The first couple of weeks in my writing classes are always a bit unsettling. I’m unfamiliar_______ the students, most of them trying to_______ themselves to their new environment. When Jennifer _______ me with a question on the second day, I was_______ for the chance to connect at least one name with a face.

Her writing wasn’t perfect, _______her effort was. She worked hard and pushed herself to achieve. She was excited to _______, which made me enjoy teaching her. I didn’t _______ then how much she would also teach me.

One Friday afternoon, Jennifer_______ after class. She wasn’t clarifying an assignment or asking a question about a paper I’d returned. _______, she said quietly: “I didn’t attend classes yesterday. I was at the health center the whole day.” I gave her a sideways look, __________“It was just a virus. I’m fine now,” she __________ me. Then she was gone.

Two nights later, her father called to tell me that Jennifer would be__________ a few classes. She had been hospitalized with meningitis (脑膜炎). I__________ him again a few days later, and again after that. Her condition grew worse. We made trips to the hospital room. I was __________ terrified when I saw the pale, thin and weak girl who, only ten days earlier, had displayed life and __________ in my classroom.

A week later, Jennifer herself called me to tell me she was on the road to __________“I’ll be back,” she insisted. “I have no __________,” I told her, fighting back tears. I remembered what her father had said in his first phone call: “School____________ everything to Jenny.”

Then five weeks later, I walked into my classroom to find Jenny in her seat, smiling. I caught my breath as her rail-thin body approached my desk, and she ____________ all of her missed assignments, completed with thought and excellence. The __________ of her will to overcome shone out of her pale, weak, eighteen-year-old face.

When Alexa couldn’t crawl, stand or walk as a baby, her mother sensed that something was wrong. _______, doctors told her not to worry— perhaps Alexa was just a “lazy baby”. After seeing a specialist, though, Alexa was diagnosed with a rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which affects the central nervous system and the _______ in the body.

Throughout Alexa’s childhood and adolescence, there were no _______ medicines to treat SMA. Her muscles continued to weaken over time. But Alexa was outgoing and loved to exercise her _______ through pretend play and performing. This adventurous spirit led her to work as a child _______, appearing in movies, television shows and commercials.

With hard work, determination and courage—not to _______ plenty of support from her loved ones — Alexa graduated from high school, and attended a law school. While in law school, her symptoms became especially _______. She noticed that it was becoming more difficult to _______ her hands and move her fingers. Around that same time, she _______ an experimental drug for SMA that was in clinical trials. She started ________ to learn as much as she could about this possible medicine and what it might do for her. Finally she received the first-ever approved treatment to ________ the progression of her disease.

Now, Alexa works as an entertainment lawyer for a Hollywood production company. Although Alexa doesn’t let her SMA define her, it has certainly ________ who she is today: optimistic, courageous and ________. The limitations SMA places on her have been a (n)   ________, but they’ve also ________ as a motivator, leading Alexa to get as much out of life as she can.

It’s common knowledge at this point that the more education you have, the more money you’ll make. But according to a new research released on Thursday, there are also a lot of________.

Back in high school, Isis Harris never ________ herself working as an electrician — everyone around her was just so ________ on college.

“College was the big thing in high school,”________ Harris,“The friends that I had there were going to college ... that’s what the big excitement was around.”

After taking some college classes and holding lots of different jobs — Harris ________a course designed to let her________ different jobs in the construction industry. One of the activities ________ wiring a lightbulb(灯泡).

“Wiring that lightbulb, I did it________and the light came on and I was like, ‘This is it!’The light came on for me. That was the ________ for me.”

Now she’s just a few months away from becoming a licensed journeyman electrician in Portland, Ore. She spends her days ________on a new construction site, and her hourly________adds up to about $80,000 for full-time work per year.

Harris says she wishes she had found this path sooner. Back in high school, “nobody ever talked about becoming a blue-collar worker,”she says.“I think there was always a(n)________about this kind of job. However, it definitely provides the same type of lifestyle that a bachelor could.”

One thing that could help ________ that misconception(误解), according to the report authors, would be for schools to employ more career consultants（顾问）to ________ students through the complex web of post-high school options.

That’s how Isis Harris, in Portland, got her training to become an electrician, a career, she says, that helps her feel ________both physically and mentally.