Sitting across from his teacher, Edgar Martinez repeated the word he couldn't quite pronounce: "situation"．The teacher, LisaMojsin, hired to help Martinez reduce his accent, said the word slowly; "Sit-chew-a-shun．" "I wish he had taught me this 20 years ago．" said Martinez, 37, who comes from Mexico and lives in Los Angeles．In private tutoring classes throughout the nation, immigrants are focused on sounding more American．

    Accent reduction classes have been around for years, but experts say．"As our workforce becomes more and more global, these classes are becoming more and more popular．" Private tutors said they answer calls almost daily from students, when just a few years ago the phones rang only occasionally．Author Amy Gillett said that sales of her book and CD set, "Speak English Like an American", have increased three times in the last few years．Judy Ravin, President of the Accent Reduction Institute, said she has hundreds of students who follow her program, "Lose Your Accent in 28 Days"．

    Though there is a general tolerance for diversity, experts said, reality has made some immigrants who sound different feel unwelcome．If someone speaks with an accent associated with an Asian language, they may work as engineers or computer scientists．If someone speaks with certain Spanish accents, people may think they are recent immigrants working in landscaping or the hospitality industry （招待性行业）．A French accent gives images of romance．An Australian accent brings to mind adventure and fun．

    Accent reduction students said they are aware of how they sound and whether their accents limit their job opportunities or spoil their social lives．Jennie Lo, aged 43, said her accent has been an embarrassment．Sometimes people couldn't even understand her when she said her name．While in college in Oklahoma, Lo said she didn't make many friends, tearing that no one could make out her words．Lo is now taking accent reduction classes and hopes to apply for a manager position at work．"I just want to feel good about myself," she said．"If I really work hard, if I practice every day, I can't be perfect．But I can be better．"

1.In the whole passage, the first paragraph serves as a（n） _____．

    A．introduction                         B．comment          

    C．explanation                          D．background

2.What does the author want to express in the second paragraph?

    A．The effect that popular accent reduction classes have．

    B．The fact that accent reduction classes become popular．

    C．The steps how accent reduction classes become popular．

    D．The reasons why accent reduction classes become popular．

3.If someone speaks with certain Asian accents, people may think _____．

    A．they are romantic                    B．they are hospitality workers

    C．they are computer scientists         D．they love adventure and fun

4.What is Jennie Lo's attitude towards her taking accent reduction classes?

    A．Confident．          B．Helpless．         

    C．Proud．              D．Anxious．

Robert Frost was one of America’s best known and most honored serious writers. But his fame came late in his life.
He was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. He lived in California during his early childhood. He was named after the chief Southern general in America’s Civil War. The general’s name was Robert Edward Lee. The poet was named Robert Lee Frost, because his father wanted to honor the general.
Someone once asked another American writer, Ernest Hemingway, how to become a writer. The best thing, he said, was to have an unhappy childhood. If this is true, Robert Frost’s childhood was unhappy enough to make him a very good writer. Robert Frost’s father was a reporter who wanted to be a politician. He often drank too much wine and became angry. Robert was the victim of his anger.
Robert Frost finished high school in 1891. After high school, Robert’s grandfather offered to pay his costs at Dartmouth College. But Robert left the school after a few months. He did not like it. He spent the next few years working at different jobs. At one time, he worked in a factory. Later, he repaired shoes. He was a teacher. He was a reporter. Always, he wrote poetry.
Robert Frost attended Harvard University for two years. After that, he returned to the many jobs he held before. For a while, Frost tried to take care of a farm in the state of New Hampshire. He was not a successful farmer. And he continued to write poetry. He said that until 1930, he earned only about ten dollars a year from writing.
In 1912, he decided to try to make a new start. He took his family to Britain. The cost of living was low. In Britain, Frost found a publisher for his first book of poems. The book was called A Boy’s Will. When it appeared in 1913, Frost received high praise from British readers. Praise was something he had not received in his own country.
Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, read the poems and liked them very much. He wrote a magazine article about Frost. He also helped get Frost’s second book of poems published in America. That book was called North of Boston.
【小题1】The followings are writers EXCEPT __________.

The baby monkey is much more developed at birth than the human baby. Almost from the moment it is born, the baby monkey can move around and hold tightly to its mother. During the first few days of its life the baby will approach and hold onto almost any large, warm, and soft object in its environment, particularly if that object also gives it milk. After a week or m, however, the baby monkey begins to avoid newcomers and focuses its attentions on “mother" 一 the real mother or the mother-substitute (母亲替代树).

During the first two weeks of its life warmth is perhaps the most important psychological (心理的) thing that a monkey mother has to give to its baby. The Harlows, a couple who are both psychologists, discovered this fact by offering baby monkeys a choice of two types of mother-substitutes 一 one covered with cloth 4nd one made of bare wire. If the two artificial mothers were both the same temperature, the little monkeys always preferred the cloth mother. However, if the wire model was heated, while the cloth model was cool, for the first two weeks after birth the baby monkeys picked the warm wire mother-substitutes as their fuvorites. Thereafter they switched and spent most of their time on the mw comfortable cloth mother.

Why is cloth preferable to bare wire? Something that the Harlows called contact (接級) comfort seems to be the answer, and a most powerful influence it is. Baby monkeys spend much of their time rubbing against their mothers' skins, putting themselves in as close contact with the parent as they can. Whenever the young animal is frightened, disturbed, or annoyed, it typically rushes to its mother and rubs itself against her body. Wire doesn't “rub" as well as does soft cloth. Prolonged (长时间的) “contact comfort" with a cloth mother appears to give the babies confidence and is much more rewarding to them than is cither warmth or milk.

According to the Harlows, the basic quality of baby’s love for its mother is trust. If the baby is put into an unfamiliar playroom without its mother, the baby ignores the toys no nutter how interesting they might be. It screams in terror and curls up into a furry little ball. If its cloth mother it now introduced into the playroom, the baby rushed to it and holds onto it for dear life. After a few minutes of contact comfort, it obviously begins to feel more secure. it then climbs down from the mother-substitute and begins to explore the toys, but often rushes back for a deep embrace (拥抱) as if to make sure that its mother is still there and that all is well. Bit by bit its fears of the new environment are gone and it spends more and more time playing with the toys and less and less time holding onto its “mother.”

50. Psychologically, what does the baby monkey desire most during the first two weeks of its life?

A. Warmth.             B. Milk.                C. Contact.            D. Trust.

51. After the first two weeks of their life, baby monkeys prefer the cloth mother to the wire mother because the former is ______.

A. larger in size                                     B. closer lo them

C. less frightening and less disturbing      D. more comfortable to rub against

52. Whal docs the baby monlcry probably gain from prolonged Mcontact comfort"?

A. Altenlion.                                        B. Softness.

C. Confidence.                                     D. Interest.

53. It can be inferred that when the baby monkey feels sccure, ______.

A. it frequently niftheft back for a deep embrace when exploring the toys

B. it spends more time screaming to get rewards

C. il is less attracted to the toys though they are interesting

D. it cares less alxnii whether itA mother is still around

54. Hie main purpose of ihc passage is to ______.

A. give the reasons for (he experiment

B. present the findings of the experiment

C. introduce the method of the experiment

D. describe the process of the experiment

Ray Travers sat back at the large desk, and looked around his plush（豪华的）office．He was tired．

Ray's eyes stopped at a painting on the wall．It was a gift given by an old friend, Bull, as a farewell gift when he left his hometown．He recalled the life spent in that small town; pleasant times．The many hours he spent talking lo his good friend, and the tales he was told about hunting in the Africa of old．

Memories flowed back more than ten years; he remembered how he enjoyed hearing about the wonderful hunting, and how he wished he could have shared those times．

Ray opened his desk drawer and brought out a wooden box．He opened the lid and exposed a work of art, a hand-made hunting knife．This was a gift from Bull, given to Ray more than 20 years ago．It was one of the first knives Bull had made, and Ray had called it "Zambezi”, the river where Bull had been so many times．

He closed the box and sat upright at his desk; he was driving himself hard, and deserved a break．Things were going well with the business, everything running smoothly．He could afford a week off!

He went back home．A week in the hometown would be like going back in history．"Man, it's going to be good," Ray said aloud, as he turned onto the highway and watched the city lights fast disappearing, as he looked in the rearview mirror．

It was well into the night when Ray pulled into an all-night gas station He walked around the gas station and the memories started …  He was finally back on the road, the powerful car going its way through the night, headlights piercing （穿透） the darkness．Memories danced through the man' s mind．Memories of good times , when he knew what it was to relax , to talk, and to really visit．

Slowly entering town he looked around．Ray sat in his car, looking at the old building, smiling． Inside it was almost as though it was the same people as 15 years ago．

1.We learn from the passage that Bull is                    ．

2.What does the author mainly want to tell us in Paragraphs 2 －5?

3.What do we know from the passage?

4.What does the under lined part in Paragraph 7 mean?

5.What may the author talk about in the paragraph that follows the passage?