【推荐1】Girls are better at reading and writing than boys as early as fourth grade, according to a study, and the gap continues to widen until senior year.

Scientists generally agree that boys and girls are psychologically more alike than they are different. But reading seems to be a(n)________, with growing evidence suggesting a similar ________in writing. The study, published in the journal American Psychologist, provided further ________ to support this view.

David Reilly, lead author of the study, said the study ________the commonly held view that boys and girls start grade school with the same cognitive abilities. “It appears that the gender gap for writing tasks has been greatly________, and despite our best efforts with changes in teaching methods, that does not appear to be ________ over time,” he said.

Factors explaining the results could include learning ________ being more prevalent among boys; the pressure to conform to masculine (男子汉的) ideals and the idea of reading and language being feminine (女性的); and slight________in how boys and girls use their brain hemispheres (半球), the authors believe.

To investigate how ________ levels differed between boys and girls in the U.S., the team studied data collected over three decades in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This database of test scores on over 3 million students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades________national and state performances in a range of subjects, and considered such variables such as disabilities or whether children were English learners. Reading and writing was ________according to children’s understanding of a range of different passages and genres.

________, girls were found to perform significantly better in reading and writing tests by fourth grade when compared with boys of the same age. As children progressed to eighth and twelfth grades, girls continued to ________ boys, but the difference was more noticeable in writing than reading. But what caused this difference in abilities? Evidence suggests ________ problems, such as being disruptive（扰乱性的） in class or being aggressive could be linked to neurological conditions. What is known as lateralization (偏侧化) could also play a role. Boys are believed to use one hemisphere when reading or writing, while girls appear to use both. The data did not, however, provide evidence to argue ________ the two genders having different learning styles.

【推荐1】You've been painting for a few years, and maybe you have even sold a painting or two. Are you ready to ______ the title of an amateur artist?

Distinguishing green hand from professional artists is ______ task. It is not just a matter of your ability to create nice paintings. It's not only about painting techniques. And for most cases, it doesn't happen ______. Very few artists become overnight success without years of struggle and suffering.

To turn professional, people find it critical to develop a personal style. What makes your paintings _______ among other paintings out there? Are your paintings standing out unmistakably directed to you as the creator? A personal style comes along with technique, painting medium, and subject and it tends to develop gradually over time. You _______ it through unconscious and constant exploring and self-shaping. Style does not mean that you are painting the same subject or using the same painting medium. Salvador Dali used to use many artistic media, but they all have a _______ Dali style. Style refers to the emotions and thoughts delivered by your paintings, which people can identify with. (认同/产生共鸣) Their _______ of the painter is then a sure thing.

Artists talk about their _______ all of the time. What gets you out of bed every morning to paint? How do you find the energy to have all your time devoted to painting?   ______, we all love to do what we do and we get a satisfaction out of creating. For the professional artist, it goes beyond that. Some artists wish to convey a deep message concerning life, society or even politics. Others simply seek   _______ returns to cover kids' tuition fees or pay family bills. Yet, all professional artists know that they have to keep working to achieve the goals.

Many amateur artists passively wait for   _______ to come. If they are not in the mood, they do not bother wasting the time. They sometimes allow themselves to be occupied by events like parties. Professionals are never easily _______ or torn away from their art work in progress. Focused on their work so much, some even regard spending time outside their _______ as crime. _______ is their secret to high productivity.

Besides, professional artists are constantly prepared to grab new ideas for the next painting, which they believe is sure to be better than the previous one. The belief that there is always room for _______ keeps driving them forward in the art world where many masters have come along.

【推荐2】As some of these actors could not sing well enough, they had to rely on other musicians to help them. So during the broadcasts they just ______ to sing. Anyhow their ______ were humorous enough to be copied by other groups. They were so popular that their fans formed clubs in order to get more ______ with them. Each week on TV, the Monkees would play and sing songs ______ by other musicians. ______, after a year or so in which they became more ______ about their work, the Monkees started to play and sing their own songs like a real band. Then they     ____ their own records and started touring and playing their own music. In the USA they became even more popular than the Beatles and sold even more ______. The band ______ up in about 1970, but happily they reunited in the mid-1980s. They produced a new record in 1996, _______which they celebrated their former time as a real band.

【推荐1】In the U. S. there are more prisoners than farmers. In fact, the U. S. houses about one-fourth of the prison population worldwide, which amounts to ________ 2.3 million people.

Many prisons ________ punishment rather than rehabilitation (恢复正常生活), which means the prisoners may lack the skills necessary to ________ in society when they are freed. As it stands, more than 60 percent will be sent back to prison after ________ new crimes.

Today more and more prison officials are ________ the importance of rehabilitation and beginning to see the ________ of gardening in prisons. Research in California ________ suggests that, among prisoners who participated in gardening programs, less than 10 percent ________ prison.

Part of what makes planting a garden so effective is that it represents ________ Growing food from seed, many prisoners ________ experience success after a lifetime of failures, which helps to build ________. Additionally, today’s gardening programs don’t just teach prisoners gardening skills but also ________ them to take part in planning the garden and making other ________ related to the project.

And the prisoners aren’t the only ones who ________. Some prison gardens donate food to low-income areas, allowing prisoners to give back to areas where many of them were ________ Others produce so much food that they’re even ________ to donate to local nursing homes and schools.

Through programs that ________ the science of gardening, prisoners learn that knowledge is power. The ________ of ever finding a skilled job after getting out of prison, a ________ that provides enjoyment and dignity in a complex ________ world, is replaced by a greater sense of purpose.

【推荐3】As college students head back to school, the more sensible of them are wondering how they will pay for the privilege. There are some 21.5 million students in the United States this year, and many of them will be______their college careers on borrowed money. Given that there is at present more than $ 1.3 trillion in student loans on the books, it’s pretty clear that many college students are far from______.

The average student’s debt upon graduation now approaches $ 40,000, and as college becomes ever more common and expensive, calls to make it “free” seem to be increasing in great numbers. Even Hillary Clinton says that when it comes to college, “Costs won’t be a______.”

But the only way college could be free is if the faculty and staff______their time, the buildings required no maintenance, the campuses required no heating, cooling, or utilities of any kind, and every other expense simply______. As long as it is impossible to produce something from______, though, costs are absolutely a barrier. The actual question we debate, regardless of whether we______it, is who should pay for people to go to college. If students do not shoulder the cost, that cost will be ______to someone else. And this is where things get interesting. No one seems to______the idea of free college for everyone seriously, but the idea of student loan forgiveness (贷款免除) has somehow gained traction. In the end, though, it______the same thing: The American taxpayer will be left holding a very expensive bag. But if taxpayers are to bear the cost of student loan forgiveness, shouldn’t they have a say in how their money is used?

At a bare minimum (最小值), taxpayers should be able to decide what students will study on the public dime. If we are going to______taxpayers to foot the bill for college degrees, students should only study those subjects that are of greatest benefit to the taxpayers. ______, students making their own choices in this respect is______gave us the student loan problem in the first place. We simply do not need more poetry, gender studies, or sociology majors. Starbucks is fully stocked with baristas for the foreseeable future.

How do we know which subjects benefit society? Easy. Average starting salaries gives a clear indication of what type of training society needs its new workers to have. Certainly, there are benefits to a college major beyond the job a student can perform. But if we’re talking about the benefits to society—as______the benefits to the student—the only thing that matters is what the major enables the student to produce for society. And the______of what the student can produce is reflected in the wage employers are willing to pay the student to produce it. Today’s wages tell us that we could use more computer engineers, nurses, and statisticians, and far fewer criminal justice majors, social workers, and elementary education majors.