I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

   Now, I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked about responsibility a lot. I’ve talked about teachers’ responsibility for inspiring students and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and you get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox. I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working, where students aren’t getting the opportunities that they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it will make a difference unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.

   I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

   Maybe you could be a great writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write that English paper. Maybe you could be an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iphone or the new medicine -- but you might not know it until you do your project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor -- but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

What do you think Salman Rushdie, Bill Clinton, Paulo Coelho and Fyodor Dostoyevsky all have in common? They are all writers, you might say. Yes, and all of them are also members of a new club: writers of books that British people cannot finish. In a recent survey of 4,000 adults (成年人) on books, there were some interesting findings.

32% of the people said they couldnˈt finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. Another book was James Joyceˈs 1922 novel Ulysses, which has more than 1,000 pages. Surprisingly, Louis de Bernièresˈ novel Captain Corelliˈs Mandolin was also included. The book has sold more than 2 million since 1994, but not many people seem to be able to finish it.

There were more interesting results in the survey. 55% of the people said they bought books for decoration and they had no plan to read them. A spokeswoman from a publishing (出版) house said,“It seems that people buy some books just to make their bookcases look good, rather than actually buying a book that they want to read,” she added. “People are buying books because they think they will be good for them, rather than because they think theyˈll enjoy them.”

The findings said many people found it hard to make time for reading. Main reasons for this included: feeling tired (48%), watching TV (46%), and playing computer games (26%).

But who really cares? The book industry is happy because people are buying books anyway. And readers are happy because they can decorate their bookcases and make a good impression (印象) on others.

News One: 29 October, 2015

The government of China plans to end its one-child per family policy(政策) and instead let families have two children. The plan was announced Thursday after high-level meetings in Beijing.

China，which has the largest population，made the one-child policy in 1980. The government allowed only a small number of couples to have two children for so many years. For example, some couples in the countryside could have two children.

News Two: 05 October, 2015

The first of the 2015 Nobel Prizes has been announced. Sweden’s Nobel Prize committee (委员会) says the Nobel Prize for medicine will go to scientists from Ireland, Japan and China.

William Campbell fromIrelandand Satoshi Omura from Japan share the prize for their discovery of the medicine avermectin. The Nobel committee praised their work on what it calls a “noveltherapy(新疗法).” The treatment fights disease caused byparasites（寄生虫）.

The prize for medicine is also going to Chinese researcher Tu Youyou. She discovered artemisinin. Artemisinin is a drug that has greatly made the number of people who die from malaria(疟疾) smaller.

News Three:09 December, 2015

Oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels since 2009.

Brent crude oil, one of several kinds of oil on the world market, dropped below $40 abarrel（桶）on Tuesday. However, the main group of oil producing countries has been unable to reduce the oil production.

A city without cars would be very strange, right? But Venice is such a city.

Venice is in the northeast of Italy. It wasn’t built on land, like Beijing or Shanghai, but on more than 110 islands. Seawater is everywhere around the city.

Even so, travel isn’t difficult. The waterways have always been the best ways to get around. There are117waterways and more than 400 bridges that can guide you where you want to go.People in Venice move from place to place by boat. They like to enjoy the scenery and cool summer nights while taking boat trips. They can talk to other people as they go along.

Venice grew out of small islands in saltwater lakes when some Italians escaped from a war more than 1,500 years ago, and built homes there.

Water makes the city special, but it is also a big problem.

Once, people used too much underground water. This made the city get lower little by little. Now the city has gone down by 23 centimeters. Another problem is the rising seawater. Thetemperature has risen over the years. This has made the ice of the Arctic Ocean（北冰洋） melt（融化）.

Every year, high waters hit the city in autumn and winter. When a lot of water comes, more than half of the city is underwater.

Scientists are trying different ways to stop the city from getting even lower.

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AlphaGo is a computer program to play Go (围棋).It’s an AI program developed by Google DeepMind in London.

In the early days, AlphaGo could not win a single game, even against amateur (业余的) players. However,in recent years the AI program has developed fast. It is learning all the time.

In October 2015, AlphaGo beat European Go champion Fan Hui, a 2-dan professional (职业的) player.

The score was 5 to 0. Although Fan Hui is not a world- class player, the result of the game was greatly surprising. This was the first time that a computer Go program had beaten a professional human player without handicaps(让子).

In March 2016, Man vs. Machines Go was held in Seoul, South Korea. In the match, AlphaGo played against Lee Se-dol, a 9-dan professional player from South Korea. In the end, AlphaGo beat the world-class player Lee Se-dol. During the five-game match, AlphaGo won four matches, and only lost the fourth game. It has become the first computer program to beat a top-level Go player without handicaps. Now AlphaGo is the second inGo Rating (排名) of the world.

DeepMind developers hope Ke Jie will  take on AlphaGo in the next Man vs. Machines Go. Ke Jie, an eighteen-year-old boy from China, is the No.1 in Go Rating of the world now. He thinks AlphaGo can teach itself and develops better and better, but he believes he is the one to beat AlphaGo.

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