1 . When I re-entered the full-time workforce a few years ago after a decade of lonely self-employment, there was one thing I was looking forward to the most: the opportunity to have work friends once again. It wasn't until I entered the corporate world that I realized, for me at least, being friends with colleagues didn't emerge as a（n） ________ at all. This is surprising when you consider the prevailing emphasis by scholars and trainers and managers on the importance of cultivating close ________ relationships at work. So much research has explored the way in which collegial（同事的）ties can help overcome a range of workplace issues ________ productivity and the quality of work output such as team-based conflict, jealousy, undermining, anger, and more.

Perhaps my expectations of lunches, water-cooler gossip and caring, deep-and-meaningful conversations were a ________ of the last time I was in that kind of office environment. Whereas now, as I near the end of my fourth decade, I realize work can be fully functional and entirely fulfilling without ________ to be best mates with the people sitting next to you.

In an academic analysis just published in the profoundly-respected Journal of Management, researchers have looked at the concept of “indifferent relationships", a simple term that summarizes the fact that relationships at work can ________ be non-interpersonal, inconsequential, unimportant and even, dare I say it, disposable or substitutable.

Indifferent relationships are neither positive nor negative. The limited research conducted thus far indicates they're especially ________ among those who value independence over cooperation, and harmony over confrontation. Indifference is also the ________ option among those who are socially lazy. Maintaining relationships over the long term takes effort, which, for some of us, is much too________.

As noted above, indifferent relationships may not always be the most ________ approach in resolving some of the issues that pop up at work. But there are nevertheless several apparently proven benefits. One of those is ________ . Less time chatting and socializing means more time working and churning（产出）.

The other is ________ . As human beings, we're programmed to compare ourselves to each other in what is an anxiety-causing phenomenon. Apparently, we look down on acquaintances（泛泛之交）more so than friends. Since the former is most common among those ________ to indifferent relationships, their predominance can promote individuals' sense of self-worth.

Ego aside, a third advantage is that the emotional ________of indifferent relationships has been found to enhance critical evaluation, to strengthen one's focus on task resolution, and to gain greater access to valuable information. None of that might be as ________ as after-work socializing but, hey, I'll take it anyway.

3 . Last summer, my fiancé Eugeniu and I decided to drive to Provence for a holiday. The weather was beautiful, but then, about 700km into the journey, it suddenly______. I’d never seen the sky go so dark; the rain was heavy. We__a tunnel and when we came out onto a ______, the visibility was so bad that we could hardly see a meter in front of us.

______, we had the odd sensation that the car was lifting at the front. The next second, we were__into nothing. On the way down, I could hear rock pieces hitting the car and my heart pounding to my chest. After that, there was__.

Our car ended up landing on a road below the bridge. We were still_____, but I was in shock. I hadn’t______what was happening and was still thinking about my holiday. I had no idea the bridge had _________-thought it might have been an earthquake.

At first we shouted, but then stopped because we didn’t want to lose_______and pass out. We tried calling an ambulance, but there was no ________under the rock pieces. My leg was bleeding and I was too tense-because of the_____   I didn’t feel pain. My fiancé had broken his neck. Rescue workers eventually found us while saving a man whose van was__________from another section of the bridge above us. We’d been down there for four hours by the time we were pulled out.

It was only afterwards in the hospital that I realized the_______of the tragedy-43 people had died. Before, we had focused on earning money. When we went on this holiday, I had lovely clothes and shoes in my suitcase, and they were all buried under the ruin. Maybe that was a sign that these things don’t really _________

5 . Have you ever paid attention to your school guards? Would you say “good morning” to the cleaners? For high school student Ding Jiacheng, it is a_________ that many students haven’t realized the importance of jobs done by this non-teaching staff. He wanted to solve it and make a_________.

The boy from Hangzhou Entel Foreign Language School, together with several other students, _________ a project called “The Invisible (隐形的) Are Important”. They hoped more students would respect the “invisible” staff in the school. The project won a prize at China Thinks Big, a competition held by Harvard and Tsinghua University to_________ teenagers to study social matters.

“My team members and I sent questionnaires to 158 students, said Ding.“In one question, 56% of students said they would greet those non-teaching workers, _________ only 17% strongly believe that every student should do so.”

The team also did research on the interaction (互动) between students and workers. “Most students follow the rules of their teachers. However, one-third of students go_________ the rules of the dormitory(宿舍) workers,” said Ding. “It shows that students treat non-teaching staff_________ from teaching staff.”

The main reason, according to Ding, is that students know_________ about the work done by non-teaching staff. They also have few chances to communicate with them. So Ding’s team made videos to show the staff working in the school. They also held a basketball match between students and non-teaching staff to increase_________ interaction.

“The activity helped me understand that we can all have a__________ influence through our creative ideas,” Ding said.

6 . China and India are Rebuilding the Green World

Over the last two decades, the Earth has seen an increase in foliage (植物) around the planet, measured in average leaf area per year on plants and trees. Data from NASA satellites (卫星) shows that China and India-two___________economies with the world’s biggest populations-are___________the increase in greening on and. The effect comes mostly from_________tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture (精耕细作) in both countries.

Researchers from Boston University found that global green leaf area has increased by five percent since the early 2000s, an area_________to the entire Amazon rainforest.(亚马逊热带雨林) The study was also published in the journal Nature Sustainability on February 11. It revealed that at least 25 percent of the global plant_________this century came in China.

“China and India_________one-third of the greening, but contain only nine percent of the planets land area covered in vegetation,” said lead author Chi Chen of Boston University. “That is a surprising finding, considering the general idea of land degradation (退化) in populous (人口多) countries from_________.”

China’s_________contribution to the global greening trend came in large part from programs to protect and expand forests, accounting for about 42 percent of the greening contribution. These programs were developed in an effort to _________the effects of air pollution, soil erosion and climate change.

Another 32 percent of the greening change in China, and 82 percent in India, resulted from intensive__________of food crops. The land area used to grow crops in China and India has not changed much since the early 2000s.

8 . After their business trip, John and Mary returned, eager to see their lovely children. As they drove into their hometown feeling glad to be back, they noticed ________, and they went off their usual route to see what it was. They found a ________ in flames. Mary said, “Oh, well, it isn’t our fire, let’s go home.”

But John ________ closer and screamed, “That home belongs to Fred Jones who works at the plant. He wouldn’t be ________ work yet, maybe there is something we could do.” “It has nothing to do with us,” Mary ________.

But John drove up and stopped and they were both horror-stricken to see the whole house in ________. A woman on the lawn was screaming, “The children! Get the children!” John ________ her by the shoulder saying, “Get a hold of yourself and tell us where the children are!” “In the ________,” cried the woman. “Down the hall and to the left.”

In spite of Mary’s disagreement, John ________ for the basement which was full of smoke and ________ hot. He found the door and two children. ________ he left he could hear some more sobbing. He ________ the two badly frightened children into ________ arms and started back asking how many more children were down there. They told him ________ more and Mary grasped his arm and screamed, “John! Don’t go back! It’s ________! That house will fall down any second.”

________ he ran into the smoke-filled hallway and at last he found both children. As he climbed up the ________ stairs, the thought went through his mind that there was something strangely ________ about the little bodies next to him, and at last when they came out into the ________ and fresh air, he found that he had just ________ his own children.

The baby-sitter had left them at this home while she did some shopping.

10 . UPS deliveryman Ryan Arens was making his rounds near a pond, when he heard a strange sound. It was December, and about 15 feet from the frozen bank was the _________ of that sound — a brown-and-white wire-haired hound（猎犬）had fallen through the thin layer of ice. An elderly man was already on the _________, determined to save her. He was trying to _________ the pond and was striking the ice with a rock to create a(n) _________ to the dog, but seemed to be struggling.

Arens, 44, thought he _________ a better chance. “Animals are my weakness,” he said, explaining _________ he chose to take off his overcoat, even though the temperature was minus 15 and _________ the rescue task.

After breaking the ice using the man’s rock, Arens jumped into the icy water. He surfaced in time to see the dog going under. Arens swam about five feet toward the dog, grabbed hold of her collar, and _________ her out of the water and onto the ice. He then put the dog into the boat and slid it back to the bank, where _________ bystanders carried the dog to the home of the rowboat’s owner, a retired vet. __________ in the house himself, Arens jumped into a warm shower with the dog. A few more minutes in the pond, the vet told Arens, and the dog would have likely __________.

The next day, Arens was again making his __________ in the neighborhood when the dog’s owner came __________ to thank him for saving Sadie. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked. Then he opened the door of his pickup, and Sadie jumped out. She went __________ toward Arens, leaping around him and kissing him. Arens said that special delivery was the __________ of his UPS career.