2 . An unpleasant smell floated into my nose as the bowl of fried stinky tofu settled onto my grandmother’s dinner table. I immediately sat back. The smell ruined my appetite, and I pushed the dish away.

“It’s supposed to stink. Just give it a try!” my grandmother said.

Holding my breath, I unwillingly took a bite. To my surprise, the tofu beneath the fried skin     was warm, soft, and mouthwatering. Thus, stinky tofu became more than a household tradition. It became my favorite dish.

Along with the stinky tofu, I would meet my Uncle Chan on every visit. As an immature boy, I never understood my uncle’s condition of Down syndrome(唐氏综合征).He was an unfriendly and terrible creature in my eyes. He constantly walked around the house, talking to himself. Whenever he was within view, I would run away in fear.

However, one day, my view of my uncle suddenly changed. I was just getting out of my bed when I heard soft steps approaching. It was my uncle. My muscles froze. He slowly sat next to me and touched my face gently, as a mother would stroke (抚摸)a baby. A wide smile emerged from his blank expression. How beautiful his smile was! I could not help but smile back. My fear disappeared gradually, and my muscles relaxed.

My uncle very much resembles stinky tofu. Stinky tofu smells unpleasant on the outside, yet feels warm and soft in the inside. Like stinky tofu, my uncle’s Down syndrome made me keep my distance at first. Yet, I learned that deep inside, he is harmless and has a loving nature.

The outside and inside of the stinky tofu exist as two extremely different worlds. Perhaps that is what makes it such a tasty dish. Not only is it delicious, stinky tofu offers a valuable lesson: never judge people at first glance, for true beauty comes from the inside.

Jack,     1     was a ten-year- old boy, didn’t like doing any work. He had to go to school, of course, but he didn’t study hard there and tried     2     (do) little work. His father and mother were both doctors and they     3     (hope) that their son would become a doctor, too, when he     4     (grow) up.

But one day Jack said     5     (happy) to his mother, “When I finish school, I want to be a     6     (clean).” “What?” his mother asked,     7     (feel) very surprised. “That’s not a good job. Why do you want to do the job?” his mother said. “     8     I would only need to work one day a week,” Jack answered at once. “Only one day a week?” his mother said. “What do you mean? And how do you know about it?” “Well,” Jack answered, “I know that the cleaners come to work     9     Thursday every week, because I only see     10     (they) that day.” And then his mother laughed and said, “But the cleaners go to work in other streets on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.”

4 . When my father was a teenager, he had been declared a genius by his art teacher. He ______ to become an art major and had some ______ of his paintings. But when my mother got ill, his creative life came to an end.

I remembered my father’s ______ for art. One day, I asked whether he was interested in drawing a cartoon. My father was not much of a ______. When learning to drive, I had asked if it was more important to ______ the cars ahead or those behind. “Both.” Then he was ______ for the next three miles.

He gave no ______ answer to my query (询问). I asked again the following day. Still no real ______. I ultimately ______ the idea. I understood he had enough on his plate already. But a week later, I received an email from my father — with a(n) ______. I downloaded the file and there was the cartoon I had asked him to draw!

We began to draw cartoons. The process of creating gave him ______. As he built his art muscles back up, his teenage self’s enthusiasm ______.

It never ______ me that he could talk so much that I had to pretend I was getting a call to ______ his excitement. He is now painting and drawing. If he were to ask me whether I was prouder of the cartoon or of him turning his life around, I would say, “______.”

5 . This is a talk by a London taxi driver.

“I’ve been a taxi driver for nearly ten years. Most London taxi drivers have their own taxis.” “It’s a nice job most of time. you meet a lot of people. I always work at night, because there is too much traffic during the day. I live twenty miles outside London and I go to work at 5:30 in the afternoon.”

“I usually go home between 2 and 3 in the morning.”

“Some very strange things happened late at night. The other day I was taking a woman home from a party. She had her little dog with her. When we got to her house, she found that she had lost her key. So I waited in the car with the dog while she climbed in through the windows.” “I waited and waited. After half an hour of ringing the bell I decided to find out what was going on. I tied the dog to a tree and started to climb in through the window. The next thing I knew was that the police came.” They thought I was a thief.

“Luckily, the woman came downstairs. She must have gone to sleep and forgotten about me and the dog!”

6 . A man came home from work late, ________, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door.

“Daddy, may I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Daddy, how much do you make an hour?”

“That’s ________ of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?” the man said ________.

“I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?”

“If you ________ know, I make $20 an hour.”

“Oh”, the little boy replied, with his head down. Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I please borrow $10?” The father got angry immediately and flatly ________. After about an hour or so, the man had ________ and started to think: maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10 and he didn’t ask for money very often anyway.

The man stepped into the little boy’s room ________. “I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier.” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I was just in a bad _________. Here’s the $10 you ________.” The little boy sat ________, smiling. “Oh, thank you, Daddy!” he ________. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled (皱巴巴的) bills.

The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to ________ about his purpose. As the little boy slowly ________ his money, the father asked ________, “Since you already have the money, why do you want more money?” “Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied. “Daddy, I have $20 now. Can I ________ an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.”

7 . My father brought home a sailboat when I was ten, and almost each Sunday in summers we would go sailing. Dad was quite skilled in sailing, but not good at ________. As for me, I ________ both before twelve because of living close to Lake Ontario.

The last time Dad and I set sail together was really unforgettable. It was a perfect weekend after I graduated from university. I came home and ________ Dad to go sailing. Out we set soon on the ________ lake. Dad hadn’t sailed for years, but everything went well with the tiller（舵柄）in his hands. When we were in the middle of the lake, a strong wind came all of a sudden. The boat was hit ________. Dad was always at his best in any ________, but at this moment he ________.

“John! ________!” he shouted in a trembling voice, with the tiller still in his hands.

In my memory he could fix any ________. He was the one I always ________ for strength and security.

Before I could respond, a wave of water got into the boat. I rushed to the tiller ________ it was too late. Another huge wall of water ________ the boat in a minute. We were thrown into the water, and Dad was struggling aimlessly. At that moment, I felt fiercely ________ of him.

I swam to Dad quickly and assisted him in climbing onto the hull（船壳）of the boat. Upon sitting on the hull, Dad was a little awkward about his flash of ________. “It’s all right, Dad. We are safe now,” I comforted him.

That was the first time Dad had counted on me in a moment of emergency. More importantly, I found it was my turn to start ________ for my father.

8 . Margaret Thompson and her husband, Kenneth, stretched their legs together on walking holidays in Switzerland. In Interlaken, they would head up the mountain and watch the paragliders (滑翔伞运动员) ______ themselves into the sky. Back in town, in a large park, they watched them return to the ______ . “Some day I’d love to do that,” Thompson told Kenneth.

But there was always so much to do in Interlaken. _______, Thompson didn’t know if Kenneth would have ______ it. “He was not so keen on heights as I was,” she said. So she ______ to watch the gliders take flight and land.

Kenneth died in 2005. Eleven years later, Thompson ______ took to the skies herself, in a paraglider at the age of 80. Although some people get scared while flying, she said she just feels ______ . Thompson did her second paraglide when she turned 85.

Thompson asked the organizers about the age ______ for paragliding. They said: “Any age, as long as you’re ______.” Thompson, now 86, plans her third flight for when she is 90.

Thompson______ living above her parents’ shop in Belfast. At 18, she helped in the shop while ______ for her music diplomas (文凭) in Stranmillis, south Belfast. She started to ______ piano to local children, and at the height of her teaching she gave 70 ______ a week. She still has 15 pupils on her books.

Is she scared of getting older? “Fear? No. People say: ‘Isn’t getting old ______ ?’ I say: ‘No. You are free to do more things that you want to do,’” Thompson said.

“People might worry about falling, it being the end of them. But that doesn’t ______ me at all. When it’s your time, it’s your time. No matter where you are,” Thompson added.