Most people think a 11 is simply someone with a funny personality. In fact the job is closer to writing. A joke that takes eight seconds to 12 may have been rewritten twenty times, and a tiny change in 13 can decide whether a room laughs or stays silent. New performers test their material in small clubs, where one bored 14 in the front row teaches more than any class. Some record every show and study the 15 afterwards, counting the seconds of silence. Nowadays a good five-minute set can take a whole year to build.
Questions 11–15
11
Aeditor
Bcomedian
Capplicant
Dtranslator
✔ 正確答案：(B) comedian
解析someone with a funny personality 且全篇談笑話與表演，故為「喜劇演員 comedian」。editor 編輯、applicant 申請人、translator 譯者皆不上台講笑話。
12
Aexchange
Bpossess
Cperform
Dliberate
✔ 正確答案：(C) perform
解析A joke that takes eight seconds to ____ 指把笑話「表演、講出來 perform」。possess 擁有、liberate 解放、exchange 交換，皆與說笑話的動作無關。
A visitor who walks into a film 16 for the first time is usually disappointed. The famous street is only three walls of painted wood. Twenty people stand around one camera, and most of them are waiting. The whole 17, sometimes forty actors, may be called at six in the morning and appear in just ninety seconds of film. A 18 scene in which a house burns down can take four days to shoot. Later an 19 cuts all that work down to eleven minutes. The finished 20 feels effortless, which is exactly the point.