【推荐2】We have spent thousands of years fighting for our survival. Yet now we have ____ that our planet is under threat. It’s time we woke up to the problems and started repairing the ____.

One of the major problems is the destruction of the rainforests in South America. They are ____ to half the world’s species and to millions of people. Moreover, the rainforests ____ the air by taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen. The trees are being ____ for paper or to make room for cattle farms. So birds and animals ____ their homes and die. This destruction is also bringing about ____ in the climate, air pollution and flooding. If we ____ to burn and cut down the rainforests as we are doing now, the earth will ____ be the same.

Another big ____ is water pollution. Factories are ____ our rivers and lakes with dangerous chemicals. Tons and tons of waste are poured into our seas. ____, sea life is in danger.

___ pollution is another important issue. The cars and factories in and around our cities are giving off ____ gases. In the past few years, more and more people than ever before have breathing problems. If we don’t do something now, our cities will become ____ to live in.

___, it is not too late to solve these problems. We have the time, the money and even the technology to prepare the way for a better, cleaner and ____ future. We can plant trees and create parks for the species in danger. We can put pressure on those in power to ____. Together we can ____ our planet. All we need to do is open our eyes and act ____.

【推荐3】Ecotourism is a combination of ecology (the study of systems of living things) and tourism. It is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that preserves the environment and improves the welfare of the local people” by the International Ecotourism Society. Actually, ecotourism can mean travel to far-off places of great natural beauty, but not always in a(n) _______ way. It's a big business, and the attraction of money can cause people to think about profits first. While ecotourism offers benefits to people and ecosystems, it leaves ecosystems _______ to negative effects, too.

Costa Rica, once a Spanish colony, and independent since 1821, has an ecotourism industry worth over one billion dollars yearly, and thousands of jobs have been _______. Nearly 21 percent of the land is now protected national parks, _______ thanks to ecotourism. Nevertheless, due to the number of people visiting the country's natural places, some damage to the ecosystem has occurred.

While tourists can have a negative impact on ecosystems, the same areas might have been _______ by industries such as farming, logging, or mining if there were no ecotourism industry. Shelters have been created instead, keeping the ecosystem protected. And, by visiting beautiful rain forests and seeing rare animals, visitors get a sense of their _______, and of gratitude for them. Tour guides can also be educators who train people to love and care for the environment. Visitors can take these lessons with them to their home countries.

Unfortunately, while their effect may not be _______ in the off-season, the constant parade of visitors in the high season can be damaging. At one national park in Costa Rica, wild monkeys now feed on garbage left by the tourists. In addition, ecotourists tend to seek out places with the rarest animals and plants, _______ the most delicate living things.

It is easy to be critical of the ecotourism industry, but it is important to be _______ as well. Ecotourism can never be “pure”. We can't expect zero negative effects on the ecosystem. It is also ________ to suppose that humans won't go anywhere accessible to them. If protection efforts are maintained and increased, those remaining places of undisturbed nature may be stressed, but they won't be destroyed.

【推荐1】In today’s American society, high school dropout (辍学) has become a big problem threatening social and economic stability, as many cases of family ______ or even tragedies, caused by youth dropout, are catching headlines in media. Dropping out is defined as leaving school without a high school diploma (毕业证书) or equivalent ______ such as a General Educational Development (GED) certificate. Although students who drop out come from various backgrounds, several ______ facts can be noticed. National data show that students from low-income, black or single-parent families are much more likely to drop out of school than their fellow students. ______ performance is also playing a role. Students receiving poor grades which, in turn, leads to ______ self-recognition, are sure to be on the high-risk list of dropping out.

In recent years, advances in technology have ______ the demand for a highly skilled labor force, changing a high school education into a minimum requirement for entry into the labor market. As high school completion has become a(n) ______ requirement for many entry-level jobs, dropouts are having a really hard time in today’s job market. On average, dropouts are more likely to be unemployed than high school graduates and to earn less money even if they ______ find jobs. Employed dropouts in a variety of studies are usually working at unskilled jobs or at ______ service occupations offering little opportunity for promotion.

Considering the serious consequences dropping out may bring about, national leaders have demanded that schools, communities, and families take major measures to keep students at school. To make school attendance compulsory (强制的) looks like an effective measure. ______, many people fear that it will not go far as compulsory attendance usually indicates monitoring on students, which might cause ______ from the students. Others including President Trump, focus their dropout prevention efforts on a program to ______ class size, replacing large high schools with smaller learning communities where poor students can get ______ instruction from experienced teachers. Combined with frequent home visits by teachers, which definitely ______ families to participate in prevention efforts, the program is reported to take effect and the nationwide school attendance is ______.

【推荐2】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. Visionary leaders have long understood the importance of ______ 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.

Companies can ______ customer value in a variety of ways: To increase ______, 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, such as buildings, machinery, and marketable securities. They also should reveal it in their quarterly and annual earnings reports 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. 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.

【推荐1】The universal use of technology has resulted in a constant current of information interrupting the “flow” of our life. This ________ pattern was initially marketed as “call-waiting” for our phones. But now our eyes, ears, and fingers are glued to our technology 24/7. We are ________ by emails, texts, or the news on our Facebook pages. My friend Ron refers to this technology as “weapons of mass distraction.”

But how is this mass distraction ________ us? According to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation report, children from eight to eighteen spend an average of seven hours and thirty-eight minutes a day using entertainment media. In addition, a study found that exposure to ________ media was associated with attention problems in a sample of 210 college students.

The ________ is just part of the larger picture. Dealing with a crowd of daily text messages and emails makes it difficult for us to be by ourselves when all that activity stops. Although a sense of ________ is natural at times, our addiction to the nonstop interaction afforded by technology deepens that feeling when access to the technology is unexpectedly ________. Just think how you feel when you lack cell phone or web access. Is it possible that our obsession with continually checking our emails and text messages has contributed to our ________ to genuinely relate with others?

Apart from the effects of technology on our ________ and our ability to be at ease without technology, let’s examine how interacting with our devices ________ the development of our fundamental communication and social skills. Many researchers observe that everyday conversation between human beings is becoming increasingly ________.

Many of today’s children are growing up with a built-in dependence on devices, making it difficult for them to feel ________ in everyday social situations. Often they find it ________ to make eye contact or deal with even the simplest face-to-face interactions without the aid of technology as an intermediary (媒介).

Over time these children forget how to relate with each other because they have become habituated to using technology to ________ direct contact with others and life itself. ________, some neuroscientists believe that use of the internet actually rewires our brains.

【推荐2】Body language is the quiet, secret and most powerful language of all! It speaks _________ than words. According to specialists, our bodies send out more _________ than we realize. In fact, non-verbal communication (非言语交际) takes up about 50% of what we really _________. And body language is particularly _________ when we attempt to communicate across cultures. Indeed, what is called body language is so _________ a part of us that it’s actually often unnoticed. And misunderstandings happen as a result of it. _________, different societies treat the _________ between people differently. Northern Europeans usually do not like having _________ contact (接触) even with friends, certainly not with _________. People from Latin American countries, __________, touch each other quite a lot. Therefore, it’s possible that in __________, it may look like a Latino (拉丁美洲人) is __________ a Norwegian (挪威人) all over the room. The Latino, trying to express friendship, will keep moving __________. The Norwegian, very probably seeing this as rudeness, will keep __________ which the Latino will in return regard as __________.

Clearly, a great deal is going on when people __________. And only a part of it is in the words themselves. And when parties are from __________ cultures, there’s a strong possibility of __________. But whatever the situation, the best __________ is to obey the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be __________.