1996年Passage 4

What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America-breakthroughs such as the telegraph , the steamboat and the weaving machine?

Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country's excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal , "spatial" thinking about things technological .

Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics ,especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.

Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, "With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman."

A further stimulus to invention came from the "premium" system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it. This approach, originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives.

In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to these fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technological advance.

Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinking required in mechanical technology. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out , "A technologist thinks about objects that cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process . . . The designer and the inventor . . . are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist."

This nonverbal "spatial" thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea."

When all these shaping forces--schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking--interacted with one another on the rich U. S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic, emulation. Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant a friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.

63. According to the author, the great outburst of major inventions in early America was in a
large part due to__
[A]elementary schools              
[B] enthusiastic workers
[C] the attractive premium system     
[D]a special way of thinking

[答案] D

[解題思路]

本題對應于文章第二段，該段列舉了"the great outburst of major inventions in early America"的各項因素，其中該段最后一部分指出了"above all the American genius for nonverbal , "spatial" thinking about things technological"（最重要的是美國人在處理技術性事物時天生具備的非語言的"空間"思維才能），這種""spatial" thinking"正是選項D的"a special way of thinking"，因此D為正確選項。

[題目譯文]

根據文章的作者，早期美國涌現大批重大發明的主要原因在于          。
[A] 基礎教育
[B] 熱情的工人
[C] 吸引人的獎勵制度
[D] 特殊的思維方式

65. A technologist can be compared to an artist because __
[A] they are both winners of awards
[B] they are both experts in spatial thinking
[C] they both abandon verbal description
[D] they both use various instruments

[答案] B

[解題思路]

本題對應于文章倒數第二段關于技術人員和藝術家的比較"This nonverbal "spatial" thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea.""（這種非語言的""空間"思維方式與繪畫和寫作一樣具有創造性。羅伯特·法歐曾寫道："技術人員坐在杠桿、螺釘、楔子、輪子等東西中間，就如同一位詩人處在字母表的字母之中，應該把它們看做是自己思想的一種表達，其中每一個新的組合都能傳達一種新的想法。"），從該段第一句話就可以判斷B為正確選項。C選項的錯誤在于他們擅長nonverbal "spacial" thnking并不意味著他們放棄了語言描述，而A和D選項的表述在原文沒有提及。

[題目譯文]

技術專家可以同藝術家相提并論是因為           。
[A] 他們都是獲獎者
[B] 他們都擅長空間思維
[C] 他們都放棄用語言來描述
[D] 他們都使用不同的工具