1 . Virtual reality is considered as having the potential to transform how doctors diagnose and treat a number of mental illnesses, and the front lines of this revolution may be forming in China. Its market is wide open for ___________ and developers have an opportunity to leapfrog past traditional care models and make China an early adopter of VR psychiatry (精神病治疗) on a large scale.

VR psychiatric applications include immersing patients in simulations that seem real, exposing their brain—but not their body—to ___________ situations and helping them learn to train their physical and emotional responses. ___________, an alcohol-addicted patient can sit at a virtual bar without drinking, and a person too anxious to fly can ___________ takeoff and landing while staying firmly on the ground. Such treatments can yield fast, dramatic results: in one case a woman calculating heights could calmly ride an escalator after a three-hour course of VR ___________ therapy.

Researchers around the world have been _________ these technologies—with promising results. Through the end of 2016, peer-reviewed journals had published nearly 300 studies on using VR to treat mental health disorders. And then this March, JAMA Psychiatry published what researchers say is the first ever randomized controlled trial of a therapist-free VR ___________ of acrophobia, or fear of heights. It found the technology to be ___________, inexpensive and well-received by patients.

In China, treatment rates of mental disorders are low, which is partially linked to a shortage of trained professionals. World Health Organization data show China’s concentration of psychiatrists is four times lower than the global average, with only 2.2 per 100,000 people (the U.S. rate is 10.5). Another reason for low treatment rates is ___________. While similar biases exist in many countries, studies have shown people with psychiatric problems endure especially high levels of ____________ in China.

Many supporters of mental health VR think it can help ____________ both caregiver shortages and shame. Because the technology can be fully automated, it can easily scale to meet the needs of many people. And many think VR treatments could break through cultural barriers because they can take place in a ____________ place via a gamelike interface(界面), such as at home.

Despite the enthusiasm, however, experts warn that technology is no panacea(灵丹妙药). “VR can only be one part of mental health care and not the whole system,” one expert says. Even some of the technology’s strongest supporters ____________ that important safety and ethical guidelines are still lacking.

Still, with overwhelming demand for services and distrust of traditional care, ____________ health is booming in China. In psychiatry in particular, there is a relatively blank canvas for technological innovation—and VR is poised to fill a big chunk of that void(真空). If it does so, China could make significant strides to ____________ its treatment gap. It might even provide a model for other countries with shortages in their mental health care systems.

3 . My father decided to start learning French when he was 57. On the surface, his retirement hobby seems a little random — our family has no connection to French-speaking countries — but his ______ ran deeper than a passion for cakes. My grandmother developed signs of Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔兹海默症) in her early 70s, and studies suggest that being bilingual, that is, being able to speak two languages equally well, can ______ the start of the condition by up to five years. Drawn by that ______ benefit, many people have attempted to pick up a new language in adulthood.

Lots of activities are linked to better brain health in old age, like getting more education when you’re younger and physical activity. Experts say regularly speaking multiple languages may be especially ______ though. “We use language in all aspects of daily life, so a bilingual brain is ______ working,” said Mark Antoniou, a professor at Western Sydney University who specializes in bilingualism.

The age at which you learn another language appears to be less important than how ______ you speak it. The cognitive (认知的) benefit is from having to ______ your mother tongue, which your brain is forced to do if you’re trying to recall the right words in another language. So if the second language is used a lot, you’re getting that cognitive ______. That process is called cognitive inhibition. In theory, by improving these types of processes, the brain becomes stronger to the ______ caused by diseases like dementia. The stronger your mental power, the thinking goes, the longer you can function normally, even if your brain health starts to ______.

However, evidence for the benefits of learning a second language as a hobby in your 60s is ______. Research by Dr. Antoniou and colleagues found that while Chinese adults 60 and up improved on cognition tests after a six-month language learning program, people who played games like Sudoku did as well. Two more recent studies on the topic found virtually no ______ in cognitive performance after people took part in language-learning programs.

The scientists who conducted those studies offered a few potential ______. One is that the participants were highly motivated volunteers, who may have already been at peak performance for their age, making it hard to see any ______. Another is that the language interventions were perhaps too short. The handful of studies looking into the issue have used language lessons that were very different in their ______ and frequency. Some studies taught participants for eight months, others for just one very intense week.

4 . The way of recording things has never ceased to develop. In the 1980s, as sales of video recorders went up, old 8mm home movies were gradually replaced by VHS (video home system)tapes. Later, video tapes of family holidays lost their appeal and the use of DVDs ______. Those, too, have had their day. Even those holding their childhood memories in digital files on their laptops now know these files face the risk of ______.

Digitising historical documents brings huge benefits—files can be ______ and distributed, reducing the risk of their entire loss through physical damage caused by fire or flooding. And developing digital versions reduces ______ on the original items. The International Dunhuang Project, ______, has digitised items like manuscripts (手稿) from the Mogao caves in China, enabling scholars from around the world to access records easily without touching the real items.

But the news that the Ministry of Justice of the UK is proposing to scan the 110 million people’s wills it holds and then destroy a handful of ______ after 25 years has shocked historians. The ministry cites this as a way of providing easier access for researchers. But that only justifies digitisation, not the ______ of the paper copies. The officials note the change will be economically efficient (saving around £4.5m a year) while keeping all the essential information.

Scholars ______. Most significantly, physical records can themselves carry important information — the kind of ink or paper used may be part of the history that historians are ______. and error s are often made in scanning. Besides, digital copies are arguably more ______ than the material items, just in different ways. The attack from the Internet on the British Library last October has prevented scholars from ______ digitised materials it holds: imagine if researchers could not return to the originals. Some even think digitised information can easily be lost within decades no matter what ______ are put in place.

The government says that it will save the original wills of “famous people for historic record”, such as that of Princess Diana’s. However, assuming that we know who will ______ to future generations is extraordinarily proud. Mary Seacole, a pioneering nurse who now appears on the national school course in the UK, was largely ______ for almost a century.

The digitisation of old documents is a valuable, even essential measure. But to destroy the originals once they have been scanned, is not a matter of great ______, but of huge damage.

5 . Anyone who has ever witnessed the miracle in which infants progress from mewling to “Mama” to “Mine!” knows how critical it is for youngsters to hear normally before they speak their first words. _______, many children who don’t talk by age two turn out to be deaf. The sooner their disability is discovered and _______, the less likely they are to fall behind in the development of important language and social skills. That is why a growing number of hearing specialists (audiologists) and parents are campaigning for _______ screening of newborns for hearing loss.

Their _______ has registered in some powerful ears. To date, 22 states have passed legislation requiring at least partial screening programs. Part of the push stems from _______ in technology that, among other things, allow children as young as two months to be _______ hearing aids. But there are limits to the technology. One thing parents should realize before they start is that the screening tests are far from _______. A bad result doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem.

Audiologists estimate that 3 out of every 1,000 babies are born with some kind of hearing loss. Of those three infants, one is profoundly deaf. About half the time, doctors can identify a possible cause, such as a birth weight less than 5 pounds, or a family history of _______. The rest of the time there is simply no _______ as to why a newborn’s hearing may have been affected.

The screening tests work by introducing a sound into a baby’s ear and then measuring either the ________ of the ear’s internal mechanisms or the electrical activity of the auditory portion of the brain (the auditory brain-stem response test). Just because a baby fails either test, ________, does not mean that there is a hearing problem. A temporary buildup of fluid in the ear canal or excessive noise in the nursery can ________ the results. For this reason, experts say, hospitals should ________ the screening tests for any baby who doesn’t pass the first time before telling the parents to consult an audiologist for more thorough testing.

It is at this stage that things get a bit ________. Though 20 of every 1,000 babies fail the two-step screen, most prove on further examination to be just fine. Is it worth ________ 17 families of perfectly normal children - not to mention asking them to spend several hundred dollars on advanced tests — to identify three infants with hearing loss?

6 . Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up _______ attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science.

Psychology researchers Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin and Howard Seltman of Carnegie Mellon University looked at whether classroom displays affected children’s ability to maintain _______ during instruction and to learn the lesson content. They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning _______than when the decorations were removed.

“Young children spend a lot of time — usually the whole day — in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom’s _______ environment can affect how much children learn,” said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Should teachers _______ their visual displays based on the findings of this study?

“We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all _______ problems. Furthermore,_______ research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children’s attention and learning in real classrooms,” Fisher said. “_______, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays do make it difficult for young children to _______.”

For the study, 24 kindergarten students were placed in ________classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with. Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse (稀疏的) classroom. The results showed that while children learned in both __________ types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated. Specifically, children’s __________ on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom (55% correct) than in the decorated classroom (42% correct).

“We were also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children’s attention would __________ to another distraction, such as talking to their peers, or the total amount of time they were distracted would remain the same,” said Godwin, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and fellow of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research.

However, when the researchers totaled all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task __________ was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6% time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4% time spent off-task).

The researchers hope these findings will lead to further studies into developing guidelines to help teachers design classrooms __________.

7 . Alipay, the digital payment arm of Chinese financial technology company Ant Group, is allocating more resources to roll out translation services in 16 languages, to ensure foreigners in China can use mobile payments without any hurdles.

Alipay’s move comes amid China’s intensified efforts to further improve foreigners’ payment _________ in the country.

Alipay has allowed foreigners in China to link their _________ bank cards, including Visa and Mastercard, to its mobile payment tool, greatly streamlining (精简) the payment processes, said Zhu Xugang, director of the cross-border business at Ant Group.

Users of 10 overseas e-wallets are also able to use their familiar home e-wallets on their own phones by _________Alipay QR codes, to enjoy seamless mobile payment experiences across Alipay’s vast merchant network.

According to Alipay, foreigners can use the app to complete payments at restaurants, hotels, scenic spots, convenience stores and supermarkets, as well as for ride-hailing, shared bikes, buses and other public _________services in China. The newly _________ multilingual app includes English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.

The mobile payment app has also _________ the single transaction (交易) limit for overseas travelers using mobile payments from $1,000 to $5,000 and lifted the annual cumulative transaction limit from $10,000 to $50,000.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, published a guideline on improving payment services and _________ payment convenience in early March, a move to better meet the _________payment needs of the elderly and foreign visitors.

Last week, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, _________a payment guide that provides foreigners with text and graphic __________ on using bank cards, cash, mobile payments and e-CNY in China, the latest step in the country’s push to optimize the payment experience for foreigners.

Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst at market consultancy Botong Analysys, said the intensified efforts to provide convenient payment services will not only __________ improve the living and consumption experience of foreigners in China and attract more of them to the country, but also promote the healthy and sustainable development of the payment __________.

Wang said the move demonstrates the country’s resolve to expand high-standard opening-up, __________ the online payment scenarios of Alipay are wide enough, with high usage frequency. So, what it should do now is to expand the scope of foreign bank card binding and improve and simplify authentication of new users, to provide more convenient payment services to foreigners.

Meanwhile, Chinese banks are taking measures to expand the __________ of overseas bank cards and facilitate their use of cash in the country.

Dong said more efforts are needed to expand the scenarios of various types of payment methods at tourist attractions, sporting events, transportation hubs, healthcare and beauty centers and other daily __________ sites.

8 . In Favour of Simple Writing

Do you edit text messages carefully before sending them? If so, you may be the kind of person who takes pride in _______ even the simplest message. If you do not, you may see yourself as a go-getter, one who values excitement and speed over _______: get it done decently now rather than perfectly later.

People are constantly receiving messages, from the mailbox to the inbox to the text-message alert. What to read, what to skim (略读) and what to ignore are decisions that nearly everyone has to make dozens of times a day. A new book titled All Readers are Busy Nowadays makes the argument for being the careful kind of _______, even in informal lines. The authors also present well-established _______ that have long been prized in guides to writing.

Take “less is more”. Most books on writing well advocate the advice to _______ needless words. The authors, however, have _______ the idea. In an email to thousands of school-board members asking them to take a survey, cutting the count from127 to 49 words almost _______ the response rate.

Keeping messages to a _______ idea—or as few as absolutely needed—helps ensure that they will be read, remembered and acted on. _______ the number of the available options has the same effect, too. A link in an email, ________, attracted 50% more clicks when presented alone than when it was sent alongside a second additional link.

Syntax (句法) and ________ matter, too. It is more ________ to adopt short and active sentences, with common words familiar to everyone. From Facebook posts to online-travel reviews, even brief, informal pieces of writing that follow these rules get more likes and shares.

If everyone is a busy reader, everyone is a busy writer, too. That may make it tempting to sent as many messages as ________ as possible and hope for the best. But from essays to text messages organizing dinner plans, devoting time to the needs of readers has provable ________. If you are so busy that you write an undisciplined message which readers scan, ignore and delete, then you might as well have not ________ it at all.

9 . Picture this: you’re out to dinner with a friend who you know makes a lot more money than you do. When you open the _________, your heart sinks. There’s not a dish in sight that is less than $35, and even a soup is going to run you $18. You probably vow (发誓) to _________ dollar pizza slices the rest of the month to balance out this dinner. _________, this time, what if you just turned to your friend, closed the menu, and said, “Sorry, I have to be honest. I can’t afford this. Let’s go somewhere else?”

That’s the idea behind “loud budgeting”, a trend that could not only relieve you of the _________ burden, but help you deal with these sorts of stressful situations both mentally and emotionally. In an age when everybody is showing off nice things on social media and _________ to be something they’re not, it feels somewhat revolutionary to just tell the truth about what you can’t afford.

The term was first introduced by TikTok (抖音) comedian Lukas Battle. Battle explained his concept in an interview: simply put, loud budgeting is being _________ about what you do and don’t want to spend money on. Since his video, the concept has caught on rapidly among the _________, who are pointing out that it has come at a significant time when everything is uncontrollably expensive.

It’s not just a TikTok thing though. Even those in the financial services industry are on board with the _________. Nikolina Cuca, a financial advisor, says that she’s seen social media add pressure to her clients, causing them to spend _________ on luxury items. “There should be no shame about trying to match your spending to your means. This trend helps young people moderate spending by __________ the idea of living within budgets.”

Beyond just saving money, loud budgeting is also bringing people closer. Honest money talks lead to greater respect among friends and family. By __________ discussing money goals, people are creating stronger bonds based on mutual understanding for each other’s financial situations. And perhaps the most valuable part of the loud budgeting trend is that it provides a sense of __________. For example, if you tell a friend you are trying to cut back spending on drinks out, you are much __________ to stick with the goal than if you just keep it to yourself.

With its focus on being open, spending wisely, and building __________, loud budgeting is more than just a passing trend, but a cool way for the younger generation to __________ their finances. As more people adopt this approach, it is likely to stay a big part of how we handle money in the future.

10 . For decades, people have guessed that artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually replace human workers. But developments in the past few years have _______ these concerns as companies have released AI that can answer questions, write articles and create images. Now, even people in creative fields must consider the _______ of AI replacing them. But many experts still insist that these AI programs are no substitute for human ability.

AI programs have the _______ to perform some tasks currently performed by human workers. These include media jobs, such as writing advertisements and articles, along with many jobs in the financial fields and even tech-related jobs such as computer programming. AI is good at _______ data, so financial analysts and market research analysts may find their jobs _______.

Using AI for certain tasks may be a good thing. Perhaps AI will _______ less interesting work, allowing people to do more satisfying jobs, just as earlier technologies have. Using a machine to do laundry saves time _______ to washing clothes by hand, and many people use that extra time productively. _______, AI may be able to take over dull tasks, liberating people to be truly creative, since thinking up new ideas is something AI cannot do.

Another big challenge for AI is human _______. Most people prefer to communicate with humans rather than machines. Hence, AI is __________ to replace humans for jobs that require personal connection, such as counseling or teaching. A robot can perform tasks, but it cannot __________ care about others, and sometimes care is what people need.

AI can process data quickly, but it can only use data that it is given. So it cannot adapt to situations that __________ significantly from those in its data. Thus, although some AI programs can create content, none of them can be truly creative as the content AI creates will __________ consist of some combination of its sources.

Finally, if the AI receives false information, it has no way of recognizing that as false. Humans can also be fooled, but life experience can tell them whether a claim is reasonable, an ability that AI does not have. __________, AI must continually be fact-checked to make sure its data, and therefore its conclusions, are accurate.

Thus, although AI may replace some jobs, others require a human __________. At best AI may eliminate certain boring parts of tasks so that humans can focus on things that only they can do.