2 . Some wealthy ladies were enjoying a picnic on the river bank. When washing their hands, they saw their _________on the water’s surface and started to _________ their own beauty. One said, “How beautiful my hands are with those silver rings!” Then those wearing diamond rings or gold rings disagreed. Soon, a(n) _________ broke out among them.

Then an elderly woman, looking tired and hungry, _________. Seeing her, one of the wealthy ladies suggested asking the elderly about it. All of her _________ nodded. She signaled the elderly to come over and asked, “Who has the most beautiful hands?” The elderly begged, “I am _________. Could you give me something to eat first?” Those _________ ladies turned down her _________ and forced her to go away.

A poor woman _________ the scene at some distance. She went to the elderly hurriedly, brought her to her workplace, offered __________ to the elderly, and even shared half of her food.

Feeling better, the elderly woman went back to the wealthy ladies. __________ to that poor woman, she said, “She has the most beautiful hands.” The wealthy ladies burst into laughter and __________, “You know nothing about beauty!” The elderly replied __________, “Beautiful hands belong to those who do good deeds and __________ the needy. Beauty of hands increases with good __________, not with rings.”

3 . Kristin Schell is the founder of the Turquoise Table. It is a movement of ordinary people who want to create a ________ right in their own front yards.

Ten years ago, the Schells moved to a new home. One day, Kristin ________ some furniture for a party in the backyard, so she bought a few picnic tables from a market. The delivery driver set one table down in her front yard ________, and Kristin couldn’t get the ________ out of her head. “After the party, I painted the ________ turquoise-my favorite color-and left it in the front yard, just a few feet from the sidewalk,” she says.

That turquoise table became the place Kristin and her kids ________. They used to do activities at the kitchen table, but they now did them out front at the picnic table. They played games, did crafts and ate snacks. New neighbors began to stop by to ________ themselves and sit down for a ________. Kristin invited people to join her at the table for coffee or iced tea. “It was a simple way to slow down and ________ with others,” she says. The turquoise table was ________ and had a shared feel.

She likes how the table enables her to take a small step to ________ the loneliness, meanwhile building ________ relationships in her community. “People’s ________ need is to know that they are ________ and a sense of belonging,” she adds.

Nowadays, thousands of turquoise tables ________ in all 50 states and in 13 countries around the world.

5 . It was a dream born in fire. Andrea Peterson was five when she and her mother were trapped on the ledge（窗台）of a burning building.

“Throw the_________down!” said one of the firemen below, and little Andrea leaped into lifesaving arms, which motivated a life-long ambition: She wanted to_________fires as her rescuers did. She told that to the men who had_______her, and they laughed good-naturedly the way_________do when a kid says she wants to be an astronaut or a sports star. “You'll be a good mommy, “the_________told her. “But you can never be a firefighter.”

And then, as it tends to do, life doesn't___________her dreams. Pressured by her parents, she studied in an aviation school to become a flight attendant-and that's where she met her husband, Dennis. Unfortunately, Dennis was diagnosed with cancer. Peterson___________thirty-one years caring for the man she loved.

It wasn't until four years ago, after her_________passed away, that she felt that long-ago childhood dream calling. She _________volunteering at a local fire station. She spent a year lifting weights and watching her__________to keep fit. Later she began____________alongside men in their teens and 20s until she was____________.

Finally, Peterson became the only woman of the department's staff of twenty-seven firefighters. She has now       ________ more than 350 emergency calls, helping so many people beat back fires. She says, “I've always known that this is my____________.It doesn't matter how____________ I had to work or how long I had to wait.”

7 . Was there anything lonelier than sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on Chinese New Year’s Eve? It would have been nice to _________a conversation. However, I sat patiently as a couple of new people were in their own little _________. I’d probably stare at my phone if I hadn’t forgotten to _________ it before I left home.

My checkup went well, and I breezed out to my car. I_________ the key. Nothing. I reached for my _________, and then remembered. Dead, like my car. I would have to use the phone inside. I went straight to the reception desk, hoping to whisper my_________, but the receptionist was not there. So I turned back to the people in the___________room.

“I wouldn’t___________do this,” I said, hoping I sounded_________. Several people turned toward me from their world to__________. “But my car won’t start...”

The nurse popped her head into the room. “I’ll get my jumper cables.” she said. The receptionist returned. “I’ve got a brand-new battery. You’re welcome to use it.” “Or mine,” another man said. A line of people __________me to my car.

When the receptionist gave a __________to start the car, everyone called out, “Try now!”

The engine turned over immediately. A __________went up. I backed my car out of the space, then paused to __________the crowd who’d saved the day. There’s no __________Chinese New Year’s Eve than that.

8 . Dr. Smith of New York works at a center for children who can’t learn well. One day a father brought his son to him for________ at his office.

The father told Dr. Smith about his son. “My son has ________ in learning and can’t even play baseball. He isn’t doing well because he doesn’t try. I have done everything for him. I have even shouted at him. But nothing ________. ”

After Dr. Smith tested the boy, he ________ his father. He asked the father to sit in front of a ________ and then gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. There was a ________ on the paper. He asked the father to look only in the mirror and ________ the lines of the star with the pencil. The father made the same ________ anyone makes. Every time he ________ the pencil, it went the wrong way. The father’s face became red.

At this ________ the doctor shouted at him, “Hurry up! Why are you ________ so long? You can’t do such an ________ thing! You don’t know left from right!” These ________ made the father very angry.

“Now you can ________, can’t you?” The doctor said to him. “Your son has felt just like that all the time. You scolded (训斥) him too often, so he didn't try any more. He was afraid of making mistakes. ”

________ the father understood everything. He put his face down. Now he felt so sorry.

9 . A stand-up comedian is, supposed to be, a fluent communicator who is also good at using body language to _________ jokes.

However, for 27-year-old comedian Zhang Jiaxin, it takes a great effort to _________ pronounce the sounds of each character and sentence and be _________ on the stage. At birth, the oxygen _________ to his brain was curtailed (限制，削减), which _________ later problems with speaking and walking. The other long-term impairment is the loss of full use of his right hand.

It was two years ago when Zhang first performed stand-up comed yon the stage. At the time, he worked for the new media operation department of a company _________ in Xiamen, Fujian province, and had to prepare for a performance at the company’s year-end party.

He didn’t know much about stand-up performance. _________, as someone who likes to watch and be amused by entertainment shows from a very young age, he decided to give a humorous monologue at the party to amuse and _________ his colleagues.

It opened Zhang’s door to a colorful world of stand-up comedy.

He started to pay attention to the stand-up comedy live shows in Xiamen and got the _________ of a woman who worked at a local stand-up club.

“She sent me some videos of Drew Lynch (an American stand-up comic who developed a(an)__________ stutter (结巴) due to a sports injury earlier in his life) and told me that my defects are what make my appeal special,” he says. “That __________ me to have a go.”

After he read through a manual for writing and performing stand-up comedy, he started to __________his daily life to identify humorous __________ that could be used as jumping-off points to launch into stories.

Once he walked onto the stage, the audience __________ noticed his differences.

“__________, they were kind of walking on eggshells to spare my feelings. As I gradually opened myself to them, the atmosphere turned to be relaxing,” he says.

Wows and claps resounded. His jokes went down well as he worked the room with his humor.