问答题Directions:There is one passage in this part. The passage
is .followed by some questions.
The Wright Brothers
Wilbur and Orville Wright were two brothers from the heartland of America with a
vision as sweeping as the sky and a practicality as down-to-earth as the Wright
Cycle Co, the bicycle business they founded in Dayton, Ohio, in 1592. But while
there were countless bicycle shops in turn-of-the century America, in only one
were wings bring built as well as wheels. When the Wright brothers finally
realized their vision of powered human flight in 1903, they made the world a
forever smaller place. I've been to Kitty Hawk, N. C, and seen where the
brothers imagined the future, and then literally flew across its high frontier.
It was an inspiration to be there, and to soak up the amazing perseverance and
creativity of these two pioneers. The Wright brothers had been
fascinated by the idea of flight from an early age. In 1875 their father, a
bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, gave them a flying toy
made of cork and bamboo. It had a paper body and was powered by rubber bands.
The young boys soon broke the fragile toy, but the memory of its faltering
flight across their living room stayed with them. By the mid-1890s Wilbur was
reading every book and paper he could find on the still earth-bound science of
human flight. And four years before they made history at Kitty Hawk, the
brothers built their first, scaled-down flying machine—a pilotless "kite" with a
5-ft. wingspan, and made of wood, wire and cloth. Based on that experiment,
Wilbur became convinced that he could build an aircraft that would be "capable
of sustaining a man. " When published aeronautical data turned
out to be unreliable, the Wright brothers built their own wind tunnel to test
airfoils and measure empirically how to lift a flying machine into the sky. They
were the first to discover that a long narrow wing shape was the ideal
architecture of flight. They figured out how to move the vehicle freely, not
just across land, but up and down on a cushion of air. They built a forward
elevator to control the pitch of their craft as it nosed up and down. They
fashioned a pair of twin rudders in back to control its tendency to yawn from
side to side. They devised a pulley system that warped the shape of wings in
midflight to turn the plane and to stop it from rolling laterally in air.
Recognizing that a propeller isn't like a ship's screw, but becomes, in effect,
a rotating wing, they used the data from their wind-tunnel experiments to design
the first effective airplane props—a pair of 8-ft, propellers, carved out of
laminated spruce, that turned in opposite directions to offset the twisting
effect on the machine's structure. And when they discovered that a light-weight
gas-powered engine did not exist, they decided to design and build their own. It
produced 12 horsepower and weighed only 152 lbs. The genius of
Leonardo da Vinci imagined a flying machine, but it took the methodical
application of science by these two American bicycle mechanics to create it. The
unmanned gliders spawned by their first efforts flew erratically and were at the
mercy of any strong gust of wind. But with help from their wind-tunnel, the
brothers amassed more data on wing design than anyone before them, compiling
tables of computations that are still valid today. And with guidance from this
scientific study, they developed the powered 1903 Flyer, a skeletal flying
machine of spruce, ash and muslin, with an unmanned weight of just over 600
Ibs. On DeC. 17,1903, with Orville at the controls, the Flyer
lifted off shakily from Kitty Hawk and flew 120 ft.—little more than half the
wingspan of a Boeing 747-400. That 12-seC. flight changed the world, lifting it
to new heights of freedom and giving mankind access to places it had never
dreamed of reaching. Although the Wright brother's feat was to transform life in
the 20th century, the next day only four newspapers in the U. S. carried news of
their achievement—news that was widely dismissed as exaggerated.
The Wright brothers gave us a tool, but it was up to individuals and
nations to put it to use. The airplane revolutionized both peace and war. It
brought families together: once, when a Chile or other close relatives left the
old country for America, family and friends mourned for someone they would never
see again. Today, the grandchild of that immigrant can return again and again
across a vast ocean in just half a turn of the clock. But the airplane also
helped tear families apart, by making international warfare an effortless
reality. Now, on the eve of another century, who knows where
the next Wright brothers will be found, in what grade of school they're
studying, or in what garage they're inventing the next Flyer of the information
age. Our mission is to make sure that wherever they are, they have the chance to
run their own course, to persevere and follow their own inspiration. We have to
understand that engineering breakthroughs are not just mechanical or
scientific—they are liberating forces that can continually improve people's
lives. Who would have thought, as the 20th century opened, that one of its
greatest contributions would come from two obscure, fresh-faced young Americans
who pursued the utmost bounds of human thought and gave us all, for the first
time, the power literally to sail beyond the sunset. The 20th
century has been the American Century in large part because of great inventors
such as the Wright brothers. May we follow their flight paths and blaze our own
in the 21st century.
问答题
What great difficulties did the Wright Brothers overcome while building an aircraft that would be "capable of sustaining a man"?
【正确答案】本题答案应定位在文章第三段。
①The published aeronautical data turned out to be unreliable.
⑦How to move the vehicle freely, not lust across land, but up and down on a cushion of air.
③A propeller isn't like a ship's screw, but becomes a rotating wing.
④A light-weight gas-powered engine did not exist.
【答案解析】
问答题
What quality of the Wright Brothers impresses you most? Illustrate it briefly with an example.
问答题
What's the purpose of this article? What is the tone of the passage?
【正确答案】Purpose:
①Inform people of the processing of inventing the airplane by the Wright brothers.
②Encourage people to make more innovations.
Tone:
Approving, Admiring, Encouraging