I'd like to talk about the school system in Australia today. The school system in Australia does depend on {#blank#}1{#/blank#} you go to a private school or a public school. In the state I'm from, there are a lot of private schools, and generally they are single-sex high schools. The public high schools are generally {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (mix). All of the private high schools insist that you should wear their school uniforms, {#blank#}3{#/blank#} that might mean{#blank#}4{#/blank#} (wear) a school tie and a school jacket. However, the public high schools often give you a {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (choose) of whether you want to wear a uniform or not. The school classes generally start anywhere{#blank#}6{#/blank#} 8:30 and 9 o'clock in the morning and run {#blank#}7{#/blank#} 3:30 in the afternoon, and they're followed by after-school {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (active) like sports and music theater. The school year generally starts in the{#blank#}9{#/blank#} (begin) on February, after our summer vacation, which lasts about six weeks around the Christmas period.

    The only thing I don't like about our school system is the idea of the difference in quality of education between the private and the public schools. It remains{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (see) whether you can get a better education, even if you are in a private high school. Most of our public high schools are quite good.

    Samuel Langhorne Clemens, more commonly {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (know) as Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida. Twain is considered{#blank#}2{#/blank#} greatest author and humorist of the 19th-century American literature (文学).

    In 1839 the Clemens family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River where he was brought {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Like many authors of his day he had little formal education. His education came from the print shops and newspaper offices {#blank#}4{#/blank#} he worked as a youth. In 1853 Twain left Hannibal to travel. On a trip to New Orleans he persuaded a riverboat pilot {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (teach) him his skill. By the spring of 1859 Twain was a licensed riverboat pilot.

    After a(n) {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (success) attempt at gold and silver mining he joined the staff of a newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada. He first wrote under the pen name Mark Twain in 1863. 

    He continued to travel as a reporter for various newspapers, and in 1869 his travel letters from Europe {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (collect) into the popular book The Innocents Abroad. Between 1873 and 1889 he wrote seven novels {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (include) his Mississippi River books.

    {#blank#}9{#/blank#} Twain's life and career progressed he lost much of the humorous style of his earlier years. What was expressed more and more in his later works was {#blank#}10{#/blank#} human beings are selfish. Even so Twain is best remembered as a great humorist.

    People came to the area that's now New Mexico more than 12,000 years ago. Experts think they migrated from {#blank#}1{#/blank#}is now Russia across a land bridge{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(call) the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age. Thousands of years{#blank#}3{#/blank#} (late), native American tribes including the Apache, Zuni, Navajo and Pueblos lived on the land.

    In 1540, a Spanish{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(explore), Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, came to the area in search of cities made of gold {#blank#}5{#/blank#}were rumored (谣传) to exist in the America. He didn't discover treasure, but over the next century the Spanish colonized the land. Then in 1821, Mexico declared its independence{#blank#}6{#/blank#}Spain, and the area became part of Mexico. But after the United States won the Mexican- American War in 1848, New Mexico became an American territory. In 1912, it{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(declare) the 47th state.

    When the Spanish set out to explore the region, they hoped to find land as{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(value)as what they had found earlier in Mexico. So they{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(name) the area Nueva Mexico. ("Nueva" means "new" in Spanish.) As for the word" Mexico", some experts think it's a version of a name that the Aztecs (a cultural group from Mexico) had for one of their gods.

    The state has beautiful scenery from{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (mountain) to forests and deserts. This earns it the nickname the Land of Enchantment.