1 . At the age of 91, living alone, Thomas was quietly enjoying his old age. His days were filled with ________ and leisure. He would watch TV and ________ leave his place. His lack of physical activity ________ his granddaughter, Diana. She wanted her grandpa to live a long and happy life and she finally had a perfect ________.

Armed with a handful of love-a(n) ________ little dog named Frederica, she set out to________ her beloved grandpa. Diana knew her grandpa’s ________ for animals. Thomas was even considering getting a dog in the past, but his family ________ him. This time, Diana ________ to take matters into her own hands. She knew that having a puppy would be a ________ for the elderly man, so she was ready to ________ him with whatever he would need. What a wonderful and ________ decision!

Thomas’ face ________ up when he saw what his granddaughter was holding in her arms. He then ________ the puppy from the floor and immediately fell in love. The whole family were astonished by the immediate ________ between Thomas and the cute puppy. In the following days, Thomas began his remarkable ________. He used to kill most of his time inside by watching TV. But now with Frederica, he has developed a new ________.

“Now, my grandfather gets up early to go outside with Frederica, and the dog ________ him when he works in the garden. They go for walks on the beach — all sorts of activities my grandfather used to ________ to do,” Diana said in an interview, “He is much more active and ________.”

3 . In March 1975, my mother brought my younger sister Cissy and me back to our hometown.

Cissy and I were ________ to moving. We had moved 23 times before I was 18. Altogether I ________ 19 schools. But at 13 and 11 years of age, we were ________ being the new kids in school.

Staying in a motel (汽车旅馆) for weeks, we ________ found a two-bedroom home for $80 a month, which was in the landlords (房东), Mr and Mrs Hendrix’s back yard. It was ________, but Cissy and I thought it was a palace. ________, in October my mother lost her job. November’s ________ went unpaid, so did December’s. Cissy and I knew we’d soon move ________.

On Christmas Day, Mrs Hendrix knocked on the front door. Mom was out, so I ________ it. I’d received eviction (驱逐) notices before, so I knew what to ________. Mrs Hendrix held out a ________ to me, smiling as she said,“I thought you girls might enjoy some bread. I bake it every Christmas.” Unprepared for such ________,I managed a “Thanks”. Closing the door, we ________ the box. There were bread, candy, and new socks and gloves for us three. No eviction notice!

We lived over five years in our twenty-fourth home. The Hendrixes gave Cissy and me something we had never known in our ________ lives: the comfort of belonging, and ________.

4 . Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change.

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and _________ us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I rose to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m 87 years old. Can I give you a _________?” I laughed and _________ responded “Why not!”

“Why are you in college at such a(n) _________, innocent age?” I asked. She _________ replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get _________, and have a couple of kids…” “No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have _________ her to be taking on this challenge at her age. “I always _________ having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me. After class we walked to the student union building and _________ a chocolate milkshake. We became __________ friends. Every day for the next three months, we would __________ together after class and talk __________. I was always listening to this “time machine” as she shared her __________ and experience with me. Over the __________ of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she __________ made friends wherever she went.

At the year’s end Rose finished the college __________ she had begun all those years ago. One week after __________ Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute (致敬) to the wonderful woman who taught __________ that it’s never too __________ to be all you can possibly be. When you finish reading this, please remember, growing older is mandatory (强制性的). Growing up is __________.

5 . Turkey is not my thing, but one dish I cannot live without on Thanksgiving is my mom’s Snowy Mashed Potatoes. I start________these potatoes, my annual time release capsule of pure joy in early November. I’m pretty sure I’ve had them at every Thanksgiving since I was a kid, and bites often transport me back to different years and different dining rooms.

How and why is it that certain foods give us so much________ ? And what can be said about the kinds of foods we consider most comforting? Science tells us that taste and nutritional content affect how foods make us feel, but certain foods are especially________ satisfying for reasons that have little to do with their taste or nutritional content. Much of the happiness we get from our favorite foods comes from the memories they stimulate for us and the people we’re with while we________them. Past and present________shape the foods we find comforting.

Often, we love food because we have________ memories associated with it. My mom’s mashed potatoes (土豆泥) remind me of holiday joy and past reunions with extended family. We are also drawn to foods we were given early in life by people who cared for us, which can help explain our________ love for chicken noodle soup, which many parents feed their sick children to make them feel better.

The smell of food can________powerful memories, too. The part of the brain responsible for processing smell directly connects to the amygdala, a brain region that processes emotions, and the hippocampus, which handles memory. And our memory for smells is________and precise, especially when it comes to smell we were first exposed to in childhood. That’s why you might catch the smell of pumpkin pie baking in the oven and be transported back to the first tine you baked it with your grandmother.

These________can go the other way, too. Sometimes you might feel________when you eat foods that remind you of loved ones you miss. We may also________foods that we associate with bad experiences.

In addition to past memories, the________in which we eat foods shapes how much we enjoy them in the moment, and our gustatory (味觉的) experiences can be________by a sense of community, a sense of warmth and enjoying it together.I________my mom’s Snowy Mashed Potatoes that much more today because I got to eat them with my husband and two children, the three people I love most in the world.

6 . Going out for a walk with their sons is a simple task for most fathers. But for Martin Ralfe and his one-year-old boy Leo, it can be a real _______. That’s because Martin is blind and Leo is also visually impaired (受损), meaning they have to thoroughly _______ every trip they take outside of their home. The 29-year-old parent _______ to let his lack of sight stop him from _______ with his son and going exploring.

The pair have shared their special bond on Tik Tok and gone viral after showing how they go out for the day. Martin says it was actually his wife who _______ him to take Leo out on walks. He _______ he initially had some worries about taking Leo out on his own but now he is _______ and spends most weekends exploring with his son.

He said, “Our favorite _______ to do together include going for walks and _______ the ducks. Currently, on our bucket list is to visit Disneyland but Leo is ________ interested in trains too, so we’d love to go to the National Railway Museum in York.”

Martin’s TikTok account has thousands of ________ and has a range of videos such as him walking Leo. He is using it to ________ other people with visual impairment. He said, “I love ________ these videos and I get so many amazing ________. Many people praise me but I’m just a ________ dad getting on with life.”

7 . When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed a financial exam, her heart sank. She’d ______ the same test weeks earlier.

“Envy was eating me up,” recalls George. But anyway she ______ her friend. “And I told her I failed and admitted I was ______,” she says. George knew that being ______ would ease her envy, but she was surprised that it also enabled her to ______ her friend’s happiness and experience her own in turn.

Finding ______ in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call freudenfreude, the great joy we feel when someone else succeeds, ______ it doesn’t directly involve us. Freudenfreude is like a kind of social______, says Catherine Chambliss, a professor of psychology. It makes relationships “closer and more enjoyable.”

Too often, we think our friends ______ us most during their hard times: a job ______, getting divorced. In fact, how friends ______ our joy is even more important for us than how they respond to our ______. Too often, we think of joy passively. We see it as something that come to us, instead of something we can ______. While it can be difficult in practice, freudenfreude can lift us up and ______ our day. So celebrating our friends’ ______ is a win-win to us all.

8 . The most affectionate memory of my childhood is about a round table. When I was still little, my entire family would ______ on almost every traditional festival to have dinner. While the ______ were discussing something beyond our comprehension, we kids would play hide-and-seek.

The round table is a ______ of a reunion of our families and an ______ to our families. But as a matter of fact, in China, almost everything can be solved over a ______ table. The marriage bells between a loving couple and the ______ between business partners can all happen on the same round table. ______ , I start to wonder what this round table is to us, and its true significance starts to ______ in front of me.

The food on the table may ______ with time. The reasons why we come together may be ______ , but the sensation behind it remains the same. And that is our tolerance of different people or willingness to ______ different cultures.

In less than two months before the Spring Festival, a(n) ______ epic migration: would take place in China. The power that ______ us to do so has been sustaining Chinese civilization for thousands of years, and even the history of our nation has been the stories of ______ or running to the round table to which we ______ . The round table is and will always be a symbol of the Chinese sensation.

9 . Every year on my birthday, a white gardenia (栀子花) was _________to my house. But no card or note came with it. Calls to the flower shop were always _________— it was a cash purchase. After a while I stopped trying to discover the sender’s identity and just _________in the beauty and heady perfume of that one magical, perfect white flower lying in soft pink paper.

But I never stopped _________who the giver might be. My mother _________to these imaginations. She asked me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness who might be showing _________. I had more fun imagining that it might be a boy I fell in love with or one who had a _________on me even though I didn’t know him.

One month before my high-school graduation, my father died. My feelings _________from sorrow to fear and anger: my dad was _________some of the most important events in my life. I became completely __________in my coming graduation, the senior-class play and the ball. But my mother would not hear of my losing any of those things. Mother and I had gone shopping and found an impressive dress, but it was the __________size. When my father died, I forgot about the dress.

The day before my ball, I found that dress — in the right size — hanging over the living room sofa. It was __________to me so lovingly. I didn’t __________if I had a new dress or not. But my mother did. She wanted her children to feel __________, filled with a sense that there was a beauty even in the face of __________.

My mother died ten days after I was married. The following year the gardenia stopped coming.

10 . By the time I was a junior at Yale, I’d already met everyone I cared to know. I also knew those I didn’t want to know, including Maxey. He and I were like planets in different ________ .

Everything changed dramatically when we had a field trip for a weekend. Although I was________, I could get along well with others except Maxey who still made me________. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. When he walked up to me and stuck out his hand, I just ________ it quickly. We stood awkwardly for a few minutes. When someone tried to get my attention, Maxey politely ________. That last morning, when we discussed how to return home, he insisted I ride home on the back of his motorcycle. I said I thought it was a terrible ________ and I wanted to refuse, but Maxey ________ a helmet at me. ” I wanted to give you a________. You didn’t seem to like me. I want you to like me.” he said. Maxey started up the________ and we roared out of the driveway. The bike ________down the highway. I________ my arms around him and held on for dear________. Maybe our friendship started from that day.

We were now both 60, but my ________ with him remained strong. I was sure if I was in ________, Maxey would be there for me. I was ________sure that if he wanted my help, I would give it without hesitation.