3 . As a single parent of two, Carolyn had always been inspired to get her bachelor’s degree (学士学位). However, the day-to-day life had ________ in the way. Luckily, her son, Immanuel Patton, continually encouraged her to ________ her degree as he was working towards his own. It _________ they could graduate from university together.

The ________ to graduation wasn’t always easy, with Carolyn ________ that completing her degree on top of working was a _________ at times. Immanuel also faced ________ challenges of his own, at one point ________ a 1.0 grade point average and being placed on academic probation (留校观察).

“I had a meltdown (崩溃), but I got back on ________. My son says: ‘If I can do it, you can do it, too,’ ” Carolyn recalled. The two encouraged one another and ________ completed their degrees.

The ________ graduation came almost 20 years after a promise Immanuel made to Carolyn while he was in ________ to get their degrees together. On ________ day, the Pattons celebrated their joint achievement, standing for photos with the UMGC president, Gregory Fowler.

________ what life looks like after graduation, Carolyn says she hopes to use her bachelor’s degree to ________ a pay raise at work. Immanuel says that he is now looking for a job, possibly in academic advising.

4 . “The cure for anything is salt,” says a character in Karen Blixen’s short story The Deluge at Norderney. Everyday life has got a lot saltier since Blixen’s era — and salt is no longer the cure-all it once was. So what should we be doing about it?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends capping your salt intake at 5g a day, and keeping it even lower if possible. That’s because, according to a large body of evidence, eating a lot of it is linked to high blood pressure, which in turn is a risk factor for heart disease. More recently, extra salt has also been associated with stomach cancer.

So is the answer to put down the shaker? It’s a bit more complicated than that: as the British Heart Foundation notes, 75% of the salt that we eat is added before our food even hits our plates. The UK was a world leader in salt reduction, with the Food Standards Agency enforcing (施行) strict limits on how much could be included in most products.

In 2010, however, as the government introduced “responsibility deals”, the food industry itself took the lead in the process, with limits becoming much more voluntary. Now, even brands that would like to reduce the salt content of their foods are hamstrung by what everyone else is doing: apart from being one of the cheapest forms of flavouring available, salt can also be used to bulk up (增重) foods by increasing their water content.

“As a work partner of mine said, leaving it up to the manufacturers (制造商) is like putting a mosquito in charge of a blood bank,” says Graham MacGregor, a professor of medicine. “Some supermarkets want better enforcement, but it has to come from above.”

The answer, then, is that this is one health concern that we should probably be collectively worrying about. You can take steps like cooking most of your meals and avoiding takeaways and ready meals. But it’s not an option for everyone. “If you really want to lower your salt intake, the best first step might be to write to your MP (国会议员),” says MacGregor.

As the severe winter conditions set in, the Chinese merganser (秋沙鸭) starts its annual migration (迁徙). These birds leave northeastern China     1     (seek) shelter in milder climates further south. Among the numerous regions that these birds travel to during their winter migration, Hubei Province stands     2     as a significant wintering site. The province’s wetlands offer an ideal environment for the Chinese merganser, providing plentiful food and safe nesting     3     (place). The sighting of nearly 500 of these rare birds     4     (confirm) Hubei’s role as a vital winter habitat.

The Chinese merganser, a species     5     existence predates most of today’s living organisms, enjoys the     6     (high) level of national protection in China. China’s     7     (commit) to preserving these ‘living fossils (化石)’ is not just an effort to protect an endangered species, but also an effort to safeguard a piece of our planet’s ancient history.

The significant presence of the Chinese mergansers in the wetlands of Jingmen City is     8     example of hope for the conservation efforts aimed at     9     (protect) these unique birds. It serves as a reminder of the complicated relationship we share with nature and the responsibility we bear to protect and preserve the diverse ecosystems that are home to such     10     (remark) species.

9 . Science is increasingly central to our lives — from its role in creating day-to-day objects such as the smartphones in our pockets, to the big challenges of tackling disease, addressing climate change and focusing on biodiversity loss.

Many of the changes that the discipline brings are hugely beneficial, but they often come with potential downsides that demand public debate. Will artificial intelligence take people’s jobs or destroy elections with false news? How fast can we practically achieve a net zero economy?

For the crucial public debate that is needed on all this to take place, we must have a scientifically literate population. But there is a divide between the scientifically minded and those who choose not to engage with science.

It saddens me that our culture now views science as difficult, which discourages many from taking an interest in it. A British Science Association (BSA) survey recently suggested that only around a third of 14- to 18-year-olds find scientists inspirational or consider the subject to be relevant to their lives.

In fact, science is interlinked with every aspect of our existence and people from all walks of life and of all ages should be able to access it easily. The invention of the printing press was crucial to the Enlightenment because it democratised (普及) knowledge. So, in this increasingly science-centred world, the same attention should be given to popular science writing as is given to other forms of literature.

The Royal Society Science Book Prize is the only one in the world to promote popular science writing. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which was shortlisted (把……列入入围名单) for the prize in 1989, was written for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics and has since become a universally recognised text on the universe.

Democratising science has never been more important. There are so many scientific stories to be told that can help us better understand ourselves. A society equipped with a solid understanding of the issues of the day is a society more able to respond to them in a better way.

10 . “Do we have permission to give your father a tracheotomy (气管切开术)?” I was a college student. My father had fallen into a coma (昏迷) a few weeks earlier and I was responsible for his medical decisions.

The call about the tracheotomy came the night before an exam. After a few hours of restless sleep, I was hardly in a state to take the exam. I told my professor what had happened the previous night and requested an alternative exam date, which was denied. This experience made me unwilling to be honest about my struggles. When I soon had to make the decision to take my father off life support, I told nobody.

Despite that sadness, I was able to make it through my studies and, eight years later, I became a professor myself. As a new teacher, I felt I needed to adopt a tough classroom persona (表面形象) to earn fellow teachers’ respect. My behavior wasn’t unlike that of the professor who had denied me the exam extension years earlier, and it did not reflect my actual character.

Then, the pandemic (大流行病) hit. I was too tired to keep up the act, and my students needed support. So, I shared the story about my father’s illness and death to acknowledge that life goes on outside of my classroom. I told my students I knew they might be suffering and wanted them to know that if they came to me needing help, I would understand.

The response was immediate and powerful. Students became unafraid to share their stories with me. I changed nothing about the way I delivered course material, but student exam scores improved, as did my teaching evaluations. Students could see that although I still pushed them to learn the material, I cared about their well-being and wanted them to succeed.

Exposing your imperfections, connecting with students on a deeper level, and creating space for them — and you — to grow will always be challenging, but it is worth it. I cannot know everything that is going on in every student’s life, but I can always choose sympathy.