4 . Is there anything more important than health? I don’t think so. “Health is the greatest wealth,” wise people say. You can’t be good at your studies or work well when you are ill.

If you have a headache, toothache, backache, earache or bad pain in the stomach, if you complain of a bad cough, if you run a high temperature and have a bad cold, or if you suffer from high or low blood pressure, I think you should go to the doctor. The doctor will examine your throat, feel your pulse, test your blood pressure, take your temperature, sound your heart and lungs, test your eyes, check your teeth or have your chest X ­rayed. After that, he will advise some treatment, or some medicine. The only thing you have to do is to follow his advice.

Speaking about doctor’s advice, I can’t help telling you a funny story. An old gentleman came to see the doctor. The man was very ill. He told the doctor about his weakness, memory loss and serious problems with his heart and lungs. The doctor examined him and said there was no medicine for his disease. He told his patient to go to a quiet place for a month and have a good rest. He also advised him to eat a lot of meat, drink two glasses of red wine every day and take long walks. In other words, the doctor advised him to follow the rule: “Eat with pleasure, drink with pleasure and enjoy life as it is.” The doctor also said that if the man wanted to be well again, he shouldn’t smoke more than one cigarette a day. A month later the gentleman came into the doctor’s office. He looked cheerful and happy. He thanked the doctor and said that he had never felt a healthier man. “But you know, doctor,” he said, “it’s not easy to begin smoking at my age.”

6 . While in the army there was nothing I dislike so much as the map-reading course, for the simple reason that I always feel _________ even with a map in my hand. For weeks I had _________ awake at night thinking of the _________ test I would have to face at the end of the course. _________ the evil day arrived. It was my responsibility to lead a small band of soldiers back to camp from the middle of _________. We were driven out in a(an) _________ lorry (卡车) and left in a ploughed field with _________ to get back to camp as quickly as possible.

Well knowing my _________, the soldiers smiled as they saw me looking at the map and they made all sorts of helpful suggestions. I folded the map up, put in in my pocket, and said that we would _________ east. After walking through the cornfield for over an hour we came to a wide stream. I looked at the map __________. It seemed to be __________ with masses of thin blue lines. But which __________ line was this stream? In despair, we sat down in the cool __________ and I feel like __________ the map into the water. Fifteen minutes later, a boat passed and I asked the boatman if he could give us a __________ to the nearest village. I __________ that we had been out for a walk and __________ got lost. The boatman invited us on __________ and I felt __________ when he told me that he had helped hundreds of soldiers to pass their map-reading test! Not long __________, we got off that boat and, following the boatman’s instructions, took a bus into the village and got back to camp.

7 . The small town of Rjukan in Norway is situated between several mountains and does not get direct sunlight from late September to mid-March——nearly six months out of the year.

“Of course, we _________ it when the sun is shining,” says Karin Ro, who works for the town’s tourism office. “We see the sky is _________, but down in the valley it’s darker—it’s like on a cloudy day.”

But that _________ when a system of high-tech _________ was introduced to reflect sunlight from neighboring peaks (山峰) into the valley below. Wednesday, residents (居民) of Rjukan _________ their very first ray of winter sunshine: A row of reflective boards on a nearby mountainside were put to _________. The mirrors are controlled by a computer that _________ them to turn along with the sun throughout the day and to close during windy weather. They reflect a concentrated beam (束) of light onto the town’s central _________, creating an area of sunlight roughly 600 square meters. When the light _________, Rjukan residents gathered together.

“People have been __________ there and standing there and taking __________ of each other,” Ro says. “The town square was totally __________. I think almost all the people in the town were there.” The 3,500 residents cannot all __________ the sunshine at the same time. However, the new light feels like more than enough for the town’s __________ residents.

“It’s not very big,” she says, “but it is enough when we are __________.”

8 . It was 8:00 pm. I reached the railway station waiting for my train to arrive. One of the staff told me that the train would arrive at 9:00 pm, which meant I _________ to wait for an hour. There were very _________ passengers. I just saw some adults playing their cellphones and a group of boys _________ with round stones. The boys were all _________ dressed as their clothes were dirty and torn. But they were happy with the stones and _________ themselves. Suddenly I developed an _________   to drink tea. But to my _________, I couldn’t find a teahouse at the station. The only one sat outside, but I couldn’t take the _________ of leaving my luggage there just to drink tea.

So I asked one of the boys to buy me a cup of tea, _________ him 5 dollars. He __________ and rushed out. After half an hour, I heard the __________saying that the train would arrive soon. Then I was sure that the boy took __________ with the money. As the train arrived, I asked my self, “How could I trust a__________ boy?”

I was just about to enter the railway __________ when I heard a voice, “Sir, your tea”.   __________ at the voice, I asked him why he was so__________. He told me that he __________ the 5 dollars, so he offered to clean the utensils (器皿) to earn the money for the tea! I felt __________ that I misunderstood him.

We often   __________ people too early in our lives. Try to look at things in a positive perspective and wait for a while before you actually__________.

9 . Many years ago, when we first went to America, we were driving through Montana to Colorado with our two children, then aged 8 and 11. As it was getting _________ we started looking for a hotel, only to find out that it was _________ time in that part of the country, and all the hotels were _________.

Finally, around 9 o’clock in the evening, we _________ at a gas station to fill up the car. My husband asked for a _________ book and told the woman at the counter that we were trying to find a hotel. She told us it would be impossible. He tried for 15 more minutes. When he was _________, the woman, Linda, said she and her family _________ nearby and would be happy if we spent the night at her home.

My husband was _________ at her offer of generosity (慷慨). She called her son to direct us, since she had to _________ at the gas station till midnight.

When we reached their home, her husband __________ us. He invited us to have coffee and chat while we __________ his wife. She came past 12 am. We asked if we could slip away in the morning so as not to __________ them. They said we were now __________ and we would have to have breakfast with them.

Next morning, when we were __________, my husband asked if he could offer some __________. They would not hear of it and insisted we were their guests. We would never forget their kindness.

It took place in a teacher’s family. One day, Ben was playing basketball in the living room after school, when he accidentally threw the ball at a vase sitting on the shelf. The vase dropped to the floor and a large piece broke off. What made Ben more upset was that the vase was not a common decoration but an antique (古董), which was handed down through generations from the 18th century. It was also his mother’s favourite possession. To cover his terrible action, the terrified boy glued the pieces together hurriedly and put the vase back to its place.

As the mother herself dusted the vase every day, she naturally noticed the cracks (裂纹) that evening. To her surprise, the repair work was actually very good. At dinner time, she asked her boy if he broke the vase. Fearing punishment, the suddenly inspired boy said that a neighbour’s cat jumped in from the window and he couldn’t drive it away no matter how hard he tried. It raced around the living room and finally knocked the vase off its shelf. His mother was quite clear that her son was lying, for all the windows were closed before she left for work each morning and opened after she returned. However, in the face of her son’s nervous eyes and the suspicious looks of the other family members, Ben’s mother remained calm. She realized she shouldn’t just simply blame and punish her son for lying. She came up with another idea.

Before going to bed, the boy found a note from his mother in his room, asking him to go to the study at once. The boy thought he would now be punished but, as he had already lied, he was determined to deny everything to the end, no matter how angry his mum became.

In the study, calmly bathed in the light, his mothers face showed no sign of anger. On seeing her son push open the door and cautiously enter, she took a chocolate box out of a drawer and gave him one.

The mother said, “This chocolate is a reward for your imagination: a window-opening cat!”

Now with some chocolates in hand, the boy’s bad attitude disappeared.