阅读下面这篇短文,短文后有2项测试任务:(1)第23~26题要求从所给的6个选项中为第2—5段每段选择1个正确的小标题;(2)第27~30题要求从所给的6个选项中选择4个正确选项,分别完成每个句子。
The
Conquest of Distance 1. In 1848, pioneers who crossed the
American continent in their wagons made the trip in 109 days. Today a New York
family can drive by automobile to San Francisco in less than a week or make the
trip in several days by train, or fly there in five hours. The transportation
has conquered the vastness of the land and brought together people living
thousands of kilometers apart. 2. Railroads played a major role
in uniting the far reaches of the continent. In 1830 there were only 37
kilometers of railroad track in the United States. But by 1863, two companies
proposed to connect the east and west coast by a railroad all the way across the
continent. Advancing eastward from California, the Central Pacific pushed
forward across the desert: the Union Pacific moved slowly westward over the
mountain plateaus. Finally, in 1869, the tracks of the two railroads met, and
the first transcontinental railroad—the first real link between east and
west—was completed. 3. Although the railroads brought towns and
cities together, they could not go everywhere. In many parts of America,
distances are so great that automobiles are necessities, not luxuries. As we
have noted, most American farmers do not live in villages but are sometimes
kilometers from their nearest neighbor and even hundreds of kilometers from a
town. Large-scale farming is common in many parts of the United States today,
but it did not become profitable until there were trucks and tractors. Trucks
and cars go wherever there is a road and the more than six million kilometers of
roads bring every field and barn into the circle of civilization.
4. The family automobile has helped to bring people of the United States
two other things— two things which can seldom exist at the same time: community
life and the privilege of privacy. In the early days of industrialization,
factory workers lived close together, within walking distance of their jobs. As
industries grew, more and more working class families lived together in crowded
conditions. But with the construction of longer and better roads and with the
greater availability of automobiles and other means of rapid transportation, it
was no longer to live dose to the factory. New residential areas, suburbs, grew
up outside the big cities and, increasingly, industry and commerce concentrated
in the cities. Every morning, millions of Americans dive their automobiles to
work in the city, sometimes a distance of around 100 kilometers. At night they
drive home to houses and apartments outside the cities, surrounded by trees and
lawns. 5. Automobiles and other methods of rapid transportation
are also changing American industry. Instead of continuing to concentrate in the
big cities, industry is building factories in previously undeveloped areas.
Because the means of transportation are available, it is not hard to transport
people as well as materials to the places where they are needed. This factor was
largely responsible for the remarkable growth of the Pacific Coast during and
after World WarⅡ. As industries built new factories in the Far West, Americans
from all over the country moved west to take advantage of new jobs and new
opportunities. 6. The airplane, too, has played a major role in
uniting Americans. Only 70 years after the Wright brothers made the first
successful airplane flight, the United States had move than 277,000 kilometers
of regular flight routes. People and goods can now travel to every part of the
country in less time than ever before. Human beings have conquered the distances
which lie between them. Paragraph 6 ______