1 . People using ad-blocking software who visited the New York Times website in March were shown a message. This read: “The best things in life aren’t _______.” It went on to explain that, “Advertising helps us fund our journalism,” and gave the visitor two options to read the newspaper’s online content: _______ their ad-blocking software or pay for a subscription.

Despite many internet users’ opposition, a number of publishers are now banning ad-blocking software. Aidan Joyce, chief executive of Oriel, says, “Most ad-blocking users do not object to a reasonable advertising experience _______ quality free content.” Mark Thompson, the group’s chief executive, said, “Anyone who refuses to contribute to the creation of high-quality journalism has no right to _______ it.”

To satisfy people who hate advertising, the news organization plans to introduce a higher-priced, advertisement-free _______. Ben Barokas, chief executive of Sourcepoint, thinks that media groups should offer consumers a range of different ways to _______ content, including for-free with ads, micropayments and subscriptions.

However, Sean Blanchfield, chief executive of PageFair, argues that publishers need to exercise care in how they ban ad blockers. “Users have justifiable concerns,” he says. “Ads that are served today have serious privacy and security problems.” Mr. Blanchfield says that PageFair aims to help publishers. “_______ the advertising experience in a way that the typical ad-block user wouldn’t find offensive.”

Publishers that ban ad blockers also risk losing their audience to competitors that turn out more _______. In some ways, that matters little. But internet users are not just _______ consumers; Instead, they often help distribute a publisher’s content by sharing links with friends through email, forums, and social media.

More than half of U.K. adults using an ad blocker said that they would switch it off if doing so was the only way to access a website, according to a survey by YouGov. Meanwhile, Sweden’s biggest publishers will ________ block people next month who use ad-blocking software. The idea is that they will be able to turn the ad-blocking tide with a combined effort.

2 . When you find something you love to do, you should do something about it, as one man has proved by turning his hobby into a dream _________.

Former waiter, Bartek, who lives in London, started cooking as a way to _________ the time during lockdown but the hobby has ended up _________ changing his life. The 25-year-old shared videos of his food on TikTok under the username @ letscook and went viral, _________ 580,000 followers. His videos have proved so popular that he has _________ to quit his job to start cooking full-time.

It all _________ in April 2020, when Bartek made a cheesecake at home during lockdown. His younger sister Tosia, 16, thought the sweet treat looked so impressive that he should _________ it on TikTok. Although he was _________ in cooking his own simple food, and had previously worked as a _________ at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Bartek had no experience with __________ cooking meals in front of a camera.

The TikTok star, who is originally from Poland, __________ to give the video-sharing app a __________ and his second post-creamy garlic chicken-went viral, reaching 500,000 people overnight. Finding it fun to experiment and bring forth new ideas for classic dishes, he __________ posting videos, filming the process on his phone and __________ the videos himself.

His audience has continued to grow ever since and he __________ his success to his mum, Mariola, who would __________ traditional Polish recipes for his family.

The new cook has become so __________ that he was able to quit his former job in August 2021 and has now __________ his own recipe book called Let’s Cook. He said: “I’ve always been in the __________ with my mum so she taught me a lot, but I only __________ got into cooking because of lockdown. And now I am doing my dream job.”

3 . In July, a two-minute-long video began spreading on the Internet. The video featured a _________ ballet student dancing in the rain. As the rain falls, forming small _________ between the unsmooth ground on which he dances, Anthony, 11, _________ round and round.

The _________ has been seen more than 20 million times on social media platforms, which has turned a _________ on the unlikely story of a ballet school in a poor suburb of Lagos, Nigeria: The Leap of Dance Academy. Founded by Daniel in 2017, the academy has _________ the lives of its students, affording them a place to _________ and to dream.

For now, the Leap of Dance Academy is housed at the home of its _________, Daniel. Every day after school, 12 local students make their way to his apartment. He _________ his furniture for more space and __________ a thin sheet over the cement (水泥) floor for class. What is the most __________ is that the mirror was glued by dozens of broken mirrors.

“We have __________ from so many people. We appreciate their letters, in which they say they are __________ by the students and by dance,” Daniel said. “They felt our __________ and came alive. They __________ us that art is here to stay.”

Some netizens remarked: “This is a realistic portrayal from a poor boy to ballet prince. Anyone with a dream is great.”

4 . Launched in 2010, iQiyi has grown used to the foreign press calling it “the Netflix of China.” Not the worst nickname, given the video-streaming pioneer's success. But Gong Yu, iQiyi's founder and boss, insists that his firm is more accurately _________ as “Netflix plus.” A bold claim for a loss-making business worth one-fifteenth as much as America's (cash-generating) entertainment powerhouse with a market value of $214 bn. Still, Mr Gong has a_________.

Like Netflix, iQiyi offers customers a catalogue of licensed and original content. Unlike Netflix, which relies almost entirely on subscription fees, iQiyi has _________ revenue streams. “Membership fees,” which start from 19.8 yuan ($2.87) a month, _______ just over half of iQiyi's 7.4 bn yuan in revenues in the second quarter. The rest came mainly from an online store (which sells “entertainment-related merchandise), mobile-gaming, an e-book business and advertisements: iQiyi operates a “freemium” model which allows users to stream some content free of charge _________ that they agree to watch ads.

Conveniently for iQiyi, which does little business outside its home market, Netflix is blocked in China, under laws that _________ a lot of foreign content. But that is not to say that China is free from the streaming wars of the sort between Netflix and rivals like Disney, HBO and NBC Universal.

Far from it. Mr Gong is _________ Tencent Video, which overtook iQiyi at the end of June with 114m video subscribers to iQiyi's 105m (see chart) . Mr Gong's firm lost 14m subscribers in the most recent quarter while Tencent Video, which also runs a freemium model and_________subscribers 20 yuan a month, added Zin. Tencent Video offers a richer selection of English-language _________, including hit television series like Chernobyl and Silicon Valley. More important, the rivalry between Tencent Video and iQiyi is the war between mighty Tencent and ____________ Baidu, a search firm that is iQiyi's majority owner.

____________, as Westerners who pay for a few video subscriptions can prove, streaming is not a zero-sum game. Gigi Zhou of BOCOM International, a broker, believes the Chinese market will soon be big enough to ____________ both iQiyi and Tencent Video, which also has yet to make money. Ms Zhou expects 400m Chinese to subscribe to video-streaming platforms by 2023, up from some 300m in 2019. So long as no new rival ____________, each firm could capture around 150m, helping them spread costs over more subscribers and so turn a profit.

Before streaming peace can break out, iQiyi faces another fight. On August 13th it said it was under ____________ by America's Securities and Exchange Commission after a short-seller accused it of cooking sales data, a charge it ____________. If found guilty, it may have to delist from New York's Nasdaq exchange. The firm's stable share price implies that investors' faith in battle-hardened Mr Gong remains unshaken.