BEIJING — China's education authority will tighten the widely criticized policy of “extra credits” for the national college entrance examination to ensure a fairer chance for all exam-takers.

    Under the policy, high school students who win awards in national Olympic competitions could get "extra credits', up to 20 points for the national college entrance exam. Students with talent in sports and students who are from ethnic groups can also benefit from this policy. The extra credits have increased these students' chances of being admitted by famous universities. Some parents were found to have helped their children fabricate(伪造)award experiences or falsify qualifications to get extra credits.

    “It has harmed education equality，” the ministry said.

    Xiong Bingqi, vice-chief of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said the policy is designed to help students who have special talents but may be weak in academic performance to have a chance to receive higher education. It will still be needed but it is time to make the rules fairer," he said.

    The ministry said it will reduce the range of competitions whose winners can get extra credits, and limit the winners, privileges.

    The new policy will apply to students who begin high school in 2011, it said.

    Chen Lei, a mother of a 10-year-old girl, said she welcomed the ministry's policy adjustment as she does not want her daughter to become an Olympic competition geek.

    But not all the Chinese parents welcomed the new policy. “It is like a thunderbolt for me. My 13-year-old son has spent so much time studying Olympic math, and participated in so many technological competitions during vacations. It is useless now,” said Dong Wen, a 43-year-old mother.

    A student said, “Many students have changed the current study plan, and they can abandon the competition. I will be interested in learning the courses which can improve my abilities.”

    Yuan Guiren, minister of education, told China Daily that the reform is an attempt to consider the overall quality of an applicant. “But the country will not stop the national college entrance  examination as it is still the most objective way to evaluate talent in China,” he said.

    It is a popular Internet thing to focus on the upside of being in your 30s, and it is nice to know how to do basic modern-human-being things like paying your taxes and cooking a simple meal. But it can be a less-encouraging story at work: People in their late 20s to early 40s tend to report lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of emotional exhaustion than other age groups, according to new research.

    There's an obvious reason: These tend to be the ages when people have young children at home, and the researchers did find that this group reported feeling increasingly crunched for time. But adding to that pressure, coworker support also tends to decline at this age. Some researchers interpret the findings:

    Support from co-workers probably decreases in midlife as peers compete for limited resources（promotion bottlenecks are often encountered during this career stage. Also, whereas younger co-workers are often hungry to make up new social networks, and older workers seek identity-affirming work experiences in their remaining tenure（任期）, mid lifers find it demanding enough just to maintain existing social networks. Meanwhile, time pressure likely increases as colleagues are all trying to enrich their own knowledge and experience.

    But the good news is that after about a decade of struggle, things start to pick back up again. Occupational psychologists say that happiness at work recovers when people reach their 40s, and that people in their 50s are more satisfied with their jobs than any other age group. Hang in there, 30-somethings-soon you will be older, but at least work will meet less frustration（挫折）!

    A recent study surveyed 5,000 British families about their experiences with volunteering and their mental health. Participants completed the same survey every two years from 1996 to 2008.

    About 20 percent of the survey participants reported doing regular unpaid work Researchers found that these volunteers also scored highest on their mental health scores. The two were linked so directly that the more a person volunteered, the happier they were.

    One could argue a chicken-and-egg theory: happier people are more likely to have the time, money, energy and resources to give back to others. But even when researchers adjusted for education, social class and total health, the link was there, suggesting that the mental increase came from volunteering and not the other way around.

    According to Dr. Stephen G. Post, author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping, when you help others, your brain releases feel-good chemicals, which can help cells repair themselves and grow. And this translates to better health.

    So volunteering can help improve both your physical and mental health—on one condition. You have to mean it. People who volunteered for "self-oriental" reasons, either because they were forced to do so for work or school or because they were trying to get away from problems in their lives, had a mortality（死亡率）risk that was similar to those who didn't volunteer at all. It was only when people were volunteering out of a true sense of sympathy that they saw any health benefits.

    So whether it's arranging books at the library or walking dogs at the animal shelter, find a cause that's important to you and give it a try. Volunteering is a good way to develop a sense of connection that not only helps your community, but may also be good for you.

    Tiny microbes(微生物)are at the heart of a new agricultural technique to manage harmful greenhouse gas. Scientists have discovered how microbes can be used to turn carbon dioxide into soil-enriching limestone(石灰石), with the help of a type of tree that grows in tropical areas, such as West Africa.

    Researchers have found that when the Iroko tree is grown in dry, acidic soil and treated with a combination of natural fungi(霉菌)and other bacteria, not only does the tree grow well, it also produces the mineral limestone in the soil around its root.

    The Iroko tree makes a mineral by combining Ca from the earth with CO2 from the atmosphere. The bacteria then create the conditions under which this mineral turns into limestone. The discovery offers a new way to lock carbon into the soil, keeping it out of the atmosphere. In addition to storing carbon in the trees, leaves and in the form of limestone, the mineral in the soil makes it more suitable for agriculture.

    The discovery could lead to reforestation(重新造林)projects in tropical countries, and help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the developing world. It has already been used in West Africa and is being tested in Bolivia, Haiti and India.

    The findings were made in a three-year project involving researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Granada, Lausanne and Delft University of Technology. The project examined several microbiological methods of locking CO2 as limestone, and the Iroko-bacteria way showed best results. Work was funded by the European Commission under the Future Emerging Technologies (FET) scheme.

    Dr Bryne Ngwenya of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "By taking advantage of this natural limestone-producing process, we have a low-tech, safe, readily employed and easily operating way to lock carbon out of the atmosphere, while improving farming conditions in tropical countries?

Natural silence—the kind when you hear nothing but the sound of nature around you—is becoming increasingly scarce.The rumblings of man-made noise can be heard even in the remote corners of national parks and deep in the Arctic Ocean.

 This is having a troubling effect.In humans,noise pollution has been linked to cardiovascular diseases,mental health problems and cognitive impairment in children.In wildlife,it's disrupting navigation,mating rituals,communication and can cause hearing loss."We're losing the ability to listen to nature without noise pollution," says sound recordist Matt Mikkelsen.He's part of the non-profit organization Quiet Parks International,which aims to identify and preserve the planet's last quiet places.

 Recently,this took him to Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.No cars,motor boats,electricity or telephone lines are allowed in the 1-million-acre area,making it a strong candidate for Quiet Park status.But listening back to the recording,Mikkelsen can hear the low hum of a commercial jet flying far away.

 Quiet Parks hasn't yet decided if Boundary Waters meets its criteria—it's one of 260 potential sites around the world that the organization is currently exploring.The team will analyze the sound recordings from each location and consider them alongside other data.

 In recent years,the world has been getting louder,with cities and towns expanding and an increasing number of beeping cars,whooshing airplanes and cargo ships with blasting horns.But during the pandemic,there has been momentary respite.In 2020,global air travel was down by 60% and road transport decreased by almost half.Scientists in Europe found that noise caused by humans fell by up to 50% after lockdowns were imposed.

"People relished the silence," says Mikkelsen."There were no airplanes in the sky and cars weren't on the street...It was a miraculous thing to be able to hear the world,all of a sudden,free from noise pollution,"he says.Since the start of the pandemic,Quiet Parks says it has experienced a huge surge in interest for quiet places."I hope that we can take that desire for a world with less noise forward," says Mikkelsen,"and appreciate the spots we have,where we can go and not experience noise pollution."

A Few Simple Forms of English Poems

There are {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(vary) reasons why people write poetry. Some poems tell a story or describe something in a way that will give readers a strong {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (impress). Others try to convey certain emotions. Poets use many different forms of poetry to express {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(they). Some of the first poems a young child learns in English are nursery rhymes, {#blank#}4{#/blank#}may not make sense and even seem contradictory, but are easy to learn and recite. One of the simplest kinds of poems is the "list poem" {#blank#}5{#/blank#}a flexible line length and repeated phrases. Another simple form of poem that amateurs can {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(easy) write is the cinquain, which is made up of five lines. Besides, haiku is a Japanese form of poetry {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(consist) of 17 syllables. It is not a traditional form of English poetry, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} it is very popular with English writers. English speakers also enjoy poems from China, especially Tang poetry. A lot of Tang poetry {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(translate) into English in the past decades. With so many different forms of poetry {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(choose) from, you can even write your own poems.