In the fall of 1903, O. Henry was living in a room at the small Hotel Marty in New YorkCity. He had published a few stories in local magazines, but was still relatively unknown when editors at the New York World newspaper sent a young reporter     1     (track) down this mysterious writer. By the next day, O. Henry had an agreement with the newspaper to write one story a week for the magazine section of their Sunday edition. The World had     2     (large) daily circulation in the world, and O. Henry’s stories about New York life became immensely popular. By the time he left the newspaper after less than three years, O. Henry     3     (establish) his reputation as a gifted storyteller and master of surprise endings.

O. Henry was the pen name used by William Sydney Porter, who was born in North P. Carolina. At the age of twenty, he moved to Texas,     4     he held a variety of jobs, eventually becoming a bank teller. He married and became a reporter and columnist for the Houston Post. After a few years, his wife     5     (diagnose) with a serious infectious disease, and he was accused of illegally taking the money of the bank where he worked. Some people have claimed     6     he was stealing money to help pay his wife’s medical bills. O. Henry fled to Central America, but his wife was too ill to accompany him. Months later,     7     her worsening condition, he returned and turned himself in to the police. His wife soon died, and O. Henry spent three years in prison in Ohio. It was during his time in prison that he began writing the stories that would make him famous. W. S. Porter emerged from prison     8     O. Henry.

In 1902, O. Henry moved to New York City and started trying to sell his stories. In a few years his luck changed for the better, and his position with the New York World helped make him a     9     (celebrate) author. He published more than three hundred stories and gained worldwide acclaim. O. Henry’s stories are known for their plot twists and surprise endings. In fact, O. Henry’s own life ended with a “twist”—his funeral was somehow scheduled in the same church at the same time as someone else’s wedding! The O. Henry Award     10     (honor) the authors of the best stories printed each year in American magazines.

For years now, I’ve been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is more than just a building. In the front room, there’s a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines. Every growth stage     1     (mark) in pencils, with each child’s name and the date.

Of all the objects and all the memories, it’s this one thing in a home that’s     2     (hard) to leave behind. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress. Friends I know have visited their previous home only     3     (discover) their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. Over the years, I’ve talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved,     4     the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing. So one day,     5     I was at work, my children decided to do something about it.

They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer     6     work is about capturing the beautiful things in life. She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours,    7     (take) photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints, and old marks. Somehow,she managed to photograph     8     we had experienced in all those years. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image,    9     (transform) them into a beautiful history of my family.

Three weeks later, my children’s wonderful gift made its way to me-     10     life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.

Post-00s is a documentary about growing up, which covers almost every aspect of millennia’s experiences on their path toward adolescence—their struggles with school work, their relationship with peers and their growing desire     1     (keep) a distance from their parents. Over a period of 10 years, the show’s makers followed a group of kids from when they were infants through to when they became teenagers. In other words, the show’s “characters” grow     2     (old) for real, and their stories are all real.

But this five -episode series was different     3     any other TV program with a similar theme. “Coming-of-age” stories, as they’re known, have a special appeal. They     4    , to a large degree, satisfy our curiosity of looking at someone else’s life, and we become more and more attached to the characters     5     we truly know them. While we enjoy the truthfulness of the stories because nothing is set in advance, we can’t help     6     (feel) the cruelty of reality. After all, there’s no re-writing of the script (剧本) and there’s not turning back — this is real life.

The realness can also be seen in Boyhood, a 2014 film     7     won the Silver Bear award for best director at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. During a period of 12 years, the film follows the life of Mason Jr—    8     (play) by US actor Ellar Coltrane—from when he was 6 to when he finished high school.

One of Boyhood’s appeals comes from its “ordinariness”. Mason Jr isn’t some child genius. He is quietly spoken, fairly typical American boy, growing up in the Texas suburbs. Besides, he fancies     9     (ride) his bike.

    10     coming-of-age stories may look ordinary on the outside, they often allow us to look underneath the surface and see something extraordinary — the power of life itself.

By day, Robert Titterton is a lawyer. In his spare time, he goes on stage beside pianist Maria Raspopova—not as a musician but as her page-turner. “    1     not being a trained musician, I’ve learned to read music to assist Maria in her performance.”

Mr Titterton is chairman of the Omega Ensemble but     2     (act) as the group’s official page-turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside the pianist and turn the pages of the score. In this way, the musicians don’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it     3    . He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.

Being a page-turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music     4     go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 pages of turns, including back turns for repeat passages.     5     matters is onstage communication. Each pianist has their own style of “nodding”     6     ( indicate) a page turn that they need to practise with their page-turner.

But like all performances, there are moments     7     things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Mr Titterton said, “Luckily, I was able to catch them and put them back.”

    8     most page-turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, Ms Raspopova has once asked her husband to help her out on stage.

“Sometimes my husband is not an attentive page-turner. He’s interested in the music,     9     (feel) every note, but I have to say: ‘Turn, turn!’ ” she laughed. “But Robert is     10     (qualified) page-turner I’ve had in my entire life.”