1 . Last week my four-year-old son Basti and I went for a walk in a park. _________ a beautiful tree off the road, he _________ a lovely toy dugong (儒艮) on the ground. Basti was so excited by this _________ discovery that he held it all day, and even took it to the _________ with him that night.

That evening, I came across a community post from a (n) _________ mum trying to find a _________ dugong, her son’s favourite toy. Although _________ about my son’s sadness, I immediately _________ her and told her we had found it!

The next morning, I had to break the _________ to Basti, who was still __________ the lovely toy. I told him it was another little boy’s. Tears ran down his face. However, he gave me the dugong and cried, “I’m just so sad. I __________ the dugong, Mum. But it’s the right thing to __________ it”.

The lovely toy was returned. Feeling unhappy, yet I thought we had made a good __________ . A week later, on my door hung a card and a new dugong as a big thank-you from that mum. It’s __________ a wonderful surprise! It was the kindest of kind things, which not only __________ my son but also made our week!

2 . David and Candace recently welcomed their new baby, Luna. Before their daughter was born, the couple, who now _______ in California, had been preparing for the baby shower (迎婴派对) and sent out invitations via text messages.

_______ , a message was sent to Angela’s phone, who lives in Indiana. “I was _______ at first, but then I thought there was a reason why I got that _______ and invitation. I could and should do something lovely about it, ” said Angela, who runs a small business making and selling _______ .

“What better way to _______ the arrival of a new little one than with a baby blanket? So I _______ a super-soft blanket made from my own business with hopes that it would reach them, ” Angela said. Inside the special delivery, she included a note _______ the error and why she felt it necessary to do so.

David and Candace said they were blown away by Angela’s _______ and how someone they never ________ could be so generous to them from thousands of miles away. “ ________ indeed. People often get wrong number calls and texts, but most times, they’re ________ . Luna is just so blessed that a stranger sent her a(n) ________ . This is so crazy,” said Candace.

Being a mother of 4 children, Angela has ________ from acts of kindness throughout the years. She said being on the ________ end of that same kindness, shown to her family, is great.

3 . There once lived a monster named Nian, who lived deep in the sea and climbed up to eat cattle and ______ people.

Then, one New Year’s Eve, the villagers were in a great ______ to run away. Some were closing windows and locking doors, some were ______ and others were driving cattle and sheep. There came a beggar (乞丐), saying “I’ll drive away the ______ .”

Around ______ Nian rushed into the village. He found the grandmother’s house was bright with red paper ______ on the doors. The monster gave a loud cry, looked ______ for a moment and went to the door. There suddenly came the sounds of explosions (爆炸). Shaking all over, the monster dared not take a step ______ . It turned out that the colour ______ flames and explosions were what Nian feared the most. The monster ran away quickly in the darkness. All the villagers felt ______ and came back to thank the beggar.

To ______ such good luck, the villagers put on their ______ clothes and hats and went to their relatives and friends to send their ______ and congratulations. These ______   have been passed down through the generations, which is the ______ of the Spring Festival.

4 . 37-year-old Kyle Semrau wasn’t feeling well when he arrived home on Monday morning after his night job. Surprisingly, his 6-year-old daughter, Macie _______ to go to school that morning. Her parents eventually gave in and allowed her to _______ home that day with her 4-year-old brother Caleb and her dad. They didn’t expect that _______ would end up saving Kyle’s life.

Kyle was soon feeling _______. Macie recalled hearing her father _______ start shouting. She and brother Caleb _______ to find him lying on the ground in the basement unconscious. “I don’t want to say this, but I thought he was going to _______,” said Macie. “I immediately Googled the Eliot Police for its number and _______ the police department.” Meanwhile, Caleb did what he could to comfort his dad until _______ arrived.

6-year-old Macie was able to ________ give the police their address, her dad’s name and age. After first responders arrived and ________, Kyle was rushed to hospital.

Kyle has now fully ________ and is grateful for all the help he received. “Just incredible all around. It’s ________ for children to look up to their fathers as heroes, but Macie is, and will always be my hero,” said Kyle.

The Eliot Police Department was also ________ with the little heroine’s actions. “Great job, Macie!!! It was her ________ thinking and swift action that saved her dad’s life,” said a police officer.

5 . Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges is celebrating becoming a grandfather and is also happy to be back in acting. But life wasn’t so ______ for him in 2021. He had to fight with cancer and suffered from COVID-19 ______ . Recently, he spoke about those hard days, and what kept him motivated (有动力的).

Life suddenly took a ______ turn for Jeff when one day he started getting pain in his stomach. His whole life ______ when a nine-by-twelve-inch tumor (肿瘤) was found in his stomach. ______ was started immediately and the tumor disappeared soon.

But in January 2021, both he and his wife Sue were ______ by COVID-19. Sue was able to recover in five days, while he ______ with it in hospital for months.

“COVID-19 made my cancer look like ______ ,” Jeff recalled. He couldn’t breathe properly and needed oxygen even to roll over in bed. His wife Sue was ______ that he might die.

“I was pretty close to ______ . The doctors kept telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight.’ But I was about to ______ . I was ready to go,” said Jeff. But he remembered his ______ to his daughter to dance with her on her wedding day, which gave him the will to ______ back. And he eventually recovered. He was not only able to ______ with his daughter but was also happy to be reunited again with his wife and enjoy the second ______ at life.

6 . Ethan has always dreamed of becoming a firefighter. Recently, the 18-year-old got a ________ of what it really feels like to save lives!

It all ________ when Ethan and his two friends, Ryken and Jackson, both 17,were heading to a local basketball court. They looked up and saw ________ pouring from the Citadel Mews Retirement Home. Pulling over in their tracks, they ________ to the Retirement Home to see if they could help.

“We knew that the elderly people were struggling ________,” Jackson said.

The ________ teens first went to the rescue members. Learning that there were still people inside the building, they didn’t ________ to go in after them. Thinking nothing of their own ________ , they ran up to the fourth floor and began to carefully ________ the rooms.

“Knock on every door, say, ‘There’s a fire; everyone gets out,’” Jackson ________. “After that we’d open the door and take a ________ look through to make sure no one was in and go to the next ________.”

Smoke began to ________ the hallways, and the roof was in flames, but they were so focused on evacuating (疏散) everyone that they didn’t have time to be ________. “The only thing that was going through my mind was to get out all the people ________ in the building,” said Ethan. Soon he found an old lady ________ to make her way downstairs, and he picked her up and ________ her outside.

The three teens are receiving lots of ________, but they insist they were just raised to do what they thought was ________.

After this experience, Ethan said he is more convinced than ever that he wants to be a ________.

7 . Any visitor to the local library in our town would catch sight of a teenage boy reading books carefully. He would _______ to linger(流连) in the library reading not only a wide range of literary works but also articles in famous periodicals(期刊）till closing time. The librarian had to share his _______ to satisfy the teenager’s desire for books when he happened to_______ into the boy’s father.

The boy was called Tarun Kanti, who also took a(n) _______ interest in sports, dancing and drama. His talent had earned him a lot of _______ in the town despite his young age. But things _______ obviously after his father’s untimely death. Kanti _______ his responsibilities as the eldest son. He began to devote his part time to working to _______ his family and insisted on(坚持) studying _______ and ranked(排列) first in the district during the high school graduation examination. Later, he ________ a master’s degree in Yale University.

After retirement Kanti suffered from a rare heart disease that took away his life at the age of 64. ________ his unhealthy condition couldn’t dim(使暗淡) his love for work. He was still ________ in his research during the last days of his life. Almost everyone who had spent time with him during his last days had no ________ that he was dangerously ill.

When he lay lifeless in the library of his residence, many of his colleagues and friends ________ in to have a last glimpse（一瞥) and pay their final tributes(悼念). In great ________ I prepared to take a last look at my lifelong hero— my elder brother Tarun Kanti.

8 . “The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘They re having a worse night than me,’ and so that’s when I offered to help,” Landry Scott said.

Recognizing how _________it was and realizing he had better _________in his car, Landry approached Randy Head and asked if he needed any assistance (帮助).

Randy, who lived in a tent in a wooded area, _________ the last of the money in his pocket to put air in a young woman’ s spare tire (备胎). He said that there was “nothing amazing about the generous act; it was just “the decent (正当的) thing to do” . He said, “I haven t cured cancer. I’m not Superman. I just _________a tire, I was simply helping out another in _________.”

The 61-year-old said he thought of his daughters when he noticed the female driver get out of her car, and how he hoped someone would _________ them if they were in trouble. Having done hard labor for over 30 years before becoming homeless last year, Randy said he was _________to get his hands dirty once again.

The woman offered him $20 for his help, but Randy politely _________ the money.

Landry _________ the story online, along with two pictures of Randy helping the woman. The post has since been shared nearly 3, 000 times. Strangers who saw Landry’s post reached out to him and __________how they could help, so the next day Landry __________ the homeless man and asked him what he needed.

Randy responded that he wouldn’t mind somewhere to __________from the cold and windy weather. Landry then__________Randy a room at the Red Roof Inn for five nights. Also, Landry has already__________ $2,850 for Randy.

“I m still the __________nobody I was before Monday night,” Randy said.

“But if one positive thing can come out of all of this, I hope to re-establish common decency and common respect because neither of those things is that common anymore.”

9 . The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind: we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. Some people regard a borrowed book as a ________ in the house. It must be treated with care and considerate ________. Casual attitudes are forbidden. Because the book is borrowed it tolerates no damage which means it must not suffer while ________. While reading the book, you are not allowed to make any mark or underline the important ________ when a flash of creative idea emerge. This is huge ________ to one’s imagination.

________, your own books belong to you and you can treat them with so much closeness that you are not afraid to mark it up or to place it in a dirty place. Your own books are there for use, not for ________. You don’t need to display them in front of others. Private ownership also encourages ________ marking. A good reason for marking instructive passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to ________ them quickly and then review them more frequently in the future.

Given the importance of owned books to a man, everyone should begin collecting a private library, making up his own ________ property. One should have his own bookshelves, which should not be having doors, glass windows, or keys. They should be free and ________ to the hand as well as the eye. Like the jewellery to a woman, the best moral _________ to a man is books. They are more varied in colour and appearance than any wall-paper. Their variety indicates ________ out of brains of different book writers. The knowledge that books are in plain view is also stimulating. Your body and mind are both _________. With books at hand, your mind is free to land any _________ or even strange possibility, which eventually gives birth to new discoveries or inventions.

10 . For busy people, the idea of speed dating has really caught on in popularity. In a speed dating event, usually 8-10 _________ go around from table to table, each spending 6-8 minutes at each one. From that, you may not know for sure if you want to _________ something more with an individual, but, you will _________ know if you don’t want to.

The first thing that you will realize about speed dating is that it makes you _________. Unlike a bar, where you might get a whole evening to _________ check a potential partner out and to see what they’ve got, when it comes to _________, you know that you only have a certain amount of time to put your best foot forward(全力以赴)there. You’ll find the other participants are _________ of this and will put their best foot forward.

An 8-minute speed dating will also give you a chance to see how someone _________ under pressure. You may already know a little more about their _________ if you find someone who can’t seem to make eye-contact. The best advice is to make eye contact, be open and direct. You’ll find that the __________ time can make for some excellent opportunities to really shine, and there’s nothing like a deadline to make you more __________! An important detail to keep in mind is that you will be __________ to a dozen or more singles in a short time. Those who feel that there is an advantage in larger numbers will surely find this __________.

When you are looking for __________, you may not want to do the long search, so think about speed dating and see what you can do to make sure that it works for you. __________, give this exciting opportunity a try!