Yours，

Li Hua

2 . In my childhood, my mother spent her evening hours doing something for someone else. Sometimes she knitted (编织) hats for babies, and at other times, she cooked chicken soup for sick neighbors. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when one evening my mother announced she had undertaken a new project.

“I am going to telephone seniors,” said my mother. “Every night? But you don’t even know these people.” “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What’s important is that I listen.” I was sixteen years old and couldn’t understand why my mother was willing to spend her evenings talking to strangers. She had friends and my two older sisters to call if she felt lonely. “They will talk your ear off. Some people didn’t even stop to catch breath,” I said.

My attitude didn’t stop my mother’s enthusiasm for the project. That evening, she settled on the sofa and dialed. For a while, I listened as she asked the woman on the other line about her day and what she had eaten for dinner. When she finished the call, I said, “Why do you care whether she had cookies or rice pudding for dessert?” My mother grasped one of my hands and gave it a slight squeeze. “I’m the only person she talked to today.”

It took me more than thirty years to fully understand the meaning of that statement. Now, as my mother is nearing eighty, I find myself thinking about those nightly calls she used to make. I am often the only person who telephones my mother, and sometimes I’m the only person she speaks to all day. I ask her what she cooked for dinner, but mostly I just listen as she describes a walk she took, or how her dog Lucky stole foods from the refrigerator. I realize that my mother’s calls were life lines that ensured housebound seniors remained connected to the world. Without her, their world would have been empty.

    1     (know) as a “living fossil”, the sturgeon(鲟鱼)is a very precious species. It is believed to have lived with the dinosaurs more than 140 million years ago. However, according to the IUCN, one of the largest non-profit environmental protection     2     (organise), all remaining 26 sturgeon species in the world are now at risk of extinction(灭绝).Their decrease over the past three generations is     3     (awkward ) than previously thought.

“The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish(白鲟) should be a warning for everyone,” said Zhou Fei, China’s chief program officer. “It has provided     4     opportunity for the experts to raise public awareness about the need of protecting the species in the Yangtze River Basin     5     educate the public to save other species,” he added.     6     (prevent) further loss of the species in China, people must act     7     (immediate). There is no time to waste. Also, long-term threats (威胁) to their life and habitats must       8     (remove) by taking the most effective measures     9     will slow the speed of their extinction.     10     is not something that can be achieved by certain departments. Instead, it requires joint efforts from all fields of society.

4 . That year I was eleven and in sixth grade. In Wethersfield, all sixth-graders are _________ to take part in the R.O.P.E. Program. Its main _________ is to believe your peers(同龄人), work together, and _________ new adventures. These programs including falling backward and _________ peers to catch you, working together to fit into a small circle and something of that kind.

I was ready to take part in these _________. Falling backward and fitting into a small circle were nothing to me. Crossing over a stream(小溪)with nothing holding me up but a rope was brave, but I could _________ it.

Finally the day came when my sixth grade class would travel to climb and rappel(绕绳下滑)a mountain in Southington. Those people who were too _________ were allowed to practice climbing and rappelling a smaller area of rocks, but that wasn’t for me. I could climb the big mountain.

Twenty minutes later, my _________ arrived. As I was well_________, I set off at once. I got a quarter of the way up but couldn’t seem to get any __________. I tried and tried. I began to put myself down and cry. There was nothing more __________ than my classmates were looking at me. All I kept __________ was “Lisa, you can do it.

“Try to fit your foot in there. __________, Lisa. You’re almost there.” It was then that I thought to myself, “Why am I crying? I can do this.” Almost __________ I went on going up the mountain. Within five minutes I successfully __________ it to the top.

5 . Using too much water or throwing rubbish into our rivers are clear ways that humans can put our water supply in danger, but we also affect our water supply in less obvious ways. You may wonder how paving(铺砌) a road can lead to less usable fresh water. A major part of the water we use every day is groundwater. Groundwater does not come from lakes or rivers. It comes from underground. The more roads and parking lots we pave, the less water can flow into the ground to become groundwater.

Human activity is not responsible for all water shortages(缺乏). Drier climates are of course more likely to have droughts(干旱) than areas with more rainfall, but in any case, good management can help to make sure there is enough water to meet our basic needs .

Thinking about the way we use water every day can make a big difference, too. In the United States, a family of four can use 1.5 tons of water a day! This shows how much we depend on water to live, but there’s a lot we can do to lower the number.

You can take steps to save water in your home. To start with, use the same glass for your drinking water all day. Wash it only once a day. Run your dishwasher only when it is full. Help your parents fix any leaks(滴水) in your home. You can even help to keep our water supply clean by recycling batteries instead of throwing them away.

6 . What is the possibility of you having someone who looks just like you? Would it be a good thing? And if you did have one, would you want to meet them? Consider how often your facial features are used to recognize you. Your passport, ID card and driving licence all bare your face. To enter your workplace, you likely need to be recognisable. You may need your face to unlock your smartphone and possibly even need it to exclude you from being present at a crime scene.

The word “doppelganger” refers to a person who looks almost the same as you, basically sharing your features—those that you thought were unique to you and your identity (身份). Not an identical twin, as a doppelganger has no relation to you. The idea came from German folklore. A doppelganger was said to be a spirit-double that copied every human and beast on earth exactly.

So, let’s get real. What are the chances of you having one in the first place? There’s said to be a one in 135 chance of an absolute dead ringer for you existing anywhere in the world, so the chances are pretty low, despite folk wisdom promising you otherwise. And the chances of meeting? The mathematical certainty of finding this person is supposedly less than one in a trillion!

That said, these statistics may be a good thing. Historically, having a double hasn’t always been a positive.

Back in 1999, an innocent (无罪的)American man, undistinguishable from the real criminal, was sent to prison for robbery, where he stayed for 19 years. In the end, it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. In a different case, a woman in New York was accused of trying to poison her doppelganger with deadly cheesecake so that she could steal her identity!

And, why are people interested in finding their possible doppelganger anyway? It may be helpful to look to the past when facial likeness showed kinship. Maybe one day you’ll meet your lookalike, but we understand that, after this, you possibly don’t want to!

9 . When in college, I liked natural world, but didn’t love it. And the more I looked at what was ________ ---an exploding world population, exploding levels of resource consumption, etc.---the________ I became.

Then, I decided to________ and something funny happened. It’s a long________,but basically I became a birdwatcher. At first I did this not without significant________, because anything that________ real passion is uncool. But little by little, I developed this________ first for the new species discovered and then, magically, I could________ my heart overflow with love whenever I looked at a bird, any bird. That’s where a(n)________mixture surfaced---my anger about the planet was only increased when I learned more about the________ that birds face; however, as I engaged in bird conservation, it became surprisingly________ to live with that anger.

I guess my love for birds forced me to face a less self-centered part of myself that I’d never even known________. It was a self that I had to either accept or reject. My anger actually is rooted in the fact that we’re alive for a while but will die before long. Once again, I can either________ this fact or, by way of love, embrace it.

When we stay in our room shrugging our shoulders, the problems outside are incredibly________. But when we go out and put ourselves in relation to real people, or even just real animals, there’s a very real chance that some love might ________.