Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word t fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.Mystery of the White Gardenia (栀子花)
(Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia was delivered to my house. No card or note came with it.)
One month before my high-school graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment, fear and 【小题1】 (overwhelm) anger that my dad was missing some of the most important events in my life. I became completely uninterested 【小题2】my upcoming graduation, the senior-class play and the prom (班级舞会).But my mother, in the midst of her own grief, 【小题3】not hear of my skipping any of those things.
The day before my father died, my mother and I 【小题4】(go) shopping for a prom dress. We’d found a spectacular one, with yards and yards of dotted Swiss in red, white and blue, 【小题5】 made me feel like Scarlett O’ Hara, 【小题6】 it was the wrong size. When my father died, I forgot about the dress.
My mother didn’t. The day before the prom, I found that dress - in the right size - draped majestically over the living-room sofa. It wasn’t just delivered, still in the box. It 【小题7】(present) to me - beautifully, artistically, lovely. I didn’t care if I had a new dress or not. But my mother did.
She wanted her children to feel 【小题8】(love) and lovable, creative and imaginative, filled with a sense 【小题9】 there was magic in the world and beauty even in the face of adversity. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see 【小题10】 much like the gardenia - lovely, strong and perfect - with a feeling of magic and perhaps a hit of mystery.
My mother died ten days after I married. I was 22 years old. That was the year the gardenias stopped coming.
