问答题Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN
COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. A hundred years after the Wright brothers' triumph at
Kitty Hawk, the European consortium Airbus announced a milestone of its
own—surpassing the American aviation giant Boeing in the number of airliners
delivered in 2003. Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is now beating its U.S.
rival at its own game of size and distance: The 555- passenger, long-range A380,
bigger than any Boeing, is already in production. Airbus's
success should be no surprise. American and France may be sparring
diplomatically, but technologically the two nations have had a long love affair.
Each has developed outstanding innovations, and each has assiduously exploited
the other's ideas. Even the current U.S. military-industrial
hegemony has some decidedly French roots. Sylvanus Thayer graduated from West
Point in 1808, spent two years in Europe, and was utterly taken with French
military thought and training. When he became superintendent in 1817, Thayer
modeled the academy's demanding technical curriculum and ethic of honor and
service after France's Ecole Polytechnique. Classics on sieges and
fortifications by Louis XIV's engineering genius, Marshal Sebastien Le Prestre
de Vauban, were standard texts; studying French was de rigueur.
The French connection persisted into the Civil War. The Minie bullet that made
that conflict's rifle-muskets three times as deadly as earlier weapons was
originally developed by French officers. In 1885, the French ordnance engineer
Paul Vieille introduced smokeless powder. French artillerymen invented the
revolutionary hydropneumatic recoil that allows cannons to remain murderously
locked on target for shot after shot. And where would the Navy SEALs be without
scuba gear, developed in 1943 on the French Riviera by Emile Gagnan and a
soon-to-be famous French officer, Jacques Cousteau? Even
interchangeable parts, the foundation of America's mass production," have French
roots. The historian of science Ken Alder has shown that a French gunsmith was
using such a system as early as the 1720s. By the 1780s, French military
officials were introducing uniform jigs and fixtures at arms factories to
enforce strict tolerances and ensure deadlier firearms and ordnance. Thomas
Jefferson praised the system, and while it fell into disuse in France in the
19th century, U.S. armories embraced it. Related methods became known in
Europe as the American System and, later, as Fordism. Speaking
of Ford, what could be more American than the automobile? Yet a Frenchman built
the first self-propelled vehicle, powered by steam, more than 200 years ago. A
hundred years later the French company Panhard introduced the basic architecture
that automobiles have followed ever since. Henry Ford's triumphs depended
not just on standardization but on use of strong, rust-resistant vanadium steel,
which had impressed him in the wreck of a French racing car.
Long before Airbus, the French produced superlative aeronautical engineers. They
were the first Europeans to acclaim the Wrights' breakthroughs in aircraft
control, and they made key improvements. French inventors, especially Louis
Bleriot and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, created the monoplane as we know it, which
is why we still speak of fuselages and ailerons. Esnault-Pelterie was also the
father of the joystick. Flag-waving Americans may reply that
many of France's own technological triumphs rely on ideas born here. French
high-speed trains lead the world today, but as the railroad historian Mark
Reutter has shown, the Budd Co. of Philadelphia was already building
lightweight, articulated streamliners in the 1930s. And France now gets 75
percent of its electricity from America's great hope of 50 years ago, nuclear
power. Social legislation also helps make France a showplace of other U.S.
innovations, vending machines (limited retailing hours) and mass-produced
antibiotics (generous health benefits). In fact, the French
have so often jettisoned their heritage in favor of novel technology that it
sometimes takes Americans to defend it. The Cornell University scholar Steven
Kaplan has revived the art of French bread making, and Mother Noella Marcellino,
an American Benedictine nun with a Ph. D. in microbiology, has been saving the
classic cheese of France from pasteurization—a process invented by the Frenchman
Louis Pasteur. It's pointless to debate who owes more to whom,
and far more interesting to rejoice in cross-appropriation. Airbus has many U.S.
suppliers, and Boeing will jump ahead sooner or later in the endless
technological leapfrog. The last word may belong to the sage perhaps Oscar
Wilde—who said, "Talents imitate; geniuses steal. "
问答题
Why does the author introduce the Wright brothers and the European Airbus at the beginning of the passage?
【正确答案】Wright brothers are pioneers in aviation technology and their first success at Kitty Hawk led to the coming of aviation age. And European Airbus's success "beat" U.S. rivals in aircraft production in size and distance. The examples indicate the cooperation and competition between France and America in aviation technology.
问答题
What does the author mean by saying that "technologically the two nations [America and France] have had a long love affair" (para. 2)? Give some examples.
【正确答案】The author used the metaphor to describe the relationship between the two countries over the past centuries in technological development. Each country has made remarkable innovations and each has learned much from the other in technological progress in a number of fields.
【答案解析】[解析] 根据上下文正确理解句子和作出归纳的能力，主要信息见第二段，具体事例从第三至八段有概要介绍。作者用a long love affair的比喻形容美国和法国在技术发明创造方面的互相学习与竞争的过程。
问答题
Paraphrase the sentence "the French have so often jettisoned their heritage in favor of novel technology that it sometimes takes Americans to defend it" (para. 9).
【正确答案】It means that there are such cases that when the French have already abandoned their own invention or technology to adopt new technology, the Americans are making efforts to defend or continue to use the technology discarded by the French, which shows an active American attitude towards the French "heritage".