A young woman got a beautiful flower garden from her grandmother. She loved and took good care of her flowers. Her flower garden was second to none (首屈一指).

One day ________ woman looked through a flower catalogue (商品目录), and a picture of a plant caught her eyes. The plant had the ________ blooms (花) and there was no such plant in her garden. She was very excited and ordered it right away.

________ the plant arrived, she planted it next to a wall at the back of her yard. It grew well, ________ beautiful green leaves all over it. She felt hopeful that the plant ________ bloom soon. Day after day she continued ________ it, feed it, and even talked to it to make it bloom. But, it was useless.

One morning weeks later, as she ________ before the plant, she felt disappointed when she saw it still didn’t bloom. She thought about ________ it down.

Just then, her neighbor called over to her. “Thank you so much! I enjoy the blooms of that plant you planted.” The young woman walked into her ________ yard, and surprisingly, she saw that on ________ side of the wall, “What an excellent blossom there is!”

Sometimes one may not see the good result of his work, but that does not mean it bears no fruit.

There was once a wise old lady who lived on a hill. All the children used to go and ask her questions. She always gave them perfect answers.

There _______ a little boy among the children. One day he caught a little bird and held it in his hands without _______ seeing it. Suddenly he had an idea and asked his friends to go _______ him.

“ Let’s _______ a trick on the old lady,” he said. “I’ll ask her what I'm holding in my hands. Of course, she’ll answer that I have a bird. Then I’ll ask her _______ the bird is alive or dead. If she _______ the bird is dead, then I’ll open my hands and let the bird fly away. If she says the bird is alive, I’ll quickly shake it and show her the _______ bird. Either way, she’ll be wrong.”

“Granny, we have a question for you,” they all shouted.

“What’s in my hands?” the little boy asked.

“Why, of course it _______ be a bird,” the old lady replied.

“But is it alive or dead?” the boy asked excitedly.

All the boys waited for her answer and got ready to laugh at her.

The old lady thought for ________ moment and then replied, “It’s up to you, my child. If you’re kind enough, it’ll be alive.”

A long time ago, there ________ a king in India. The king’s favourite game was chess.

One day, a wise old man came to the palace and the king challenged him ________ a game. The king promised the old man, “You ________ have any prize if you win the game.”

The old man said he just wanted one grain of rice for the first square of the chessboard, two for the second and then double the amount for each of the rest of the squares.

The king and the old man played the game. Finally, the old man won. ________ the king ordered his men to collect a bag of rice. The king ________ realized the problem even with all the rice in the country, he would still not have enough rice to put on all the squares!