【题目】Some people describe American society as a salad bowl while others think of it as a melting pot.

In a bowl of salad, all the ingredients (原料) are mixed together. 1 Together, however, the ingredients make up a unity. All the ingredients of a salad contribute to the finished product. They may be covered with the same dressing (调味酱), but the green vegetables, tomatoes and cooked corn can all be seen for what they are.

From this point of view, America is very much like a salad bowl where individual ethnic groups mix together, yet maintain their cultural uniqueness. People may work together during the day at similar jobs and in the same companies, but at night they may return to their ethnic groups where their own individual culture directs their way of life. 2 Each ethnic group has its own special customs, language, food and traditions to protect and defend. This idea of the salad bowl is referred to as cultural diversity; that is, American society is a collection of various cultures living together in harmony within one country.

3 Here, society is like one large pot of soup. All cultural aspects are mixed together, sacrificing their original identity and keeping a bit of what they were to become a new reality. The longer the soup is cooked, the better the taste and the more likely it will be for the mixture to be cooked. In this sense, America can surely be seen as a melting pot where people from all over the world come to live and work together creating one nation. There are dozens of shared symbols. 4 In such a culture, symbols like the flag and the nation’s official song serve to break down the walls which separate ethnic groups.

Whether a salad bowl or a melting pot, America can be best described as a mixture of both. 5

A. They never lose their shapes, colors or tastes.

B. Both are ridiculous.

C. This is why there is so much diversity within America.

D. Thus, one needs to abandon one’s culture to be considered “American”.

E. In other words, America is a nation where there is unity in diversity.

F. The other theory, which is also used to describe American society, is the melting pot.

G. They serve to develop the various ethnic groups to create a new American culture.

【题目】My favorite English teacher could draw humor out of the driest material. It wasn’t forced on us either. He took Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, Addison’s essays, and many other literary wonders from the eighteenth century and made them funny, even at eight o’clock in the morning. The thing that amazed me most was that the first time I read these works on my own some of them seemed dead, but the second time, after his explanation, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen the humor. The stories and poems and plays were suddenly filled withhilariousmoments. I learned more from him than from any other teacher.

My least favorite English teacher also made people laugh. Some students found him to be wonderfully funny. Many others did not. He asked us to keep journals. At the end of the six weeks I had a notebook full of bits and pieces about my ideas, short stories, reactions to what we had read, and so on. Our teacher announced that we would be grading each other’s journals. Mine was passed to Joe, who always behaved in a funny or silly way. He saw it fit to make a joke of and said, “This writing isn’t fit to line the bottom of a birdcage.” Our teacher laughed at that funny remark. It hurt me so much that the anger from it has driven away my writing and teaching ever since.

So what makes the difference? Humor is one of the most powerful tools teachers or writers have. It can build up students and classes and make them excited about literature and writing, or it can tear them apart. It is true that humor is either productive or self-defeating.

1The passage mainly discusses _____.

A. teaching B. literature

C. knowledge D. humor

2The underlined word “hilarious” in Paragraph 1 probably means _____.

A. inspiring B. tiring

C. funny D. brilliant

3With his favorite English teacher, the writer found it most amazing that _____.

A. his teacher was very learned

B. his teacher was very humorous

C. few were able to find humor in works by Johnson and others

D. the works by Johnson and Addison were very humorous

4The English teacher the writer disliked most _____.

A. was not able to make students laugh B. had no sense of humor

C. didn’t let his students do the grading D. hurt his students’ feelings

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