（贵州省贵阳二中2010届高三第一学期11月月考）

D

When I was 16 years old, I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn’t the first time I had been abroad. Like most of English children I learned French at school. And I had often been to France, so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn’t understand French. But when I went to America I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday without any language problems.How wrong I was. The misunderstanding began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to give my friend Danny a call and tell her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking lost and asked if he could help me.

“Yes”, I said. “I want to give my friend a ring.”

“Well, that’s nice,” he said. “Are you getting married? But aren’t you a bit young?”

“Who is talking about marriage?” I replied. “I only want to give my friend a ring to tell her I’ve

arrived. Can you tell me where there’s a phone box?”

“Oh!” he said, “there’s a phone downstairs.”

When at last we met, Danny explained the misunderstandings to me.

“Don’t worry,” she said to me, “I had so many difficulties at first. There are lots of words

which the Americans use differently in meaning from British. You will soon get used to all

the funny things they say. Most of the time British and American people understand each other!”

53. Where was the writer from?

A. America.     B. France.   C. England.      D. China

54. The writer wanted ______.

A. to buy a ring for his friend     B. to make a call to his friend

C. to go to the telephone company    D. his friend to see him off

54. From the passage we can see that “give somebody a ring” ______.

A. has the same meaning in America as in England

B. means “call somebody” for the old man

C. has two different meanings    D. means “be going to get married” in England

56. In the last paragraph, the underlined word “they” refers to ______.

A. the old man and the boy   B. the Americans   C. the British    D. the French