A

When Betty had something difficult to do, she used to ask her mother for   1   .  But the mother always said£¬“Do it yourself, dear. "Betty was not glad at all. Betty   2    she was the laziest mother in the world!

  One day, Betty decided to invite some friends to her home. Her bedroom was not in order. Books were   3    . And Betty didn't make the bed. So she asked her mother to clean it up, but her mom still said, “Do it yourself, girl.”

  Because of her “lazy mother”, Betty has to wash her clothes and clean her room. Betty has to help her   4    do housework. Betty even has to go to the dentist's by herself. Life    5     hard for Betty because she has to do everything well and she has no one to turn to. However, Betty has learned a lot and    6   became a capable woman. She can hold a party on her own.  As a matter of fact, she even used to arrange a wedding party for her friend.

  As time goes by, Betty    7   her mother, who made her clever and diligent.

B

   Mr. and Mrs. Bell are very    8   . For example, Mr. Bell sometimes goes to his    9     for work on Sunday morning, for he thinks it is Monday. And Mrs. Bell sometimes forgets to cook supper for the   10    . Sometimes they may forget to take their cell phones when they leave home, so their friends can't get in   11    with them.

One summer they   12    to fly to New York for their holidays. They got to the airport only ten   13   before the plane took off. So time was short. But suddenly Mrs. Bell said she must tell Alice, their daughter, not to forget to lock the front door when she went to school. As Alice was then at school, they couldn't tell her about it by telephone. So they    14  to the post office.  Mrs. Bell wrote a short note to Alice while Mr. Bell bought a stamp and  an envelope. Soon the note was   15    .  They put the stamp on the envelope in a hurry and dropped it in the letter box, but suddenly Mrs. Bell began to cry. The short note was still in her hand. She had put the plane tickets into the envelope.