1 . If you are experiencing physical symptoms that could indicate burnout, consider seeing your primary care doctor or a mental health professional to determine whether they are driven by stress or rooted in other physical condition, Dr. Dyrbye said. Don’t just take no notice of the symptoms and assume they are _________.

“It’s really easy to _________ your own symptom, especially in our culture, where we are taught to work hard,” Dr. Gold said.

If it is burnout, then the best solution is to _________ the root of the problem. Burnout is typically recognised when it is job-driven, but chronic stress can have a variety of _________ — financial problems, relationship difficulties, and caregiving burdens, among other things. “Think about the pebbles in your shoe all the time that you have to _________,” Dr. Maslach said, “and brainstorm ways to _________ some of them, at least some of the time. Perhaps you can ask your partner to help more with your toddler’s bedtime routine, or get takeout when you’re especially busy so you don’t have to plan dinner, too.”

Despite popular culture coverage of the issue, burnout can’t be “fixed” with better self-care, Dr. Maslach said — in fact, this _________ only worsens the problem, because it lays the blame and responsibility on those with burnout and implies that they should do more to feel better, which is not the case, she said. However, some lifestyle _________ can make burnout less likely. Social support, for instance, can help, Dr. Gold said. This could include talking to a therapist or meeting with friends (even if over Zoom). It may also help to _________ mental health or exercise benefits offered by your employer. Sleeping more can help too — so if you’re __________ from a lack of sleep, talk to a doctor about possible treatments, Dr. Bennett suggested.

When burnout __________ job-related difficulties, it may help to request better working conditions. Dr. Maslach suggested brainstorming with co-workers and presenting your __________ with ideas that would help — like providing quiet areas for breaks and personal phone calls, creating “no meeting” days so that employees can have more time to __________, or ensuring that there’s always coffee in the break room. Even small changes like these can reduce the risk for burnout if they fix a problem people __________ at work every day. “It’s the lasting job stressors that make people really __________ after a while. They don’t have the right equipment, they don’t have the things they need, they don’t have enough people to do the work,” Dr. Maslach said.

5 . In a culture obsessed with measuring talent and ability, we often overlook the important role of inspiration because of its complicated nature. Its history of being treated as supernatural hasn’t helped the______. But as recent research shows, inspiration has a major effect on important______.

Inspiration is the springboard for creativity. Being in a state of inspiration ______the creativity of writing samples across scientific writing, poetry and fiction. Inspired writers are more ______and productive, and spend less time pausing and more time writing. The link between inspiration and creativity is in line with the surpassing aspect of inspiration, since creativity involves seeing possibility beyond existing restrictions.

Inspiration facilitates progress toward goals. In a recent study conducted by Marina Milyavskaya and her colleagues, college students were asked to report three goals they intended to_______ throughout the course of the semester. They then reported on their progress three times a month. Those who scored higher on the Inspiration Scale displayed increased goal progress, and their progress was a ______of setting more inspired goals. ______, people who were generally more inspired in their daily lives also tended to set inspired goals, which were then more likely to be successfully achieved. ______the relationship between inspiration and goal progress was mutual: goal progress also predicts future goal inspiration. Finally, inspired individuals reported experiencing more purpose in life and more gratitude.

Inspiration increases______. In another study, those who were exposed to Michael Jordan’s greatness experienced higher levels of Positive Affect, and this increase in Positive Affect was completely explained by their score on the Inspiration Scale. This inspiration was not______ though, foretelling positive well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) three months later!

Inspiration was more strongly______ future than to present satisfaction. The extent to which inspiration lasted was explained by self-reported levels of purpose and gratitude in life.

These findings show that inspiration______ a lot, which may put the burden on someone to become inspired and helpless to do so. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert rightly expresses this ______in her inspiring TED talk. I agree with Gilbert that one should not put______ on oneself to become inspired. These key scientific findings suggest that inspiration is not______— it happens. Knowing this should free you from the pressure to make inspiration happen.

6 . 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.

I offer to pay you $200 in one year if you give me $190 today. Good deal or bad deal? It’s the kind of math problem you might encounter in real life, _________, say, whether the cosecant (余割) of a 30-degree angle is 1 or 2. You can imagine students _________ their spirits and paying attention when they realize that they need to know algebra (代数) to avoid being cheated on a loan. Math and personal finance make a _________ fit. Students grasp concepts in math much better when they see how those subjects _________ their daily financial lives.

A survey in 2022 funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that 61 percent of parents of students said math education should be “relevant to the real world” _________ that only 21 percent said it was. The drive for relevance goes beyond K-12 education. Some of America’s top universities are _________ personal finance into their curriculums.

Harvard has a personal finance course in the _________ department that’s taught by John Campbell, a past president of the American Finance Association. “_________, personal finance was regarded as a very sort of hands-on skill that you might teach to people who were going to a technical high school,” he told me. “There is, I would say, a modern movement to _________ of personal finance as a subject with actually a lot more intellectual content.”

In most high schools, personal finance classes are light on math, and math classes are __________ in personal finance. The FiCycle curriculum has plenty of each. “The personal finance component is incredibly __________ for our high school students,” Philip Dituri, the director of education at Financial Life Cycle Education, who has a doctorate in math education, told me. He believed that quite a lot of students would be stimulated by the __________.

There is a __________ standard for personal finance education that was put together by the Council for Economic Education and the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. It emphasizes how to __________ one’s finances. FiCycle focuses more on the underlying concepts. It’s about “how and why individuals and households transfer consumption over time,” Financial Life Cycle Education says.

In conclusion, the integration of math and personal finance in education is not just an academic pursuit, but a __________ necessity for students to guide their real life. It is time for educational institutions to take note and adapt their curricula to better prepare students for the financial challenges of adulthood.

8 . 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.

9 . The disposable culture

The disposable (一次性的) culture started small. In1892 William Painter, founder of the Baltimore Bottle Seal Company, patented the bottle cap. The bottles were returned and refilled, but the bottle caps were ________. They only worked once. Painter’s chief salesman at the time was called Mr Gillette, who went on to apply the same principle to his own invention, the disposable version-cameras, contact lenses, barbecues- but the ________ has been taken a step further. For ________ reasons, most of the electrical equipment that we buy for the home is effectively disposable. This is because it is usually cheaper to ________ them than to mend them. This applies not just to radios and toasters, but also to fridges, televisions and dishwashers. We now live in a disposable culture.

Most people feel ________ this new trend. We know we should be reducing the amount of waste we produce and recycling as much as possible although despite all our efforts, landfill continues to increase. It’s hard to slip a CD player into the bottom of the rubbish these days without feeling ________ especially if you suspect that all it needs is a simple repair. But who ________ that sort of thing these days? And how much would they charge you?

With persistence, one may still ________ someone out there willing to make the necessary repairs to your broken bread-making machine, but even they will feel obliged to inform you that, given the likely price of the ________, you’ d probably be better off throwing away the old one and buying the latest model. To ________ that something should be mended even though that will cost more than a brand-new replacement is weird, to say the least.

This dilemma (困境) occasionally ________ the possibility of fixing the damaged goods yourself. If something is next to ________ anyway, why not take it apart and see if you can figure out what’s wrong? I have had particular luck with cheap, plastic, battery-operated children’s toys, where bad manufacture is usually the cause of the ________ and some strong glue or tape is usually all it needs to put it right. Small children tend to be impressed by this sort of thing, which is probably the only reason I bother. I wouldn’t suggest you attempt to repair your own microwave, although I managed it once. It was one of the most ________ experiences of my life a difficult success to mention in casual conversation, perhaps, but I’m still trying.

While some repairs are certainly beyond the ability of the ordinary consumer, many are unbelievably simple. Finding willing ________ may be almost impossible, but tracking down spare parts has never been easier now that you can look on the Internet. There are also hundreds of sites offering step-by-step instructions for making repairs.