Every street had a story, every building a memory. Those blessed with wonderful childhoods can drive the streets of their hometowns and happily roll back the years. The rest are pulled home by duty and leave as soon as possible. After Ray Atlee had been in Clanton ( his hometown) for fifteen minutes he was anxious to get out.
The town had changed, but then it hadn’t. On the highways leading in, the cheap metal buildings and mobile homes were gathering as tightly as possible next to the roads for maximum visibility. This town had no zoning whatsoever. A landowner could build anything with no permit, no inspection, no notice to adjoining landowners, nothing. Only hog farms and nuclear reactors required approvals and paperwork. The result was a slash-and-build clutter that got uglier by the year.
But in the older sections, nearer the square, the town had not changed at all. The long shaded streets were as clean and neat as when Ray roamed them on his bike. Most
A. close.
B. remote.
C. tense.
D. impossible to tell.
Text 3
Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language, but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce, and consequently never set about tackling it in the right way. Far too many people fail to realize that pronouncing a foreign language is a skill, one that needs careful training of a special kind, and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself. I think even teachers of language, while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the branch of study concerned with speaking the language.
So the first point I
A. an obvious cause of not grasping the problem correctly.
B. a fundamental consequence of not speaking well.
C. a consequence of not grasping the problem correctly.
D. not an obvious cause of speaking poorly.
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