1 . Every week, Liu Fang, a 38-year-old media worker in Beijing, goes to a store specializing in selling near-expired(快过期的) food and returns with a bag of snacks or drinks.

“The price tags on these goods have caught my eye. They are often _______ at 10 percent to 30 percent of the market price,” Liu said. “More importantly, most of them are from big _______. Why wouldn’t I love them?”

Liu is among the _______ number of Chinese people who enjoy buying near-expired food at much _______ prices. According to the latest report, the near-expired food industry had a _______ size of over 30 billion yuan in 2020. Young consumers aged between 26 and 35 _______ 47.8 percent.

Unlike the traditional _______ that buying such goods is embarrassing, more and more young people regard it as a kind of sustainable consumption that can help _______ food waste.

Indeed, food waste is a great _______ for China and other countries. According to a 2020 report, about 18 billion kilograms of food is wasted every year in China’s urban catering industry(餐饮业).

As people’s lives improved greatly, many began to make or ________ more food than could be consumed, CGTN reported. But the trend of buying near-expired food may ________ that the Chinese virtue of frugality(节约)is ________ a comeback.

“I’ve been very frugal all my life. Living ________ a hard time of hunger(1959-61), I’m used to saving every ________ and every penny,” Li Mei, a retired woman born in the 1950s, told CGTN. “I’m happy to see more young people, who used to ________ extravagantly(奢侈地), joining our ranks.”

4 . “Fire! Fire!” what terrible words to hear when one wakes up in a strange house in the middle of the night. It was a large, old wooden house and my room was on the top floor. I ________out of bed, opened the door and stepped ________into the passage. It was full of thick ________.

I began to run, but I was still ________. Instead of going towards the stairs, I went into the ________direction. The smoke grew ________and I could see flames around. The floor became hot under my bare ________. I found an open door and ran into a room to get the window. But ________I could reach it, one of my feet caught in something ________and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a bundle of clothes, and I picked it up to ________my face from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor gave away under me and I fell to the floor below with pieces of ________wood all around me.

I saw a flaming door-way in front, put the bundle over my face and ran. My feet burned me terribly, but I got ________. As I reached the cold ________outside, my bundle of clothes gave me thin cry. I nearly ________it in my ________. Then I saw a crowd got together in the street. A woman in a night dress and a ________man’s coat screamed as she saw me and came ________madly. “My baby!” she cried. The crowd ________madly as she took the smoke blackened bundle out of my arms. I had some difficulty in ________ her. She was the Mayor’s wife, and I had ________ her baby.

5 . The Chinese are very generous(慷慨)when it comes to educating their children. Not _____   the money, parents often send their children to the _______schools or even abroad to England, the USA or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course ______where they will either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes which will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the ________an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend a (an)_____amount of money on education. Even_____couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.

_______, what most parents _____to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize ______, is that today’s children _________self-respect and self-confidence(自信).

The problem is that parents are only _____ their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills that they need to be ________, happy and clever.

Parents can achieve this by teaching _______ skills like cooking, sewing, and doing other housework._______ a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands ______ and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult ________ . A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job_____ . His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.

Some old machines such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your children to play with will make him ______ and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to _____ them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These ____ are not merely teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.

7 . This is a real story about an old man in China. Sixty-three-year-old Zhuang Guorong is a_______rural primary school art teacher, who has had a life of_______for more than 40 years.

Every year, the strong, younger-than-his-actual-age pensioner (领养老金者) goes to “the farmers’ home” of Chenyang Community to paint or_______other villagers how to paint.

“The farmers’ home”, a public building,_______the venue (聚集地点) for a_______ of the Sheyang Farmers Painting Institute. The institute is a government _______cultural organization in Sheyang County, in the north of Jiangsu Province, east China.

Zhuang works at the institute part time, and each year he_______up to ten paintings, which are then _______ by the local government. He_______ around 5,000 yuan — that’s about 740 US dollars — a year by doing this________ .

As well as earning himself some money, Zhuang says the job gives him an opportunity to ________his views of life to his fellow countrymen,________ the elderly.

“This painting is about a nursing home. We now live in a(n)________ society. We can no longer ________the traditional way of taking care of our elderly just with our children doing it.________, professional nursing homes are________ for elderly people’s ________.”

“In this painting, I________a scene of young people celebrating the birthday of a senior citizen. The ________I want to convey is that life in one’s later years can be happy. And all of my paintings are like this one — based on our ________lives.”

8 . One of the biggest complaints in modern society is being over-scheduled. Ask people how they are and the answer usually is “super busy,” “crazy busy” . _______ is just “fine” any more.

When people aren’t super busy at _______, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or parenting. And if   there is ever a still moment for thoughts—for example, while waiting _______ at the supermarket or sitting   in traffic—out come the mobile phones. So it’s worth noting a study published last month in Science, which shows how _______ people will go to avoid the examination for our thoughts.

“We had noted   that we   are   so   dependent on   our mobile   phones that   people seem to   find   any _______ they can to keep busy,” said Timothy Wilson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. In his experiments involving 700 people, the majority found it _______ to be alone with their thoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes.

It could   be because human beings,   as problem solvers and   meaning makers, when _______, tend to       think about what’s wrong in their lives. When we aren’t _______ our Facebook page, the things we haven’t   figured out appear in our minds—_______ relationships, professional failures, health concerns, etc. Unless     there is a solution, these thoughts just ________ themselves in our heads.

But you can’t solve problems ________ you don’t allow yourself time to   think about them. It has        actually been ________ by our culture, which values doing more than thinking and believes answers are in        your hand ________ in your head. “We   all fell that busyness   is ________ but it’s really harmful,”   said        Timothy. “There’s a widespread belief that thinking will only slow you down and get ________, but it’s the opposite.” ________ negative feelings only makes them more powerful, he said. Allowing and ________ the   flow of thoughts is part of the solution itself, such as meditation(冥想).

Negative feelings are sometimes hard, but they are part of everyone’s life, ________ if you are busy. It is those deep   and troubling feelings,   and how you ________ them, that make you who   you are. While       busyness may seem to prevent the flow of sadness, it may also limit your ability to be filled with ________.

On Thursday afternoon Mrs. Clarke locked the door and went to the women’s _______ as usual. It was a pleasant way of passing time for an old woman who lived _______.

When she came home she sensed _______ unusual. Had someone got in? The back door and the _______ were all locked and there was no sign of forced entry (进入). Had anything been _______ ? She went from room to room, checking, and found her camera and watch _______ .

The following Thursday she went out at her _______ time, but she didn’t go to the club _______ , she took a short walk in a park nearby and came home, _______ herself in through the back door. She settled down to wait and see what would ________ .

It was 4 o’clock when the front doorbell rang. Mrs. Clarke was making tea at the time. The bell rang again, and ________ she heard her letter-box being pushed open. ________ the kettle (壶) of boiling water, she moved quietly towards the door. A piece of wire appeared through the letter-box, and then a ________ The wire turned and caught around the knob (圆型旋钮) on the door-lock. Mrs. Clarke raised the kettle and ________ the water over the hand. ________ was heard outside as the ________ fell to the floor and the hand was pulled back, which was ________ by the sound of running feet.

It wasn’t long ________ the police caught the thief. And Mrs. Clarke was greatly ________ at the club for her successful ________ .

10 . There are times when people are so tired that they fall asleep almost anywhere. We can see there is a lot of sleeping on the bus or train on the ______ home from work in the evenings. A man will be _______ the newspaper, and seconds later it     _____as if he is trying to ______ it.Or he will fall asleep on the shoulder of the stranger ______ next to   him. ______ place where unplanned short sleep ______ is in the lecture hall where a student will start snoring(打鼾)so ______ that the professor has to ask another student to ______ the sleeper awake. A more embarrassing(尴尬)situation occurs when a student starts falling into sleep and the ______ of the head pushes the arm off the ______ ,and the movement carries the ______ of the body along. The student wakes up on the floor with no ______ of getting there. The worst time to fall asleep is when ______ . Police reports are full of ______ that occur when people fall into sleep and go ______ the road. If the drivers are ______ , they are not seriously hurt. One woman's car, _______ , went into the river. She woke up in four feet of ______ and thought it was raining. When people are really ______ , nothing will stop them from falling asleep-no matter where they are.