1 . Do you sometimes ignore your mom while chatting with friends? If you’re a teen, that’s fairly ________. And new researches may explain why so many adolescents ________ their mom’s voices.

Young kids’ brains are very tuned in to their mothers’ voices. But as they grow up, everything ________. Teenagers’ brains are more tuned in to strangers’ voices. This obvious ________ usually happens between ages 13 and 14. That’s when teenagers are in the course of puberty (青春期), a roughly decade-long transition into adulthood.

Researchers scanned the brains of 7 to 16-year-olds as they listened to things said by their mothers or by unfamiliar women. The words were purely ________: teebudieshawlt, keebudieshawlt and peebudieshawlt. As the kids listened, certain parts of their brains became ________. This was especially true in brain regions that help us to ________ rewards and pay attention. That’s exactly as it should be. The experiments show that those parts of their brains react more strongly to the unfamiliar voices than to their mothers’.

These areas in the adolescent brains don’t stop ________ mom. It’s just that unfamiliar voices become more rewarding and worthy of attention. “As kids ________, their survival depends less and less on maternal support. ________ , they rely more and more on their ________—friends and others closer to their own age. So the brains need to begin paying more attention to that wider world. The brain seems to ________ new needs that come with adolescence.”

However, mothers’ voices still have special power, especially in times of ________. Studies also showed that levels of stress hormones (荷尔蒙) ________ when stressed-out girls heard their moms’ voices on the phone.

So while both teens and their parents sometimes feel frustrated by missed messages, that’s okay. “That’s the way the ________ is wired, and there’s a good reason for it.”

5 . It was rush hour in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this September. Timothy White was _____   home when he noticed a gray four-door ______ on the opposite side of the street. It moved on ______. As the pickup drew closer, White spotted the ______ appeared to be asleep.

Pretty soon, this guy’s going to ______into a house and kill himself or kill somebody else. White ______ to stop that vehicle. White made his car a U-turn and was now facing in the same ______ as the pickup, but there were four cars ______ them. White honked his horn, hoping the cars in front would move aside. They didn’t.

Trapped, White ______, jumped out and dashed up the sidewalk. The truck was going slowly. He ran around to the driver’s side. The window was down on this temperate ______ day. White grabbed the frame of the window and with a ______ strength, leaped in. White was now inside the truck.

The driver, Todd DeAngelis, was just a bit ______, unexpectedly facing dangerously low blood sugar. White worked quickly. He ______ the pickup into park and called the police.

An ambulance soon arrived and took DeAngelis to hospital. “You kept me from a much worse ______ than it could have been,” DeAngelis said after his ______. “I’m always trying to help, where I can, when I can,” White smiled.

6 . During my freshman year at Brooklyn College, credit card companies were eager to earn the business of students. _________ by various rewards programs that only told part of the story, many students signed up for one or more cards without understanding the _________ of late payment.

_________ basic financial literacy (金融素养) meant many college students started off their adult lives with poor credit. _________ they faced challenges later in life when they needed to borrow money but couldn’t _________ a low-interest loan. Poor credit _________ me past college and years into my teaching career. That has fueled my sense of _________ to teach the next generation of students about personal finance. It’s why I helped develop a personal finance course for teens and young adults.

To make the class as _________ as possible, we asked the students what _________ interested them. They were curious to know about buying homes and cars. Our course, intended for those aged between 14 and 21, has them __________ questions: How much do I need to save to make these purchases? Which purchases do I prioritize (优先考虑)?

We, educators, can help young people __________ life after graduation, as there are many great __________ and developing our course was __________ than I had expected which is why I hope more schools and youth organizations will offer financial education.

Financial literacy shouldn’t be optional because it puts those without it at a significant __________. And if my __________ as a student and an educator have taught me anything, it’s that no one should have to learn important financial lessons the hard way.

8 . 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.

9 . Have you seen people who take pictures of food for more than 10 minutes before eating? How about those who beautify their selfie (自拍照片) so much that they can’t be _______?There must be one or more who _______ in your social media. No matter what they choose to share, they share the best but the most unreal.

Take my friend Chen. Every time we went to a restaurant, she would not take a _______ until all the dishes we _______ were on the table. Then, she would spend five minutes in setting the dishes in a seemingly random but in fact _______ order. Then the most important part: taking pictures. After that, she would choose one of the _______ and click in the filter (滤镜) app. The food eventually looked 10 times more delicious than it really was, but we had no _______ to really enjoy it—it all went cold. Actually Chen’s real life is much less elegant. For example, she hates to wash the dishes, so she leaves them in the sink for _______.

Many people care too much about others’ opinions and try too hard to _______ others. They find it hard to be ________ and to accept themselves, and thus they are afraid to show their real life on social media. What they are trying to prove is ________ what they lack in reality. But this will not bring any change to reality, as they still ________ the same old pattern of life.

If they really want an elegant life, they should put more ________ into achieving it. Being more confident, ________ themselves and trying their best to be better is much more meaningful than ________ their life on social media.

10 . It’s common to post on social media to keep a record of the fun things you do. Although social media has its positive aspects, it can also have some serious _________ results. For example, have you ever been bored and decided to check social _________, only to find out that your best friend is at the Great Wall, one of your classmates is eating delicious noodles at your _________ restaurant, and one of your basketball teammates is visiting the giant pandas in Sichuan? Oh! You’re really _________ ! At least that’s what you might think.

Have you ever had that feeling that others are experiencing things and enjoying life _________ than you are? Researchers call that feeling the fear of missing out or FOMO.

FOMO is a real _________ that over 75% of young people experience from time to time. Social media is the cause, because it’s so easy today to _________ through to see what your friends are doing, eating, buying and talking about. _________, it would be impossible to enjoy all the same activities we see others take part in on social media. Rather than _________ this basic truth, though, we often let FOMO lead us to compare our lives to those of others on social media. This __________ leaves us feeling dissatisfied. Why? We know all the aspects of our lives—both good and bad. But all we see on social media are the __________ moments others share. FOMO makes us check social media more frequently, leading to a negative cycle that can be hard to __________. Researchers have found that social media and FOMO can cause feelings of __________, loneliness and boredom. Researchers advise that we stop looking for __________ on social media. If we let FOMO __________ us, the only thing we’ll really be missing out on is our own life. And life’s too short for that!