My Essay 85 Hello! My name is Hankun. I live in a small town in the middle part of China. This is a distant and less prosperous region with beautiful landscapes in the countryside. I made this e-magazine so that you can learn about me. Although the space in the magazine may be not enough for me to write everything I want to say, I am still trying to write as much about my personal interests and experience as possible. This is a great showcase for me and I will put in many of my photos and concentrate on writing things that I am most proud of. Here I sincerely thank you in advance for reading it~ =) Academic Life: I always think learning should be a wonderful and happy experience. Merely learning about the world we live in and our position in it is fascinating for me. Thus the biggest motivation for me in learning is pure interests and curiosity. At the same time, I especially enjoy academic contests. I think they are always a great opportunity to motivate and push me to the limits. In my school, I am always among the TOP5 students. Math: I don’t quite remember the first time when I was attracted by numbers or graphs, but I always enjoy learning it. It’s always a great excitement to face some challenging math problems and finally overcome them! From pure personal interests I started to put more and more time in math. Then in 2012 as a seventh grader, I won the second place in an AMC8 contest and in Feb. this year, I was again in the test center among a bunch of tenth graders taking the AMC10 contest and finally won the second place among all the students. Cycling Club: We all are 14 and we all like to go outside to see the beauty of nature. That is why in the seventh grade I founded a cycling club in school. I am always fascinated with this and organize activities with friends from time to time. We’ve visited every beautiful place nearby. The photos were taken in an orchard full of peach trees and the vast countryside with clouds freely floating in the breeze. Our footsteps were once into a lonely orphanage and our cares to a small 9-year-old child with cardiology disease. The experience is always the most important and the memories are eternal.

My Essay 84 Do you agree or disagree with the statement? Students would receive a better education if they were required to attend classes for 11 months a year?

My Essay 83 Simple questions are the hardest to answer. I have been faced with some pretty difficult questions so far. They range from ordinary math questions to real-life ones. Difficult and complicated ones may seem awful at first, while they can be solved with ease if being presented in an easier and friendlier way. It is rather those seemingly simpler ones that I find to be the most difficult to answer. It’s pretty much like when scientists are trying to figure out some problems that seem quite simple and can be instantly solved without more consideration. The process can become pretty complicated though, because at first we may have no idea about where to start. Even in some cases, many simple questions are actually not that simple in fact. Intuitions and common senses can sometimes act as obstacles that prevent us from reaching our final right answer. We had been wondering why it takes much lesser time for a metal ball to hit the ground than a light feather when dropped from the same height. For Aristotle, it’s because a metal ball is much heavier than a feather. This explanation seems quite accountable when one thinks of some common examples. Whereas he didn’t take the shape or density into his equation of falling speed and was finally proven wrong. At the first glimpse some questions just seem to be so simple that we always ignore some critical factors and finally be lead to a false conclusion.

My Essay 82 If you could be alive at any time in history, when would it be and why? Traveling back in time would be a fascinating experience. Wonders about civilizations and ancient cultures always attract me so much when reading about them that I always unconsciously imagine a seemingly impossible journey to experience them in person. Then it would be a wonderful experience for me to live in the Neolithic age. When I was much younger I used to read books about tribes of peoples living on earth millions of years ago; they later formed early cities and eventually the civilization. It is always a wonderful experience seeing pictures of their little huts and tools. Sometimes I wondered to myself that how did all of those beautiful prehistoric art works, such as the beautiful cave paintings in France and Spain, were made by humans without progressive equipment, and why did they do this when a great deal of time still needed to be spent hunting and gathering to maintain lives. The same problem also puzzles many archeologists and yet we still know only a little about human lives in such an early age. Living in Neolithic age for a while would solve the puzzle and it would be cool and refreshing to see what things were like at the dawn of civilization.

My Essay 81 One learns a skill by practicing, not by watching others use the skill. Learning is often not a very easy process. Without enough practice, nothing much can be done. However, watching others use the skill is also a good way to learn, because we can then ape them and try to correct mistakes we make while learning. I first realized how important watching others is while learning when I was about seven years old. At that time, I used to fly kites very often in a small park nearby. There were many children there, flying colorful kites when the weather was good. I was often with them running along either side of the main square, holding the string in one hand and the spool in another. It was a pleasure flying kites in the afternoon despite the fact that I was not as skilled as others. Sometimes I wasted much time away by climbing a tall tree, trying to rescue my kite tangled among branches. Hence I always tried to carefully observe how other kids flew kites. Through my observation I realized that different ways of running could make a huge difference. And also sometimes the direction in which winds blow is also worth considering. From observation I finally learnt a great deal of how to fly kites better and higher. While observing others doing this, I always consciously try to find some differences between my performance and theirs, which finally helped me find many ways to do it better.

My Essay 80 Despite humans’ tendency towards sociality, there are times in which we cannot choose our environments and those around us. Then it happens that sometimes we have to work or stay with those whom we totally dislike and have to endure the unpleasant atmosphere that follows. Under this circumstance, many of us choose to stay alone consciously or unconsciously, and avoid as much interaction as possible. However, my experience tells me that it is never a good solution. I used to take on a trip to a beautiful city facing the Bohai Sea in China. Everything was so good; the ocean was shimmering in the sun and the historic boulevard leading me to a row of BBQ shops was broad and instilled in the lingering fragrance of flowers. The only thing that annoyed me is some other boys I had to spend my trip with. These impish little children used to make noise late at night that can be heard clearly on the other side of the street across our hotel. Some of them were no more polite that bums and used to play some really bad tricks. The situation worsened even more and one entire night I spent with earplugs in the ears, listening to my favorite songs that drowned some ambient noise. However, instead of constantly looking for a somewhat quiet corner to hide and waste time, I finally chose to chat with some boys of us, who seemed to me nicer than others. Fortunately finally I made friends with two really nice boys and we spent happy time buying snacks and roaming on a nearby beach. It would be an entire disaster if I did not try to make such friends on the trip, because I could do nothing to change the environment and doing things alone would only bore me even more and finally destroy the whole wonderful trip. Staying alone in an unpleasant company cannot change anything, but it can only make us feel even worse. Also, according to Seneca, a great Roman philosopher, the reason we sometimes feel disappointed and even distressed is that we often fail to anticipate the inevitable setbacks in the course. Thus sometimes it may not be the company or the environment we stay in is un-hospitable for us; maybe it’s just we’ve expected so much and find that not our every wish can be realized in the company.

My Essay 79 If you are going to invite 3 literary figures to dinner If you are going to invite 3 literary figures to dinner, who would you like to invite and why The charm of literature is beyond the limit of space, time and any material. The literature world is also full of charming heroes, beautiful unicorns and great legends. Having dinner with my favorite three literary figures would thus be of great fun, and these three figures would be Alice from Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, Michael Corleone and Guy Montag. When I was just a toddler, Dad had read the novel Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland over and over again next to me in the bedtime. Sometime when I already fell asleep, Dad’s narrative voice could still pass through the mist of my dreams, reaching the secret garden in my heart where Alice starts out her wonderful journey to Wonderland. I then tried to read this the English version of this novel two years ago when one day I suddenly remembered every joy the book had brought to me. Alice is a wonderful girl with countless fancy ideas, which is the most suitable in Wonderland where everything is possible. She would talk to the lonely monster on a remote unknown corner and then speed through the vast expense of land that resembles the blocks of a chessboard. Having dinner with her would be fun that I would have the opportunity to talk to her, and indulge myself in a childhood dream the book had raised in me, which is memorable since it may be first book that introduces the wonderful world of literature to every little child like me.

My Essay 78 One of the best ways that parents can help their teenage children prepare for adult life is to encourage them to take a part-time job. Many parents are aspiring to provide better conditions that help their children get prepared for the adult life. In many ways parents can help their children, and recently more than ever since parents think it is a very good idea to make their children work for part-time jobs to gain experience and skills that can be helpful for their future career. However, in my opinion, a part-time job is not the best choice for teenagers to meet their goal and precious time can easily be frittered away. Firstly, nowadays in order to succeed in career and make the personal life more satisfactory, one has to have a great variety of skills. Doing a part-time job sometimes, however, only offers opportunity for teenagers to make money and cannot fully develop their skills. Many youngsters tend to work for small restaurants or vend knick-knacks on holidays. Beyond any doubt it is a good way for them to make some money and avoid staying at home all day long. However, does it really offer great opportunity for children to develop skills such as leadership, cooperation abilities and time management skills? The answer is not always yes because many of them are just supposed to do some very simple work. For example, my friend used to sell some used books on the street for a while last summer. The only thing he needed to do is just sit behind a pile of his creased books and wait for customers. The amount of money earned is too small to motivate him. Besides, instead of eagerly advertising his products like professional vendors, he chose to play games on his cell phone or chat with friends in the nearby shade. Despite the fact that he made some money from those who're interested in his books, this experience was obviously not helpful at all for him to know how to run a big business or how to manage time and make plans. Hence time can be spent doing more useful things to prepare teenagers for the adult life.

My Essay 77 Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? When teachers assign projects on which students must work together, the students learn much more effectively than when they are asked to work alone on projects.Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. Teaching is evolving dramatically all the time. In the past, group projects were not as emphasized as they are today and as a result students were often given boring assignments to complete alone. However, I believe that it is definitely more beneficial for students to work in group to accomplish projects, that through the process students can learn much more. Here are my reasons. Firstly, students cooperate in searching and analyzing information when working together, that through this learning can be efficient and colorful. In any group project, different team members are often responsible for various tasks. This assures the efficiency of group project in that the total time needed to find enough materials is greatly reduced. Also, students will learn useful things through interaction. For me doing tasks alone used to be a better choice for that I can simply focus on only accomplishing the task. However, one experience of mine greatly changed my opinion and I now think group projects are more beneficial. Three years ago, I got involved in a group project focusing on ways people use to deal with discarded electronic gadgets. With some other classmates, I was responsible for searching information on this topic from different mediums. We spent one afternoon finding some basic materials on the internet, and then another afternoon was spend outside looking for spent electronic gadgets in the countryside, figuring out how they had been processed after discarded. We even entered a local store and interviewed the shopkeeper. On our way back we already had gleaned enough info, and so we discussed together about what we had seen and heard in the investigation and what could be done to improve the situation that some may leave behind old electronic gadgets to pollute the area. I really learned very much from discussion and information we collected, accepting many great ideas from other team members and thus having a better understanding of the situation. From this I realized that the cooperation and further interactions between team members are helpful for students to reach a better understanding about things they have learnt.