The room in the workhouse where the boys were fed was a large stone hall. At one end the master, in his cook’s uniform, and two women served the food. This _________ a bowl of thin soup three times a day, with a piece of bread on Sundays. The boys ate _________ and were always hungry. The bowls never needed _________. The boys polished them with their spoons until they _________. After three months of this slow starvation, one of the boys told the others that so hungry was he _________ one night he might eat the _________ sleeping next to him. He had a wild _________ eye, and the other boys _________ him. After a long _________, they decided that one of them should ask for more food after supper that evening, and Oliver was __________.

The evening arrived: the soup was served, and the bowls were __________ again in a few seconds. Oliver went up to the master, with his bowl in his hand. He felt very __________, but also __________ with hunger.

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale. He looked at the little boy in front of him with __________. Nobody else spoke.

“What?” he asked at last, in a   __________ voice.

“Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “I want some more.”

The master __________ him with the serving spoon, then seized Oliver’s arms and __________ for the beadle (执事). The beadle came quickly, heard the terrible news, and immediately ran to tell the board.

“He asked for me?” Mr. Limbkins, the fattest board member, asked in __________. “Is this really true?”

________, Oliver was led away to be locked up, and a(n) __________ of five pounds was offered to anybody who would take him away and use him for work.

(Adapted from Oliver Twist《雾都孤儿》)

I am excited to be teaching in an introductory history seminar (研讨班) on the world of Thomas Jefferson. It affords a(n) ________ chance to help show students why history is a way of thinking, seeing, and understanding.

I love seeing students try to make ________ of somebody from the 18th century, whether it is Jefferson or somebody whose life was closely ________ with his own. Often, students at first are confident that they ________ an 18th-century person, and that such an individual was inspired by the same things that ________ them today. But then, when I ________ certain things this historical figure said or did, students are often amazed at how ________ the person in fact is, and how unusual the individual’s assumptions, beliefs, and desires are ________ to their own!

With more ________, they begin to see how the peculiar (奇怪的) can appear ________, how the strange can, in fact, seem so appropriate. At the beginning students ________ to force their own beliefs and assumptions on the past, while now they begin to see the past according to its own ________. I am always happy witnessing that transformation in vision, in seeing ________ come to life for students. Such a transformation not only certainly ________ the 18th century and allows students to better understand history, but it also helps them master a(n) ________ that they can use for the rest of their lives.