1 . Hearing the Olympics were coming to Vancouver, I decided to go for its voluntary work. I’d forgotten what it was like to put myself out there to make friends. I was glad I didn’t have anyone I knew with me because I wouldn’t have met Callie ________. Taking the risk of sitting by her started a ________. I still keep in touch with her.

As night fell before the opening ceremonies, I was stationed outside the MMC. Accents from all over ________ my ears. The games seemed to ________ the whole world. Suddenly, I could see people running toward the harbour. I turned to Callie, “Isn’t that the way to the torch (火炬)?” We looked at each other and started to run. My heart pounded as I sprinted. The air seemed to be ________ with everyone’s excitement, like a kind of electric energy pulsing through us. I’d never felt a(n) ________ like it before. Then, fireworks ________ into the air above us. Their bright colors glittered against the dark sky. I had ________ the lighting of the torch many times on TV, but to actually see it ________ was amazing. When the last of the fireworks ________, there stood the Olympic torch unveiled (揭幕) in all its ________ with its flames licking at the night sky.

Even now, I can still remember the heat from the torch. I had been one of the ________ MMC staff to walk underneath it while it burned. A beacon (灯塔) of ________ for the future. I stood for a moment right under it, listening to the ________ voices of my new friends, and I knew I’d made one of the best ________ of my life.

2 . In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston. As a result, more than 70,000 houses were _________, including the home of Sarah Feldman and her family.

At the time, they were in Connecticut on vacation, so they didn’t know what kind of _________ they were going to face when they got home to Texas. But then Feldman’s grandparents called with _________ news: all of her books had been destroyed in the flooding. Feldman was 14 at the time and loved _________.

To cheer her up, Feldman’s father _________ her to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. When they arrived, she met Bill Carver, an elderly _________.

“I asked him a bunch of questions like, ‘How do you _________ all these rare books in the library? What’s the oldest book you have?’” Feldman remembers.

Carver _________ answered all of Feldman’s questions. When she told him about her books being _________, he told her that he would send her a book in the mail, so she could __________ her collection. After returning to Houston, she __________ his gift, titled “The Medieval(中世纪的) Book” by Barbara A. Shailor.

Feldman is in her 30s now. But Carver’s __________ has made a lifelong impact. Feldman has tried to __________ Carver, with no success. “I actually sent the library a __________ during the pandemic(大流行病), but I never heard back,” she said. “I’m not sure if he’s __________ still, but I just would love to tell Bill Carver that he changed my life.”

4 . Michael J. Weirsky is a 54-year-old man who had been out of work for over a year. Despite the fact that he had been _________ and had failed to even get a(n) _________, Weirsky would buy two lottery tickets (彩票) every week.

One day, Weirsky stopped at a QuickChek gas station to_________ a lottery ticket. However, after Weirsky got the ticket, he _________ received a call and he put the ticket down. After he answered the call, Weirsky left the gas station without _________ that he didn’t have his ticket. When he finally got home, he realized that his lottery ticket was _________. He looked everywhere for it, but he didn’t _________ anything, making him very _________.

Eventually, Weirsky made the _________ to go back to the QuickChek. ____________, the store clerk told Weirsky that someone had actually found and ____________ a ticket. After making sure that Weirsky really was the person who lost the ticket, she ____________ it to him.

“I was very ____________ that there was an honest person out there because I thought it was gone,” Weirsky said. Two days later, Weirsky checked the lottery app on his phone. To his ____________, he actually had the winning lottery ticket. “I ____________ $273 million,” Weirsky told his mother. At that point, Weirsky was still completely in ____________. Then he left his home to scan the ticket at a store nearby.

Sure enough, the scan ____________ that Weirsky had the winning ticket to the $273 million lottery. After careful ____________, Weirsky decided to find the good man that returned his lottery ticket to him instead of taking it. “I’ve got to find him and ____________ him,” Weirsky said. “I am going to give him something, but I will keep that ____________,” he added.

5 . In January 2020, my life was like a perfect movie. I was the _________ in my amazing group of best friends. They were all a year older, but you would never have known. I was only a senior two student but had _________ to secure a spot on the swim team. Then my teammates and I traveled in Hawaii.

Little did we know we would _________ to chaos. Our school was _________ down for two weeks due to COVID-19. Although feeling unhappy, my best friends made promises about how we would stay close during the lockdown. Shortly into quarantine (隔离区), I _________ hobbies and did anything I could to keep myself busy.

Looking back, I felt like a fool for thinking that two weeks would be a _________ to a pandemic. Months went by and the new school year began. I couldn’t accept the _________ that training in the pool became impossible. The pain of missing my friends began to _________. I felt like I was drowning.

It occurred to me that my best friends, who were now _________, would leave me next fall anyway. That made me ____________, making November the ____________ month for me. I couldn’t describe the feeling of just lying on my bed with tears ____________ down my face.

Alice in Wonderland became my life as I kept falling down a never-ending hole. Still, all the same, I felt ever so ____________ to climb out of this darkness. As the winter holidays ____________, things started to pick up. I was ____________ by the Christmas spirit. Sure, it was ____________ this year but still, I looked forward to the ____________ activities: Christmas eve dinner, opening gifts with my family on Christmas Day.

I made a New Year’s resolution to become more ____________ to my studies. As I did that, I found the college conversation became less ____________. I thought about all the ____________, the passions I would pursue. I became more excited about the unknown.

6 . Eleven years ago, I took a photo of a mother holding her baby. It changed my life.

This year, I met her again and fulfilled a deep wish to _________ her, something I didn't do when we first met.

Early in 2010, I visited Nanchang Railway Station in Jiangxi province, to _________ the Spring Festival travel season. I saw a woman bowed down with _________ and holding a baby. I was _________. She was about 10 meters away, so I squatted down (蹲下) and _________ my camera. As I pressed the shutter, she _________ her head and looked ahead, her eyes fixed. I asked if she needed help and wanted to chat, but she _________ me.

The _________ touched many people. It won the China News Award and the China News Photography Award. After that I began to focus my camera on _________ people and did many grassroots stories.

When I saw the woman, Bamuyubumu at the station, I was moved by her ____________ and love for her baby, so I started ____________ her to learn more about her ____________ and help fund her child's education.

The search was ____________. I visited many counties in Jiangxi, asking people if they had ____________ her, but in vain. I never gave up because she ____________ me at a critical stage of my career.____________, Bamuyubumu's daughter saw the photo online and I ____________ her again. I was pleased to discover that she is a(n)____________ mother with a good life ____________ her hard work and the help of the government.

During our meeting, she told me about her life,____________ she was full of hope for the future.

7 . I once heard a story of a 40-year-old woman who was jogging in a US state park when she was attacked and killed by a mountain lion. Her family immediately filed suit（提起诉讼）________ the state because of its “________ to manage the mountain lion population” and because it didn’t “react to reports of lion activity in the area by posting ________ signs.”

But an interesting thing happened. Her husband felt it was wrong to ________ the state or anyone else for his wife’s death, ________ he stood to possibly win a small fortune. Against her family’s wishes, he ________ the law suit. “Barbara and I have always taken responsibility for our own ________.” he explained. “Barbara ________ to run in the wild and, on a very long shot, she did not come back. This is not the ________ of the state, and people should take ________ for themselves.”

I would like to meet that man. He ________ believes that the Blame Game “is a no-win in the long run”. He seems like a person who would rather spend time ________ what’s broken than fixing the blaming for it on someone else. This isn’t about law suits—it’s more about whether we are essentially ________ of life or whether we are powerful and responsible people. An ________ step in gaining mastery over your life is to ________ the urge to make something or someone else responsible. Like novelist J.K. Rowling said to graduating Harvard students, “There is an expiry (过期的) ________ on blaming your parents for steering（引导）you in the ________ direction; the moment you are old enough to take the ________, responsibility lies with you.” Certainly ________ and circumstances have ________ who we are, but who is responsible for the person we become?