第二篇 Coal Mining
England was a good place for coal. Near the seacoast coal was often washed out of the ground onto the beaches. Women and children gathered it to heat homes cheaply. But the noble class people once refused to allow cooking over coal fires. They believed coal smoke was poisonous.
The Dutch (荷蘭人) too were mining coal in 1113. But as they dug their mines deeper and deeper, the open flames of oil lamps often caused the gases in the mines to explode. It was not until 1815 that a safety lamp was invented. Sir Humphrey Davy invented a lamp inside a covering. The covering cooled the gases enough to prevent them from exploding. And the flame inside the lamp burned blue when gas was present. This is still a valuable tool combining lighting with safety.
Then came a new important development. James Watt’s steam engine gave human beings more power than anyone had ever before imagined. By 1760 coal was being used in the steam engine and the demand for coal increased. But human labor was still the only power for mining. More workers were needed. Sick men, old men, and children were all sent to work in the mines. Coal! More coal! Work them all to death, but produce the coal!
Today, mechanical devices have replaced much of the hard muscle work in the miner’s job. Huge machines cut into rock where coal is to be found. The machines break the coal and load it into cars or onto conveyor beles (傳送帶). Huge machines lift the coal , at 12,000 pounds a minute, onto conveyor beles which carry the coal several miles. To miners a hundred years ago, all this would have seemed like a kind of miner’s heaven!
26. It was easy for women and children to gather coal in England because _________.
○A. they lived near the coal mine
○B(yǎng). coal was washed onto the ground
○C. rich people refused to use coal
○D. England was rich in coal
27. How can miners know whether there is the danger of gas explosion or not?
○A. From the smell of gases around them.
○B(yǎng). From the pressure of gases inside the mine.
○C. From the color of the flame inside the lamp.
○D. From the height of the flame inside the lamp.
28. According to the passage, the invention of the steam engine led to _______.
○A. an increasing demand for coal
○B(yǎng). less human labor for mining
○C. much more work for people to do
○D. the use of mechanical devices in mining.
29. Which is the best interpretation of ’work them to death, but produce the coal’ in the 3rd paragraph?
○A. Coal had to be produced even if many miners would die of working overtime.
○B(yǎng). Miners were not afraid of death in order to produce enough coal.
○C. Miners were made to work till they died.
○D. Every miner worked to death to produce the coal.
30. The last paragraph of this passage says that _________.
○A. human labor is no longer needed in coal mining
○B(yǎng). new instruments have greatly improved coal production
○C. modern machines have made miners lose their jobs
○D. coal mines today have become miners’ paradise
第四部分 概括大意 (20分)
給下面一篇文章的每一段概括大意。每一段的主題用一個或幾個單詞表示，空出的詞已給出了第一個字母，請把其余字母補(bǔ)全。
31. R of Women
Women’s rights are guarantees of political, social, and economic equality for women in a society that traditionally gives more power and freedom to men. Among these rights are control of property, equality of opportunity in education and employment, right of voting, and freedom of marriage. Today, complete political, economic, and social equality with men remains to be achieved.
32. Traditional Sta of Women
Male control was obvious from the time of the earliest written historical records, probable as a result of men’s role in hunting and warfare. The belief that women were naturally weaker and inferior to men was also found in god-centered religions. Therefore, in most traditional societies, women generally were at a disadvantage. A woman had no legal control over her person, her own land and money, or her children.
33. S of Women’s Rights Movement
The Age of Enlightenment (啟蒙時期) and the Industrial Revolution, which caused economic and social progress, provided a favorable climate for the rise of women’s rights movement in the late 18th and the 19th century. In 1848 more than 100 persons held the first women’s rights convention in New York, and the feminists (女權(quán)主義者) demanded equal rights, including the vote.
34. Dev
In the late 1960s women made up about 40 percent of the work force in England, France, Germany, and the Untied States. This figure rose to more than 50 percent by the mid-1980s. A commission under the President was established in 1960 to consider equal opportunities for women. Acts of Congress entitled them to equality in education, employment, and legal rights. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act, initially intended only for black, was extended to women.
35. Go
The objectives of the women’s movement included equal pay for equal work, federal support for day-care centres, recognition of lesbian (女同性戀者) rights, making abortion (墮胎) legal, and the focus of serious attention on the problems of forced sex relations, wife and child beating, and discrimination against older and minority women.
England was a good place for coal. Near the seacoast coal was often washed out of the ground onto the beaches. Women and children gathered it to heat homes cheaply. But the noble class people once refused to allow cooking over coal fires. They believed coal smoke was poisonous.
The Dutch (荷蘭人) too were mining coal in 1113. But as they dug their mines deeper and deeper, the open flames of oil lamps often caused the gases in the mines to explode. It was not until 1815 that a safety lamp was invented. Sir Humphrey Davy invented a lamp inside a covering. The covering cooled the gases enough to prevent them from exploding. And the flame inside the lamp burned blue when gas was present. This is still a valuable tool combining lighting with safety.
Then came a new important development. James Watt’s steam engine gave human beings more power than anyone had ever before imagined. By 1760 coal was being used in the steam engine and the demand for coal increased. But human labor was still the only power for mining. More workers were needed. Sick men, old men, and children were all sent to work in the mines. Coal! More coal! Work them all to death, but produce the coal!
Today, mechanical devices have replaced much of the hard muscle work in the miner’s job. Huge machines cut into rock where coal is to be found. The machines break the coal and load it into cars or onto conveyor beles (傳送帶). Huge machines lift the coal , at 12,000 pounds a minute, onto conveyor beles which carry the coal several miles. To miners a hundred years ago, all this would have seemed like a kind of miner’s heaven!
26. It was easy for women and children to gather coal in England because _________.
○A. they lived near the coal mine
○B(yǎng). coal was washed onto the ground
○C. rich people refused to use coal
○D. England was rich in coal
27. How can miners know whether there is the danger of gas explosion or not?
○A. From the smell of gases around them.
○B(yǎng). From the pressure of gases inside the mine.
○C. From the color of the flame inside the lamp.
○D. From the height of the flame inside the lamp.
28. According to the passage, the invention of the steam engine led to _______.
○A. an increasing demand for coal
○B(yǎng). less human labor for mining
○C. much more work for people to do
○D. the use of mechanical devices in mining.
29. Which is the best interpretation of ’work them to death, but produce the coal’ in the 3rd paragraph?
○A. Coal had to be produced even if many miners would die of working overtime.
○B(yǎng). Miners were not afraid of death in order to produce enough coal.
○C. Miners were made to work till they died.
○D. Every miner worked to death to produce the coal.
30. The last paragraph of this passage says that _________.
○A. human labor is no longer needed in coal mining
○B(yǎng). new instruments have greatly improved coal production
○C. modern machines have made miners lose their jobs
○D. coal mines today have become miners’ paradise
第四部分 概括大意 (20分)
給下面一篇文章的每一段概括大意。每一段的主題用一個或幾個單詞表示，空出的詞已給出了第一個字母，請把其余字母補(bǔ)全。
31. R of Women
Women’s rights are guarantees of political, social, and economic equality for women in a society that traditionally gives more power and freedom to men. Among these rights are control of property, equality of opportunity in education and employment, right of voting, and freedom of marriage. Today, complete political, economic, and social equality with men remains to be achieved.
32. Traditional Sta of Women
Male control was obvious from the time of the earliest written historical records, probable as a result of men’s role in hunting and warfare. The belief that women were naturally weaker and inferior to men was also found in god-centered religions. Therefore, in most traditional societies, women generally were at a disadvantage. A woman had no legal control over her person, her own land and money, or her children.
33. S of Women’s Rights Movement
The Age of Enlightenment (啟蒙時期) and the Industrial Revolution, which caused economic and social progress, provided a favorable climate for the rise of women’s rights movement in the late 18th and the 19th century. In 1848 more than 100 persons held the first women’s rights convention in New York, and the feminists (女權(quán)主義者) demanded equal rights, including the vote.
34. Dev
In the late 1960s women made up about 40 percent of the work force in England, France, Germany, and the Untied States. This figure rose to more than 50 percent by the mid-1980s. A commission under the President was established in 1960 to consider equal opportunities for women. Acts of Congress entitled them to equality in education, employment, and legal rights. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act, initially intended only for black, was extended to women.
35. Go
The objectives of the women’s movement included equal pay for equal work, federal support for day-care centres, recognition of lesbian (女同性戀者) rights, making abortion (墮胎) legal, and the focus of serious attention on the problems of forced sex relations, wife and child beating, and discrimination against older and minority women.