In today's world, English is the most wildly used language. It is our duty to learn English in the new situation of the reform and opening to the outside world. How can we master the English language? I'd like to give you some good advice.

    First, get interested in it. I enjoy listening to foreign friends talking when I was a child. At the same time I watched the English program Follow Me on TV. From then on, I kept on learning English. The more I learned, the more progress I made.

    Second, practice makes perfect. Many people study English very hard, but they are very shy to speak it in public, for they are afraid of making mistakes. Remember you have to make a mistake before you can correct it. A native English speaker makes mistakes sometimes, too.

    Third, the beginners should be encouraged to pay attention to idioms. The English language has many idioms. For example, you should say “ He is as strong as a cow.”

    Congratulations on having been offered, and accepting, a place to study at Cambridge! This page offers some tips that will hopefully make your arrival at Cambridge as stress-free as possible.

    Before you arrive

    Your College or Department will send you all the information you need to prepare yourself for your time in Cambridge, including College information, for example, accommodation, course information, and similar related details. You will be sent an email asking you to complete the University's Student Registration exercise. It will only take a few minutes.

    Pre-arrival Freshers' Events this summer

    Around the world in August and September, Cambridge Alumni（毕业生）Groups will be hosting pre-arrival Freshers' Events for new students coming to Cambridge this autumn. These events are a great opportunity to prepare for university and make some friends before you arrive. There will be the chance to meet current students and alumni from whom you can get tips and advice for living and studying in Cambridge.

    Arrival and registration

    Most courses start in October. The term between October and December is known as Michaelmas Term in Cambridge. Officially, the first day of the Michaelmas Term is 1 October and this date will be shown on your offer letter. Your College or your Department will advise you about when to arrive. Ceremony activities begin around 1 October for most students. When you arrive in Cambridge, you should go first to your College. They will be glad to know that you have arrived safely and will advise you on what to do next.

    Matriculation

    Matriculation marks the formal admission of a student to membership of the University, and a College may not normally allow an unmatriculatied student to be a resident member of the College. Every freshman for matriculation must agree with the following belief by signing the Matriculation Registration Form:

    I promise to observe the Statutes and Ordinances of the University as far as they concern me, and to pay due respect and obedience to the Chancellor and other officers of the University.

    Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci ... the art world has never lacked talent. And now, a new painter is ready to join the list although this one isn't even human.

    Next month, auction house Christie's Prints and Multiples will make history by offering the first piece of art created by artificial intelligence (AI) for sale. The painting is a portrait of a man called Edmond De Bela- my, and is expected to be sold for up to $10,000.

    The work, which features a man with a mysterious look on his face, was created by software developed by the French art group Obvious. Laugero-Lasserre, an art collector, called the work "grotesque and amazing at the same time". This isn't the first example of Al-produced artwork, as AI has already been used to write poems and compose .songs. However, many people doubt whether it should be called art at all.

According to Russian writer Leo Tolstroy (1828 -1910), art is about creating emotion (情感). It's "a means of …joining people together in the same feelings' he once said.

So, if the emotion behind art is what makes it, the ability to create and use tools is what makes human Icings different from other species. And as a tool itself, the AI technology used to create the portrait is the result of a lot of effort made by several designers. Together, they "fed" the AI a huge collection of paintings from the 14th to the 18th centuries, until it was able to work out how to make similar paintings of its own.

    The introduction of AI art could be the beginning of a new artistic movement. However, not everyone is ready to welcome these high-tech artists just yet.

    "The human mind is what's behind the AI technology. And the human mind is not a cold, hard fact," said Oscar Schwartz, a professor of AI. "Rather, it in something that's created with our opinions and something that changes over

    Auctions(拍卖行) are everywhere. Here are just a few standouts and some of the areas they specialize in. All have brick-and-mortar(实体的) sales rooms in addition to online buying.

    Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

    Headquarters(总部): Chicago

    Founded: 1982

    Best bets: contemporary art, jewelry

    The founder, Leslie Hindman, has been on an expansion kick from her Chicago base and now runs eight offices across the country. Ms. Hindman said that plenty of items sell at her house for around $500. As in the auction world generally, jewelry and contemporary art receive lots of attention from bidders(出价者), and in2017 a diamond ring sold for $97,000.

    Swann Auction Galleries

    Headquarters: New York

    Founded: 1941

    Best bets: books, works on paper, African-American art

    Founded as a rare-book auctioneer, Swann still holds dozens of such sales a year. The president, Nicholas D. Lowry, noted that Swann was the first auction house to sell old photographs, in 1952.The house has also had a department of African-American art for 12 years.

    Stair Galleries

    Headquarters: Hudson, N.Y.

    Founded: 2001

    Best bets: English and Continental furniture and paintings, modern and contemporary art

    Colin Stair, the founder and president, comes from a long line of antiques dealers (商人). Stair is frequented by dealers and bargain hunters, and it's a place to find interesting things like a George I carved walnut wing armchair, coming up as part of a sale on April 28 and 29.

    Heritage Auctions

    Headquarters: Dallas

    Founded: 1983

    Best bets: coins, sports memorabilia, movie posters

    With roots in coin auctions, Heritage has grown quite large. But their bread and butter are items that the company president, Greg Rohan, calls "the kinds of things that everyone has." "People aren't buying what were selling for decoration or for resale," he added. "They're buying things they absolutely love."

    Recently, as the British doctor Robert Winston took a train from London to Manchester, he found himself becoming steadily angry. A woman had picked up her phone and begun a loud conversation, which would last an unbelievable hour. Furious, Winston began to tweet about the woman. He took her picture and sent it to his more than 40,000 followers.

    When the train arrived at its destination, Winston rushed out. He'd had enough of the woman's rudeness. But the press were now waiting for her on the platform. And when they showed her Winston's messages, she used just one word to describe Winston's actions: rude.

    Winston's tale is something of a microcosm(缩影) of our age of increasing rudeness, fueled by social media. What can we do to fix this?

    Studies have shown that rudeness spreads quickly, almost like the common cold. Just witnessing rudeness makes it far more likely that we, in turn, will be rude later on. The only way to avoid it is to deal with it face to face. We must say, "Just stop." For Winston, that would have meant approaching the woman, telling her that her conversation was frustrating other passengers and politely asking her to speak more quietly or make the call at another time.

    The rage and injustice we feel at the rude behavior of a stranger can drive us to do odd things. In my own research, surveying 2,000 adults, I discovered that the acts of revenge people had taken ranged from the ridiculous to the disturbing. Winston did shine a spotlight on the woman's behavior — but from afar, in a way that shamed her.

    We must instead combat rudeness head on. When we see it occur in a store, we must step up and say something. If it happens to a colleague, we must point it out. We must defend strangers in the same way we'd defend our best friends. But we can do it with grace, by handling it without a trace of aggression and without being rude ourselves. Because once rude people can see their actions through the eyes of others, they are far more likely to end that strain themselves. As this tide of rudeness rises, civilization needs civility.

    Do you know the term "tweenager"? It's a slang word being used in the UK to describe children 10-13 years old. They are between junior and the teenage years. Why are they suddenly referred to in this way?

    Tweenagers now have more money, freedom and influence upon their parents than they've ever had before. More and more companies are creating products and services for tweenagers. You can get everything from branded lunchboxes and mobile phone covers, to monthly fan magazines and clothing-it's all about sales.

    Most children in the UK today get more pocket money than kids did a decade ago. It is because parents are having fewer children on average than in the past. In addition, the divorce rate in the UK is continually rising and parents spend less time with their children than they used to. So, many parents try to compensate(补偿) by buying presents for them.

    And do tweenagers have more freedom? Well, UK children today are very familiar with media and computer. Many have a television, if not a computer, in their bedrooms. They have access to much more information about the world.

    They may have experienced a lot in life as well, since 24% of UK kids live in single-parent families. People now say that "Kids are getting older younger". With such sophistication (世故) at such a young age, they are much more fashion conscious and concerned about their image.

    In a world of TV programs that promise overnight success and fame at a young age, some people think it's extremely important to look fashionable. Surely none of the above is a good thing, is it? Can it really be healthy for us to encourage kids to be like adults at such a young age? Are we stealing childhoods in return for profit?

    The UK government is certainly concerned, and for that reason has strict laws preventing companies from marketing their products and services at children. So, is there a happy ending to this story?

    Companies have just worked out that the older tweenage audience is now looking for something darker and more rebellious. As a result, films such as Twilight are being produced for this older tweenage audience.