1 . Yesterday, I was shopping in a store, minding my own business, when I saw someone _______ a dog with a “service animal” vest. I gave it very little _______ at first. But then, in the soup aisle (过道), I saw the person and his dog again. When I walked by, the so-called “service animal” growled (咆哮) at me, showing his _______.

_______, service animals are trained not to do that kind of thing. Honestly, it _______ me, and I _______ the dog, fearful of being bitten. I thought about going to find a _______ but finally decided not to because I was afraid to be _______ with the person.

But the dog’s behavior got _______. In the milk aisle, the dog was not growling. Instead, he got his body close to the ________ and started pooping (排便) while the owner just watched. Then, his owner walked on, paying no attention to the waste left in the middle of the ________ aisle.

At this point, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and ________ it was time to actively get a worker. Soon a worker came to guide the dog and his owner out of the ________. Seeing that fearful dog and annoying person disappearing, I felt ________. There was nothing wrong with loving dogs, but dog owners should raise dogs in a ________ manner.

2 . Born to be likeable, my older sister grew up with lots of friends, parties and attention. I wanted the _________ my sister had. I _________ her for years and never came close, so I _________ kids my own age for role models. Jen, the girl I always sat next to in school, put her head to one side when she asked for favors. “Okay,” I thought. “I’ll try her _________.” I put my head to one side and asked my teacher for a pass to the bathroom. She looked at me, _________, and said, “Don’t you _________ well?”

That led to my _________ to try being cool instead of being popular. I’d do anything to escape my _________ of social status. My big _________ came when a new girl named Tiffany came to my class. She was cute, trendy, and best of all, she __________ me. Our friendship lasted four weeks, just long enough for me to learn that Tiffany took European vacations and went skiing in Aspen. __________, I’d never been outside of Illinois or on skis. Tiffany was way too much for me. I crawled back into my familiar state of __________.

One day, my mom said to me, “You’ll never be anything your heart won’t let you be. Start looking inside, __________ out.” It took me a while to get what those __________ meant. But once I __________ trying to be like other people, life got a whole lot easier. I’m even growing up to be someone I really like.

6 . On September 25, 1999, then 47-year-old Murray went on one of her skydiving trips. Having gone skydiving more than 30 times before, she thought it felt like any ordinary skydiving. She jumped from a height of 14,500 feet, rushing to the ground at a speed of 80 mph, when she found that her main parachute (降落伞) would not open. Murray continued her free fall until her secondary chute finally worked when she was at a distance of 700 feet to the ground. However, with panic coursing through her, she spun out of control while in the air, causing the chute to go down, and began her fall again.

The impact of the fall shattered (粉碎) the right side of Murray’s body when she landed. To make matters worse, she landed on a fire ant hill, where she was attacked and stung (叮咬) repeatedly by the fire ants there. More than 200 stings later, she was found barely conscious by the ambulance workers and was immediately brought to the Carolina Medical Center.

She spent 2 weeks in unconsciousness. Unlucky as she was to have suffered injuries and fire ant attacks, her doctors thought that the fire ant stings actually saved her. They believed that the numerous stings from the ants gave enough nerve stimuli (刺激) and shocks to keep her heart beating and keep her alive.

After her near brush with death, Murray spent her “second life” more positively. As she shared in an interview, “I’ve learned to spend time on the important things.” However, 2 years after her full recovery, Murray was out skydiving again and that time, she landed safely.

Just to give you an idea of her pain besides the shattered right body, fire ants are among the top ten insects in the world with the most painful stings. More than 200 stings of this insect are truly annoying, but if it is what will keep you alive as in Murray’s situation, you’ll appreciate those fire ants too!

7 . I applied to be a first-grade teacher’s assistant. The job paid the lowest wage, and I could hardly afford to pay my rent. I had no desire to go into education, so I didn’t know why I was attracted to this position. Working with children was not my motivation at that time. But later I found that it was all I wanted to do.

There was a student, Ashley, in my class who was very creative and interested in writ-ing. I helped Ashley write her first short story. Ashley and her mother Shirin walked into our classroom every morning. Shirin often volunteered to work in our classroom and would always give me a hug. She asked me questions about her daughter and my writing. At that time, I was working on a new romantic comedy script, and Shirin gave positive comments when I told her the plot.“I can’t wait to see this in the theater!” My confidence increased. I would also exchange some ideas with her. We became very good friends. Shirin also showered me with gifts. For holidays or my birthday, she’d get me some nice gifts. She was always finding ways to wrap me in love and encouragement.

I had worked as a teacher’s assistant for three years. Then I decided to start teaching cre-ative writing. Shirin and I had stayed close, and she kept encouraging me. I was forever grateful that I became a teacher’s assistant and met Shirin. She appeared in my life at just the right time.

It was exam time at Marc’s school. Every day, their teachers gave them loads of homework and told them the test was very important and that they ought to spare no effort to perform well in it. Everyone followed the teachers’ instructions and made preparations for it, except Marc. He just turned a deaf ear to it. He thought he would rather play football than study.

His mum and dad repeated the importance of revision for exams over and over again. They told him that he should be working hard preparing for the test. But the weather was sunny and he thought he had better things to do.

“Shall we go to the park?” he said to his friend Huck one afternoon. “It’s a nice day. We could play football and kick around.” Huck shook his head. “I’m supposed to review my lessons,” he said. “I’m going home to do some math.”

Marc was amazed. “You’d rather do math than play football?”

“Math is important. Besides, my mum says she will buy me a mountain bike if I do well in the math exam.”

“That’s crazy,” said Marc. Huck shrugged (耸肩) and replied, “Wait until I beat you in the test and you will watch me riding past on my mountain bike!”

“You won’t beat me,” said Marc.

“Oh yes, I will.”

“Oh no, you won’t! That will never happen. Just wait and see!”

For the first time ever, Marc wanted to perform well. He couldn’t bear it if his friend came top and he did badly. So when he got home, he opened his math book. But there was so much to do. All of a sudden, he felt like he’d forgotten everything he had learned that year! He didn’t know where to start. When his sister Lily came in, he was sitting expressionlessly by the desk, just staring out of the window.

“You don’t look happy, Marc. What’s wrong?” she said.

On the day of the exam, Marc went to school with great confidence.