Many strange new means of transport
have been developed in our century, the strangest of them being perhaps the
hovercraft. In 1953, a former electronics engineer in his fifties, Christopher
Cockerell, who had turned to boat-building on the Norfolk Broads, suggested an
idea on which be had been working for many years to the British government and
industrial circles. It was the idea of supporting a craft on a "pad", or
cushion, of low-pressure air, ringed with a curtain of higher pressure air. Ever
since, people have had difficulty in deciding whether the craft should be ranged
among ships, planes, or land vehicles—for it is something in between a boat and
an aircraft. As a ship builder, Cockerell was trying to find a solution to the
problem of the wave resistance which wastes a good deal of a surface's power and
limits its speed. His answer was to lift the vessel out of the water by making
it ride on a cushion of air, no more than one or two feet thick. This is done by
a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft. It "flies",
therefore, but it cannot fly higher—its action depends on the surface, water or
ground, over which it rides.
单选题
Which of the following statements is true?
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 本题属判断正误题。从文章第二句中的“an idea on which he had been working for many years”便可找出答案。
单选题
The engineer's suggestion is that he build a craft ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 本题属细节题。文章中第三句中的“supporting a craft on a 'pad', or cushion, of low-pressure air”已提示答案。
单选题
The word "hovercraft" in line two means ______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 本题属词汇测试题。由文章中的“it is something in between a boat and an aircraft”可知，“hovercraft”是一个水陆两用的物体。
单选题
We may conclude from reading the passage that ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 本题属细节推理题。A项中的“high-pressure”错了，应是“low-pressure”；B项中的“as a plane”错了，它不是飞机；D项中的问题已经得到解决。