1 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. referring             B. refresh             C. pin                    D. occurred             E. acknowledging F. identify             G. drain                    H. discouraged       I. specific             J. negative K. specifically

Make a Wish List

Most of us know of New Year’s Resolutions, where one sets intentions for the year ahead. But too often, people make their resolutions     1     — “I will no longer eat biscuits left at my desk”— and then feel unhappy. In the cold month of January, the last thing you need is to     2     your energy further by setting up a series of battles with yourself. And if you break a resolution, you feel     3    , which is a rubbish way to start the year. What you need instead are things to look forward to.

So instead, try a wish list. This involves writing down 100 things you would like to do in the year ahead. The items can be enormous or tiny, ranging from “Climb Everest” to “buy a new pencil sharper”. The main thing is that at some point it has     4     to you as something that you would like to do.

The key here is — write it down.

Do you feel any resistance to the ideas? If so, ask yourself why. What is wrong with     5     what you would like to do? Try not to say to yourself: “I can’t I don’t have the money/time/energy/skills.” Just write it down.

It helps to be     6    , so rather than “Get outdoors”,     7     a place you would like to visit. And take your time when creating it — a wish list is not built in a day. Think about it, polish it and     8     it.

Finally, you have your list. And what a work of beauty it is. Here are all the things that you would like to do. Remember to     9     them up where you can see them; let yourself consider how they can be accomplished. You’ll be amazed that so many of your dreams can be realized though the simple trick of writing them down and     10     to them.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. individuals        B. affected        C. discouraging       D. occupation       E. strive       F. obstacles     G. figure             H. legendary       I. conquer               J. biased             K. character

Growing up, we often get asked the question: “What do you want to be in the future?” Our answers usually start off as: “police officer, scientist, astronaut. . . ” As we get a bit older, it becomes “doctor, lawyer, engineer, the next Steve Jobs . . . ” While these are great goals to     1     towards, we must remember that a(n)     2     does not define who we are. What is arguably more important than wealth is one’s strength of     3     .

We always admire the most successful Internet entrepreneurs of the 21st century, the     4     who took an idea and built it into an empire. However, few of us really look at the price they paid to get there. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, one of the youngest and richest tech billionaires in the world, pushed out one of his best friends and co-founders(with good reason) in order to receive funding for Facebook. Steve Jobs, another beloved     5     in the technology industry, refused to recognize his young daughter until she was nine years old, and even after Jobs later reconciled(和解) with her, the two had a shaky(不稳固的) relationship to the end of his days. We cannot say how much these decisions     6     their respective paths towards success, but they do represent many of the difficult choices that may lay ahead.

On May 4, Chinese video site Bilibili released a video containing 955 different statements made by middle school students from across China. The students stated the types of person they did not wish to become when they grew up. “I don’t want to be an unfaithful person. I don’t want to be a     7     person. I don’t want to be a person who gives up halfway . . . ” A large part of me wishes that all of these hopeful statements would come true, but as many great success stories have shown us, life’s     8     will change the way we think and act from the time we are students to whoever it is we later become as adults. These statements indicate a very idealistic, but naive(天真的) way of looking at the process of growing up.

I do not mean to suggest that I am     9     anyone from thinking along the lines of the above student statements, as they ultimately provide a great starting point for how we would hope every person would think and act. However, I would encourage a different way of thinking. As the     10     author Maya Angelou once said: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. ” Life does not stand still while you run along its course, so you must learn as you go.