After their business trip, John and Mary returned, eager to see their lovely children. As they drove into their hometown feeling glad to be back, they noticed ________, and they went off their usual route to see what it was. They found a ________ in flames. Mary said, “Oh, well, it isn’t our fire, let’s go home.”

But John ________ closer and screamed, “That home belongs to Fred Jones who works at the plant. He wouldn’t be ________ work yet, maybe there is something we could do.” “It has nothing to do with us,” Mary ________.

But John drove up and stopped and they were both horror-stricken to see the whole house in ________. A woman on the lawn was screaming, “The children! Get the children!” John ________ her by the shoulder saying, “Get a hold of yourself and tell us where the children are!” “In the ________,” cried the woman. “Down the hall and to the left.”

In spite of Mary’s disagreement, John ________ for the basement which was full of smoke and ________ hot. He found the door and two children. ________ he left he could hear some more sobbing. He ________ the two badly frightened children into ________ arms and started back asking how many more children were down there. They told him ________ more and Mary grasped his arm and screamed, “John! Don’t go back! It’s ________! That house will fall down any second.”

________ he ran into the smoke-filled hallway and at last he found both children. As he climbed up the ________ stairs, the thought went through his mind that there was something strangely ________ about the little bodies next to him, and at last when they came out into the ________ and fresh air, he found that he had just ________ his own children.

The baby-sitter had left them at this home while she did some shopping.

Last summer, my fiance Eugeniu and I decided to drive to Provence for a holiday. The weather was beautiful, but then, about 700km into the journey, it suddenly _______. I’d never seen the sky go so dark; the rain was heavy. We _______ a tunnel and when we came out onto a _______, the visibility was so bad that we could hardly see a meter in front of us.

_______, we had the odd sensation that the car was lifting at the front. The next second, we were _______ into nothing. On the way down, Icould hear rock pieces hitting the car and my heart pounding to my chest. After that, there was _______

Our car ended up landing on a road below the bridge. We were still _______, but I was in shock. I hadn’t _______ what was happening and was still thinking about my holiday. I had no idea the bridge had _______ — thought it might have been an earthquake.

At first we shouted, but then stopped because we didn’t want to lose ________ and pass out. We tried calling an ambulance, but there was no ________ under the rock pieces. My leg was bleeding and I was too tense — because of the ________ I didn’t feel pain. My fiancé had broken his neck. Rescue workers eventually found us while saving a man whose van was ________ from another section of the bridge above us. We’d been down there for four hours by the time we were pulled out.

It was only afterwards in the hospital that I realized the ________ of the tragedy — 43 people had died. Before, we had focused on earning money. When we went on this holiday, I had lovely clothes and shoes in my suitcase, and they were all buried under the ruin. Maybe that was a sign that these things don’t really ________.

Last year, Kristen Yaldor celebrated her thirty-seventh birthday with a travel in Zimbabwe. But an unthinkable _______ happened to her: she was _______ by a hippo (河马). She was left with serious injuries but her journey towards _______ is very encouraging.

Kristen was rowing a boat in a lake when something terrible appeared below her boat—a broad, rocklike back. She was immediately _______ into the air and fell into the water. Kristen _______ to get back to the surface. She was working her way towards the _______ fast, and was pretty close to the lakeside. When an animal clamped (夹住) her right leg, she remained _______ and reached for the animal’s mouth hoping to make it loose. At that time, she still had no idea what the animal was! Then she discovered the _______ came out badly. In the meantime, her husband Ryan tried to _______ her, together with her mom and the others. He shouted loudly and the hippo left. Hippos may not be as ________ as sharks, but they have teeth strong enough to break a boat in half.

Kristen certainly was ________ . After experiencing operations and physical treatment, she stood, and then ________ . Kristen was a woman full of ________ before she got the injury. She used to run about 10 miles every day. Now with her husband, she’s able to take part in a long running race.

Kristen’s story is evidence of one’s power over the body. Although she’s got serious injury, she never lost the ________ to push her limits. We all have the power to achieve what we want like her, though we might face ________ from time to time.