全国英语专业八级考试阅读理解加分训练

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全国英语专业八级考试阅读理解加分训练

　　What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America -- breakthroughs such as the telegraph, the steamboat and the weaving machine?

　　Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country’s excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal, “spatial” thinking about things technological.

　　Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.

　　Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, “With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman.”

　　A further stimulus to invention came from the “premium” system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it. This approach, originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives.

　　In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to these fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technological advance.

　　Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinking required in mechanical technology. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, “A technologist thinks about objects that cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process... The designer and the inventor... are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist.”

　　This nonverbal “spatial” thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, “The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea.”

　　When all these shaping forces -- schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking -- interacted with one another on the rich U.S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic, emulation. Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant a friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.

　　习题

　　1. According to the author, the great outburst of major inventions in early America was in a large part due to ________.

　　[A] elementary schools

　　[B] enthusiastic workers

　　[C] the attractive premium system

　　[D] a special way of thinking

　　2. It is implied that adaptiveness and inventiveness of the early American mechanics ________.

　　[A] benefited a lot from their mathematical knowledge

　　[B] shed light on disciplined school management

　　[C] was brought about by privileged home training

　　[D] owed a lot to the technological development

　　3. A technologist can be compared to an artist because ________.

　　[A] they are both winners of awards

　　[B] they are both experts in spatial thinking

　　[C] they both abandon verbal description

　　[D] they both use various instruments

　　4. The best title for this passage might be ________.

　　[A] Inventive Mind

　　[B] Effective Schooling

　　[B] Ways of Thinking

　　[D] Outpouring of Inventions

　　全文翻译

　　在早期美国，像电报、汽船和织布机这样重大的发明突破纷涌而出，其原因何在?

　　在诸多形成因素中，我想特别指出如下因素：这个国家优异的小学教育;欢迎新技术的劳动大军;对发明者进行奖励的做法;尤其是美国人在处理技术**物时所具有的非语言的空间思维才能。

　　为什么要提小学教育?正是因为有了这些学校，我们的早期技工才普遍能读会写，并精通算术及部分几何和三角，这种情况在新英格兰和大西洋中部各州尤为可见。

　　目光敏锐的外国观察家把美国人的适应能力和创新能力与这种教育优势联系起来。正如1853年访美的一个英国访问团成员所报道的那样，“由于有了学校彻底训练过的头脑，美国小伙子迅速地成为技术熟练的工人。”

　　推动发明的另一刺激因素来自“奖赏”制度，它产生于我们的专利制度之前，且多年来与后者一同实施。这种做法起源于国外，做法是为发明者颁发奖章、奖金和其他奖励。

　　在美国，大量奖励新发明的奖品在乡村集市和大城市的.工业博览会上颁发。美国人纷纷涌向这些集市和博览会去欣赏新机器，因而更加坚信技术进步会造福人类。

　　有了这种对技术革新的乐观态度，美国工人很快便习惯了机械技术需要的那种特别的非语言的思维方式。(长难句④)正如尤金弗格森曾指出的：“技术人员思考那些不能被简化为用明确的语言进行描述的物体;这些物体在他的头脑中以视觉性的、非语言性的方式被处理加工…设计者和发明者…能把那些尚不存在的机械在头脑中组装和操作。”

　　这种非语言的空间思维方式与绘画和写作一样具有创意。罗伯特法欧曾写道：“技术人员坐在杠杆、螺钉、楔子、轮子等中间，如同一位诗人处在词汇之中，应该把它们看做是自己思想的一种表达，每一个新的组合都能传达一个新的意念。”

　　当所有这些成因——学校、开放的态度、奖赏制度及空间思维天赋在富饶的美国大陆上相互作用时，便造就了美国人的特点——竞争。今天这个词仅表示“模仿”(取其仿效之意)，而在早期美国，它却意味着为名誉和优秀而进行友好、竞争的拼搏。

　　重点句

　　该句意义：

　　该句使用了一个多内容的并列结构，其中关系相对等的成分使用了“; ”进行连接。在考研写作中，当各位同学们要从众多的原因中罗列几个，并且着重点出一个时，可以仿照该句用分号表示并列，用短语突出其中之一。

　　该句语法：

　　(1)介词短语作状语：Among the many shaping factors

　　(2)定语从句：that welcomed the new technology

　　(3)介词短语作后置定语：of giving premiums to inventors

　　答案DBBD

　　1.According to the author, the great outburst of major inventions in early America was in a large part due to .

　　1.根据作者的观点，促成美国早期发明创造热的主要原因是。