advanced anecdotes in american english hill

Anecdotes Advanced B1

Anecdotes audiobook Advanced B1 L A Hill.. Анекдоты на английском языке для уровня Advanced на английском языке уровень Level 3 читать и слушать на английском с параллельным переводом (bilingual).

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Advanced Anecdotes in American English — это первая из серии трех книг для чтения для студентов, изучающих английский язык. Эта книга предназначена для того, чтобы дать студентам практику в чтении и понимании американского английского языка в контексте. Advanced B1 Anecdotes in American English содержит тридцать юмористических историй, каждая из которых состоит примерно из 200 слов. После каждой истории следуют вопросы на проверку понимания прочитанного.
Рассказы и упражнения написаны на уровне частотности употребления 2000 слов по доктору Л. А. Хиллу.
Грамматические структуры, используемые в этой книге, также были тщательно соблюдены в рамках знаний Advanced B1.
Перевод текста выполнен с помощью: Яндекс Переводчика и сервиса чтения книг с параллельным переводом 2books
Анекдоты на английском языке для продвинутых открыть в приложение 2books

Anecdote 1
Jack Hawkins was the football coach at an American college, and he was always trying to find good players, but they weren’t always smart enough to be accepted by the college.
One day the coach brought an excellent young player to the dean of the college and asked that the student be allowed to enter without an examination. “Well,” the dean said after some persuasion, “I’d better ask him a few questions first.”
Then he turned to the student and asked him some very easy questions, but the student didn’t know any of the answers.
At last the dean said, “Well, what’s five times seven?”
The student thought for a long time and then answered, “Thirty-six.”
The dean threw up his hands and looked at the coach in despair, but the coach said earnestly, “Oh, please let him in, sir!
He was only wrong by two.”
Answer these questions:
1. Why did the football coach want the dean to let the student enter college without an examination?
2. What question did the dean ask the student?
3. What was the student’s answer?
4. What did the dean do then?
5. What did the coach say to the dean?
6. Who was better at arithmetic, the student or the coach?

Anecdote 2
John was ten years old, and he was a very lazy boy. He had to go to school of course, but he was bored there and tried to do as little work as possible. His father and mother were both doctors and they hoped that he would become one, too, when he grew up, but one day John said to his mother, «When I finish school, I want to become a, garbage collector.»
«A garbage collector?» his mother said. She was very surprised. «That’s not a very pleasant job. Why do you want to become a garbage collector?»
«Because then I’d only have to work one day a week,» John answered.
«Only one day a week?» his mother said. «What do you mean?» «Well,» John answered, «I know that the ones who come to our house only work on Wednesday, because I only see them on that day.»
Answer these questions:
What kind of boy was John?
What did his parents want him to be when he grew up?
What did John say he wanted to be?
Why did John want this job?
How did his mother feel about this?
Why did John think that garbage collector only worked one day a week?

Anecdote 3
Soon after Dave left college, one of his uncles, who was rich and had no children of his own, died and left Dave a lot of money, so he decided to set up his own real estate agency.
He found a nice office, bought some new furniture and moved in. He had only been there for a few hours when he heard someone coming towards the door of his office.
“It’s my first customer!” he thought. He quickly picked up the telephone and pretended to be very busy answering an important call from someone in New York who wanted to buy a big and expensive house in the country.
The man knocked at the door while this was going on, came in and waited politely for the agent to finish his conversation.
Then he said to him, “I’m from the telephone company, and I was sent here to connect your telephone.”
Answer these questions:
1. How did Dave get money to set up his real estate agency?
2. What did he do to set it up?
3. What happened after he had been in his office for a few hours?
4. What did he think, and then do about this?
5. What did the man do?
6. And what did he say when Dave finished talking?

Anecdote 4
Mr. Smith lived in the country, but he worked in an office in the big city, so five days a week he went to work by train every morning and came home the same way.
One morning he was reading his newspaper on the train when a man sitting behind him, who Mr. Smith had never met before, leaned forward, tapped him on the shoulder and spoke to him.
The man said, “You’re not leading a very interesting life, are you?
You get on the same train at the same station at the same time every morning, and you always sit in the same seat and read the same newspaper.”
Mr. Smith put his paper down, turned around, and said to the man angrily, “How do you know all that about me?”
“Because I’m always sitting in this seat behind you,” the man answered.
Answer these questions:
3. He hurried to the train station.
1, How did Mr. Smith go to and from his office every day?
2. What happened to him on the train one morning?
3. What was he doing when this happened?
4. What did the man say to Mr. Smith?
5. What did Mr. Smith ask the man?
6. Why did the man know so much about him?

Anecdote 5
Lisa was an attractive young woman, and she always combed her hair neatly and wore pretty clothes. She worked in a small town and earned enough money to take a vacation in the mountains during the summer.
The first time that Lisa went there, she discovered that she hadn’t brought enough money. At first she was worried, but then she remembered that she had brought her checkbook with her and went to the bank to cash a check. The bank teller had never seen Lisa before, but he knew that a lot of people were stealing checkbooks and using them, so he said to her, “Can you identify yourself, please?”
Lisa had never been asked to do this in her home town, so she looked puzzled for a moment; but then she took her mirror out of her handbag, looked at it, and then said happily, “Yes, it is me.”
Answer these questions:
1. Where did Lisa go for her vacation?
2. Why did she have to go to the bank during her vacation?
3. What did the bank teller ask her?
4. Why did he say this?
5. How did Lisa feel about this?
6. What did she do and then say?

Anecdote 6
A large store was having its spring sale on shoes and boots. It was the first day of the sale, and the shoe department was full of women who were eagerly trying to buy them. There were all kinds of shoes and boots in a variety of colors, and the price shad been reduced a lot, because the store wanted to get rid of as many as possible in order to make room for their new stock.
The cashiers were kept busy, and at one moment a woman came to one of them with her money in her hand and said, “I don’t need a bag, thank you. I’m wearing the shoes I bought.” She pointed to them on her feet.
“Would you like a bag to put your old shoes in then?” the cashier asked politely as she took the woman’s money.
“No, thank you,” the woman answered quickly, “I’ve just sold those to someone else.”
Answer these questions:
1. What were on sale in the large store that week?
2. Why were they being sold cheaply?
3. Was the sale successful?
4. What did a woman say to one of the cashiers?
5. What did the cashier ask her?
6. Why didn’t the woman need a bag?

Anecdote 7
Fred had a very rusty old car, but his father said that he had to sell it before he would buy him a new one.
“You have to learn the value of money, Fred,” his father said.
“It doesn’t grow on trees, you know. You should learn to be a good businessman.”
But nobody seemed to want to buy the car from Fred. He put a “For Sale” sign in the back window of the car, and he put another sign on the bulletin board in his college dormitory, but nothing happened. Then one day he was driving to another town, and stopped at the entrance to a toll booth where he had to pay before being allowed to use the road.
The attendant said, “Two dollars and fifty cents.”
“I accept,” said Fred. “It’s yours.” Then he put the car keys into the surprised attendant’s hand, and held out his other hand for the two dollars and fifty cents.
Answer these questions:
1. When would Fred’s father buy him a new car?
2. How did Fred try to sell his car?
3. Why did Fred stop at a toll booth?
4. What did the attendant say to Fred?
5. What did Fred say and then do to the attendant?
6. Did the attendant want to buy Fred’s car?

Anecdote 8
A traveling salesman had to walk so much that his feet often hurt.
His doctor told him that salt water was the best thing for them, so the salesman decided to go to the sea for his vacation that year.
Since all of the hotels near the sea were expensive, he went to a small hotel far away from the beach.
In the morning he went down to the calm sea with a bucket, went over to the lifeguard and asked whether he would be allowed to take a bucket of salt water. The lifeguard seemed very surprised but said, “Yes, although you’ll have to pay twenty-five cents for it.”
The salesman gave the lifeguard twenty-five cents, filled his bucket, took it to his hotel and put his feet in the water.
After lunch, he came down to the beach again. The tide had gone out now, so the sea was much lower. The salesman thought, “That man has a very good business. He must have sold thousands of buckets since this morning.”
Answer these questions:
1. Why did the salesman’s feet hurt?
2. Why did the salesman go to the sea for his vacation?
3. What did he ask the lifeguard?
4. What did the lifeguard say to the salesman?
5. What did the salesman do then?
6. Why was the sea much lower in the afternoon?
7. What did the salesman think?

Anecdote 9
An important businessman was asked to give a twenty-minute speech in another city. He was too busy to write it himself, so he asked his secretary to put one together for him out of a large book of speeches which she had on her desk. She typed one out for him, and he picked it up just in time to rush off to his plane.
But when he gave his speech, it ran on for an hour, and the audience was getting very restless and bored by the end of it.
When the businessman got back to his office, he complained to his secretary about this. “I told you it was supposed to be a twenty-minute speech!” he said to her bitterly.
“That’s what I gave you,” she answered, “the original and two copies. The original for you to read at the meeting, and two copies for the files, after you had checked them.”
Answer these questions:
1. What was the important businessman asked to do?
2. Who prepared the speech for him?
3. How did the audience receive it?
4. Why did the speech last an hour instead of twenty minutes?
5. Why had the secretary given him so many copies?
6. What mistake had the businessman made?

Anecdote 10
A young man was called up for army service, but he didn’t want to become a soldier. When he went for his medical exam, he
pretended that his eyesight was very bad.
The doctor pointed to the eye chart on the wall and said,
“Please read the top line.”
“The top line of what?” the young man asked.
“The top line of the chart,” the doctor replied.
“What chart?” the man asked.
“The one on the wall,” the doctor said.
“What wall?” the man asked.
Finally, the doctor decided that the man’s eyes were not good enough for army service.
That evening the same young man was at a movie when another man came in and sat next to him in the dark. When the lights went on, the young man saw that his neighbor was the doctor who had examined him earlier. Immediately he said,
“Excuse me, ma‘am, but does this bus go to Main Street?”
Answer these questions:
1. What did the young man do to avoid military service?
2. What did he say when the doctor said, “Please read the top line of the chart”?
3. What did the doctor decide at last?
4. Where did the young man go that evening?
5. Who sat down next to him?
6. What did the young man say when the lights went on?

Anecdote 11
A young officer on a small vessel was being tested on his knowledge of what to do if someone fell overboard while he was in charge of the ship. A big can was thrown into the sea and the officer had to pretend it was a man who had fallen in and try to save it. The officer was inexperienced, and the first thing that happened was that the can was pulled under by the ship’s propeller. The officer quickly stopped the ship and went backwards. There was a loud crash as he struck the can again.
Then he went forwards, went around in a circle, and struck the can once more straight in front of the ship.
A sailor who was observing all this now said, “Excuse me, sir, but if I’m ever unfortunate enough to fall into the sea while you’re steering the ship, please let me swim to shore by myself!”
Answer these questions:
1. What was the young officer being tested on?
2. How was he being tested?
3. What was the first thing that happened?
4. What did the officer do then?
5. What happened when he went forwards?
6. What did a sailor say to him then?

Anecdote 12
When George Jones finished college, he became a clerk in a big company, hoping to advance to higher positions as time went on. He did his work reasonably well, but he wasn’t very smart, so when the older employees retired from higher positions, it was never Jones who was promoted.
After he had been with the company for fifteen years without ever being promoted, a smart young man, straight from college, came to work in the same department, and after a year, he was promoted above Jones.
Jones was angry that he hadn’t been promoted instead of this young man, so he went to his manager and said, “I’ve had sixteen years’ experience on this job, yet a new man has been promoted over my head after having been here only one year.”
“I’m sorry, Jones,” answered the manager patiently, “but you haven’t had sixteen years’ experience: you’ve had one year’s experience sixteen times.”
Answer these questions:
1. What job did George Jones get after leaving college?
2. What was his ambition?
3. Why didn’t he get promoted?
4. Who joined the same department fifteen years after him?
5. What happened after a year?
6. Why did Jones go to see the manager?
7. What did Jones say to him?
8. What did the manager answer?

Anecdote 13
Mr. Johnson had never been up in an airplane before and he had read a lot about air accidents, so one day when a friend offered to take him for a ride in his own small plane, Mr. Johnson was very worried about accepting. Finally, however, his friend persuaded him that it was very safe, and Mr. Johnson boarded the plane.
His friend started the engine and began to taxi onto the runway of the airport. Mr. Johnson had heard that the most dangerous parts of a flight were the take-off and the landing, so he was extremely frightened and closed his eyes.
After a minute or two he opened them again, looked out of the window of the plane, and said to his friend, “Look at those people down there. They look as small as ants, don’t they?”
“Those are ants,” answered his friend. “We’re still on the ground.”
Answer these questions:
1. Why was Mr. Johnson worried about accepting his friend’s offer to ride in his small plane?
2. What did Mr. Johnson think were the most dangerous parts of a flight?
3. How did he feel when they began to taxi onto the runway, and what did he do?
4. What happened after a minute or two?
5. What did Mr. Johnson say to his friend?
6. And what did the friend answer?

Anecdote 14
A man got into a train and found himself sitting opposite a woman who seemed to be about thirty-five years old. Soon they began talking to each other, and he said to her, “Do you have a family?”
“Yes, I have one son,” the woman answered.
“Oh, really?” said the man. “Does he smoke?”
“No, he’s never touched a cigarette,” the woman replied.
“That’s good,” the man continued. “I don’t smoke either.
Tobacco is very bad for one’s health. And does your son drink wine?”
“Oh, no,” the woman answered at once, “he’s never drunk a drop of it.”
“Then I congratulate you, ma’am,” the man said. “And does he ever come home late at night?”
“No, never,” his neighbor answered. “He goes to bed immediately after dinner every night.”
“Well,” the man said, “he’s a wise young man. How old is he?”
“He’s six months old today,” the woman replied proudly.
Answer these questions:
1. Did the woman on the train have a family?
2. What three things did the man ask her about her son?
3. What did she answer to all three questions?
4. What did the man think about her answers?
5. What was his last question?
6. And what was her answer?
7. How old do you think the man had expected the woman’s son to be?

Anecdote 15
It was a Saturday evening in late July, and Joe and his girlfriend had been to the movies. After that they ate supper in a small restaurant, and now they were sitting together on a bench in the park, enjoying the cool air and the moonlight.
After a long time, the girl said dreamily, “Joe, do you think my eyes are like bright stars shining in the clear night sky?”
Joe looked at her quickly, and then answered, “Yes.”
“And do you think my teeth are like pearls reflecting the light of the moon?” she continued in the same dreamy voice.
“Yes,” he answered again after another quick look.
“And do you think my hair is like a golden waterfall in the moonlight?” she went on.
“Yes,” he repeated.
“Oh, Joe!” she said happily, throwing her arms around him, “You say the most wonderful things!”
Answer these questions:
1. Where were Joe and his girlfriend when she began asking him these questions?
2. What was the weather like?
3. What were the girl’s eyes like?
4. What were her teeth like?
5. What was her hair like?
6. Did Joe agree with these comparisons?
7. What did his girlfriend say finally?
8. Who had really been saying all those wonderful things?

Anecdote 16
Mr. Grey was a biology professor, and he had a big collection of extremely rare bones which he was very proud of. Then one year he managed to get a new and better job at another university.
Because Mr. Grey was very busy, his wife made the arrangements for all their possessions to be taken in a moving van to their new home while he was away at work.
The following week three men started taking the things out of Mrs. Grey’s house and loading them into the van, when one of them brought out a large wooden box. He was just about to throw it into the van with all the other things when Mrs. Grey ran out of her house and said, “Please treat that box very gently!
That one has all of my husband’s bones in it.”
The man was so surprised that he nearly dropped the box on his feet.
Answer these questions:
1. What kind of collection did Mr. Grey have?
2. What happened to Mr. Grey one year?
3. Why did some men come to take all of the Grey’s possessions away?
4. What did one of the men take out of the house?
5. What was he going to do with the box?
6. What did Mrs. Grey say to the man?
7. What happened to the man when he heard this?

Anecdote 17
Arich young man decided that he would like to do some diving in the sea, so he bought a rubber suit and all the other things that he needed, and took some lessons at a diving school. Then one day he walked into the water by himself and began to explore the bottom of the sea.
He saw a lot of beautiful fish and other things, and then, after half an hour, he suddenly saw a man waving his arms and legs around wildly near the bottom of the sea. He was wearing only a bathing suit.
The rich young man was very surprised to see him, so he took out a plastic notebook and a special pencil, which could write under water, and wrote, “What are you doing here?”
He showed the notebook to the other man, who then took the pencil and wrote, “Drowning!”
Answer these questions:
1. What did the rich young man want to do?
2. How did he prepare himself for this?
3. What did he first see at the bottom of the ocean?
4. What did he see later?
5. What was the man doing?
6. What was he wearing?
7. What did the rich young man do?
8. What did the other man write in the notebook?

Anecdote 18
Mr. Scott thought that he was very good at fixing household appliances when they broke, so when Mrs. Scott told him that she needed a new vacuum cleaner, he said, “What’s wrong with the old one? I can easily fix it.”
Mr. Scott fixed the vacuum cleaner, but the same thing happened again several times, until one day, after he had unscrewed all the parts, and had gone to have lunch, Mrs. Scott added a few extra pieces to the pile on the floor.
“Do you know,” she said to her friend, Mrs. Brown, the next morning, “if I’d just taken away a few pieces, he’d have noticed that they were missing, and would have gone out and bought some more. But when he couldn’t find places for all the pieces that were on the floor, he gave up and agreed to buy me a new machine.”
Answer these questions:
What did Mr. Scott say when his wife asked for a new vacuum cleaner?
What did he do then?
How many times did this happen?
What did Mrs. Scott do one day when her husband went to have lunch?
What would Mr. Scott have done if some of the pieces of the vacuum cleaner were missing?
Why did Mr. Scott agree to buy a new machine?

Anecdote 19
When Mrs. Green retired from her job in a big city, she went to live in an attractive village out in the country, and began to go into the nearest town every Saturday to buy food. She tried several stores and finally chose the most convenient one and began to shop there regularly every week.
After she had visited the store several times, the cashier began to recognize her and to smile and say, “Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” whenever she came to pay for the things she had bought.
At first Mrs. Green didn’t mind this, but after a few weeks, she said to the cashier one Saturday, “Excuse me, but my last name’s Green, not Brown.” The cashier smiled cheerfully and said, “I’m sorry.”
But the following week, she said to her, “Do you know, Mrs. Brown, there’s another lady who comes to our store every Saturday who looks just like you.”
Answer these questions:
1. Where did Mrs. Green go to live after her retirement?
2. Where did she buy her food?
3. How did the cashier greet her after a few weeks?
4. What did Mrs. Green say finally?
5. How did the cashier reply?
6. What did the cashier say to Mrs. Green the following week?

Anecdote 20
Helen was going to have her first baby very soon. One evening it was time to take her to the hospital, so her husband, Sam, helped her get into the car and drove her there.
A nurse took Helen to her room and told Sam that he could go home and she would call him when the baby arrived, but Sam said he would rather wait at the hospital. The nurse smiled and said, “There’s a waiting room at the end of the hall.”
Sam was walking anxiously up and down in the corridor at about midnight when the nurse came out of his wife’s room and said, with a happy smile, “Which would you have preferred, a boy or a girl?”
“A girl,” answered the husband. “I have an older sister, and she was always very kind to me when I was a child.”
“Well,” said the nurse, “It’s a boy this time.”
“That’s all right,” answered Sam cheerfully. “That was my second choice.”
Answer these questions:
Why did Sam take Helen to the hospital?
What did a nurse tell Sam?
What did Sam say to her?
What was Sam doing at about midnight?
What did the nurse ask him?
Why would he have preferred a girl?
What did the nurse say then?
And what did Sam answer?

Anecdote 21
It is often very difficult these days to find someone to come and fix your television set, or your washing machine, or any other household appliance if it breaks. Everybody wants to sell you new products, but nobody wants to fix them when they stop working.
One day Mrs. Harris discovered that her bathroom faucet was leaking, so she phoned her plumber. Three days later, he arrived.
Mrs. Harris was unhappy about the delay, which had caused her a lot of trouble.
“Well, you’ve finally arrived!” she said to the plumber. “I called you three days ago.”
The plumber was not at all disturbed by this. He simply took a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at it.
“Three days ago?” he said. “That was the 21st, wasn’t it? Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve come to the wrong place. I was looking for Mrs. Smith’s house, not yours. She phoned me on the 20th.”
Answer these questions:
1. What often happens these days when someone wants something fixed?
2. Why does this happen?
3. Why did Mrs. Harris phone her plumber?
4. How long did he take to come?
5. What did Mrs. Harris say to him?
6. What did the plumber do when he heard this?
7. And what did he say to Mrs. Harris?

Anecdote 22
A certain old gentleman was very unhappy about modern education, and thought that young people nowadays were not being taught the importance of knowing the difference between right and wrong.
One day he was taking a walk in the park near his home when he saw some young boys standing around a small cat. The old gentleman went up to the boys and asked them what was happening. One of the boys said to him, “We’re having a contest. We’re telling lies, and the one who tells the biggest one gets to keep the cat.”
The old gentleman thought that this was a good opportunity to teach the boys a useful lesson, so he said to them, “I’ve never told a lie in my life.” All at once there was a great shout from all the boys, and they said, “You’ve won! You can take the cat!”
Answer these questions: 1
How did the old gentleman feel about modern education?
What did he think young people should be taught?
What did he see in the park one day?
What did one of the boys tell the old gentleman?
What did the old gentleman think about this?
What did he say to the boys?
And what did they answer?

Anecdote 23
One day, when Mr. Smith came home from work, he found his wife very annoyed about something. Mr. Smith always thought that he was more sensible than his wife, so he started to give her a lecture on the importance of always remaining calm.
Finally he said, “It’s a waste of your strength to get excited about small things. Train yourself to be patient, like me. Now, look at the fly that has just landed on my nose. Am I getting excited or annoyed? Am I swearing or waving my arms around?
No, I’m not. I’m perfectly calm.”
Just as he had said this, Mr. Smith started shouting. He jumped up and began to wave his arms around wildly and swear terribly. He couldn’t speak for some time, but at last he was able to tell his wife: the thing on his nose hadn’t been a fly, it had been a bee.
Answer these questions:
1. What did Mr. Smith find when he came back from work one day?
2. What did he think about himself?
3. What did he do as a result?
4. What did he say to his wife?
5. What did Mr. Smith do then?
6. Why did he do this?

Anecdote 24
Two businessmen were invited to dinner at the home of a college professor. One of the men did not have much education and was worried that he might make a fool of himself, but his friend said, “Don’t worry. Just do what I do, and don’t talk about
anything that you don’t really understand.”
The first man managed to get through the dinner successfully, but by the end of the evening he had had a lot to drink, and began to get careless.
A guest asked him whether he liked Shakespeare, and he answered confidently, “It’s very pleasant, but I prefer scotch.”
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, and soon people began to leave.
When the two friends were out of the house, the second man said to his friend, “You certainly made a fool of yourself making that silly remark about scotch.”
“What do you mean?” asked the other man. “What was wrong with it?”
“Everybody knows that Shakespeare isn’t a drink,” his friend replied. “It’s a kind of cheese.”
Answer these questions:
1. Where were the two businessmen invited?
2. Why was one of them worried?
3. What happened to the businessman by the end of the evening?
4. What did a guest ask him?
5. What did he answer?
6. What did his friend say to him after they had left?
7. What was his friend’s opinion on the subject?
8. Who was Shakespeare really?

Anecdote 25
Senior citizens are permitted to travel cheaply on a bus if they have a special card. Women may get the card when they are sixty.
Mrs. Matthews lived in the country but she went into town once a week to buy food and other things for the house, and she usually went by bus. She always had to pay the full price for her ride.
Then she reached the age of sixty and got her senior citizen’s card, but when she used it for the first time on the bus, it made her feel very old.
The bus driver had often seen her traveling on the bus before, and he noticed that she was feeling unhappy, so after she had paid her money, he winked at her and whispered, “Don’t forget to give your mother’s card back to her when you see her again.” Mrs. Matthews was very happy when she heard this.
Answer these questions:
1. What are senior citizens allowed to do?
2. Where did Mrs. Matthews go once a week?
3. How did she travel?
4. How much did she have to pay for the bus ride before she was sixty?
5. What happened when Mrs. Matthews got her special card?
6. What did the bus driver say to her?
7. Why did he say this?
8. How did Mrs. Matthews feel about this?

Anecdote 26
Mr. Thompson did not learn to drive a car until he was almost thirty, because he was a very nervous person who always had the convenience of someone else to drive him—first his mother and then his wife. But at last he decided to take lessons, and managed to pass his driving test on the second attempt, a though he still wasn’t very good at parking.
A week later he drove into town by himself and was trying to park between two other cars when he damaged one of them slightly.
When he wrote to the insurance company about the accident, they sent him a form to fill in describing it, and one of the questions on the form was, “How could the driver of the other car have prevented the accident from happening?”
Mr. Thompson thought for a minute and then wrote, “He could have parked his car on another street.”
Answer these questions:
1. Why didn’t Mr. Thompson learn to drive sooner?
2. When did he pass his driving test?
3. How did he have an accident?
4. Who did he write to then?
5. What did they do?
6. What was one of the questions Mr. Thompson had to answer?
7. How did he answer the question?

Anecdote 27
One evening Mrs. Alda asked her husband to take her to a very expensive restaurant in the city, because a lot of movie stars and other famous people ate there, and she was curious to see some of them.
Soon after Mr. and Mrs. Alda had ordered their meal, a very attractive man and woman came into the restaurant and sat down at a table nearby. They were beautifully dressed, and Mrs.
Alda said to her husband, “Look at those people, George! I’m sure I’ve seen their pictures somewhere.”
The man and woman gave their order to the waiter, and when he brought Mr. and Mrs. Alda their soup, Mrs. Alda said to him, “Who are those people? Do you know them?”
“Oh, they’re nobody famous,” he answered at once.
“Really?” Mrs. Alda asked with surprise. “How do you know that?”
“Because they asked me who you were,” he answered.
Answer these questions:
1. Why did Mrs. Alda want to go to the expensive restaurant?
2. Who came into the restaurant after Mr. and Mrs. Alda?
3. What did they look like?
4. What did Mrs. Alda say to her husband?
5. What did she ask the waiter?
6. What did the waiter answer?
7. What did Mrs. Alda say then?
8. What did the waiter tell her?

Anecdote 28
An artist who did not have much money, but was a very kind man, was coming home by train one day. He gave his last few coins to a beggar, but then he saw another one, and forgot that he did not have any money. He asked the man if he would like to have lunch with him, and the beggar accepted, so they went into a small restaurant and had a good meal.
At the end, the artist could not pay the bill, of course, so the beggar had to do so.
The artist was very unhappy about this, so he said to the beggar, “Come home with me in a taxi, my friend, and I’ll give you back the money for lunch.”
“Oh, no!” the beggar answered quickly. “I had to pay for your lunch, but I’m not going to pay for your taxi home too!”
Answer these questions:
1. What kind of man was the artist?
2. What had he forgotten about?
3. What did he ask the beggar to do?
4. Where did they go after that?
5. What happened at the end of the meal?
6. What did the artist say then?
7. What did the beggar answer?

Anecdote 29

The students at a certain American university used to play tricks on each other when one of them was going to receive his first visit from a new girlfriend.
Usually the trick was to take all the furniture out of the student’s room, so that when his girlfriend arrived, there was nothing to sit on.
Ted Jones was a country boy who had never left his birthplace until his admission to the university. When he arrived there for the first time and heard about this behavior, he disliked it and announced to the other students, “I’m determined that that’s not going to happen to me.
I’m going to lock my door.” His confident words were greeted with laughter by the other students.
When Ted brought his girlfriend to his room for the first time, he was astonished to find that all the furniture was there—but the door of his room was gone.
Answer these questions:
When did the students play tricks on each other?
What was the usual trick?
What kind of person was Ted Jones?
What did he think of the students’ tricks?
What did he say very confidently?
How did the other students answer?
What happened when Ted brought his girlfriend to his room?

Anecdote 30
George and Carol were medical students at the same college and, like many other college students, they enjoyed playing jokes on
people. Both of them smoked, but they knew that their professors were strongly against it, because smoking was dangerous to one’s health. One day they decided to play a joke on their professor.
At one of their medical lectures there was always a skeleton in the room so that the professor could show the students the different bones in the human body.
That afternoon, Carol and George put a cigarette in the mouth of the skeleton that was to be used for their next lecture.
When the professor came in, he began talking and then noticed the cigarette. He went up to the skeleton, took the cigarette out of its mouth and said,
“You really should give them up, old boy. Look what they’re doing to you!”
Answer these questions:
1. What were George and Carol studying?
2. What did they both enjoy?
3. What did their professors think about smoking?
4. What was in one of the lecture rooms?
5. Why was it there?
6. What did Carol and George do one afternoon?
7. What did the professor do when he noticed this?
8. And what did he say?