I spent several years in France, ______ I never learnt to speak French．

Sometimes parents’ control of young kids will be thought to be such an invisible rope, with which to tie them tightly, that they _____ tried to cut it.

The mother looked at the door _______，expecting the children’s coming．

Though brought up in Los Angeles, Steven Davidson spent his whole life      in New York．

However, they can hardly blame me; it is ________ their own fault.