One kind of creative writing task is to write an ending for someone else’s story. What you write should match the original story so that it is believable. To finish a story, you should:

Fully understand the content of the original story. This is not just understanding the language used and the basic plot, but also the feelings and motivations of the characters.

Use your creative imagination. Sometimes your creative imagination can be activated (使激活) through brainstorming different ideas and then choosing the best one.

Keep the content consistent with the original story. You are not trying to write a new story; you are trying to write an ending for a story that already exists.

Keep the language consistent with the original story. Your story should match the tone (语气) and style of the original story.

Recycle some of the language from the original story, if you have trouble coming up with the right words to use.

Keep in mind that an ending should wrap up the story and bring it to a close. When working on an ending you should therefore think about what has happened to the main character and how that character has changed or grown because of the events in the story.

Yours,

Li Jin

I had many experiences studying in groups. But the most impressive experience for me was an English singing competition.

Last term, we had to sing an English song in groups in the singing competition. The song our team chose was Try Everything.

Although most of the team members quickly learned the melody (曲调), there were still a few students who couldn’t sing it or were too shy to sing it in public. So, we taught those who couldn’t sing and encouraged those who were very shy. Finally, we sang it really well and got first prize.

From this experience, I realized that studying in groups has a lot of superiority. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages. When we work in teams, we can learn from each other and fill in teaming gaps. Also, it’s easy to give up when studying alone. And with each other’s encouragement. We’ll be more likely to be able to persist. What’s more, when we discuss in groups, we can learn how to communicate with others and achieve the team goals together.

Just as the saying goes, “Alone we can run faster, but together we can go further?” So, let’s enjoy group study!

5 . Is changing answers in your test a good idea?

Maybe you can answer a question in seconds. However, do not just trust your first instinct (直觉) in a test. Instincts are not about finding the truth. They are about survival. Your brain doesn’t think through most stuff in life. It just uses shortcuts (捷径) to fool yourself into thinking you know.

Do you remember how it felt to be learning something new? At first it could be complicated. There were hundreds of details that your brain needed to look out for. When you’re learning anything new, your brain is working overtime. Now imagine how you feel doing that new thing you learned before. It gets easier, right? Stuff gets easier because the brain starts creating shortcuts for decision making.

When you’re taking a test, these shortcuts are usually your first instincts. If you see an answer that instantly looks related to the question, then your brain is going to start ringing alarm bells ( “ This might be it ” ). The logical part of your brain hasn’t even come into the station and the conductor is screaming, “ All aboard! ”

Changing your answer is letting the logical part of your brain take the wheel. You are going to end up right more often than you end up wrong.

“ But my experience says otherwise! ” That’s because your experience is just another shortcut. When you’re examining your completed test, your brain probably has a shortcut of looking at your wrong answers and skipping the ones you got right. The bright red pen will direct you straight to your problem areas. That means you’re probably not getting a fair representation of your results.

When you get an answer wrong because you changed your answer, you will probably notice it. It will stand out. The bright red circle just pulls your brain in. It forces your attention to it. Since it’s a question you probably spent a minute or two on, you’ll remember why you got it wrong. When you get an answer right because you changed your answer, the opposite happens. There are no red circles directing your attention to how awesomely smart thinking twice was. It will just slide unnoticed while you let your eyes wander over other red marked areas you need to think about.

6 . Modern technology has a strong influence on every part of our life, including the education in the universities.

Ashok Goel, a professor of Georgia Institute of Technology, says he uses the Internet in almost all of the classes he teaches. Every term over 300 graduate students take his class on artificial intelligence (人工智能). The students never meet in person. All of the classes take place online — through a website, which lets students ask questions and complete their work from anywhere in the world.

Having hundreds of students in a class means Ashok Goel has to answer thousands of questions. He has eight teaching assistants to help him. But even that is not enough to give all the students the help they need.

So, in January, Goel had an idea. He decided to try an experiment. At the start of the spring 2016 term, he added a new member to his teaching team: Jill Watson. She was able to answer questions faster than most other teaching assistants. And she was available 24 hours a day.

It was only at the end of the term that Goel’s students learned Watson’s true identity: she was not a real person like the other teaching assistants. Jill Watson was an AI computer program.

And it seems Goel’s stories will become more common in the universities.

A website called Campus Technology publishes stories about how colleges and universities use new technology. In August, the site published a survey of over 500 professors and their use of technology. Fifty-five percent of the professors asked students to use study materials online before coming to class. And, more than 70 percent combined (使相结合) online materials and face-to-face teaching in their classrooms.