We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day     1     begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. What invariably happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment. It is     2     a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions. Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on your baby boy at the same time. The telephone rings,     3     marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off the table, smashing half your best crockery and cutting       4     in the process. You hang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc. Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt. As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, unexpectedly     5     (bring) three guests to dinner.

Things can go wrong on a big scale,     6     a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. During the rush hour one evening two cars collided and both drivers began to argue. The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner. She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driver     7     (follow) her brake hard. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake. As she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road. Seeing a cake flying through the air, a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of a sudden. The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them     8     (slide) off the back of the vehicle and on to the road. This led to yet     9     angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two stray dogs benefited from all this confusion, for they greedily ate     10     was left of the cake. It was just one of those days!

8 . Is loyalty in the workplace dead?

Just recently, Lynda Gratton, a workplace expert, proclaimed that it was. In The Financial Times, she said that it had been “killed off through _________ contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers.”

It’s sad if this good virtue is now out of place in the business world. But the situation may be more _________. Depending on how you _________ it, loyalty may not be dead, but is just playing out differently.

Fifty years ago, an employee could stay at the same company for decades, said Tammy Erickson, an author and work-force consultant. Many were _________ longtime employment along with health care and a pension.

Now many companies cannot or will not hold up their end of the bargain, so why should the employees hold up theirs? Given the opportunity, they’ll take their skills and their portable retirement accounts elsewhere. These days, Ms. Gratton writes, _________ is more important than loyalty: “Loyalty is about the future - trust is about the present.”

Ms. Erickson says that the quid pro quo (交换物，报酬) of modern employment is more likely to be: As long as I work for you, I promise to have the relevant skills and _________ fully in my work; in return you’ll pay me _________, but I don’t expect you to care for me when I’m 110.

For some baby boomers, this _________ has been hard to accept. Many started their careers _________ that they would be rewarded based on tenure (任职).

A longtime employee who is also productive and motivated is of enormous value, said Cathy Benko, chief talent officer at Deloitte. On the other hand, she said, “You can be with a company a long time and not be highly committed.”

Ms. Benko has seen her company shift its ____________ to employees’ level of engagement - or “the level at which people are motivated to deliver their best work” - rather than length of tenure.

Then there are the effects of the recent recession. Many people - if they haven’t been ____________- have stayed in jobs because they feel they have no choice. Employers may need to prepare for disruptions and turnover when the job market improves.

If the pendulum(摇摆不定的事态或局面) shifts, how will businesses persuade their best employees to stay? ____________ may do the trick, but not always. Especially with younger people, “you’re not going to buy extra loyalty with extra money,” Ms. Erickson said. ____________, employers need to make jobs more challenging and give workers more creative space, she said.

Loyalty may not be what it once was, but most companies will still be better off with at least a core of people who stay with them across decades.

If loyalty is seen as a ____________ to keep workers of all ages fulfilled, productive and involved, it can continue to be cultivated in the workplace - to the ____________ of both employer and employee.

9 . Volunteering Abroad

The following Important Adult Gap Year Questions will answer something you need to know about volunteering abroad

When is the best time to volunteer?

There is no best time to volunteer and most volunteer programmes run all year round. The main question will be climate and volunteer numbers. Ask when the busier and quieter periods are if you would like more or less company to volunteer alongside. Summer months will be popular with students and teachers, whereas between October and May you should expect to share your experience with maturer people of all ages and the self-employed whose business might be slow during winter months. It is not uncommon for the average age on a volunteer project in January to be between 40 and 70.You may also want to check whether it will be summer or winter at your destination. July is the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere.

Do I need experience?

Unless you would like to volunteer in a hospital, you probably won’t need any experience. Many projects need help playing with the children, building new classrooms and mending rooms which are falling down, jobs where the volunteers can get stuck in for a week and can easily be taken over by another volunteer once they’ve left. These are often jobs which wouldn’t get done unless volunteers help.

Can I volunteer doing different things, or just one?

Most sending organisations prefer volunteers to be in the same place going to the same placement throughout their stay. However, each organisation does things differently. Some organisations will allow volunteers to spend a week in a different area of work while others provide a weekly schedule where the volunteer group is taken each day to different locations. Do check you have all the visas you need before your trip if you are travelling to more then one country as you may not be able to pick up visas along the way.

What if I don t speak the language

It’s a bit of a myth that you need to speak the local language to volunteer abroad. Providing there is someone locally who speaks both English and the local language and will be settling you in and supporting during your stay, you should have no problems. Even for teaching, knowing the language won’t give you an advantage. It can even get in the way. Often children will complain they don’t want to practise their own language with their teacher who endlessly repeats “hello” and “what’s your name?” They would rather learn how to say it in English!