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  3. For much of this week, New York has been caught up in an unstoppable heat wave. At times like this, it’s hard not to imagine the

For much of this week, New York has been caught up in an unstoppable heat wave. At times like this, it’s hard not to imagine the

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问题     For much of this week, New York has been caught up in an unstoppable heat wave. At times like this, it’s hard not to imagine the worst-case【B1】______. What if the world’s air-conditioners just stopped working? What would we do then?
    Air-conditioning has【B2】______the polarity of summer: it has us fleeing inside during hot weather,【B3】______we used to flee outside, which might have been more fun, and was certainly more【B4】______. Arthur Miller’s "Before Air-Conditioning"(1998)—probably the definitive New Yorker essay on this subject—describes the way New Yorkers would【B5】______together out-of-doors. During his childhood, Miller writes, in the twenties, "There were still elevated trains... Desperate people, unable to【B6】______their apartments, would【B7】______pay a nickel and ride around aimlessly for a couple of hours to cool off." At night, Central Park "was full of hundreds of people who slept on the grass. Babies cried in the darkness, men’s deep voices【B8】______, and a woman let out a(n) 【B9】______high laugh beside the lake." It was still hot in the park, and it was crowded, but the【B10】______of the space made the heat easier to【B11】______.
    The【B12】______and spread of air-conditioning, meanwhile, put【B13】______relief the habits of the pre-air-con-ditioning【B14】______. In a comment from July 4, 1959, A. J. Iiebling【B15】______how "the dodges for coping with the heat that New Yorkers learned in three centuries of summer have become【B16】______, and in some cases hazardous." New York buildings, Iiebling complained, were now "twenty degrees colder in summer than in winter, when they are【B17】______to the needs of a woman who is going to shed a mink coat the【B18】______she gets inside, and is wearing nothing much underneath it."
    Nowadays, air-conditioners are cheap and【B19】______. And yet there are still summer days like these— days when it’s【B20】______hot that the heat is almost all you can think about.
【B14】
选项 A、era
B、instant
C、generation
D、century
答案A
解析 era侧重指以某一重大事件或巨大变化为起点的历史时期，空调的出现和普及对人类具有重大意义，因此选A。
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