Dan Price was the CEO of Gravity Payments, a financial services company. One day, he found out a friend was struggling ________. The cost of living in Washington is ________, and she just couldn’t make ends meet(量入为出) on her salary. However, Dan was already earning $1.1 million a year. He realized how ________ it was that he had so much while the people working under him were struggling.

This point was driven home when he ________ a Mc Donald’s handbook on the desk of employee Rosita Barlow. When asked , Rosita burst into tears and ________ that after she left work at Gravity, she went straight to her shifts (轮班)at McDonald’s . Some nights, she even stood ________ at the local food bank.(赈济处）

That’s when Dan decided to do something to stop income ________ in his company. In 2015, he cut his own pay by 90%, mortgaging(抵押）his two houses, and ________ his stocks and savings so that he could ________ every single employee’s pay to $70,000 a year!

More than a third of his employees saw their ________ double. Some feared productivity would decline(下降）if everyone was earning more, but the ________ turned out to be true. Dan’s employees began to truly thrive (奋发）once the stress of making ends meet was ________ from their everyday lives. Employees like Rosita were finally able to quit their second jobs and ________ their work, actually increasing ________.

When COVID-19 hit the U.S, Dan’s company ________ financial difficulties. But what the employees decided ________ Dan! They chose to take a voluntary pay ________ of between 5% and 100% to keep Gravity going ________. The pay cuts worked! Gravity was able to ________ from the economic downturn, and they recently restored all salaries to their pre-pandemic amount.

As the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats! Dan treated his employees well. And when it was their turn to________ him, they didn’t let him down!

Do you listen? Do you really listen? Is there more to listening than just hearing?

Listening is, by far, one of the most important aspects of communication. So often, you pay attention to your way of speaking, your _________ , your dialect, but neglect your ability to listen.

It is my _________ that people usually change the intended purposes of much of what they hear by refusing to listen carefully. Too often, we consider listening the _________ part of conversation, although it requires us to actively focus and take part.

Listening means giving ear, paying attention, obeying, witnessing, hearing with thoughtful attention, or understanding. The most basic of all human _________ is to understand and to be understood. The only way to understand is to _________ .

Learn to be an active listener. Give off positive body language._________ a willingness to listen and socialize. Ask the right questions. Increase your _________ so that you can understand more and achieve _________ listening.

Listening means we should respond, that we should be touched, and that what we hear has a(n)_________ on us. I believe that history __________ itself only because no one is willing to listen for the first time. You were given two ears, but only one mouth, which probably means that we should listen more and that listening is twice as important as talking. Listening plays a key role in everyday __________. Good listening skills are of great importance, as listening is the fundamental __________ of all information.

Isn’t now the time to listen to those around you? Given them your entire__________. Use your born __________ to become a better listener. For me, I’m going to put into __________ what I believe in my heart and become a better listener.

A Poet Is in His Words

The writings of William Shakespeare are today ________ read by young people in Britain. His young readership is ________ to those who choose to study literature at university

________, in British schools, it is required to study the poet, and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is ________, anger or both. Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen-for many of the young, reading them can seem like being forced to eat medicine, ________ when people are at an age when they are beginning to discover themselves and wanting to ________ their independence.

This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world ________ me. I wanted answers, so I ________ books to find them.

I went on to take a PhD in ________ and have taught the subject in universities in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want,_________ they don't read books. You see this in the ________ of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people’s interest in the classic. Reading a ________ Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare's actual play. If that is the case, then I welcome the trend. ________, do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet and his greatness is in his ________. Reading someone else's rewriting of his work is like peeling a banana, throwing away the fruit and eating the skin. Take on the ________. It really is worth the effort.