It has been more than twenty years since pioneering British computer programmer, Sir Tim Berners Lee, created the World Wide Web. But could he have ever imagined how much the web would change our lives? And would he approve of how some British students are taking advantage of his invention?

    Univesities and exam boards around the UK are becoming increasingly concerned with the rising number of cases of plagiarism, many of which are facilitated（助长）by the Internet access.

In the UK most school and university students complete coursework throughout the academic year which contributes toward their final mark. In many cases coursework makes up the main part of the qualification. Since coursework is completed in the students' own time it cannot be monitored by teachers in the same way as an exam.

Derec Stockley, director of examinations in the UK, explains, “Plagiarism affects coursework more than anything else, and in the cases that come to our attention, more and more are linked to the Internet.”

At a university level recent reports suggest that plagiarism has evolved from separate cases of individual cheating t o systematic and even commercial operation. Students can now pay for bespoke essays to be written for them by experts.

It is estimated that the market in online plagiarism is now worth 200 million pounds a year. Every month more and more websites offering to write students' essays for them appear on the Internet.

Barclay Littlewood, owner of Degree Essays UK employs 3,500 specialist writers and charges between 120 pounds and 4,000 pounds per essay. However, Mr Littlewood refuses the accusation that he is helping students to cheat.

        Despite the popularity of school spelling competitions, adults in the US performed poorly in a survey comparing how English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic deal with commonly misspelt words.

        Sixty­two percent of Americans got“embarrassed”wrong, against 54 percent of Britons who struggled with the word in a survey last year. Adults in the US performed less well on most of the ten words tested, including millennium (52 percent wrong, against 43 percent in the UK), liaison (61 percent to 54 percent)and “accommodation”(42 percent to 36 percent)．Only “definitely”and “friend”were spelt correctly by more Americans.

      Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which sponsored(发起)the research, said the high inaccuracy rates in both countries showed the need for the English spelling system to be modernized.“When asked, only a quarter of adults thought they had a problem with spelling.The answers in the test prove that this_is_far_from_the_case ， ”he said.“What is holding the UK and the USA back is the irregular spelling system.”

Professor Edward Baranowski, one academic consultant for the project, said, “We have different spellings for the same sound, and a system which reflects how English was spoken in the 13th to 15th centuries, not how it is spoken today.So many sound changes have occurred in the language, which is not reflected in modern spelling, that we are left with a ‘fossilized(僵化的)'system.”

       The study found that 40 percent of the respondents would support updating words that caused problems while 16 percent opposed the idea.And 31 percent said it didn't matter.

        The US survey involving a sample of 1，000 adults was carried out online by Ipsos MORI last month, with the method based on a survey of 1，000 Britons in April last year.

      At thirteen，I was diagnosed (诊断) with a kind of attention disorder.It made school difficult for me.When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks，I could not.

      In my first literature class，Mrs.Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it，all within 45 minutes.I raised my hand right away and said，“Mrs.Smith，you see，the doctor said I have attention problems.I might not be able to do it.”

     She glanced down at me through her glasses，“You are no different from your classmates，young man.”

     I tried，but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang.I had to take it home.

     In the quietness of my bedroom，the story suddenly all became clear to me.It was about a blind person，Louis Braille.He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education.But Louis didn't give up.Instead，he invented a reading system of raised dots (点)，which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

      Wasn't I the “blind” in my class，being made to learn like the “sighted”students？My thoughts spilled out and my pen started to dance.I completed the task within 40 minutes.Indeed，I was no different from others；I just needed a quieter place.If Louis could find his way out of his problems，why should I ever give up?

      I didn't expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs.Smith，so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an “A” on it.At the bottom of the paper were these words：“See what you can do when you keep trying？”