I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t do good in your last exam. You are not the only one who seems to try your best but ends up in failure in exams. Quite a number of student feel the same way and they tend to lose their confidence but don’t want to study hard any longer. I’m sure you knew that it’s not wise to do so because you might be left far behind.

I was once in the same situation as you. Failure is the mother of success. In the face of failure, which we need to do is to calm down and reflect our learning methods and make some possible changes or to ask the teachers for advice. Anyway, Rome is not built in a day. Only by stick to studying persistently can we make a progress step by step till success. I truly hope I can be of some helpful to you.

Yours ever,

Li Ming

   During the recent school holidays I was walking past a playground on my way to a meeting. The thing that _____ me was not the number of children _____ the fresh air on a pleasant Queensland winter day，but the number of older people _____ those children.

Sure，there were a few younger mums and dads，but there were _____ more“old folk”who I doubt were all grandparents. It is great that they are able to _____ quality time with their grandchildren. After all，we often hear people say that their _____  for retiring（退休）is that they can devote more time to their families. However，I _____ how many grandparents are spending their retirement years taking on the role of full-or part-time _____ of their grandchildren.

Retirement is a(n) _____ time. We are generally living much longer than our own grandparents did, but as we ______ we become more limited in our ability to pursue our own ______. However, what if your plans for pursuing some of these lifetime dreams are ______ out of a sense of ______ for your family?

So how can you keep a ______ balance between helping out your family and ______ your dreams altogether？I'm not sure where the answer lies，but having an open and honest ______ with your family should be at the top of the list. You need to nip any sense of duty in the bud（对……一开始即加以阻止）— and sooner ______ later.

By all means，help your family whenever you can. Everyone will ______ from it，and your grandchildren will get the rewards from staying with their ______. Do it because you want to，not because you feel you have to. ______ spare time for yourself to realize your dreams and ensure that nobody puts your retirement on hold.

   At the very beginning of this school year, I got myself into a regretful situation. It was a Wednesday _____ and I went to see a friend to watch the sunrise before school. It was about 4:30 am and we were _____ outside next to my car. To our _____, someone in a neighbouring house was in his _____ and showed his headlights on us, yelling at us to _____. As we got into my car, he had called the policeman. Since I had my _____ for only about six months and not a full year, I was fined for _____ a passenger.

This was the first time that I had ever got _____ For about two months, I was _____ and had no one to ______. I kept everything to myself because I was not ______ talking about everything that had ______. I didn’t even talk to my head teacher and lied to him by saying everything was ______ But my attendance (出席) and ______ became terrible. I was among the top 30% of my class ______ my rank had dropped by about 6 marks. I was under lots of stress and lacked ______ to do well in school. My biology teacher noticed I didn’t try my best and talked with me. She made me ______ the last two months was not me.

Now, my working habits have been much better and I know what I want to do with my ______. I plan to take courses in graphic design (平面设计) in university because I can express my thoughts in a (n) ______ way. I’ll work to my fullest potential (潜力). This is what I ______ and I know that now.