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| 文章出处：学生大考试站 发布时间：2005-10-12 |
ich of the following statements is TRUE?
The constant changes in women's clothing reflect their strength of character.
w fashions in clothing are created for the commercial exploitation of women.
The fashion industry makes an important contribution to society.
Fashion designs should not be encouraged since they are only welcomed by women.
Passage2
What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America — breakthrough such as the telegraph, the steamboat and the weaving machine?
Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country's excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums (奖励) to inventors; and above all the American genius for non-verbal, "spatial" thinking about things technological.
Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.
Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, "With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman."
A further stimulus to invention came from the "premium" system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it.
Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinking required in mechanical technology.
This non-verbal "spatial" thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc. Like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea."
When all these shaping forces-schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking — interacted with one another on the rich U.S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic, emulation. Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.
26.According to the author, the great outburst of major inventions in early America was in a large part due to .
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