1 . Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t _______ but this was one of those celebrations that I didn’t mind. They are a bunch of young, single guys and I would have felt out of place.

What _______ me was the way they behaved. Ono of the young men came over _______ in the day to “warn” us of the upcoming event and said it would be over at about 11 p. m. That was the first step. Even more _______ was what they did next. “Here’s my _______”, offered our neighbor _______ “Text me if it’s too noisy.” That was a level of _______ I had never experienced in all my years of being a neighbor!

And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the _______ end time, even when the music reached high decibels(分贝), and even when we couldn’t get through to the phone number, we felt no _______. We knew they would stop and ________ to it eventually.

It takes such little effort to make people feel that they ________ and get people on your side. Everyone needs to ________ every now and then, especially in these uniquely tough times. But people who do it without disturbing others are few and far between. I hadn’t fully ________ my neighbors until this week. But now I see them in a new light and with greater ________ . They didn’t just bring the noise to the neighborhood; they showed us a good manner of ________ in life.

2 . How do you pass the time during your subway commute(通勤)? Scrolling on your phone? Listening to music? Or just staring at the _______ ? Sabrina Bahsoon, a 22-year-old girl who now lives in London for her college education, turns the subway into her _______ .

Her self-shot videos of energetic dance routines _______ on London’s subways have quickly _______ TikTok, making her an overnight sensation(轰动). Her _______ has sparked a trend, inspiring others to be confident and do what they want regardless of what other people think of them.

_______ in Malaysia, Bahsoon developed a confident character. While listening to some music, she felt like making a short TikTok video on the subway on one typical commuting night. But with no _______ willing to help her, she finished the short film dancing to a joyful song, alone and _______ .

Inspired by Bahsoon, many viewers soon left friendly _______ to praise her bravery and confidence. Some also shared their own “Tube Girl” ________ on social media. This concept has gradually become a(an) “________” about embracing self-confidence.

However, some described her behavior as “________”. But these “haters” do not ________ Bahsoon at all. ________ , she thinks it is quite normal for girls to enjoy and ________ themselves on their values. “Just be yourself, ” Bahsoon told BBC News.

3 . One time, I was with a bunch of strangers in India. I was giving a(n) ________ about our products when power went out. It was in a dark hall, and I was with two other workmates. We were so ________ because we had invited all these people here. It was a ________ talk. We couldn’t do anything about it. Our microphone (麦克风) was gone. There was no light. Everyone was sitting in ________, and I couldn’t help but ________, “Oh, my goodness.”

When the power went out, I felt like I should be in control of it, because I was ________ the event. While we were so embarrassed, we just kept ________ and talking in the dark, hoping people would stay. I felt it was really ridiculous because there were no windows and it was a dark hall.

All of a sudden, a man in the back put up his ________,and put the little light from his phone on. Then two more people, then three people, finally the whole ________ came on, and everyone was ________ their light of their phone on us. It ________ the whole hall.

And so I got out my phone and took a ________ of everyone with their light shining at me. It was the most beautiful ________—a feeling that we were all in this together. That was not anyone’s fault, and we were just all here, ________ each other.

It was the most beautiful feeling of love from strangers I’d ever ________.

4 . My memories of those nights I spent with my great-grandmother are still vivid. I _______ them all, because I have nothing else to remind me of her. While my friends _______ display treasures left to them by their grandmothers—precious china, antique silver, jewelry—all that I have of her is a scarf I’d made her.

My great-grandmother didn’t have a china-and-jewelry kind of _______ . While we were under the _______ , she told me many sad stories. I felt the _______ a mother feels when her only son is _______ missing after a battle. I felt the sorrow a wife feels as throat cancer robs her beloved _______ of speech and ultimately of life. I felt the _______ of the Depression, what it was like to lose your home and to _______ produce that had gone bad. My great-grandmother never cried when she ________ her past, and afterward, she always said, “Oh, kid, it’s a great life if you don’t ________ .”

A few years ago, my life took a ________ turn, and curiously, I found my great-grandmother and her stories frequently occupying my mind. I realized then that ________ she had not left me any precious objects, she had left me a treasury of stories and a wealth of memories. By turning her soul inside out to me during those nights in bed, she’d given me the greatest gift—her ________ , her courage to face life head-on. Her legacy gave me the ________ I’d lacked. If she could survive the difficulties of her life, then I knew I could, too.

5 . There was once a lazy crow (乌鸦). He thought it was too much trouble to _______ food. “Caw! Caw!” he said. “If someone brought me my food every day, I’d be very _______ !”

One day, he saw a fat pigeon (鸽子) flying by. “How happy and _______ it looks,” the crow said to himself. So the crow _______ the pigeon until they came to a park. There were some other _______ there too.

Before long, an old man came along and brought them a large bag of food. When the man had gone, the crow flew over to the pigeons. “Caw! Caw!” said he. “Can I _______ you?”

“No, you can’t!” shouted the pigeons angrily. “We don’t know you. ”

The crow went home feeling _______. But he suddenly had a(n) _______. “I’ll paint my feathers gray, ”he said,“ and then the pigeons will _______ I am one of them.” After he finished the painting, he flew off to the park and was ________ by the pigeons. The crow was so hungry that he got very excited at the food. “Caw! Caw! Give lots to me!” he said loudly. ________ , the pigeons found he was a crow. They flew after him and made him leave.

Sadly, the crow flew to his own forest. But when his old friends, the other crows saw him, they asked him to ________. They did not know him because of his gray-painted feathers. So the crow felt ________ than before. His own ________ did not want him, and the pigeons wouldn’t let him into their group.

“What looks easier isn’t always so,” the crow said to himself. “ I ________ I had never painted my feathers gray!”

6 . Early on the morning of October 13, LaPierre was heading to the Chicago Marathon on the city’s Blue Line L. The ______ was full of energized marathoners. Before long, LaPierre noticed a man moving from passenger to passenger, asking for spare ______ . His behavior struck LaPierre as “really strange,” especially the way he stared down anyone he felt hadn’t ______ him enough.

At the Cumberland station, most of the passengers suddenly ______ the car, LaPierre rushed out to see what was going on, only to hear ______ people shouting that the man asking for money was, in fact, armed and ______ people.

As the armed man hopped onto the next train gar, LaPierre followed him. “I could not ______ knowing there were innocent children and people just trying to get to a ______ ,” he says.

The man turned and saw LaPierre, his head down, bull-rushing him. Although the man was far ______ and younger, LaPierre crashed into him and managed to press him ______ the closed door. “Once I got a few feet from him, I knew he wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to ______ me, ”he told the Chicago Sun-Times. The two men fought for the gun—and their ______ . The man tried pushing past him, but ______ , LaPierre grabbed the gun and handed it to a passenger. Then the police poured into the train, and LaPierre let them ______ . He had a marathon to run.

This was not the first time LaPierre had jumped into a(n) ______ . A few years back, he helped prevent a drugstore robbery. “I just happen to be at the right place at the right moment,” he says.

7 . When I was growing up, I had an old neighbour named Dr Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never _______ at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.

When Dr Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a _______.

The good doctor had some _______ theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional(传统的) wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants _______ them so that each following tree generation would grow _______. So you have to make things _______ for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots _______ water. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be _______.

Dr Gibbs _______ a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big since they have deep ________ now. However, the trees in my garden ________ in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.

It seemed that adversity benefited these trees in ways ________ never could. I stood there deep ________.

Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, ________ of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer because now I know my children are going to encounter ________.

8 . Temperatures in the Norwegian capital regularly drop to -10℃ during winter. _______ in the cold winter without wearing a coat, a boy wrapped his arms around himself on a bus stop bench.

It’s _______ scene, but the actions of the ordinary people who witnessed the dilemma of 11-year-old Johanne was both joyous and _______.

A young woman sitting next to the boy noticed him rubbing his arms. She immediately asked him, “Don’t you have a _______?” “No. Someone stole it,” he replied. She _______ and learned he was on a school trip and was told to meet his teacher at the bus stop. She asked him the name of his school and where he was from as she _______ draped (披上) her own coat around his shoulders.

Later, another woman gave him her scarf and then _______ him in her large overcoat. Throughout the day, more and more people _______ to give him gloves and even the coats off their backs as they waited for their bus.

_______, Johanne’s experience was an experiment by Norwegian charity SOS Children’s Villages. Carried out by a ________ camera, it was part of their winter campaign to gather ________ of much-needed coats and blankets to help Syrian children through the winter. Many of the refugees (难民) have left their homes ________ winter clothing.

“People should care as much about children in Syria as they are ________ about this boy,” Synne Ronning, the information head of SOS Children’s Villages Norway, told The Local. She also ________ that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the ________.

9 . Generous billionaires are not hard to come by, but it is definitely a challenge to find a billionaire who spends all his fortune on charity just to end up broke. This is ______ what happened to “former” American billionaire Charles Feeney.

Feeney, who grew up in a poor neighborhood of New Jersey, is a ______ at finding business opportunities. Since childhood, he would take any job to make a few cents for his family-jobs like ______ umbrellas in summer and selling Christmas cards in winter. In his college years at Cornell University, he sold home-made sandwiches to other students and is still ______ there as the Sandwich Man. Then, in the 1960s, Feeney established airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers (DFS), which helped him reach his billionaire ______ by the 1980s. However, Feeney never felt ______ with the lifestyle of the wealthy. He lived ______ , and often thought of what to do with all the money he made.

Influenced by his own experience, Feeney decided to give away all his money to those in need in his lifetime. In 1984, the then 53-year-old Feeney ______ everything-his DFS shares and the various businesses and ______ he had acquired worldwide-to Atlantic Philanthropies, a charity ______ he established. In the following decades, Feeney donated through the organization more than $8 billion anonymously, to charities, universities, human rights   ______ , and foundations worldwide. Such incredible secret generosity ______ him the title “James Bond of Philanthropy” from Forbes magazine.

______ the idea of “Giving while Living”, Feeney is a ______ model for many famous billionaires today, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. He encourages people to donate at least half their fortunes before death. In September 2020, Feeney’s go-for-broke mission was ______ , and he now lives happily with his wife on a pension (养老金) in a modest apartment in San Francisco.

10 . Concerned by the recent economic hardship, BG Cares, on Saturday, gave out food to poor Nigerians, urging well-meaning Nigerians to be their neighbors’ keepers.

BG Cares, which led a group of _________ in Nigeria on a ride for charity (慈善), said it was working to show _________ towards members of society. Speaking at the event _________ “Jollof to the street”, President of the Bikers, Kayode said, “It is why we ride. Selflessness has been the driving force behind BG Cares’s commitment (投入) to _________ others.”

A statement by BG Cares _________ said that it was driven by the determination to change the _________ stories about the biking community, which could help to clear up the misunderstanding between bikers and non-bikers. The statement _________, “At the heart of their programme are their charity outreaches, which have become a part of their task to create a positive effect in the lives of those _________.”

The yearly “Jollof to the street” charity ride has become a _________ for the group, showing their values of kindness. Through the BG Cares, the group works with other charitable organizations, making a(n) __________ effort in bringing positive change. BG Cares hopes that their charity ride will serve as a powerful __________ for others to join hands and make a __________ in Nigeria.

BG Cares expresses heartfelt appreciation to all their __________, partners and volunteers, whose giving made the “Jollof to the street” charity a __________. Their continued support __________ BG Cares to continue improving the lives of poor communities across Nigeria.