1 . Traditionally uniforms were manufactured to protect the worker. When they were first designed, it is also likely that all uniforms made symbolic sense---those for the military, for example, were at first_________to terrify the enemy; other uniforms indicated a distinction in ___________---chefs wore white because they worked with flour, but the main chef wore a black hat to show he inspected and supervised.

The last 30 years, however, have seen an increasing__________on their role in mirroring the image of an organization and in uniting the workforce, particularly in “customer facing” industries. From uniforms and workwear has appeared “___________clothing”. “The people you employ are your ambassadors，” says Peter Griffin, managing director of a major retailer in the UK.

“What they say, how they look, and how they behave is of vital importance.” From being a simple means of _______ who is a member of staff, the uniform is emerging as a new channel of marketing communication.

Truly effective marketing through___________images such as uniforms is a subtle art, however. How we look sends all sorts of powerful messages to other people. Dark colours give a sense of _________while lighter colour shades suggest people are approachable. Certain dress style creates a sense of conservatism(守旧)，while others a sense of _________to new ideas. If the company is selling quality, then it must have quality uniforms. If it is selling style, its uniforms must be stylish. If it wants to appear_________, everybody can’t look exactly the same.

But turning corporate philosophies into the right combination of colour, style, degree of branding and uniformity is not always _________. According to Company Clothing magazine, there are 1,000 companies supplying the workwear and corporate clothing market. Of these, 22 ________ for 85% of the total sales---￡380 million in 1994.

A successful uniform needs to _________two key sets of needs. On one hand, no uniform will work if staff feel uncomfortable or ugly. On the other hand, it is ________if the look doesn’t express the business’s marketing strategy. The greatest challenge in this respect is time. When it comes to human awareness, first impression counts. Customers will assess the way staff look in just a few seconds, and that few seconds will_________their attitudes from then on. Those few seconds can be so important that big companies are prepared to ________years, and millions of pounds, getting them right.

2 . Never in recorded history has a language been as widely spoken as English is today. The reason why millions are learning it is simple: it is the language of international business and,     _______, the key to prosperity.

David Graddol, the author of English Next, says it is _______ to view the story of English simply as success for its native speakers in North America, Britain and Ireland, and Australasia — but that would be a mistake. Global English has entered a more complex stage, changing in ways that the English-speaking countries cannot control and might not _______.

An important question one might ask is: whose English will it be in the future? Non-native speakers now _______ native English speakers by three to one. The majority of encounters in English today take place between non-native speakers. According to David Graddol, many business meetings held in English appear to run more smoothly when no native English speakers are _______. This is because native speakers are often poor at ensuring that they are understood in international discussions. They tend to think they need to avoid longer Latin-based words, but in fact _______ problems are more often caused by their use of idioms, metaphors, phrasal verbs, etc.

Professor Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor of English and Applied Linguistic at the University of Vienna, records and transcribes spoken English interactions between speakers of the language around the world. She says her team has noticed that non-native speakers are _______ standard English grammar in several ways. Even the most experienced speakers sometimes omit the “s” in the third person singular. Many omit definite and indefinite articles where they are _______ in standard English, or put them in where standard English does not use them. Nouns that are not plural in native-speaker English are used as plurals by non-native speakers (e.g, “informations,” “knowledges,” “advices”). Other variations include “make a discussion,” “discuss about something,” or “phone to somebody.” Many native English speakers will insist these are just _______. “Knowledges” and “phone to somebody” are simply wrong. Many non-native speakers who teach English around the world would __________. But language changes, and so do concepts of grammatical __________.

Those who insist on standard English grammar remain in a(n) __________ position. Academics who want their work published in international journals have to obey the grammatical rules followed by native English-speaking elites (精英).

But spoken English is another matter. Why should non-native speakers bother with what native speakers regard as correct? Their main aim, __________, is to be understood by one another, and in most cases there is no native speaker present.

Professor Seidlhofer says, “I think that what we are looking at is the __________ of a new international attitude, the recognition and awareness that in many international contexts non-native speakers do not need to speak like native speakers, to compare themselves to them, and thus always feel ‘__________’.”

4 . This era of “Industry 4. 0” is being driven by the same technological advances that enable the capabilities of the smartphones in our pockets. It is a mix of low-cost and high-power computers, high-speed communication and artificial intelligence. This will produce smarter robots with better sensing and communication abilities that can _________ different tasks, and even adjust their work to meet demand without the input of humans.

In the manufacturing industry, where robots have arguably made the most headway of any division, this will mean a(n) _________ shift from centralized to decentralized cooperative production. _________ robots focused on single, fixed, high - speed operations and required a highly skilled human workforce to operate and maintain them. Industry 4. 0 machines are flexible, cooperative and can operate more independently which _________ removes the need for a highly skilled workforce.

For large-scale manufacturers, Industry 4. 0 means their robots will be able to sense their environment and communicate in an industrial network that can be run and _________ remotely. Each machine will produce large amounts of data that can be _________ studied using what is known as “big data” analysis. This will help _________ ways to improve operating performance and production quality across the whole plat, for example by better predicting when repairing is needed and automatically _________ it.

For _________ manufacturing businesses, Industry 4. 0 will make it cheaper and easier to use robots. It will create machines that can be rearranged to perform __________ jobs and adjusted to work on a more diverse product range and different production volumes. This part is already beginning to benefit from robots designed to cooperate with human workers and analyse their own work to look for __________.

While these machines are getting smarter, they are still not as smart as us. Today's industrial artificial intelligence operates at a __________ level, which gives the appearance of human intelligence exhibited by machines, but designed by humans.

What's coming next is known as “deep learning”. Similar to big data analysis, it involves processing large quantities of data in real time to __________ what is the best action to take, The __________ is that the machine learns from the data so it can improve its decision making. A perfect example of deep learning was __________   by Google's Alpha Go software, which taught itself to beat the world's greatest Go players.

5 . Bhutan(不丹)is one of the few places in the world where you can experience unbroken Buddhist(佛教徒的)culture. Spirituality is in daily life here. I came because I wanted to witness firsthand what it might mean to devote your life to________practice as a Buddhist.

Although this is the Himalayas(喜马拉雅山)，you don't come here to climb mountains. Mountains are________in Bhutan, as are rivers and the earth. The relationship between nature, animals and people is ________. The population is small (around 750,000) but the________of the mountains and nature is enormous. This puts humans in their place; we are not________, but a small part of a whole. Respect for nature here is not just lip-service, you see it________every day. If you want to build a house, you have to ask permission of the earth, and the government ________that the country maintain 60% forest coverage. You'll see prayer flags on mountains and on bridges, from where the wind carriers the prayers across the country.

You don't have to tip your head back to look at the sky; you can stare________at it. For me, the finest view in Bhutan is from 3,100 metre   Dochu-la. From this mountain pass I can________the view, look directly at the sky, and see the stairs to my lama's temple. I especially like the way the stability and peace of the mountains________with the clouds moving high above.

Make a ________of meeting monks(僧人) if you go to Bhutan. Visitors tend to emphasize the wow factor of the buildings, and ________the human element. Real Buddhist culture, and what it means in daily life, is in the________.

Make visitors come in autumn or spring, when the views are best and the weather is dry, but come off________for a quieter, more reflective experience. Winter is not depressing and grey; it's all about fresh, clean, sharp air and beautiful blue skies. If you don't like Christmas, consider Bhutan: there 's really no________of it.

6 . For the longest time, the predominant description about renewable energy featured awkward technologies, high costs, and burdensome allowance. In the _______ of strict and far-reaching policy changes, the chances for mass adoption seemed slim. Electric vehicles (EVs) simply couldn’t go the distance, and LED lights were unattractive and _______.

But now that these technologies have come of age, a new story is being written. Around the world, businesses, governments, and households are taking advantage of more cost-effective low-carbon technologies.

_______ advances in information technologies (IT), green solutions can be introduced into business operations successfully. And as public support for these technologies has grown, so have the _______ for scaling up to a fully sustainable energy system.

As in any rapid transition, a full understanding of what is happening has _______ events. Many present energy producers find it hard to believe that their world is undergoing a revolutionary change, so they insist that their heavily polluting technologies will remain _______ and necessary for some time to come. Journalists, too, describe the transition with a degree of _______, because it is their job to be suspicious. And politicians and regulators are cautious to adopt a new perspective, _______ they are already struggling to keep up with the pace of change in the energy industry.

To be sure, _______ doesn’t come without setbacks, as the recent growth in energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions shows. Yet there is no doubt that the future of energy will be __________ different from the recent past. In fact, the __________ is happening even faster than we think, for example, coal-fired power plants are shutting down faster than ever, and plans for new natural-gas plants are being replaced with more cost-effective wind and solar options. And as the shift toward renewables gains good trends, it will be easier for elected officials to pursue more climate-friendly policies and regulations, thereby creating a(n) __________ circle of change.

As the green transition comes of age, it will offer solutions to all of humanity’s energy needs, placing a clean, prosperous and secure low-carbon future well within reach. Yet even as we hug __________, we must not lose sight of the fact that climate change is speeding up. With GHG emissions __________ to rise, the future of humanity hangs in the balance. One hopes that the shift to __________ energy will tip the scale in our favor.

7 . Nothing seems more inevitable than aging and death-not even taxes. Every plant, animal and person you have ever seen will _______ die. But some recent research suggests that aging as we know it may not be inevitable. Indeed, as our _______ of it grows, aging can be seen not as an unchangeable reality from which there is no escape, but as the product of biological processes that we may be able to _______ someday.

We already know that some animals do not seem to age. Many cold-water ocean fish and some amphibians（两栖动物）never _______ a fixed size: they continue to grow bigger, to be able to reproduce and to live until something kills them. What these creatures seem to be telling us is that something in their _______ —and possibly in ours——controls the pace of aging, _______ that aging is not the fate of every living thing.

Throughout the history of life on earth, one of the most common difficulties that animals and their cells） have faced has been a lack of food. About 70 years ago, scientists discovered that when animals are forced to live on 30 to 40 percent fewer calories than they would _______ eat, something unusual happens; they become _______ to most age-related diseases --cancer, heart disease, diabetes —and live 30-50 percent longer. Restricting calories _______ aging. But what are the ________ genes that preserve vitality and starve off diseases?

About 15 years ago, armed with powerful new molecular-research technique, a few scientists began to ________ these genetic phenomena. They have discovered that a gene called Sir2—which is present in all animals, including humans —is ________ for the health benefits of calorie restriction perhaps by repairing our DNA. But if we had to restrict our calorie intake ________ 30 to 40 percent would it be of any practical use? Few of us would be capable of restricting our diets so severely that we were constantly ________. Whether or not it made life longer, it would surely make life ________ longer.