A sixth of undergraduates in Beijing this year have registered at driving school. The students, mostly from majors such as business management or international trade, will finish their driving courses within 20 days or so.

　　Training costs have dropped to 2, 600 yuan for students, according to the Haidian Driving School in Beijing. The price is not really low, but students will accept it, seeing it as an investment （投资）in their future. Familiarity with the operation of computers and fluent English are the basic skills graduating students need to find a job. But a driver’s permit has become another factor （因素）.

　　“In the job market, owning a driver’s permit sometimes strengthens a graduating student’s competitiveness for a good position, ”says Zhou Yang, an undergraduate at the China University of Political Science and Law.

　　Cars will become a necessary part of many people’s lives in the coming years, and it is difficult to get a permit of campus because of the pressures on working people’s time. “Having a fulltime job after graduation offers limited time to learn to drive. We senior students have plenty of spare time, plenty of opportunity to learn. ”Zhou says.

　　Xu Jian, an official at the driving school, said undergraduates were very able and serious, and could grasp in an hour what ordinary people took four hours to learn. In this driving school, middle -aged people, young women and college students are the main customers.

　　To get a driver’s permit, a beginner is now required to have at least 86 hours’practice before the final road test.

　________ in Beijing want to learn to drive.

　　A. Most of the undergraduates

　　B. Many undergraduates

　　C. Many students in the driving school

　　D. Most of the students who learn business or international trade

　　The undergraduates are learning to drive because ________.

　　A. they need this skill to find a good job

　　B. they like to drive cars

　　C. they will not have any time to learn to drive after they have

　　found a full - time job

　　D. most of them will be able to buy cars in the future

　　Which of the following is likely to be Xu Jian’s opinion of students learning to drive?

　　A. He thought it was better to learn it at college than at work.

　　B. He decided it was a waste of money and time to learn to drive.

　　C. He agreed that they could learn to drive.

　　D. He thought they would spend three times more time to learn to drive than usual.

　　Which of the following can be the best headline for the passage?

　　A. Students Pay Less to Learn to Drive Now.

　　B. Students Learn to Drive.

　　C. It is Better to Learn to Drive at Colleges.

　　D. Welcome to the Driving School.

　 For new countries joining the European Union, and other ones getting used to their dark red passports, becoming “Europeans” is a bit like marrying into a large, eccentric(古怪的)family. Europeans have a lot in common but it is their difference, not their similarities, that attract the attention of sociologists(社会学家)and market researchers, and are more interesting.

　 ★ 35% of Germans live alone, but only 9%of Spaniards. Perhaps this explains why Spaniards lead Europe in the habit of going out for a drink.

　 ★The British attend more adult evening classes than anyone else in Europe, and the Belgians least. So it can’t just be the dark evenings. There are no figures on how many Britons go for a drink afterwards. If there were, they might be up at the top with Spain!

　 ★The British think black cats are lucky. Every other European country regards them unlucky.

　 ★The Dutch and Germans are greatest caravanners(活动房居住者), but the Germans like bigger beds in their caravans.

　 ★The French are the most athletic Europeans. Next come the Dutch. But the Belgians, just over the border, play fewest sports.

　 ★The Germans spend twice as much on heating as the Spaniards. Well, of course they do, it’s colder.

　 ★Dutch husbands do the household shopping a lot more often than Italians or Spaniards.

　 ★The French are the champion public transport commuters(经常往返者)of Europe. If you hate commuting, go and live in the Netherlands, where journeys to work are shorter than anywhere else.

　 ★The amount of direct eye-contact between strangers is three times greater among Spaniards than it is among the British or Swedes. Sharing a lift is torture for both the British and the Swedish.

　 ★No European countries really agree with any other about how to make good coffee. All of them are different.

　 There are exceptions(例外)to all these rules. Deal with them in the spirit of my 8-year-old daughter. “If you don’t understand each other’s language, you just laugh a lot, and eat, and point at things.”

1. We can know from this passage that____.

　 A. sociologists are most interested in the idea of European Union

　 B. most European countries are not willing to join the European Union

　 C. Europeans have more differences than similarities

　 D. trade opportunities exist in the cultural differences in the European Union

2. If you work or live in Belgium, you will____.

　 A. have to change your living places often

　 B. seldom see people playing sports

　 C. not get used to its cold weather

　 D. be invited to go for a drink frequently

3. What does the underlined sentence “Sharing a lift is torture for both the British and the Swedish.” mean?

　 A. The British and the Swedish care about their safety most.

　 B. The British and the Swedish like to appear gentle and smart.

　 C. The British and the Swedish hate to look at each other face to face.

　 D. The British and the Swedish enjoy a richer life than others

4. In the last paragraph, the author wants to express his idea that ____.

　 A. his daughter knows well how to understand foreigners in unfamiliar situations

　 B. Europeans actually share the same culture even if they have different languages

　 C. being a European, you will have no living trouble at all in the European Union

　 D. there are differences between European countries, but don’t take it too seriously