One day, a baby snail(蜗牛) found that he had to carry a big and heavy shell(壳) at any time. He asked his mother, “Why was I born ________ a hard and heavy shell?” His mother said, “Because we don’t have bones(骨头) to hold us up. We can only move slowly, so we need a shell to protect ________.”

The baby snail asked again, “The caterpillar(毛毛虫) has no bones, either, and she can’t move ________. Why can she live without a shell?” The mother snail answered, “That’s because a caterpillar will become a ________. She can fly high into the sky. The sky can protect her.”

The baby snail had one more ________, “the earthworm(蚯蚓) moves like us. He has no bones and he won’t ________ a butterfly. Why doesn’t he carry a shell?” His mother said,“ He can dig a hole and ________ in the ground, and then the earth can protect him.”

The baby snail then cried, “We are so ________! We have no protection from the sky or from the ground!” His mother smiled at him, “That’s why we have a shell. My dear, imagine that ________ we don’t have the shells, what will happen to us? Hot sun will dry out our bodies and we won’t have ________ to sleep. What’s more, we’ll die in the heavy rain. It’s so terrible! We can’t depend on the sky or the ground for protection. We should depend on ourselves.”

We all know that “Practice makes perfect” is a very famous saying both in Chinese and English. It means that if you want to learn ________, you have to practice it many times, and then you may remember ________ you learn. Also we can say the more you know something, ________ you can do it.

We can take English study as a(n) ________. If we want to learn some new words by heart, we must learn them and read them again and again ________ we can remember them. Sometimes it will ________ a lot of time for us to remember. But once we remember, we can use them freely.

We can look at ________ example in learning. When we read the same story for many times, we can remember it ________ well that we can tell it to others. At the same time, we can also ________ some stories from what we have heard.

So in our study and life, we should keep the sentence “Practice makes perfect” in our ________. In this way, we can study well and live a better life.

I told my mom that I wanted to go to Australia with my friends for a week. However, my mom refused me, “you have _________ ever been to other countries, so it was impossible.”

“There is _________ to discuss!” shouted my dad when he knew I wanted to go to such a far place with people of the same age.

They just went on and on about all the possible _________. I knew clearly that they just worried about me. I still tried to make them _________ me that I can look after myself, “If you worry that _________ things will happen to me in the foreign country, I promise you that I will not go out at night.” My parents said nothing. They just looked at me in _________.

Two weeks later, they took me to the airport. On the road they gave me so many _________ of being away from home. I was _________ with what they were saying because I want them to be relaxed. As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I made a video call to my parents to show them the beautiful _________ out of my window.

I think this experience made my parents know that at some time they should _________ us to decide by ourselves.