托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Steel and the United States Industrial Economy

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Steel and the United States Industrial Economy

The period from the early 1890s to the early 1940s can be thought of as the high point of the factory-based industrial economy in the United States. Metals and machines-the mechanical arts-were the economy's technological engine. Just as the Internet provides the common technology platform on which a growing share of economic activity is based today, this period's core technology system was steel, a strong alloy of iron and carbon.Most of the major new processes and products of the era (e.g., steel processing, mechanical harvesters, machine tools, mechanical mining drills, and transcontinental railroads) were based on breakthroughs in metallurgy that produced metals with qualities that allowed them to be shaped and molded to tolerances unknown in the past. Hardened steel enabled machine tools to cut metal parts to precise tolerances, which increased the use of standardized and interchangeable parts. That in turn enabled the development of assembly line production. The centrality of iron and steel to industry in this period is why books on the American economy written as late as 1957 would usually begin with a chapter on the iron and steel industry, since (in one commentator's words) "they serve a vital position in civilization."

1.According to paragraph 1. which of the following was true of hardened steel?

A.It was cut to precise tolerances.

B.It was the metal used for standardized and interchangeable parts.

C.It was used to cut metal.

D.It was used in assembly line production.

Steel enjoyed rapid declines in price and improvements because of the introduction of the Bessemer converter (a large pear-shaped container in which molten iron is converted to steel by removing impurities from the iron by blowing air through the molten iron) in the mid-1870s. In 1873, steel was selling for $100 a ton. By 1885 it had fallen to $20 a ton, and by the mid-1890s it was down to $12. The rapid decline in the prices and the dramatic improvements in quality (e.g., hardness and resistance to corrosion) meant that steel could be economically useful in a host of new applications. Between 1870 and the early 1900s, steel overtook iron in production, rising from virtually no production in 1870 to almost 40 million tons in 1915. These developments were at the heart of the mechanical revolution, with cheap steel underpinning the development of automobiles, bicycles, sewing machines, typewriters, machine tools of every description, harvesters, steel girder-based skyscrapers, elevators, and a host of other innovations.

2.To say that steel has the quality of "resistance to corrosion" means that steel

A.removes corrosion

B.does not easily become corroded

C.interrupts corrosion

D.is not weakened when it corrodes

3.Paragraph 2 supports which of the following about the Bessemer converter?

A.It was used to make automobiles. sewing machines. harvesters, and elevators.

B.It was first used in iron production but its later use in steel production allowed steel to eventually overtake iron in production between 1870 and the early 1890s.

C.It contributed to the production of high quality steel that made the mechanical revolution possible.

D.It experienced a rapid decline in price from its introduction in the mid-1870s till the mid-1890s.

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