Passage 2
On days when there is work , I talk to the other guys. Some of them tell me that the harvest season is coming in northern California, and they say that one can earn good money there. Things haven’t gone so badly in the car wash, but one afternoon I give the manager my thanks for having hired and promoted me, and with a little suitcase that night I board a Greyhound headed north. My ticket is made out for San Francisco, but I don’t plan to go that far. I plan to ride until I find a place where people are harvesting, and to get off the bus there.

I sleep on the bus for a few hours that night, and in the morning, when I awake, I don’t know where we are. I get up from my seat and walk down the bus aisle, looking for a Mexican or Chicano to tell me our location, but oddly enough, I don’t see any among the passengers, who are all white-skinned. I pay attention to the road signs we pass, but they are not of much help. I can read the town names, but I don’t know where the towns lie. A map would help me, and I decide to buy one at our next stop. Lots of things are for sale at the bus stop’s gift shop, but there are no maps. I direct myself to wards the shop’s operator, but I run into the language barrier. The operator is an Anglo, and when I speak to him in Spanish, he says that he doesn’t understand. I try to practice my very precarious (不可靠的)English with him, but it’s of no use. I have a rough idea of the sound of the words that I want to say, but I can’t pronounce them right. I make signs, signaling a big piece of paper and say “form California,” but he turns into a question mark, with eyes wide open, arms raised and hands extended, “Map,” I say, but I don’t pronounce the word very well. “Freeways, streets,” I add, but he still doesn’t understand. He points out chewing gum, candies, pieces of cake, sandwiches, soft drinks, and cigarettes, trying to guess what I’m asking for. But he doesn’t show me any maps. Finally, I back out of the store, and as I leave I hear him say, “I’m sorry.”
A little before the bus leaves, I run into a Mexican-American in a hallway and I immediately ask him to help me find a map off California. We go back to the store. The Chicano asks for a map .“Ahh !Ahaaa!” the operator exclaims. Then he goes to a corner of his shelves and takes out what I’ve been asking for. While I am paying him, he talks to the Chicano in a joyful tone. With the map in my hands, I give the Chicano my thanks, and he explains that the store-keeper thinks that I am asking if he needs anybody to clean the floor or “mop.”
26. The writer decided to leave his job and go to northern California because         .
 [A] his boss didn’t like him
 [B] things were going badly in the car wash
 [C] he thought he could earn more money
 [D] there wasn’t always work
27. The writer wanted a map in order to           .
 [A] find the way to San Francisco
 [B] help him with the road signs
 [C] know where he was in relation to the entire trip
 [D] find his way back to his workplace
28. Form the passage, we can infer that            .
 [A] the owner of the shop did not want to sell the writer a map
 [B] the writer was fired from the car wash
 [C] the writer was a migrant farm worker
 [D] the writer was traveling with a friend who could speak English
29. The writer tries to make himself understood by all the following EXCEPT        .
 [A]gestures
 [B] words or phrases
 [C] pronunciations
 [D] spelling the word
30. We can learn from the story that          .
 [A] incorrect pronunciations may result in misunderstanding
 [B] immigrants usually have a hard time in the foreign countries
 [C] a foreign language can be learned through conversations
 [D] traveling alone brings unexpected troubles and problems 转贴于：自考_考试大

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