If you intend using humour in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identify shared experiences and problems. Your humour must be relevant to the audience and should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understand their situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whom you are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to a group of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of their secretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want to comment on their disorganized bosses. Here is an example, which I heard at a nurses' convention, of a story which works well because the audience all shared the same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around by St. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather, and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in a line for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a white coat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps( 重踏 ) over to a table by himself. “Who is that?” the new arrival asked St. Peter. “Oh, that's God,” came the reply, “but sometimes he thinks he's a doctor.” If you are part of the group which you are addressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problems which are common to all of you and it'll be appropriate for you to make a passing remark about the uneatable can food or the chairman's notorious( 臭名昭著的 ) bad taste in ties. With other audiences you mustn't attempt to cut in with humour as they will resent an outsider remarks about their can or their chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats( 替身 ) like the Post Office or the telephone system. If you feel awkward being humorous, you must practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual and apparently offthecuff( 即兴 ) remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforced manner. Often it's the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speak slowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help to show that you are a lighthearted remark. Look for the humour. It often comes from the unexpected. A twist on a familiar quote “If at first you don't succeed, give up” or a play on words or a situation. Search for exaggeration and understatements( 轻描淡写 ). Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences which you can turn about and inject with humour. 1. To make your humour work, you should ________. A. take advantage of different kinds of audience B. make fun of the disorganized people C. address different problems to different people D. show sympathy for your listeners 2. In the eyes of nurses, the joke about doctors implies that they are ________. A. impolite to new ar B. entitled( 有资格 ) to some privileges C. very conscious of their godlike role D. very busy even during lunch hours 3. It can be inferred from the text that public services ________. A. have benefited many people B. are the focus of public attention C. are an inappropriate subject for humour D. have often been the laughing stock 3. The best title for the text may be ________. A. Effective Ways to Use Humour B. An Appropriate Topic Matters in Humour C. How to Add Humour to Speech D. Casualness Makes for Natural Humour