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  3. It is hard for modern people to imagine the life one hundred years ago. No television, no plastic, no ATMs, no DVDs. Illnesses l

It is hard for modern people to imagine the life one hundred years ago. No television, no plastic, no ATMs, no DVDs. Illnesses l

admin2012-04-23  47
问题 It is hard for modern people to imagine the life one hundred years ago. No television, no plastic, no ATMs, no DVDs. Illnesses like tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia meant only death. Of course, cloning appeared only in science fiction. Not to mention, computer and Internet.
    Today, our workplace are equipped with assembly lines, fax machines, computers. Our daily life is cushioned by air conditioners, cell phones. Antibiotics helped created a long list of miracle drugs. The bypass operation saved millions. The discovery of DNA has revolutionized the way scientists think about new therapies. Man finally stepped on the magical and mysterious Moon. With the rapid changes we have been experiencing, the anticipation for the future is higher than ever.
    A revolutionary manufacturing process made it possible for anyone to own a car. Henry Ford is the man who put the world on wheels.
    When it comes to singling out those who have made a difference in all our lives, you cannot overlook Henry Ford. A historian a century from now might well conclude that it was Henry Ford who most influenced all manufacturing everywhere, even to this day, by introducing a new way to make cars—one, strange to say, that originated in slaughter houses.
    Back in the early 1900s, slaughter houses used what could have been called a "disassembly line." That is, the carcass of a slain steer or a pig was moved past various meat-cutters, each of whom cut off only a certain portion. Ford reversed this process to see if it would speed up production of a part of an automobile engine called a magneto. Rather than have each worker completely assemble a magneto, one of its elements was placed on a conveyer, and each worker, as it passed, added another component to it, the same one each time. Professor David Hounshell, of The University of Delaware, an expert on industrial development tells what happened:  "The previous day, workers carrying out the entire process had averaged one magneto every 20 minutes. But on that day, on the line, the assembly team averaged one every 13 minutes and 10 seconds per person."
    Within a year, the time had been reduced to five minutes. In 1913, Ford went all the way. Hooked together by ropes, partially assembled vehicles were towed past workers who completed them one piece at a time. It wasn’t long before Ford was turning out several hundred thousand cars a year, a remarkable achievement then. And so efficient and economical was this new system that he cut the price of his cars in half, to $260, putting them within reach of all those who, up until that time, could not afford them. Soon, auto makers over the world copied him. In fact, he encouraged them to do so by writing a book about all of his innovations, entitled Today and Tomorrow. The Age of the Automobile had arrived. Today, aided by robots and other forms of automation, everything from toasters to perfumes is made on assembly lines.
    Edsel Ford, Henry’s great-grandson, and a Ford vice president: “I think that my great-grandfather would just be amazed at how far technology has come."
    Many of today’s innovations come from Japan. Norman Bodek, who publishes books about manufacturing processes, finds this ironic. On a recent trip to Japan he talked to two of the top officials of Toyota. "When I asked them where these secrets came from, where their ideas came from to manufacture in a totally different way, they laughed, and they said. ’Well. We just read it in Henry Ford’s book from 1926: Today and Tomorrow.’"
The last paragraph implies that
选项 A、Today and Tomorrow provides technological solutions for manufacturers.
B、Many of the Japanese innovations are inspired by Today and Tomorrow.
C、Today and Tomorrow is more popular among the Japanese than the Americans.
D、Today and Tomorrow is a Japanese manufacturing encyclopedia.
答案B
解析 1929年10月24日美国股市崩盘，随之拉开了经济大萧条的序幕。1932年，罗斯福当选总统，大刀阔斧地实施了一系列旨在克服危机的政策措施，历史上被称为“新政”(new deal)。
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