I am a volunteer teacher   in   a   village   in   Kyrgyzstan,   a   small    1       (mountain) country in Central Asia. At 7:40 a.m., I arrive at school and unlock my classroom. It is a large room,    2     a row of windows and pictures and maps all   over   the   walls.   The   white   board   that    3     (buy)   the   other   day   leans against an ancient and unusable blackboard. I turn the light switch on. Nothing happens. Although     4     sun has risen, it’s still dark in the building. My first   class, 11^th Grade, piles into the room,     5    (speak) among themselves in a mix of Russian and Kyrgyz. My job is to teach them English. It is going to be hard to follow my lesson plans    6     the students can’t even see the white board.

A Kyrgyz high school goes up to the 11^th Grade. After graduation, many students   will   get    7    (marry).   The    8    (bright)   students   will   go   to     university for five years; however, most of them will end up back in this village, raising families, taking care of cattle, and farming beans and    9    (potato). A   chosen few will work their way to a job in their capital city. The common dream, however, is to   travel   to   America or Europe,    10    is   only possible if they first   learn English.

2 . Are you facing a situation that looks impossible to fix?

In 1969,the pollution was terrible along the Cuyahoga River Cleveland, Ohio. It    1    (be) unimaginable that it could ever be cleaned up. The river was so polluted that it    2    (actual) caught fire and burned. Now, years later, this river is one of    3    most outstanding（杰出的）examples of environmental cleanup.

But the river wasn’t changed in a few days    4    even a few months. It took years of work     5    (reduce) the industrial pollution and clean the water. Finally, that hard work paid off and now the water in the river is    6    (clean) than ever.

Maybe you are facing an impossible situation. Maybe you have a habit    7    is driving your family crazy. Possibly you drink too much or don’t know how to control your credit card use. When you face such an impossible situation, don’t you want a quick fix and something to change immediately?

While there are    8    (amaze) stories of instant transformation, for most of us the    9    (change) are gradual and require a lot of effort and work, like cleaning up a polluted river. Just be     10    (patience).