Once there lived a rich man  （ 1 ） wanted to do something for the people of his town.  （ 2） first he wanted to find out whether they deserved his help.

    In the centre of the main road into the town, he placed   （ 3）  very large stone. Then he （4 ）  (hide ) behind a tree and waited. Soon an old man came along with his cow.

    “Who put this stone in the centre of the road?” said the old man, but he did not try to remove the stone. Instead, with some difficulty he passed around the stone and continued on his way.   （ 5）   man came along and did the same thing; then another came, and another. All of them complained about the stone but not tried to remove （ 6）. Late in the afternoon a young man came along. He saw the stone,  （ 7 ） (say) to himself: “The night  （8 ） (be) very dark. Some neighbors will come along later in the dark and will fall against the stone.”                 

Then he began to move the stone. He pushed and pulled with all his  （ 9 ）  (strong) to move it. How great was his surprise at last!  （ 10 ）  the stone, he found a bag of money.

I am Mary, a volunteer stem courier.  1   March 2012, Iˈve done 89 trips——of those, 51 have been abroad. I have 42 hours to carry stem cells（干细胞）in my little box because Iˈve got two ice packs and thatˈs how long they last. In all,   2   the time the stem cells are harvested from a donor(捐献者) to the time they   3   be implanted in the patient, we’ve got 72 hours at most. So I am always conscious of time.

I had one trip last year   4   I was caught by a hurricane in America. I picked up the stem cells in New York, and   5   (mean) fly to Washington then back to London. But when I arrived at the check-in desk at Providence, the lady on the desk said: “Well, I’m really sorry, I’ve got some bad news for you——there are no flights from Washington.” So I took my box and put it on the desk and I said: “In this box are some stem cells that are   6   (urgent) needed for a patient——please, please, you’ve got to get me back to   7   United Kingdom.” She just dropped everything. She arranged for a   8   (fly) on a small plane   9   (hold) for me, re-routed(改道)me through Newark and got me back to the UK even earlier than originally scheduled.

For this courier, you’re consciously aware that in that box you’ve got something   10   is potentially going to save somebody’s life.

Have you ever gone   (1)   (travel) abroad?   (2)   (actual), it is interesting to visit another country,   (3)  can broaden our mind and make us have an unforgettable experience, but sometimes there   (4)   (be) some problems when we don’t know the language very well. It may be   (5)   (difficulty) to talk with the people there. We may not know how to use the telephone in the country which we are   (6)   (visit). We may not know how to buy the things we need. In a strange country we may not know where to eat   (7)   what to order in a restaurant. It is not easy   (8)   (decide) how much money to tip waiters or taxi drivers. When we are helpless, we may not know how to ask   (9)   help. After a short time, however, we learn what to do and what to say. We learn to enjoy   (10)   (live) in another country, and then we may be sorry to leave both the place and the people. It’s a pity, isn’t it?

Philip is sometimes not welcomed by other third graders. He was tricked sometimes, not because he was older,   (1)   because he was “different”. Philip,   (2)   suffered from Downs Syndrome（唐氏综合症）, was “different”, with his strange   (3)  ​  face) characteristics, slow responses and mental problems.   (4)   a beautiful spring morning, the children were to go out and discover   (5)   symbol of “new life” for themselves, which they would place inside plastic eggs.

After the children returned to the classroom, the teacher opened their eggs one by one,   (6)   (encourage) each child to explain the meaning of “new life” in his or her egg. The first opened egg contained a flower. In another was a butterfly.   (7)   the teacher opened the last egg, it was empty. “That’s stupid. Whose is it?” said someone. The teacher felt a pull at his shirt. It was Philip. Looking up, Philip said, “It’s   (8)   I did it. It’s empty. I have new life, because the tomb（坟墓）is empty.” At that time, not a sound   (9)   (hear) in class at all. From that day on, Philip became a real part of the group. They forgot his disease and welcomed him, and   (10)   made him “different” was never mentioned again.

During my stay in Africa, I went to a local supermarket and there was a young boy in one of the passages. He was around ten years old and in clothes __  (1)  didn’t fit him well. He had no shoes on and stood there   (2)  (stare) at the candy section. I walked down the next passage and back to where he was standing. There  (3)  (seem) to be nobody with him. He pulled my sleeve

  (4)   (attract) my attention and said, “Excuse me. Do you know what I can buy  (5)   this?” He held out __  (6)   20-cent piece. I knew he couldn’t really buy anything much. However, even though the boy looked so sad, he also looked   (7)  (hope). So, I said, “Hold out your hand and let’s see what happens.” He held out his hand and then I put enough money in   (8)  for him to buy the candy. I smiled at him and walked off. All I could hear was him saying ,“Thank you, lady! I’m so happy!”I didn’t know   (9)  he bought and I didn’t care. The  (10)  (excite) in his voice made my day!

Crying marriage？    (1)  （surprise）,isn’t it？ Factually, the custom of crying marriage existed a long time ago in many areas of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province,and      (2)   （remain） in fashion     (3)   the end of the Qing Dynasty. Though not so popular as before, the custom is still observed by people in many places, especially Tujia people, who view it as a     (4)   （ necessary） to marriage procedure.

It is very much    (5)   same in different places of the province. According to elderly people, every bride had to cry at the wedding      (6)   , the bride’s neighbors would look down upon       (7)   as a poorly cultivated girl and she would become the laughingstock of the village. In fact, there were cases      (8)   which the bride was beaten by her mother for not crying at the wedding ceremony.

In a word, crying at the wedding is a     (9)    by custom to set off the happiness of the wedding through falsely sorrowful words. However, in the     (10)  ​ （arrange）marriages of the old days of China, there were indeed quite a lot of brides who cried over their unsatisfactory marriage and even their miserable life.