A man was employed to paint a boat. He brought paint and 1 and began to paint the boat as the owner wanted. While painting, he 2 there was a hole in the body of the boat and decided to repair it. When he finished painting, he received his 3 and left.

The next day, the owner of the boat visited the painter and 4 him a cheque (支票),much higher than what he was paid for the painting work. The painter was 5.

"You've already paid me for painting the boat, sir!" he said.

"This is not for the paint job. It's for repairing the 6 in the boat. "

"Ah! But it was such a small service," the man said. " Certainly it's not worth paying me so much money for something so 7!"

"My dear friend," the owner said, " you don't understand. Let me tell you 8 happened. When I asked you to paint the boat, I 9 to mention the hole. When the boat dried, my kids took it and 10 a fishing trip. They did not know that there was a hole there. I was not at home at the time. So when I 11 and noticed they had taken the boat, I was hopeless. Imagine my relief and 12 when I saw them returning safely from fishing. "

"Then, I examined the boat and found that you had repaired the hole! You now see what you did? You 13 the life of my children!"

Each of us has a moral duty to offer help, wipe tears, listen carefully and repair all the " holes" we 14 in our life journey, because a small act will make a big 15 in the future.

Bobby, a poor guy was famous for his tries to climb the big snowy mountain. He had tried at least 30 times, but had always 1. Every time, he began the climbing at a good pace. But as he went on, he would look down at his painful 2 more often. Finally when the clouds had gathered round him, he understood that he wouldn't be able to enjoy the view from the top.

Last month, he went up the 3 with Peeper, who gave him a pair of special sunglasses. "If it starts clouding over, put these 4 on, or if your feet start hurting, put them on too. These are special glasses; they will help you. "Bobby 5 the gift without thinking much, but when his feet started 6 again, he remembered what Peeper had said and he put on the glasses. The pain was pretty bad, but with those new sunglasses he could still manage to continue. This time the 7 were so light that he could still see the top through them. And so Bobby kept climbing, leaving the clouds behind, forgetting his 8, and finally arriving at the top. It was certainly worth it.

Peeper had drawn a light 9 on the lenses (镜片), in the form of the snow-covered mountain top. It was made in such a way that you could only 10 it if you looked upwards. Peeper had understood that whenever Bobby lost sight of his 11, he would similarly lose sight of his dream, and his 12 to continue would weaken.

Bobby realized that the only difficulty of reaching the top had been his own 13. When he could no longer see the top of the mountain, the problems 14. He thanked Peeper for using that little 15 to help him see that his aims were not impossible, and that they were still there, where they had always been.

It was late, about 10: 15 p. m., when Janice Esposito arrived at the Bellport train station; she jumped into her Honda Odyssey and began the 20-minute drive home to her husband and seven-year-old son. She'd just returned from visiting her mother and had traveled the route many times before. She practically1on autopilot: a left onto Station Road, then a left on Montauk Highway, and then— wham! Out of nowhere a car T-boned Esposito's minivan,2her to move backward some 100 feet onto the railroad tracks. She3in the minivan, bruised (撞伤) but mostly just knocked out by the4and the airbags.

As it happened, Pete DiPinto was getting ready for5. He'd just closed his book and was getting under the covers when he heard the sound of metal on metal and breaking glass coming from not far outside his bedroom window. A volunteer6and retired teacher, DiPinto, 64, never7to think. He grabbed a flashlight and, still dressed in his pajamas (睡衣), ran out the door. "Any firefighter would have done what I did," he told Nevosday. "We're always on duty."

The first car he came upon, 2,000 feet from his front yard, was the one that had8Esposito. Once DiPinto concluded the driver was OK, he looked around and9Esposito's minivan positioned on the railroad tracks. And then he heard a terrible sound: the bells signaling an oncoming train.

"The gates were starting to come down," he told Nezvsday. "I see the headlight of the train." DiPinto ran quickly to Esposito's minivan and knocked on the driver's side window. She10looked at him, her eyes unfocused. "I don't know where I am," she said. She seemed unhurt. "Honey, you're on the railroad11," DiPinto shouted. "We have to get you off right now!" He pulled hard on the handle, but the door was crashed in and12. The heavy diesel train, traveling at 65 miles per hour, was moving fast toward them. DiPinto ran to the passenger side and threw open the door. "Please, don't let her be13," he thought. He pushed aside the deflating (瘪了的) airbags, grabbed Esposito's arms, and pulled her toward him across the passenger seat until he could help her out and quickly get her to14behind a signal box a few feet away. Within six seconds, he estimated, the train crashed into the minivan. "It was like a Hollywood movie" DiPinto told reporters the next day.

But this one had a twist. "Last night," South Country Ambulance chief Greg Miglino told CBS New York, "the15arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck."

Star Athlete

My name is Edward, and at one time I was the star athlete at my school for four consecutive (连续的) years. Soccer was my life for as 1as I could remember. For at  2six times a week, you could find me at the fields training. Within those past four years, I had3sixty goals for my team. I even starred in our local newspaper.

Most athletes asked me how I did it. How I 4to go out once or twice a day to train. Most athletes would be5out, but not me. I asked them how they just naturally breathed. Football had been my life ever since I was five years old. Having two parents that played the game6me to become the best athlete I could ever be. My whole family played; not7was like not eating at my grandma's house, not acceptable. When I was three, my parents taught me how to kick the ball, and that was when I8fell in love with the game.

But that was past. When I was working up to the state championship, I got injured and the trainer told me I could never play again. I cried and my 9was torn into pieces. Later, I10myself back up and went to Vanderbilt University on an academic scholarship. I might not be a super star, but I11to let my life slip out of my hands. Now, I'm on my way to becoming a doctor to help12like me. Sometimes I wonder who I would be without my injury, but then I realize I would not have had this opportunity. Things change13, and you have to learn to 14it. Stop living in the past and live in the future. Everyone has a story, but you have to make your own ending. It's up to you to persevere and fight for yourself. Be your own 15.

Scientists in Norway have some good news for coffee drinkers. Researchers have already found evidence that the drink or the beans can help with weight loss, 1 one's risk of developing some diseases, promote muscle growth, protect against certain types of cancers and can even reduce one's risk of premature(早于预期的) death, among many other 2. Now it is said that a cup of 3 reduces physical pain.

The surprising finding is 4 a study involving 48 volunteers who agreed to spend 90 minutes performing computer tasks meant to finish office work. The tasks were known to 5 pain in the shoulders, neck, forearms and wrists. The researchers wanted to 6 how people with pain and those who were pain-free tolerated(忍受) the pain of such tasks. "As a matter of convenience, the scientists allowed people to drink coffee before taking the test to avoid 7 effects of caffeine lack, e. g. decreased vigor, sleepiness, and exhaustion, " they reported.

When it came time to analyze the data, the researchers from Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health and Oslo University Hospital noticed that the 19 people who drank coffee reported a 8 intensity(强度) of pain than the 29 people who didn't. In the shoulders and neck, 9, the average pain was rated 41 (on a 100-point scale) among the coffee drinkers and 55 for the non-coffee drinkers. Similar gaps were found for all pain sites measured, and coffee's obvious pain-reduction effect 10.

However, the authors of the study, which was published this week in the journal, BMC Research Notes, warn that the results of the study come with many 11. For starters, the researchers don't know how much coffee the coffee drinkers consumed(消耗) before taking the computer tests. 12, they doubt whether the coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers were 13 in all aspects except for their coffee consumption. Problems like these tend to 14 the importance of the findings. But those doubts are 15 to trouble the coffee drinkers looking for any reason not to cut back on their daily caffeine habit.

For the country that invented railways, Britain has shown remarkably little interest in them lately. New networks have been built around Europe in the past few decades, but the only significant stretch of1 laid in Britain in a century is the 67-mile HS1 railway that links London to the Channel Tunnel. 2 , the country has half as much track as it had in 1963. Yet while Britain has an almost American3 to invest in railways, its commuting patterns are European; 10% of journeys are by rail, compared with 9% in Germany and less than 1% in America. 

Britain's big4  is that, because it has built no new high-speed lines, it runs fast intercity trains on the same track as slow commuter ones. Long5 have to be left between slow and express trains. The need to make way for high-speed trains thus6 the number of commuter services, and vice versa. 

Eight years ago, the government decided to change this by building a new 345-mile railway from London to the north of England. Though branded as High Speed 2, its principal job was to boost capacity rather than7 .

Rail is an increasingly significant part of the transport mix. Climate change is making carbon-efficiency even more important. At the same time, passenger numbers have gone beyond8 . The government had expected passenger volumes to increase by 17%- 21% in the decade from 2011; actually, they were up by 24% within just seven years and are expected to go on9 at a similar rate. 

The benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) calculated for HS2, at around one, is hardly acknowledged. But just as the costs of big transport projects are often 10 , so are their long-term benefits. The extension to London's Jubilee tube line, 11 , was approved with a BCR of less than one, but recent analysis suggests that it has been more like 1.75. And that includes only the profits that go directly to the railway, not the12  consequences of the recovery of London's Docklands area, which the tube line made possible. 

The main point of HS2, similarly, is its impact on the cities and towns along its13 and beyond. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, is on a mission to boost growth in northern and western areas14 by the country's London-centred pattern of growth. On its own HS2 won't make that happen, but doing so without a new railway would be15 . The success of the "Northern Powerhouse" rail scheme, to link the north's big towns, depends on it. 

Teachers first noticed Cameron Thompson's talent for numbers when he was four years old. Throughout primary school, Cameron Thompson's best subject was maths. Then, when he was eleven, he took a maths test before entering secondary school. The test was out of 140; Cameron scored 141. "I broke the system," he1 .

Since then, he has continued to2 quickly. He passed two GCSEs (maths and further maths) at the age of eleven and then got the highest grade in his maths A-level before the end of that same academic year. He is now fourteen years old and studying for a degree in maths, an unbelievable achievement if we bear in mind his3  

But his academic achievements have not always been4  by social success. "I have the social ability of a talking potato," he admits. In other words, he feels more at ease with numbers than among other teenagers. 

5 is not one of Cameron's strong points and, aside from the problems this causes socially, it is now beginning to6  his marks in mathematics. This is because, at undergraduate level, he is expected to give reasons for his answers alongside the answers themselves. Cameron's7 is that he often doesn't know how he has arrived at the answers, even though the answers are usually correct. 

Cameron and his family have recently moved house and Cameron is due to start at a new school. He regards it as a chance to make a fresh start and make some friends. The new school specialises in dealing with students who, like Cameron, excel8 but find it difficult to relate to other students. And 9 , on his first day, Cameron did make a new friend—a boy called Tim一mainly owing to a shared dislike of Justin Bieber's music. 

Recently, a maths professor from Cambridge University has been looking at Cameron's work. His advice to Cameron is perhaps 10 . Professor Imre Leader thinks Cameron should11 , stop taking maths exams, and wait until he is eighteen before doing a degree. "There's quite an important12 , " he explains, "between taking lots of exams as fast as you can, and relaxing and enjoying the level that you are at—what we call enrichment. "Professor Leader believes Cameron will do better13 if he stops trying to progress so quickly. And although Cameron does want to finish his current degree, he isn't making any academic plans beyond that. He goes to a weekly karate class after class. And recently, he went to a computer games convention with some friends from karate. 

Thanks to the new school, he feels less14 and unusual than he did before. "There are other people like me—high maths abilities, bad school lives—I am not 15 . "

In April, the lockdown in Morris Township was coming to an end. Matthew Sullivan watched his1neighbors looking out their windows. Returning to the workplace, they would have little time to2their lawn(草坪).

Sullivan, an energetic 14-year-old, saw the3of lawn care. Thus, he had an brilliant idea in his mind. To meet the4, Sullivan started his own business, and named it Leaf-It-To-Us, in which he5a group of able-bodied 13- and 14-year-olds to do lawn work involving weeding, leaf-blowing, planting and fence-painting.

Last Saturday, Sullivan and his partners6the local charity Help Morris NOW a $1,000 check that they had earned. "What the Leaf-It-To-Us kids had done 7me," Nestor Bedoya, the founder of Help Morris NOW, said. "When they came up to me and said ‘we are presenting you with this8', I couldn't have 9those kids at their age, doing what they're doing, with the purpose of helping others. "

Though the company had10given its earnings to St. Jude Children 's Research Hospital, this season it11its causes. "Now we've gone12, so we're helping out people in our community,"Sullivan said.

Sullivan13that they have made more than $5,000 in total since this April. Last year, they completed around two to three jobs a week. This year, they've14to two jobs a day.

They plan to keep the lawn care business running so that they can maintain their15giving.

I work as a waiter at a restaurant. Last night an elderly and seemingly 1 couple came into the restaurant and my co­workers eated them. We usually 2 our own tables. At one point the elderly couple signaled to me that they were ready to3. I was super busy so I found myself a bit 4, but out of politeness I went to them and 5 their order.

The6began ordering and started stammering (口吃)to an extent I'd never heard before. It was very 7 that he had a speech disorder. I could 8 the wife had told her husband a great range of things that she wanted, as a way for him to 9 ordering. It took a while for him to order, and in the meantime, she looked so proud and content 10 her husband's severe stammering.

Honestly the whole thing just brought me to 11. It was touching and just made merealize that a huge part of 12 is acceptance, tolerance and support. She could have made the order and made things a lot 13 for her husband and 14 the stares from other tables, but she didn't. 15 she supported him and was proud to see him complete the order. I 16 took their gesture of wanting to order as being rude, but I think they 17 it because he really wanted to get the order right.

This whole thing also reminded me that life is 18 for all of us. I assumed this wealthy couple had everything going for them, but it just 19 me that all of us have our problems. Anyway, as long as we hold a positive attitude towards life, things will 20well.

As an athlete, I've always worked hard to push myself to my limits. And with that usually come some1 and pains. So last year when I started to feel some muscle soreness （酸痛）after a 2physical exercise, at first I didn't think it was a big deal. I was 3for a marathon at the time, so over the weekend I'd done a 20-kilometer4. The following Tuesday I hit my favorite gym to do a work out that 5 alot of upper body weight lifting. My6 told me to take it easy on my body, but I 7 I'd be fine and powered through it. Afterward, my coach noticed a 8swelling in my arm and said he was worried. I tried to brush him off but he 9 I drink a lot of water and check in with him in a few hours. Sure enough, by that afternoon the swelling had10 and I headed to the doctor. I still thought he was making a mountain out of a molehill, but I 11 my coach so I did it.

The doctor took a close look at the swelling and diagnosed me with rhabdomyolysis （横纹肌溶解症）, a 12 condition where muscle over use causes kidney failure. As they gave me some medicine to help 13 the toxins （毒素）, my doctor told me that we would have been having this discussion in the emergency room if I'd 14 even another 30 minutes. Things were touch-and-go over the weekend but I made a full 15. Thankfully I had a great coach I could trust—he saved my life!