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Text I
First read the question.
87. What happened for the first time on December 17th, 1903?
A. An aero-plane flew over the river Potomac.
B. Orville Wright invented a glider.
C. A steam engineer was used to power a plane.
D. A man piloted an engine-driven plane.
正确答案是
88. Which of these statements about the 1908 flight is true?
A. Not so many spectators were present as in 1903.
B. The aero-plane stayed in the air much longer than in 1903.
C. There was only one person in the aero-plane.
D. The aero-plane flew at a speed of a mile a minute.
正确答案是
Now go through the text quickly and answer the questions.
The Wright Brothers
There are many memorable dates in the story of man’s conquest of the air. One is December 17th, 1903. On that day, for the first time in the history of mankind, a man flew for just a few seconds in a machine which was power-driven and heavier-than-air. The name of that brave airman was Orville Wright.
There were two Wright brothers whose ancestors had emigrated from English to America in the seventeenth century. Wilbur was born in 1867 and Orville four years later.
When they left school, the two brothers started a small cycle factory. One day they heard that a man called Langley had made an aero-plane driven by a small steam-engine. This aero-plane flew without a pilot over the river Potomac until its engine failed and it came down in the river.
"Let us try to make an aero-plane that will carry a man." Said Wilbur. The two brothers set to work, designing and building gliders. When they had learned how to control their gliders skillfully, they attacked the problem of supplying power to drive the machine.
Instead of using a steam engine, they decided to use a petrol engine, which was smaller and lighter and more efficient.
Just before 10:30 o the morning of December 17th, five spectators stood in the cold wind at Kitty Hawk and watched Orville climbing into his machine. It rose to a height of eight to ten feet above the ground and stayed in the air for twelve seconds. The first power-driven flight had succeeded.
The two brothers enthusiastically continues their experiments. They improved the engine and the aircraft. On September 8th, 1908, Orville amazed a crowd of a thousand people by remaining airborne for one hour two minutes and thirty seconds. The machine carried a passenger and a pilot and traveled at forty miles per hour
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