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Having lived in the house for so long, we found our kitchen looked old. We decided it was time to   1   the kitchen, and my husband and I were discussing   2   colors. The children, sitting nearby, suddenly all spoke together: “Not the measuring stick.”
“No,” I   3   them. “Not the measuring stick..”
The measuring stick isn’t a (an)   4   stick but the kitchen side of the door between our kitchen and dining room. Along the edge we’ve   5    each child’s growth by making a mark showing his or her   6   on every birthday. Over the years so many colored pens, pencils and markers have been used, that now, this white door is somewhat like an abstract painting.
Names and dates show different    7  , and I can tell by the script(手跡) who measured whom. An eight-year-old measured her three-year-old sister, a grandchild measured her grandmother, my husband measured me. At the parties, when this door   8   back and forth frequently, friends stop to   9   the names and dates. When we ask if they would like to be always remembered, they usually smile   10   and go back right up into place,   11   to be measured.
Many of those listed on the door are still  12  ; some have stopped. Some remain with us only in   13 . When my mother came to see my eldest daughter graduate from university, we measured her too. It was her last visit to our home.
We haven’t  14   the new kitchen color plan yet, but one thing is certain: whatever color we choose, the back of the kitchen door will always remain   15  , with lots of names and dates in various colors.

I was feeling a little blue because my mother had been laid off from her job and she had lots of bills to pay. It left me wondering what was going to happen to us now. But it reassured me some when my mother told me she was relieved to be leaving since her boss wasn't the nicest person to be around.
I got off the college shuttle bus and started walking. That's when I heard piano music and singing rising above the noise of the people and the traffic. I walked a little slower so I could find out where it was coming from. Through the crowd I saw a young lady sitting at a piano with a carriage next to her.
She was singing songs about love, keeping on trying, and not underestimating the power within yourself. The way she was singing comforted me a bit. I stood there watching her play for about fifteen minutes, thinking that it must take courage to perform on your own in the middle of a crowded New York ferry terminal. 
So I stood there listening.
She must have felt my presence because she would occasionally look in my direction. By now I was telling myself that if she could perform in front of hundreds of people she didn't know then I could at least tell her how good she sounded. I walked over and put some money in her carriage and she said, "Thank you." Instead of continuing my way home, I said to her, "I have been going through a rough time lately, but you've made me hopeful again."
"I'm happy that I could help," she replied. "Why are you so sad?"
"Well, my mum told me she had got fired from her job, and that made me sad. I'm not so sure what to do ..."
"You see, here's the problem," she explained. "The way you were walking, your head was down. Don't look defeated, because opportunity comes in different ways and if your head is down you might never see it. You should smile more ... lift your head up."
I smiled faintly, amazed by how she was encouraging me. So, I asked her, "Why are you playing the piano in the middle of a crowded place? I've seen you do this more than once."
She explained to me that she sees a lot of negative people in the world and she tries to alleviate the pain and bring more positivity by sharing motivational music. She told me that when she wasn't making music she studied psychology. So, that was how she knew some of the things she was telling me.
I smiled a little wider because I knew that she was doing a good thing. So, after that we parted, my heart touched and lightened by a musical soul!
【小題1】We can learn from Paragraph 3 that the young lady sang to _________.

How I Turned to Be Optimistic
I began to grow up that winter night when my parents and I were returning from my aunt's house, and my mother said that we might soon be leaving for America. We were on the bus then. I was crying, and some people on the bus were turning around to look at me. I remember that I could not bear the thought of never hearing again the radio program for school children to which I listened every morning.
I do not remember myself crying for this reason again. In fact, I think I cried very little when I was saying goodbye to my friends and relatives. When we were leaving I thought about all the places I was going to see-—the strange and magical places I had known only from books and pictures. The country I was leaving never to come back was hardly in my head then.
The four years that followed taught me the importance of optimism, but the idea did not come to me at once. For the first two years in New York I was really lost—having to study in three schools as a result of family moves. I did not quite know what I was or what I should be. Mother remarried, and things became even more complex for me. Some time passed before my stepfather and I got used to each other. I was often sad, and saw no end to "the hard times."
My responsibilities in the family increased a lot since I knew English better than everyone else at home. I wrote letters, filled out forms, translated at interviews with Immigration officers, took my grandparents to the doctor and translated there, and even discussed telephone bills with company representatives.
From my experiences I have learned one important rule: almost all common troubles eventually go away! Something good is certain to happen in the end when you do not give up, and just wait a little! I believe that my life will turn out all right, even though it will not be that easy.
【小題1】How did the author get to know America?

On numerous drives throughout my childhood, my mother would suddenly pull over the car to examine a flower by the side of the road or rescue a beetle (甲蟲) from certain tragedy while I, in my late teens and early twenties, sat impatiently in the car.
Though Mother’s Day follows Earth Day, for me, they have always been related. My mom has been “green” since she became concerned about the environment. Part of this habit was born of thrift (節儉). Like her mother and her grandmother before her, Mom saves glass jars, empty cheese containers and re-uses her plastic bags.
Mom creates a kind of give-and-take relationship with wildlife in her yard. She knows to pick the apples on her trees a little early to fend off the bears and that if she leaves the bird feeders out at night, it’s likely they’ll be knocked down by a family of raccoons (浣熊). Spiders that make their way into the house are captured (捕獲) in a juice glass and set loose in the garden.
I try to teach my children that looking out for the environment starts with being aware of the environment. On busy streets, we look for spent (開敗的) dandelions (蒲公英) to parachute; we say hello to neighborhood cats and pick up plastic cups and paper bags. This teaching comes easily, I realize, because I was taught so well by example. Mom didn’t need to lecture; she didn’t need to beat a drum to change the world. She simply slowed down enough to enjoy living in it and with that joy came compassion and an instinct (本能) for preservation.
I am slowing down and it isn’t because of the weight of my nearly forty years on the planet, it is out of my concern for the planet itself. I’ve begun to save glass jars and re-use packing envelopes. I pause in my daily tasks to watch the squirrels race each other through the palm (棕櫚樹) leaves above my porch (門廊).
Last summer, in the company of my son and daughter, I planted tomatoes in my yard. With the heat of August around me, I ate the first while sitting on my low wall with dirt on my hands. Warm from the sun, it burst on my tongue with a sweetness I immediately wanted to share with my mom.
【小題1】Why does the author say Earth Day is connected with Mother’s Day?

When my grandfather died, my 83-year-old grandmother, once so full of life, slowly began to fade. No longer able to manage a home of her own, she moved in with my mother, where she was visited often by other members of her large, loving family. Although she still had her good days, it was often hard to arouse her interest.
But one chilly December afternoon three years ago, my daughter Meagan, then eight, and I were visiting her, when she noticed that Meagan was carrying her favorite doll.“I, too, had a special doll when I was a little girl,” she told a wide-eyed Meagan. “I got it one Christmas when I was about your age. I lived in an old farmhouse in Maine, with Mom, Dad and my four sisters, and the very first gift I opened that Christmas was the most beautiful doll you’d ever want to see.”
“She had an exquisite(優美的，高雅的), hand-painted face, and her long brown hair was pulled back with a big pink bow. Her eyes were blue, and they opened and closed. I remember she had a body of kidskin, and her arms and legs bent at the joints.”
GG’s voice dropped low, taking on an almost respectful tone. “My doll was dressed in a pretty pink gown, decorated with fine lace. … Getting such a fine doll was like a miracle for a little farm girl like me — my parents must have had to sacrifice so much to afford it But how happy I was that morning!”
GG’s eyes filled and her voice shook with emotion as she recalled that Christmas of long ago. “I played with my doll all morning long. And then it happened. My mother called us to the dining room for Christmas dinner and I laid my new doll down gently on the hall table. But as I went to join the family at the table, I heard a loud crash.”
“I hardly had to turn around — I knew it was my precious doll. And it was. Her lace skirt had hung down from the table just enough for my baby sister to reach up and pull on it. When I ran in, there lay my beautiful doll on the floor, her face smashed into a dozen pieces. She was gone forever.”
A few years later, GG’s baby sister was also gone, she told Meagan, a victim of pneumonia(肺炎). Now the tears in her eyes spilled over — tears, I knew, not only for a lost doll and a lost sister, but for a lost time.
Subdued(沉默的) for the rest of the visit, Meagan was no sooner in the car going home than she exclaimed, “Mom, I have a great idea! Let’s get GG a new doll for Christmas. Then she won’t cry when she thinks about it.”
My heart filled with pride as I listened to my sympathetic little daughter. But where would we find a doll to match GG’s fond memories?
Where there’s a will, as they say, there’s a way. When I told my best friends, Liz and Chris, about my problem, Liz put me in touch with a local doll-make. From a doll supply house I ordered a long brown hair and a kidskin body to copy the outfit GG had so lovingly described. Liz volunteered to put the doll together, and Chris helped me make the doll’s outfit. Meagan wrote the story of the lost doll by giving examples.
Finally our creation was finished. To our eyes it was perfect. But there was no way it could be exactly like the doll GG had loved so much and lost. Would she think it looked anything like it?
On Christmas Eve, Meagan and I carried our happily packed gift to GG, where she sat surrounded by children, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. “It’s for you,” Meagan said, “but first you have to read the story that goes with it.”
GG no sooner got through the first page than her voice cracked and she was unable to go on, but Meagan took over where she left off. Then it was time to open her present.
I’ll never forget the look on GG’s face as she lifted the doll and held it to her chest. Once again her tears fell, but this time they were tears of joy. Holding the doll in her frail arms, she repeated over and over again, “She’s exactly like my old doll, exactly like her.” 
And perhaps she wasn't saying that just to be kind. Perhaps however impossible it seemed, we had managed to produce a close copy of the doll she remembered. But as I watched my eight-year-old daughter and her great-grandmother examining the doll together, I thought of a likelier explanation. What GG really recognized, perhaps, was the love that inspired the gift. And love, wherever it comes from, always looks the same.
【小題1】GG moved in with her daughter because ______.