答案：Ⅳ.【语篇解读】本文是一篇夹叙夹议文，主要介绍了上海浦东因为地铁的出现，出行变得比以前便利多了。
1. past 解析：根据后文“one of my school classmates lived fourteen kilometres away from the school. Every morning, she had to get up very...”的描述，可知此处指“过去”，in the past 为固定短语，意为“在过去”，故填 past。
2. early 解析：结合“lived fourteen kilometres away from the school”和“to catch the first bus to get to school on time”的语境，可知需要“早起”，get up early 为固定搭配，故填 early。
3. because 解析：前半句“A trip to Puxi by bus was usually a holiday surprise”与后半句“it was very hard to visit it”之间为因果关系，后半句表原因，故填 because。
4. changed 解析：根据后文“Since then even more metro lines have appeared in Pudong and the traffic... has improved a lot.”，可知地铁 8 号线开通后情况“改变”了，结合语境，时态为一般过去时，故填 changed。
5. condition 解析：根据“more metro lines have appeared”和“improved a lot”，可知此处指“交通状况”，traffic condition 为固定搭配，意为“交通状况”，故填 condition。
知识拓展 condition 常考短语：traffic condition（交通状况），improve the condition（改善状况）
派生词：conditional（adj. 有条件的），unconditional（adj. 无条件的）
6. livelier 解析：much 后接形容词比较级，结合“more people now easily getting to places farther away”，可知城市角落变得“更热闹”，lively 的比较级为 livelier，故填 livelier。
易错提醒 易误写为“more lively”（lively 的比较级需用 livelier，不用 more lively）
7. develop 解析：根据“The metro has helped the city”和“in a better way”，可知此处指“发展”，help sb to do sth 中 to 后接动词原形，故填 develop。
8. once 解析：根据 However 的转折，以及“some foreign experts... said that it was very difficult to build a metro line in the city”，结合后文“But today Shanghai is home to one of the world's... metro systems.”，可知此处指专家“曾经”这么说，故填 once。
9. largest 解析：one of the + 形容词最高级 + 可数名词复数为固定结构，意为“最……的……之一”，结合语境，上海的地铁系统是世界上“最大的”之一，large 的最高级为 largest，故填 largest。
10. ourselves 解析：根据“we might ask”和“What ‘impossibilities’ in our own lives can we turn into ‘possibilities’?”，可知是“问我们自己”，we 的反身代词为 ourselves，故填 ourselves。