Some people make you feel comfortable when they are around. You spend an hour with them and feel as if you have known them half your life. These people have something in common. And once we know what it is, we can try to do it ourselves.
How is it done? Here are several skills that good talkers have. If you follow the skills, they'll help people feel relaxed and make friends with them quickly.
First of all, good talkers ask questions. Almost anyone, no matter how shy he is, will answer a question. One well-known businesswoman says, "At business lunches, I always ask people what they did that morning. It's a common question, but it will get things going." From there you can move on to other matters—sometimes to really personal questions. And how he answers will let you know how far you can go.   
Second, once good talkers have asked questions, they listen to the answers. This point seems clear, but it isn't. Your questions should have a point and help to tell what sort of person you are talking to. And to find out, you really have to listen carefully and attentively. Real listening at least means some things. First it means not to change the subject of conversation. If someone sticks to one topic, you can take it as a fact that he's really interested in it. Real listening also means not just listening to words, but to tones of voice. If the voice sounds dull, then, it's time for you to change the subject.
Finally, good talkers know well how to deal with the moment of parting. If you're saying good-bye, you may give him a firm handshake and say, "I've really enjoyed meeting you." If you want to see that person again, don't keep it a secret. Let people know what you feel, and they may walk away feeling as if they've known you half their life.
【小题1】Asking questions might be a quite good and suitable way _______.

For many people the subject of hiccups (嗝) is a joke, but for Harry Mendes, a fifteen-year-old schoolboy from Birmingham, it was something quite different.
His hiccups began one Sunday lunch time and continued day and night for two weeks. After the first week, Harry’s parents took him to hospital, but it took another week for the doctors to cure his attack.
Harry, who is now back at school, described what happened to him.
“When I began to hiccup, I drank a glass of water but that didn’t do any good. That evening I had hiccups every four seconds. We tried everything to stop them. I held my breath and drank cold drinks. My father even tried to give me a shock but that didn’t work either.”
After a week of sleepless nights, he went to hospital. The doctors took an X-ray of his chest but they couldn’t find anything wrong.
“They gave me some medicine and my hiccups slowed down, but it was another week before the medicine worked completely and my hiccups stopped.”
Harry was very lucky. The world record holder is the American farmer Charles Osborne, who hiccupped for sixty-eight years. He stopped in 1990 at last, but nobody knows why.
【小题1】Harry’s hiccups lasted ____.

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Helen Keller was a US author and public speaker who became blind and deaf at the age of 19 months. Anne Sullivan became her teacher in 1887 and taught her to read, write, use sign language and speak. Keller received degree from Radcliffe College in 1904 and spent the rest of her life encouraging others with difficulties like hers to overcome them. Her books include ?The story of My Life? (1902) and ?Out of the Dark(1913). Her life was the subject of the play The Miracle Worker

1.Helen Keller was an author in ________.

2. When she was 19 ________ old, Helen Keller became blind and deaf.

3. Did Helen Keller receive a college degree?

4.Which book is written by Helen Keller?

5. Helen Keller is a/an ________ person.