College Rankings Are Something, but Not Everything

I am always confused when reading statements like “Princeton University is the number one college in the United States.” Are those who attend Princeton inherently brighter than their     1    ? Is Princeton able to produce more geniuses upon graduation?

High-ranking colleges in global education leagues attract greater talent in staff and students, and     2     better facilities, therefore generating more profits. In the United States, however, this virtuous cycle can turn vicious when financially-challenged parents end up spending their life savings on their children’s education, while     3     individuals can simply buy their way in. Besides, these rankings face criticism for potentially influencing colleges to make minor adjustments in     4     to improve their position on the table.

I didn’t care about college rankings for years until I recently saw something different. This past October, Shanghai Ranking Consultancy     5     the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023, which assesses universities worldwide across 55 subjects in five disciplines. It is said to employ a more in-depth     6     to evaluate the performance of universities. And this makes it easier for prospective students to choose the best college for their specific subject. But how much weight should you give to these rankings?

In my opinion, college rankings can serve as a reference, offering a     7     into the reputation and strengths of institutions. However, they should not be the only determining factor for you. There are many aspects to a university education that can only be     8     when you are clear about your goals.

I once taught a three-month program to prepare university students for overseas exchange programs in England. But some of them displayed low     9    . It wasn’t merely due to a language barrier. These individuals seemed to lack communication skills, critical thinking and, more importantly, a     10     of purpose, which might help determine their future academic quality. After all, what lies in the heart of education is “U” .

Live Shows are back, and so are street stalls

With the revival of live music gigs in China this year, stalls outside of concert venues have become increasingly popular again across the country.

Vendors offer goods     1     from essentials like water and raincoats to fan merchandise such as bracelets (手镯) and tattoo stickers. They aim to attract the large groups of fans going to the concerts.

The China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA, 中国演出行业协会) reported that in the first half of 2023, the country hosted over 190,000 performances. The number increased by 400.86%     2     with the previous year. These performances have attracted over 60 million music enthusiasts. Another report     3     that China’s performance market would reach 90.3 billion yuan by the end of this year.

“Where there are business opportunities, there is potential for stalls,” said Hu Xiaowu, an expert on urban science. “As more concerts are organized in different cities, many young people have found the chance to sell goods related to the events.“

Zeng Dexiong, a professor of social sciences, believed more people would take     4     of this new wave. This, he said, would probably bring about fierce competition, which in turn would lead to more creativity and     5    .

Sun Ximin,25, set up a stall as a side hustle when a large venue near her home in Guangzhou hosted its first concert in April. There weren’t many stalls back then, and she sold simple hair accessories (配饰).When more vendors gathered outside, Sun had to offer more     6     services, like braiding (编发), to stand out. To attract more customers, she styled her own hair in complex braids.    7    , she offered free Polaroid photos.

For Li Zhenzhen, a 23-year-old citizen of Xi’an in Shaanxi province, success lies in seeking the best location. She found it was more beneficial to locate her stall near a subway station rather than the concert venue’s entrance. She explained that concertgoers are likely to buy the goods on impulse (一时冲动) as they get out of the station. However, as they walk past     8     stalls on the way to the entrance, their desire to purchase wanes.

The rapid development of the street stall economy offers young people flexible opportunities to earn money, Hu noted.

Recognizing this, local governments are now easing     9     to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. Cities like Beijing and Shenzhen have already     10     policies to support stall operations, setting aside specific areas for vendors.

NINE people died and 43 were injured in two rear-end crashes on Shanghai’s S32 Expressway that occurred during heavy fog yesterday morning.

Two were       1       dead at the scene in one of the accidents, and five were found dead in the other. Two more people died in hospital, police said.

Police first received a report at 5:54 am that     2     vehicles had crashed on the S32, near a ramp of S2. The S32 links Shanghai with Zhejinag Province’s Jiaxing and Huzhou.

Two people were killed after getting out of their vehicle to see what was causing congestion ahead. They were hit by an out of control tanker, police said.

When police arrived at that scene, they found a further five people had been killed when a construction vehicle was crushed by two large vehicles from both front and back. The crash was about three kilometers away from the accident that killed the two people on the expressway. The injured were sent to local hospitals.

Some drivers reported that the road was very     3     and braking had led to vehicles losing control.

“The fog was very heavy,” an unidentified driver told Shanghai Television Station. “When I saw the accident ahead, I wanted to slow down and       4     . But once I hit the brake, the vehicle went out of control.”

Zhoupu Hospital treated 12 people. “One of the     5     died on the road to the hospital,” Ding Fuhao, a doctor with the hospital, told the television station. “Three were     6     injured.”

The city’s meteorological authority     7     an orange alert on heavy fog at 6:06 am, meaning     8    would be lower than 200 meters in some areas.

The dense fog hit coastal areas in particular, including Chongming Island, Pudong New Area, Baoshan and Fengxian districts. The alert was    9    at 9:44am. This was Shanghai’s first orange alert of heavy fog since the arrival of autumn.

Several expressways in the city were closed or subject to speed limits yesterday morning.

Pudong International Airport was also affected by the bad weather. The airport’s traffic was about 60 percent less than normal in the morning but picked up the    10     after the orange alert was canceled, the city’s television station said.

Chip flow interrupted

A stable global supply chain of chips had been maintained before disruptive moves by the US.

Two of the US’ top chipmakers—NVIDIA and AMD-were ordered to stop exports of two high-end chips to China on Aug 31. The ban     1     sophisticated (精密的) chips for graphics processing units (GPUs); which have been widely used in applications including AI and creative production.

This came after US President Joe Biden signed an order to pass the $52.7 billion (about 369.5 billion yuan) semiconductor chip manufacturing subsidy (补贴) and research law on Aug 25.

It aims to     2     efforts to “make the United States more competitive with China’s science and technology efforts”, Reuters noted.

Biden also signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law on Aug 9. According to the act, chip makers that shift their factories to the US can receive subsidies and tax benefits with     3     conditions that restrict US companies from increasing investments in China for 10 years.

“The US and its allies,” Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and a financier for the Bill Clinton, Obama and Biden presidential campaigns, said in March, “should utilize targeted export controls on high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment... to protect     4     technical advantages and slow the advancement of China’s semiconductor industry”.

In     5     to the US latest act, Woo Jin-hoon, a guest professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote for China Daily, this is “a move that can be profitable for the US in the short term, but harmful in the long run”.

The design, manufacturing and even raw materials of a complete and complex product like semiconductors (especially chips) are usually     6     across many different countries and regions, forming a huge trade network.

No matter how hard countries or regions try to support their own manufacturing bases and     7     their production, a certain degree of interdependence among countries and regions is unavoidable, China Daily commented.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Sept 1 at a press     8     that the US move is typical “sci-tech hegemony (霸权)”.

“With its technological advantages, the US has abused the concept of national security and its state power to     9     down on the development of     10     economies and developing countries,” said Wang. “The move violates market economy principles, harms international economic and trade orders and disrupts the stability of global industrial and supply chains.”

Jenny Carter an NHS coordinator is an “extreme night owl,” one of an estimated 8.2% of the population whose natural inclination(倾向)is to fall asleep well after midnight. Left to her own devices, she’d prefer to go to bed around 3 a.m. and wake up about noon.

Why do night owls exist? There is no single     1     accepted theory, but evolutionary biologists think that communities with more variation in chronotypes(睡眠类型)may have been more likely to survive.

Another theory is that variation is     2     how genetics works. Right from birth, our personal biological clocks are already     3    . Genetics establishes a person’s chronotype. Colin Espie, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford, says this     4     differences in hair eye and skin color or height.

Natural night owls are     5     different from insomniacs or people who stay up until the early hours because of family or work circumstances. Being a night owl isn’t a problem.

But this isn’t always well understood. Jessica Batchelor is a medical writer who feels most productive at 11 p.m. “I can’t tell anyone when I went to sleep, woke up, showered or ate a meal without being     6    ,” she says “I struggle with feelings of guilt and shame.”

This mentality is rooted in our agrarian(耕地的)past when farm work had to begin at dawn.

Our culture mistakenly associates sleeping little and rising early with     7    . It is often extolled(颂扬)as a habit of successful people: for instance in the     8     with Margaret Thatcher’s four-hour rest, or articles about “sleepless-elite” CEOs who start their days with a 4 a.m. jog.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with staying up late as long as you’re getting a good amount of sleep every night;     9    , early risers have no special biological advantage. What research has not disproved, however, is that morning people tend to get more done.

The productivity expert Laura Vanderkam     10     that people should consider switching their schedule not because it’s necessarily better but because it’s practical.

Waking up earlier to work out, make headway on a creative project or enjoy a stress-free cup of coffee can help make it easier to accomplish more without sacrificing time for yourself.

Each year, thousands of Chinese middle school students go to study in foreign countries such as the US, the UK, Australia and Japan.

“Chinese children hope very much to go abroad to get a wider view, less competition in studying, or family     1     ” said ChenYi, a Chinese writer, who had lived in the US for 16 years. In the talk, Chen told more than 300 parents and their children that life in foreign countries could be hard for young people. “They have to face a culture     2     and language problems.”

However, these are not always the most difficult things. To most children,     3     themselves while studying alone in a foreign country is a big     4    .

Zhang Jia, a 16-year-old student entered a high school in Melbourne, Australia last October. To his surprise, his teachers there hardly     5     students to study. And usually there wasn’t any homework.

“In this educational system, we have more free time and space to think,” said Zhang. “But if you don’t know how to     6     your time and money, you will not live an easy life.” Some of his friends spent their whole year’s money in the first two months of the new term. And they didn’t pass their exams either.

“Studying     7     at an early age can help students learn foreign languages quickly and     8     their minds. But the students and parents should know about the challenges,” Chen said. “If you want to study abroad, try to talk to someone with     9     in foreign countries. Make sure that you are ready for it both mentally and     10    ”

The unique features of colleges and universities in the U.S. are hardly shared by their competitors in Europe or Asia. Many foreign students are attracted not only to the academic programs at a particular U.S. college but also to the larger community, which affords the chance for them to absorb the surrounding culture. Clubs, sports teams, student publications and drama societies     1     colorful and enjoyable American campus life. However, few foreign universities put much emphasis on this. “In people’s minds, the campus and the American university are both admirable,” says Brown University President Vartan Gregorian. “In America people have a strong     2     that a student’s daily life is as important as his learning experience.”

Foreign students also come in search of     3    . America’s menu of options—research universities, state institutions, private liberal-arts schools, community colleges, religious institutions—is     4    . No any single European country can offer such variety. “In Europe,” says history professor Jonathan Steinberg, who has taught at both Harvard and Cambridge, “there is only one system, and that is it.” From the beginning, students overseas usually are required to     5     professional skills in a specific field, whether law or philosophy or chemistry. Most American universities insist that students have a(n)     6     on natural and social sciences, languages and literature before choosing a field of concentration.

Such     7     philosophies grow out of different traditions and power structures. In Europe and Japan, universities are     8     only to a ministry of education, which sets academic standards and provides money.

Centralization (集权化) is likely to     9     that all students are equipped with roughly the same resources and perform at roughly the same level. On the other hand, It may also     10     the testing of different ideas. “When they make mistakes, they make big ones,” says Robert Rosenzweig, president of the Association of American Universities. “They set a system in wrong directions, and it’s like piloting a super ship.”

Are You Ready for Your 15 Minutes (or More) of Fame?

CHENG YUNFU has been quietly making noodles in his small Shandong village for the past fifteen years. During that time he hasn’t raised the price; it’s still 3 yuan a bowl. However, someone     1     a video online about Cheng and his cheap noodles and, overnight, the 39-year-old man became an internet celebrity. Thousands of people have visited the village, some of them having traveled for hundreds of miles, just to meet Cheng and eat his noodles.

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” This celebrated     2     appeared in a 1968 exhibition of American artist Andy Warhol’s work in Stockholm. This prediction has, in many respects, come true in an era when there are so many channels by which an individual might     3     fame (although it is the type of fame which may not endure for very long). You could be one post away from becoming the next celebrity. Sometimes this fame can open doors to other opportunities, but sometimes it can be cruel and frightening.

Unlike Cheng and his     4     fame, more people are using online platforms such as Weibo and Bilibili to become “intentional” celebrities. Some of them, such as Papi and Li Ziqi, have become internet sensations (引起轰动的人). These two celebrities, alongside other household names, are considered KOLs (key opinion leaders). A KOL is     5     a person who has “expert product knowledge and influence in a particular field.” He or she is “trusted by relevant groups” and has “a significant effect on consumer behavior.” When it comes to internet celebrity, Papi and Li Ziqi are only in the     6     as success is much harder to achieve than it would appear at first glance. Being a KOL seems to be fun and easy, but it’s actually hard work. You have to be knowledgeable and interesting, and be able to have to make     7     videos and post new ones regularly. In other words, not everyone is qualified to do this job.

There is also the problem of losing your privacy and facing criticism from your fans. Those who follow internet celebrities may come to believe they are your closest friends and get angry when you don’t     8     to their comments or emails. As one celebrity said, “Your fans will love you until they kill you.” When Cheng became a celebrity, he was frightened by all the attention he was receiving and hid in his home for a week. But     9    , he came to accept his instant fame. But he will probably be happier when his celebrity status dies down and enables him, not to become an influencer, but to return to the quiet life of selling his cheap and delicious noodles to his neighbors.