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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