【推荐2】Final exams are just around the corner.    1    That's because he had to take a new English listening and speaking test.

Liu is not alone. This is a new test for all students who are taking senior high school entrance exams in Beijing.    2    The test is taken on a computer. They can take the test twice—once in December and again in March—to try to get the highest score possible. The test was just introduced last year.

    3    "It pushes us to speak. Though it was hard at the beginning, it's a good thing," Liu said. He got a low score when he first took it last semester.    4    He practiced speaking in front of a mirror every day. Later, he got a score of 39 on the test.

    5    He uses apps to take practice tests every day. "The apps will score your performance so that you can improve accordingly," he said. Also, the practice tests help me learn to take notes properly. They help me grasp topic sentences and connection words. "

【推荐3】It’s usual to hear of Chinese parents hiring a tutor if their children are doing poorly on tests. Did you know that teenagers can be tutors themselves? Amir Davis, 16, from New York, US, is a tutor, together with six other teens runs a special tutoring program for other kids in his community. The program mainly helps middle school students who have difficulties in their classes or who are preparing for a test called the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). It is an admissions test for eight STEM-Oriented (注重STEM教育的) public high schools in New York.

As an African-American student at one of these schools, Davis was sad to realize that black and Latino (拉丁裔的) students had low admission rates(录取率) every year. These groups hold only 10.4 percent of the students admitted these schools.

One of the reasons for the, low admission rate is that a number of black and Latino students don’t take the SHSAT, with many families not realizing that they can take the test. So Davis tries to help kids in his area prepare for the test while also helping them with other schoolwork.

Davis and his team recently turned a building that his father bought into a tutoring center. During their tutoring, they first address what the students are doing in their classrooms. If they are having trouble with any specific topic, Davis or other tutors will walk them through it. With this help, the students can try to improve their knowledge of difficult subjects and do better in the classroom.

【推荐2】The 2022 Qatar World Cup brought us wonderful games and let us see the great show of old legends and the rise of new superstars. Here are three students’ favourite soccer players.

Kylian Mbappe, who is a sports hero in France, is the most impressive player in my heart. He won the 2018 World Cup title at the age of 20. He was the highest goal scorer in this World Cup with eight goals. Will he become the new king of soccer? I think so. The reasons are that he trains hard and never gives up when facing difficulty. And he is indeed no solo (单独行动的) artist, either. His spirit of hard work and teamwork cheers me up.

Zhao Xuanyu, 14

My deepest impression of the Qatar World Cup belongs to Lionel Messi, the captain of Argentina. As a great team, it was surprising when Argentina lost its first game against Saudi Arabia. People started to doubt Messi’s ability. However, Messi didn’t give up. He believed in himself and his teammates. They practiced harder than before and fixed their problems quickly. Finally, Argentina beat Mexico, Poland, Australia, the Netherlands, Croatia and France, and won the World Cup title. From all this, I now believe that where there is a will, there is a way.

Huang Yixiang, 15

I’m a huge fan of Luka Modric, the captain of Croatia’s national soccer team. He led his team to win second place in the 2018 Russia World Cup and he won the Ballon d’Or in the same year. At an early age, he was a shepherd (牧羊人) and his country was experiencing war. But he fell in love with soccer. Through his efforts, he became more and more powerful. In the Qatar World Cup, he led his team to third place, but he believes that his country can win a World Cup title in the future. I not only enjoy his wonderful performance, but also his spirit—never give up and always keep his condition.

Lu Yunzi, 15

【推荐3】Think of the empty cities in zombie (僵尸) movies. The streets, the shops and the schools are still there just like they would be on a normal day, except there are no people to be seen. It is the emptiness that makes you scared.

Now a real-life “ghost city” is being built in the US. But luckily, it has nothing to do with zombies it is going to be a place to test the technology of the future.

Called CITE – the Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation (创新测评) – the city is the idea of technology company Pegasus Global Holdings. Covering an area of 15 square miles, this small, empty city   sits   in   the   middle   of   the   New   Mexico   desert   (沙漠),   since   we   can’t   afford   to   test   the   latest technologies in the cities that we live in.

“It will be a true laboratory without safety problems that come with people living there. Here you can break things and run into things, and get used to how they work, before taking them out into the market,” Pegasus managing director Robert Brumley told technology magazine Wired.

In fact, without worrying about hurting people, anybody with a new idea can ask to test it in this city. Just think about the possibilities – A. driverless cars can move freely on the streets, B. homes with robots can be designed, C. shared bikes can be seen everywhere and D. energy sources like nuclear (核的)   power can also be put to the test.

As good as the idea may seem, however, there are still doubts about CITE. “One of the most difficult things to do when developing these new technologies is to have them safely move around people, who can suddenly jump out in front of something,” Reese Jones, a beginner of Singularity University, US, Fortune magazine.

Jones is worried that, even if a technology does perfectly well in CITE, introducing it to a real city will still be a whole different story because there will be people living in the city.

But no matter what, perhaps we should wait until CITE is finished in 2019. Maybe it will turn out to work just fine.

【推荐1】Have you ever wondered what goes through your mind when you choose where to sit in a new classroom? Or in a waiting room full of strangers? Or on a bus? Researchers have found out some interesting facts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we prefer to sit closer to people like ourselves. Girls sit by girls and boys sit by boys. Adults sit together and young people choose another young person to sit near. But it goes further than this. We even choose to sit near someone who looks like us. People with glasses are more likely to sit near other people with glasses. People with long hair sit closer to other people with long hair.

We seem to believe that people with similar habits or hobbies will share similar attitude and we are more likely to be accepted by people like ourselves or even, we think we may be safer with people who look like us. Sometimes that’s true but it’s a pity if we always stick to the same people, the same group. The danger in always staying in our comfort zone (舒适区)is that we just recycle the same opinions, the same tastes and the same ideas. We lose the chance to learn something new, find out about interesting things, hear funny stories and discover difference.

When we always stick to the same people, how can we ever break down the barriers which prevent us from getting to know people with different ideas? And how can we avoid the ignorance (无知), which too often leads to prejudice (偏见) and even fear? If instead you want to live in a society that opens to changes and new things and different opinions, be the cat among the pigeons.

Move out of your comfort zone. Go and sit next to someone different. And don’t just sit there in silence. Say hello. Ask a question. Start a conversation. That’s how we make friends. That’s how we learn about people. That’s how we open our minds to new ideas. That’s how we live an exciting life.