InMay1987theGoldenGateBridgehada50thbirthdayparty.Th...
問題詳情：
In May 1987 the Golden Gate Bridge had a 50th birthday party. The bridge was closed to motor traffic so people could enjoy a walk across it. Organizers expected perhaps 50,000 people to show up. Instead, as many as 800, 000 crowded the roads to the bridge. By the time 250,000 were on the bridge, engineers noticed something terrible：the roadway was flattening under what turned out to be the heaviest load it had ever been asked to carry. Worse, it was beginning to sway（晃動）. The authorities closed access to the bridge and tens of thousands of people made their way back to land. A disaster was avoided.
The story is one of scores in To Forgive Design：Understanding Failure, a book that is at once a love letter to engineering and a paean（讚歌）to its breakdowns. Its author, Dr. Henry Petroski, has long been writing about disasters. In this book, he includes the loss of the space shuttles（航天飛機）Challenger and Columbia, and the sinking of the Titanic.
Though he acknowledges that engineering works can fail because the person who thought them up or engineered them simply got things wrong, in this book Dr. Petroski widens his view to consider the larger context in which such failures occur. Sometimes devices fail because a good design is constructed with low quality materials incompetently applied. Or perhaps a design works so well it is adopted elsewhere again and again, with seemingly harmless improvements, until, suddenly, it does not work at all anymore.
Readers will encounter not only stories they have heard before, but some new stories and a moving discussion of the responsibility of the engineer to the public and the ways young engineers can be helped to grasp them.
"Success is success but that is all that it is," Dr. Petroski writes. It is failure that brings improvement.
8．What happened to the Golden Gate Bridge on its 50th birthday?
A．It carried more weight than it could.
B．It swayed violently in a strong wind
C．Its roadway was damaged by vehicles
D．Its access was blocked by many people.
9．Which of the following is Dr. Petroski's idea according to paragraph 3?
A．No design is well received everywhere
B．Construction is more important than design.
C．Not all disasters are caused by engineering design
D．Improvements on engineering works are necessary.
10．What does the last paragraph suggest?
A．Failure can lead to progress. B．Success results in overconfidence
C．Failure should be avoided. D．Success comes from joint efforts.
11．What is the text?
A．A news report B．A short story.
C．A book review D．A research article.
【回答】
8．A
9．C
10．A
11．C
【分析】
這是一篇議論文。主要講述了對彼得羅斯基博士的書《原諒設計：理解失敗》的評論，工程設計可能會因為某些原因帶來失敗，但失敗才能帶來進步。
8．細節理解題。根據文章第一段“In May 1987 the Golden Gate Bridge had a 50th birthday party. The bridge was closed to motor traffic so people could enjoy a walk across it. Organizers expected perhaps 50,000 people to show up. Instead, as many as 800, 000 crowded the roads to the bridge. By the time 250,000 were on the bridge, engineers noticed something terrible：the roadway was flattening under what turned out to be the heaviest load it had ever been asked to carry. Worse, it was beginning to sway”可以看出，1987年5月，金門大橋舉行了一個50歲生日聚會。這座橋禁止機動車通行，人們可以在橋上散步。組織者預計將有5萬人到場。相反，多達80萬人擠滿了通往大橋的道路。當25萬人在橋上時，工程師們注意到了一個可怕的現象：路面在被要求承載的最重荷載作用下變得平了。更糟的是，它開始晃動。因此可以看出，金門大橋50歲生日那天，它的重量超過了它的承受能力。故選A。
9．推理判斷題。根據文章第三段“Though he acknowledges that engineering works can fail because the person who thought them up or engineered them simply got things wrong, in this book Dr. Petroski widens his view to consider the larger context in which such failures occur. Sometimes devices fail because a good design is constructed with low quality materials incompetently applied. Or perhaps a design works so well it is adopted elsewhere again and again, with seemingly harmless improvements, until, suddenly, it does not work at all anymore.”可知，雖然他承認工程設計可能會因為那些想出或設計它們的人只是把事情弄錯了失敗，但在這本書中，彼得羅斯基博士拓寬了他的視野，考慮了這種失敗發生的更大背景。有時，由於一個好的設計是用不合格的低質量材料建造的，所以裝置會失敗。或者，一個設計工作得如此好，以至於在其他地方一次又一次地被採用，用似乎是無害的改進，直到突然間，它完全不起作用了。因此可以推測出，根據第三段，不是所有的災難都是由工程設計引起的是彼得羅斯基博士的想法。故選C。
10．細節理解題。根據文章最後一段的 “It is failure that brings improvement.”可知，失敗才能帶來進步。因此可以看出，A項與此相呼應，即失敗能帶來進步，故選A。
11．推理判斷題。根據文章第二段“The story is one of scores in To Forgive Design：Understanding Failure, a book that is at once a love letter to engineering and a paean（讚歌）to its breakdowns.”可知，這個故事是《原諒設計：理解失敗》一書中的一個，這本書既是對工程的一封情書，也是對其崩潰的讚歌。並且後面兩段都在寫這本書裏的內容以及評價，再根據倒數第二段的“Readers will encounter not only stories they have heard before, but some new stories and a moving discussion of the responsibility of the engineer to the public and the ways young engineers can be helped to grasp them.”可知，讀者不僅會遇到他們以前聽過的故事，還會遇到一些新的故事和關於工程師對公眾的責任以及如何幫助年輕工程師掌握它們的動人討論。再結合最後一段“It is failure that brings improvement.”可知，失敗才能帶來進步。因此可以推測出，這些內容都是關於這本書的評論，因為這篇文章是書評，故選C。
知識點：其他
題型：閲讀理解
