It all began when I was a kid and we went on holiday to the west coast of America. One of the things we did was go on a whale-watching trip. The sea was calm and blue, reflecting the cloudless sky above, and sure enough, we came across a school of whales. The skipper turned off the engine and after a while a gray whale, out of curiosity, approached our boat. This enormous creature swam so close to us that we could actually reach down and stroke it. What amazed me, however, was how, despite its size, it looked so elegant as it swam by. That moment will always stay with me, as I knew, there and then, what I wanted to do with my life.

What did the author find so surprising about his first meeting with a whale?

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is obviously over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold. ______________. Just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate – in ways we can only begin to imagine.

The White House has been modified many times throughout the past two hundred years. The most important __________was the construction of the East Wing and the West Wing, which contains the famous “Oval Office “, the president`s main office, where many important political decisions in US history have been made.

Lighthouses are mainly used to warn ships _____from treacherous shores and to mark safe entries to harbours.