Here are six steps to better studying.

Pay attention in class

    Do you have trouble paying attention in class? Are you sitting next to a loud person? Tell your teacher or parents about any problem that is preventing you from paying attention.

Take good notes

    Write down facts that your teacher mentions or writes on the board. Try to use good handwriting so you can read your notes later. It's a good idea to keep your notes organized by subject.

Plan ahead for tests and projects

    Waiting until Thursday night to study for Friday's test will make it hard to do your best. One of the best ways to make sure that doesn't happen is to plan ahead. Write down your test dates. You can then plan how much to do after school each day, and how much time to spend on each topic.

Break it up

    When there's a lot to study, it can help to break things into several parts. Let's say you have a spelling test on 20 words. Instead of thinking about all of the words at once, try breaking them down into five-word groups and work on one or two different groups each night.

Ask for help

    You can't study effectively if you don't understand the material. Be sure to ask your teacher for help. If you're at home when the confusion occurs, your mom or dad might be able to help.

Sleep tight

    So the test is tomorrow and you've followed your study plan—but suddenly you can't remember anything! Don't panic. Your brain needs time to digest all the information you've given it. Try to get a good night's sleep and you'll be surprised by what comes back to you in the morning.

                                                                  Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta

    Ibn Battuta is considered one of the world's greatest travellers. During the 14^th century, he travelled about 75, 000 miles in search of knowledge and for the love of travel. To share the learning and research so highly valued by Islamic (伊斯兰教的) culture, the ruler of Morocco, Abu Inan Faris, wanted Ibn Battuta's worldwide travels recorded and published when he returned home to Morocco after almost 30 years. Ibn Juzayy, a Moroccan Court Secretary, was appointed to write down Ibn Battuta's experiences. His travel journal, The Rihla, documents this extraordinary achievement. It gives us a first-hand account of life in the 14th-century Muslim world. The original book, handwritten in Arabic, can be viewed today at the National Library in Paris.

    The early 14^th century was a favorable age for a Muslim traveller. It was nearing the end of the Golden Age of Islam, one of the great explosions of scientific and cultural achievements in world history. Caravans and sea lanes created transportation and communication networks that spread across continents, including Europe, Africa and Asia. Towns and cities were regularly visited by merchants, traders, doctors, artists, craftsmen, scholars and pilgrims (朝圣者) carrying goods and ideas. All of these promoted the exchange of goods and ideas on a scale not seen previously in world history. As an educated man with professional legal skills, Ibn Battuta enjoyed kindness, companionship and offers of employment throughout the Islamic world.

    Journey to Mecca describes the 5, 000-mile journey Ibn Battuta made in 1325 and 1326 from his hometown Tangier, Morocco, to reach Mecca, in what is now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to make the pilgrimage. During this dangerous and awesome 18-month pilgrimage, he met many hindrances as he was attacked by robbers, troubled by thirst, and forced to go back to his route due to war along the Red Sea. Joining the legendary Damascus Caravan with thousands of pilgrims leaving for Mecca, he completed the final section of what would be his first of six journeys to Mecca.

    The goal of the film, Journey to Mecca, was to tell the remarkable story of Ibn Battuta and to promote a better understanding of Islam in the West, said the producers.

    The story of Sir Nicholas Winton is the one that you would imagine could only happen on the silver screen. Sir Nicholas Winton was a British man who went to heroic efforts, potentially putting himself at risk, during World War II. Sir Winton was responsible for ensuring the safety of 669 Jewish children by aiding their escape from countries occupied by Nazis. Finally, the Jewish children were brought to England where he worked to make sure families in his native country would help the kids by taking them into their homes.

    Recently, this unbelievable story has again been making the rounds on the Internet, particularly after a rerun of the BBC show called "That's Life", which featured Sir Winton. People around the world were moved at the details of the story, with saying it to be the best story they've ever seen.

    Sir Winton kept his entire plan completely secret, even his wife had no idea about his planning until fifty years later. After the war, years passed and many people remained in the dark about Sir Winton's extraordinary achievement. Some fifty years later, his wife Greta was searching in their house and discovered a Winton's notebook which documented the names of all the children. She worked with BBC and they produced a TV episode(插曲) of their program "That's Life" that served as an honor for Sir Winton's work.

    In 2003, Sir Winton was knighted by the Queen of England for his work. He also was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He also had a small planet named after him by Czech astronomers. Sir Winton died peacefully in his sleep at the old age of 106, in 2015. Leaders around the world paid tribute(悼念). Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Daniel Taub, said, "He was a hero of our time, having saved 669 Jewish children from Nazis. His story, as a point of light in a period of darkness, will forever be remembered."

    I have never forgotten the firm belief I had in the arrival through the chimney (烟囱) of the little Santa Claus (圣诞老人), the kind, white-bearded old man who at midnight left in my tiny shoe a present I found the next morning.

    Midnight! It's the perfect hour children don't know. What great efforts I made not to go to sleep before the little old man appeared!

    I had both a great desire and great fear of seeing him, but could never stay awake until then, and the next day my first look was for my shoe. He never failed to carefully wrap (包装) every present for me. I would run barefoot to get my treasure. It never was a very expensive present, for we were not rich. It was a cookie, an orange, or very simply a fine red apple. But it felt so precious that I barely dared to eat it. What a great role imagination plays in a child's life!

    I do not at all agree with the idea that the lies about Santa Claus should be stopped. Doubts and truth come all too soon on their own. I very well remember the first year, when I was five or six, I doubted that it was not Santa Claus who put the cookie in my shoe. Since then, it has never tasted as good as the first few years of my life.

    I noted that my son believed in him longer; boys are more naïve (天真的) than little girls. Like me, he made great efforts to stay awake until midnight. Like me, he loved the cookie baked in Heaven's kitchens. And like me, the first year of his doubts was the last year of the visit of the good old man.

    What do you do when you need to look something up? Go to the library? Open an encyclopedia(百科全书)? Click onto the Internet? These days, most people go straight to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. But how reliable is it?

    There's no denying the popularity and usefulness of Wikipedia. It attracts as many as 78 million visitors every month, and the site is available in more than 270 different languages. It's one of the most comprehensive resources available, which includes almost all details, facts and information that may be concerned. It's got much more information than an ordinary encyclopedia. The site is updated on a daily basis by thousands of people around the world. Anyone with an Internet connection can log on and edit the contents or add a new page. And you don't need any formal training.

Of course, there are some controls. Wikipedia has a team of more than 1,500 administrators who check for false information. And main targets for harmful comments(such as politicians) are off-limits to public editing. But with more than 16 million articles to keep an eye on, it isn't easy. So, while Wikipedia benefits from being constantly updated with information from all over the world, it's also open to “vandals”（恣意破坏公共财物者）.

    Some of the damage is easy to notice. One person drew devil horns and a moustache on Microsoft chairman Bill Gate's photo, while another edited Greek philosopher Plato's biography to say he was a “Hawaiian weather man who is widely believed to have been a student of 'Barney the purple Dinosaur'.

    But other things are harder to spot. The most common form of vandalism (恣意破坏公共财物罪)involves adding tiny items of false information into the biography of a famous person. Unbelievably, some of this misinformation has appeared in newspapers, with The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Independent all having fallen victim to the dirty tricks. For example, in an article about British comedian Sir Norman Wisdom, one newspaper claimed that he co-wrote Dame Vera Lynn's wartime hit There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover. He did no such thing. And in other article, it was reported that TV Theme tune composer Ronnie Hazlehurst had written the S Club 7's hit Reach again, not true. So, if you're going to use any information from Wikipedia, make sure you double-check it first.

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