One day I was taking a bus. The driver didn’t intend to start the bus soon because it was not yet _________. A middle aged woman got on. Tired and sad, she told her story_________, not to anyone particular. On her way to the station, half of her_________   was stolen. The other half was hidden under her blouse, so she_________ still had some left. A few minutes later, she stopped crying, but still looked _________.

When all the seats were taken, the driver started the engine. The conductor began to collect the fares. When she came to an old man in worn-out clothes, he _________ that he had spent all his money as he accidentally got on a wrong bus and now was trying to go home. On hearing this, she ordered the old man to _________ the bus. The old man was almost in tears as he _________her to let him take the bus home. The driver took the conductor's side and repeated the conductor’s _________.

The woman was watching the incident. __________ the driver and the conductor raised their voices at the old man, she broke in, “Stop__________him! Can’t you see he’s only trying to get home?” “He doesn’t have any money!” the driver shouted. “Well, that’s no__________ to throw him off the bus,” she insisted.

Then she reached inside her blouse. Slowly and carefully, she took out her__________money, and handed it to the conductor. “Here’s his fare and mine. Just stop giving him a __________ time.” And she said,

All heads turned to the woman. “It’s only money,” she shrugged.

She rode the rest of her way home __________ a happy smile, with the money she’d lost earlier forgotten.

Single mother Suzanne Vaughan has been working long hours for England’s NHS at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It was her own decision, but a _______ one that forced her to be apart from her_______for nine weeks.

After more than two months working round the _______in the ICU, she finally had the chance to hug her daughters. On Sunday, she _______ appeared from behind the sofa,_______ Bella and Hettie, nine and seven, who had been staying with their aunt.

“It was a really difficult_______ but it was a commitment that needed to be made.” She didn’t know how long it would be _______ she saw them again, and never _______it to be nine weeks.

“But so many others have made the same_______to help people and fight this virus. It was something I needed to do — I started doing this job over 20 years ago because I wanted to help people. ”

“Work came first for nine weeks, but I think now it is time I should ________my girls first.”

Suzanne, normally working 28 hours a week,________ to work over 50 hours a week to help fight against the virus. The single mom phoned her daughters each day and they never let her________without a good morning text.

Bella has nothing but ________ for her mother. “I think the NHS are really great people trying to________the world. She had to be away to save people - she’s a________in my heart.”

In the autumn of 1985, I entered the University of Pittsburgh. When studying there, I found myself starting a class I never ______ I’d be in. My advisor told me that I needed to study a foreign language to ______ graduation requirements. There were not many ______, so I signed up for Chinese.

On the first day of Chinese class, I found myself ______ by about 15 other students. Most were students of East Asian Languages and Literatures. All were ______ how hard the class would be. Some had heard stories that Chinese was one of the world’s most ______ languages, and China was not a country most of us knew much about. None of us had ever been to China or knew any Chinese.

______, it turned out to be the most ______ class in my life. Our Chinese instructors were not only language teachers but also cultural ambassadors (大使).They went out of their way to ensure we had enough chances to ______ the language outside the classroom — not a ______ task in a city like Pittsburgh at a time before anybody had heard of the Internet. Thanks to their ______, I met others at Pittsburgh with an interest in China and East Asian Studies, and ended up becoming ______ in various volunteer projects connected with China at Pittsburgh.

By the time I graduated in 1989, I had several friends living in China, and I had ______ Chinese study. In early 1990, ______ to make further progress on my Chinese based on the Chinese language ______ Pittsburgh had given me, I left for Beijing, China, where two other graduates from Pittsburgh were living. They helped me find a job teaching English.