1 . A is for always getting to work on time.

B is for being extremely busy.

C is for the conscientious(勤勤恳恳的)way you do your job.

You may be all these things at the office, and more. But when it comes to getting ________, experts say, the ABCs of business should include a P, for politics, as in office politics.

Dale Carnegie suggested many years ago: Hard work alone doesn’t ________ career advancement. You have to be able to sell yourself and your ideas, both publicly and behind the scenes. Yet, despite the obvious ________ of engaging in office politics-a better job, a raise, praise-many people are still unable—or unwilling-to “play the game”.

“People take it for granted that office politics ________ some manipulative(工于心计的)behaviour,” says Deborah Comer, an assistant professor of management at Hofstra University. “ ________ politics originates from the word ‘polite’. It can mean lobbying(游说)and forming associations. It can mean being kind and helpful, or even trying to please your superior, and then expecting something ________.”

In fact, today, experts ________ office politics as proper behaviour used to pursue one’s own self-interest in the workplace. In many ________, this involves some form of socializing within the office environment-not just in large companies, but in small workplaces as well.

“The first thing people are usually ________ on is their ability to perform well on a regular basis,” says Neil P Lewis, a management psychologist. “But if two or three ________ are up for a promotion, each of whom has reasonably ________ ability, a manager is going to promote the person he or she likes best. It’s simple human ________.”

Yet, psychologists say, many employees and employers have trouble with the concept of politics in the office. ________ people, they say, have an idealistic idea of work and what it takes to succeed. Still others ________ politics with flattery(奉承). They are fearful that, if they speak up for themselves, they may ________ to be flattering their boss for favours.

Experts suggest altering this negative picture by recognizing the need for some self-promotion.

3 . The loss of a job can have a very serious impact on the individual. The ________ effect, of course, is a sharp drop in income. Unemployment benefits (救济金) ________ offer less than half the individual’s previous earnings (收入), and many people are not even entitled to these benefits-for example, the self-employed, recent ________ who have not held a steady job in the previous year, and people who have been unemployed for a long period. The economic pressure on the jobless is very severe, particularly for those who have young children or ________ expenses for houses and education.

________, the effects of unemployment are not merely financial (经济的); they are also social and ________. As one out-of-work teacher puts it, “It’s difficult when you are robbed of all the things that supposedly ________ you together in terms of an identity — your work, your money, whatever is power to you, whatever is responsibility, whatever ________ freedom and choice. I had to ask myself, ‘Who am I now? What will I do now?’” All too ________, long-term unemployment may thrust the individual into boredom, despair, ill-temper, and perhaps, conflict with other family members. Even those who keep their jobs are affected by ________ of unemployment, for they begin to fear for their own future. ________ the confidence that workers have in times of full employment, ________ negotiate less aggressively for improvements in pay or working ________, for they and the employers know that if they do not like the job as it is, others will gladly take it. Unemployment is always accompanied, ________, by underemployment — the situation in which people are working either for extremely low wages or at jobs ________ their level of skill.

4 . Back to the Hanfu-ture: Young Chinese Revive Ancient Fashion

Dressed in a flowing long robe decorated with old-time embroidery(刺绣), stylist Xiao Hang looks like she surfaced from a time machine as she walks across the busy Beijing metro, attracting ________ glances and inquisitive questions.

China has welcomed Western fashion and futuristic technology as its economy boomed in recent decades. ________, a growing number of young people like Xiao are looking to the past for their clothing choices and dressing traditional “hanfu”, or “Han clothing”. These ________ costumes of the Han majority are ________ a renaissance in part because the government is promoting traditional culture. Period dramas have also ________ to the rise in interest in traditional Chinese “hanfu”-The Story of Minglan, a TV series set in the Song Dynasty, appealed to more than 400 million viewers in three days earlier this year.

There is no ________ definition of what counts as “hanfu” since each Han-dominated dynasty had its own style, but the outfits are ________ by loose, flowing robes that drape around the body, with sleeves that hang down to the knees. “When we were little, we would also drape sheets and duvets around ourselves to ________ we were wearing beautiful clothes,” Xiao told AFP. Xiao, who used to work at a state-owned machine manufacturing company, now runs her own “hanfu” business, where she ________ customers for photo shoots and even plans hanfu-style weddings. In modern China, the “hanfu” community gathers people: from history ________ to anime(动画)fans, to students and even young professionals. Yang Jiaming, a high school student in Beijing, wears his outfit under his school uniform. “Two-thirds of my wardrobe is ‘hanfu’,” he said, showing up in a Tang-style beige gown and black boots at a hanfu gathering, adding that his classmates and teachers have been ________ his style. “Clothes are the foundation of culture,” said Jiang Xue, who is part of Beijing-based “hanfu” club. “If we, as a people and as a country, do not even ________ our traditional clothing or don’t wear them, how can we talk about other essential parts of our culture?” she said.

There is some way before the style reaches mainstream ________ in China. Others say they’re ________ by the odd looks they get when wearing “hanfu” in public. “I used to be very embarrassed to wear hanfu out,” screenwriter Cheng Xia told AFP. Yang, the high school student, is more ________. He said, “At the very least, we can wear our own traditional clothes.”

7 . One very important institution in our economy is the bank. Banks_________ money for individual people, corporations, and the government. Banks provide a number of important services for you and your family. Most importantly, they’re a_________ place to store your money. They also provide an easy way for you to_________ money from one place to another. When you write a personal cheque, the cheque authorizes the bank to give your money to the person or business whose name is on the cheque.

Of course, banks also lend money. Ordinary people take out bank_________ for a number of reasons-to pay for college, to buy or remodel a home, to start or expand a business, and so forth. Banks provide these services to individuals; _________ , their main function is to lend large sums of money, for example, to corporations. When people or corporations borrow money from a bank, they must, of course, pay_________ —a percentage of the money they have borrowed.

Banks pay interest on the money they hold, and charge interest on the money they lend. For a bank to make a_________ , it has to collect more interest than it pays out.

Sometimes banks invest money as well as lend it. To invest money means to put it into a corporation or some other project—for example, building a housing complex or doing medical research— _________ a share of the profits. Most businesses need loans and investments at some time, and banks are an important source of_________

You might wonder what would happen if all the people with money in a bank wanted to take their money out at the same time. I mean, how would the bank be able to give everyone their money, if it had lent out or __________ most of it? In fact, this can be a serious problem for banks. They__________ the fact that most people won’t want their money for a long time once it’s deposited. That leaves the bank free to lend or invest the money. If every person—or even lots of people-tried to__________ their money at the same time, the bank might not be able to honour all of its__________ . This causes some banks to __________ , or go bankrupt.

Bank failures used to be __________ during times of recession or depression. They were especially common during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933, one of the first things he did was close all the banks, so depositors wouldn’t panic and try to take all their money out.

8 . As anyone who has tried to lose weight knows, realistic goal setting generally produces the best results. That is partially _________ people who set realistic goals actually appear to work more efficiently, and make more effort, to achieve those goals.

What is far less understood by scientists, _________, are the potentially harmful effects of goal setting.

Newspapers relay (转发) reports of goal setting prevalent in industries and businesses up and down both Wall Street and Main Street, yet there has been surprisingly little research on how the practice of setting goals may have_________ to the current economic crisis, and unethical (不道德) behaviour in general.

“Goals are widely used and promoted as they have really_________ effects. And yet, the same motivation that can push people to make more effort in a constructive way could also motivate people to be more likely to_________ unethical activities,” says Maurice Schweitzer, professor at Penn’s Wharton School.

“It turns out there’s_________ economic benefit to just having a goal — you just get a psychological benefit,” Schweitzer says. “But in many cases, goals have economic_________ that make them more powerful.’

A typical example Schweitzer and his colleagues mention is the 2002_________ of energy-trading giant Enron, where managers used financial incentives (鼓励) to motivate salesmen to meet specific revenue goals. The problem, Schweitzer says, is the actual trades were not_________ .

Other studies have shown that__________ employees with unrealistic goals can force them to lie, cheat or steal. Such was the case in the early 1990s when Sears__________ specific sales quota (额度) for its auto repair staff. It__________ employees to complete repairs that were actually unnecessary just to meet the requirement.

Schweitzer admits his research runs counter to (违背) a very large body of literature that__________ the many benefits of goal setting. However, __________ of goal setting have argued with Schweitzer’s use of such evidence to support his conclusion that goal setting is widely__________ .