2014年英语四级考试每日一练(9月11日)
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单项选择题
1、听录音，回答题：
A．She copied another course guide.
B．She decided to skip class.
C．She went to the library instead.
D．She shared a friend's course guide.
2、
<--Next-->
SectionC
阅读理解
Passage Two
Question 61 to 65 are B.ased on the following passage.
When we talk aB.out Americans B.arely into adulthood who are saddled with unB.earaB.le levels of deB.t.the conversation is almost always aB.out student loan deB.t. B.ut there’s a growing B.ody of ? suggesting that today’s young adults are also drowning in credit card deB.t—and that many of them will take this deB.t to their graves.
More than 20% overspont their income B.y more than $100 every single month. Since they haven’t B.uilt up their credit historios yet,it’s a safe B.et that these young adults are paying relatively high interest rates on the resulting credit card deB.t.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答
61.What is the main ider of the first paragraph?
A.Many young Americans will never B.e aB.le to pay on their deB.ts.
B.Credit cards play an increasingly important role in college lift.
C.Credit cards are doing more ? than student loans.
D.The American credit card system is under cnticism.
62.Why do young people have to pay a higher interest on their credit card deB.t?
A.They tend to forget aB.out the deadlines.
B.They haven’t developed a ? history.
C.They are often naB.te to pay sack in time.
D.They are ? in managing money.
63.What is said to B.e the consequence of young adults relying on credit cards to make ends meet ?
A.I will place an unnecessd on society.
B.It will give their to work hard.
C.It will exert psy pressure on them.
D.It will affect their future spending power.
64 What will happen to young adults if their credit card deB.t keeps accurnufating a lucia dunn?
A.They will have to pay an increasthgly higher interest tate.
B.They may experience a crisis in their old age.
C.Their quality of lift will to affected.
D.Their credit way B.e cancelled.
65 what does Lucia Dunn think might B.e disk for the credit card issuing B.anks?
A.They go B.ankrupt as a over-lending
B.They lose la
C.Their client
D.Their interest ratcs have to B.e reduced now and then.
3、Questions are based on the following passage．
Becker had one occasional anxiety：the suspicion that he owned more than would fit comfortably into the case．The feeling，when it came，was the signal for him to throw something away or just leave it lying about．This was the automatic fate of his worn—out clothes for example．Having no use for choice or variety,he kept just a raincoat，a suit，a pair of shoes and a few shirts，socks and so on，no more in the clothing line．He bought and read many books，and left them wherever he happened to be sitting when he finished them．They quickly found new owners．
Becker was a professional traveler,interested and interestin9．He was not one t0 “do” a country in a week or a city in three days．He liked to get the feel of a place by living in it，reading its newspapers，watching its TV and discussing its affairs．He always tried to make a few friends，if necessary even by stopping a suitable—looking person in the street and talking to him．It worked well in about one case inten．Though Becker’s health gave him no cause for alarm，he made．a point of seeing a doctor as soon as he arrived anywhere．“A doctor knows a place and its people better than anyone，”he used to say．
He never went to see a doctor，he always sent for one，that，he found，was the quickest way to gain confidences，which came out freely as soon as he mentioned that he was a writer．
Becker was an artist as well．He painted pictures of his places and，when he had gathered enough information，he wrote about them．He sold his work，through an agent，to newspapers and magazines．It was an agreeable sort of life for a good social mixer,lived nearly always in fine weather,and as Becker never stayed anywhere for long，he enjoyed the satisfying advantage of paying very little in tax．
According to the passage，the anxiety of Becker was__________．
A．the doubt that he owned too much clothes
B．the thought of having too much baggage
C．the miserable fate of his worn out clothes
D．the decline in his memory
填空题
4、 第30题为（ ）
5、回答题：
But the worst part is that print version of textbooks are constantlyundergoing revisions. Many professors require that their students use only thelatest versions in the classroom, essentially rendering older texts unusable.For students, it means they're basically stuck with a four pound paper-weightthat they can't sell back.
Which is why digital textbooks, if they live up to their promise, couldhelp ease many of these shortcomings. But till now, they've been something likea mirage (幻影) in the distance,more like a hazy (模糊的) dream thanan actual reality. Imagine the promise: Carrying all your textbooks in a 1.3pound iPad? It sounds almost too good to be true.
But there are a few pilot schools already making the transition (过度) over to digital books. Universities like Cornell and Brown havejumped onboard. And one medical program at the University of California,Irvine, gave their entire class iPads with which to download textbooks justlast year.
But not all were eager to jump aboard.
"People were tired of using the iPad textbook besides using it forreading," says Kalpit Shah, who will be going into his second year atlrvine's medical program this fall. "They weren't using it as a source ofcommunication because they couldn't read or write in it. So a third of thepeople in my program were using the iPad in class to take notes, the otherthird were using laptops and the last third were using paper and pencil."
The reason it hasn't caught on yet, he tells me, is that thefunctionality of e-edition textbooks is incredibly limited, and some studentsjust aren't motivated to learn new study behavior.
But a new application called Inkling might change all that. The companyjust released an updated version last week, and it'll be utilized in over 50undergraduate and graduate classrooms this coming school year.
Digital textbooks are not going to catch on," says Inkling CEO MattMaclnnis as he's giving me a demo (演示) over coffee. "What I mean by that is the current perspectiveof the digital textbook is it's an exact copy of the print book. There's CourseSmart, etc., these guys who take any image of the page and put it on a screen.If that's how we're defining digital textbooks, there's no hope of that becominga mainstream product."
He calls Inkling a platform for publishers to build rich multimediacontent from the ground up, with a heavy emphasis on real-world functionality.The traditional textbook merely serves as a skeleton.
At first glance Inkling is an impressive experience. After swiping (敲击) into the iPad app (软件), which youcan get for free here, he opens up a few different types of textbooks.
Up first is a chemistry book. The boot time is pretty fast, and henavigates through (浏览) a fewchapters before swiping into a fully rendered 3D molecule that can be spunaround to view its various building blocks. "Publishers give us all of thesource media, artwork, videos," he says, "We help them think throughhow to actually build something for this platform."
Next he pulls up a music composition textbook, complete with playabledemos. It's a learning experience that attacks you from multiple sensorydirections. It's clear why this would be something a music major would love.
But the most exciting part about Inkling, to me, is its notation (批注) system. Here's how it works!
When you purchase a used print book, it comes with its previous owner'shighlights and notes in the margins. It uses the experience of someone whoalready went through the class to help improve your reading (how much you trusteach notation is obviously up to you).
But with lnkling, you can highlight a piece of content and make notes.Here's where things get interesting, though: If a particularly importantpassage is highlighted by multiple lnkling users, that infbrmation is stored onthe cloud and is available for anyone reading the same textbook to come across.Thai means users have access to notes from not only their classmates andFacebook friends, but anyone who purchased the book across the country. Thebest comments are then sorted democratically by a voting system, meaning thatyour social learning experience is shared with the best and brightest thinkers.
As a bonus, professors can even chime in (插话) on discussions. They'll be able to answer the questions ofstudents who are in their class directly via the interactive book.
Of course, Inkling addresses several of the other shortcomings intraditional print as well. Textbook versions are constanly updated, motivatingpublishers by minimizing production costs (the big ones like McGraw-Hill arealready onboard). Furthermore, students will be able to purchase sections ofthe text instead of buying the whole thing, with individual chapters costing aslittle as $2.99,
There are, however, challenges.
"It takes efforts to build each book," Maclnnis tells me. Andit's clear why,
Each interactive textbook is a media-heavy experience built from theground up, and you can tell that it takes a respectable amount of manpower toput together each one.
For now the app is also iPad-exclusive, and though a few of theseeducational institutions are giving the hardware away for free, for otherstudents who don't have such a luxury it's an added layer of cost ---and anexpensive one at that.
But this much is clear. The traditional textbook model is and has beenbroken for quite some time. Whether digitally interactive ones like Inklingactually take off or not remains to be seen, and we probably won't have adefinite answer for the next few years.
However the solution to any problem begins with a step in a direction.And at least for now, that hazy mirage in the distance? A little more tangible(可触摸的), a little less of a dream.
The biggest problem with traditional print textbooks is that
A．they are not reused once a new edition comes out
B．they cost hundreds of dollars every semester
C．they are too heavy to carry around
D．they take a longer time to revise
简答题
6、信用卡（credit card）是银行所创造出来的便捷同时也是危险的信用工具。通过信用卡，人们可以先用银行付账的方式购买那些负担不起的物品，同时，银行也将对此征收比一般贷款要高的利率（interest rate）。遗憾的是，信用卡现已成为资本主义体制（capitalist system）的重要组成部分，而该体制就得依赖消费（consumption）的持续增长。
7、狮舞（Lion Dance）是中国广为流传的民间舞蹈之一。狮为百兽之首，在中国传统中，狮子被视为是能带来好运的吉祥物（mascot）。古人将狮子视作是勇敢和力量的化身，能驱赶邪恶、保护人类。据记载，狮舞已拥有了2,000多年的历史。 在唐代（the Tang Dynasty），狮舞就已经被引入了皇室。因此，舞狮成为元宵节（the Lantern Festival）和其他节日的习俗，人们以此来祈祷好运、平安和幸福。
8、过去的七年，中国的房地产(real estate)业经历了前所未有的高速增长。对于那些月薪较低却渴望在大城市拥有一套属于自己的体面、舒适的栖身之所的人来说，高昂的房价是他们无法承受的负担。鉴于这一状况，政府近来采取了一系列的措施来防止房价过快增长，包括提高利率及增加房产税等。目前，这些措施在部分城市已经取得了初步的成效。
9、
10、Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
Highways
A) Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U. S. were made of dirt, brick, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate (容纳) automobiles.
B) With the increase in auto production, private turnpike (收费公路) companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387,000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World War I, roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U. S. Army’s first transcontinental motor convoy (车队), he noted: “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany’s Autobahn or motorway had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.”
C) It would take another war before the federal government would act on a national highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase in trucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the defense effort. Thirteen percent of defense plants received all their supplies by truck, and almost all other plants shipped more than half of their products by vehicle. The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to confusing variety of design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36,000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7,000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of 33,920 miles and Congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.
D) The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has been hailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century. To build its 44,000-mile web of highways, bridges and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider the many geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts, and plains. Variables included the slopes of the land, the ability of the pavement to support the load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America.
E) Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as Hale Boggs in Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort McHenry in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.
F) Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U. S. S. , and the U. S. with Canada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and shoulders, dividing medians or barriers, long entry and exit lanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The death rate on highways is half that of all other U. S. roads (0.86 deaths per 100 million passenger miles compared to 1.99 death per 100 million on all other roads).
G) By opening the North American continent, highways have enabled consumer goods and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in terms of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.
H) The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation’s economic growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent of the nation’s freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most products that arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the American economy by providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas to rural.
I) By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads, residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said: “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear-----United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”
Trucks are using the Interstate highways deliver more than half of the nation’s freight deliveries.
1、听录音，回答题：
点击播放
A．She copied another course guide.
B．She decided to skip class.
C．She went to the library instead.
D．She shared a friend's course guide.
2、
<--Next-->
SectionC
阅读理解
Passage Two
Question 61 to 65 are B.ased on the following passage.
When we talk aB.out Americans B.arely into adulthood who are saddled with unB.earaB.le levels of deB.t.the conversation is almost always aB.out student loan deB.t. B.ut there’s a growing B.ody of ? suggesting that today’s young adults are also drowning in credit card deB.t—and that many of them will take this deB.t to their graves.
More than 20% overspont their income B.y more than $100 every single month. Since they haven’t B.uilt up their credit historios yet,it’s a safe B.et that these young adults are paying relatively high interest rates on the resulting credit card deB.t.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答
61.What is the main ider of the first paragraph?
A.Many young Americans will never B.e aB.le to pay on their deB.ts.
B.Credit cards play an increasingly important role in college lift.
C.Credit cards are doing more ? than student loans.
D.The American credit card system is under cnticism.
62.Why do young people have to pay a higher interest on their credit card deB.t?
A.They tend to forget aB.out the deadlines.
B.They haven’t developed a ? history.
C.They are often naB.te to pay sack in time.
D.They are ? in managing money.
63.What is said to B.e the consequence of young adults relying on credit cards to make ends meet ?
A.I will place an unnecessd on society.
B.It will give their to work hard.
C.It will exert psy pressure on them.
D.It will affect their future spending power.
64 What will happen to young adults if their credit card deB.t keeps accurnufating a lucia dunn?
A.They will have to pay an increasthgly higher interest tate.
B.They may experience a crisis in their old age.
C.Their quality of lift will to affected.
D.Their credit way B.e cancelled.
65 what does Lucia Dunn think might B.e disk for the credit card issuing B.anks?
A.They go B.ankrupt as a over-lending
B.They lose la
C.Their client
D.Their interest ratcs have to B.e reduced now and then.
3、Questions are based on the following passage．
Becker had one occasional anxiety：the suspicion that he owned more than would fit comfortably into the case．The feeling，when it came，was the signal for him to throw something away or just leave it lying about．This was the automatic fate of his worn—out clothes for example．Having no use for choice or variety,he kept just a raincoat，a suit，a pair of shoes and a few shirts，socks and so on，no more in the clothing line．He bought and read many books，and left them wherever he happened to be sitting when he finished them．They quickly found new owners．
Becker was a professional traveler,interested and interestin9．He was not one t0 “do” a country in a week or a city in three days．He liked to get the feel of a place by living in it，reading its newspapers，watching its TV and discussing its affairs．He always tried to make a few friends，if necessary even by stopping a suitable—looking person in the street and talking to him．It worked well in about one case inten．Though Becker’s health gave him no cause for alarm，he made．a point of seeing a doctor as soon as he arrived anywhere．“A doctor knows a place and its people better than anyone，”he used to say．
He never went to see a doctor，he always sent for one，that，he found，was the quickest way to gain confidences，which came out freely as soon as he mentioned that he was a writer．
Becker was an artist as well．He painted pictures of his places and，when he had gathered enough information，he wrote about them．He sold his work，through an agent，to newspapers and magazines．It was an agreeable sort of life for a good social mixer,lived nearly always in fine weather,and as Becker never stayed anywhere for long，he enjoyed the satisfying advantage of paying very little in tax．
According to the passage，the anxiety of Becker was__________．
A．the doubt that he owned too much clothes
B．the thought of having too much baggage
C．the miserable fate of his worn out clothes
D．the decline in his memory
填空题
4、 第30题为（ ）
5、回答题：
Can Digital Textbook Truly Replace the Print Kind?
The shortcomings of traditional print edition textbooks are obvious: Forstarters they're heavy, with the average physics textbook weighing 3.6 pounds.They're also expensive, especially when you factor in the average collegestudent's limited budget, typically costing hundreds of dollars every semester.But the worst part is that print version of textbooks are constantlyundergoing revisions. Many professors require that their students use only thelatest versions in the classroom, essentially rendering older texts unusable.For students, it means they're basically stuck with a four pound paper-weightthat they can't sell back.
Which is why digital textbooks, if they live up to their promise, couldhelp ease many of these shortcomings. But till now, they've been something likea mirage (幻影) in the distance,more like a hazy (模糊的) dream thanan actual reality. Imagine the promise: Carrying all your textbooks in a 1.3pound iPad? It sounds almost too good to be true.
But there are a few pilot schools already making the transition (过度) over to digital books. Universities like Cornell and Brown havejumped onboard. And one medical program at the University of California,Irvine, gave their entire class iPads with which to download textbooks justlast year.
But not all were eager to jump aboard.
"People were tired of using the iPad textbook besides using it forreading," says Kalpit Shah, who will be going into his second year atlrvine's medical program this fall. "They weren't using it as a source ofcommunication because they couldn't read or write in it. So a third of thepeople in my program were using the iPad in class to take notes, the otherthird were using laptops and the last third were using paper and pencil."
The reason it hasn't caught on yet, he tells me, is that thefunctionality of e-edition textbooks is incredibly limited, and some studentsjust aren't motivated to learn new study behavior.
But a new application called Inkling might change all that. The companyjust released an updated version last week, and it'll be utilized in over 50undergraduate and graduate classrooms this coming school year.
Digital textbooks are not going to catch on," says Inkling CEO MattMaclnnis as he's giving me a demo (演示) over coffee. "What I mean by that is the current perspectiveof the digital textbook is it's an exact copy of the print book. There's CourseSmart, etc., these guys who take any image of the page and put it on a screen.If that's how we're defining digital textbooks, there's no hope of that becominga mainstream product."
He calls Inkling a platform for publishers to build rich multimediacontent from the ground up, with a heavy emphasis on real-world functionality.The traditional textbook merely serves as a skeleton.
At first glance Inkling is an impressive experience. After swiping (敲击) into the iPad app (软件), which youcan get for free here, he opens up a few different types of textbooks.
Up first is a chemistry book. The boot time is pretty fast, and henavigates through (浏览) a fewchapters before swiping into a fully rendered 3D molecule that can be spunaround to view its various building blocks. "Publishers give us all of thesource media, artwork, videos," he says, "We help them think throughhow to actually build something for this platform."
Next he pulls up a music composition textbook, complete with playabledemos. It's a learning experience that attacks you from multiple sensorydirections. It's clear why this would be something a music major would love.
But the most exciting part about Inkling, to me, is its notation (批注) system. Here's how it works!
When you purchase a used print book, it comes with its previous owner'shighlights and notes in the margins. It uses the experience of someone whoalready went through the class to help improve your reading (how much you trusteach notation is obviously up to you).
But with lnkling, you can highlight a piece of content and make notes.Here's where things get interesting, though: If a particularly importantpassage is highlighted by multiple lnkling users, that infbrmation is stored onthe cloud and is available for anyone reading the same textbook to come across.Thai means users have access to notes from not only their classmates andFacebook friends, but anyone who purchased the book across the country. Thebest comments are then sorted democratically by a voting system, meaning thatyour social learning experience is shared with the best and brightest thinkers.
As a bonus, professors can even chime in (插话) on discussions. They'll be able to answer the questions ofstudents who are in their class directly via the interactive book.
Of course, Inkling addresses several of the other shortcomings intraditional print as well. Textbook versions are constanly updated, motivatingpublishers by minimizing production costs (the big ones like McGraw-Hill arealready onboard). Furthermore, students will be able to purchase sections ofthe text instead of buying the whole thing, with individual chapters costing aslittle as $2.99,
There are, however, challenges.
"It takes efforts to build each book," Maclnnis tells me. Andit's clear why,
Each interactive textbook is a media-heavy experience built from theground up, and you can tell that it takes a respectable amount of manpower toput together each one.
For now the app is also iPad-exclusive, and though a few of theseeducational institutions are giving the hardware away for free, for otherstudents who don't have such a luxury it's an added layer of cost ---and anexpensive one at that.
But this much is clear. The traditional textbook model is and has beenbroken for quite some time. Whether digitally interactive ones like Inklingactually take off or not remains to be seen, and we probably won't have adefinite answer for the next few years.
However the solution to any problem begins with a step in a direction.And at least for now, that hazy mirage in the distance? A little more tangible(可触摸的), a little less of a dream.
The biggest problem with traditional print textbooks is that
A．they are not reused once a new edition comes out
B．they cost hundreds of dollars every semester
C．they are too heavy to carry around
D．they take a longer time to revise
简答题
6、信用卡（credit card）是银行所创造出来的便捷同时也是危险的信用工具。通过信用卡，人们可以先用银行付账的方式购买那些负担不起的物品，同时，银行也将对此征收比一般贷款要高的利率（interest rate）。遗憾的是，信用卡现已成为资本主义体制（capitalist system）的重要组成部分，而该体制就得依赖消费（consumption）的持续增长。
7、狮舞（Lion Dance）是中国广为流传的民间舞蹈之一。狮为百兽之首，在中国传统中，狮子被视为是能带来好运的吉祥物（mascot）。古人将狮子视作是勇敢和力量的化身，能驱赶邪恶、保护人类。据记载，狮舞已拥有了2,000多年的历史。 在唐代（the Tang Dynasty），狮舞就已经被引入了皇室。因此，舞狮成为元宵节（the Lantern Festival）和其他节日的习俗，人们以此来祈祷好运、平安和幸福。
8、过去的七年，中国的房地产(real estate)业经历了前所未有的高速增长。对于那些月薪较低却渴望在大城市拥有一套属于自己的体面、舒适的栖身之所的人来说，高昂的房价是他们无法承受的负担。鉴于这一状况，政府近来采取了一系列的措施来防止房价过快增长，包括提高利率及增加房产税等。目前，这些措施在部分城市已经取得了初步的成效。
9、
上海是一座朝气蓬勃、充满活力、多姿多彩的国际大都市(metropolis)。改革开放以来，上海变化之大令髓人瞩目。经济高速发展，社会秩序稳定，人民安居乐业，呈现出一片繁华气象。今天，尽管上海还有着不少色彩斑斓的过去研以留恋和回味，但城市日新月异的面貌却使越来越多的世人折服。浦西展示了上海的辉煌岁月，浦东展现了上海的美好前景。
10、Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
Highways
A) Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U. S. were made of dirt, brick, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate (容纳) automobiles.
B) With the increase in auto production, private turnpike (收费公路) companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387,000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World War I, roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U. S. Army’s first transcontinental motor convoy (车队), he noted: “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany’s Autobahn or motorway had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.”
C) It would take another war before the federal government would act on a national highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase in trucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the defense effort. Thirteen percent of defense plants received all their supplies by truck, and almost all other plants shipped more than half of their products by vehicle. The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to confusing variety of design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36,000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7,000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of 33,920 miles and Congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.
D) The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has been hailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century. To build its 44,000-mile web of highways, bridges and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider the many geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts, and plains. Variables included the slopes of the land, the ability of the pavement to support the load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America.
E) Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as Hale Boggs in Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort McHenry in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.
F) Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U. S. S. , and the U. S. with Canada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and shoulders, dividing medians or barriers, long entry and exit lanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The death rate on highways is half that of all other U. S. roads (0.86 deaths per 100 million passenger miles compared to 1.99 death per 100 million on all other roads).
G) By opening the North American continent, highways have enabled consumer goods and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in terms of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.
H) The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation’s economic growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent of the nation’s freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most products that arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the American economy by providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas to rural.
I) By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads, residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said: “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear-----United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”
Trucks are using the Interstate highways deliver more than half of the nation’s freight deliveries.
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