2 . In our modern world, when something wears out, we throw it away and buy a new one. The _______ is that countries around the world have growing mountains of _______ because people are throwing out more rubbish than ever before.

How did we _______ a throwaway society? First of all, it is now easier to _______ an object than to spend time and money to repair it. _______ modern manufacturing (制造业)and technology, companies are able to produce products quickly and inexpensively. Products are plentiful and _______.

Another cause is our _______of disposable (一次性的) products. As _______ people, we are always looking for _______ to save time and make our lives easier. Companies ________ thousands of different kinds of disposable products: paper plates, plastic cups, and cameras, to name a few.

Our appetite for new products also ________ to the problem. We are ________ buying new things. Advertisements persuade us that ________ is better and that we will be happier with the latest products. The result is that we ________ useful possessions to make room for new ones.

All around the world, we can see the ________ of this throwaway lifestyle. Mountains of rubbish just keep getting bigger. To ________ the amount of rubbish and to protect the ________, more governments are requiring people to recycle materials. ________, this is not enough to solve (解决) our problem.

Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions ________ throwing them away. We also need to rethink our attitudes about ________. Repairing our possessions and changing our spending habits may be the best way to reduce the amount of rubbish and take care of our environment.

3 . Since finishing my studies at Harvard and Oxford, I’ve watched one friend after another land high-ranking, high-paying Wall Street jobs. As executives (高级管理人员) with banks, consulting firms, established law firms, and major corporations, many are now ____ on their way to impressive careers. By society’s ____, they seem to have it made.

On the surface, these people seem to be very lucky in life. As they left student life behind, many had a ____ drink at their cheap but friendly local bar, shook hands with longtime roommates, and ____ out of small apartments into high buildings. They made reservations at restaurants where the cost of a bottle of wine ____ a college year’s monthly rent. They replaced their beloved old cars with expensive new sports cars.

The thing is, a number of them have ____ that despite their success, they aren’t happy. Some ____ of unfriendly coworkers and feel sad for eight-hour workweeks devoted to tasks they ____. Some do not respect the companies they work for and talk of feeling tired and ____. However, instead of devoting themselves to their work, they find themselves working to support the ____ to which they have so quickly become ____.

People often speak of trying a more satisfying path, and ____ in the end the idea of leaving their jobs to work for something they ____ or finding a position that would give them more time with their families almost always leads them to the same conclusion: it’s ____. They have loans, bills, a mortgage (抵押贷款) to ____, retirement to save for. They recognize there’s something ____ in their lives, but it’s ____ to step off the track.

In a society that tends to ____ everything in terms of dollars and cents, we learn from a young age to consider the costs of our ____ in financial terms. But what about the personal and social costs ____ in pursuing money over meaning? These are exactly the kinds of costs many of us tend to ignore — and the very ones we need to consider most.

4 . There was once a boy called Joseph Webb who always loved to show off how many friends he had at school. One day his ________ said to him, “Joseph, I bet (打赌) you a big bag of popcorn that you don’t have as many friends as you think. I’m sure many of them are nothing more than companions.”

Joseph ________ the bet at once. However, he wasn’t sure how to test whether his schoolmates were real friends or not, so he asked his grandfather. The old man answered, “Wait a minute.” Then he left and ________ soon as if carrying something in his hands, but Joseph could see nothing there.

“Take it. It’s a very ________ chair because it’s invisible (看不见). It’s rather ________ to sit on, but if you take it to school and ________ to sit on it, you’ll activate (激活) its ________ and it’ll be able to tell who your real friends are.”

Joseph, brave and determined, set off for ________ with the strange and invisible chair.   At break time he asked everyone to form a ________, and he put himself in the middle, with his chair. Having difficulty seeing it, Joseph tried to sit on it but he ________ the seat and fell straight onto his backside. Everyone around him had a pretty good laugh.

“Wait! Let me try again, ”Joseph said. But again, he missed the seat,________ more surprised looks and a few catcalls. Joseph didn’t ________ and kept trying to sit on the magic chair. But he kept falling to the ground...until, suddenly he tried again but didn’t ________. Looking around, Joseph saw three of his best friends holding him up.________, many others he had thought of as friends had done nothing but make fun of him. And there, the show came to an end. Joseph understood that true friends were those who care for him, and not just the ________ that happened to be passing by. And someone who took joy in his misfortunes was even less of a friend.

5 . People get angry because they don’t know enough to keep calm. I couldn’t control my emotions and used to feel annoyed (使恼怒) when I was a child. Worse still, I was not good at communicating with my ______. I didn’t have a very good relationship with my family.

One morning, my mother ______ handed me my father’s vest (背心) instead of mine. I was larger in build than my father. So when I ______ the vest, it was tight and I felt uncomfortable. I realized that it was a mistake of hers. I got very ______. The mistake grew out of her carelessness.

I took out my anger on my mother ______ thinking much. I was so upset that she had handed me the ______ vest. I behaved badly and I threw it ______! Later, my mother shared her sad feeling with my father, “See what your son has done.” Instead of punishing me, my father behaved very ______. He asked my mother to ______ the vest clean. He then wore it to work the next day.

After a long time, mother told me about my father’s ______. “How come my child turns out this way?” he said. I immediately had a great sense of shame for my bad behavior. I ______ that he spent the whole day wearing a vest that his son threw away. He must feel terrible. I was ______ with great admiration (钦佩) for my father. His kindness taught me a life lesson.

On that day, I decided never to let anger get the better of me. I learn to ______ myself down and forgive others when I was treated in an unfair or unacceptable way. ______ I found forgiveness is a way to turn anger off. And whenever I have difficulty controlling my strong emotion, I try to ______ my father’s vest.

8 . Most of us still have lots of photographs sitting around from the days when we used cameras, not telephones, to take pictures. There are probably many photos that we do not look at and may never see again. But these images, representing memories from our past, do not have to be lost. Google has create a tool to help bring these forgotten pictures back to life in very high quality.

The PhotoScan app works the same as an image scanner. But this software program uses the camera on your phone to capture images as digital copies, which is a quick and easy way to save old photos without having to spend money on new equipment. The PhotoScan app uses new technology to improve the capturing process, which makes it possible to take a picture of a photo with a camera phone, without glare, a common problem.

After opening the app, the user first puts the desired photo within the camera’s frame. When this is done, four small circles appear in different places over the photo. The user then moves the phone over each of the circles, which change color after the process completes. That’s it! The app finds the edges of the photo, straightens the image, and puts it in the right position while removing glare. From this point, the pictures can easily be saved to the Google Photos app or somewhere else. If you do have Google Photos, images are organized by face or place and can easily be found.

The release of PhotoScan came at the same time as some changes to the Google Photos app. One change is an improved auto tool that Google says creates high-quality effects in just one step. Another tool lets users choose from 12 different looks to improve overall photo quality. The third provides high-level controls for changing light and colors.

Anil Sabharwal, the Vice President of Google Photos, explained why he created PhotoScan. In 1947, his parents lived under British colonial rule in India and were ordered to leave their home with only a few belongings. They decided to leave behind jewelry and other valuables, but gathered up as many photos as they could take.

9 . This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles (自主驾驶车辆). They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.

The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.

Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property (财产) damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.

“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.

Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability(法律责任) issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.

An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduces earlier this year, insists that a human “ be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.

But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.”Merat says. “You know — no driver.”

Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.

Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.

That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.