3 . One of my wonderful memories is about a Christmas gift. Unlike other gifts, it came without wrap (包装).

On September 11th, 1958, Mum gave birth to Richard. After she brought him home from hospital, she put him in my lap, saying, “I promised you a gift, and here it is.” What an honour! I turned four a month earlier and none of my friends had such a baby doll of their own. I played with it day and night. I sang to it. I told it stories. I told it over and over how much I loved it!

One morning, however, I found its bed empty. My doll was gone! I cried for it.Mum wept and told me that the poor little thing had been sent to a hospital. It had a fever. For several days, I heard Mum and Dad whispering such words as “hopeless”, “pitiful”, and “dying”, which sounded ominous.

Christmas was coming. “Don’t expect any presents this year,” Dad said, pointing at the socks I hung in the living room.“If your baby brother lives, that’ll be Christmas enough.” As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. I’d never seen him cry before.

The phone rang early on Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of bed to answer it. From my bedroom I heard him say, “What? He’s all right?” He hung up and shouted upstairs. “The hospital said we can bring Richard home!”

“Thank God!” I heard Mum cry.

From the upstairs window, I watched my parents rush out to the car. I had never seen them so happy. And I was also full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby doll would be home. I ran downstairs. My socks still hung there flat. But I knew they were not empty; they were filled with love!

4 . Mr. Brown worked in a factory of a small town. He had been there for twenty years before one day he was sent to the capital for important business. He was quite excited because he had never been there before. Before he set off, he asked his wife and three daughters if they wanted him to buy something for them in London. Mrs. Brown began to think it over and then she said she wished her husband would be able to buy a nice umbrella for her, and so did their three daughters. As he was afraid he would forget it, he drew an umbrella on his hand. To his regret, he lost it at the station.

On the train Mr. Brown sat opposite to an old woman. The woman’s umbrella was so nice that he carefully looked at it and said to himself not to forget to buy a few umbrellas like it. When the train arrived at the station in London, he said goodbye to the old woman, took his bag and her umbrella and was going to get off.

“Wait a minute, sir, ” shouted the old woman. “That’s my umbrella!” Now Mr. Brown noticed that he had taken her umbrella. His face turned red at once and said in a hurry, “Oh, I’m very sorry, Madam!I didn’t mean it!”

Seven days later Mr. Brown left the capital. To his surprise, he met the old woman and sat opposite to her again. Looking at the four umbrellas, the old woman was satisfied with herself. “It seems that I had a better result than the other four women. ”She thought.

5 . A father and his son were travelling in a car. The son was ________ and the father sat on the seat next to him. Just then, a terrible storm broke.

The son said to the father, “Dad, the storm is very________. What should we do now?” The father answered, “You don’t________ driving the car.” A while later, the son noticed that many people were stopped by the storm and waiting for the storm to ________. The son asked his father what to________. The father said, “________ driving the car.” The son said, “Dad, I can hardly________ things. Many people have stopped their________.” The father said, “Don’t ________ these people. Just keep driving.” After some time, the son started seeing everything________. He found the________ had stopped and that the sun had come out. The father said, “Stop the car.” They found those people who stopped were________ stuck in the storm.

“If you had done the same as those people, you would be stuck in the storm too,” the father said. The________ time often comes in people’s life. If you lose your ________ during the hard time, then you will be stuck in it. If you keep going with courage, you will get through the difficult time and achieve ________ at last.

6 . When I was young, I lived on an island in the north of Scotland, but I went to school in Edinburgh. It was a music school, and I studied the violin. We practiced for six hours every day. Our school was a boarding school. At the end of the term, we all packed our bags and our instruments to go home for the holidays. Most kids went by train, or bus, or their parents took them home by car. Not me! I went home by ferry (渡船) —14 hours overnight on the open sea. I loved it!

One summer I packed my suitcase and violin and said goodbye to my friends. I took the train to the ferry station and then got on the ferry. When we started moving away, I remembered a terrible thing! I left my violin on the train! I went to ask one of the crew (船员) what to do, but he said he couldn’t stop the ferry for me.

What should I do? What would my dad say? He’d be really angry! I was worried, and didn’t sleep all night. The next morning I got off the ferry to meet my dad. I didn’t want to look at him. I told him what happened. He laughed. I looked at him and couldn’t believe it. Why was he laughing?

In my violin case, I always have a label with my address and a telephone number. My dad told me, “A cleaner found your violin by the label on the train in London and took it to the police. They called me. They put the violin on a plane and it arrived an hour before you did.” My dad had it in his car! Thanks to those people, my violin was safe home!

8 . Ed Jackson’s team were trying to climb to the top of a Himalayan Mountain. However, weeks after they set off, they were stranded (滞留) there overnight without water, food or tents at a temperature of about -30℃. They took turns to keep each other awake in case they fell asleep and did not wake up again.

Actually, that night on the mountain top was not the first time that Jackson had been close to death. Five years ago, while still a professional rugby player, Jackson broke his neck in a challenge, which nearly killed him. Jackson was told by doctors that he was likely to face life in a wheelchair. He was forced to retire from playing rugby.

Luckily, Jackson managed to discard his wheelchair six months after the accident. To mark the first anniversary of his accident, Jackson set himself the goal of climbing Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, even though he was still using two crutches (拐杖) then. He tried to climb many higher mountains after that. Four years later, he found himself in the Himalayas.

The challenges that Jackson faced in the mountains have had a great impact on his recovery both physically and mentally. Jackson realized that others might benefit, too. So he started the charity Millimeters to Mountains (M2M) with his wife Lois and his friend Oily Barkley. It takes beneficiaries (受益人) who have suffered physical or psychological injuries in challenges around the world, allowing them to access the healing power of nature.

Jackson says, “I once lost hope in life because of my bad condition, thinking there was nothing I could do. But hopefully what I’m doing, what we’re doing with the charity and what our beneficiaries are proving can give anyone the hope that they can turn their life around, no matter how discouraging it might seem at that moment.”

9 . After a terrible electrical accident, which caused him to become both blind and deaf, the whole world became completely dark and quiet for Robert Edwards for almost ten years. The loss of sight and hearing threw him into such sorrow that he tried a few times to put an end to his life. His family, especially his wife, did their best to tend and comfort him and finally he regained the will to live.

One hot summer afternoon, he was taking a walk with a stick near his house when a thunderstorm started all at once. He stood under a large tree to avoid getting wet, but he was struck by the lightning. Witnesses thought he was dead but he woke up some 20 minutes later lying face down in muddy water at the base of the tree. He was trembling badly, but when he opened his eyes, he could hardly believe what he saw: a plough and a wall. When Mrs. Edwards came running up to him, shouting to their neighbors to call for help, he could see her and hear her voice for the first time in nearly ten years.

The news of Robert regaining his sight and hearing quickly spread, and many doctors came to examine him. Most of them said that he regained his sight and hearing from the shock he got from the lightning. However, none of them could give a convincing answer as to why this should have happened. The only reasonable explanation given by one doctor was that, since Robert lost his sight and hearing as a result of a sudden shock, perhaps, the only way for him to regain them was by another sudden shock.