Have you ever wondered what an American high school is really like? This article will describe a typical (典型的) high school and its students.

    A typical American high school has several large buildings and enough space for about 1,500 students. Every student is given a locker. When students first arrive at school, they go straight to their lockers to put away or get their textbooks and to hang up their outdoor clothes. As American textbooks are expensive, students would rather loan(租借) than buy them. Students must pay back if they lost any of them.

    American students have different types of school transport. They usually take a yellow school bus or walk to school if they live close enough. Sometimes their parents drive them to school. When they turn 16 years of age, most take a free driving class at school for one term. If students earn passing grades in the class and also pass their state driver's exam, they can begin driving themselves to school.

    Each day, students take six or seven classes. They must take science, math, English and social studies. They can choose art, homemaking, fashion design and other classes. In some schools students are required to take one or more of the following special classes: health education, physical education or foreign language studies. Students move to different classrooms for each subject. This is because each teacher has their own classroom. There is a five-minute break between classes, to give the students the time to hurry to their next class.

    The regular school day usually ends early in the afternoon. After school more than half of the students are involved in after-school activities. These activities include sports-especially football, basketball, baseball and soccer or clubs, such as yearbook, speech, school newspaper, photograph or student government.

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看图回答问题。

Dear Li Ping,

    How are things with you? It was great talking to you yesterday by phone. As I told you yesterday, I am in Jiangsu today. Tomorrow we are getting the train down to the south of the country and then a ship across to Shanghai.

    Let me tell you about the places we have visited so far. I know you want to come here on vacation one day! We started in Zibo and we spent two days in Jinan. We visited many different places and enjoyed lots of things. And the only bad thing was the weather- it rained the whole time when we were there. Can you believe it?

    At least when we got to Jiangsu, the sun was shining! We only stayed for one afternoon in Jiangsu because my friends really wanted to visit Disneyland which is in Shanghai.

    I bought you a surprise gift here. I hope you will like it. OK. That's enough from me for now. I want to post this letter now so you can get it by the weekend.

    See you soon!

Ma Hua