1 . As America continued to suffer from the pandemic (流行病), there were some ordinary individuals who held us together.

Here is how one _________ went. Louis Galvan was clearing off table 411, where a couple of his most loyal customers had _________ dinner. Like many others, his restaurant was hurting. The restaurants had just _________ some workers for the baseball season. More than 30 of his employees were counting on a big opening day that would never _________. In the days before the governor _________ his state’s restaurants, Galvan was especially _________ for regulars such as the ones at table 411. That night, they had_________ about $90 worth of food. But it was the _________ they'd left behind that blew him away. _________, it was two tips. One was $1,900 in cash. The other written on the credit card receipt, was $7,500. The couple __________ left a handwritten note on the receipt: “Hold it to __________ your guys over the next few weeks.”

“We were __________ that they were so generous. We didn't __________ it. They went above and beyond what was __________. I wasn't sure if we were going to stay open, but __________ we have someone like that, we're going to keep going. We will be offering food orders to go.” said Galvan. He divided the money __________ among the employees, so everyone got about $300. __________, Galvan could now pay the tip forward. “If there's anyone who does not have food to eat, __________ just needs a glass of water, they are __________ to come by. We are here __________ our community.” Galvan said.

2 . On a foggy Sunday morning, Amrisha Vaish was sleeping soundly at home in Arlington, Virginia. The sound that woke him at 7:15 was so loud that he assumed it came from inside his house. As he got up to _______ carefully, he heard another sound, this one coming most definitely from outside. Looking out of his bedroom window, he noticed a tree _______ in smoke about 500 yards away. A car was wrapped by smoke around the tree’s base, and its engine was on fire.

Seeing that, he immediately grabbed buckets of water and ran to the crash site. Up close, the _______ looked worse. The car was split nearly in two, and the tree was where the driver’s seat ought to have been, as if _______ there. He thought that no one could have survived this crash, and yet there was 15-year-old Quintin Thompson, still _______ with his terrified face pressed against the driver’s side window, in visible pain. Vaish tried putting out the fire with his buckets of water yet with no success. When the   _______ got into the front seats, he realized he had to get the boy out of there as soon as possible.

Instantly, Vaish tried to open the back door, but he failed. He picked up a stone beside the tree and hit the back door. This time, it _______. The back door was opened and Vaish crawled in. Thompson was struggling to get free when Vaish noticed how _______ his legs were. Using a pocketknife, Vaish sawed through Thompson’s seat belt. Now that Thompson was free of restraints (束缚), Vaish pulled him out of a window, and then dragged him to safety before the car was _______ surrounded by flames. Vaish called an ambulance as Thompson suffered severely. Soon, the doctors arrived and Vaish felt ________.

3 . Studies show that older people tend to remember the positive things in life rather than the negative things, while younger people remember the positive and negative equally well. The dominant psychological theory to explain this is that older people are aware of their limited time left, so they _______ positive emotional experiences. But about a decade ago, I worked with biologist Robert Trivers on his idea that there was a(n) _______ basis for older people's increased positive outlook. Our research took us in the fascinating direction of exploring how the body _______ its energy.

When our _______ needed more energy than usual perhaps while being chased by a tiger, they had to get that energy from somewhere in the body. Could they borrow it from the brain? That organ uses 20 percent of our metabolic output, whether we are solving math problems or watching television reruns. Due to this constant energy requirement, borrowing energy from the brain when our need _______ the available supply is not an option. Perhaps we could borrow energy from our muscles. Because we use far more muscle energy when we are active than when at rest, _______, we could borrow energy when we are sitting. But the problem is that most of the energy-demanding emergencies of our ancestors _______ a muscular response. There was no way to borrow energy from our muscles during an emergency because relaxing when a tiger showed up was not a(n) _______ response. This brings us to our immune system, which, when _______ protects us from many illnesses and diseases. Like the brain, the immune system works at great metabolic cost, but largely in the __________of keeping us healthy in the future. We have an enormous number of immune cells coursing through our body, a(n) __________ break from production is fine. So, when our body needs extra energy, one of the places it goes is our immune function. When you’re being chased by a tiger, you don’t need to waste energy making immune cells to fight off tomorrow’s cold. What you need is to __________ all available energy resources to your legs, with the hope that you will live to experience another cough or sneeze.

__________, our immune system evolved to run in maximum amounts when we’re happy, but to slow down dramatically when we’re not. With this background in mind, Trivers supposed that older people evolved a strategy of turning this relationship on its head, becoming more __________ the positive things in life in an effort to enhance their immune functioning. This was helped along by their knowing much more about the world than younger adults, so they can deal with some of the __________ things in life more easily.

4 . I was recently involved in a bad traffic accident. I was knocked unconscious by the impact so I don’t __ anything about the accident. My first memory is being given oxygen as the doctors and nurses tried to ____ me back to life.

As I lay in the emergency room, I found myself ____ my life and thanking God that I was still __. The good news is that nobody else was __.

Since that day, the physical recovery has been __ but not as tough as the emotional recovery. I've learned a lot about myself and about what really ____ in this world. Things that are really important are not“things”. I’m not invincible(无敌的)and I cannot ____ everything that happens in my life. I need to be better at ____ the things that come into my way that I didn’t plan for. As someone who was always in a ____，it taught me to slow down a little. I have learned to live each day honestly and ____.

___ I continue to heal physically and emotionally，I have a different opinion on ____ . When tragedy strikes，you can either let it ____ your spirit，or use it as an opportunity to grow. I have chosen to ____ from it.

5 . The day I received my letter of acceptance to New York University, I was extremely excited. It was my dream university, and my ______ were pleased for me. But they also hadn’t ______ me to get into such a competitive school. In fact, the best thing they ever did for me was to ______ me from doing things ______. When I was in elementary school, they offered to buy me a present ______ I got a C.

It ______ when I was in third grade. An only child in an Asian family, I had just ______ with my family from Taiwan to Los Angeles. Months into third grade, I developed a strong feeling of ______ about getting bad grades. Seeing my anxiety, Dad said, “Kate, tell you what. If you get a C or ______. I’ll buy you a present. If you score higher than that, I won’t buy you anything, because you won’t ______ it.”

Clearly dad wasn’t the ______ Asian tiger parent, pressuring me to work tirelessly for the best ______, and neither was my mom. They didn’t want to push. They wanted me to be ______ and healthy. Dad’s ______ of a “failing grade” gift amazingly ______ my worries and pressure. What’s more, I ______ getting A’s and B’s throughout high school, but without the added stress and fear of failing. I think it was my parents’ lack of stress on grades that gave me ______ to encourage my own desire for achievements.

I now realize I was ______ when I thought I didn’t receive a present from my dad that day. He gave me two invaluable (宝贵的) ______: the space to develop my own desire for excellence, and the healthy mind to ______ it.

6 . Next week, as millions of families gather for their Thanksgiving feasts (大餐), many other Americans will go without. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 12 million households _________ enough food for everyone in their family at some time during the year — including _________.

Hunger is surprisingly widespread in our country — one of the world’s wealthiest — yet the government estimates that we waste almost 100 billion pounds of food each year, more than one-quarter of our total supply.

Reducing this improper distribution of _________ is a goal of America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Last year, it _________ nearly 2 billion pounds of food to more than 23 million people in need.

America’s Second Harvest is a network of 214 inter-connected food banks and other organizations that _________ food from growers, processors, grocery stores and restaurants. _________, the network distributes food to some 50,000 soup kitchens (施食处), homeless _________ and old people’s centers in every county of every state.

A great deal of work is involved in distributing tons of food from thousands of _________ to thousands of small, non-profit organizations. Until a few years ago, America’s Second Harvest lacked any _________ way to manage their inventory (存货). Without accurate and timely information, soup kitchens were sometimes empty while food was left to __________ in loading places.

In 2000, America’s Second Harvest began to use a new inventory and financial-management system — Ceres. It is a __________ designed specifically for hunger-relief operations. It is used by more than 100 America’s Second Harvest organizations to __________ food from donation to distribution.

Ceres has helped __________ the spoiling of food and improve distribution. An evaluation found that the software streamlined (精简) food banks’ operations by 23 percent in the first year alone.

With more accurate and timely reports, Ceres saves time, frees staff members to focus on finding new donors, and __________ more efficient use of donations.

Hunger in America remains a(n) __________ social problem. Technology alone cannot solve it. But in the hands of organizations such as America’s Second Harvest, it is a powerful tool that is helping to make a difference — and helping more Americans to join in the feast.

7 . Speed-reading is a crucial skill in the Internet age. We skim over articles, e-mails and tweets to try to _________ key words and the essential meaning of a certain text. _________ with information from our electronic devices, it would be impossible to cope if we read word by word, line by line.

But a new trend calls on people to _________ and enjoy reading slowly, using the linear (线性的) pattern, left-to-right sequence.

A recent story from The Wall Street Journal reported on a book club in Wellington, New Zealand, where members meet in a cafe and turn off their smartphones. They _________ comfortable chairs and read in silence for an hour.

Unlike traditional book clubs, the _________ of the Slow Reading Club isn’t exchanging ideas about a certain book, but to get away from electronic devices and read in a quiet, _________ environment. According to the Journal, the Wellington Book Club is just one example of a movement _________ by book lovers who miss the old-fashioned way of reading before the Internet and smartphones.

Slow readers, such as The Atlantic’s Maura Kelly, say a regular reading habit sharpens the mind, improves concentration, _________ stress levels and deepens the ability to empathize (有同感).

Some of these benefits have been backed up by science. _________, a study of 300 elderly people published by the journal Neurology last year showed that regular engagement in __________ activities like reading slowed the rate of memory loss later in life.

Another study published last year in Science showed that reading novels helps people understand others’ mental states and beliefs, a crucial skill in building __________.

Slow reading means a(n) __________ to an uninterrupted, linear pattern, in a quiet environment free of __________. Aim for 30 minutes a day, advises Kelly from The Atlantic. “You can squeeze in that half hour pretty easily if only during your free moments — whenever you find yourself __________ firing up your laptop to check your favorite site, or scanning Twitter for something to pass the time — you pick up a meaningful work of literature,” Kelly said. “__________ your e-reader, if you like. Kindles make books like War and Peace less heavy, and also ensure you’ll never lose your place in the book.”

8 . You can actually catch a good mood or a bad mood from your friends, according to a recent study in the journal Royal Society Open Science.But that shouldn't stop you from____with pals who are down in the dumps,say the study authors:____,the effect isn't large enough to push you into depression.

The new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that happiness and sadness-as well as lifestyle and behavioral factors like smoking,drinking,obesity,fitness habits and even the ability to concentrate-can____across social networks, both online and in real life.But while many____studies have only looked at friendship data at one point in time, this is one of the few that measured social and mood changes over time.

The new research involved groups of junior-high and high-school students who took part in___ screenings(筛查） and answered questions about their best friends, many of whom were also enrolled in the study. In total,2,194 students were included in the____,which used a mathematical model to look for connections among friend networks.

Overall,kids whose friends suffered from bad moods were more____to report bad moods themselves- and they were less likely to have improved when they were screened again six months to a year later. When people had more happy friends,____,their moods were more likely to improve over time.

Some symptoms related to depression-like helplessness,tiredness and loss of interest-also seemed to follow this____,which scientists call “social contagion.”But this isn't something that people need to ___,says lead author Robert Eyre,a doctoral student at the University of Warwick. Rather, it's likely just a “____empathetic response that we're all familiar with, and something we recognize by common sense,"he says. In other words,when a friend is going through a rough patch, it makes sense that you'll feel some of their ___,and it's certainly not a reason to stay away.

The study also found that having friends who were clinically depressed did not __     participants' risk of becoming depressed themselves. “Your friends do not put you at risk of illness," says Eyre,"so a good course of action is simply to____them."To boost both of your moods, he suggests doing things together that you both ___-and taking other friends along to further spread those good feelings,too.”

9 . Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most _______ changes? It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in _______ use of scarce resources.

The eager embrace of the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on _______.This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to _______ their manufacturing sector(制造业)with negative consequences for their economies.

Even more worryingly, the _______ with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital _______” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question,_______,is whether this is what the developing countries need the most.Perhaps giving money for those less _______ things such as digging wells,extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centers in rural villages. I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but these generous donators don’t seem to give priority to people’s _______ needs. Rather, they have rushed into fancy programs without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of ________ uses of their money.

In yet another example,an obsession with the new has led people to believe that the latest changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. ________,in the last twenty years or so,many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress,going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back.Believing in such a world,many governments have ________ some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital,labor and goods,with poor results.

Understanding technological trends is very important for ________ designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the ________ level. However, our blind faith in the latest, and our ________ of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.

10 . The continuous presentation of frightening stories about global warming in the popular media makes us unnecessarily frightened. Even worse, it ________ our kids.

Al Gore famously ________ how a sea-level rise of 20 feet would almost completely flood Florida, New York, Holland, and Shanghai, even though the United Nations says that such a thing will not even happen, ________ that sea levels will rise 20 times less than that.

When ________ with these exaggerations, some of us say that they are for a good cause, and surely there is no harm done if the result is that we focus even more on handling climate change.

This ________ is astonishingly wrong. Such exaggerations do plenty of harm. Worrying excessively about global warming means that we worry less about other things, where we could do so much more good. We focus, ________, on global warming's impact on malaria (疟疾)----which will put slightly more people at ________in 100 years - instead of dealing with the half a billion people ________ from malaria today with prevention and treatment policies that are much cheaper and dramatically more effective than carbon reduction would be.

Exaggeration also wears out the public's ________ to cope with global warming. If the planet is certain to be destroyed owing to global warming, people wonder, why do anything? A record 54% of American voters now believe the news media make global warming appear worse than it really is. A ________ of people now believe – incorrectly – that global warming is not even caused by humans.

But the ________ cost of exaggeration, I believe, is the unnecessary alarm that it causes – particularly among children. An article in The Washington Post cited nine-year-old Alyssa, who cries about the possibility of mass animal ________ from global warming.

The newspaper also reported that parents are ________ effective outlets for their eight-year-olds' concern with dying polar bears. They might be better off educating them and letting them know that, ________ to common belief, the global polar bear population has doubled over the past half- century, to about 22,000. ________ the possible disappearing of summer Arctic ice, polar bears will not become extinct.