This year, 25,310 students who have accepted places in higher education institutions have put off their entry until next year, according to statistics on university entrance provided by the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS).

    That is a record 14.7% increase in the number of students taking a gap year. Tony Higgins from UCAS said that the statistics are good news for everyone in higher education. “Students who take a well-planned year out are more likely to be satisfied with, and complete, their chosen course. Students who take a gap year are often more mature and responsible,” he said.

    But not everyone is happy. Owain James, the president of the National Union of Students (NUS), argued that the increase is evidence of student hardship – young people are being forced into earning money before finishing their education. “New students are now aware that they are likely to leave university up to￡15,000 in debt. It is not surprising that more and more students are taking a gap year to earn money to support their study for the degree. NUS statistics show that over 40% of students are forced to work during term time and the figure increases to 90% during vacating periods,” he said.

    Traffic Light Reading is one of students' favorites! And it's so simple. Here's what to do: Take three pens in different colors, most suitably red, orange and green. But it's not too important as long as teachers and students are both clear on the colour code they're going to use.

    Students read a text, not worrying too much about how much they understand. Teachers can ask them to re-read when students are paying attention to vocabulary. Start by underlining the words that they understand completely (including names, numbers etc) in green.

    Then students re-read the text and underline the words that look familiar, they maybe know them but aren't too sure about them. You guessed it: in orange.

    Finally, students read the text a third time underlining the words they clearly don't understand in red. Sometimes teachers might want to set students a limit for how many red words they underline, telling them only to underline the words that they believe are seriously blocking their understanding of the text as a whole. Generally, however, students are pleasantly surprised by how few words are red and how many are green. Seeing their ability laid out in a visual way really helps to increase confidence.

    Once the whole text is underlined, teachers can give students a limit of 5, 10 or 15 words, depending on the length of the text, and tell them they're only allowed to look these words up in a dictionary. This helps them to recognize words that are actually getting in the way of their understanding of the text and words that they don't know but actually don't impact their whole understanding of the text.

    This is a useful activity that can be done with a printed text, in a Google Doc, on RealtimeBoard, or set as a homew ork task for some independent study.

    Mayor Day called me that morning, his voice full of an urgency I'd never heard before. "These Chinese big people are coming to our town and I need you to prepare something really special for them. I'm relying on you, Adrian. The whole town is. This could be just the thing to put us over the top."

    "Okay, I'm on it," I said. I'm a caterer (酒席承办人), and for years I've done all the mayor's events for Thomasville, Alabama, our little town of 4,099. He likes everything I make, but I knew exactly what he wanted this time, banana pudding, his favorite.

    It's my mama's recipe. It was her desserts that she was known for. Mama cooked her banana pudding on the stove. Hers was thick and cream-colored, not dark yellow like the other ladies made. I remember practicing in the kitchen when I was a young girl. Mama showed me how to make banana pudding properly. "Good job, Adrian," Mama would say. I was so proud when I finally got mine just right, the way she did.

    For months Mayor Day had tried his best to persuade some Chinese businessmen who ran a copper company to build their new plant in Thomasville, but our little town didn't have the land they needed. "We are leaning toward Houston or Lamar," the company representative told Mayor Day. "There is nothing personal, just business."

    "Wait! What about Wilcox County?" the mayor asked. Wilcox, just east of us, was one of the poorest counties in the entire United States and had got plenty of land. There hadn't been any kind of plant built there since the 1970s.

    "But that's not your county," the company representative said. "Why are you lobbying (游说) for them?"

    "Because if you build in Wilcox County their economy will grow and so will Thomasville's. Besides, there's something to be said for loving your neighbor, isn't there?"

    The representative agreed to visit Wilcox County before the final decision was made. All the top leaders would come and have lunch in Thomasville, lunch that I cooked. And for dessert, the dish the mayor hoped would sweeten the deal. Banana pudding with 300 jobs riding on it, I knew it had to be perfect, like Mama's.

    The luncheon was held at the Thomasville Civic Center. Next to each plate I'd placed a little cup of pudding. I looked on anxiously as the Chinese businessmen eyed the dessert. Were they curious or sickening? One of the men pointed at his cup and said something to the translator. I couldn't hear his answer but the businessman still looked puzzled. He took a spoon, inserted it into the pudding, then put barely a taste to his lips. For a moment there was no reaction. Then he smiled, a grin that went from ear to ear. The rest of the businessmen started eating their pudding, one bite after another. In seconds all the cups were empty.

    One of the businessmen looked toward me and said something to the translator, who waved me over to the table. "Excuse me," he said. "Is there more? More …" he searched for the word, "… pie?" I brought out all the banana pudding. Even last cup was finished. By the time the men put down their dessert spoons they'd reached an agreement. They needed to know more about Wilcox County. There would be another meeting, another lunch.

    "And we will have again the banana pie?" one of the leaders asked.

    Mayor Day didn't miss a beat. "Absolutely," he said. "Adrian's lunches always come with banana pie."

    And a few months later, when it was announced that the plant would be built in Wilcox County instead of Houston, everyone joked that the decision had come down to one thing. Mama's been away for a few years now, but I like to think she's up in heaven, looking down on that new copper plant going up in Wilcox County, and saying, "Good job, Adrian."

    A Chinese team claimed victory at an international e-sports（电子竞技）championship held in Paris on Sunday.

    Royal Never Give Up beat South Korean team Dragon X 3-1 to lift the crown at the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational 2018. It marked the first time in 1,106 days that a South Korean team had been defeated by a team from elsewhere at a major international League of Legends tournament（锦标赛）.

    League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena video game that was launched in 2009 and rapidly built a following among members of the competitive gaming community. The tournament in Paris featured teams from 13 countries and regions competing for cash and a place in the global rankings.

    Royal Never Give Up entered the contest fresh from their victory at the spring season of the Tencent League of Legends Pro League, the top level of China's professional League of Legends league system. Their win in Paris was largely owing to star player Jian Zihao, aka Uzi. “I've been trying to win this title for six years now,” Jian said on stage following the victory. “I can't imagine I'm standing here with this trophy. I'm super excited for this moment.” Royal Never Give Up's victory has boosted confidence in China's ability to win at major international e-sports events.

    E-sports' popularity has ballooned in recent years, with the International Olympic Committee scheduled to meet in July to further discuss the possibility of including e-sports in future Olympic Games. According to Penguin Intelligence's 2017 China Game Industry Report, released in June, the annual market value of China's e-sports sector reached 20 billion yuan ($3.13 billion) in 2016, generated by gamers' spending, copyright distribution, merchandising and e-commerce. The number of registered online gamers jumped to 220 million in 2017 from 170 million the year before.

    It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

    If you give your children the impression that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent.

    My daughter Carla's fifth-grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a prefect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.

     You can use the same technique when you evaluate (评价) your child's work at home.

    Don't always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn't done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

    Learning is a process of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

    A new report says living in a city makes it harder for people to concentrate(集中) on some tasks. The research found that people who live in rural areas can focus better than people in urban areas. The study is from Goldsmiths College, which is part of the University of London. Head researcher Dr. Karina Linnell and her team made great contributions. They studied how two groups of people did the same "thinking tasks". The team went to a remote(偏远的) part of Namibia, southwest Africa, to study the Himba tribe. Himba people live a very basic life in the desert. They are still doing traditional farming. The team also studied members of the same tribe who had moved to the nearest town. Dr. Linnell said the tribe who lived in the desert did much better on the tests than those in the town. It's really interesting and shocking.

    Dr. Linnell said their research may lead to changes in the way companies operate. In the future, workers may move from cities to live and work in the countryside. Linnell said there are too many things around us in the city that stop us from thinking about one thing for a long time. This means we do not work at our best. She asked, "What if, for example, companies realized certain tasks would be better carried out by employees based outside of the urban environment? There their concentration ability is better. "The past century has seen billions of people move from the countryside to big cities. In the future, the trend may not continue. If Dr. Linnell's research is true, this century might see many of those people return to the great outdoors. Let's wait to see what will happen.