Short of the impossible

With the______of aluminum, shiny metals such as tin or copper turns into black powders when ground fine.

Every year some basketball or soccer players are ______ from one club to another.

There are two basic ways to see growth: one as a product, the other as a process. People have generally viewed personal growth as an external result or product that can easily be identified and measured. The worker who gets a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language—all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for their efforts. By contrast, the process of personal growth is much more difficult to determine, since by definition it is a journey and not the specific signposts or landmarks along the way. The process is not the road itself, but rather the attitudes and feelings people have, their caution or courage, as they encounter new experiences and unexpected obstacles. In this process, the journey never really ends; there are always new ways to experience the world, new ideas to try, new challenges to accept. In order to grow, to travel new roads, people need to have a willingness to take risks, to confront the unknown, and to accept the possibility that they may "fail" at first. How we see ourselves as we try a new way of being is essential to our ability to grow. Do we perceive ourselves as quick and curious? If so, then we tend to take more chances and to be more open to unfamiliar experiences. Do we think we're shy and indecisive? Then our sense of timidity can cause us to hesitate, to move slowly, and not to take a step until we know the ground is safe. Do we think we're slow to adapt to change or that we're not smart enough to cope with a new challenge? Then we are likely to take a more passive role or not try at all. These feelings of insecurity and self-doubt are both unavoidable and necessary if we are to change and grow. If we do not confront and overcome these internal fears and doubts, if we protect ourselves too much, then we cease to grow. We become trapped inside a shell of our own making. A person is generally believed to achieve personal growth when ______.

______ you cannot pick me up at the airport

Because humans have to talk about the limitless world by means of limited language sounds

As there was no road

It's amazing that two researchers working independently made the same discovery ______.

As a result of their frequent litters, rabbits have the reputation of being______.

My mother raised me as best as she could

A physical examination is a______to joining the army.

The computer doesn't ______ human thought; it reaches the same ends by different means.

The government has promised to do ______ lies in its power to ease the hardships of the victims in the flood-stricken area.

Thick with trees and sparse with homes

Large

He stole into his room ______ he should awaken his parents.

This law ______ the number of accidents caused by children running across the road when they get off the bus.

Giordano Bruno strongly supported Copernicus's idea that the earth was not the center of the universe. Bruno was rewarded by being burned at the stake for this and other ______ideas.

The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the New World are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was "so much important attached to intellectual pursuits". According to many books and articles, New England's leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life. To take this approach to the New Englanders normally means to start with the Puritans' theological innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church—important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New World circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity. The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts churches in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston. There men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New England an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness. We should not forget, however, that most New Englanders were less well educated. While few crafts men or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitions quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations, and religious hope—all came together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: "come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people." One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in puritan churched. Meanwhile, many settles had slighter religious commitments than Dane's, as one clergyman learned in confronting folk along the coast who mocked that they had not come to the New World for religion. "Our main end was to catch fish." The author notes that in the seventeenth-century New England ______.

Science is a dominant theme in our culture