Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to choose the word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 34 to 38

GET READY IN FIVE MINUTES

Does this sound like your life? Do you get the feeling that everything is accelerating? Not only are activities getting significantly quicker, but our assumptions are changing, too.

Take exercise: we used to think that the longer we spent on, say, a pleasurable walk in the countryside, the more good it did us. Not anymore. The new (34) _______ is for HIIT – short for High-Intensity Interval Training - (35) _______ just twelve minutes of very intense activity is supposed to be every bit as beneficial as conventional exercise. Get on that rowing machine and keep it short and sharp! It’s supposed to get you fitter in a considerably shorter period of time than conventional exercise routines. Advocates of HIIT training claim that it can burn fat up to 50% more effectively than low-intensity exercise. They also maintain that it speeds up metabolism and so makes you burn more calories throughout the day. However, some recent research would appear to (36) ______ these claims.

(37) _______ have our personalities changed, too? Smartphones allow us to access information in no time at all. Research demonstrates that 80% of people will not wait more than 30 seconds for a video to load. A recent survey suggests we now walk 10% faster than we did ten years ago. It seems we even start to get annoyed after five seconds waiting for the car in front of us to start moving when the traffic light turns green. Overtime, we come to expect (38)_____ to be available infinitely more quickly than in the past. We have far less patience. We’ve forgotten how to slow down. Welcome to modern life.

(Adapted from Navigate by Mark Bartram and Kate Pickering)