1 . Last year I ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience: the iPad.

Instead of looking at nature, I _______ my e-mail. Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading _______newspapers each morning. And that was the problem: I was acting as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation but my _______ wasn’t.

So this year I made up my mind to try something _______: getting away from the Internet. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, _______ I’m not good at self-control. But I was _______. I started by handing the iPad to my wife. Then, a stroke of luck: The mobile phone _______ at our cabin was worse than in the past. I was _______, forced to carry out my plan. Largely cut off from e-mail and my favourite newspaper websites, I had little way to _______ the world. I had no ________ but to do what I had planned to do all along: read books.

With determination and the strong support of my wife, I succeeded in my vacation struggle against the Internet. I finally ________ that it was me, of course, not the iPad, that was the ________.

I knew I had ________ when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “Don’t need it,” I said. ________, as we return to work, a test begins: Can I survive when I’m back at work? I don’t plan to ________ my iPad completely. But I hope to resist the temptation (抵抗诱惑) to use it every five minutes.

2 . A professor entered the classroom and told the students about a surprise test. All students were ______ and waited for the test to begin. The professor gave the test papers to all students with text facing down at the desk.______ he was done with handing out the test to all students, he asked them to ______ the test paper and begin.

Students were confused (迷惑) to see that there was just a black ______ in the center of the page. The professor told them, “I want you to ______ about what you see there.” The students were still confused but got started with the test. ______ the end of the class, the professor collected all answer sheets and started reading each answer from each sheet in front of all students. ______of them described about the black dot and tried to explain its position.

Now, professor began to explain, “Here everyone concentrated on the black dot and wrote about it ______ no one wrote about the white paper. The same is ______ our lives. The white paper stands for our whole life and the black dot ______ problems in our life.

Our life is a gift given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate -- our friends around us, the job that provides us with everything we need.______, we just focus on day to day problems like health issues, lack of money, problems in relationships, but we ______ see that these problems are very ______ compared to everything we have in our lives.”

We should try to take eyes off our problems and enjoy each moment ______ life gives us. Be happy and ______ your life positively.

3 . It was a few years ago, and I took a holiday-season job in a video store. One day, an elderly woman _________my store, along with a young woman who I _________ was her daughter. The daughter showed_________, rolling her eyes, sighing (叹气) and checking her watch every few seconds.

The elderly woman separated from the young one and _________ to search through the DVDS on the nearest shelf. I _________ and asked if I could help her find something. The woman smiled at me a piece of paper. The title was _________. Clearly a person looking for it knew a little about _________, and quality.

Rather than rushing off to _________ the DVD for the woman, I asked her to walk with me_________ I could show her where she could find it. Looking _________, I think I wanted to enjoy her _________ for a moment. Something about her careful movements reminded (使想起) me of my mother, who passed away a few years ago.

As we walked along the back of the store, I _________ its floor plan: old television shows, action movies, cartoons, etc. The woman seemed _________ the unrushed company and casual (随意的) conversation.

We _________ the movie, and I praised her for her choice. She smiled and told me it was one she had _________when she was at her son’s age and that she hoped he would enjoy it as much as she had.

I _________ the old woman to the cashier and then stepped back toward the young woman. “Is that your mom?” I asked. She rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah.” Mind some _________?” I asked. “Sure,” said the daughter.

“Cherish (珍爱) her,” I said. And then I answered her _________ expression by saying, “When she has_________, it’s the little moments that’ll come back to you. _________ like this. I know.”

4 . My father often works very hard. And he has __________to see a film. Here I’ll tell you __________about him.

One afternoon, when he finished his work and __________ go home, he found a film ticket under the __________on his desk. He thought he __________to have not much work to do that day and __________ was quite wonderful to pass the __________at the cinema. So he came back home and __________finished his supper. Then he said __________ to us and left.

But to our ____________, he came back about half an hour later, I ____________ him what was the matter. He smiled and told us about ____________funny thing that had happened at the cinema.

When my father was sitting in his seat, a ____________came to my father’s and said that the seat was ____________. My father was surprised. He took out the ticket ____________ looked at it carefully. It was Row17, ____________. And then he looked at the seat. It was the same. So he asked her ____________ her ticket. She took out the ticket at once and the seat shown in it was Row 17, Seat 3. ____________? What’s the matter with all this? While they were wondering suddenly the woman said, “The ____________of the tickets are different.” So they looked at the ticket more carefully. After a while, my father said, “Oh, ____________, I made a mistake. My ticket is for the film a month ago. Take this seat, please.” With these words, he left the cinema.

5 . When I was 15 years old, I was a straight-A student. I was always _______ with a great group of friends, and I would hang out with them every weekend. Then I moved to a new place just before high school and everything _______ overnight.

While trying to _______ to my new surroundings, I also started the tenth grade. Going to a public school in a big city, _______, was harder than before.

I didn’t _______ well in class. Although I tried hard, my mind would go _______ the moment I attended the exam. All my _______ didn’t pay off, and I failed somehow. As a result, I became _______ and turned to video games.

My English teacher noticed what I was _______. He suggested I should go to the after-school classes for the kids who needed help. ________ to get a passing grade, I went. And that’s where I met Oliver. ________, he became my best friend and I was back on ________. And little by little, my ________ improved. It seemed that reshaping myself in a new environment wasn’t that terrible as ________.

As the year progressed, I made many friends and won many awards as well. Looking back, I see that my depression (沮丧) slowly disappeared. Having a friend really ________, even more than video games.

8 . Fat and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis, cricket — anything with a round ball, I was _______,” he says now with a laugh. But back then he was the one always _______ in school gym classes in Devonshire, England.

It was a mountain _______ he received for his 15th birthday that _______ him. At first he went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to ride the bike along with a _______ friend. _______, Saunders set up his mind on building up his body, increasing his speed and _______. At the age of 18, he ran his first marathon.

The _______ year, he met John Ridgway and was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s School of Adventure in Scotland, where he _______ about Ridgway’s cold-water adventures. Greatly ________ , Saunders ________ that this would be his future.

In 2001, after becoming a skillful skier, Saunders ________ his first long-distance expedition (探险) towards the North Pole. It took ________ energy. He ________ frostbite (冻疮), ran into a polar bear and pushed his body to the ________, pulling his supply-load sled (雪橇) up and over rocky ice. Since then, Saunders has skied more of the North Pole by himself than any other British man. His old playmates would not believe the change.

Next October, Saunders, 27, heads south from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, a 2900-kilometre journey that has never been completed on skis.

9 . As a young boy, Britain’s great former Prime Minister(首相), Sir Winston Churchill(温斯顿·丘吉尔) attended a public school called Harrow. He was not a good student and nearly _________ out of school for breaking the school rules. _________, he finished his schoolwork and his mistakes there did not prevent him from going on to a university. He even really had an army experience, for which he was later elected _________. He achieved it for his wisdom and courage. Because he once refused to _________ to Germany during the painful days of World War Ⅱ, his amazing determination helped inspire his entire nation and was an _________ worldwide.

Towards the end of his period as prime minister, he was _________ to make a speech to the students at his old school. When the great day arrived, Sir Winston Churchill gave his short, clear­cut speech:

“Young man, never give up. Never give up! Never give up! Never, never, never, never!”

Another _________ example is Sandra O’Connor who fought to achieve her best education. Graduating at the top of her class, she worked her _________ into Stanford Law School, where she graduated with _________. Though working hard, she was __________ a woman in the 1950s. She was refused by many law firms __________ they preferred to hire a less qualified(有资格的) man __________ a great woman lawyer. Yet she refused to give up on her dreams. With great efforts, her dream finally came true.

Just like Churchill and Sandra, they stand for those who never give up. __________, many people in our daily life simply say they want something but without making efforts. Instead, they let the fear of failure stop them from trying. As a wise saying goes: “It’s not how many times you fall down that __________. It’s how many times you get back up that makes success!” With hard work,__________ and preparation, you can overcome any difficulty and achieve success.