大象传媒

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from news reports.
Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

spare a thought / overtime / hectic / backlog / heading your way

1. There have been numerous studies indicating that people are becoming increasingly forgetful as a result of modern __________ lifestyles. Researchers have labelled the condition "busy lifestyle syndrome", with stress being the possible culprit behind day-to-day memory lapses.

2. As Africa's economic fortunes rise and the continent continues to be charmed by superpowers, __________ for the millions of Africans in faraway lands.

3. Hundreds of thousands of workers may be sitting idly by during the ongoing government shutdown, but comedians are working __________ to find the humour amidst the partisan political turmoil.

4. "We have no safety concerns, however, advice to members of the public is that if smoke is __________, closing your windows would be a good common sense measure."

5. Tom McPhail, the firm's head of pensions research, said it was "extremely sorry for the delays", but was making "significant progress in clearing the __________" and hoped to have all systems running normally again soon.