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.

    If you think about school, is there one teacher who stands out above all others? One person who is your favorite and who really inspires you? Why?{#blank#}1{#/blank#} I've decided that I want to become a teacher because teaching is so rewarding and it provides so many opportunities. I get to inspire future generations – what could be better?

    I'm currently helping out in two schools – a primary and a secondary school – and I'm actually really enjoying it. Some says are challenging and I ask myself why I am doing it, but then one of my students will answer a question or be interested in my lesson and suddenly everything becomes worthwhile.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    I plan my own lessons and make them as fun as serious as I like.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} That is why my lessons are never boring. Sometimes my classes don't go according to the plan, so I switch the way I teach and do something that I know my students will enjoy.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I teach biology, geography, history, technology, social sciences and music … all is English! I get to study English literature, which is my passion, and pass on my knowledge and enthusiasm to my students, and I get to teach a huge variety of classes and age groups.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} As a result, I have to try and cater for everybody by including a variety of tasks and exercises as well as interesting multimedia, like videos and games.

The best classes are when I give the students a topic to discuss – usually one which they feel very passionate about – and let them have their say.

A. Teaching is so exciting.

B. I create lesson plans to suit each of the ages.

C. I realize I am great to help someone to learn.

D. I've found that each student learns differently.

E. I've been thinking these questions over recently.

F. I'm excited to get started on my teacher training.

G. I also love the fact that I teach English in everything.

    The pursuit of longevity has long been on people's minds, prompting an abundance of research on the effects of food and diet on the human lifespan. According to recent research from the UC Irvine Institute, drinking coffee and wine could help you live longer.

    The 90+ Study evaluated more than 1,600 people over the age of 90 for their lifestyle habits and other qualities that might have contributed to their longevity.

    Participants were visited every six months, when they were given various tests. Researchers also collected information about the participants' diets, lifestyles, and medical histories.

    They found out that two of the habits that helped preserve lives the most are drinking alcohol and coffee. “I have no explanation for it,” admitted Dr Claudia Kawas, “but I do firmly believe that moderate (适度的) drinking improves longevity.” So should we all be drinking more coffee and wine? While that would be great news, the research may not be as definitive as it seems.

    “Most studies about alcohol consumption, including The 90+ Study, are observational, so we  can only say that something about drinking is associated with health and longevity,” registered dietitian Jennifer Markowitz told The Daily Meal.

    “I'd be curious to see if the coffee and alcohol drinkers shared other important habits or lifestyle factors that might also play into their longevity.”

    In other words, it might not be the wine and coffee that's helping people live longer, but the two substances do have some considerable health benefits. “Wine and coffee are packed with antioxidants(抗氧化剂) which are known to protect our bodies from damage caused by free radicals,” explained registered dietitian Keri Gans to The Daily Meal. “Research on antioxidants has shown several heath benefits, including the possibility they may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, improve cognitive function, decrease the risk of dementia, and lower the risk of heart disease.”

    Moderate drinking can be beneficial according to other studies—so long as it's moderate.

    Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.

    Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons (神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.

    If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.

    Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} "You keep what matters," Tononi says.

A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.

B. It's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.

C. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.

D. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.

E. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.

F. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.

G. "Sleep is the price we pay for learning," says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.

There are thousands of puzzles to choose from for you, such as jigsaw puzzles, puzzle books and more. They all have something in common: they test your skills or knowledge. Here are four of the most common:

Word puzzles

One of the most popular word puzzles — the crossword. It can be done with paper and pencil or online. Sometimes word puzzles involve finding new words within a large group of letters. This type of word puzzle is called a word search.

Word puzzles usually test your vocabulary. Knowing the language that the game is designed in is required for success, however.

Mechanical puzzles

Mechanical puzzles have pieces that must be arranged in some way. The world's best-selling puzzle, the Rubik's Cube, is a mechanical puzzle. As of 2020, over 450 million Rubik's Cubes had been sold.

Jigsaw puzzles also fall into this category. They typically involve putting pieces in the right place to form a picture. Jigsaw puzzles have from two to over 550,000 pieces — the largest one on record.

Logic puzzles

Figuring out the solution to a logic puzzle requires careful thought rather than guessing. Sudoku and Mine Finder are examples of logic puzzles. In Mine Finder players must determine where the mines are hidden in a grid.

Math puzzles

Math puzzles involve numbers, words or objects and the use of math. Surprisingly, the ever-popular Candy Crush is classified as a math puzzle. Math skills are required for players to successfully move and match colored candies.

There are many other kinds of puzzles. But no matter which you prefer, puzzles are a great way to entertain.

A new study examined scientists' peer reviews, or researchers' official statements on others' work, across multiple AI-related conferences. At one such conference, those peer reviews used the word "meticulous" — a buzzword often associated with generative A.I., like ChatGPT — almost 3,400 percent more than the previous year. Other major conferences showed similar patterns. In other words, many researchers were handing, at least, parts of their peer review over to A.I.

What's going on in science is a slice of a much bigger problem. Any viral post on social media now almost certainly includes A.I.-generated elements. There are synthetic videos for children on YouTube, like music videos about parrots where the birds have eyes within eyes, singing in an unnatural voice. The narratives make no sense, and characters appear and disappear randomly.

As a neuroscientist, this worries me. Isn't it possible that human culture contains within it cognitive micronutrients — things like reasonable sentences, narrations and character continuity — that developing brains need? Einstein supposedly said: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." But what happens when a child is consuming mostly A.I.-generated waste? We find ourselves in the middle of a vast developmental experiment.

A.I.'s cultural pollution is driven by a desire to fill the Internet's appetite for content as cheaply as possible, which in turn pollutes our culture. And despite public appeals to act against it, A.I. companies are dragging their feet because it goes against the industry's bottom line to have detectable products, which they fear might weaken the model's performance, although there is no current evidence.

To deal with this general refusal to act, we need a Clean Internet Act. Perhaps the simplest solution would be to force built-in watermarking to A.I. generated outputs, like patterns not easily removable. Just as the 20th century required action to protect the shared environment, the 21st century is going to require actions to protect a different but equally critical resource: our shared human culture.