Though ________ in San Francisco, Dave Mitchell had always preferred to record the plain facts of small-town life.

You should thank Peter. It was he who finally ____ your son to stop smoking and playing computer games.

–The Wall Street Journal is giving me a laptop with Windows XP, an operating system I found satisfying when it first _____ eight years ago.–Are you sure? You must be talking big.

 She is a well­known doctor now, but she ________ as a cleaner at the hospital for five years.

With economy developing at great speed, our city has _____ quite a few changes in recent years.