1 . When John asked his daughters which sculptures they like best, they shouted excitedly, “The Story birds!”. These birds are the _______ of Robin and John. Robin explains, “Made from plain clay (黏土), the colorful ceramic birds stand on metal legs. There is a little _______ in it. Together, we make something better.”

At John’s house, art is a family _______. Robin brings style to their ceramics. John crafts the metal elements of the sculptures, Their daughters, Ruby, Eliza and Carmella, help too. “The girls _______ into bodies,” says John, “Everyone contributes to the works, so every sculpture is a symbol of our _______ effort.”

There are lots of _______ to turn a clay into a bird. First, John breaks the clay and _______ it until about one-quarter inch thick. He covers it so that it won’t dry out and _______. Then, Robin _______. She thins the clay here and there, pushing in and out to make the bird’s body. John adds fresh clay on the drier clay and Robin ________ the body with bright colors. Then it is Ruby’s turn. She sculpts it. Eventually, the bird will go into an oven for firing-baking and ________. Robin programs the oven so that the temperature ________ bit by bit. Total oven time can be 20 hours. “That may be a long time.but the ________ you heat the clay, the more likely it is to crack.” Robin says.

Soon, the bird stands ________ on its feet, John shows it to his families. “I did the carving!” Ruby says excitedly. The girls gather for a closer look. The________expressions on their faces tell a story — they love making art together.

2 . More than 200 people were killed and 900 others injured in a major accident Friday evening involving three trains in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, officials said on Saturday.

At least 233 people ____ and about 900 were injured in the ____, and the number of death is ____ to increase further.

According to officials, the Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata to Chennai, hit the Yashwantpur-Howrah Express, which derailed (脱轨). A cargo train was also said to be ____ in the accident.

Officials said the ____ of the collision was so ____ that carriages of the two trains climbed atop each other, ____ deaths and injuries to passengers. A large number of passengers were ____ inside the derailed coaches.

____ after the accident, rescue teams, health officials, police, and fire services rushed to the ____. A large crowd of locals ____ reached the spot to help the injured.

All the health facilities nearby were ____ alert. Meanwhile, the injured were ____ to the hospital throughout the night.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ____ grief over the ____ of lives in the accident and condolences (吊唁) are pouring in from various quarters.

3 . Do you think you are too old to do something? Just go online and ________ the video of John Harrison doing the 50m backstroke in 2014.

He ________ the 100-104 years world record by 15 seconds! Yes, you read that ________. The 100-104 years group! A time of 1:29.78. The first ever British man to set records in that age group. The applause (掌声) is long-lasting and heartfelt from all the crowd. A(n) ________ moment.

John loved swimming. He still tried to keep ________ by swimming in his last years before he passed away at the age of 105 in January 2020. Many of John’s friends speak ________ of him saying he was a “wonderful man”.

John was born in Farnborough on 25 July, 1914. And his ________ in swimming was unusual. “When I was five years old, on the way home from school, I came across a small pond,” he said ________, “so I went swimming. It taught me two things. One, to swim; and two, not to drink the water.”

“My parents ________ two years later that I was still doing it. They were ______ at first. But their anger soon ________” when I said, “I didn’t get asthma (哮喘病) last winter. They then bought me a costume and ________ me swimming skills.”

However, John didn’t start swimming ________ until his wife told him to stop teaching swimming and life-saving classes and ________ the sport for himself at the age of 79. From then on, he didn’t look back and was full of praise for everyone who ________ him during his successes.

4 . In 2005, Rachel O’Neill, of Rockwood, Michigan, was working full-time as an assistant in an engineering company. While _______ in a local charity, she’d never done any global volunteering. But after a travel in Africa for her fiftieth birthday, followed by a trip to Malawi, she said, “I felt I had to do something more.”

She was struck by the heavy work done by girls to _______ their families. “I wanted a way to honor them,” she says. She _______ a few women at her local church to make 1,000 simple _______, which were _______ to girls in Malawi.

Rachel _______ her goal that first year. As word spread, donations _______ in. “Dresses started coming every day from all over the country!” Rachel says. In 2008, without any _______ , she started a nonprofit organization called Little Dresses for Africa, with a goal of getting simple homemade dresses for girls(and pants for boys)in _______ communities, where people hardly change their ________ for a year.

So far, more than 10 million dresses have been donated to children in 97 countries, including the United States, though Africa remains a focus. The nonprofit runs a distribution center in Malawi and works ________ with community leaders there to distribute donated dresses and pants, which have proven the key to keeping girls in school.

“Nearly half of Malawi’s population is under age 14,” Rachel says, “We are ________ meeting their needs. For dress designs and donating information, go to littledressesforafrica.org. We only ask people to make high-quality, colorful clothes. ” She also asks for money to ________ shipping costs, estimated at $2 a dress. ________ donations have allowed Little Dresses for Africa to address other needs, including building more than 85 wells and two primary schools. “I couldn’t have done any of this on my own,” Rachel says, “But when you step out in ________ , miracles(奇迹)may happen.”

5 . Dalton Shaffer ran a pizza shop in Battle Creek, Michigan. One day he got an unusual call from someone in Indianapolis, over 225 miles away.

Julie and Richard Morgan had once _______ in Battle Creek, and loved their local Steve’s Pizza. “We were young and money was _______ but every pay day, Richard would visit Steve’s Pizza. We moved 25 years ago and _______ many more pizzas, but we never found one we _______ as much as Steve’s,” said Julie.

As a birthday celebration, they had _______ a trip back to Battle Creek, but the _______ was canceled. Rich was _______ rushed to the ICU and diagnosed (诊断) with cancer. He only had a few months to live and wouldn’t be able to have his favourite pizza again.

Julie’s father called Steve’s Pizza, talking about Rich’s _______ wishes. The restaurant’s manager, 18-year-old Dalton Shaffer, answered the _______. Despite the restaurant’s firm take-out-only ________, Shaffer immediately prepared two big pizzas and got in his car. At 2:30 am the following day, Shaffer ________ at the hospital with two pizzas. The journey took him three and a half hours.

Shaffer was greeted with open ________ and an offer to stay at a hotel for the night. He ________ because he had to work seven hours later.

Talking about his good deed (行为), Shaffer said, “I made the midnight ________ just to cheer them up at a really ________ time.”

6 . On December 26, 2004, a 10-minute-long earthquake with a 9.3 magnitude took place in the Indian Ocean. This earthquake, which is the third _______ ever recorded in history, caused powerful tsunamis (海啸) that reached many countries’ _______. About 230,000 people were _______ by the disaster. Hundreds of thousands of others were injured _______ disappeared. One of them is a little _______ named Wati.

The tsunami _______ her hometown of Aceh when she was only 3 years old. Like so many others, the huge waves separated her from her family, and she was _______ to an unknown town. After days of _______, her family eventually gave up and thought she had _______.

However, Wati had been ________ by a stranger who found her on the street after the tsunami. The stranger had tried to find her family, but Wati could not ________ the names of her parents and only knew that she had a grandfather named Ibraham.

________ later, a taxi driver who heard Wati’s story happened to know an old man with that name in a nearby town and decided to take her to him. Although the old man did not ________ her at first, he took Wati to see his ________.

“When I saw my mother, I knew it was her,” said the 15-year-old Wati. “I just knew.”

The parents recognized their daughter ________ because of the birthmark on the body.

7 . I knocked lightly on Mrs. B’s door. “I’m Barbara, a hospice (临终安养院) volunteer.” I said nervously. It was my first week on the job, and my biggest ________ was figuring out how to begin with a patient.

“Please, sit down,” Mrs. B said, indicating the chair beside her bed. We chatted ________ about the ________ on her windowsill — her two daughters, many grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. Then she grew ________.

“What were you thinking about when I walked in?” I asked, sensing she might be waiting to see if I would ________ her to the truest place where this conversation could go.

“I know I’m not going to be around much ________. I’m at peace with that. But my grandson called yesterday. He’s ________ that he can’t make it to see me before I pass.”

“Have you thought about writing him a(n)________?”

Mrs. B seemed to ________ a little. “I can dictate (口述) if you’d write for me,” she said.

I walked down the hall and ________ pens and paper materials. Mrs. B ________ her grandson’s letter and decided to dictate others — for her daughters, the other grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Then she ________ her church community and her bridge club too.

She asked me to put away the letters before I left. “I asked God to send me a(n)________ this morning,” she said. “Now I know it was you.”

At the very moment I came to realize that we all ________ a loving spark. Kissing Mrs. B on her forehead, I knew simply showing up might be a precious ________.

8 . Yang Haoran, born into a family of cotton farmers, spent his childhood playing in the cotton fields. He ______ how hard his parents had to work using conventional farming methods, as well as how automation has ______ productivity and saved labor.

Having finished university, Yang became a ______ farmer himself. However, unlike his parents, his experience has been very ______ ; he manages over 200,000 square meters of cotton fields and always ______ new ways to improve efficiency through technological ______ .

In 2018, he saw the great business ______ of using drones (无人机) in farming and established his own company, which ______ 13 drone operators, all of whom are post-90s workers like Yang himself. “We are like a big family, with members from different ethnic groups,” Yang said ______ .

In peak growing season, they move their ______ in a skillful way over the fields while in the off-season, they train local farmers to ______ drones. To date, Yang’s team has trained hundreds of local farmers. “This will enable them to ______ new technologies, allowing them to ______ the advances in modern agriculture,” he said.

Yang’s ______ does not end there. He has recently taken up a precision (精准) farming project, which uses drones to collect data for spectral analysis (光谱分析), and transmit real-time data on crop growth and soil moisture to the irrigation and fertilizer equipment for precision ______ .

9 . Yang He, a 64-year-old man from Yichang, Hubei, has observed the changes in finless porpoises (江豚) population with his camera for six years. As a(n) _________ of the finless porpoise, he has taken more than 100,000 photos of them so far.

Every day, Yang wakes up early and drives to the _________ of the Yangtze River. He waits _________ there for hours for finless porpoises to capture (捕捉) their _________ with his camera. Yang _________ finless porpoises very well. They are just like his children. As soon as one of them comes out from the water, he can tell which family it _________ .

The Yangtze finless porpoise is so _________ to the Yangtze River that any change in the health of its living environment can support or _________ its survival. “When I was a teenager, I could see many finless porpoises. I would often observe them _________ boats in the river,” Yang says. “But __________ human activities, finless porpoises became fewer.”

However, the situation has changed as __________ measures have been taken to protect the species. In 2017, Yang was __________ enough to take a photo of a finless porpoise after a long waiting. In 2019, he was able to take more photos, including images of the porpoises __________ fish near the riverbank.

Thanks to his camera, he once discovered and __________ a porpoise whose tail became entangled (缠住) with a rope. “I will make it my life’s work to __________ this amazing creature.” Yang says.

10 . On the day of my thirteenth birthday, I was really excited since my parents took me to have the time of my life at the amusement park.

On reaching the park, we bought tickets and entered it. The only fitting _________ for it was “amazing”. I was really spellbound. Everywhere people _________ excitedly from one ride to another, funny music drifting to our ears along with the screams of laughter from every direction. People dressed up like clowns were _________ the kids.

The greatest _________ of all was the roller coaster, spinning around in a crazy manner. Many tourists _________ for it. We were seated on the ride and held on to the bars _________ in fear of dropping. The next ten minutes was the wind whizzing through our hair, a blur of _________, laughter and tightly closed eyes. We _________ with shaky knees and dizzy heads, but with faces full of broad grins and blood pulsing through our body.

Then came the most _________ part, the Freaky House. Rumors had it that once you entered it, you never came out the same. Being thirteen-year-old teenagers, and __________ not to be afraid of anything, we entered the house with heads held high, __________ we came out with our hearts thumping loudly against our chests. To top all this, we __________ from head to foot, with all those images in our heads which would haunt (萦绕) us throughout our lives. During all this we hadn’t noticed time __________ and it was getting dark.

The day ended with a birthday boy special meal for my __________. Returning home, I lay on my bed, with the images of all the __________ I had that day replaying in my mind constantly.