1 . On March 16th I left the offices of The Economist to head home. That was the last day when all editorial staff assembled in our London office. And, at the time of writing, no date for a return to the office is in _______

It is remarkable how quickly we have adapted. The newspaper has been written, edited and produced from couches and kitchen tables. January and February seem like an ancient era — the BC (before coronavirus) to the new AD (after _______).

The shift may _______ great workplace transformations in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it has been a much more sudden transition than occurred with factories, enabled by advanced economies that revolve around services instead of manufacturing. Back in the 1970s, when Britain adopted a three-day week (to commit a miners strike), there were power cub and TV stations had to close down early. This pandemic has not turned the lights _______

Not only that, it has made remote work seem both normal and acceptable. In the past employees who stayed home had to overcome the _______ that they were bunking off (偷懒). Now those who insist on being at the office sound self-important.

Things are _______, of course. Video calls Jack the spontaneity of a normal meeting; no off-the-cuff (即兴的) remarks to lighten the mood. Distance makes it difficult to generate camaraderie. Creativity is probably harder to foster. Experts say new ideas come from weak links in networks — i.e., people you meet occasionally. Such “ _______ collisions” have become rarer.

Yet _________ offices will not disappear, it is hard to imagine that working life will return to BC ways. For more than a century workers have stuffed themselves onto crowded trains and buses to get into the office. For the past two months they have not had to commute. _______, for their part, have maintained expensive offices in city centers because they needed to gather staff in one place. The rent is only part of the cost; there are the cleaning, lighting, printers, catering and security ________.

Another aspect of the AD era may be the disappearance of the five-day working week. Even before the pandemic many workers became used to taking phone calls or answering emails at the weekend. In the AD era, the ________ between home and working life, a useful way of relieving stress, will be even harder to sustain.

In future employees may work and take breaks when they please, with the company video call the only ________. The downside, however, is that the rhythm of life has been disrupted and new ________ are needed. Looking further out, the AD era may bring other changes. Some may decide to live in small towns where housing costs are lower, since they have no need to commute. Men will have ________ excuses to skip cleaning or child care if they are not disappearing to the office. In a sense, this is a(n) ________ to normal: until the 19th century most people worked at or close to their homes. But social historians may still regard 2020 as the start of a new age.

2 . BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI, a Six-Year Wait Over Now

HONG KONG film director Wong Karwai’s first television series, Blossoms Shanghai, began its broadcast at the end of December. The drama with 30 ______ is adapted from a 2012 novel of the same name, winner of the 9th Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2015. It aims to ______ stereotypes (刻板老套的印象) about Shanghai and help readers understand its culture.

The TV drama, set in 1990s Shanghai, centers around a young man called A Bao (played by Hu Ge, now a cultural ______ in TV field) who rises from ______ beginnings to become a successful businessman in ten years. Along the way, he receives help from supporters and faces off against rivals to expand his business empire.

The TV adaptation comes out in two ______ one in Shanghainese, the other dubbed (配音) in Putonghua. The former is an effort in particular to stay true to the novel’s ______ flavor, with the major roles taken on by actors born and raised in Shanghai and a large amount of the dialogue had in Shanghainese. Even director Wong himself spoke ______ Shanghainese while working on set.

The success of the TV series can ______ the effort invested in recreating the look and atmosphere of the time. In August 2020, the crew posted a newspaper notice to seek everyday household objects from the period between 1976 and 1995. The appeal received a nation-wide response. Various items from old newspapers to cigarette lighters to ______ , and even a car, were sent to them. Some of these items had interesting stories behind them, which bring strong ______ from the Shanghai citizens for the past days.

In addition, the main setting of the story, “Huanghe Road”, was rebuilt at a 1:1 ______ at Shanghai Film Park in Songjiang.

In typical Wong Kar-wai style, the production took six years to complete. The director has a reputation for being very ______ each and every shot, often requiring actors to perform a scene upwards of ten times. At a promotional event when the cast was asked to provide a reason for people to watch the series, actress Ma Yili said, “I hope you can see our growth and change of the city in this drama and remove the old fixed general image.” Three trailers (预告片) had previously been released. Each trailer also focused on a different part of the series: the first on A Bao’s life before his success, and the story brings us to the old days when almost all the Shanghai citizens invested their savings in stock due to ______ in marketing; the second on him as an influential businessman; and the final one on the era of the drama, which is essential to A Bao's personal struggle.

The TV series has received mixed reviews. On Douban, quite a number of viewers are not happy with its plot which they think is transitioning too rapidly and thus a bit challenging to follow, thus it ______ the viewing. But nearly 80 percent of the viewers have given it a ______ rating. ‘This is not a TV series! This is art!’ said one post on the platform.

3 . In 1919, in the aftermath of war, the International Labour Organization used its first convention to limit working hours to eight a day and 48 a week. The Depression later prompted employers to __________ a five-day week.

The latest crisis is dealing a __________ shock to how jobs are designed. The pandemic (疫情) forced many employers to implement remote working. It accelerated the use of technology to help them stay productive. As well as struggling with the challenges of hybrid work, some businesses are now __________ paying staff the same salary for a four-day working week, once as weird a concept as an eight-hour day.

Promised __________ include improved wellbeing, better focus, fairer sharing of childcare between men and women, and even a lighter carbon footprint. Fear of missing out on the latest trend must not, __________, blind companies to important obstacles and drawbacks.

Offsetting the cost of a four-day week at a national level looks ___________to achieve. As economic historian Robert Skidelsky pointed out in 2019, in a report for the UK Labour party, “__________ working hours nationwide, like France’s 35-hour working week, is not realistic or even desirable, because any cap needs to be adapted to the needs of different sectors (行业)”.

The Wellcome Trust, the science research foundation, decided in 2019 that even a trial would be __________, partly because its staff performed a mix of roles. Some jobs were hard to confine to four days. Other employees preferred to spread their work over five days. __________ already on a four-day week feared they might lose out.

Lockdowns exposed the gap between flexible homeworking professionals and front-line “__________” staff. A four-day week might __________ it.

Some staff want or need to work extra hours. To the risks of a two-tier workforce and reduced freedom of choice add the danger of __________. The approach fails if improved productivity does not cover the potential increased cost. If leaders’ determination to hit the same targets forces staff to work four 10-hour days, to shift their workload back into their __________ weekends, to rush jobs that require more time, or to hire additional hands to plug gaps, some of the benefits of offering workers more free time will quickly disappear.

For each of these __________, advocates have an answer. One is that companies just need to organise staff more efficiently. In itself, better __________ would improve productivity. Another is to cut working hours, rather than days, allowing greater flexibility.

4 . One of the first things that happens when you publicly declare yourself a feminist is that you start getting asked a lot of questions. If you’re anything like me, these probes into your_________ beliefs will leave you a mumbling mess. I have read enough books and academic essays on feminism to _________ a fairly substantial library, and yet as soon as I’m asked to sum it up I started sweating and string together a few _________ sentences before loudly shouting ‘because Beyonce’ and running to get another drink.

To save you from this _________ fate I have put together a collection of the feminist comebacks I wish I’d thought of in the moment. Rip out this page, keep it in your pocket and whip it out next time you’re stuck with a drunk man at a party. Because it will come into _________.

WHAT EVEN IS ‘FEMINISM?’

Great question! It’s actually something I’m really passionate about. Feminism is a centuries-old social movement fighting for the_________ of the sexes. Inter-sectional feminists believe that all people are _________ to the same rights, and they fight to end all discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, skin colour, ethnicity, religion or lifestyle.

THIS FEMINISM IS POLITICAL _________ GONE MAD! CAN’T YOU TAKE A JOKE?

Great question! Thanks for checking! You’re mistaken. I love jokes. I’ve got one for you ...

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Annie.

Annie who?

Annie thing you can do I can do for 18.4% less pay!

Ha, ha, ha. But, jokes aside, political correctness gets a bad rap (恶评), but all it really _________ is minority groups asking that they not feel marginalized and hurt by everyday conversation or the media. I love comedy - in fact it is one of my favourite things. But I’m afraid that jokes that offend women, people of colour, disabled people, trans people or others in the LGBTQ community just aren’t _________ to me at all. Let’s chat when you come up with some better material, preferably something that doesn’t offend my friends!

I’M A MAN AND SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE ALL THIS FEMINISM IS MAN-HATING. CAN MEN BE FEMINISTS?

Great questions! I’m sorry that a(n) _________ of the feminist movement in the mainstream media has led you to feel this way. Of course men can be feminists.

The sad fact is that we’ve all been socialized from birth to accept sexism as a part of life and, as a result, women can actually be just as _________ as men. Institutionalized sexism hurts men as well as women. It tells men that they aren’t allowed to show _________, that they have to be successful and powerful in order to succeed, and that they aren’t allowed to like the colour pink!

Feminism is the fight to _________ all these things and also to ensure that women are given fundamental human rights like education and reproductive freedom. Feminists truly believe that if we lived in a world without gender-based oppression, we’d all be so much happier. So even if you’re only joining for purely_________ reasons, we’d love to have you as a part of the gang!

Quoted from Scarlett Curtis’ Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies

5 . The picture of miseries and sufferings of the Black woman in America may appear, perhaps darker and more depressing than Dante’s (但丁) description of Hell because in the history of human race, the Black woman in America has suffered the most. A close and critical _______ of the history of the Black woman’s life and condition since her arrival in a strange land will unfold very well the long story of her pain and sorrow_______ her mutilated (被切断的) soul. Since her arrival on the foreign shore, the Black woman has been facing the worst kind of ______ and oppression. As a Black she has had to endure all the horrors of slavery and has been the _______ of continually inhumane treatment in all kinds of work, _______ the lowest place on the wage scale and restricted to the lowest-status and the most uncreative jobs. Since times of slavery, Black womanhood has been destroyed, twisted and abused with racial and inhuman _______ by black men and white men and women. In the process, they have lost their genuine “self”, and have developed a(n) ______ in themselves — though as black women, they see themselves with the eyes of white men and women and black men. This has ultimately been responsible for the destruction of their self-confidence and the feeling of being human. They ______ themselves as masters’ belongings.

As a mother she has seen her children sold into slavery. She has seen them left at home without attention while she _______ to the needs of the children of the ruling class. She has seen her children suffer from drug addiction, the _______ of decent education and experience attacks by a racist society, and _______ the prisons of this nation. In addition, besides suffering the common fate of all oppressed people, the African-American women continue to _______ the oppression of woman by men, which existed for long. In the home she becomes “the slave of a slave”. Men may be cruelly treated and subjected to all sorts of dehumanizing treatment on the part of the ruling class. _______, at least they can take out their frustration on someone else, their women.

Thus feminism in America means much more than what it stands for in other European countries, chiefly because it has different role and meaning _______ the Black women. If a feminist is commonly defined as one who is involved in transforming and _______ familiar realities, then Black women are innate (天生的) feminists. Black women writing exhibits and constructs a Black women’s literary tradition that is inherently feminist. Barbara Smith, an influential Black feminist critic, states that the ability of Black women to survive in the face of White America exhibits an innate feminist potential.

6 . There are countless reasons to stay up late in college. Here’s one good reason to go to bed.

The less a student sleeps every night, the lower their grade-point average will be, according to a two-year study of the sleep habits of more than 600 college freshmen.

Researchers found that every lost hour of average nightly sleep at the start of an academic term was associated with a 0.07-point _______ in a student’s end-of-term GPA. When a student slept less than six hours a night, the _______ of lost sleep on a student’s grades was even more _______, said David Creswell, the lead author of the study.

“You’re _______ this sleep debt,” Creswell said. “And that has a pretty negative role _______ people’s academics.”

Sleep, especially undisturbed sleep, helps the brain _______ and retain information it has learned. And when someone is sleep-deprived, attention span and memory are also impaired.

But students face a variety of “_______ pressure” that keep them up late in college, which is often the first time students are living away from home, Creswell said. The average student in the sample group typically fell asleep at about 2:30 a.m. _______ any of the students went to bed before midnight. And, on average, they slept 6.5 hours a night.

It’s not clear why less sleep would cause someone to have a lower GPA, Creswell said. Sleeping for longer, _______ periods of time allows for REM sleep, a period of unconscious rapid eye movement that corresponds with high activity in the brain. Creswell said he ________ that a regular pattern of ________ sleep creates a “sleep debt” over time, leaving students unable to concentrate. “These college students are going to class with a ton of sleep debt, and they’re having trouble staying focused and ________ in college classrooms,” Creswell said. “Those thing can really harm your ability to really ________ with the material.”

Obviously, the findings could inform systemic changes at university campaigns or workshops to help students have a better night’s sleep. There are multiple pathways to get to a GPA, and sleep is like the ________ that holds students’ lives together in lots of domains.

“Fundamentally, it ________: If we’re not sleeping well, all systems are not a go,” Creswell said. “Our body is not prepared for the day ahead of us and what we’re asking it to do if we don’t have that good, basic chunk of night-time sleep.”

7 . In modern cities, it is now time as much as space that separates urban functions, as people’s lives are lived not only to different timetables, but also at wildly different rates. The mass timetable of the industrial city, with 9-5 office hours and silent Sundays, has gone. In its ______ is flexi-time, part-time working, Sunday shopping and the 24-hour city.

European cities are ______ these changes perhaps faster than British cities. In at least half a dozen cities in Italy, ______, you will find the Uffici Tempi--the Offices of Time. What they do is try to reorganise time more flexibly in the city, in order to meet new needs. This is particularly relevant for Italian women, an increasing number of whom have to ______ two timetables: work and home. Usually located in the Mayor’s office, the Uffici Tempi bring together transport providers, shop-owners, employers, trade unions, the police and other services to see how their efforts might be better ______. The main aim in all this is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the city. This can mean delaying the starting tunes in schools, offices and factories to avoid rush hours, or having shops opening later in the day but closing later too. One further ______ is that there can be more police about in the evening, patrolling the streets when people most need them.

In a number of German cities, people have been ______ whether the timetable of the future city should be 6x6 or 4x9--working hours, that is. Apparently male workers favour a four-day week, while women workers, on the other hand, favour ______ shorter working days. This would give employees more time in the afternoon to be with children or to get the shopping.

The ______ for public services to adapt to our changing lifestyles has been quite difficult for some of the staff involved. ______, who likes working evenings or Sundays? Nevertheless, many city centres are now open for shopping seven days a week, and a number of them now promote themselves as ‘24-hour cities’, where those with money can drink, eat, dance and even shop the whole ______.

Time is flexible, but buildings aren’t. The ______ between the structure of the city and its uses, over time, is a serious architectural and planning problem. ______ has become the key skill. We are slowly ______ the terms of dormitory suburbs and industrial districts, in favour of mixed- use areas, out-of-town retailing and working from home. There is no doubt that planning theory is being ______ by the changing nature of time in the modern city.

8 . An idea whose time has come: the four-day workweek

The four-day workweek’s moment has arrived. With California Congressman Mark Takano’s introduction of legislation to reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours, awareness of a shorter workweek－and_________for it－is gaining. And so is the skepticism(怀疑)around it.

Initial skepticism is a(n) _________ response to a great change in how we think about work. American work culture has been defined by ideals of career as identity, workaholism and ambitions for continuous growth. It is not _________to free ourselves from the only reality we know.

And yet, if there were ever a right time, this is it. For so many, the muscles of adaptation have _________ over the past two years with every challenge brought on by the pandemic and other global crises. The rapid, significant transition across industries to working from home provided evidence that we can _________ quickly in response to changing conditions. Now, we have an opportunity to exercise these muscles to_________evolve from outdated conceptions of what work must look like.

Four-day workweek pilots are emerging across the globe, with some companies now shifting from the_________stage to implementing the policy permanently. Microsoft Japan, Unilever New Zealand and Kick-starter represent just a few of a growing number of organizations exploring the four-day workweek. _________political leaders are voicing support for the concept. Last year, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardem approved employers implementing a four-day workweek to help stimulate domestic tourism in response to industry downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advocates mention many_________, including reduced burnout, improved physical and mental health, increased gender equity, and positive environment impacts. It is easy to imagine what we might do with an additional day-spend time with family and friends, pursue a hobby, enroll in classes, sleep. Many in favor of the four-day workweek envision a more ____________and rested community. Pilot findings show increased productivity as well. Among companies that have adopted a four-day week, nearly two-thirds report increased productivity.

Some leaders will see the research and be ____________ that a pilot in their organization is worthwhile. Other will resist the idea. What theories or beliefs are at the the root of their concerns? Many leaders were taught that face-time with employees is the only way to ensure accountability, productivity and teamwork. Less face-time, which follows the four-day workweek model and work-from-home arrangements, can feel to some like____________control.

For leaders of organizations and teams, the shift to a four-day workweek requires re-imagining standard operating procedures, increasing innovation and, perhaps most importantly, trusting in ____________. Let employees work out the details rather than trying to “solve” the four-day workweek challenge____________. Awin, a Berlin-based teach firm, saw 80 employees volunteer for task forces to ensure that their switch to a four-day workweek went smoothly. Those who are closest to the work and potential challenges are often closest to the____________. The website www.4dayweek.com also offers many resources to help companies design a four-day workweek pilot.

9 . Child developmental psychologist Jean Piaget convinced us that young, undeveloped minds couldn’t handle complex concepts because they simply weren’t experienced or mature enough yet. Piaget, _________, believed that young kids could not understand cause and effect, that they couldn’t think logically, and that they also couldn’t handle abstract ideas.

But child development specialists are finding out that preschoolers without any formal education may have the capacity to understand more complex concepts than we give them _________ for.

Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology at University of California Berkeley and her team devised a way to test how well young kids understand the abstract concept of _________ cause and effect—the idea that there may be more than one cause for a single effect. They picked preschoolers around 4 years old _________ undergraduates. The study _________ a toy that could be turned on by placing a single blue colored block on the toy’s tray, but could also be activated if two blocks-orange and purple-were placed on the tray.

The preschoolers were expert at _________ that the blue blocks turned on the toy, as did the purple and orange ones, but that the purple and orange ones needed to be paired together. The undergraduates, however, had a _________ time accepting the latter solution. Their previous experience in the world hampered their ability to accept the unusual rules that _________ the toy.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University found a similar effect among preschoolers when it came to math. Previous studies showed that if you present infants with eight objects over and over until they got bored, and then showed them 16, they suddenly _________ interest and sensed that things change. Even before they are taught about numbers or amounts, then, infants seem to have a grasp on quantity. “All the evidence so far leads us to believe that this is something that babies come into the world with,” says Melissa Kibbe, co-author of that study. According to her research, the preschoolers had some __________ of quantity, and the appropriate amount that they needed to get from a small quantity to a larger one.

Kibbe’s and Gopnik’s recent work may have broader __________ for education, since current math curricula in schools may not be ideal for __________ the number sense that kids are born with. “There’s an exciting movement in psychology over the past decade, as we learn that students bring certain capabilities, or inborn knowledge that we hadn’t thought they had before,” says Jon Star, at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Though it may be too early to __________ such findings to the classroom, the results lay the ground work for studying similar inborn skills and how they might be better understood. “The hard part is, __________, how you build up and upon this intuitive knowledge in a way that allows a child to capture the complexity but not hold them back.” says Tina Grotzer, associate professor of education at Harvard. Taking advantage of a child’s still developing sense of numbers and quantities is one thing, but __________ it with too many new constructs about algebra, unknowns, and problem solving may just end up negatively affecting his learning and academic performance. “As soon as concepts get big and complex, there are all sorts of perceptual, attentional, and cognitive costs and challenges involved,” she says.

10 . Reading involves looking at illustrative symbols and expressing mentally the sounds and ideas they represent. Concepts of reading have changed _______ over the centuries. During the 1950’s and 1960’s especially, increased attention has been devoted to _______ the reading process. Although experts agree that reading _______ a complex organization of higher mental _______, they disagree about the exact nature of the process. Some experts, who regard language primarily as a code using symbols to represent sounds, _______ reading as simply the decoding (解码) of symbols into the sounds they stand for.

These authorities _______ that meaning, being concerned with thinking, must be taught independently of the decoding process. Others maintain that reading is inexplainably related to thinking, and that a child who pronounces sounds without _______ their meaning is not truly reading. The reader, _______ some, is not just a person with a theoretical ability to read but one who _______ reads.

Many adults, although they have the ability to read, have never read a book in its ________. By some experts they would not be ________ as readers. Clearly, the philosophy, objectives, methods and materials of reading will depend on the definition one uses. By the most ________ and satisfactory definition, reading is the ability to ________ the sound-symbols code of the language, to interpret meaning for various ________, at various rates, and at various levels of difficulty, and to do so widely and enthusiastically. ________, reading is the interpretation of ideas through the use of symbols representing sounds and ideas.