2 . There was an old couple who had been married for 40 years. They loved each other deeply and went on dates together. Every time they went out for supper, the husband would order pie for dessert, which became their_________. Although the wife always_________ to order any, she would _________ the first bite of his pie every time.

But then the husband began to _________ a type of disease. He started to slowly _________ who his wife was. It _________ progressed to the point where he didn’t recognize his wife at all and became troubled by living with a stranger.

He moved out of the house and into a nursing home. She was _________. However, she thought of good _________to help him recover. She would visit him with items (物品) that he loved before, but he never knew who she was. Even seeing pictures of them together from their past _________ him.

One of the doctors __________ the wife to start taking him on a few dates like before, so that the husband could gain a new kind of familiarity with her. The wife __________ his suggestion. So she took him to a __________ they had been going to their whole lives and had dinner. Afterwards he ordered pie, and without thinking she stole the first bite of it. The husband looked angry, and was ready to leave. But __________he stopped and seemed shocked, and then started crying.

Everything had come back. His wife’s __________ made him get back to who he was. Tears came to his eyes once more. They moved back together and __________ their lives again.

My mom only had one eye. I hated her. She was such an embarrassment.

She ran a small shop at a flea market, and collected old clothes and some other things to sell for the money we needed. Once during elementary school, it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed and wondered how could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ignored her. The next day at school, my schoolmates asked me, “your mom only has one eye?” and taunted me.

I was so angry with my mom and wished that she would just disappear from this world. So l said to my mom, “Why don’t you have the other eye?! If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock!” My mom did not respond, I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, I felt so good to have had said what I wanted to say. Maybe it was because I was full of anger then and there, I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

For the words I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty. I told myself that I would become successful in the near future and get out of that house for good, so I studied very hard. Later I got accepted by the Seoul University, I left my mother and came to Seoul to study. Then I got married there.

I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I enjoy the life in Seoul because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom past. This kind of happiness was getting bigger and bigger, until one day someone knocked at my door. It was my mom! And still with her one eye! It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom’s eye.

I screamed at her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!”

After the funeral (葬礼), the neighbor gave me a letter saying, “My dearest son...

9 . It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible (负责的) for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

If you give your children the impression (印象) that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally (完全地) independent.

My daughter Mary’s fifth­grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a perfect test score, she would point out what they had mastered (掌握) and declared (宣称) firmly they could learn what they had missed.

You can use the same technique when you evaluate (评价) your child’s work at home. Don’t always scold (责骂) them and you should give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn’t done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

Learning is a process of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

10 . Pamela Malhotra has always attached great importance to education. However, life always seemed to “get in the way” every time she tried to finish her bachelor’s degree. The single mom was so devoted to working to support her two children that she repeatedly put her own education goals on hold, giving up her college program on two separate occasions over the years.

When he was just five years old, her son Bonifacio Malhotra noticed her struggling to get her degree, and he made a promise to help her. “I remember I just told my mom… one day, it’s gonna be you and me,” Bonifacio said. “We’re going to gain our degrees at the same time.” Those words proved to be predictable for the mom-and-son duo, who currently walked across the stage at the university to collect their bachelor’s degrees together!

“That promise, he never allowed it to die,” said Pamela. “He continuously confirmed that we’re gonna do this.” Their path to graduation wasn’t easy, but Bonifacio stayed true to his promise and helped his mother along the way. The two hold two associate’s degrees each, so in the fall of 2021 they registered together in bachelor-level online courses. They both found the classes challenging, but Bonifacio stepped up as the cheerleader his mother needed. “Mom, you’ve got to keep it going. I know you want to stop. We must keep going,” Bonifacio recalled. “The main thing was just trying to get everything lined up and stay on top of all the work.”

It took the Malhotras two years to finish their bachelor’s degrees, hers in humanities and Bonifacio’s in public safety administration. Pamela plans to stay at her job as a coordinator, and Bonifacio has accepted a job at university to help other students succeed in college, too.

Pamela said she was incredibly proud of her son’s achievement, and she personally couldn’t have reached her lifelong goal without the support of her family, especially him. “Between my son and my daughter, they were my greatest supporter,” Pamela proudly said.