2 . On Thursday morning, two teenage boys were rescued by a drone (无人机) in Australia while lifeguards were still training to use the machine.

The ________, aged 15-17, got into difficulties about 700 feet off the coast of Lennox Head, New South Wales (NSW). A passer-by saw them ________ in dangerous waves. Lifesavers ________ sent the drone to drop a lifeboat, and the pair made their way safely to the ________.

The drone, known as “Little Riper”, was actually not ________ to be saving anyone just yet—lifeguards were being trained to ________ the machine. When a call came through about the swimmers in ________ the drone happened to be nearby.

Jai Sheridan was the lifeguard who ________ the drone. He described the experience as ________. “The Little Ripper ________ proved itself today. It is a highly efficient piece of lifesaving equipment. I was ________ the drone when the alarm was raised. I directed it towards the swimmers and dropped the ________. With its support they made their way to safety. They were ________, but not hurt. The teens were saved in just 70 seconds with the drone—while a lifeguard would have taken up to six minutes to ________ the rescue.”

John Barilaro, an official of the state,________ the rescue as historic. “It was the world's ________ rescue by the unmanned airplane,” he said. “Never before has a drone been used to ________ swimmers like this.”

Last December, the NSW state government ________ some “Little Ripper” drones for 247, 000 pounds.________ some are designed to spot sharks, others are ________ with lifeboats, alarms and loudspeakers. “It was money well spent,” said John Barilaro.

3 . Nicholas Rilling is a bright-eyed, active 5-year-old boy, normal in every way. What is _________ is that he’s that way today after three days’ _________ that happened because of his being underwater without _________ for some 8 minutes.

It was Oct, 17. The Maryland family were enjoying a vacation at a beach resort (旅游胜地) in Puerto Rico. The shallow (浅的) water suggested no _________. But after a while when Kent Rilling _________, he couldn’t find his son Nick!

The sunlight dancing on the water made it difficult for Kent to see where his son was. After an anxious and hurried _________ up and down, he suddenly found his son _________ face-up on the bottom, his eyes open, his body _________.

“He just looked gray and his _________ black,” Kent said. “We picked him up, ran him up to the __________ and just started CPR (心肺复苏) at once.”

For three days in hospital, Nick __________ unconscious (无意识的), his breathing assisted by a breathing machine. The whole time, from the beginning when her husband brought Nick to the beach to give first aid (急救) as a crowd of other __________ gathered around, Cynthia Rilling kept taking pictures and videos of what was going on.

“__________ as I was, I knew in my heart he was going to __________. There was no way God was going to take our son from us. And I just said, ‘I am going to take pictures so he can see the __________ he went through when he grows older.’”

The family kept praying at his bedside, talking to him, hoping for a __________. Finally, on the fourth day, when his parents asked him what __________ he liked, “Sponge Bob Square Pants,” he answered.

After five days, Nick was well enough to __________ hospital, showing no ill effects from his __________ experience. The doctors and nurses organized a “__________ party” for him, and Nick was happy to watch his Sponge Bob Square Pants on TV.

4 . "The firefighters of Paris told me they are very hopeful about saving the northern tower, " French Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Twitter late Monday, adding that the firefighting efforts would continue for hours.

The Notre Dame Cathedral(巴黎圣母院)， one of the most famous landmarks in the French capital， was engulfed in flames Monday evening as a catastrophic fire tore through the historic structure， collapsing its spire as fire officials raced to save the monument from total destruction.

Video and photos posted on social media showed flames engulfing the cathedral, thus both the ceiling and the 90-meter spire came crashing down. The fire spread to one of the cathedral's towers, but French officials said late Monday that firefighters were optimistic they could save both towers.

French President Emmanuel Macron said a national fundraising campaign would be launched on Tuesday and called on the world's "greatest talents" to assist in the effort. "We will rebuild, Macron told reporters. "We will rebuild Notre Dame because this is what the French expect, because this is what our history deserves.

Officials said there were no deaths in the fire. Jean-Claude Gallet, chief of the Parisian fire department, said one firefighter was injured while responding to the flame. Two-thirds of the cathedral's roof was destroyed,   Gal let   said. The fire broke out just before p. m. minutes after the cathedral, which has been partly rebuilt, closed to the public. Around 30 000 people visit the church daily.

Despite its long history and many treasures the Cathedral needed the help of a writer to become truly famous. Victor Hugo's 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, presented the building to a wide audience of readers. The book's ugly lead character, Quasimodo, serves as a symbol for Paris forgotten   Gothic architecture. Hugo wrote the book to remind people of it, with hope they would work to protect the beautiful old buildings of Paris. The loss of cultural relics will never come again if they are lost only once.   This is a painful loss of world civilization.

5 . The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, near Florida in the USA, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared mysteriously.

①The earliest suggestion of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in a September 17, 1950 article. Two years later, published “Sea Mystery at Our Back Door”, covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19. Flight 19 alone would be covered again in the April 1962 issue of American Legion magazine. In it, author Allan W. Eckert wrote that the flight leader had been heard saying, “We are entering white water. Nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are.” In the February 1964, the article “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” argued that Flight 19 and other disappearances were just part of strange events in the area.

②Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural ideas to explain the events. One explanation refers to leftover technology from the mysterious lost continent of Atlantis. Some of the Triangle writers related the events to UFOs. This idea was used by Steven Spielberg for his science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which the lost Flight 19 aircrews were taken by aliens.

③But there are also some explanation relating to nature. For example, laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles containing natural gas can sink a large ship by decreasing the density(密度) of the water. Because it has been assumed that the eruption of volcanoes(火山)may produce much natural gas, making large areas of bubbles under sea so that water is no longer able to provide enough supporting power for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without any warning.

④Violent weather is likely to be another reason. Powerful storms forming in tropical(热带的)waters have caused thousands of deaths and caused billions of dollars in damage. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.

6 . Last summer my daughter’s school was blown up. No students were harmed, but the main building was completely destroyed, as well as the nearby dorms.

Before you start trying to ask when this horrible act took place on U. S. soil, I should mention that this attack didn’t happen in reality, rather in my daughter’s carefully constructed Minecraft world. During an online journey with a few friends, a stranger came to her school and bombed the school she had carefully built. In a minute, her school was ruined. Sure, no actual property(财产)was damaged. But the emotional pain she felt was very much real. She thought this was a form of terrorism.

I shared this act of absurd online violence on my Facebook page, and fellow parents with Minecraft-loving children were just as shocked as I was. I had thought this was a unique experience, and my daughter was just unlucky that this happened to her. But, as it turned out, she was far from alone. The acts were performed by computer bullies(暴徒) known as “griefers”. The platform that my daughter was playing was the Minecraft: Pocket Edition(PE)version, which is popular with younger players. While she once only played in creative mode(模式), she began to play in the multi-player mode so that she and a few friends from school could build and create together. That multi-player choice made it possible for a stranger, one of these “griefers”, to do damage.

It was a painful lesson for my daughter that dangers happened suddenly. She understood we have to protect ourselves from bad people in the real world. Still, there was some goodness that came out of the ruins. Many fellow players of hers took the time to help her rebuild her school, which has been set up again. She is moved. Also, this experience opened her eyes.