1 . Last year, I started the journey of being a remote product designer. The thought of a flexible (灵活的) schedule, a comfortable home office, and the escape from the _______ public transport was incredibly _______ . The first few weeks were filled with a long-lost feeling of _______ .

However, the _______ of working from home gradually set in. I had started my day with the best _______ , promising myself quick breaks and regular stretches (伸展) . But deadlines, endless emails, and virtual meetings _______ me to my computer throughout the day, leaving me little time to _______ . Gone were the short walks to a coworker’s desk and the quick lunchtime walks around the office complex. Finally, my world was _______ to the walls of my home, my steps _______ in meters only rather than kilometers.

One day, I tried ________ one of my favorite dresses and it wasn’t passing through my waist (腰) at all. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw a ________ person carrying extra weight, rather than someone enjoying freedom. The ________ of work and personal life had left me feeling like I was a never-ending motion machine.

This incident (事件) marked the ________ of a journey of self-discovery. I made up my mind that I needed a (n) ________ not just for my waistline but for my overall well-being. It was a promise to prioritize my physical and mental health, and a promise that I could ________ control over my life and my body.

This morning, my parents left on a long trip to Hawaii. They were as     1    (excite) as if it were their honeymoon.

When my parents married, they had only enough money for a three-day trip fifty miles from home. They made an     2    (agree) that each day they would put a dollar in a special metal box and save it for a honeymoon inHawai for their fiftieth anniversary (周年纪念).

Dad was a policeman, and Mum was a school teacher. They lived in a small house and did all     3    (they) own repairs. Raising five children was a challenge, and sometimes money was short,     4     no matter what emergeney came up, Dad would not let Mum take any money out of the “Hawaii account”. As     5     account grew, they put it in a savings account.

My parents     6    (be) always very much in love since the day they got married. I can remember Dad     7    (come) home and telling Mum, “I have a dollar in my pocket,” and she would smile at him and say, “I know how     8    (spend) it.” When each of us children married, Mum and Dad gave us a small metal box and told us their secret,     9     we found charming (有魅力的). All five of us are now saving for our dream honeymoon. Mum and Dad never told us how much money they had managed to save, but it must have been     10    (fair) large.

4 . Two weeks ago, a 5-year-old girl named Sunshine Oelfke emptied out her piggy bank (存钱罐) onto the living room floor and immediately started counting. Her grandmother, Jackie Oelfke, thought she was playing as she carefully lined up the coins, but then she saw the girl put the coins into a plastic bag and place it in her backpack.

“What are you doing with that money?” Jackie asked her granddaughter.

“I’m taking it to school,” Sunshine replied. “I’m going to take it for milk money. My friend Layla doesn’t get milk— her mom doesn’t have milk money and I do.”

Jackie’s heart melted at Sunshine’s words. Choked with strong feelings, Jackie held her sweet granddaughter tightly in her arms.

Last week, Jackie and Sunshine met with her teacher, Rita Hausher, and handed her the $30 the kindergartner had saved. There are 20 kids in Sunshine’s class and about half don’t get milk. It costs $ 0.45 a carton (纸盒). The total adds up to about $180 a month for every child in the class to have milk every day.

After dropping Sunshine off at school, Jackie posted a tearful video on Facebook to explain her granddaughter’s plan. To her surprise, many people offered to donate toward the cause. Within a week, Jackie raised more than $1,000. Now every student in Sunshine’s class can get free milk for the rest of the year.

Jackie said Sunshine doesn’t see her kind act as a big deal. She was just trying to look out for her friends. “She doesn’t understand the effect she’s brought about,” Jackie said. “But now she knows she can do whatever she puts her mind to.”

6 . Two big characters stand firmly on the cover of the book Xiangxin, with a phrase—”Even in failure, never ______“. That is how Cai Lei, former vice-president of a business giant, faces ALS,a terminal illness. The book tells vividly the story of his unique _______ with it.

In 2019, the muscle on his left arm had been in pain and he visited Fan Dongsheng, a leading ALS expert. The doctor______his two hands about 20 centimeters from each other,saying,”This was your______life expectancy.“Then his left hand quickly moved to wardsthe right one, almost______it, and he added,”Now this is how long it will be.“The world suddenly turned _______for Cai.

Cai decided to take matters into his own______. In 2019, he started his own medical technology company, and built his own research team. A(n) ______of his team is removing the data______between hospitals, which made it difficult for experts to efficiently monitor and ______patients’ situations. His team also built a big data platform that could collect the_______ of such patients and process it for research purposes. ______ by his example, nearly

”I won’t give up. I don’t consider work from the angle of difficulties or possibilities. I just ______whether it’s worth doing,“he says.”Now I have completely accepted death without any ______because I have tried my best.“

8 . Robeson was born in a very poor family. At seven, he had to pick coal in a deserted mine near his home, and then he sold what he had picked and _________ a few coins to help his parents. He had little schooling, for being so poor, how could his parents _________ school fees?

When he was fifteen, he worked _________ a servant in a school. Seeing other children studying in the classroom, he felt sorry for himself. How he _________ to have the same chance! He decided to study by _________. In the daytime, after the sweeping and cleaning was over, he _________ stand by the window outside the classroom trying to catch what the teacher said. At night, he tried his best to remember what he had learned during the day. He worked _________ hard at his lessons that he sometimes had just three or four hours to sleep. The more he learned, the greater _________ he showed in his lessons. A maths teacher discovered him and came to like this diligent boy and _________ him to sit at the back of the class. In one exam, he was the __________ one in the whole school who reached the highest grade. He would have been given the scholarship if he had been a(n) __________ student of the school.

Robeson __________ through six long years with his study of maths and wrote several articles which captured the attention of some university professors. They admired his talent __________ his diligence. To give him a good chance, they hired him as a librarian and __________ him free guidance. Robeson felt happy, for he was sure that before him there was a broad road __________ success.

That Christmas I turned sixteen. While decorating the tree together     1    Mama, I accidentally dropped and broke an old glass ball on it. The ball had been on our tree     2     I could remember. I knelt to pick up the     3    (break)pieces and was surprised to find a small sheet of paper among them. Unfolding the tiny note, I recognized my father’s roughly penciled writing. Lifting my     4    (eye), I saw my mother’s fond expression. “Your daddy wrote that and stuck it in that blue ball during our first Christmas together,” she said with     5     smile. I wouldn’t have believed it. The daddy I knew always looked on getting the tree     6    (decorate)as something he wanted no part in. And yet this bit of yellowed paper proved that long ago my daddy     7    (do)something romantic at Christmas. Carefully laying the note aside, I cleaned up the broken pieces of the ball,     8    (wish) I could somehow stick     9     together. “It’s OK,” said Mama, comforting me with a hug. “Just pick out another old glass ball and fill the note back inside.” Now as I     10    (careful) handle those old balls, I love knowing that one holds a secret between Papa and Mama.