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Beijing's two recent red alerts for air pollution led to the suspension of classes at primary and middle schools in the capital, but online education platforms experienced a boom.
According to 17zuoye.com, an Internet-based homework service, the number of newly registered users on Dec 8 was almost three times as many as the day before, with 3,000 teachers and 160,000 students in Beijing assigning and doing homework there.
Users of Homework Box, a mobile app that has similar functions to 17zuoye.com, hit a new high in the number of questions downloaded and worked on by students from Dec 7 to 9, when Beijing issued its first red alert for air pollution and primary and middle schools of the capital suspended classes for three days.
TAL Education Group, an after-school tutoring service, opened some of its online courses to students free of charge during red alerts. The service had more than 20,000 students in Beijing studying online courses during the three days of suspended classes after the first red alert, 50 percent more than the average on ordinary days.
The top subjects studied were fifth-and seventh-grade math and eighth-grade physics.
You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
A pair of white tiger cubs are expected to make their first public appearance during the forthcoming Spring Festival holiday in February at a zoo in Qingdao, Shandong Province. One of the 5-month-old cubs is snow-white in color with no stripes.
The cubs' parents were brought to the Qingdao Zoo in May 2012, and the mother gave birth to the cubs at age 4 in July this year.
The cubs are in good health and are receiving elaborate, around the clock care.
A zookeeper says the cubs have good appetite and together they eat one-and-a-half kilograms of beef and 10 chicken necks per day.
The cubs live in an air-conditioned environment where the temperature is kept at about 25 degrees Celsius. Their cage is regularly sterilized.
White tigers are a variant of the Bengal tiger. The chance of a snow-white tiger birth stands at 1 in 100,000. There are only seven snow-white tigers in Chinese zoos and around 100 worldwide.
White tigers are extinct in the wild, and those in captivity are categorized in China as first-grade State protected animals.
