1 . Mrs. Jones was over eighty, but she still drove her old car like a woman half her age. She loved driving very fast, and was proud of the fact _________ she had never, in her thirty-five years of driving, been punished _________ a driving offence (犯规，犯法).

Then one day she nearly _________ her record. A police car _________ her, and the policemen in it saw her _________ a red light without stopping. Of course, she was stopped. It seemed _______ that she would be punished.

_________ Mrs. Jones came up to the judge, he looked at her seriously and said that she was _________ old to drive a car, and that the _______ why she had not stopped at the red ________ was most probably that her eyes had become weak ________ old age, so that she had simply not seen it.

When the judge had finished what he was ________, Mrs. Jones opened the big handbag she was ________ and took out her sewing. Without saying a word, she ________ a needle with a very small eye, and threaded it at her first attempt.

When she had __________ done this, she took the thread out of the needle again and handed ________ the needle and the thread to the judge, saying, “Now it is your __________. I suppose you drive a car, and that you are quite sure about your own eyesight.”

The judge took the __________ and tried to thread it. After half a dozen tries, he had still not succeeded. The case (案例) against Mrs. Jones was __________, and her record __________ unbroken.

2 . “You’ll be blind by the time you’re twenty-five,” a doctor at Children’s Hospital predicted. “Your blood sugars are much too high.” It consumed me. No mater where I was or what I was doing, it was overhead like a dark cloud, waiting for just the right opportunity to break open and destroy my world.

I liked painting. Losing myself in painting filled me with peace. Painting provided me with the only place where I could escape from those threatening words.

When I was 2l years old, my right eye went blind. Precisely three months after I was 25, I had a massive hemorrhage (大出血) in my left eye because of an accident. For the next twenty years, vision came and went. I went through many eye operations in an attempt to keep my vision. But after one final operation, I lost the battle and all remaining vision. And I buried all dreams of painting.

Desperate, I enrolled in (注册) a sixteen-week program for the blind and visually impaired (视力受损).I learned personal adjustment and the use of a computer with adaptive software. A whole new world opened up to me through this program as a turning point.

“Jaws and Window-Eyes are leading software for the blind.” my instructor told me. “You can use the Internet, e-mail and Microsoft with all its tools and features.” It’s amazing! Hope went up for the first time in years. “By learning how to use hot keys to control the mouse, you can use Microsoft Access, Excel and PowerPoint,” my instructor added.

For the next several years, I learned that when one door closes, another door opens. There are plenty of choices available for the blind and visually impaired through the gift of technology. Not only do I have a speaking computer, but I have a speaking watch, alarm clock and calculator.

3 . It was the last day of the final examination in a university. On the steps of one building, a group of students who majored in engineering were talking about the exam that was going to begin in a few_____.On their faces was confidence. This was their last exam—then they would face _____ and jobs.

Some talked of jobs they already had; others talked of jobs they would get. With the certainty of four years of college, they felt ready and able to take _____ of the world.

The coming exam, they knew, would be an easy task. The professor had said they could_____ any books or notes they wanted to take the exam, only requesting that they should not _____ each other during the test.

Joyfully they entered the examination room. The professor handed out the papers. And smiles _____ on the students’ faces as they noticed there were only five essay－type questions(问答题).

Three hours had passed_____ the professor began to collect the papers. The students no longer looked confident. On their faces were frightened expressions. No one spoke as the professor faced the class with papers in his hands.

He looked at the _____ faces before him, and then asked, “How many completed all five questions?”_____ a hand was raised.

“How many answered four?” Still no hands.

“Three? Two?” The students moved restlessly (不安地) in their seats.

“One, then? Certainly somebody finished _____.”But the class remained silent.

The professor put down the papers.“That is exactly what I _____，” he said.“I just want to impress upon you that，_____ you have completed four years of engineering, there are still many questions about the _____ you don’t know. These questions you couldn’t answer are relatively (相对地)valuable in everyday practice.” Then smiling, he added, “You will all _____ this course, but remember even though you are now college graduates, your education has just begun.”

The years have _____ the name of this professor, but not the lesson he taught.

5 . At 111, Dr Edith Kaufmann was the second oldest person in the UK. I met her when I ________ at a care home for the elderly in London six years ago. I didn’t realize it would be the start of a close ________, where the age gap spanned eight decades.

At first sight, I was ________ by her self-confidence. Her doctorate (博士学位) told me she was intelligent and ________. From the beginning, I never felt as if Edith and I ________ conversation. Edith could have a full conversation with me about anything, and that her memory stretched back so easily, ________ even small things which took place 100 years ago.

She was also________ . She loved dancing as a child and I recall, only a few weeks before her death,________she smiled when I played the waltz and we________ hands and danced along to the music. Although towards her later years she was________to a wheelchair, she still participated in the exercise classes.

As I________Edith each week, I realized that I was going as much for me as I was for her. I learnt to take the words of________when I could get them. When I have failed over the years, and small decisions have ________on my mind, I have ________nothing more than the opportunity to regain my perspective (视角) on life and what actually________.

7 . The word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by hardship. The circular motion (循环运动) between happiness and _________ is the one I’ve been dealing with lately.

A year ago, I developed troubling symptoms(症状) in my left _________. My husband sent me _________ to a specialist who said I had already suffered some everlasting loss of vision and would, without _________, go blind in that eye within months. And I urgently _________ to begin painful eye injections. Almost blind? Painful eye injections? I was _________. What if the _________ medicine didn’t work? What if my right eye developed the same condition? I _________ thought that, amazingly, the medicine was only three years old; before that, patients just went blind.

Over that long week, I _________ myself to casually __________ sadness, to cry and acknowledge my fears about my very fragile body. I __________ to be near anybody but my husband. Fortunately, I __________ pretty quickly, within the week. During this __________ time, I posted my __________ in my blog and receives great care and support from friends online, which filled my heart with __________ and encourages me to receive the eye injections. Besides, the doctor __________ the efficacy(功效) of the medicine. In the end, I bravely received the eye injections and they were very successful. I was lucky enough to see the world again with my healthy eye.

Finally, I gained a __________ insight: being your happiest self isn’t equal to a lifetime of __________ skies, and we are bound to __________ storms of life. Knowing this can help us face difficulties optimistically and __________ the change of life.

9 . A poor farmer had a friend who was famous for the wonderful apples he grew.

One day, his friend gave the farmer a young apple tree and told him to take it home and plant it. The farmer was pleased with the gift, but when he got home, he did not know where to plant it.

He was afraid that if he planted the tree near the road, strangers would steal the fruit. If he planted the tree in one of his fields, his neighbors would come all night and steal some of the apples. If he planted the tree near his house, his children would take the fruit.

Finally he planted the tree in his woods where no one could see it. But without sunlight and good soil, the tree soon died.

Later the friend asked the farmer why he had planted the tree in such a poor place. “What’s the difference?” the farmer said angrily. “If I had planted the tree near the road, strangers would have stolen the fruit. If I had planted the tree in one of my fields, my neighbors would have come at night and stolen some of the apples. If I had planted it near my house, my own children would have taken the fruit.”

“Yes,” said the friend, “but at least someone could have enjoyed the fruit. Now you not only have robbed everyone of the fruit, but also you have destroyed a good apple tree!”

10 . I was never very neat while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but my always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Overtime, Kate got neater and I got my merriser. She moved to push my dirty clothing over and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

Who broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! why under my bed!” Suddenly I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up. She quickly crawled (爬) under her covers, crying. Obviously. that was something she could not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy (同情) rose up in my heart.

Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bad. Cleaned the suckers and swept the floor even on her side. I got so absorbed into my work that I even didn’t notice Kate had sat up. She was watching. Her tears dried and her expression was such disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me. “Thanks.”

Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn’t always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.