4 . History has not yet _______ what we will definitively call the postmillennial cohort (2000年后出生的人) that now _______ more than 60 million people in the U.S. These kids and _______ with no concept of life _______ the Internet have so far been called the App Generation and Generation Z. They’ve been referred to as Homelanders, having grown up under the ghost of terorism. They’ve also been _______ the Plurals, for their historic diversity, as well as the Founders, at least by MTV.

Whatever we _______ naming them, marketers and academies are turning their attention to this group, which has billions in _______ and is already shaping the culture. This generation is growing up “totally and utterly connected,” says California State University psychologist Larry Rosen. Experts like Rosen have concerns about these kids’ Google-inspired expectations that everything be _______. They worry about their inability to _______ even five seconds of boredom. And they worry about the demands that come with ________ several identities online, from Facebook to Twitter to Snapchat. “There’s so much pressure on young people, who are still ________ their identities, to present this crystallized, idealized identity online,” says the University of Washington’s Katie Davis.

Historian Neil Howe sees ________ with the Silent Generation, the spoilt, risk-avoiding, “nice” generation of kids who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, although some marked differences are found. Today’s youths are also coming of age among geopolitical trouble and fears about the economy, he says, ________ schools emphasize an intense far-reaching sensitivity to other kids. He suspects this ________ will be known for being well behaved and perhaps boring the culture by playing it safe. “There are typical examples that occur repeatedly,” Howe says, “even if they go by different ________.”

Too much expenditure on fashion

Recently, an increasing number of students are pursuing fashion in our class.

7 . 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   ______.

Over the past few weeks, many people around the world joined me in celebrating my career firsts — from winning my first Golden Globe to earning my first Oscar. While I am grateful for this unforgettable moment in my professional life, I want to     1    that global spotlight to an issue that is personal to me and that calls for the world’s attention.

My life changed eight years ago when one moment shook my     2    on the world.

It was April 25, 2015, and I was visiting local organizations. Suddenly, a deadly earthquake hit the country. I have never felt the type of fear and panic I felt that day, when the ground beneath shook so powerfully that I was not able to stand on my own feet.

I was fortunate to make through that day uninjured, but not     3    . As we made our way straight to the airport, I saw the ruins and destruction all around me. I couldn’t     4    the thought of how unfair it was that I have a home to go to, unlike the thousands of families whose entire lives were suddenly     5     to rubble (瓦砾).

Crises are not just moments of disaster: They     6     deep existing inequalities. Those living in poverty, especially women and girls, bear the brunt (首当其冲). In the immediately aftermath of a disaster, lack of sanitation (卫生系统), and health facilities     7     affects women. In my time as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Program, I have seen up close how women and girls are often the last to go back to school and to get basic services such as clean water and vaccines. They are also     8    the last to get jobs and loans.

To fully recover from a disaster and be prepared for the next one, the specific needs of women and girls must be factored into the humanitarian response.

This year we are halfway toward the 2030     9     to achieve what the United Nations calls Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint for a shared global vision of a world without poverty and inequality. What I have learned through my work is that realizing these global goals will only be possible if we achieve true gender equality, everywhere, and in all aspects of life — especially in times of crises — and in     10    for next disaster.

10 . In the fog of uncertainty about how new technology will change the way we work, policymakers around the world have flocked to the same idea. No matter what the future brings, they say confidently, we will need to upskill the workforce in order to cope.

The view sounds reassuringly sensible. If computers are growing smarter, humans will need to learn to use them to humans’ advantage. Otherwise, they may run the risk of being replaced by computers.     1     .

Research published by the Social Mobility Commission shows that workers with degrees are over three times more likely to participate in training as adults than workers with no qualifications. That creates a virtuous circle for those who did well at school, and vicious circle for those who did not. If the robots are coming for both the accountants and the taxi drivers, you can bet the bean counters will be more able to retrain themselves out of danger.

    2     In the UK, the government introduced an “apprenticeship levy” a few years ago in an attempt to force employers to spend more on training. A surprising number have responded by sending their senior managers on “apprenticeships” at business schools.

It is no good criticizing employers for directing investments at their highly skilled workers. They are simply aiming for the highest return they can get. And, for some types of lower-paid work, it is not always true that technological progress requires more skills. The UK’s latest Employment and Skills Survey, which is performed every five years, suggests the use of literacy and numeracy skills at work has fallen since 2012, even as the use of computers has increased. The trouble is, when the computer makes your job easier one day, it might make it unnecessary the next. Many of those affected by automation will need to switch occupations, or even industries.     3    

It is time to revisit older ideas. The UK once had an energetic culture of night schools, for adults to attend after their day jobs. These institutions have been disappearing due to funding cuts. But a revival of night schools could be exactly what the 21st century needs.     4     They can also explore interests they never had a chance to nurture before.

It is still not clear whether the impact of new technology on the labour market will come in a trickle or aflood. But in an already unequal world, continuing to reserve all the lifeboats for the better-off would be a dangerous mistake.