阅读理解。
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 stumbles (结巴) his words
twice during the speech. Most likely, however, you don't remember. Why? Because you were fixing your
attention on his 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 express the speaker's ideas clearly
and directly. Sometimes a mistake or two can actually increase a speakers' 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.
1. The underlined part in the first paragraph means that no one will _____. [ ]
A. be smarter than you
B. notice your mistakes
C. do better than you
D. know what you are talking about
2. You don't remember obvious mistakes in a speech because _____. [ ]
A. your attention is on the content
B. you don't fully understand the speech
C. you don't know what the speaker plans to say
D. you find the way of speech-making more important
3. It can be inferred from the passage that _____. [ ]
A. giving a speech is like giving a performance
B. one or two mistakes in a speech may not be bad
C. the listeners should pay more attention to how a speech is made
D. the more mistakes a speaker makes, the more attractive he will be
4. What would be the best title of the passage? [ ]
A. How to Be a Perfect Speaker
B. How to Make a Perfect Speech
C. Don't Expect a Perfect Speech
D. Don't Expect Mistakes in a Speech
5. Which of the following statements is true? [ ]
A. If you are careful enough, you can make a perfect speech.
B. Speech-making is a kind of performance.
C. Listeners are not judges and they pay more attention to the message.
D. Martin Luther King is not a good speaker.
