A cashless society is defined as one that doesn’t use cash in monetary transactions (交易). These societies favor alternative means of payment, such     1     credit cards, or contactless payment.

Of all the companies     2     (move) closer to becoming cashless, most people agree that Sweden is the closest. 85% of the country has access to online banking and only 2% of the country’s transactions consist of cash.

There     3     (be) a number of reasons for this cashless trend. Sweden has access to a popular payment app     4     (call) Swish, which more than 50% of the country uses. But the     5     (big ) catalyst (引发变化的因素) so far is that most Swedish merchants don’t access cash payment.

China also has a vast cashless market,    6     is mostly dominated by Tencent’s WeChat Pay or Alipay, which is owned by Alibaba. But unlike many other countries, China hasn’t embraced (欣然接受) credit card payment. Instead, most Chinese consumers make payment by scanning QR codes (二维码) on     7     (they) phones.

Most merchants request payment via QR codes and it’s not uncommon     8     (see) QR codes located all throughout China. And this trend is starting to spread to other countries that have a lot of Chinese     9     (travel).

The growing cashless trend has led many people to wonder     10     the U.S. will eventually go cashless. It is possible since U.S. consumers are increasingly moving away from cash and embracing other forms of payment.

3 . Rehan Staton was close to giving up on his dreams. His father, who was his family’s mere provider, struggled to make _________ meet. There were times when Rehan was_______ meals and went to school on an empty stomach, as his dad was always at work.

His education suffered because of all the _______ his family was going through. By the 7th grade, Rehan’s grades rapidly_________. Instead of bringing him down, this hardship_________ him to turn to sports. It was at this point that Rehan became _______ about athletics and boxing. At the time, his father met an engineer, who offered to _______ the boy for free. This chance seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel(隧道). Unfortunately, just when things were starting to ___________, Rehan’s dreams of becoming a boxer were _______by a severe injury.

The young boy was________ by every college he applied to. He was forced to get a ________to help his family keep the________over their heads. His job as a garbage collector at the trash company________to offer him more opportunities than he could ever imagine.

At the company, he finally found people that saw his great________. Most of his colleagues encouraged the bright boy to continue with his________. A higher-up from Rehan’s work heard about his story and helped him register at Bowie State University.________, he was admitted into Harvard Law School.

The 24-year-old’s success story now ________   many young people to never stop following their dreams. Rehan himself started ________ youngsters facing adversity(困境), in a________to help them use their full potential________the difficulties they’re going through.

4 . When it comes to protecting your mental health, you can take steps to adjust your daily routine to be a bit kinder to yourself. Here’s some of the advice some experts offered.

    1    

Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, a licensed clinical social worker, says this could mean allowing time to relax with your coffee for a few minutes before leaving the house or getting some physical activity before work. See how long you need to accomplish something good for yourself.    2    !

Take breaks during the workday

    3     — it can do wonders for your concentration and overall mood. If you don’t have a lot of opportunities to take breaks, Goldberg recommends going for a short walk or even visiting a friend at their desk to help break up the day.

Designate a screen-free time during the day

Goldberg explains that designating a time during the day when you completely disconnect from screens is “a great mental health tool that people don’t make use of.”    4    It’s commonly recommended to disconnect before bed, though. “Spending time away from screens allows for creativity, connection and feelings that otherwise would not happen,” she says.

Set up a bedtime routine

Getting enough high-quality sleep is essential to our mental and physical health. Katie Leikam, a licensed clinical social worker, recommends setting up a nighttime routine to ensure you get the shut-eye you need.     5    and turn off your lights at the same time every night. “This will help you obtain better sleep, which is one of the best things you can do for your mental health,” says Leikam.

5 . The Savitzs who move to Newton had found themselves welcomed into the neighborhood with truly open arms. Glenda was pregnant before the move and within three months, they gave birth to Samantha. About a week after Glenda and RaphiSavitz welcomed their daughter Samantha to the world, they learned that she was deaf. “We knew right away that we had to get involved in the deaf community, learn about the culture, and start getting fully lost in American Sign Language,” Glenda says. What the new parents didn’t know was that their neighbors in Newton, Mass., would decide they needed to start learning sign language, too.

“We really wanted to communicate with her and play with her,” says McNeil, who lives across the street from the Savitzs. “And since she couldn’t learn our language, we thought we wanted to learn hers.” McNeil and three other neighbors quietly signed up for local adult education classes in American Sign Language. “We met a teacher there that we really loved, and we asked him if he would come here and teach more neighbors,” McNeil explains. “So that’s how it started.” About 20 neighbors immediately signed up for the class. With the help of their instructor, Rhys McGovern, the neighbors are able to help Samantha feel like she belongs.

“We know how to say, ‘Are you riding your bike?’ or ‘You have pretty new pink sneakers.’ There’s a dog across the street that she loves to play with. So we all know the sign for ‘dog.’” McNeil adds, “Her parents translate for us because her fingers are very small right now and she signs very fast, so we’re trying and we’re getting better. ... Her first sign to all of us is ‘friend,’ which feels very good.”

The classes have been such a hit that there are now two offerings, on two different weeknights, bringing the number of neighbors learning the language to about 40. As a result of that neighborly effort, Samantha moves with ease where her family lives. She’ll stop in at neighbors’ homes just to draw pictures and chat.

If history doesn’t quite repeat     1     (it), it certainly rhymes. With demand for bicycles rapidly    2     (rise), and nations preparing to spend billions to redesign their cities with a new focus on cycling and walking, it’s worth remembering     3     the invention of the bicycle in the late 19th century transformed the world over.

For a few heady years in the 1890s, the bicycle was the must-have — swift, affordable, stylish transportation that could take you anywhere you cared to go, anytime you     4     (like), for free.

By 1898 cycling had become     8     a popular activity in the United States that the New York Journal of Commerce claimed it was costing restaurants and theaters more than $100 million a year in lost business. Bicycle manufacturing became one of America’s     9     (big) and most advanced industries. A third of all patent     10     (apply) were bicycle related—so many that the U.S. patent office had to build a separate building to deal with them all.

9 . We all know how colors alter how we feel when looking at pictures, but shapes are just as powerful in affecting us psychologically. They not only provide the framework for the physical world,     1    . By understanding the science of shapes, you can effectively utilize (利用) them in your photography.

Because of its structure, the triangle is often used to represent perseverance and achievement. Its wide base indicates the struggle or the journey,     2    . That’s why when you search for images of “success”, it’s not surprising to see hundreds of photos of people on top of hills or mountains that are, of course, shaped like triangles.

    3    . Apart from the rule of thirds, many photographers (as well as artists) like to use what’s called the golden triangle rule in their composition. It involves arranging elements (原理) in a triangle to create a harmonious and symmetrical (对称的) image.

Squares and, similarly, rectangles are the most common shapes you see in man-made objects.     4    . People like them because they’re simple, balanced, solid, and secure.

The square’s positive attributes aren’t just limited to physical entities; it also works well in adding emotional and aesthetic (审美的) layers to images.     5    . When put together, it also creates a pattern that feels orderly and industrial.

10 . A recent discovery shows that our dance style is almost always the same, regardless of the type of music, and a computer can identify the dancer with astounding accuracy. Over the last few years, researchers at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland have used motion capture (动作捕捉) technology — the same kind used in Hollywood — to learn that your dance moves say a lot about you, such as how active or anxious you are, what mood you happen to be in, and even how much you empathize (共情) with other people. Recently, however, they discovered something that surprised them. “We actually weren’t looking for this result, as we set out to study something completely different,” explains Dr. Emily Carlson, the first author of the study.

The 73 participants in the study were motion captured dancing to seven different genres: Blues, Country, Dance/Electronica, Jazz, Metal, Pop and Rap. The only instruction they received was to listen to the music and move any way that felt natural. “We think it’s important to study phenomena as they occur in the real world, which is why we employ a naturalistic research example,” says Professor Petri Toiviainen, the senior author of the study.

The researchers analysed participants’ movements using machine learning, trying to distinguish between the musical styles. Unfortunately, their computer was able to identify the correct style less than 30% of the time. They were shocked to discover, however, that the computer could correctly identify which of the 73 individuals was dancing 94% of the time. “It seems as though a person’s dance movements are a kind of finger print,” says Dr. PasiSaari, co-author of the study and data analyst. “Each person has a unique movement signature that stays the same no matter what kind of music is playing.”Does this mean that face-recognition software will soon be joined by dance-recognition software? “We’re less interested in applications like surveillance(监视) than in what these results tell us about human musicality,” Carlson explains. “We have a lot of new questions to ask, like whether our movement signatures stay the same across our lifespan.”