How did people in ancient China change their luck? Most of them would take the exam, Keju, which began during the Sui Dynasty and lasted for 1,300 years before it was ended in the Qing Dynasty.

    Keju, the early “gaokao”, played a very important role in choosing qualified persons to work for the king.

    The Keju exams were mainly based on classical literature(文学) and philo- sophy. Poetry was very important in earlier Keju exams, and later Keju focused more on writing.

    All candidates had to write an article explaining ideas from those books, which was called Eight Part Essay. Two sentences were required at the start of the article, about the main idea of the title, which was called “to clear the topic”. The exams also focused on more practical matters.  

    Most candidates in ancient China had to go a long way to the capital city for the exam. As transportation in ancient times was not developed, they usually went to the capital on foot, and some took several months to reach the capital.

    The exam was held once every three years and it was made up of four levels: the county examination, provincial examination, academy examination and palace examination. Candidates had to first pass one level in order to take part in the next level. Each examination would take from one to three days to finish, and they were locked in a small room and received cold meals.

    On the exam day, candidates had to first go through safety check. They had to let their hair loose so that it could be checked and their trouser legs, shoes and socks, even bottoms were also checked.

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    Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of parental involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.

    The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting where schools expect them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.

    Keith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was their parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the tasks."They may either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice."

    Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically insignificant.

    Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved parents", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success. "A big surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

    Americans are worried about new technology. They are concerned that machines. Including robots, will take over work now done by humans. These findings come from a new report by the Pew Research Center of Washington DC.

    About 75 percent of Americans questioned by Pew said automation will increase income inequality between the rich and the middle class and the poor. And 64 percent of people expect automation to be so common in America that people will face difficulty finding things to do with their lives.

    Some of the concerns about technology come from a distrust about whether machines will always make the right decision. Many Americans believe humans have better judgment in dealing with complex matters. One example is selecting a person for a job. Three quarters of Americans said they would not want to apply for a job that uses a computer program to choose the most qualified person.

    Most Americans want the government to limit automation, For example, 87 percent support a requirement that all driverless vehicles have a human in the driver s scat who can take control when needed. And 85 percent want to limit machines to mostly doing jobs that are dangerous or unhealthy for humans. And only 25 percent expect more jobs to come from automation. Pew said.

    Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, spoke last May to graduating seniors from Harvard University in Massachusetts, His talk centered on the uncertain future facing young people. “Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks,” Zuckerberg told the graduates,

    Zuckerberg said young people will have to find projects that will bring both jobs and direct benefits to the people of the world. He said in his speech that 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon, and millions of people built, the Hoover Dam as well as other great projects over the last 100 years.

    Some materials are obtained from natural resources that are changed by chemical processes in a laboratory. The resulting artificial materials are synthetic, or human-made.

    Plastic is a synthetic substance, obtained from petroleum, a fossil fuel. The molecules（分子）in petroleum are split and then linked into chains. Plastic is an example of a polymer, a material made of repeating patterns of atoms linked together. Most polymers are synthetic. They are made by polymerization, the process of chemically linking many smaller molecules to form a larger molecule that has different physical features. Some polymers, such as proteins, occur naturally.

    Plastic is a key component of many products. When heated into an almost-liquid form, plastic can be made into fibers, sheets, or molds（模具）. It can be mixed with other elements to remain flexible, or it can harden into a solid. Plastic fibers can be made into clothing or carpeting. Sheets of plastic can be made into plates. Molded plastic can be sued for protective helmets or car bumpers.

    Most plastics can be reheated and remolded repeatedly. This feature makes plastic very easy to use. Polymers can be pulled into fine strings or molded into almost any kind of shape. For example, tubes of plastic can be shaped into bottles by different processes. One such process is extrusion blow-molding. Most plastics are also resistant to many chemicals that might harm other materials. This quality is the reason that so many cleaning liquids are packaged in plastic bottles.

    Plastics are good insulators that can stop electricity or heat to pass through. Look around your kitchen, and observe where plastics are used. Pot handles are sometimes made of plastic, as are cooking tools, toaster controls, and microwave cookware. Food-storage wraps and containers may be made of plastic. Take a walk outdoors, and note all the plastic items you see. Gardening tools, such as watering cans and sprayers, are often made of plastic. Swings and slides made of plastic do not become as hot as metal, so they are safer for play. Because plastics can be heated, remolded, and made into something else, they can be recycled and reused.

    What's fiercer than a lion? The honey badger (蜜獾), one of the toughest mammals in Africa and western Asia. Honey badgers stand less than a foot high. They are only a couple feet long. They weigh just over 20 pounds. Yet they have a reputation for toughness that is far greater than their size.

    So what makes the honey badger so tough? They have speed, but so do many animals. They aren't stronger than lions, so how do they stop them? The thing that sets the honey badge apart is their skin. Their skin is thick and tough. Arrows, spears, and bites from other animals can rarely go through it. Not only is their skin thick and tough, it is also loose. This allows them to twist and turn to fight back while another animal is attacking them.

    Honey badgers have long, sharp claws. These claws are good for attacking and even better for digging. Honey badgers are some of nature's most skilled diggers. They can dig a nine-foot tunnel into hard ground in about 10 minutes. They love to catch a meal by digging up the holes of frogs and snakes. They also use their digging skills to create their homes. They live in small holes in the ground and defend them fiercely.

    You don't get a reputation like the honey badger by running from danger. The honey badger is a fearless and tireless fighter. They will attack any creature that threatens them, man included. Because of the honey badger's reputation, most predators (食肉动物) avoid them. Some animals use the honey badger's reputation to their advantage. Adult cheetahs (猎豹) have spotted coats, but their kittens have silver manes (鬃毛) and look like honey badgers. Some scientists believe that their coloring tricks predators into avoiding them.

    You might be wondering: "If honey badgers are so tough, how did they get a name that makes them sound like a piece of candy?" The answer makes sense. Since honey badgers have such thick skin, bees rarely harm them. So honey badgers love to attack beehives(蜂窝). Honey badgers run after honey so aggressively that beekeepers in Africa have to use electric fencing to hold them back. There's nothing sweet about that.