1 . Every Saturday morning Phoenix Young would take piano lessons with a family friend when he was a child. “At that time we would_______around and take all morning just to have a lesson,” Phoenix_______. “And I loved it.”

But when Phoenix was 12, his teacher proposed that he need better_______.So his mother took him to a music school in the Bronx, and signed him up for classes with a teacher named Bade Simon, experienced bit known for being _______. And she quickly lived up to that _______.Phoenix found the stressful life was_______like his lighthearted Saturday mornings with his former teacher, so it wasn’t long before he_______that he would quit.

One day, however, Bade_______him and said something surprising: “I have_______in you. Keep going. Then the reluctant (不情愿的) student did something surprising ________: he said, “Okay.”

“It was as if all I wanted was just a________from her that she cared about me,” Phoenix said.

That moment________their relationship. Within a few weeks, they were having________during lessons. And within a few months, she was teaching him things about music that he’d never known before. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.

“I went into________and became a piano teacher, a career I have been doing for 50 years,” Phoenix said. “And I ________it all to that precious moment with my unsung hero, Bade Simon.”

2 . It was a cold, rainy day, and I had no desire to drive up the winding mountain road to my daughter Carolyn’s house. But she_______that I come to see something at the top of the mountain.

So here I was,_______ making the two-hour journey through thick fog. Nothing could be worth this,I thought as I_______ along the dangerous highway.

Turning down a narrow track, we___________and got out. We walked along a path that was thick with old pine needles. Huge black-green evergreens (常青树)_________over us.Gradually,the peace and silence of the place began to_________ my mind.

Then we turned a corner and stopped at the top of the mountain and I was entirely held in_______. There across fields and valleys were rivers of fully-opened yellow flowers from the light one to the most brilliant. It looked as though the sun had tipped over and_______ the mountainside in gold.

_______ occurred to my mind.Who created such beauty? How? When? As we approached the house that stood in the center of the property, we saw a________ that read: “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking.” The first answer was: “One Woman-Two Hands, Two Feet and Very Little Brain.”   The second was:“____________at a Time.” The third: “Started in 1958.”

As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had seen that I could________ speak.“She changed the world,” I finally said, “one small plant at a time. She started almost 40 years ago, probably just the ________ of an idea, but she kept at it.”

The wonder of it would not let me go. “Imagine,” I said, “if I’d had a dream and________it, just a little bit every day, what might I have accomplished?” Carolyn looked at me sideways, smiling. “Start tomorrow,” she said, “______________yet, start today.”

3 . She came in the dead of night, in the cold. She was more than half ______ , starved down to bones. Her hair was completely eaten away by mange(兽疥癣). She had been run off from more than one yard when she finally crept into an empty doghouse in the trees beyond mother’s yard. ______ she was out of the wind.

My mother and brother found her in the daylight of the next day. They could not even ______ she was a dog.“ And it broke my heart,” my mother said.

The ______ dog encountered two people who ______ to give up on anything. They ______ batteries that have not had a spark of anything in them for a long time. My mother even keeps pens that stopped writing in 1974. My brother Mark looked at her tragic face and ______ her “ Pretty Girl ”. It was as if he could see beyond the ______ .

Mark and my mother fed her, and bathed her in burned motor oil, the way my people have been curing the mange for generations. A month later, a beautiful white German shepherd stood in the garden. She was ______ to last, at most, a few weeks or months, yet she lived three more years-- decades, in dog years -following my brother to the garden to ______ rainbow and listen for thunders.

“I ______ for her,” my mother said. “Some people say you needn’t ask for God’s blessing for your dog, but…” And then after the gift of years, her health began to ______ and Pretty Girl died.

The garden is now planted, full of flowers. Some things in the garden are planted according to ______ , like the shape of the moon or the conditions of soil and weather. However, there are things we cannot ______ things beyond science, like how a man could name a dying dog and have her ______ from misfortune, making her live longer than expected.

5 . A Game of Light and Shade

It was a sunny day. I had gone up and down the tower when, outside the door at the foot, a blind man came toward me. In a moment, he disappeared up the stairs. I looked at the sign that said “To the Tower”, and decided to _______ him.

I caught up with him in the ticket office. There I was _______ to see the attendant (工作人员) selling him a ticket as if he were any other visitor. Then, with the ticket in one hand and _______ the wall with the fingers of the other, the blind man reached the stairs _________ to the hallway.

“That man is blind. What would a blind man climb up the tower for?” I said to the attendant, expecting him to show some _______, but he didn’t answer.

“Not the _______ certainly,” I said. “Perhaps he wants to _______.”

I bought a ticket and _______ up the stairs. The man hadn’t gone as far as I _______. A third of the way up the tower, I heard his ________. I slowed down and followed him at a little ________. He stopped from time to time. When he got to the balcony, I was a dozen steps ________. As I reached it, I saw him at the corner of the tower.

At last, after ten minutes, I ________ him. “Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, “but I am curious to know ________ you came up.”

He smiled. “Coming up the stairs, you will notice how not just light but sun ________ into the tower through the narrow windows here and there, so that you can feel the ________ —the cool stairs suddenly become quite warm—and how up here behind the wall there is ________, but as soon as going opposite a window you can find the sun. There is no ________ so good as this for feeling the difference between light and shade. It is not the first time I’ve come up.”

The blind man seemed quite ________ just like a child who was enjoying his favorite games. He told me the truth that blind men can also find the beauty in life ________ they cannot enjoy the sights of the world.

6 . When Arfel Condova-Rojas was biking to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge last November, she planned to go bird-watching. Bingo! A mile into her walk, she saw a female _________ near the water’s edge. Cordova-Rojas had worked at a wild bird rehab (康复) center and _________ that swans can be aggressive. But as she approached this time, it didn’t _________. She was certain that the bird needed _________ attention. Cordova-Rojas put her jacket over the bird’s head to keep it calm, _________ picked it up and held it in her arms. And then a thought _________ her: What should I do now?

Her best _________ was the rehab center, but that was on the other side of town. How was she going to transport a 17-pound swan on her _________ all that way? Luckily, some _________ driving by offered her, her bike and the swan a (n) __________ to the rehab center.

Staff members at the rehab center __________ that the swan might have lead (铅) poisoning. They got the swan back up on her feet. __________, the swan had a bacterial infection. Two months after Cordova-Rojas came to her __________, she passed away.

It’s a (n)__________ ending, but the story shows just how far people are willing to go to __________ animals.

8 . This past summer, I applied for my very first job at a small bakery in my neighborhood. I knew that if I were _______ there, I would learn how to use a cash register, prepare sandwiches, and _______ cake orders. I imagined that my biggest struggle would be _______ demanding New Yorkers, but I never thought that the act of tying a box would become both my biggest _______ and greatest teacher.

On my first day of work in late August, one of the employees quickly explained the _______. It seemed simple: wrap the string (绳子) around your hand, then wrap it three times around the box both ways, and fasten it. I _______ the message in my head, “three times, turn it, three times, tie it” until it became my prayer. After observing several employees, it was _______ that anyone tying the box could complete it in a matter of seconds. For weeks, I failed endlessly, only to watch the strong and small pieces of my pride unravel (散开) each time I tried.

As I _______ to push half-tied cake boxes into plastic bags with embarrassment, I could not help but _______ what was wrong with me. ________ the weeks progressed, my skills slowly began to improve. Of course, there were days when I just wanted to throw all of the string in the trash and use tape (胶带) instead; this sense of defeat was never ________, but remarks like “Oh, you must be ________” from impatient customers made me angry and determined to try even harder.

Gradually I began to realize that I should not be ________ if it takes me longer to learn. I kept on, and I continued to tie boxes every weekend at work. Even though I occasionally fell back into desperation, I always rewrapped the string around my hand and ________ over because I learned that the most satisfying victories come from not ________.

9 . My local supermarket is always busy. The first parking space I found was convenient, but I’d noticed a woman in a blue car _________ for a while. As I was _________, I let her have it. On the _________ of the car park I backed into the next available spot — it was a tight fit.

Pretty soon, I’d made my way through the supermarket and was back in the fresh air. Feeling good, I _________ my purse change into the hands of a homeless man and helped a _________ woman reverse park (倒车).

Just as I _________ my car, I saw the woman I’d let have my car space _________. She was giving a mean odd _________— half puzzled, half intent (热切的). I smiled and wished her a pleasant day. As I squeezed back into my car, I _________ the same lady looking in at me. “Hello,” she said, hesitantly. “This might sound crazy but I was on my way to ____________ some of my mother’s things off at the charity bins.” “You are just so much like her. You helped those people, I noticed, and you seemed so happy.” She looked at me meaningfully and passed a box in through the ____________, “I think she would like you to have it.” Shocked, I took it from her ____________. She smiled and walked away.

After a pause, I opened the box. ____________ was a beautiful gold necklace with a large grey pearl. It was the nicest gift I’d ever received, and it was from a complete ____________. The necklace was around my neck, a warm ____________ of human kindness.

10 . Several years ago, a neighbor kid kicked a football and broke a basement window of my house. Due to financial problems, I________it up, thinking I’d get to it someday.

Over the year, I had planned to upgrade to energy-efficient windows. But with the frame (窗框) rusted (锈) and firmly ________in the foundation, whoever did it would need to chisel (凿) it out by hand. It would be a________ process and there were six of those windows in the house. The cost was estimated at $15,000. It was simply________.

Honestly, the thought of that window________me for years. I knew I needed to fix it, but I had built up the________so much in my mind that I put it off again and again.

Then I had a job change and needed to sell the house before moving away. But it was almost________to find a buyer if there was a broken window. So I pulled off the boards to face this thing head-on. I grabbed some rust remover,________it around the frame of the window, and gave it a pull. To my astonishment, it easily________. I took the window downtown. It only cost me $12. I could have________the problem for only $12 when it occurred, but I let it bother me for five years!

________, this isn’t just about my window. Many of us live with broken windows of one type or another. They are things that seriously affect our________of life. If you recognize your broken window, don’t________to mend it. It may turn out to be________than expected. Usually we suffer more in a________than in reality.