2 . Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been _______ before. He hopes the public will listen and understand—he wants to teach them, and he wants them to learn from him.

What _______ artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experiences into shapes and colors, not _______. They seem to feel that a certain _______ of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions possible, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth _______ to us. Without their work we should never have noticed the _______ shapes and colors, or have felt the _______ which they brought to the artists.

Most artists take shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in _______ and repose(静止); their _______ indicate that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful ________. Contemporary artists might say that they ________ choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose entirely without ________ to the character of their subjects.

If one painter chooses to paint a gangrenous(坏疽性的)leg and anther a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a(n) ________ aspect of the world. Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, ________ something-all of which means that, consciously or unconsciously, he is trying to ________ us.

6 . Learn to Use a Computer

There is no denying that students should learn something about how computers work, just as we expect them at least to understand that the internal-combustion engine(内燃机) has something to do with burning fuel, expanding gases and pistons(活塞) being driven. For people should have some basic ideas of how the things that they use do what they do. _______ , students might be helped by a course that considers the computer’s impact on society. But that is not what is meant by computer _______ . For computer literacy is not a form of literacy (读写能力); it is a trade skill that _______ be taught as a liberal art.

Learning how to use a computer and learning how to program one are two distinct _______ . A case might be made that the competent citizens of tomorrow should _______ themselves from their fear of computers. But this is quite different from saying that all ought to know _______ program one. Leave that to people who have chosen programming as a career. _______ programming can be lots of fun, our society needs some people who are experts at it, the same is true of auto repair and violin-making.

Learning how to use a computer is not that _______, and it gets easier all the time as programmes become more “user-friendly”. Let us assume that in the future everyone is going to have to know how to use a computer to be a _______ citizen. What does the phrase “learning to use a computer” mean? It sounds like “learning to drive a car”, ________ , it sounds as if there is some set of definite skills that, once ________ , enable one to use a computer.

________ , “learning to use a computer” is much more like “learning to play a game”, ________ learning the rules of one game may not help you play a second game, whose rules may not be the same. There is no such a thing as ________ someone how to use a computer. One can only teach people to use this or that programme and generally that is easily ________ .

7 . When we think about lives filled with meaning, we often focus on people whose grand contributions benefited humanity. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela surely felt they had a worthwhile life. But how about us ordinary people, burying ourselves in a(n) ________ existence?

Many scholars ________ a subjectively meaningful life to three factors: the feeling that one’s life makes sense (coherence), the possession of clear and satisfying long-term goals (purpose) and the belief that one’s life matters in the overall scheme of things (________ mattering).

But we believe there is another element to consider. Think about the first butterfly you stop to admire after a long winter. Sometimes existence delivers us small moments of beauty. When people are ________ to appreciating such experiences, these moments may enhance how they view their life. We call this element experiential appreciation, which represents the detection of and ________ for life’s inherent beauty.

To better understand this form of appreciation, we conducted a series of experiments in which we gave people specific tasks and asked them to report how strongly they ________ statements linked to the factors of meaningful life. In one case, we found that participants who watched an awesome video, such as the BBC documentary Planet Earth, reported having a greater sense of experiential appreciation and meaning in life, compared with participants watching more ________ videos, such as an instructional woodworking video. ________, participants who wrote about a recent experience for which they were ________ had a greater sense of meaning when compared with those who simply wrote about a common place they had ________ last week.

The results confirmed our original theory: people are born with the ability to appreciate beauty, and appreciating small things can make life feel more meaningful. But ________ that insight can be difficult. Our modern, fast-paced, ________ lifestyles fill the day with targets. We attempt to ________ output both at work and at leisure. This focus on future outcomes makes it all too easy to miss what is happening right now. Yet life happens in the present moment. We should slow down, let life surprise us and ________ the significance in the everyday. As former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in 1950, “We live in a wonderful world… There are countless adventures that we can have if we ________ them with our eyes open.”

8 . When we visit museums, we see cultural artifacts—from everyday household items to precious carvings and statues, which give us glimpses into the diverse cultures and communities from around the world. _______ , controversy surrounds these artifacts and whether or not countries should return these pieces of culture if they were stolen or forcefully taken during colonization.

On Wednesday, October 7, 2020, the Dutch advisory committee officially released a national report _______ to the return of cultural artifacts that were stolen from its previous colonies such as Indonesia, Suriname, and islands on the Caribbean. Through these actions, the Dutch government acknowledges the unfair treatment the colonies had previously experienced and _______ respect for the culture of these countries.

Let’s look at the issue and the two sides of the _______ .

Stolen Artifacts

By the 18th and 19th centuries, European countries had colonized many African and Asian countries. During their _______ , they either seized artifacts or took them as spoils of wars, and brought them to their own countries where they are now displayed in museums.

In 2017, the Government of Benin in West Africa negotiated with the British Museum in London to return their renowned Benin Bronzes, a collection of thousands of metal sculptures and plaques, which were _______ hung in the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin.

The debate regarding this issue _______ in 2018 when under President Emmanuel Macron, a report was released that directed that all heritage objects brought to French museums (without the permission of their original countries) be restored. With the official release of this report, museums all across Europe began to _______ their previous policies on colonial treasures.

In France, twenty-seven artifacts had been identified for restoration, but only one—a traditional sword belonging to Senegal, has been _______ . Then, on Tuesday, October 6, 2020, France’s National Assembly officially passed a bill __________ the return of these heritage artifacts, twenty-six of which alone belonged to Benin, but didn’t arrange a certain date.

The Debate

Those who propose returning these objects to their original homes __________ that with technology enabling virtual museum tours, returning these artifacts to their homeland does not take away the opportunity to learn about them. __________ , the country of origin will receive a significant part of their heritage back, and these artifacts will be given a chance to be truly appreciated under proper historical context.

Those against the restoration claim that culture is a __________ treasure and the artifacts are in fact “cultural ambassadors” that promote tolerance and understanding. They believe that while stealing them was __________ , history is full of “good” and “bad” actors. Moreover, they feel that keeping the cultural objects in the current museums have kept millions of artifacts __________ disfiguration and damage.

9 . Most forms of conventional advertising — print, radio and broadcast television — have been losing ground to online ads for years; only billboards, dating back to the 1800s, and TV ads are holding their own. Such out-of-home advertising, as it is known, is anticipated to__________ by 3.4% in 2024, and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising, which includes the LCD screens found in airports and shopping malls, by 16%. Such ads draw viewers’ attention from phones and cannot be skipped or __________, unlike ads online.

Billboard owners are also __________ the location data that are pouring off people’s smartphones. Information about their owners’ locations and online browsing gets collected and sold to media owners. They then use these data to work out when different groups — “business travellers”, say — walk by their ads. That__________ is added to insights into traffic, weather and other external data to produce highly relevant ads. DOOH __________ can deliver ads for coffee when it is cold and iced drinks when it is warm.

Such __________ works particularly well when it is combined with “programmatic” advertising methods, a term that describes the use of data to automate and improve ads. In the past year billboard owners such as Clear Channel and jcDecaux have __________ programmatic platforms which allow brands and media buyers to select, purchase and place ads in minutes, rather than days or weeks. It is said that outdoor ads will increasingly be bought like online ones, based on audience and views as well as__________.

That is possible because billboard owners claim to be able to __________ how well their ads are working, even though no “click-through” rates are involved. Data firms can tell advertisers how many people walk past individual advertisements at particular times of the day. Advertisers can estimate how many individuals __________ to an ad for a handbag then go on to visit a nearby shop (or website) and buy the product. Such metrics make outdoor ads more__________, automated and measurable, argues Michael Provenzano, co-founder of Vistar Media, an ad-tech firm in New York.

However, the outdoor-ad revolution is not free of __________ . The collection of mobile-phone data raises privacy concerns. And __________ of the online-ad business for being vague, and occasionally dishonest, may also be targeted at the DOOH business as it becomes bigger and more complex. The industry is ready to__________ such concerns, says Jean-Christophe Conti, chief executive of VIOOH, a media-buying platform. One of the__________ of following the online-ad pioneers, he notes, is learning from their mistakes.

10 . More than half the world’s population live in cities, and by 2050 the UN expects that proportion to reach 68%. This means more homes, roads and other infrastructure. Such a construction ________ does harm to tackling climate change, though, because making steel and concrete generates around 8% of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions. If cities are to ________ and become greener at the same time, they will have to be made from something else.

As it happens, Chicago might become part of the ________. In recent years, as architects have become increasingly interested in modern timber (木材) — construction methods, wooden buildings have been getting steadily ________. The current record is held by the 85-metre-tall Mjostarnet building in Norway, completed in 2019. But this would be ________ by the River Beech Tower, a 228-metre building proposed for a site beside the Chicago river.

As the AAAs meeting heard this week, wood is one of the most ________ sustainable alternatives to steel and concrete. It is not, however, everyday wood but a material called engineered timber, composed of different layers for specific purposes. Besides engineering the shape of a component, designers can arrange the grains (纹理) in the layers to provide levels of ________ that equal steel, in a product that is up to 80% lighter. Engineered timber is, ________, usually assembled into large sections of a building in a factory. That cuts down on the number of ________ that have to be made to a construction site.

All this ________ to carbon-dioxide emissions. Michael Ramage of the University of Cambridge told the meeting of a 300-square-metre four-storey wooden building that generated 126 tonnes of CO₂. Had it been made with ________, emissions would have risen to 310 tonnes. If steel had been used, they would have topped 498 tonnes. Indeed, from one point of view, this building might actually be viewed as “carbon ________”. When trees grow, they lock carbon up in their wood — in this case the equivalent of 540 tonnes of CO₂, representing a long-term reduction of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

If building with wood takes off, it does raise concern about there being enough trees to ________. But with sustainably managed forests that should not be a problem, says Dr Ramage. A family-sized apartment requires about 30 cubic metres of timber, and he estimates Europe’s sustainable ________ alone grow that amount every seven seconds. Nor is fire a risk, for engineered timber does not burn easily, because the inner cores of large ________ timbers are protected by a charring (炭化) layer if burnt.