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.”

3 . Parents feel that it is difficult to live with teenagers. Then again, teenagers have ________ feelings about their parents, saying that it is not easy living with them. According to a recent research, the most common ________ between parents and teenagers is that regarding untidiness and daily routine tasks. On the one hand, parents go mad over ________ rooms, clothes thrown on the floor and their children’s refusal to help with the ________. On the other hand, teenagers lose their patience continually when parents blame them for ________ the towel in the bathroom, not cleaning up their room or refusing to do the shopping at the supermarket.

The research, conducted by St. George University, shows that different parents have different ________ to these problems. However, some approaches are more ________ than others. For example, those parents who yell at their children for their untidiness, but ________ clean the room for them, have fewer chances of changing their children’s ________. On the contrary, those who let teenagers experience the ________ of their actions can do better. For example, when teenagers who don’t help their parents with the shopping don’t find their favorite drink in the refrigerator, they are forced to ________ their actions.

Psychologists say that ________ is the most important thing in parent-child relationships. Parents should ________to their children but at the same time they should lend an ear to what they have to say. Parents may ________ their children when they are untidy but they should also understand that their room is their own private space. Communication is a two-way process. It is only by listening to and ________ each other that problems between parents and children can be settled.

4 . Many cities around the world today are heavily polluted. Careless methods of production and ________ of consumer demands for environment friendly products have ________ the pollution problem. One ________ is that millions of tons of glass, paper, plastic, and metal containers are produced, and these are difficult to get rid of.

________, today, more and more consumers are choosing “green” and demanding that the products they buy should be safe for the environment. ________ they buy a product, they ask questions like these: “Will this shampoo damage the environment?” “Can this metal container be ________ or can it only be used once?”

A recent study showed that two ________ five adults now consider the environmental safety of a product before they buy it. This means that companies must now change the ________ they make and sell their products to make sure that they are “green,” that is, friendly to the environment.

Only a few years ago, it was impossible to find green products in supermarkets, but now there are hundreds. Some supermarket products ________ labels to show that the product is green. Some companies emphasize that their products are clean and safe in their advertising and have made it their main selling ________.

The ________ for a safer and cleaner environment is making companies rethink ________ they do business. No longer will the public accept the old ________ of “Buy it, use it, throw it away and forget it.” The public ________ is still here, and companies are ________ their act gradually.

5 . The other day, I was looking at my schedule for the summer. I had a moment of _________, realizing I’d be without my laptop for two weeks during our family camping trip.

You might be thinking my response sounds _________ and that two weeks with no pressure to work, just relaxing in nature is the time to _________ and restore one’s brain and body. I used to be a workaholic (工作狂). So taking two weeks off from my business made me _________.

I know I’m not _________ here in our busy world. To work hard is especially significant for high-achieving people to _________ in their careers. We live in a culture that _________ the state of being busy. There might have been many times when you _________ some relatives or friends on the street and heard they said they were very busy when asking about their recent situations. Being busy is the new _________. Therefore. when we’re not busy, we feel like we’re doing something wrong.

I’m not saying working all the time makes us feel OK. Taking a break brings us __________. We’ll be more __________ after relaxing, thus having more novel ideas. Iceland has __________ a 4-day work week for 2,500 people. A study by Stanford University found that their __________ didn’t decline; they reported a better work-life balance.

Our brains aren’t __________ to work all the time. Working hard enough to pass our limits will unavoidably lead to burnout. __________, we should give ourselves a break once in a while.

6 . What does it take to become famous? Talent in singing, dancing or acting? Or________ good looks? These days, it seems like a pretty________, and a lot of makeup can make anyone a popular star. But, occasionally, an honest smile and a hard-working attitude might take you quite________ .

Recently, an Tibetan young man named Tashi Dingzhen has gained a lot of online followers. Though his ________ to fame has been very much accidental, Dingzhen has since been ________ by both the local tourism department, and the online streaming platform Tencent Video. However, when________about his own dreams, the 20-year-old said that he wants to be a “horse-racing prince”, a decision which has been ________by many.

________can be fleeting (稍纵即逝的). Every day there are thousands of people on the Internet________the latest trends, behaving in very similar ways, and taking part in the same type of variety shows... all for the________to gain fame and fortune. A few________down the line, or perhaps even only a few months later, the majority of these individuals or groups will ________ from our memories in the end.

Everyone is born________. We like different things, have different personalities, and pursue different dreams. That is what makes life so dynamic (有活力的) and ________. Should Dingzhen choose to take Tencent Video’s________and try to become a celebrity, he might just end up________into the background under heavy makeup and uniform dance moves. Of course, it’s________that his fame will fade even faster if he stays home and continues to race horses. But at least then he will be able to follow his________to do what he wants________choosing to pursue fame and, in the end, ________ himself. If you were in his shoes, what would you do?

8 . In the animal kingdom, weakness can bring about aggression (攻击) in other animals. This sometimes happens with ______ also. But I have found that my weakness brings out the ______ in people. I see it every day when people hold doors for me, pour cream into my coffee, or ______ me to put on my coat. And I have ______ that it makes them happy.

From my wheelchair experience, I see the best in people, ______ sometimes I feel sad because those who appear independent miss the kindness I see daily. They don't get to see this ______ side of others. Often, we try every way possible to ______ showing our weakness, which includes a lot of pretending. But only when we stop pretending we're brave or strong, do we ______ people to show the kindness that's in them.

Last month, when I was driving home on a ______ highway, I began to feel unwell and drove more ______ than usual. People behind me began to get impatient and angry, with some ______ alongside me, horning (按喇叭) or even shouting at me. At that moment, I decided to do something I had ______ done in twenty-four years of driving. I put on the car flashlights and drove on at a really low speed. No more angry shouts and no more ______ !

When I put on my flashlights, I was saying to the other drivers, "I have a ______ here. I am weak and doing the best I can." And everyone ______ . Several times, I saw drivers who wanted to ______ . They couldn't get around me because of the ______ of passing traffic. But instead of getting impatient and angry, they waited,   ______ the driver in front of them was in some way weak.

Sometimes situations ______ us to act strong and brave even when we don't feel that way. But those are few and far between. More often, it would be ______ if we don't pretend we feel strong when we feel weak or pretend that we're brave when we're scared.

9 . Have you seen people who take pictures of food for more than 10 minutes before eating? My friend Stella is such an example. Every time we went to a restaurant she would not take a bite until all the dishes we ________ were on the table. Then she would spend five minutes in ________ 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 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 Stella’s real life is much less elegant. For example, she hates to wash the dishes, so she leaves them in the sink for days.

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 ________ life on social media. What they are trying to prove is ________ what they lack in reality. But this will not bring any ________ 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 ________ fabricating it. Being more confident, ________ themselves and trying their best to be better are much more meaningful than ________ their life on social media.