It was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from his night out. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day. She was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half utterances.

　　He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, showed so little interest in things which concerned him and valued so little his conversation.

　　Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the candies and peanuts that he had promised the boys. Still, he loved them very much and went into the room where they slept to take a look at them and make sure that they were resting comfortably. The result of his investigation was far from satisfactory. He turned and shifted the youngsters about in bed. One of them began to kick and talk about a basket full of crabs.

　　Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that Raoul had a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit his cigar and went and sat near the open door to smoke it.

　　Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had made him sick. Mr. Pontellier was too well familiar with fever symptoms to be mistaken. He assured her the child was burning with fever at that moment in the next room.

　　He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his business. He could not be in two places at once; making a living for his family on the street, and staying home to see that no harm done to them. He talked in a dull, repeated and insistent way.

　　Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room. She soon came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head down on the pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out, he went to bed, and in half a minute was fast asleep.

　　Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her nightdress. She went out on the porch, where she sat down and began to rock herself in the chair.

　　It was then past midnight. The cottages were all dark. There was no sound except the hooting of an old owl and the everlasting voice of the sea, which broke like a mournful lullaby (催眠曲) upon the night.

　　The tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier's eyes that the damp sleeve of her nightdress no longer served to dry them. She went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms.

　　She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as had just happened were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against theabundance (充足) of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be self-understood.

　　An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with vague pain. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly scolding her husband, expressing sadness about Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself.

　　The mosquitoes succeeded in driving away a mood which might have held her there in the darkness half a night longer.

　　The following morning Mr. Pontellier was up in good time to take the carriage which was to convey him to the ship. He was returning to the city to his business, and they would not see him again at the Island till the coming Saturday. He had regained his calmness, which seemed to have been somewhatweakened the night before. He was eager to be gone, as he looked forward to a lively week in the financial center.

1.Mr.Pontellier comes back home from his night out in a/an ______state of mind.

A．excited           B．confused          C．depressed         D．disappointed

2. Mr. Pontellier criticizes his wife because ______.

A．she is not wholly devoted to her children

B．she does little housework but sleep

C．she knows nothing about fever symptoms

D．she fails to take her son to hospital

3.The writer would most likely describe Mr. Pontellier’s conduct during the evening as ______.

A．impatient and generous                  B．enthusiastic and responsible

C．concerned and gentle                    D．inconsiderate and self-centered

4.The underlined sentence suggests that Mr. Pontellier's complaints to his wife are ______.

A．hesitant and confused                    B．not as urgent as he claims

C．angry and uncertain                     D．too complex to make sense

5.In paragraphs 8 to 13, Mrs. Pontellier’s reactions to her husband’s behavior suggest that ______.

A．she accepts unquestioningly her role of taking care of the children

B．this is one of the first times she has acknowledged her unhappiness with her husband

C．her relationship with her husband is not what has made her depressed

D．she is angry about something that happened before her husband left

6.The passage shows Mr. Pontellier is happiest when he ______.

A．sits near the open door smoking a cigar and talking

B．makes up with his wife after a heated argument

C．has been away from home or is about to leave home

D．has given his children gifts of candies and peanuts

If you intend using humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different.       

If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses.

Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses' convention, of a story which works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to a table by himself. "Who is that?" the new arrival asked St. Peter. "Oh, that's God." came the reply, "but sometimes he thinks he's a doctor."

If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it'll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman's notorious bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn't attempt to cut in with humor as they will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about their canteen or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like the Post Office or the telephone system.

If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently off-the-cuff(即兴的)remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it's the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are making a light-hearted remark.

Look for the humor. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote "If at first you don't succeed, give up" or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements. Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humor.

1.To make your humor work, you should ________.

2. The joke about doctors implies that, in the eyes of nurses, they are ________.

3. It can be inferred from the text that public services ________.

4.To achieve the desired result, humorous stories should be delivered ________.

5. The best title for the text may be ________.

阅读下列各小题，根据汉语提示，用句末括号内的英语单词完成句子，并将答案写在答题卡上的相应题号后。

71. Knowing ______ reduces the risks of failure and it works like an insurance policy for your own ability. (do) 知道你正在干什么，能降低失败的风险，这就像给自己的能力买了份保险。

72. Not ______ my parents, I failed to go to a drama school, where my interest lay.

(persuade) 由于没有说服我父母，我没能上戏剧学校，而那才是我的兴趣所在。

73. The chief engineer together with his colleagues _____ new scientific methods of farming since five years ago. (look) 五年以来，总工程师和他的同事们一起一直在寻找新的科学农耕方法。

74. When I work on the farmland in the daytime, I always _____ to a tree on the riverbank. (keep)

白天干农活的时候，我总是把羊拴在河边的树上。

75. As time is pressing, I think ___ is the best way to get from here to the conference centre. (take)

由于时间紧迫，我认为从这里去会议中心最好的办法是乘出租车。

76. So fast ______ that we can hardly imagine its speed. (travel)

光传播的速度快到我们难以想象。

77. Through the course of my schooling, I met many teachers, two ______ me greatly. (influence)

上学时我遇到过很多老师，其中两位对我影响很大。

78. I don’t often lose things, so I was quite surprised ______ my wallet and found it wasn’t there. (reach) 我不常丢东西，所以当我拿钱包却发现钱包不在时，大吃一惊。

79. It is reported in the newspaper that several new subway lines ______ in Wuhan. (build)

据报纸报道，武汉正在建设几条新的地铁线路。

80. Most believe he _______ for England last week, but for a serious injury which put him out of football. (play)  多数人认为，要不是受了重伤而告别足球，上周他本会为英格兰踢球的。

_______ round the city, we were impressed by the city’s new look.

　　A. Taken       B. Taking                C. To be taken          D. Being taken