【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[听力原文] Being amused is a condition we're all familiar with, but what exactly is a sense of humor? Well, it's something very personal, and yet we communicate it to others by laughing. Laughter is a universal human expression. All normal human beings can laugh. Children as young as one month old will laugh. People often laugh together, and people laugh louder and more frequently when other people around them are also laughing. Every comedian knows this, and research has confirmed it. Physically, laughter is an involuntary, tensing of the chest muscles, followed by a rapid inhalation and exhalation of breath—a mechanism that releases tension. For most people, a good laugh is welcome—and worth looking for—because it brings pleasure and relief. Human adults everywhere in the world enjoy making their children laugh. Adults make playful attacks on their children, tickling, teasing, and even pretending to bite them. Adults will throw small children up in the air and catch them again. This causes the child to experience mild stress, but in a secure setting because the stress is carefully controlled by the parent. And when the child laughs, it's a signal that he or she has successfully dealt with mild feelings of insecurity. This teaches the child about the shocks and fears that are part of human life, and which every human eventually has to deal with. This element of shock in an otherwise safe situation is a universal characteristic of situations where people laugh. Our sense of humor allows us to tell stories about situations we haven't experienced firsthand. We call these little stories 'jokes.' We tell jokes to show our frustration with the society we live in, especially its ...well, its rules. Social rules and conventions provide us with a range of situations that we can turn into humor. And the things we joke about—the conventions and rules we live by—are sort of tense areas in our society, they're areas where we can see the need for change. Humor gives us the power to think about changing the rules. Making jokes and laughing are safe ways to change our social rules and conventions. Therefore, comedians—whether they know it or not—are agents of social change. According to the professor, why do most people welcome laughter? [考点] 细节题。 录音中提到“...a mechanism that releases tension. For most people, a good laugh is welcome—and worth looking for—because it brings pleasure and relief”，由此可知，人们喜欢笑声是因为它可以带来欢乐，使人放松，故答案为B项。

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[听力原文] Which of the following is a universal characteristic of situations where people laugh? [考点] 细节题。 录音中提到“This element of shock in an otherwise safe situation is a universal characteristic of situations where people laugh”，因此使人们笑的环境的特点是在安全的情景下感觉到吃惊或有压力。

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[听力原文] Why does the professor talk about social rules and conventions? [考点] 推断题。 录音中提到“Social rules and conventions provide us with a range of situations that we can turn into humor”，也就是说社会规则和习俗提供了一系列的情景，我们可以将其转化为幽默，同时还提到“Humor gives us the power to think about changing the rules”，幽默给予我们力量思考改变这些规则。由此可知C项正确。