In Germany there are different kinds of high schools. Some prepare students for workers, others prepare them for college. All schools are great places for making friends and learning German.

Short days

Most high schools in Germany begin at about 8:00 a.m. and end at about 3:30 p.m. This means your morning will be busy with classes. You will have time to do homework and take part in private(私人的) clubs after school.

Formal setting

In Germany, teachers and students’ relationship is more formal than you might be used to. Teachers are respected and students must use the formal “Sie（德语：您）” when talking to teachers.

Getting to school

Most students take public transport to school or ride a bicycle. Some areas have school buses. It is not common for parents to drive students to school.

Private clubs

  In many countries, schools offer official sports and after-school activities. This is less common in Germany. After-school activities are usually organized through private clubs. There are clubs for things like soccer, dance, choir, theatre and almost everything else. Once you are in Germany, ask around at school and talk to other students to find out what private clubs are in your area and meet your interests.

Different states, different schools

Each of Germany’s 16 states has its own slightly different school systems. The school system in Brandenburg will be a little different from the system in Bavaria for example. Where you live, your knowledge level and your age will decide what school you can attend.

21. For high school students in Germany, which is NOT the common transport to school?

A. School buses.    B. Parents’ cars.    C. Public transport.    D. Students’ bicycles.

22. From the passage, we can learn that in Germany _______.

A. all kinds of high schools are for college 

B. age is not important for attending schools

C. students can take part in after-school activities from 8:00 a. m .to 3:30 p.m.

D. students can join private clubs to meet their interests

23. What can be the best title for this article?

   A. German Private Clubs                  B. German Public Transport

   C. German High Schools                  D. German College Systems

Every month, Julia and her cousins would go to visit their grandparents. They would be excited because their grandfather would give them a few coins. Then they would buy toys or sweets. The grandparents commented that, behaving like this, the children would never learn to manage their money. So they planned a special test, in which the children would have to show, over the course of a year, just what they could manage to get with those few coins.
   Some thought that they would save their money, but Ruben and Nico continued spending it all on sweets. So they give up saving.
    Monty decided to manage his money by exchanging it: buying and selling things, or betting (打赌) it with others. Soon he surprised the whole family. He had accumulated (积聚) lots of money. However, Monty was not very careful, and he got involved in more and more risky deals. A few months later he became penniless after a losing bet. Alex, had a will of iron. He saved the money and at the end of the year he had collected more money than anyone. Even better, with so much money, he managed to buy sweets at a reduced price, so that on the day of the competition he was presented with enough sweets for much more than a year. And even then, he still had enough left over for a toy. He was the clear winner, and other children learned the advantages of knowing how to save and how to wait.
     There was also Julia. Poor Julia didn’t enjoy the competition, because even though she had had a wonderful secret plan, she had spent her money without giving her plan enough time to work. However, she was so sure that her plan was a good one, that she decided to carry on with it, and maybe change the expressions on her relatives’ faces, who had seemed to be saying “What a poor girl shel is. She couldn’t manage to save anything”.
     When she was about to complete the second year of her plan, Julia surprised everyone by turning up at the grandparents’ house with a violin and a lot of money. She did it really well.

24. Who saved nothing at the end of the first year?

A. Ruben, Julia and Alex                                   B. Ruben, Nico and Monty

C. Ruben, Monty and Julia                               D. Ruben, Nico and Alex

25. Why did the grandparents plan a test on the children?

A. Because they wanted the children to learn to spend money.

B. Because they wanted the children to learn to save money.

C. Because they wanted the children to learn to manage money.

D. Because they didn’t want the children to buy toys and sweets any more.

26. From Monty’s story, the children learned ______________________.

A. to save and to wait.                                      B. to buy and to sell things

C. to set a achievable goal.                               D. to be careful and self-disciplined

27. The underlined sentence in the fourth paragraph means ______________.

A. Julia will bring disasters to herself and her family.

B. Julia is not good at managing money.

C. Julia is too stupid to do anything well.

D. Julia has so many secrets that nobody likes her. 

Audrey Hepburn won an Academy Award as Best Actress for her first major American movie, Roman Holiday, which was released in 1953. But she is remembered as much for her aid work as for her acting.

Born in Belgium in 1929, Audrey’s father was British and her mother was Dutch. Audrey was sent to live at a British school for part of her childhood. During World War II, she lived and studied in the Netherlands. Her mother thought it would be safe from German attacks. Audrey studied dance as a teenager and during college when she returned to London after the war. But she realized she wasn’t going to be a ballerina (芭蕾舞女演员). So she began taking acting parts in stage shows. Later she began to get small parts in movies.

But it was Audrey Hepburn’s move to America that brought her true fame. In 1951 she played the character “Gigi” in the Broadway play of the same name to great critical praise. Two years later, Roman Holiday made her a star at the age of 24.

Audrey made more than 25 movies. Among her most popular roles was Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tifany’s in 1961. Three years later she played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

She was married two times and had one son by each husband. In 1989, the UN Children’s Fund named Audrey a goodwill ambassador. She travelled all over the world in support of UNICEF (联合国儿童基金会) projects. The UN agency said she was a tireless worker. She often gave 15 interviews a day to gain money and support for UNICEF projects.

Audrey Hepburn often said her loyalty to UNICEF was the result of her experiences as a child during World War II. She said she knew what it was like to be starving and to be saved by international aid. She was a goodwill ambassador until her death in 1993 from colon cancer.

28.In Paragraph 1, “her aid work” means ___________.

A. winning an Academy Award as Best Actress

B. taking acting parts in stage shows

C. making her own movies

D. acting as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF

29.The reason why Audrey lived and studied in the Netherlands was that __________.

30. We can infer from the passage that ___________ .

  A. Audrey’s parents lived in Germany during World War II

  B. Audrey lived in America in the 1950s

  C. Audrey was made to give up dancing

  D. the character “Gigi” in the Broadway play was her most popular role

31. _______ is the right order for Audrey’s life.

  ①The first time she began to play in movies.

  ②She returned to London from the Netherlands.

  ③She won an Academy Award as Best Actress.

  ④She travelled all over the world in support of UNlCEF projects.

  ⑤She played a part in My Fair Lady.

The Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine, physics and chemistry are the most respected prizes in science. But talk to scientists in private, and many will complain why (besides jealousy, perhaps) are some scientists unhappy with the Nobels?

    One reason is that the committees can often be slow to recognize achievement. Alfred Nobel specified in his will that the prizes should reward work done in the previous year. But experience soon showed that this was risky, as medals were given out for discoveries that later proved questionable. So a degree of caution is probably advisable. Sometimes, though, it can lead to strange results. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, for instance, had to wait until 1983 to win a prize for work he had done in the 1930s on the structure of stars. However, Albert Einstein never won a prize for his theory of relativity. Even though some pretty suggestive evidence had been produced by Arthur Eddington in 1919, relativity, which has later passed every experimental test ever thrown at it, was still considered somewhat risky and obscure.

    Another criticism concerns the tradition that no more than three people can share a prize. Science is rarely this clear-cut. Take this year’s physics prize, which recognised Peter Higgs for predicting the existence of the mass-bestowing particle that now bears his name. Dr Higgs was only one of several people with a claim. Two other teams---- Rober Brout and Francois Englert, as well as Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hageh and Tom Kibble----- submitted papers on the same idea to the same journal that published Dr Higgs’s work, all within a few months of each other. Science often works like this, with different people coming up with similar ideas at similar times. In the event, the committee decided to honour Dr Engler (Brout is dead, therefore unqualified), whose paper was earlier than Dr Higgs’s but did not explicitly predict a particle, over Dr Guralnik and his collaborators, who were more comprehensive but published a few weeks later.

32. According to the passage why some of the scientists are unhappy with the Nobels?

A. because usually the Nobels award work done in the previous year.

  B. just because they envy those who have won the Nobles.

  C. because different people often come up with similar ideas at similar times.

  D. because the Nobles are quite possibly slow to recognize achievement

33. Who was it that received the Nobel Prize for physics this year?

  A. Carl Hageh and Tom Kibble                   B. Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hageh

  C. Peter Higgs and Francois Englert            D. Rober Brout and Francois Englert

34. Which of the following words has the closest meaning to “submitted”?

  A. surrendered       B. suggested      C. presented        D. provided

35. The passage is most probably coming from      ?

  A. a magazine             B. a book review   C. a literature work       D. a science fiction

Meet the magic folk

Throughout the ages and across the world, fairies（童话故事）have come alive in the stories, poems, and songs passed down from the old to the young. Some amazing stories about fairies have come to us from the British Isles.  36

Merrows are Irish fairy mermaids（美人鱼）. The females are very gentle and beautiful with fishes’ tails. Merrows sometimes come onto land disguised（伪装）as small, white cattle or as beautiful women wearing bright red feather caps.  37

Leprechauns（矮妖）are fairies that appear as tiny old men. They like to be alone most of the time, making and mending shoes and keeping their pots of gold well hidden. If a human catches a leprechaun and asks for its gold, the leprechaun must hand it over.  38  If the human looks away for even an instant, the leprechaun will joyfully disappear.

Brownies are hairy little men who do chores（杂事）in houses and on farms during the night. All they want as payment is food, and they get very angry if humans watch them do their work. If a brownie is given clothes as a present, he’ll disappear forever.  39

Selkies are seal fairies. Female selkies sometimes come to shore and take off their sealskins to play on the beach in human form. Like merrows, if a human finds a selkie’s sealskin, she can’t go back to the ocean.  40  If she finds her sealskin, she happily returns to the sea, leaving her human husband and children…but she comes close to shore to watch over them from time to time.

A. Here are some of these fairies.

B. Most sailors at sea hope never to see a merrow.

C. But it is far trickier（狡猾的）than it looks!

D. A selkie is quiet and lovely, with dark hair and sad eyes.

E. Instead, she must obey（服从）the human who keeps it and usually marries him.

F. Perhaps this is because he rushes back to show off his new clothes to the others.

G. If a human steals this cap, a merrow can’t go back to the sea and must stay on land.