【推荐1】Some of the world's most famous musicians recently gathered in Paris and New Orleans to celebrate the first annual International Jazz Day. UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) recently_______ April 30 as a day to raise awareness of jazz music, its significance, and its potential as a unifying (联合) voice_______ cultures.

Despite the celebrations,_______, in the U.S. the jazz audience continues to_______ and grow older, and the music has failed to connect with_______ generations.

It's Jason Moran's job to help change that. As the Kennedy Center's artistic_______for jazz, Moran hopes to_______the audience for jazz, make the music more_________, and preserve its history and culture.

''Jazz seems like it's not really a part of the American_______,'' Moran tells National Public Radio. ''What I’m hoping to accomplish is that my generation and younger start to________ and understand that jazz is not black and white anymore. It's actually________, and it's actually digital. ''

Moran says one of the________ with jazz today is that the entertainment aspect of the music has been lost. ''The music can't be________today the way it was in 1908 or 1958. It has to continue to move, because the way the world works is________,'' says Moran.

Last year, Moran worked on a project that________ Fats Waller’s music for a dance party, ''just to kind of put it back in the mind that Waller is dance music________it is concert music, ''says Moran. ''For me, it's the recontextualization (情景重构). In music, where does the________lie? Are we, as humans, gaining any________ into how we talk about ourselves and________something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context, '' says Moran, ''so I want to continue those________.''

【推荐2】I grew up in three cultures: I was born in Paris, my parents were from China, and I was_________mostly in America. When I was young, this was very _________: Everyone said that their culture was best, but I knew they couldn’t all be right. I felt that there was a(n) _________ that I would choose to be Chinese or French or American. For many years I bounced(弹跳) among the three, _________ each but never being wholly comfortable.

However, the _________ of trying on each culture taught me something. As I struggled to belong, I came to understand what made each one _________. At that point, I realized that I didn’t need to choose one culture to the _________ of another, but instead I could choose from all three. The values I selected would become _________ of who I was, but no one culture needed to win. I could _________ the cultural depth and length of my Chinese heritage, while feeling just as __________ about the deep artistic traditions of the French and the American culture.

So, __________ settling on any one of the cultures in which I grew up, I now choose to __________ many more cultures and find __________ to love in each. This wandering leads to the accidental learning that continually __________ my life.

As I work in music today, I try to carry out this idea — that the music I play, like me, doesn’t __________ only one culture. In recent years, I have explored many musical traditions. Along the way, I have met __________ who share a belief in the creative power that exists at the intersection of cultures. These musicians have __________ become my guides to their traditions.__________ them and their music I have found new meaning in my own music making.

As we struggle to find our __________ voices, I believe we must look __________ the voice we’ve been assigned and find our place among the tones of human expression.

【推荐3】“It’s no use, Mum,” said Johnny. “I’m just no good at dancing.”

“You’ve got to keep trying. Tonight will be _______, dear. Try a turn with that pretty Lisette.”

Johnny _______. Every Saturday night used to be the best of the week. He and his parents went to the _______ at the Club, where his hero, Alcide, played the accordion (手风琴) with the band. But lately everything had changed. Now that Johnny was older, he was _______ to dance with a girl!

_______ Johnny and his parents arrived at the Club, music had already started. Johnny got up his _______ to approach Lisette. “May I have this dance?” Johnny asked. “That’s all right,” said Lisette. Johnny struggled to keep up with Lisette’s _______ steps, but he was always one beat behind her. Then Johnny heard his friend Pierre say, “Look! Johnny has two left feet!” _______ burst from the crowd. Johnny _______ and ran outside, determined never to go to another dance.

The next Saturday, Alcide ________ to Johnny’s house for some potatoes. He happened to hear Johnny playing the accordion. Alcide’s eyes ________. “Bring that accordion and play some songs tonight,” Alcide said. Then he drove off, leaving Johnny staring open-mouthed ________ him.

At the Club, Johnny scanned the crowd for Lisette and ________ her. The band played for a long time before Alcide said, “Dear friends, I got a ________ for you tonight. Young Johnny is going to join us!” ________, Johnny stepped up on the platform, his eyes on the floor. He began to play, and the band ________ behind him. When the song ended, he heard cheers. Johnny kept playing until the dance was ________. “You did a fine job tonight. Play with us again next Saturday night,” Alcide said. “Yes, sir!” said Johnny. ________ he went outside, Johnny saw Lisette and her friends near the door. Lisette stepped ________, smiling. “You played really good tonight!” she said.

“Thank you,” Johnny blushed (脸红). As he walked on, Pierre ________ moved out of the way for him to pass.

Johnny patted his accordion. Come to think of it, in his whole life, he had never once seen Alcide out on the dance floor.

【推荐2】Many animals move from one place to another at certain times of the year. This _______ movement is called migration (迁徙). They migrate to _______ food, or in search of warmer weather. One of the most wonderful migrations in nature is that of the North American monarch butterfly.

Every _______, millions of these beautiful insects with fine black and orange wings begin a long and _______ journey. Somehow they manage to _______ around 4,000 kilometres _______ and find their way to California or Mexico. _______, until recently no one knew how they did this. A team of scientists led by Professor Eli Shlizerman at the University of Washington has now found the _______. They have found out that the monarch is able to _______ the time of day. It uses its eyes to measure the ________ of the sun. These two pieces of information allow the ________ to determine the way to go. ________, it manages to reach where it will spend the winter.

The solution to the mystery of the monarch’s amazing ability comes at a time when it is in serious trouble. Its ________ has crashed by as much as 90 per cent in the last few years. ________, human activity is the main reason why the number of monarch butterflies is falling. The research on the monarch’s ________ has however led to a greater awareness of this creature.

【推荐3】You can actually catch a good mood or a bad mood from your friends, according to a recent study in the journal Royal Society Open Science. But that shouldn't stop you from _______ with pals who are down in the dumps, say the study authors. _______, the effect isn't large enough to push you into depression.

The new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that happiness and sadness—as well as lifestyle and behavioral factors like smoking, drinking, obesity, fitness habits and even the ability to concentrate—can _______ across social networks, both online and in real life. But while many _______ studies have only looked at friendship data at one point in time, this is one of the few that measured social and mood changes over time.

The new research involved groups of junior-high and high-school students who took part in _______ screenings(筛查) and answered questions about their best friends, many of whom were also enrolled in the study. In total, 2,194 students were included in the _______, which used a mathematical model to look for connections among friend networks.

Overall, kids whose friends suffered from bad moods were more _______ to report bad moods themselves and they were less likely to have improved when they were screened again six months to a year later. When people had more happy friends, _______, their moods were more likely to improve over time.

Some symptoms related to depression-like helplessness, tiredness and loss of interest-also seemed to follow this _______, which scientists call “social contagion.” But this isn't something that people need to ________, says lead author Robert Eyre, a doctoral student at the University of Warwick. Rather, it's just a “________ empathetic (感同身受的) response that we're all familiar with, and something we recognize by common sense,” he says. In other words, when a friend is going through a rough period, it makes sense that you'll feel some of their ________, and it's certainly not a reason to stay away.

The study also found that having friends who were clinically depressed did not ________ participants' risk of becoming depressed themselves. “Your friends do not put you at risk of illness,” says Eyre, “so a good course of action is simply to ________ them.” To boost both of your moods, he suggests doing things together that you both ________ and taking other friends along to further spread those good feelings, too.”

【推荐1】Throughout history, people have been interested in knowing how language first began, but no one knows exactly where or how this happened._________, we do know a lot about_________, the language of today and also the language of_________times. There_________probably about three thousand languages in the world today. Chinese is the language_________the most speakers. English, Russian and Spanish are also spoken by many millions of people._________, some languages in the world have less than one hundred speakers.

There are several important_________of languages in the world. For example, most of the languages of_________are in one large family_________the Indo-European language family. The original language of this family was spoken about 4500 years__________. Many of the present languages of European and India are modern__________of the language of 4,500 years ago.

Languages are__________changing. The English of today is very different__________the English of 500 years ago. In time some even__________completely. About 1,000 years ago__________was a little-known relative of German__________on one of the borders of Europe.

If a language has__________speakers or if it is very old, there may be__________in the way it is spoken in different areas.__________, the language may have several dialects. Chinese is a good example of dialect differences. Chinese has been spoken for thousands of years by many millions of speakers. The differences among the dialects of Chinese are so great that speakers of Chinese from some parts of China__________understand speakers from other parts.

【推荐2】An important part of any business relationship is informal conversation. Before you start a discussion, ____, make sure you understand which topics are ____ and which are considered taboo (禁忌) in a ____ culture. Latin Americans enjoy ____ information about their local history, art, and customs. ____ questions about your family, and be sure to show pictures of your children. You may feel free to ask ____ questions of your Latin American friends. The French think of conversation as an art ____, and they enjoy the value of lively discussions as well as ___. For them, arguments can be interesting — and they can ____ pretty much or any topic— ____ they occur in a respectful and intelligent manner.

In the United States, business people like to discuss a ____ range of topics, including opinions about work, family, hobbies, and politics. In Japan, China, and Korea, however, people are much more private. They do not talk much about ____ thoughts, feelings, or emotions because they feel that doing so might take away the harmonious business relationship they’re trying to ____. Middle Easterners are also private about their personal lives and family ____. It is considered ___ , for example, to ask a businessman from Saudi Arabia about his wife or children.

As a general ____ , it’s best not to talk about politics or religion with your business friends. This ___ get you into trouble, ____ in the United States, where people hold different views. In addition, discussing one’s salary is usually considered unsuitable. Sports is ____ a friendly subject in most parts of the world, although be careful not to ____ a national sport. Instead, be friendly and praise your host’s team.

【推荐3】The true purpose of a business, Peter Drucker said, is to create and keep customers. “Customer value” has several definitions. I use the ______ to mean the total lifetime value of a company’s customer base. Companies can increase this value by ______ more customers, earning more business from existing ones, keeping them longer, making their experience simpler through digital improvements and so on. ______ leaders have long understood the importance of concentrating on customer value rather than pursuing short-term profits or quarterly earnings, and they’ve become enduring customer loyalty leaders in the process. It’s worth noting that a number of loyalty-leading companies are able to ______ shareholder pressure, or avoid it altogether, because they are founder-led, customer-owned, or not publicly traded.

Companies can ______ customer value in a variety of ways: To increase ______, enterprise software companies sometimes charge corporate customers change fees that can raise the total cost of ownership to as much as three times the original price. To reduce operating costs, restaurant chains sometimes ______ frozen and precooked ingredients in place of fresh and made-to-order food. The resulting profits may look good on the income statement. Such strategies may even lead to short-term earnings growth. But they also ______ potential customers and encourage disloyalty.

Given the importance of customer value, leaders should track it as much as they track other key assets (资产), such as buildings, machinery, and marketable securities. They also should reveal it in their quarterly and annual earnings releases so that investors can make ______ judgments about company performance and how it compares with that of industry peers. But most companies ________believe that measuring customer value is too difficult or costly. They continue to rely on a centuries-old accounting tradition that emphasizes physical and financial assets, and neither income statements nor balance sheets offer much ______ into the value of a company’s customers.

As investors wake up to the importance of customer value, however, many growth-stage companies now direct investors’ attention to ______ in growing the value of their customer base. Some public companies increasingly report various types of customer value metrics (指标). One of the UK’s top energy suppliers E.ON, ______, reports year-over-year customer counts in its financial report. “As a customer-focused company,” E.ON noted, “we see customer value as crucial to our success.”

This is a start, but because there are no customer-value reporting standards or requirements, investors still have a(n) ______ picture. The minority of companies that do provide customer value information decide for themselves what to disclose. ______, firms may calculate customer metrics differently or change them to tell a desired story, or simply stop reporting them if they fail to go with the company’s preferred narrative.