阅读训练

Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)

　　A Brief History of Clock

　　Clocks

　　At best, historians know that 5,000-6,000 years ago, great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa started to examine forms of clock-making instead of working with only the monthly and annual calendar. Little is known on exactly how these forms worked or indeed the actual deconstruction of the time, but it has been suggested that the intention was to maximize time available to achieve more as the size of the population grew. Perhaps such future periods of time were intended to benefit the community by allotting specific lengths of time to tasks. Was this the beginning of the working week?

　　Sun Clocks

　　With the disappearance of any ancient civilization, such as the Sumerian culture, knowledge is also lost. Whilst we can only hypothesize on the reasons of why the equivalent to the modern wristwatch was never completed, we know that the ancient Egyptians were next to layout a system of dividing the day into parts, similar to hours.

　　"Obelisks" (tall four-sided tapered monuments) were carefully constructed and even purposefully geographically located around 3500 BC. A shadow was east as the Sun moved across the sky by the obelisk, which it appears was then marked out in sections, allowing people to clearly see the two halves of the day. Some of the sections have also been found to indicate the "year"s longest and shortest days, which it is thought were developments added later to allow identification of other important time subdivisions.

　　Another ancient Egyptian "shadow clock" or "sundial" has been discovered to have been in use around 1500 BC, which allowed the measuring of the passage of "hours". The sections were divided into ten parts, With two "twilight hours" indicated, occurring in the morning and the evening. For it to work successfully then at midday or noon, the device had to be turned 180 degrees to measure the afternoon hours.

　　Water Clocks

　　"Water clocks" were among the earliest time keeping devices that didn't use the observation of the celestial bodies to calculate the passage of time. The ancient Greeks, it is believed, began using water clocks around 325 BC. Most of these clocks were used to determine the hours of the night, but may have also been used during daylight. An inherent problem with the water clock was that they were not totally accurate, as the system of measurement was based on the flow of water either into, or out of, a container which had markers around the sides. Another very similar form was that of a bowl that sank during a period as it was filled of water from a regulated flow. It is known that water clocks were common across the Middle East, and that these were still being used in North Africa during the early part of the twentieth-century.

　　Mechanical Clocks

　　In 1656, "Christian Huygens' (Dutch scientist), made the first "Pendulum(钟摆) clock", with a mechanism using a "natural" period of oscillation(振幅). "Galileo Galilei" is credited, in most historical books, for inventing the pendulum as early as 1582, but his design was not built before his death. Huygens' clock, when built, had an error of "less than only one minute a day". This was a massive leap in the development of maintaining accuracy, as this had previously never been achieved. Later refinements to the pendulum clock reduced this margin of error to "less than 10 seconds a day".

　　The mechanical clock continued to develop until they achieved an accuracy of "a hundredth-of- a-second a day", when the pendulum clock became the accepted standard in most astronomical observatories.

　　Quartz Clocks

　　The running of a "Quartz clock" is based on the piezoelectric property of the quartz crystal. When an electric field is applied to a quartz crystal, it actually changes the shape of the crystal itself, If you then squeeze it or bend it, an electric field is generated. When placed in an appropriate electronic circuit, this interaction between the mechanical stress and the electrical field causes the crystal to vibrate, generating a constant electric signal which can then be used for example on an electronic clock display. The first wrist-watches that appeared in mass production used "LED", "Light Emitting Diode" displays. By the 1970's these were to be replaced by a "LCD", "Liquid Crystal Display".

　　Quartz clocks continue to dominate the market because of the accuracy and reliability of the performance, also being inexpensive to produce on mass scale. The time keeping performance of the quartz clock has now been surpassed by the "Atomic clock".

　　Atomic Clocks

　　Scientists discovered some time ago that atoms and molecules have "resonances" and that each chemical element and compound absorbs and emits "electromagnetic radiation" within its own characteristic "frequencies". This we are told is highly accurate even over "Time and Space".

　　The development of radar and the subsequent experimentation with high frequency radio communications during the 1930s and 1940s created a vast amount of knowledge regarding "electromagnetic waves", also known as "microwaves". which interact with the atoms. The development of atomic clocks focused firstly on microwave resonances in the chemical Ammonia and its molecules. In 1957. "NIST". the "National Institute of Standards and Technology", completed a series of tests using a "Cesium Atomic Beam" device, followed by a second program of experiments by NIST in order to have something for comparison when working at the atomic level. By 1960, as the outcome of the programs, "Cesium Time Standards" were incorporated as the official time keeping system at NIST.

　　The "Natural frequency" recognized currently is the measurement of time. used by all scientists, defines the period of "one second" as exactly "9,192,631,770 Oscillations" or "9,192,631,770 Cycles of the Cesium Atom's Resonant Frequency". From the "Macrocosm", or "Planetary Alignment", to the "Microcosm", or "Atomic Frequency", the cesium now maintains accuracy with a degree of error to about "one-millionth of a second per year".

　　Much of modern life has come to depend on such precise measurements of time. The day is long past when we could get by with a timepiece(钟)accurate to the nearest quarter hour. Transportation, financial markets, communication, manufacturing, electric power and many other technologies have become dependent on super-accurate clocks. Scientific research and the demands of modern technology continue re drive our search for ever more accuracy, The next generation of Cesium Time Standards is presently under development at NIST's "Boulder Laboratory" and other laboratories around the world.

　　Something to Remember

　　The only thing that should be remembered during all this technological development is that we should never lose the ability to tell the time approximately by natural means and the powers of deduction without requiring crutches(拐杖)to lean on.

　　Our concept of TIME and using it together with TECHNOLOGY still has room for radical reassessment in terms of man's evolutionary thinking regarding our view of the past, our onward journey into the future and our concept of time in relationship to universe.

　　1. It is suggested that 5,000-6,000 years ago people in the Middle East and North Africa started to allot specific lengths of time to tasks.

　　2. Ancient Egyptian "shadow clock" or "sundial" discovered around 1500 BC, could measure passage of "hours" automatically and continuously.

　　3. "Water clocks" was the first device that didn't use the observation of the celestial bodies to calculate the passage of time.

　　4. Galileo Galilei built the first "pendulum clock" as early as 1656.

　　5. Water clocks were mostly used to determine ______.

　　6. Huygens' clock, a mechanical one, had an error of "less than only one minute a day", which was a massive leap in the development of ______.

　　7. Since Quartz clocks are both inexpensive to produce in mass scale and ______ in performance, they continue to dominate the market.

　　8. Scientific research and the ______ continue to drive our search for ever more accuracy in time.

　　9. Of all the clocks introduced in the passage, the one with the most accuracy is ______.

　　10. No matter how advanced the technology of measuring time will be we should never lose the ability to tell the time approximately by ______.

阅读答案及解析

　　Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)

　　1. Y 2. N 3. NG 4. N

　　5. the hours of the night

　　6. maintaining accuracy

　　7. accurate and reliable

　　8. demands of modern technology

　　9. the atomic clock

　　10. natural means

　　Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)

　　1. 由“Clocks”部分第一、二句“At best, historians know that 5,000 6,000 years ago, great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa started to examine forms of clock-making instead of working with only the monthly and annual calendar.., but it has been suggested that the intention was to maximize time available to achieve more as the size of the population grew.” 可见中东和北非的一些民族在五六千年前就开始研制钟表了。由于人口的增长，研制一定的时间段用于工作”是正确的。因此，答案为YES。

　　2. 由“Sun Clocks”部分最后一段“Another ancient Egyptian ‘shadow clock’ or ‘sundial’ has been discovered to have been in use around 1500 BC, which allowed the measuring of the passage of ‘hours’... For it to work successfully then at midday or noon, the device had to be

　　turned 180 degrees to measure the afternoon hours.”可见要想测量下午的时间，必须在正午将没备旋转180度。因此，我们可以断定这种计时器还不能做到连续、自动测量时间，必须在中午时手动旋转设备180度。故此题答案为NO。

　　3.由“Water Clocks”部分第一句“‘Water clocks’were among the earliest time keeping devices that didn't use the observation of the celestial bodies to calculate the passage O{time.”可见水钟是不靠观察天体来测量时间的最早的设备之一。但文章并没有进一步提供信息说它是否是第一个这样的计时设备。因此信息不充分，本题判断为NOT GIVEN。

　　4.由“Mechanical Clocks”部分第一段“In 1656，‘Christian Huygens'(Dutch scientist)， made the first ‘Pendulum clock’....‘Galileo Galilei' is credited，in most historical books，for inventing the pendulum as early as 1582，but his design was not built before his death.”可以看出，大多数历史教科书认为Galileo Galilei是第一位早在1582年就设计出摆钟的人，但直到他去世也没有制作出摆钟。第一个摆钟是荷兰科学家Christian Huygens制作出来的。故此句答案为NO。

　　5.由“Water Clocks”部分第三句“Most of these clocks were used to determine the hours of the night，but may have also been used during daylight.”可见水钟主要用于夜间计时。故本题答案为“the hours of the night”。

　　6.由“Mechanical Clocks”部分第三、四句“Huygens’clock，when built，had an error of‘less than only one minute a day.’This was a massive leap in the development of maintaining accuracy， as this had previously never been achieved.”可见这个钟的误差每天不到一分钟。这在计时准确性的发展史上，是巨大的飞跃。因此，本题的正确答案是“maintaining accuracy”。

　　7.由“Quartz Clocks”部分第二段第一句“Quartz clocks continue to dominate the market because of the accuracy and reliability of the performance，also being inexpensive to produce on mass scale.”可见由于其准确和稳定，也由于其成本低，适于大规模生产，石英钟将继续占有市场的主导地位。故此题正确答案为“accurate and reliable”。

　　8.由“Atomic Clocks”部分第四段第三、四句“Transportation，financial markets，communication， manufacturing，electric power and many other technologies have become dependent on super- accurate clocks.Scientific research and the demands of modern technology continue to drive our search for ever more accuracy.”可见是科学研究和现代技术的要求驱使我们不断探寻日益精确的计时方法。故本题答案为“demands of modern technology”。

　　9.由“Atomic Clocks”部分第三段最后一句“From the‘Macrocosm’，or‘Planetary Alignment’， to the‘Microcosm’，or‘Atomic Frequency’，the cesium now maintains accuracy with a degree of error to about‘one-millionth of a second per year’.”可见随着技术的发展，原子钟已经可以达到一年误差大约一百万分之一秒。比起前面的钟表不知道精确了多少倍。故本题答案为“the atomic clock”。

　　10.由“Something to Remember”部分第一段“The only thing that should be remembered during all this technological development is that we should never lose the ability to tell the time approximately by natural means and the powers of deduction without requiring crutches to lean on”可见无论计时技术如何发展，我们不能失去通过自然手段判定大概时间的基本能力。故本题答案为“natural means”。