How to sound theatrical... ?

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Today during Chinese lessons (I'm from Hong Kong), we had to read in turns a passage from the textbook. So when it was my turn, I really tried my best, but I made lots of inappropriate pauses and didn't sound involved enough I guess. So after I finished reading, she asked the whole class what grade I would get in the public examination for Chinese oral. She said I would get a '2' at most, which is equivalent to an E. It was really humiliating though no one seemed to notice it.

The teacher taught us that to read with 'feelings' you have to exaggerate your tone by an increase of 30%, which I don't understand and am not capable of doing.

What should I do??? >< The Chinese Oral exam in the public examination includes two parts, reading a passage and having a group discussion (which would be even more horrifying), if I don't do well in the oral part it would drag the average down, which could potentially ruin my chances of ever getting a C or above in Chinese.

How do you sound more involved, more 'emotional'? Is there a trick to this? How do you sound more theatrical?

Can you rehearse your sounds or voice tones maybe? If you have a tape recorder or camera, you can record yourself. Otherwise, see if you can find anything where you can listen to yourself reading out loud without another person butting in ( if possible). If and when you start hearing yourself, work on what parts of tone and pitches can be changed.

If you pause because of reading issues, then perhaps you can practice reading. I know some people that don't know how to read the same words as well as others, and they seem more flat tones and do pause alot. It really happens because they don't recognise the words in writing as well as when they say it.

Sort of like this.. "It's... O.... k... al..lot.. . . of .. people..." Seems like forever. The pausing really annoys alot of people, because they don't understand. Still, it's no excuse for the teacher to act cruel though. Honestly, to me it looks a little like a reading issue rather than language failure.