From Oxford’s quads to Harvard Yard and many a steel and glass palace of higher education in between, exams are given way to holidays. As students consider life after graduation, universities are _______ questions about their own future. The higher education model of lecturing, cramming and examination has barely _______ for centuries. Now, three disruptive waves are threatening to shake established ways of teaching and learning.

On one front, a funding _______ has created a shortage of fund that the universities brightest brains are struggling to solve. Institutions’ costs are rising, _______ pricey investments in technology, teachers’ salaries and increasing administrative costs. That comes as governments conclude that they can no longer afford to subsidize universities as _______ as they used to. American colleges, in particular, are under pressure: some analysts predict mass bankruptcies within two decades.

At the same time, a(n) _______ revolution is challenging higher education’s business model. A(n) _______ in online learning, much of it free, means that the knowledge once a lucky few had access to has been released to anyone with a smartphone or laptop. These _______ and technological disruptions coincide with a third great change: whereas universities used to educate only a tiny elite, they are now _______ training and retraining workers throughout their careers. How will they ________ this storm—and what will emerge in their place if they don’t?

The universities least likely to lose out to online competitors are elite institutions with established reputations and low student-to-tutor ratios. That is ________ news for the Ivy League, which offer networking opportunities to students alongside a degree. Those colleges might profit from expanding the ratio of online learning to classroom teaching, lowering their costs while still offering the prize of a college education conducted partly on campus.

The most vulnerable, according to Jim Lerman of Kean University in New Jersey, are the “middle-tier institutions, which produce America's teachers, middle managers and administrators.” They could be ________ in greater part by online courses, he suggests. So might weaker community colleges, although those which cultivate connections to local employers might yet prove resilient (有弹力的).

Since the first wave of massive online courses launched in 2012, an opposition has focused on their ________ and commercial uncertainties. Yet if critics think they are immune to the march of the MOOC, they are almost certainly wrong. Whereas online courses can quickly________ their content and delivery mechanisms, universities are up against serious cost and efficiency problems, with little changes of taking more from the public purse.

Without the personal touch, higher education could become “an icebound, petrified (石化的) cast-iron university.” That is what the new wave of high-tech courses should not become. But as a(n) ________ to an overstretched, expensive model of higher education, they are more likely to prosper than fade.

Early in my career, I was always struck by the fact that “expensive” hotels charged extra for things like internet access and movies. At the same time, more     ______ hotels included everything. Although these less expensive hotels did not have   _______ lobbies (大堂), they did offer the things that a young and tired   _______ would want: a clean room and a quiet environment.

For the high prices you pay at nice hotels, everything should be   ______. They should give refunds (退款) for the things you don’t   _______ instead of cheating their customers.

I once read an article about a judge who was invited to a very expensive restaurant in Washington. The restaurant’s food and service were both   _______. But there was something that ruined the ________: the judge was charged $1 for the ice in his $7 mixed drink. The fact that he was charged the extra dollar separately – instead of just being charged $8 – made him so ________ that instead of talking about how wonderful everything was at the   _______, he only talked about the $1. Needless to say, he   ______   went back to that restaurant.

I see the   ______   thing is starting to happen in the airline industry. For example, American Airlines is charging $3.50 for snacks and $7 for meals.   ______ , sodas and water are still free. The airline should just charge a   _______ fare and give you a refund for what you don’t want or use. This will put more power in the hands of the   _______ – the airline might be surprised to find that people are       _________ to pay for extra services. Just imagine what could happen if you just trust your customers to make their own     _____?

So remember, don’t   _______ your customers.   ______ , charge what you think your service or product is worth and take it from there. This way, you can remove ________ services in exchange for lower prices. It becomes a win-win for you and your customers by sharing purchasing decisions and therefore giving your customers more ________.

Research has shown that two-thirds of human conversation is taken up not with discussion of the cultural or political problems of the day, not heated debates about films we’ve just seen or books we’ve just finished reading, but plain and simple _________.

Language is our greatest treasure as a species (物种，品种), and what do we _________ do with it? We gossip about others’ behavior and private lives, such as who’s doing what with whom, who’s in and who’s out — and why; how to deal with difficult _________ situations involving children, lovers and colleagues.

So why are we keen on gossiping? Are we just natural _________of both time and words? Or do we talk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the really important issues of life? It’s not the case according to Professor Robin Dunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really _________ issues.

Dunbar _________the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stage of social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities more effectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about their origins and the supernatural (超自然现象). Instead he suggests that language evolved among women. We don’t spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we can talk, argues Dunbar – _________ , he goes on to say, language evolved specifically to allow us to gossip.

Dunbar arrived at his cheery theory by studying the _________of the higher primates (灵长类动物) like monkeys. By means of grooming — cleaning the fur by brushing it, monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support in the event of some kind of conflict within the group or _________ from outside it.

As we human beings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar __________ that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together made sense because the bigger the group, the greater the __________ it provided; on the other hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close to others. Grooming helped to __________the pressure and calm everybody down.

But as the groups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activities also had to be __________ to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more __________ kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocal (有声的) grooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groups by exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would be possible by one-to-one __________ contact.