2017年3月11日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Eli Terry’s Clocks

2017年3月11日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Eli Terry’s Clocks

Clocks were luxury goods in America at the start of the nineteenth century. A master clockmaker painstakingly produced only ten to fifteen sets of brass movements (the internal parts of a clock) per year. To make these parts, he melted down old kettles, cast approximate shapes, slowly hardened them by hammering, and cut and filed gear teeth by hand. The clock’s face might come from an old pewter plate, with hands shaped and hammered from spoon handles. The result was a precision instrument, a unique mechanism with each part exactly fitted to mesh with all the others. Each clock was ordered in advance by a patron who separately commissioned a cabinetmaker to fashion a wooden case, often richly inlaid and ornately carved according to current furniture styles. The result was a handsome instrument, usually six feet (about 2 meters) high and weighing a hundred pounds (45 kilograms), often a wealthy household’s most expensive possession.

1.The word “painstakingly” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.at a high financially cost

B.with great effort

C.generally

D.by taking many risks

2.In paragraph 1, why does the author include the information that the gear teeth were cut and filed by hand?

A.To illustrate how much work was required to make clocks in that period

B.To suggest that clock-making process of that period were crude and imprecise

C.To explain why clocks of the period were so large

D.To indicate that there was a limit to the precision of American clocks of that period

3.According to paragraph 1, which of the following statements is true about American-made clocks at the start of the nineteenth century?

A.Only ten to fifteen of them were produced each year.

B.Their parts often did not fit together very well.

C.Clockmakers constructed them inside richly inlaid display cases.

D.Only rich people could afford to buy them.

All this was changed by Eli Terry (1772-1852), a clockmaker whose innovations sped up the manufacturing process, lowered the cost, expanded the market, and democratized the clock. After establishing a workshop at Plymouth, Connecticut, in 1793, Terry worked along traditional lines for several years. After about 1800, frustrated by a shortage of customers for his luxury product and influenced by local clockmakers of German descent, Terry abandoned brass and began making movements with wooden parts. While still handcrafted, these wooden movements were cruder, less precise, and easier to produce. They ran for only 30 hours instead of the standard eight days, but they weighed less and could be sold for half the price of a traditional clock. ▋A whole new market opened up.▋ Independently following the logic of military arms manufacture, Terry devised specialized lathes, saws, drills, and gear-cutters that further lowered the level of skills required of workers in the manufacturing process. ▋By 1806 his shop had 200 clocks under manufacture simultaneously, and he ambitiously contracted to deliver 4,000 wooden clock movements within three years. ▋After a year spent outfitting a water-powered factory, Terry made good on his promise. In moving from craft work to mass production, Terry so completely transformed his business that every middle-class person in America could aspire to own a clock – and thereby assume the status traditionally indicated by such a possession.

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