, I am strong, and I can__________the lives of those who are suffering as I was. When I reach the girl, she stares at me with sad eyes, and I gently stick out my hand for her to hold to. One day, she may__________others the way I did for her. She holds my hand tightly, and together, we look for a brighter future where we can help those around us and__________the world starting with one disaster at a time.

7 . “Mom, we want to write a book,” my five-year-old twins, Delilah and Nathaniel, announced one day.

“Sure, I’ll get some paper,” I said. They had made so many “books” and I had all the _________ at hand.

“Mom, we want to make a _________book. Like these!” Delilah said, holding up some picture books.

Were they _________? I thought. I didn’t know how to get a book published. Still, I didn’t want to destroy their _________. I said, “OK... What do you want it to be about?”

“An envelope that travels across the world spreading kindness,” Nathaniel said, his eyes _________.

Over the next few months, they dreamed up more of the story. The main _________were a pair of twins just like them. I wrote down everything, making sure not to _________any detail. I was _________with the twins’ ability to think big. But was their _________too big? Anyhow, I didn’t want my kids to be ____________ .

Writing and publishing a book was ____________to me. I had to spend months ____________: I looked up information online and watched videos; I joined first-time authors’ groups and asked questions. Self-publishing seemed like our best ____________. Still, all the steps it would take were not ____________ .

Even after the kids and I finished writing the story, I wasn’t ____________ . Could we really turn this into a book? ____________, we managed to self-publish The Magical Envelope last Veteran’s Day. The kids decided that 10 percent of the____________they got would go to a charity to help more people. I was proud of my kids.

The twins, now eight, continue to____________me. They’re creating a coloring-book version of The Magical Envelope. They’re launching a Facebook page to____________what they’re doing and get others involved. They ____________me of one thing—we can always think bigger and do more.

8 . Once we reach the age of 60 or 65, we all look forward to retirement and living a/an ______life. But that is not the plan for David Flucker from Scotland’s Edinburgh, who is 100-year-old. He______works three days a week at the St. Columba’s Hospice Care shop.

David ______ his 100 birthday this June, but went to work the next day______at the shop. David______ four hours traveling roundtrip to the shop, which he does______the weather. David started working in the ______ shop after he was______ with cancer and it took him two weeks to be cared for by the Hospice. He just wanted to pay it forward for the kindness he ______. “It is a ______feeling to be doing something, ” said the ______, who lives in Balgreen, Edinburgh.

“It is two buses and a 20-minute walk to get to the shop, ______two hours. I work three days a week, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which are the ______days.” The grandfather-of-seven says the shop in Occan Terminal gets a lot of donations such as toys, books, jigsaw puzzles, and he has to ______them all to sce if they’re OK. But what he loves the most is the ______aspect of his work-when people come in just to chat.

On 22 June, when the senior ______100, the store held a window display on his birthday showing a few glimpses of his life. The store______ a post on the official page of the store where David’s workspace ______. The post shows how David has become an/a ______ for many around the world. Shared on Facebook, the post got many likes and______ and left social media users amazed.

9 . Scientists in the U. S. have developed a new training program for the brain that they say can make you smarter. Called “Gist(主旨)Reasoning Training,” the program developed out of the University of Texas at Dallas goes beyond standard memory recall and information _______ tests and improves cognitive performance by _______ the brain in areas like strategic attention, integrated reasoning and innovation, they claim.

To start, participants - who ranged from teenagers and healthy adults to brain injury victims and seniors at risk for Alzheimer’s disease - were _______ with filtering competing information and focusing on only important, essential components. They were also instructed to _______ the information, finding common _______ or developing generalized statements from what they were reading. Each strategy was designed to build on the previous exercise. Participants were encouraged to apply the same mental strategies outside the training sessions.

After about a dozen 45- to 60- minute sessions, conducted over two months, cognitive _______ were recorded in areas like abstraction, reasoning and innovation, scientists said, and by extension, also improved memory, planning and problem solving. “What’s exciting about this work is that in randomized trials _______ gist reasoning training to memory training, we found that it was not learning new information that engaged widespread brain networks and _______ cognitive performance, but rather actually _______ processing of information and using that information in new ways that augmented brain performance,” said the study co-author Sandra Bond Chapman in a statement.

________ helping seniors improve their cognitive function in old age, a strategic and more analytical approach to brain boosting exercises could also be used by young people to develop an early ________, and help middle-aged adults sharpen their skills and remain“ ________ healthy,” scientists say.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. Research out of the University of Los Angeles California published last year also found that older adults who ________ used a brain-fitness program called Dakim Brain Fitness improved their memory and language skills. Another ________ way to keep mentally fit? Hit the pavement and go for a run or brisk walk, as it’s been well ________ that physical activity is an effective brain booster.

10 . As Gwen Erickson approached 97, she began raising one of America’s most popular, yet endangered butterflies—the monarch butterfly (帝王蝶). She managed to _________ 27 butterflies last year and this year the _________ has gone up to 61.

The whole process is a little _________, beginning with collecting eggs from the milkweed leaves that grow in her backyard. Four days after Erickson placed the eggs in jars on her living room table, the caterpillar (毛毛虫) appeared, and then, within several weeks, formed a chrysalis (蛹). Two weeks later the beautiful butterflies _________. Erickson then released the butterflies into the wild, but a couple seemed a little _________ to leave their loving home and _________ the senior by flying around the house.

Erickson remembered her first attempt to raise _________ and said she hoped it could enable her grandchildren to _________ an interest in these beautiful insects. However, it’s she who has found the _________ in raising butterflies in the end.

Erickson doesn’t like to talk about herself and what she does, but she does so this time as she wants to ____________ others to care for this endangered species. Happily, a friend and her son have joined her in her new-found ____________. Hopefully, we will see a(n) ____________ in those decreasing numbers.

This new ____________ is a fine example of people caring for the smaller things in life. It ____________ us that it’s never too late to be ____________ in life.