Sun Jiarui is a 10-year-old girl from a primary school in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. She got popular online for her cooking skills 1. Sun, who has been learning to 2 from her father since she was eight, can now cook more than 50 dishes. In November last year, stories of Sun's skillful cooking were 3 by People's Daily on its official Sina Weibo account.
In the coming term in September, primary and middle school pupils in China will find a new "practical activities" 4 in their school timetable, with at least one class every week. The new course has three kinds of 5: everyday chores, productive labor（劳动）and experience of new technologies.
Sagarika Sriram is a high school student living in Dubai and founder（建立者）of Kids for a Better World—a digital platform（数字化平台）. It 1 nearly 10,000 teens together from all over the world. Its goal is to fight climate（气候）change.
When Sagarika was 10 years old, she felt 2 about the future of Earth. Sagarika knew she needed to do something. So she 3 a group that organized cleanup activities in Dubai. "The 4 helped me understand what one person could do and how I could 5 make a difference," she said. In 2016, Sagarika 6 Kids for a Better World. She believes even 7 actions can make a big difference.
Kids for a Better World is for people aged 8 to 16. It teaches kids about what they can do at home and in their community to fight climate change. They can 8 food or plant trees. They can collect recycables or stop using plastic bags. Sagarika wants schools to teach these lessons. "These can help change our future," she says.
Sagarika has big 9. She'd like to study at Stanford University. And while she's there, she won't stop 10 Kids for a Better World. Sagarika hopes to encourage more and more people to fight for a greener planet.
Music can be powerful. The Guardian listed 50 concerts that changed modern music history. Let's look at three of them.
Bob Dylan: Newport Folk Festival
Rhode Island, US, July 25, 1965
Bob Dylan is well-known for his poetic guitar ballads. In this 1965 concert, Dylan took out an electric guitar and made a sharp sound. The Guardian said this is when folk rock was born.
Freddie Mercury: Live Aid
London, UK, July 13, 1985
As its name suggests, Live Aid was for helping people. It raised $245 million to fight famine（饥荒）in Ethiopia. It's often seen as the first benefit（慈善）concert of its kind. The concert also saw the birth of a new rock star—Freddie Mercury.
Beyonce: Coachella Music Festival
California 
US, April 14, 2018
At the Coachella Music Festival, Beyonce had an all-black dancer and backing vocals lineup. The concert, which fans call "Beychella" on Twitter, took 100 backup performers and three months of rehearsals（排练）. The Guardian thinks Beyonce is like "a goddess of war".
At one hall in a town, a huge board said, "FOOD SHORTAGE IN AFRICA. PLEASE HELP THE STARVING PEOPLE."
A large crowd was standing in line to hand over their donations（捐赠）. Near the door of the hall stood a beautiful young girl, poorly but tidily dressed. With a shy look, she watched the people before her. She saw a businessman who laid a bag of gold on the table. Then came a rich lady who took out a lot of jewels. Some others handed cash, clothes and food. The girl wouldn't like to take her turn but at last, she stepped forward.
"But... it is so small. I am ashamed to give it. It seems worthless, but it is all I have, " she said.
"We are thankful for even the smallest donation," the man at the counter replied kindly. "Here it is. I have nothing else to give," she added. And then under her coat, she took out two long thick plaits（辫子）of her golden hair. As she did so, her hat fell back, showing the beautiful young bald（无发的）head.
This beautiful girl donated her most priceless golden hair, which was more valuable than all the glittering gold, jewels or cash of the other donors.
Chinese movies have become one of the favorites among the youth in Malawi. Because lots of Chinese movies are available in the country, many people can now enjoy them in video show halls, homes and through the Internet.
Luis Ndalama, 38, is a businessman who has been doing a videodisc（影碟）business for over 15 years. He told Xinhua Agency his customers have been watching Chinese movies for a long time. However, because they didn't understand Chinese, many of them used to have difficulties in following the movies. "But with time, we have seen many Chinese movies with subtitles（字幕）, and this helps many of my customers to understand them even better because the Chinese language is new to most of us," Ndalama said.
In an interview with Xinhua, many young people were able to explain things they learned from movies about China. "It's always fun watching Chinese movies. At first it was very hard to understand them because everything about them and us was different in terms of language, food, dressing, dances and many other cultural values. But now, there are a lot of things that I know about China through movies. For example, I know about Kung Fu, the Great Wall, food like BiangBiang noodles and many other interesting things about China," Khama said.
The careful use of lecture videos could help people study more efficiently（高效地）, say researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles （UCLA）.
According to a new study, watching lecture videos at twice the normal speed has almost no bad effect on learning. Even better, watching lecture videos at an increased speed more than once may even lead to improved learning and higher test scores compared to watching once at normal speed.
The study, done by UCLA's Department of Psychology, put students into groups and asked them to watch lecture videos at different speeds without taking notes. The students then took tests based on the video content.
The test results showed little difference in scores between students who watched the videos at normal speed and those who watched at up to double speed—meaning students could halve（减半）their study time with little effect on learning.
But students shouldn't speed up too much—because students who watched the videos at two-and-a-half times the normal speed had lower test results.
It was also found that watching the videos twice at double speed—both one week before the test and again immediately before it—produced higher test scores compared to students who watched the videos just once at normal speed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have used some types of remote（远程的）learning, including video lessons. And while students and teachers have worried about the effects of remote learning, the UCLA study suggests that, if used the right way, video lectures could actually help make studying more efficient.
It may improve learning.
B . It may improve reading skills.
C . It may lead to the best test result.
These days, people have very busy lives, working or studying and spending time with friends and family. So people need to do something different to relax in their free time.
Some people like to go to the gym so that they can keep fit and healthy. Then yoga（瑜伽）can be a good activity for these people.
This helps your body and mind to relax while your body becomes stronger. Many people do yoga every day, and it is an activity which all types of people can do— young or old.
Yoga started a very long time ago in India, but in the last few years it has become very popular all over the world. There are also lots of yoga videos on the Internet, so you can try it at home! If you want to exercise and relax at the same time, why don't you try yoga?
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A. Life today can be very colorful. B. Life today can be very stressful. C. It can give you more energy, too. D. You can find yoga classes in most towns and cities these days. E. However, many people don't like running or using machines to exercise. F. In yoga you can reach out your body and breathe deeply at the same time. |
The willow branch (柳树枝) is a part of the willow tree. In ancient China, willow branches were often used as a parting gift between friends and family (member). Even today, willow branches (mention) in many cases as a symbol of saying goodbye. Do you know ?
One reason is that willow trees are strong. They can live (easy) in any place, wet or dry, north or south. Because of this, giving a willow branch to say goodbye to loved ones is a way to tell them you hope they will get used to (they) new living environment.
For another reason, the pronunciation for the willow tree "liu (柳)" is similar the character "liu (留)" in Chinese, which means inviting someone (stay) —only the tones are different. So (offer) a willow branch means asking the other party to live for a longer time, even though we know that they must leave.
It's said that this custom became popular during the Han Dynasty. At that time, Baqiao, a bridge in Chang'an, today's Xi'an, was common place to say goodbye. People often (stop) there and handed willow branches to people who were leaving.
