1 . 5 Ways to Determine Website Reliability

For every trustworthy website, there is tons of information that’s inaccurate, unreliable or just crazy. For the inexperienced journalist or researcher, such sites can _________ a wide range of possible problems. With that in mind, here are five ways to tell if a website is _________.

The internet is full of websites that were _________ five minutes ago. What you want are sites associated with _________ institutions that have been around for a while and have a proven track record of reliability. Such sites may include those run by government agencies, nonprofit organization or universities.

You wouldn’t go to the hospital to have your car repaired. This is an obvious point: _________ websites that specialize in the kind of information you’re seeking. _________, if you’re writing a story on a flu outbreak, check out medical websites, such as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sites run by companies and business—their websites usually end in. com—are often trying to sell you something. And if they’re trying to sell you something, chances are whatever information they’re presenting will be tilted (偏向) _________ their product. That’s not to say commercial sites should be _________ entirely. But be cautious.

As a reporter, you need the most up-to-date information available, so if a website seems old, it’s probably best to keep distance from it. One way to check: Look for a “last ____________” date on the page or site.

Respected ____________ often link to each other. You can find out which other websites link to the site you’re researching by conducting a link-specific Google search. Enter the following text into the Google search field, ____________ “[WEBSITE]” with the domain (域名) of the site you’re researching: link: http://www.[WEBSITE].com. For example, link: http://www.baidu.com.

The search ____________ will show you which websites link to the one you’re researching. If lots of sites are linking to your site, and those sites seem reliable, that’s a good ____________. Then it seems that you don’t need to worry about them too much

2 . The benefits of a bilingual brain

Hablas espafiol?Parlez-yous francais? 你会说中文吗?If you answered, “sí,” “oui,” or “会” and you’re watching this in English, _________ are you belong to the world’s bilingual and multilingual majority. And besides having an easier time traveling or watching movies without subtitles, knowing two or more languages means that your brain may actually look and work _________ than those of your monolingual friends.

So what does it really mean to know a language? Language ability is typically measured in two active parts, speaking and writing, and two   _________ parts, listening and reading. While a(n) _________ bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilingual around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions. And   _________ their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be _________ into three general types. For example, let’s take Gabriella, whose family immigrates to the US from Peru when she’s two-years old. As a compound bilingual, Gabriella develops two linguistic codes simultaneously (同时地), with a single set of concepts, learning both English and Spanish as she begins to   _________ the world around her. Her teenage brother, on the other hand, might be a coordinate bilingual, working with two sets of concepts, learning English in school, while _________ to speak Spanish at home and with friends. Finally, Gabriella’s parents are likely to be subordinate (次要的) bilinguals who learn a secondary language by filtering it through their mother_________.

Because all types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language __________ accent or pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to a casual observer. But recent   __________·in brain imaging technology have given neurolinguists a glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning affect the bilingual brain. It’s well known that the brain’s left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical in __________ processes. while the right hemisphere is more active in emotional and social ones, though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split. The fact that language involves both types of functions while lateralization (脑部的偏侧性) develops gradually with age，has led to the critical period hypothesis. According to this theory, children learn languages more easily, because the plasticity of their developing brains lets them use both hemispheres in language acquisition, while in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left.

But regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some__________ advantages. Some of these are even visible, such as higher density of the grey matter that contains most of your brain’s neurons and synapses, and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language. The heightened __________ a bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases, like Alzheimer’s and dementia by as much as five years.

So, while bilingualism may not   __________ make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged, and even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language as a child, it’s never too late to do yourself a favor and make the linguistic leap from, “Hello,” to, “Hola,” “Bonjour” or “你好’s” because when it comes to our brains a little exercise can go a long way.

3 . Games are anything but a waste of time. By playing games, children learn and precise important skills that they will use long after the games have been ______. Young children learn to follow rules and wait their ______. They also practice how to cooperate and ______ winning or losing. Older children develop thinking skills including using a strategy and planning ahead. Psychologist say strategy games encourage the frontal lobes (额叶) of the brain to develop. This part of the brain is ______ for skills which include planning, organizing and decision-making.

Playing board games can improve children’s focus and increase their attention span. But to be successful, games must be played to the end without any ______. Players cannot check their phone s or leave the table for a snack. Playing board games or card games is also a great way to unplug. A variety of studies ______ of the negative effects of too much screen time. Everyone gets ______ in a task with other people — in person — when playing a game.

Playing games is not just for kids, either. It’s ______ for adults as well. They need to make time in their day for enjoyment. This kind of activity can trigger (触发) the ______ of the feel-good chemicals that make people feel happier. The social interaction of playing games with family and friends also helps prevent ______ and depression. Sharing laughter and fun while playing games not only improves relationships and draws people closer but also improves brain ______. When people engage in games like chess or other strategy games, their brains are ______.

Playing games can also stimulate the mind and boost creativity. Taking a break for game — playing can also increase your ______. By the time you finish playing a game, your brain will have relaxed, so it’s ______ when you go back to work.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” It follows then, that play keeps you ______. So make some time to play a game today!

4 . I’m Lovin’It

Food would undoubtedly be our best friend, if it wasn’t for our love-and-hate relationship with calories. And the _______ fact that so many tasty things actually contain so many of them often catches us off guard. Calories quietly hide in our favorite foods, ready to slide into our bodies uninvited, often without _______, where they will stay for an extended vacation, until we can find the motivation to do some physical exercise (which, let’s face it, is never) in the hope of losing some weight.

Calories _______ practically everything that you can put in your mouth, which makes them impossible to avoid. So, rather than totally _______ delicious treats, it’s time to embrace them. So, starting with everyone’s favourite fast food restaurant, we’ve ranked some of the food on the McDonald’s menu_______ calories, so that you can indulge (纵情享受) with full disclosure.

But a word of _______: There is an extremely high chance that once reading this, you will desire everything on the McDonald’s menu-regardless of the calories.

Despite the knowledge that a quick trip to McDonald’s will burn through virtually your whole daily allowance of food ________, we have no shame in admitting that it is our favourite place on Earth. We are certainly “Lovin’ It”!

5 . “Blame My Brain” by Nicola Morgan, reviewed by Rosalie Warren

As someone who constantly blames my brain for all sorts of things (not my fault — my brain did it!), I was _______ by the title of Nicola Morgan’s book and only slightly disappointed to learn that it was _______ teenagers. Since I have many days when I feel that I am barely out of my teens (though the mirror, sadly, does not bear this out), I decided that the book might still be relevant to me, and indeed to my relationships with my no-longer-teenage children.

The subtitle is “The amazing teenage brain revealed” and amazing is, I soon _______, exactly what the teenage brain is. I learned that one of the things that _______ to the brain in our early teenage years is a flurry of growth of the dendrites (connections between neurons), followed a few years later by a major pruning session where many of the relatively unused connections are culled and the remaining ones are strengthened and coated with a fatty myelin layer ready for adult life. Not _______, all this activity is not without its downside for the person “within”, and it goes along way towards _______ why teenagers can be so difficult to live with and to cope with themselves.

There are also brain-based explanations of why teenagers need so much sleep, why they don’t tidy their rooms, why they come _______ when the rest of the world is going to sleep and why some of them, at least, are risk-takers. There’s stuff about alcohol and drugs and why such things are not good for the brain, but all of it is written in a very _______ and understanding way that I think teenagers will warm to.

Nicola Morgan is not a neurologist or a _______ scientist, but she clearly had done a great deal of research and ________ experts including Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and Professor Susan Greenfield, among many other eminent names in the field. Morgan has a gift for simplifying and explaining ________ subject matter with a light but precise touch, and she is careful to ________ between established facts and theories and speculations of her own and other people’s.

There’s plenty of humour and a good few well-deserved digs at the stupidity of parents and other well-meaning but misguided adults, which teenagers will ________. There are diagrams, tests, photos relating to questions like What emotions can you recognize? Do you ________ other emotions with anger? What kind of thinker are you? Which mental tasks do you find comparatively easy or difficult? There’s also sound advice for addiction, self-harm, depression and other ________ illnesses, and some pointers towards recognizing when you may need to seek help.

The illustrations by Andy Baker are great, too. And oh yes — there’s some interesting discussion on the differences between girls’ brains and boys’, if there are any. You’ll have to read it to find out...

6 . Flexible thinking for your career

Does work ever leave you feeling stuck in a rut with limited opportunities to be creative? To thrive, you might want to _________ your brain’s flexibility. But is this even possible, and if so, how?

Most jobs require the ability to solve problems and deal with _________, at least to a certain extent. Imagine a teacher who has a new and very nervous student in their class. If that teacher is a flexible thinker, he will be able to _________ his classroom management, even if he hasn’t seen this situation before. According to Leonard Mlodinow, author of Elastic, flexible thinkers rely on idea generation and imagination — they are willing to _________ and take risks. “Elastic thinking is what you need when the circumstances change, and you are dealing with something new. It’s not about _________ rules.” Therefore, instead of following the typical _________ for welcome a new student, the teacher might come up with a tailored response, based on prediction and previous experience.

So, how can you become a more flexible thinker? According to Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett, it’s all about _______   the brain. One way of doing this, she says, is through exposure to a variety of experiences which make it easier to adjust to new situations. A lot of companies now consider flexible thinking in the workplace, _________ when it comes to design. Workspaces may have couches(长沙发) where workers can _________ and relax, giving them the space to come up with and process new ideas. Mlodinow says it’s very important to take time to daydream, listen to ideas and concepts you disagree with and spend time doing activities outside of your __________. This will help you understand multiple points of view and therefore blossom in many different aspects of your career.

So, if you want to make a change, you can become a flexible thinker too, with a little practice.

7 . The most obvious benefit of a single currency is that it will no longer be necessary to incur (引起) the costs of exchange from one currency to another. Travelers know that these costs are not negligible. First of all, there is a commission ______ (usually a fixed amount); secondly, the price ______ which the traveler purchases foreign currency for domestic currency ______ from the price of exchanging back surplus (过剩) foreign currency. The removal of these transaction costs constitutes a gain from monetary union.

Another benefit is that the removal of exchange rate ______ between the countries of the EU would provide much more assurance to ______ location decisions. At present, a company takes ______ of the risk of exchange rate variation in its location decision, and this may lead it to scatter its plants across the various economies, to hedge against (防范) the risk of exchange rate variation. Removing this source of uncertainty allows investors to ______ according to economies of scale and may lead to more plants of ______ size, a reduction in unit cost of production, and increase in ______.

A single currency provides the ______ for counter-inflationary (反通胀) policies. A single currency could lead to a ______ in the market discrimination that currently exists in the EU (for example, prices of motor cars of the ______ specification (规格) stand higher in the UK than they do in France) as the quotation (报价) of prices in common currency discourages arbitrage (套利) activity and reduces the market division ______ which such discrimination relies. ______, firms in one country cannot continue to ______ their prices higher than their European competitors and still remain competitive.

8 . My real research started at the New York Botanical Garden. I met a person who is a paleobotanist (古植物学家), which means that he ________ prehistoric plants. My novel centers on Merwin and Louise, two little Sycamore ________ who began life during the Cretaceous Period.

Sycamore trees are called fossil species, which means they have been ________ since the time of the dinosaurs. They are ________ to modern trees we see in forests today. The Sycamore tree also makes those kind of seed balls, a little bit like a nursery (托儿所), like all these ________ in there together. In most of my stories. I write about children who get ________ from their parents and find their way in the world. That’s kind of what Sycamore seeds and other seeds do. They must ________ the plant that made them and go find a place to ________.

It was fun trying to ________ all the different places these two little seeds could go. I wanted them to go underwater. Drawing pictures underwater is so hard. ________ the whole scene with King Seaweed was really fun.

What surprised me the most was the idea that ________ are really communities. Trees communicate with each other with a mycelial (菌丝) system under the ground that ________ everything. It felt like there were interesting parallels (相似之处) with us, because we also live in ________, and we try to help each other. However, there are sometimes ________ from outside, and we have to find out ways to ________. Plants are doing the same thing

9 . The Great PowerPoint Panic of 2003.

Sixteen minutes before touchdown on the morning of February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia (“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机)______ into the cloudless East Texas sky. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. As the shattered shuttle flew toward Earth in pieces, it looked to its live TV viewers like a swarm of shooting stars.

The immediate ______ of the disaster, a report from a NASA Accident Investigation Board determined that August, was a piece of insulating foam (绝缘泡沫胶) that had broken loose and damaged the shuttle’s left wing soon after liftoff. But the report also   ______ out a less direct, more surprising cause. Engineers had known about - and inappropriately______ - the wing damage long before Columbia’s attempted reentry, but the flaws in their analysis were ______ in a series of overstuffed computer-presentation slides that were shown to NASA officials.

By the start of 2003, the phrase “death by PowerPoint” had well and truly entered the ______ vocabulary. Edward Tufte was the first to have taken it literally: That spring, the Yale statistician published a booklet entitled The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, whose core argument was that the medium of communication influences the substance of communication. While PowerPoint, as a medium, did not ______ create unclear, lazy presentations, it certainly ______ and sometimes even masked them — with potentially deadly consequences. This is exactly what Tufte saw in the Columbia engineers’ slides.

Wired ran an excerpt (节选) from Tufte’s booklet in September 2003 under the headline “PowerPoint Is Evil.” A few months later, The New York Times Magazine included his assessment — summarized as “PowerPoint Makes You Dumb” — in its ______ of the year’s most important ideas. “Perhaps PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of confusion,” the entry read.

Despite the backlash it inspired in the ______, the presentation giant rolls on. The program has more monthly users than ever before, well into the hundreds of millions. During lockdown, people ______ PowerPoint parties on Zoom. Kids now make PowerPoint presentations for their parents when they want to get a puppy. If PowerPoint is evil, then evil ______ the world.

On its face at least, the idea that PowerPoint makes us stupid looks like a textbook case of misguided technological doomsaying. Today’s concerns about social media somehow resemble the PowerPoint critique. Both boil down to a worry that new media technologies ______ form over substance, that they are designed to hold our attention rather than to convey truth, and that they make us stupid.

______, concerns about new media rarely seem to make a difference. If the innovation did change the way we think, we are measuring its effects with an altered mind. Either the critical remarks were wrong, or they were so right that we can no longer tell the   ______.

10 . The secrets of long life

A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good _________. So what’s the formula for success? In a recent study, scientists have focused on groups living in several regions where exceptional longevity is the normal: Sardinia, Italy, Loma Linda, California, and the islands of Okinawa, Japan.

Sardinians

Why do they live so long? _______ is part of the answer. By 11 a.m. Tonino has already milked four cows, chopped wood and walked four miles with his sheep. Now, taking the day’s first break, he gathers his grown children, grandson, around the kitchen table. Giovanna, his wife, unties a handkerchief containing a paper-thin flatbread called carta da musica, pours some red wine, and cut slices of homemade cheese.

These Sardinians also benefit from their _______ history. According to Paolo Francalacci of the University of Sassari, 80 percent of them are _______the first Sardinians, who arrived in the area 11,000 years ago. Genetic traits made stronger over generations may favor longevity.   _______, too, is a factor. The Sardinians diet is loaded with fruits and vegetables, milk and milk products, fish and wine. Most of these items are homegrown.

Adventists

The study found that the Adventists’ habit of consuming beans, soy milk, tomatoes, and other fruits _______their risk of developing certain cancers. It also suggested that eating whole wheat bread, drinking five glasses of water a day, and, most _______, consuming four servings of nuts a week reduced their risk of heart disease. And it found that not eating red meat had been helpful in avoiding both cancer and heart disease.

Okinawans

The first thing you notice about Ushi Okushima is her _______. It fills the room with pure joy. This rainy afternoon she sits comfortably wrapped in a blue kimono. Her thick hair is combed back from her suntanned face, revealing alert green eyes. Not long ago, she started wearing perfume. When asked about the perfume, she _______that she has a new boyfriend. ________behavior for a young woman, perhaps, but Ushi is 103.

With an average life expectancy of 78 years for men and 86 years for women, Okinawans are among the world’s longest lived people. This is undoubtedly due in part to Okinawans warm and ________ climate and scenic beauty. Senior citizens living in these islands tend to enjoy years ________disabilities. Okinawans have very low rates of cancer and heart disease compared to American seniors.

A lean diet of food grown on the island and a philosophy of ________— may also be a factor. “eat until your stomach is 80 percent full.” may also be factors. Ironically, this healthy way of eating was born of ________. Ushi Okushima grew up barefoot and poor, her family grew sweet potatoes, which formed the core of every meal. During World War II, when the men of the island joined the army, Ushi and her friend Setsuko fled to the center of the island with their children. “We ________ terrible hunger,” Setsuko recalls.