1 . A lot of people think that a confident person is someone who is completely free of worry. That appears to make _________, because it would seem that confidence and worry are the complete opposite of each other. _________ it’s not the truth at all. _________ people are not people who never _________ worry. They are people who feel worry but are able to _________ it.

So how can you _________ anxiety? Firstly, we need to accept that worry serves a purpose. It is not a _________ emotion. It only becomes a _________ when it stops us from acting. Every time you feel worry, _________ yourself that it is a __________ response. Analyze the situation and if it seems OK, you can go ahead.

The second thing you can do is to look at what __________ worry. Like many negative emotions, worry comes from worried thoughts. If you are faced with a job interview, and you may think, “There are plenty of __________ people than me going for the job”, or “I’m bad at job interviews”. With the thoughts, of course you are going to feel worried!

But the thing is, if you __________these thoughts, there are plenty of things __________ behind those statements. Even if there are plenty of better persons than you going for the job, are they better in all __________? Does the job always go to the “better” candidate? (候选人) If you can attack and destroy all the false logic around those statements, you will automatically (自动地) feel less anxious.

2 . Tiffany Hammond and her son Aidan communicate in some familiar ways, like hand gestures and body language. But when Aidan wants to ______ himself with words, he uses a tablet (平板电脑).

Aidan is autistic (患孤独症的) and does not speak, so when his mom asks ______ , he can press a button on the screen to answer them. The family has designed routines around his autism, but people outside the household don’t ______ .

“Every single time we go outside the house, there’s something bad happening. There’s a______ , and there’s a mean stare,” Hammond said. “And he feels lonely a lot.”   However, that loneliness and those reactions from outsiders ______ Hammond to find a way to ______the ways in which people with autism can express. They just communicate in a(n) ______type of way. The result of this experience is a children’s book from Hammond titled A Day With No Words. The book followed Aidan through a regular day, showing his ______routines.

Hammond also wrote about the ______ of the book to want people to give kindness and the goal she hoped to ______ with the writing.

In an interview, Hammond said,   “I want to ______ all the things that I see in him. He loves being outside and swings, and he loves life. He is ______ like other people. I want to______ the regular life that I have with my son, and it is supposed to ______ a loving letter to him.”

______, a day with no words can be full of meaningful communication.

3 . My mother was always knitting (编织). She recently agreed that knitting helped her ________stresses of raising four children. My mother taught me to knit when I was about 6, but I soon ________ the project, as it was boring.

My next knitting adventure was ________ when I was in graduate school and feeling the pressure of the program. One day, as I passed the knitting ________, the gloves in the display area caught my fancy, and I determined that I would ________to knit such sweet gloves. Too big a project for a ________, but the shop assistants were kind and ________ with my daily visits for instruction. The project ________to a gift of gloves for each of my dear friends, and ________, the gloves saved my soul in that________ semester of studies.

Knitting during the pandemic eased my________ at not being able to participate in my usual volunteer activities. I knitted dozens of scarves to ________, which helped me feel ________ to the community.

My mother’s estate is vast, but the major life lesson she taught me through knitting is that there is a step-by-step ________ of building, tearing down and rebuilding. It requires patience and a ________that stitches (针脚) that are cast off can always find their way back on.

4 . Outside my office building, there would be a homeless man, standing by the road and waving at passers-by happily.

I would remember to _________ any spare change for him. Every time I saw him, I’d _________ roll down my window and give him the _________. Occasionally the red light would be on for a/an _________, long enough for us to _________ each other. His answer would always be “I am so happy and fine!” It _________ me that even in his situation he was so _________, and his answer would remind me of how _________ I was. A mother of four amazing kids, with a place to call _________ and with a decent job.

Then one day my boss told me that I was being __________ due to the economy. A feeling of worry __________ me, so I didn’t remember to keep my spare change like I usually did. __________ there he was as always. I’d hoped to catch the __________ light, but I missed it. Aware of my black mood, he walked over with a smile and said, “Today I will give you a dollar”. He then reached into his pocket and __________ out a dollar bill. I burst into tears.

He taught me a valuable lesson: No matter what __________ things are taken from you, no one can take away your choice to be joyful.

5 . Like many people, public speaking once filled me with fear As a writer, I felt much more ________ expressing myself on the page, rather than on the ________. Strangely, I found that the feelings of ________ to be perfectly tolerable; ________, I was concerned with the ways that others would perceive my nervous energy. A slight change of ________, the unconscious biting of my lip — I assured that I’d be ________ for any nom-verbal signal that showed my lack of ________. I was experiencing anxiety about my anxiety—consequences that made the whole task feel much more ________.

You might have ________ this yourself before a job interview or important work meeting in front of senior colleagues. And the more you try to ________ your feelings, the more obvious they appear to others.

According to a striking new study, however, these concerns may be ________. Jamie Whitehouse, a research fellow at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, has shown that visible signs of stress are often ________, leaving others more likely to like us and treat us ________. If so, then we need not try so hard to ________ a calm-and-collected poker face, safe in the knowledge that people will relate well to our ________.

6 . For my daughter's 19th birthday, we bought her tickets to go and see Linkin Park, as they were playing in our city. We didn't really have the ________ but we knew how much this band meant to her.

The night before she was like a ________ at Christmas. Every so often she got up and came to ________ with us, because she couldn't ________ . On the night of the concert it was good to see her so ________ and excited, as she and her boyfriend set off.

Needless to say when they ________ after midnight, with T-shirts and lots of pictures of the band, ________ her telling about how fantastic they had been, we knew the money had been well ________ . This will be a memory she would never forget, and nor would we.

________ full of excitement from the night before, the following day they ________ to go shopping on the other side of the city. My husband and I laughed, loving the fact that she had not ________   that quality as she grew up.

Later that day they returned, with faces full of happiness and warmth. They presented my husband and me with a ________ each. On each present were the words "Because you are the ________ mum/dad in the world. "When we expressed our thanks and told her she didn't have to, we asked her why she had bought us gifts. Her answer was simply "Just because I love you."

This wasn't something ________ from our daughter; she had always given us gifts when she wanted to express her ________ , and each gift was always a welcome surprise. It could have been anything, it wouldn't have mattered, and it was the act itself and the feelings behind it.

7 . “BARBARA,” my husband, Bill, announced, “your birthday present is in the freezer.” _________ , I went to the freezer—and broke out _________ . Inside was a well-wrapped ice cream container. My _________ of ice cream is well-known in our home.

Then, _________ the wrappings, I laughed even harder. Instead of ice cream, the container _________ four large, hand-crafted wooden numbers. Bill had heard me say months earlier that I’d always wanted easy-to-read house numbers. I was _________ . The fun of his double _________ was what I loved.

The gift _________ me of a conversation I’d overheard at a department store. A woman was _________ a gift from her husband. “Wouldn’t you think that after 20 years George would know I never wear gold?” she joked—but I noted a bit of __________ .

I couldn’t help __________ the two styles of gift giving. George had __________ spent several hundred dollars on jewelry his wife didn’t __________ . Bill had spent perhaps $20, but, thinking carefully, he had chosen a gift that was just __________ for me. This is what gift-giving is all about. The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than its __________ . Choosing a gift needn't be a chore(琐事); it can be fun for both the receiver and the giver.

8 . The person I call my hero is my twin disabled elder sister named Tiffany. Yet as I reflect back on __ I can undoubtedly say, "It was partly a(n)__ journey!" People would always __ me that they wish they had a twin, but to me I never felt that way at the time.

My sister is blind and deaf and is in a wheelchair. Growing up __ me because I seldom had that twin experience. I was told as a ___ never to question life but at that time I was young and just didn't __. There were times when I couldn't play with friends when I wanted to, and __ missed out on potential jobs __ having to help look after Tiffany.___, I never felt my childhood was being swept away.

I saw my sister __ many health issues but still find a way to face life challenges with a __. It wasn't until we got older __ I truly realized my sister was a __. She gave me the strength to____my sufferings. When I was on the point of __, I would always think of her and build up confidence to make it, In fact I did so many things not just for myself __ for my sister as well. When I graduated from college, I asked for permission to let my sister attend the __ because I knew if she were able to walk and talk, she would have achieved the same __ as I have.

I __ the moments with my sister. I just want my sister to know that she brings __ to my life and I hope that I can bring the same thing to hers.

9 . I was a stay-at-home mother and there never was enough money to go around. So on my mother's birthday, I had no money to _________ a present. So I decided to make some cookies for her and leave a _________ .

Sitting down to write a few words of good wishes got me to _________ . There were many things that I did appreciate（感激）, so I decided to list all of them. Pretty soon, I had several pages of _________ thoughts, so I wrote a letter to my mother expressing my appreciation for the things she and my father had _________ us as children.

My mother taught us to be good neighbors by _________ others if they needed a hand. My father taught us how to work. The _________ went on and on.

I put the cookies and the letter on the table in her kitchen. That evening, she called and _________ me. She said it was a wonderful birthday _________ .

Two years later, she passed away. While cleaning out her house, I __________ a photocopy（复印件）of the birthday letter. I was __________ as to why she would make a copy.

But then I got my __________ . Room after room, I found eight more photocopies of the same letter. When I __________ the drawer（抽屉）beside her bed, I __________ an old handkerchief（手帕）with a piece of paper in it.

It was the original birthday letter. I realized that the letter was the __________ present I could have ever given to my mother.