1 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

In his book, Intentional Living, author John Maxwell shares that back in 1976, he received a gift from one of his     1     (friend). As he unwrapped the gift, he saw that it was a book     2     (name)The Greatest Story Ever Told. He couldn’t wait     3     (read)it.

But when he opened the book, he was     4     (confuse)to see that the pages were blank. Inside the book was     5     note that said, ”John, your life is before you. Fill these pages with kind acts and good thoughts of your heart. Write a great story about your life." The intention of writing the story of his life excited him. Then, he     6     (begin)to write his book.

Every day we live out our story through our words, actions and decisions. But we must remember to live with intention to focus on what     7     (matter)most in life and to regain that focus when we get changed. Without intention, we can become unfocused in things     8     needn’t add to a life of significance and difference in our world.

Life isn’t perfect and you may find     9     hard sometimes, so we need reminders(提醒物)in our life from a friend, author, blogger or our inner spirit to re-focus us on the things that matter and make us live     10     (positive).

3 . Every year I’d read over 2,000 college applications from students all over the world. It is quite _______ to choose whom to admit. _______, in the chaos of SAT scores and recommendations, one _______ is always irresistible in a candidate: kindness.

The most surprising _______ of kindness I’ve ever _______ came from a student who had excellent scores and a supportive recommendation from his college counselor (顾问). Even with these qualifications, he might not have _______. But one letter of recommendation caught my eye. It was from a school security _______. Letters of recommendation are typically written by people like former presidents, celebrities, and Olympic athletes.

The security guard wrote that he supported this student’s admission because of his _______. This young man was the only person in the school who knew the names of every member of the guard staff. He turned off lights in empty rooms, consistently _______ the hallway monitor each morning and tidied up the classroom after his peers left school ________ nobody was watching. This student, the security guard wrote, had a(n) ________ respect for every person at the school, regardless of position, popularity or power.

It gave us a ________ onto a student’s life in the moments when nothing “counted”. That student was admitted by unanimous (一致的) vote of the admissions committee.

Next year there might be a flood of security guard recommendations ________ this essay. But if it means students will start paying as much ________ to the people who clean their classrooms as they do to their principals and teachers, I’m happy to help start that ________.

4 . It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s came to the hospital. I heard him saying to the nurse that he was in a hurry for all appointment(约会)at 9:30. The nurse had him take a _______ in the waiting area,_______ him it would be at least 40 minutes_________someone would be able to see him. I saw him_______his watch and decided, since I was_______busy—my patient didn’t_______ at the appointed hour, I would examine his wound. While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment. The gentleman said no and told me that he_______to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his_________. He told me that she had been_________for a while and that she had a special disease. I asked if she would be____________if he was a bit late. He replied that she __________ knew who he was, that she had not been able to __________ him for five years now. I was____________, and asked him, “And you__________go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled and said. “She doesn’t know me but I know who she is”. I had to hold back __________ as he left.            

Now I __________ that in marriages, true love is____________of all that is. The happiest people don’t__________have the best of everything, they just__________the best of everything they have. ____________isn’t about how to live through the storm, but how to dance in the rain.

One day, Nick invited his friends to supper. He was cooking some delicious food in the kitchen. Suddenly, he     1     (find) that he had run out of salt. So Nick called to his son, “Go to the village and buy some salt, but pay a fair price for it: neither too much     2     too little.”

His son looked       3     (surprise). “I can understand why I shouldn’t pay too much, Father, but if I can pay less,    4     not save a bit of money?”

“That would be a very     5     (reason) thing to do in a big city, but it could destroy a small village like ours,” Nick said.

Nick’s guests,     6     had heard their conversation, asked why they should not buy sale more cheaply if they could. Nick replied, “The only reason a man would sell sale at a lower priced would be because he was desperate for money. And anyone who took advantage     7     that situation would be showing a lack of respect for the sweat and struggle of the man who worked very hard to produce it.”

“But such a small thing couldn’t     8     (possible) destroy a village.”

“In the beginning, there was only     9     very small amount of unfairness in the world, but everyone added a little,     10     (think) that it was only small and not very important, and looked where we had ended up today.”

7 . Starting a career in engineering can be challenging. You know what you ________: experience, a network and often the confidence that everything will ________.

My advice to young engineers is: Focus on your ________, and stop worrying about your weaknesses. Of course, you must ________ problems in areas where you are weak, but ________ spending too much effort on them. Chances are that you will never be perfect in those areas, so it makes no ________ in wasting your energy.

Of course, there will be times when things are hard, but if you believe in yourself and have a ________ of where you want to go and develop your strengths—they’ll ________ you apart, you will go far.

The biggest challenge I have faced in my career is being a woman in a ________ profession. When I started working, I was the only female engineer in my division. Though I was as ________ as my colleagues, it was tough to get them to accept me as their ________. Instead of feeling upset, I chose to focus on my strengths as a woman engineer to earn their respect. ________, they accepted me.

Thankfully, the gender ________ has improved since I first started. Now, I have several female engineers working in my team. As the head, I get a thrill from ________ people in roles and on projects according to their abilities and seeing them achieve great results. Helping a person ________ by focusing on her strengths gives me a huge amount of satisfaction.