It may help you to know that there is no such thing as a perfect speech．At some point in every speech, every speaker says something that is not understood exactly as he has planned．Fortunately, the moments are usually not obvious to the listeners. Why ? Because the listeners do not know what the speaker plans to say. They hear only what the speaker does say. If you lose your place for a moment, wrongly change the order of a couple of sentences, or forget to pause at a certain point, no one will be any the wiser．When such moments occur, don’t worry about them. Just continue as if nothing happened．
Even if you do make an obvious mistake during a speech, that don’t really matter. If you have ever listened to Martin Luther King’s famous speech – “ I have a dream”, you may notice that he stumble（结巴）his words twice during the speech．Most likely, however, you don’t remember．Why? Because you were fixing your attention on its message rather than on his way of speech-making. People care a lot about making mistakes in a speech because they regard speech-making as a kind of performance rather than as an act of communication. They feel the listeners are like judges in an ice-skating competition．But, in fact, the listeners are not looking for a perfect performer. They are looking for a well-thought-out speech that expresses the speaker’s ideas clearly and directly．Sometimes a mistake or two can actually increase a speaker’s attractiveness by making him more human．
As you work on your speech, don’t worry about being imperfect．Once you free your mind of this, you will find it much easier to give your speech freely．
【小题1】The underlined part in the first paragraph means that no one will ___________．

     The Marches were a happy family. Poverty, hard work, and even the fact that Father March was away with the Union armies could not down the spirits of Meg, Jo, Beth,Amy, and Marmee, as the March girls called their mother.

     The March sisters tried to be good but had their share of faults. Pretty Meg was often displeased with the schoolchildren she taught; boyish Jo was easy to become angry; golden-haired schoolgirl Amy liked to show up; but Beth, who kept the house, was loving and gentle always.

   The happy days passed and darkness came when a telegram arrived for Mrs. March.  “Your husband is very ill,” it said, “come at once.” The girl tried to be brave when their mother left for the front. They waited and prayed. Little Beth got scarlet fever (猩红热) when she was taking care of the sick neighbor. She became very ill but began to recover by the time Marmee was back. Then Father came home from the front and at that joyful Christmas dinner they were once more all together.

   Three years later the March girls had grown into young womanhood. Meg became Mrs. Brooke, and after a few family troubles got used to her new state happily. Jo had found pleasure in her literary efforts. Amy had grown into a young lady with a talent for design and an even greater one for society. But Beth had never fully regained her health, and her family watched her with love and anxiety.

   Amy was asked to go and stay in Europe with a relative of the Marches’. Jo went to New York and became successful in her writing and had the satisfaction of seeing her work published there. But at home the bitterest blow was yet to fall. Beth had known for some time that she couldn’t live much longer to be with the family and in the springtime she died.

   News came from Europe that Amy and Laurie, the grandson of a wealthy neighbor, had planned to be married soon. Now Jo became ever more successful in her writing and got married to Professor Bhaer , and soon afterwards founded a school for boys.

   And so the little women had grown up and lived happily with their children, enjoying the harvest of love and goodness that they had devoted all their lives to.

56. The members of the March family were Father March, Mrs. March and their _______.

   A. four daughters                 B. five daughters   

   C. son and four daughters      D. son and five daughters

57. Who was the most successful in career (事业) among the March girls?

  A. Jo.                     B. Beth.                 C. Amy.                 D. Meg. 

58. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

  A. The March Family             B. The March Parents  

  C. The March Girls            D. The March Relatives

59. It can be inferred from the passage that the March family had ______.

  A. both happiness and sadness     B. wealthy neighbors 

  C. more girls than boys           D. a lot of rich relatives

Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep or sleep restfully．It is a problem to nearly everyone at some time ．A person may be awake for an hour in the middle of the night and then , next morning, feel that he hardly sleep all night Normally, worry about not getting enough sleep is the worst aspect of most insomnia．If insomnia is recurrent, however, it is important to find its causes and try to correct them, with the help of a doctor if necessary．
Any of a large number of simple factors may take it difficult for someone to fall asleep or remain asleep．His matters may be too soft or too hard．If there are too many blankets on a hot night, he may be too warm; if the bedclothes are too light he may feel cold during the night．If it is not dark enough, or too noisy, this may cause difficulty in sleeping．Eating shortly before going to bed also be responsible for insomnia．Stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee, can also keep people awake．
Inability to fall asleep is sometimes a symptom of emotional or mental disorders．Insomnia may also be caused by pain and, very rarely, it can be a symptom of a physical disease．
The cause of insomnia may be easy to correct．The sufferer should check the mattress, bedclothes and bedroom temperature, and make any necessary changes．An eye mask keeps out the night and ear-plugs shut out sound．He should relax for an hour or two before bedtime, perhaps by reading a book; watching TV, or taking a warm bath．If he wakes during the night he should try turning on the light and reading for a while．Taking warm milk and a biscuit or two may be helpful．Above all, he should try not to worry about sleeplessness when someone is tied enough he nearly always falls asleep．
If necessary, a doctor may prescribe tranquillizers or sleeping pills．Take only the dosage he prescribes; any more is dangerous．
67．According to the writer, insomnia is ______．
A．a rare problem                       B．a sign of illness
C．a common complaint                  D．a modern disease
68．Which of the following statements is not the cause of insomnia?
A．too many blankets on a hot night      B．drinking juice
C．emotional or mental disorders         D．physical pain
69．Insomnia needn’t be taken seriously because_______．
A．people can catch on sleep during the day．
B．many people sleep far too much．
C．it can easily be cured by doctors．    
D．it is cured naturally by tiredness．
70．The main cure for insomnia is_____．
A．reading a book at night               
B．having sleeping pills
C．watching television before bedtime     
D．not to get too anxious about sleeping

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours listening to Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky on their Sunday night radio show Loveline. I listened so often that I began to use one of their well-known phrases—“good times”—in my daily conversations. Scientists have a name for this phenomenon: behavioral mimicry.
You’ve probably experienced this before: after spending enough time with another person, you might start to pick up on his or her behavior or speech habits. You might even start to develop your friend’s habits without realizing it. There is a large body of literature concerning this sort of phenomenon, and it regularly happens for everything from body postures to accents to drink patterns. For example, one study found that young adults were more likely to drink their drink directly after their same-sex drinking partners, than for the two individuals to drink at their own paces.
And the effect isn’t limited to real-life face-to-face activities. Another study found that the same you-drink-then-I-drink pattern held even when watching a movie! In other words, people were more likely to take a drink of their drinks in a theater after watching the actors on the screen enjoy a drink. At least I don’t feel so strange anymore, having picked up on Adam Carolla’s “good times”.
New research published today in the journal PLOS ONE indicates that the same sort of behavioral mimicry is responsible for social eating, at least among university-age women of normal weight. That’s right: the young women were more likely to adjust their eating according to the eating pace of their same-sex dining companion.
As with most experiments, these results raise a whole new set of questions. Still, the finding that behavioral mimicry may at least partly account for eating behavior is important, and has real effects on health. The researchers note that “as long as people don’t fully recognize such important influences on intake, it will be difficult to make healthy food choices and keep a healthy diet, especially when people are exposed to the eating behavior of others”.
【小题1】The author takes his own example of using “good times” to _________.