7 January, 2014
A new report says more and more international students are attending colleges and universities in the United States. It also notes a large increase in the number of international students from China.
These findings are from the latest Open Doors Report. The report documents the record number of international students in the United States during 2012, 2013 school year. It says more than seven hundred sixty-four thousand four-hundred such students were attending American colleges and universities during the last two years. That represents an increase of almost six percent than one year earlier.
On the other hand, the number of Americans studying overseas（海外） increased by one percent, which reached nineteen thousand this year.
The report says one hundred ninety-four thousand students at American colleges and universities were from China. That is an increase of more than twenty-three percent over the year before. Peggy Blumenthal, an expert of international education, described the effect of the increase in Chinese students.
"Now they have been coming for some time. But this year was the highest level ever." She says many Chinese families are able to pay for the highest-quality education for their children. The children mainly choose to study in America.
"We know many of them have enough income to be able to afford to send them anywhere in the world that they want to go. And for the most part, looking around the world, Chinese students still prefer to come to the United States as their choice."
Chinese students are not the only ones who want to attend American colleges and universities. After China, India sends the second largest number of students to the United States for higher education. India has about one hundred thousand students in American schools. South Korea is third with about seventy-two thousand students.
Why do so many foreign students study in the United States? Peggy Blumenthal provides one reason.
"The advantage America has is that we have a huge system and a very perfect system. So there are over four thousand universities and colleges in the United States. Among them are some top ones in the world, and what that tells us is there is still a lot of room to host international students."
Foreign students represent less than four percent of the total student population in American higher education.
And from Learning English, that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Bob Doughty. Thanks for listening.
Do you know ChatGPT? It's an artificial intelligence(AI) tool. It can answer questions, tell stories, and do much more. But it's very"thirsty", said a new study.
ChatGPT has"homes"around the world in data centers. When it works, the computers at the data centers get very hot. Workers then have to use water to cool them down. Cold water goes into pipes near the computers. The water needs to be very clean. They can't use seawater because it can eat away at the pipes.
When you ask ChatGPT 20 to 50 questions, it"drinks"500 milliliters of water. Scientists used 700,000 liters of water to build ChatGPT. The water use is very big. People can make 370 cars with it.
ChatGPT is just one AI tool. You need data centers to do everything on the Internet. There are more than 8,000 data centers around the world. The number is still growing. We may have to "fight"with AI for water in the future.
AI uses a lot of water to "grow". The world's water may not be enough. Many people don't have enough water to drink. But AI technology helps people. Should we rethink how we use AI?Talk to your friends about it.
Computers, smart phones, and other machines are the perfect servants. They always do what they are "told". We usually "tell" them to do things by using a mouse or keyboard. But what if we could just talk to them normally and tell them what to do in our daily life?
This type of technology, known as voice control or voice recognition(声音识别), has been shown in films and TV shows since the 1960s.And real-world voice recognition is used for more everyday tasks. You might be familiar with Siri and Alexa, two examples of voice recognition software made by Apple and Amazon. They can be asked to do many things, from setting alarms and playing music to placing online shopping orders and controlling household appliances (家用电器)
One of the nice things about voice recognition is that it can be used when we're on the go. When you're driving a car or walking down the sidewalk, it can be inconvenient or even dangerous to pick up your smart phone and type away on the keyboard. Voice recognition allows you to focus on (专注于)whatever you're doing at the moment while still doing other tasks. What's more, people with hearing disabilities can also benefit(获益), as speech recognition software can be used to "listen" to spoken words and turn them into text that deaf people can read.
The Adventures (奇遇) of Tom Sawyer is one of the great works by Mark Twain. The book is so interesting. Even today, it is quite popular among kids. Although I am in my thirties, the book remains one of my favorites. After re-reading the book recently, I have learned an important lesson from Tom Sawyer.
In our daily lives, we are often given some boring or tiring tasks. What's in your mind when your mom tells you to clean the floor? Have you ever wanted to complain(抱怨)? I think most people have. Tom Sawyer, however, thought "differently" when he was given a boring task. One Saturday morning, Aunt Polly told Tom to paint the fence(篱笆). Tom's friend Ben Rogers happened to walk past. Instead of complaining, Tom told Ben that he felt "excited" about the task. "Only one in a thousand—maybe even two thousand—boys can do this!" Tom said.
Tom's words made Ben interested in the task. He even gave Tom his apple so that he could have a chance to paint the fence. If Tom had thought about nothing but complaining, he would have had a bad day painting the fence.
This story teaches me a valuable lesson: Complaining is useless. The next time you are given a boring or tiring task, don't complain. Unlike what happens in the story of Tom Sawyer, it is unlikely that someone will come and do the work for you. However, without complaining, you'll feel better and perhaps even do a better job!
