1 . On March 17th, 2023, Beijing made changes to the P.E. test in the 2023 high school entrance exam, or zhongkao: All students will get full scores as long as they take part in the exam.

Earlier this year, some cities such as Taiyuan canceled the 1,000-meter and 800-meter runs. Other cities let students choose if they wanted to do them in the exam. This is to make sure it’s safe for students after recovering from COVID-19.

At the same time, P.E. classes across China have also made some changes. Students are having easier activities such as dancing, fun games and sit-ups. This way they can improve their health slowly.

“We used to run two laps around the playground every day during the morning break. But after many students got the illness, we didn’t do this activity and started doing Kungfu,” said Liu Jiawei, a student from Changchun, Jilin. “As a ninth-grader, I’m also happy that I don’t need to take the 1,000-meter run test for zhongkao. Most students welcome this new change. But some who are really good at running are not happy because they won’t have advantages any more,” Liu added.

However, we have to understand that such a big decision like this won’t make everyone happy. What’s more important is students’ safety during exercises and tests. Life comes first before everything else.

3 . Type in “A cat wants to go to space” and ask the robot to write a bedtime story. Just one second later, you’ll get the story of the cat, who was on his way past many difficulties to sing among the stars.

This robot writer is real. It’s called ChatGPT. From writing Shakespeare-style poetry to making music, ChatGPT has amazed the world since it came out in later 2022 by the US company OpenAI. It can translate languages, talk with people and write songs, poems and even jokes. It’s one of the most powerful AI of its kind, with the complete writing abilities of a real person!

People around the world have tried ChatGPT and posted their results on social media. Some used it to write history reports, some asked it to take notes of speech, and some even made suggestions on how to communicate with people at a party.

The power of ChatGPT lies in its speed and understanding of complicated (复杂的) matters. We may spend hours researching, understanding and writing an article on the theory of evolution (进化论). But ChatGPT can produce a well-written one in seconds. Another good thing about it is that if you ask dark, harmful questions, such as how to make weapons (武器), it will not give you an answer.

There is no doubt that ChatGPT is a powerful tool because it can do many creative tasks. However, some schools in the US, Australia and France have stopped the use of ChatGPT, because they think it may make it easier for students to cheat on homework. Some also worry that ChatGPT could be used to spread improper information.

4 . Nowadays, many people are looking for fun online. Watching live-streaming (直播) shows has become part of their lives. At the same time, traditional culture has found a bigger stage online. Many traditional artists are starting to live-stream like Douyin and Bilibili. Some of them sing Peking Opera, some make paper cutting, while others perform Chinese classical music. A growing number of young people are starting to become more interested in traditional culture because of live-streaming.

Li Jun is a Peking Opera performer from the Shanghai Jingju Theater Company. The 59-year-old took up his smart phone and started to live-stream. Unlike performing on a real stage, Li uses common places as his stage, including his office and study room. Except singing, Li also teaches viewers about Peking Opera. People can ask him questions and get answers directly.

“Live-streaming has brought this traditional art down to earth.” One viewer said, “it gives young people an easier way to learn more about the traditional art,” Li has more than 70,000 fans on Douyin, while one of his videos got 42,000 views on Bilibili.

March third in the lunar calendar is China Huafu Day. On April 22nd this year, Bilibili live-streamed a huafu show on the fifth China Huafu Day. Performers showed clothes in traditional Chinese styles, including those from Wei, Tang and Ming dynasties. During the show, viewers not only enjoyed looking at the clothes, but also watched how performers used ancient styles of make-up.

As Guangming Daily said, live-streaming has come to a new stage through which traditional culture can be kept alive.

You may find it easy and fun to use smartphones. But for many old people, it’s a hard thing, Liu Siyuan from Beijing 101 Middle School saw the problem. He tried to teach the old how to use smartphones with a guidebook.

The 16-year-old set up a volunteer group called Silver Hair. It took its seven members around half a year to write a 300-page book called May I Show You How to Use Smartphones?

The group made a survey of more than 1, 000 old people and talked with many in old people’s homes. They found out what the old people cared most about with smartphones. “How to use WeChat” topped the list. This became one part of the book. The other nine parts include online shopping, using online maps and more. “The old people can look up the information in the book anytime they need, just like using a dictionary,” said Liu.

The group printed out 500 copies and handed them out. They’ll soon work on the second book that will have more instructions about hospital registration(挂号) and photo editing.

Thanks to the volunteers of Silver Hair, the old people’s life has become easier and more convenient.

8 . Today more and more people love traveling. It’s a very good way of getting to know new people, learning about different cultures and getting experiences. It helps travelers a lot. Traveling can make our mind wider.

But traveling does more than that. It can also make us more creative. In recent years, a group of scientists have been doing research on what people have already learned from travel experiences. They believe that spending time abroad affects people’s mind. For example, they found that if the students lived abroad for a longer time, they were better at solving problems creatively than those who did not. If you stay in the same place, you can’t experience new scenery, new smells, new sounds and new cultures. All these can wake up your mind and make it more active.

However, that doesn’t mean the more places you’ve been, the more creative you’ll become. Another group of scientists have been doing similar research. They found the people who often traveled from one place to another didn’t have enough time to know more about a new place and a new culture. They weren’t as creative as the people who really spent time getting to know one place. You have to interact（相互影响）with the places you go to and then you can benefit（得益）from them.

If you go traveling, which do you prefer, staying in a place for some time or rushing（匆忙）all the way?

9 . A leaf fell into the water and changed the taste of it. And tea was born.

China is known as the home of tea. Since ancient times, tea has become part of Chinese culture, leaving its smell in poems and customs. Many tea lovers enjoy tea not just for its taste, but also for the beauty of tea ceremonies（仪式）.

Picking tea leaves is an important spring activity along the Yangtze River in South China. The earliest batch（批）of tea is often ready to be picked before Qingming in early April, when the temperature begins to rise and rainfall increases. This kind of tea is called Mingqian tea.

Zhejiang province is regarded as a main producer of tea. White Tea and West Lake Longjing Tea in Hangzhou are famous both at home and abroad. In spring, the hillsides in those places are full of tea workers working on their land. In the high seasons, many tourists travel to see the beautiful sight of tea farms, while enjoying a freshly prepared cup of tea.

Thousands of years ago, by the hands of the Chinese people, a leaf was made into a delicious drink. It has traveled a long way and continues to play a role in our life, even today.

10 . People often use their phones to take pictures of their meals, especially fancy(华丽的) ones, to share online. But Clear Plate, a WeChat mini-program, encourages you to take pictures of your empty plates after a meal. The program’s AI “sees” that your plates are empty and gives you points. You can use these points to buy yourself gifts or give away the points to buy meals for children in poor areas.

The program was developed by Liu Jichen, 23, a student at Tsinghua University. Liu came up with the idea in 2017. “Technology is a good way to cut down food waste,” said Liu. He put together a 20-member team to work on the program. To teach the program’s AI how to recognize empty plates, the team spent half a year collecting 10,000 photos from restaurants in 10 cities.

The team also started a campaign(活动) called Clear Your Plate in Chinese universities in 2018. Students compete against each other to see who can get those most points in Clear Plate. In its third year, the one-month campaign has reached 1,017 schools. In 2020, almost 1.6 million people took part in it, cutting down food waste by 862 tons and carbon emissions(二氧化碳排放) by 3,337 tons.

Thanks to his work, Liu was chosen as one of the United Nations’ 2020 Class of Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals(可持续发展目标), “We hope our efforts can encourage young people to value the food and save the food,” Liu said.