托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Switch to coal

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Switch to coal

In the United States and Great Britain, coal was not widely utilized until more easily available energy resources, such as wood were on the point of exhaustion. The shift to fossil fuels and the corresponding rise in energy consumption is illustrated by the transformation of the shipping industry in the nineteenth century. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the world's ships had beer powered by wind and human power. The first river steamboats came into use around 1810-they first crossed the English Channel in 1821 and by 1839 had crossed the Atlantic. Technological developments, such as the introduction of iron and steel hulls (watertight bodies of ships) in the 1850s and 1860s, increased the effectiveness of sailing ships and the largest could still compete with the early, inefficient, and expensive steam-powered ships that operated from the 1840s. It was the development of the high-pressure steam boiler made from steel that transformed the situation. By the late 1860s, steamships could bring three times as much cargo from China to Europe in half the time taken by sailing ships. The amount of steam-powered shipping in the world rose from just 32,000 metric tons in 1831 to over three million metric tons by the mid-1870s, and then rose exponentially as sailing ships gradually died out and the steamship took over the world's merchant and naval fleets. Britain built a chain of coaling stations across the globe to sustain the worldwide deployment of the Royal Navy. Not only had the amounts of shipping in the world increased dramatically, its energy demands had increased even more.

1.When the author writes that resources were “on the point of exhaustion”,this means that they were

O almost gone

O not powerful enough

O difficult to access

O becoming too expensive

2.The word “corresponding'' in the passage is closest in meaning to

O related

O rapid

O later

O surprising

3.According to paragraph 1. which of the following events enabled steamships to outperform sailing ships in terms of speed and carrying capacity?

O The first use of steamships with sails to cross the Atlantic

O The development of iron and steel hulls

O The development of a high-pressure steam boiler made from steel

O The building of a chain of coaling stations across the globe

4.Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 1 about the needs of the British Royal Navy in the new era of steam-powered shipping?

O It needed to open its coaling stations to merchant ships.

O It needed to ensure a supply of coal for itself all over the world.

O It needed to recruit more sailors.

O It needed to reduce the energy demands of its steamships.

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